More Blazing Bedtime Stories: Once Upon a Mattress (2 page)

Wouldn’t everyone in town have a laugh if they ever figured out that tough little Penny Mayfair, was, at heart, an orphan looking for a home.

She sighed, not willing to go there today. Not when it was only two weeks until her twenty-fourth birthday. Meaning it was almost three years since the day her father had died, leaving her by herself in this huge, lonely world.

Penny thrust the image of his kind face out of her mind and got back to work. Turning her attention back to the orders getting colder under the heat lamps and the people waiting to check out, she hurried to wait on the next table.

But then she stopped. All thought stopped. Time itself even seemed to stop. The clatter of forks on stoneware and the cacophony of raised voices faded into one soft background hum.

Penny’s rubber-soled high-tops stuck on the cracked linoleum and she stumbled a step, then came to a standstill. Her heart paused mid-beat. Maybe the rest of the world did as well.

Because there he sat. The tall drink of water at table eighteen who would have to be gulped because a sip would never be enough.

Lord have mercy
.

It wasn’t the man’s size that stunned her, though the way he towered over the table said he was incredibly tall. And though the bench seat was built for two, no way could anybody else sit on it with him, not with the breadth of those shoulders.

It wasn’t the blunt attractiveness of the stark, masculine face, with the slashing cheekbones and strong brow. Or the jutting, grizzled jaw—not bearded, yet his five o’clock shadow was going on midnight despite the earliness of the hour.

It wasn’t the thick, nearly jet-black shaggy hair that brushed across the leather-jacket clad-shoulders.

It wasn’t the powerful hands curled together on the table. Or the curve of the sensual lips. Or the aura of danger that seemed to roll off the man like heat off a bonfire.

No. It was his eyes that got to her, leaving Penny speechless and confused. Dark, nearly-black eyes were focused entirely upon her, staring with utter concentration. They looked almost feral. But she didn’t feel threatened. In fact, for some strange reason, the word that popped into her mind when she noticed the way he watched her was
claimed
.

It was a strange feeling, considering she had no one in this world who had a legitimate claim on her. She should know, she’d looked. She was totally without family. There was absolutely nobody who could, or would, ever call her theirs.

Until him. The guy eating her alive with his stare, who looked like he expected her to accede to any demand he cared to make.

Nobody makes demands of me
. Requests? Okay. But not demands.

She finally began to breathe again, to think again. But she couldn’t prevent a final, quick mental acknowledgement that
she had never in her life experienced anything as jolting as this man’s possessive stare.

She slowly stepped closer until she stood by his table, staring down into the fathomless depths of those inky eyes.

He murmured, “And here you are.”

Deep voice. Rough. Throaty. It scraped across her nerve endings and made her skin prickle. “What?”

He shook his head, as if he hadn’t intended to speak. “Tell me you’re not the one they call Penny Mayfair,” he ordered.

Swallowing, she admitted, “Sorry. That is my name.”

His furrowed brow said he wasn’t pleased by the news. His muttered curse confirmed it.

“What do you want?” she asked, forcing away all those crazy, gushy sensations that had awakened and begun to do somersaults across her most girly parts at the sight of him. Hearing his voice had turned those somersaults into gigantic loop-the-loops.

No loop-the-looping with strangers. Got it?

Hooking up with a guy she picked up in the diner would simply confirm peoples’ opinion that she was pure white trash. Besides, if there was one thing her wild, cross-country quest to find
any
member of her family had taught her, it was that the answers to her questions weren’t going to be found in the arms of some hot stranger.

“This can’t be happening, not now, not
you
,” he muttered, staring at her hard, his dark eyes gleaming with something that verged on need.

Wishful thinking
.

He spoke again, under his breath. “You
can’t
be the one.”

Her annoyance rising, she snapped, “The one what?”

He looked away, and she saw the way his pulse was pounding in his temple, as if he were undergoing some great internal struggle. Finally, he said, “You
really
are the princess?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Shut up.”

She had to get Callie to lay off the nickname. Her father had gotten away with it throughout her younger years, even though she had never played princess, seen a Disney movie or owned
a frilly doll. She couldn’t recall ever believing in a happily-ever-after, or even reading a fairy tale in her childhood. So the princess thing had been her Dad’s little inside joke.

But now that he was gone, the nickname needed to go, too. She was about as far from a pink-tulle-and-diamond-wearing-princess as she was from a green-skinned alien chick on some old sci-fi show.

“Princess?”

“Call me that again and you’ll be wearing breakfast rather than eating it.” Her words lacked any heat. Penny was simply used to resorting to snark when anybody started to hassle her.

His eyes gleamed though his stern expression didn’t waver. “But you haven’t served me any food with which to break my fast.”

She jerked her thumb over her shoulder toward the closest table, even while noticing the odd way the man spoke. “There’s plenty of food over there.”

“Consider me warned.”

He slid out of the booth and rose to his feet, forcing her to tilt her head back to continue meeting those eyes.

God, he’s tall. Huge. Freaking gorgeous!

As if knowing he’d sent her thoughts spinning, he stepped even closer, until their bodies almost touched. His was massive, strong, rippled with muscle. Hers, soft, curvy and yielding. A perfect fit. Her mind suddenly flooded with images of all the lovely ways they could fit together.

“No,” she insisted, more to herself than him. “This is crazy.”

“I know,” he admitted. “It’s still happening.”

“
What
is?”

“I’ve been looking for the princess. And I’ve been looking for
you
. I just never expected they’d turn out to be the same person.”

Totally not following, Penny could only stare.

He didn’t explain, just watched her, his gaze hungry. “I’ll fill you in later.”

She quivered, her ears tricking her for a second into
thinking he’d said he’d
fill
her later. Because, oh, God, did she suspect he could.

His lips widened in a knowing smile, as if he knew exactly what she’d been thinking. “Later,” he repeated. “Now, back to my mission. Your full name is Penelope Eloisa Mayfair?”

Damn, she hated that name and did everything she could to keep people from hearing it. How this dude could have learned it was beyond her, but right now, she didn’t care. She just wanted to keep him from repeating it. “Would you lower your voice?”

A lot of people in this town already looked at her as though she was a two-headed freak and her eccentric name wouldn’t help. Sure, she might have lived among them since she’d been a child, but to most of them, she’d always been an outsider.

She hadn’t fit in. Not ever. Those who didn’t consider her arrogant and snooty because of how well she did in school looked down on her for not being interested in any of the things that fascinated the other local girls.

“I need to confirm your identity,” said the stranger.

“It’s confirmed, okay? Now what do you want?” She edged closer, trying to hide him from nearby diners. Pointless, really. It was like a mouse trying to stop anyone from seeing the grizzly bear in the corner. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re busy and I’m stressed.”

“Why not quit?”

She couldn’t help laughing. “I have bills to pay. Ever heard of not wanting to starve?” Then she glanced around at the awful food cooked by Glen-the-talentless. “Okay, I guess you have. Avoiding starvation is probably the only reason anyone would come to this place.” She kept her voice low, not wanting to offend the regular clientele, or Callie. No point making herself stand out even more.

Penny’s differentness had been made even more obvious a few months ago, when she’d come back after going on a two-year-long journey to find out who she was and where she belonged. The trip that had confirmed that whole you-have-nobody hypothesis.

She’d hit the road shortly before her twenty-second birthday, with one goal in mind: discovering her own past. Dad, as much as she loved him, had been keeping secrets all her life. Secrets about his own background and definitely about Penny’s mother’s. He’d promised to give Penny answers when she grew up.

Unfortunately, he had died before he could keep his promise.

So Penny had set off on a quest, following the few clues she had. They’d led to nothing but more questions. Eventually losing hope, she had kept wandering, trying to find someplace that resonated with her soul. She’d gone from city to city, town to town. In each, she’d tried out a new job, a new hair color, a piercing, a tattoo, or a man before moving on to the next.

And she’d discovered she didn’t really fit in
anywhere
. No one location was better than the last. Each left her feeling…restless. Out of step, out of touch. Adrift.

In that old movie, Dorothy had said there’s no place like home. For Penny, no place
was
home.

So she’d given up. Decided that having her hopes raised and then crushed was worse than just not knowing. Penny had come back to her father’s old house, her few friends, and to Callie, the one remaining constant in her life. She’d dragged all the remnants of her journey along with her. They were stamped on her body, on her mind and on her spirit, proof of her efforts to identify the real Penny Mayfair.

Oh, hadn’t that given the residents of LeBeaux something to talk about! Despite being lovingly welcomed back by a few, to the town’s old guard, she’d simply proved what they’d always suspected of her—that she was bad news.

“Are you all right?” the stranger said. He spoke softly, knowing she could hear, as if they were so in tune to each other that the symphony of gossiping voices and slinging crockery didn’t exist.

“I’m fine.”

Penny shook off her sad thoughts. Things were okay,
she
was okay. Not fabulous. But okay. She had a job, she had a
roof over her head and she had a few true friends, which was better than having dozens of phony ones. She managed to maintain her wild-child image that kept people from looking closer and seeing anything she didn’t want them to. And she sometimes even had fun doing it.

This is not a bad life
.

Even if deep in her heart she knew it wasn’t the one she had been destined to live.

“What is it you want?” she asked.

“I want you to come with me.”

A shiver of excitement danced through her, even as she formed an instinctive refusal. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

“Yes, you are.” As if realizing he couldn’t exactly force her out through the packed restaurant, though he seemed tempted, he grudgingly added, “I must speak with you.”

People had begun to notice their confrontation. They were all eyes, all ears, dying to be scandalized by the town’s bad girl.

Penny sighed. “I don’t have time for this.”

“It’s urgent.”

“Yeah, right. If you lay that ‘Come with me if you want to live’ line on me, I’m going to stab you in the eye with a fork.”

Though, that might be tough. The guy was staring down from what had to be a good foot advantage, and she was no shorty.

He merely shook his head, continuing that intense, searching perusal of her face, her hair, her black-clad form.

“You’re
truly
Penelope Mayfair? Daughter of Lenore Mayfair?”

She gasped. “What the hell do you know about my mother?” Penny had no memory of the woman who’d given birth to her. She’d never even seen a single photograph, since her father had said they’d all been lost during a move. So for this stranger to casually throw out the name stung sharply.

He shook his head, apparently unfazed by her sudden anger. His expression suddenly appeared almost regretful as
he asked, “You weren’t a foundling, I assume? No chance you were adopted?”

Penny’s hand fisted. Whatever this crazy attraction was about, it couldn’t overcome her instinctive need to protect her privacy. “Get out.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-four.”
In two weeks
. She had replied before even thinking about it. Why she was answering this stranger’s questions, she had no idea. But that was it, no more.

“Where is your father? Did he abandon you?”

This time, Penny didn’t listen to the voice of caution that said he was a big, scary-looking dude who knew too much about her. She stomped on his booted foot. Which just served to hurt her rubber-covered arch and didn’t so much as make him flinch.

“Why did you do that?” he asked, tilting his head in visible confusion and not a bit of discomfort.

Penny ignored the pain in her foot and glared at the man. “Because you’re seriously pissing me off. Now go away.”

“Sorry,” he said, shaking his head and looking anything but repentant. “You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.”

“Easily? I think I broke a bone in my foot.”

He shrugged. “Not my fault.”

Glaring, Penny considered stomping on his foot again. Or punching him. But as if he read her thoughts, he narrowed his eyes in warning. “Don’t even think about it. That shot was free. Next time, I defend myself.”

“Oh, am I supposed to be all scared now?” she snapped, probably sounding more brave than she actually felt. “You think you’re tough enough to intimidate me?”

Okay, that was dumb, because he was pretty damned intimidating. Though, honestly, she didn’t truly believe he would hurt her. Not only because they were surrounded by people in a public place, but because something about him seemed more ‘big, overbearing protector’ than ‘bad guy’.