life to an ancient tale. She could sit here for hours, she realized. She could just sit here and listen to that voice, picture the battle of wills, almost feel the coarse hair of the wolves as they snarled and yipped.
When he said The End, there was a collective groan. She opened her eyes and realized that while she’d had them closed, both five-year-olds, Paige and Ella, had nabbed spots at Cole’s feet, and the other kids had shoved each other closer and closer during the story, hanging on his every word.
“But that’s the end! There’s no more to the story!” He laughed at their consternation.
“Make up another one!” Jackson, an eight-year-old with a mop of hair falling over his eyes, pleaded with his hands.
“Yes!” Paige nodded. “Tell us another one!”
Ella looked up with her best puppy-dog eyes. “Please?”
Cole looked at his watch. “Don’t you guys want to make some more s’mores?”
“Story first!”
“Okay, okay. One more story.” He smiled at Jess over Ella’s head. “But then we have to eat all of this chocolate!”
“Yay!”
“What kind of story should I do this time, Paige?”
“A prince and princess one.”
Jess laughed quietly. This should be good.
“Hmm.” Cole poked at the fire with a long stick. “A prince and a princess, hmm? Can it be a cowboy prince?”
“Sure!”
“Okay. Once upon a time there was a cowboy prince.”
“Was his name Cole?” Ella giggled.
“Sure. We’ll call him Cole. So once upon a time there was a cowboy prince named Cole, and he was very, very handsome.”
Jess rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help but smile.
“He had lots and lots of horses, but alas, no princess. It was really quite tragic.” He looked around at the kids, who looked like they weren’t quite sure where the story was headed. “Lucky for him, there was a princess in a faraway land called…Bostonia. She was very, very beautiful, but she had terrible taste in music.”
Jess laughed out loud.
“So the prince decided to have a dance. He invited all of the townspeople and all of the nearby princesses, but saved his most special invitation for the faraway princess. She, of course, had been waiting in her tower, just hoping for this invitation.”
“Of course,” Jess murmured. “Because she was ever so lonely without a handsome cowboy prince.”
“Hey.” He elbowed her. “My story.
“See, now, this princess never went to any balls because she had a terrible secret and didn’t want anyone to know what it was.” Cole paused for dramatic effect, and Jess felt her eyes go wide. “But she was so entranced by the prince that she was willing to risk him finding out.”
“What was the secret?” Jackson’s eyes matched hers.
“Well, it turns out that though she was very, very beautiful, she had been born with two left feet. No matter how hard she tried, the poor girl just could not dance.”
Jess smiled in relief.
“But since the princess very much liked the prince, she gladly accepted his invitation, and she prepared her best dress”—he looked at Jess—“and her best shoes for the ball. Then she set out in her carriage, all the while wishing she had her very own horse to ride anytime she wanted.” Another sidelong look at Jess.
“But then something terrible happened.” The kids leaned closer. “On the way to the ball, the princess’s carriage was attacked by an evil dragon. He was huge and ugly and breathed fire that smelled like spoiled fish.”
“Eww.”
“But lucky for her, Prince Cole was riding along the road, and he scooped the princess out of her carriage and onto the back of his giant horse. He took her to the ball and they danced all night.”
Ella poked his knee. “How did she dance if she had two left feet?”
“Oh, right. Forgot about the feet. She had a—a fairy godmother! Right! A fairy godmother who was an excellent cook, which was fortunate, because the princess loved to eat. Especially lasagna. See, she actually could dance. She just had to learn to believe it.”
Jess caught Cole’s eye and shook her head, smiling.
“So the princess ate the magical lasagna, thinking it would fix her foot, and then they danced all night.”
“Boring.” Jackson rolled his eyes.
Cole leaned forward. “I wasn’t done yet. Then the dragon attacked the ball, but the prince saved the princess again, and they rode away on his horse. They went to a magical waterfall, and the prince asked the princess to move to his kingdom for the summer, which had lots of horses, good dancing music, and much better weather. The end.”
“But did she