Royally Claimed - By Marie Donovan Page 0,55
rental car inspected top and bottom, the base’s guards gave them a temporary pass and let them through.
Julia eagerly scanned the base, recognizing some of the older buildings. “They’ve added a new hotel and I think that office building is new.” Her eyes started to sting at being back at one of her childhood homes. She’d had so many and had never returned to any of those air bases, a typical military kid. “Oh, Frank.”
“I know, I know.” He patted her knee. “That office building is ugly enough to make you cry. Why, oh, why can’t they find good architects?”
She burst into laughter at his attempt to cheer her. The office building was really ugly, but she was so used to military architecture that she barely noticed. “I’m glad you brought me.” She wiped her eyes.
“I’ve been to Terceira before but not visited the base.” Frank looked around in interest. “This is a little American town in the middle of the Azores. Some of the houses look kind of Azorean, but the rest is solidly American.”
Julia pointed to the green hills behind the base. “And that is solidly Azorean. But the American airmen and the Azorean townspeople get along very well.”
“Just like you and me.” Frank pulled over near a small playground where preschoolers swung and climbed. “A good mix of America and the Azores.” He took her hand. “Have you thought any more about visiting me at my ranch?”
Julia bit her lip and immediately let go, but he’d spotted her nervousness. “Yes, I have thought about it and it sounds fun.” That was an understatement. “But I still have my job back in Boston. I’ve been gone quite a while already and I need to go back as soon as I’m able.”
He pressed his lips into a tight line. “I know you love your work, but it’s dangerous. You’re the perfect example of someone who is only trying to help people and gets terribly injured. You could have been killed.”
“I’m not ready to give up my work.” It’s the only thing I have, she almost said. She took a deep breath, realizing that wasn’t true. She had her family and her friends. And now she had Frank. She looked out the car window at the children, screaming with glee. “But I will think about coming to the mainland to see your estate. It sounds lovely.”
He grinned at her compromise. She wasn’t very good at compromising, so she must have startled him. “It is lovely, sunny, warm and dry almost year round. At the top of one of the hills you can see twenty miles in all directions, the land spreading out below you like a brown-and-green quilt.”
After a long, cold Boston winter, sunny, warm and dry was magic to her ears.
Her stomach growled and Frank laughed. “Can I bribe you further with lunch?” He started the car and drove away from the playground.
“Yes, but let’s go off base for that. The restaurant here specializes in cheeseburgers and sandwiches, and I’d like to try the local food.”
He agreed and they finished their driving tour of the airbase. Julia made a silent vow to visit some of the other places she’d lived as a child. She’d parked herself in Boston for years and not traveled out of New En gland, maybe as a reaction to moving so often when she was younger.
Frank drove out of the gates and toward the town. The village was crowded for a weekday, and they finally slipped into a parking space on a side street.
“I wonder what’s going on today.” Julia looked up and down the sidewalk. Young men laughed and jostled each other while the young women pranced along the uneven sidewalk.
“Must be a festival.” Frank spotted an older woman selling fruit drinks from a cart and started chatting with her. He broke into a grin, his white teeth flashing.
Julia raised her eyebrows when he returned, excitement pulsing through him. “What is it?”
“There are going to be bullfights throughout the day and everyone is welcome to try.”
“Bullfights?” Julia had a hazy memory of her dad warning her to stay away from them.
“Not the Spanish kind, meu bem,” he reassured her. “The Azorean kind where the bull doesn’t get hurt. Just a little bit annoyed.” He laughed. “Annoyed bulls—my favorite kind.”
“You’re not thinking of fighting them, are you?”
He waved his hand dismissively. “It’s not a fight—more of a taunt.”
She shook her head. “You have to be crazy to consider it.”
“I know what I’m doing and I’m