She dabbed at the coffee with a sigh. The stain remained. She balled the tissue up, put it in the trash receptacle, and tried to return her attention to the book in her lap, but it was difficult. The train was noisy and hot, and so humid that the air almost felt damp against her skin. The coffee stain did.
After one or two unsuccessful tries to concentrate on the book in her hand, she set it back down in her lap and let her mind wander to more familiar thoughts of home. If she’d stayed, she’d be in her small, chilly apartment now, watching the news and eating leftover Chinese food. In the morning, her alarm would go off at 6:50 a.m. and she’d shower and drive to work. Not that that was totally unfulfilling. As librarians went, she was an exceptionally good one. She always enjoyed helping students find more creative ways to look at their assignments. She encouraged them to take the harder route in order to learn more and she loved to help them find strong role models in heroic characters from literature.
Unfortunately, at Pendleton that was often considered ‘pushing the envelope’ and she’d been told more than once by members of the very conservative board of directors to leave the teaching to the teachers.
It was distinctly possible that if she hadn’t resigned when she did the board would have asked the headmaster, Lawrence Pegrin, to dismiss her. Lawrence had had some stern words for her about her tutoring methods more than once, though she suspected he secretly approved. In fact, when Marie de la Fuenza’s husband had contacted the school looking for a suitable English tutor and nanny, Lawrence had suggested Annie without hesitation. In a private conversation he’d assured her that if it didn’t work out she could return to Pendleton, regardless of what the board of directors wished.
That was some comfort, though not quite enough to make her relax now. It was almost as if she was having some sort of premonition, but she couldn’t decipher it. Was something horrible about to happen? Or something wonderful? It was such a fine line between excitement and fear.
Looking at the passing scenery, Annie thought if a fairy tale could come true, this would be the place for it. The mountains stretched high toward the steel-gray sky, huge triangles of shadow and snow. Ancient evergreens with white snow fingertips stood indomitably, as they had done for thousands of years. It was a landscape for the Brothers Grimm, as dreamy as clouds, yet with a healthy hint of the gothic snaking through the hazy shadows of the deep woodlands.
As the miles of icy black forest rolled by she looked around at the other coach passengers. There seemed to be thousands of them, and at least half looked like college students, faces aglow with the excitement of travel and with voices loud and enthusiastic.
Suddenly Annie felt claustrophobic from it all. If she had to stay in this hot, crowded car for one more moment she’d stop breathing. She decided to see if there was another car farther up with fewer people.
She shoved her book into her bag, got up and hauled her two suitcases onto the link between cars where there was a tiny bathroom. The air was cooler immediately. She’d rather stand here for the rest of the trip than go back to the crowded coach car, though it was probably against the rules. Unfortunately, she’d have to shlep her heavy bags with her through the cars until she found someplace else to sit.
But first she was going to try to get rid of the still-damp coffee stain on her shirt. She slipped into the minute bathroom and wedged the door open with her foot so she could keep an eye on her bags. The stiff paper towels were practically water resistant, but she was able to get most of the coffee out of the fabric. What was left, she noted with a sigh, was a huge collection of watermarks.
She stepped out of the bathroom and went to an open window between the cars and breathed in the frigid air. She took another deep breath and hoisted up her bags again, opening the door to the next car with her shoulder. It was strangely empty and deliciously quiet. She realized immediately it was a first-class car. The private cubicles were tempting with their closed doors, cushioned seats, and tiny wall lights giving off a warm glow against the chill gray landscape outside. It was impossible to resist. On impulse, she decided to go into one of the compartments and languish there as a first-class passenger until they got to Lassberg or until someone kicked her out. After all, it wasn’t like stealing. If she didn’t use one, it would just go on being empty.
Suddenly she noticed an extraordinarily handsome man in the compartment before her. He was alone. It was obvious no one was coming back to sit with him. Something about his posture suggested detachment. Isolation. She craned her neck to try and see his hands. No ring, just as she’d guessed.
She caught her breath. If only she were the type of woman a man like this would look at twice. Dreamer, she chastised herself. She hadn’t been the type to catch a man’s eye in all of her twenty-five years, and it wasn’t likely to happen now, especially with an Adonis like the one she was looking at.
Still, she had been swept up in the fairy-tale atmosphere of the Alps and the memory of Joy’s prediction. Why not go with it, just for another moment? She touched her finger to the door. “Maybe you’d be my Prince Charming,” she said under her breath, her words fogging the glass. “If fairy godmothers really existed.” She gave a slight laugh. “And if it wasn’t so heinous for a modern woman to want a Prince Charming.”
The man’s profile, illuminated by the little orange glow of the reading lights, was arresting. The nose was straight and long, his cheekbones beautifully pronounced and his jaw was square and strong. His gleaming hair was as dark as Heathcliff’s in Wuthering Heights. She couldn’t tell what color his eyes were, but the lashes were long and dark and she was certain his expression was brooding.
On the surface he looked like an ordinary guy, wearing an old pair of jeans and a ragged wool sweater. It seemed a little strange that he was in first class—he could almost have passed for one of the students in the other car except that he was older. There was a regal quality about him that gave Annie the impression that he was right at home in the elegant accommodations.
Clack clack sheesh clack clack sheesh, the train rumbled beneath her feet racing across the miles of picturesque countryside. The door to his compartment was open just a crack. Someone with more nerve than Annie would have walked right in and sat down.
She nearly laughed at the very idea of herself doing something like that. It was completely unlike her. If she did it, if she could gather enough nerve just to go for it, it would be baptism by fire, but—
“Excuse me, miss, may I have your ticket please?” a cheery, loud German voice called behind her.
She whirled around to face a short, round, uniformed railroad employee. One hand was filled with passenger tickets that he’d already collected, his other hand was extended toward Annie expectantly.
“Yes…I…” Her face flamed as she thought, for one wild moment, that he might have known what she’d been contemplating. She fumbled awkwardly through her purse, looking for the first-class ticket she knew wasn’t in there and hoping for the coach-class ticket that should have been. She switched from English to German and said, “One moment. It’s in here somewhere.”
She glanced up and the train employee lowered his brow.
“Really.” She dug some more, feeling more hopeless by the second of ever finding the ticket. “I bought it right before I got on board in Munich.” She prayed silently that the Greek god in the private compartment wasn’t watching. He probably was, after all the door to his compartment was nearly all glass and she was right in front of it.
The train conductor shifted his weight and crossed his arms in front of him. “Come now, miss, you can purchase your ticket on board. It’s four hundred marks.”
Annie felt her blood drain to her feet. “Four hundred—” The train suddenly lurched and she lost her balance, teetering momentarily against the door to the mystery man’s compartment before it flew open, sending her sprawling onto the hard metal floor in front of the man himself, her glasses clattering on the floor beside her.
“I’m