The Cowboy and the Princess (2 page)

Still, despite the fact that she knew she could feel nothing for her brother’s friend, she and Owen Michaels were going to be stuck here together for a while unless she could talk him into letting her go off and do all the dazzlingly wonderful and normal things she’d been waiting to do all her life. And unless she could also convince him not to tell anyone about her plans.

She glanced up into his flinty, wary eyes and knew that this wasn’t a man who could be convinced easily.

Delfyne withheld a sigh. “Is it very far to your home?” she asked.

He smiled then, and this time his smile looked genuine. And far too dazzling. His silver-blue eyes lit up, and something hot and sparkly zinged right through Delfyne’s body, heating up parts of her she preferred to ignore. “Everything is far around here if you’re not used to driving distances,” her captor-babysitter said. “Are you ready to go?”

She nodded. “Yes.” The sooner she assessed her surroundings, the sooner she could figure out how she was going to manage these next few months and what she intended to do either to make this situation palatable or to change it.

Turning toward the airplane, she gave another nod. Immediately, two members of the royal guard appeared. Stoic. Big. Their expressions gave away nothing.

“Who the hell are they?” Owen asked, his voice quiet but
deadly. She thought she heard him say something worse than
hell
beneath his breath.

“My escort,” she said simply.

“Your escort,” he repeated as if she’d just said she’d traveled here accompanied by flying pink ponies. “They’re going home?”

She wished. “If you think you can convince them to leave, you’re welcome to try. They follow me everywhere. It’s their job.”

Owen Michaels frowned. “Any other members of your entourage I should know about?”

For the first time since she’d left home, Delfyne felt like laughing. “I see Andreus didn’t tell you about my guards,” she said with a smile. “I wonder why.”

But they both knew why. Owen didn’t want her here, and friendship only went so far. If he’d known he was going to have to house a brooding pair of guardsmen in addition to a princess for months on end, she wondered if he would have agreed to let her stay.

Maybe the man would have said no. Maybe he had limits, and if she pushed them, he’d send her away to where she wanted to go. That was definitely something to think about. Delfyne wondered just what Owen Michaels’s limits were.

She would soon find out.

S
O
A
NDREUS’S
kid sister wasn’t a kid anymore, Owen mused as he led Delfyne to his SUV. She’d been skinny before. Now she was willowy and curvy and stunningly gorgeous, with sable hair and violet eyes. And her legs…He swept his gaze down those sweet legs, ending at a pair of barely there lacy stiletto heels that would have looked at home in a ballroom, a boardroom or…oh yes, they would have looked very fine in a bedroom, but they sure didn’t belong on a rough, tough ranch or anywhere near a man like him.

It was all he could do to stop himself from banging his fist on the Land Rover. This was going to be a hellish mistake of an experience. He certainly had no business imagining his calloused palm skimming over a princess’s legs.

Frowning, he glanced at her and saw that she was studying him with dismay. And no wonder. He realized that in addition to blatantly eyeing her curves, he had been slamming her bags around and had been silent for several minutes.

“I apologize,” he said.

Those pretty violet eyes blinked. “For what?”

Oh, she was good. Her parents had probably trained her to maintain that cool princess aura in the face of bad manners from birth.

Owen shook his head. “I’m supposed to be your host, to make you feel welcome. I don’t think I’ve done that.”

She studied him for a moment and then reached out and placed her hand on his arm. Heat shot through his skin and sank deep into his body. Great. Just great. He was lusting after a princess, one who was destined for a prince. What’s more, Delfyne was his best friend’s little sister, a woman he had sworn to protect, not seduce.

Owen took a deep breath. He forced himself not to look at the point where his skin connected with this beauty’s soft palm. She was smiling. No, she was practically dancing, her eyes lit up like twin candles.

“Enough,” she said. “Let’s not pretend anymore, all right?”

He waited.

She shook her head and, as if she had just realized that she was touching him, looked at her hand and slowly eased it from him. “My brother forced me on you. He and my parents sent me here so that I couldn’t be tempted into trouble or so that trouble couldn’t be tempted into finding me and hurting me. I’m not your guest, Owen. I’m your short-term obligation. I don’t expect you to pretend otherwise.”

He considered that. “You didn’t want to come to a ranch. This can’t be fun for you.”

“Well, it’s not at all what I’d planned when I planned it.”

“When was that?”

She looked to the side and for a second he thought she wasn’t going to answer. “I started making my plans when I was eight, when I realized that no matter how carefully I planned my birthday party and no matter how many commoners they reluctantly allowed me to invite, my guests would always be screened, some wouldn’t be allowed near me and those that were admitted would be coached on etiquette before they came into my pres
ence. It would never really be a truly free experience completely of my own choosing…except for this one summer.”

“I see,” he said. And he did. He was another one of those people who was playing the game that kept her from her goals. “Well then, I really am sorry.”

She looked at him. “You could let me go my own way.”

Owen chuckled. He gestured toward her bodyguards.

“Well, of course I’d take them with me,” she said.

And probably ditch them as soon as she was able, Owen thought, remembering what Andreus had told him and trying not to think about the wistful sound in her voice when she’d told him how long she’d been planning her princess prison break.

“Sorry, Princess. I don’t lie to my friends, and Andreus is the best. You’re mine for a while.” Which was such a poor choice of words. “Guest-wise, that is,” he added.

“You’re not going to do that, are you?”

Okay, she had him there. “Do what?”

“Call me
Princess
as if it’s my name.”

“It’s what you are.”

She raised her chin. “Please.”

And there was such longing in her voice that he couldn’t keep from pursuing the subject. “Please what?”

She hesitated. “I know you’ve made promises to my family, and Andreus says that you’re a very honorable man—the best of men.”

Which only showed how deluded and blind Andreus could be, but Owen didn’t need to share that information with Delfyne. There was no need to explain his own flawed soul and even more flawed character to her. “I sense a
however
coming on,” he said.

The beauty took a deep and visible breath that lifted the pale blue silk of her blouse and made Owen wish that he could do as she asked and send her away.

“All right. You’re an honorable man.
However
, I would like
to ask one favor of you that would not necessitate you breaking your word to my family,” she said in a quiet voice. He could see that, although she was brazening it out, she had no real sense that he was going to do whatever she intended to ask of him. Dread filled him. He had a history of failing women. His mother, his wife and Nancy, who had sought him out last year and
only
wanted him to give her a baby…and now? Damn Andreus.

“Ask,” he said, his voice terse. He believed in facing the difficult stuff.

“I…How many people know that I’m here for a visit?”

Owen blinked. “My employees know that I’m having a guest. That’s it.” He wasn’t exactly a sharing kind of man.

“Do they know who I am? What a question. Of course they do, but still…” She seemed distressed.

Frowning, Owen realized what this must be about. Of course. She was royalty, sent to what must seem like Siberia. And yet she would be used to special treatment, the kind she wouldn’t think she could get here.

“I’m afraid they don’t know you’re a princess. At least not yet. I only told them this morning that I would be having a guest. I haven’t shared any of the particulars.” Because he’d hoped, right up until the last possible moment, that Andreus would realize that this was a bad idea and call the whole thing off.

“But don’t worry,” he told Delfyne. “I tend to be a bit closemouthed and that can be a problem at times, but the Second Chance has guests frequently. Usually, they’re businesspeople who like the novelty of staying at a ranch, but even with someone more exalted, my employees are up to the task. You’ll be treated well.”

“That’s not my concern. I just…If they don’t already know, that’s a good thing. I don’t want to be a princess.”

Owen blinked. He wanted to groan. Surely she wasn’t asking him to help her break free of her birthright? “Excuse me?”

A sad look eased into those lovely eyes. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Of course I’m proud of who and what I am and glad I’m a member of the royal family. My heritage is important to me. It’s just that while I’m here I’d like to remain anonymous,” she clarified. “If people know I’m here, there will be newspapers and…”

“And someone might try to harm you or kidnap you,” Owen said, looking at the bodyguards, who were standing around trying to fade quietly into a landscape where they stood out like red ink on white paper. He remembered the man who had gone everywhere with Andreus when they had been in college. “I meant what I said when I told Andreus that I’d look after you,” Owen said. “No one is going to harm you, and I’m not talking about letting your keepers take care of things. I’m talking about me.
I
wouldn’t let anyone get near you.”

She shook her head. “But I
want
people near me. That’s the point.”

Her consternation was clear. However, Owen suddenly noticed Suze Allen driving by and giving him and Delfyne a good looking-over. Suze was a generous creature whom Owen had known for most of his life, but she was like a sieve. Any news that came her way instantly flowed through and out, and a stranger who looked like Delfyne conversing with Owen was definitely going to be news.

“We’d better go,” he said suddenly. “Get in the car.”

Delfyne looked toward Suze’s white pickup, which was circling to come back their way, and to Owen’s relief she didn’t argue. She let Owen hand her into the Land Rover, and her entourage piled into a black car that arrived from out of nowhere.

“A girlfriend?” she asked when they were on the road to the ranch.

Owen laughed at that. “A gossip, and nothing like a girlfriend, though she’s very nice. Suze is married to a man who would punch any man who looked twice at his wife.”

Delfyne was silent. For almost five seconds. “Has he ever punched you?” she finally asked.

Owen immediately turned to look at her. “I don’t pursue other men’s wives, no matter how nice the women are. But that’s beside the point. I haven’t forgotten what we were talking about before Suze came along. You said that you wanted to be anonymous.”

“And you said you wouldn’t let
anyone
near me.”

He sighed. “Maybe I phrased that badly.” He remembered a time when his ex-wife, Faye, had accused him of keeping her trapped in a box. “What I meant was that I wouldn’t let anyone or anything hurt you, in case you were worried about that. People from the city sometimes worry about life in a place like this, which is a bit wild. I won’t let any harm come to you.”

“I never thought you would! Andreus knows you and he trusts you implicitly. That’s absolutely good enough for me. I am most certainly
not
challenging your ability to protect me.” Now she was indignant…and cute. Somehow he didn’t think he should mention that. The word
cute
and royalty probably didn’t go hand in hand. “But I meant something more than that. I just—If people know I’m here, there will be reporters, of course, the paparazzi and all that. But that’s not my main reason for wanting to stay in the shadows. Ordinary people will treat me differently if they know I’m a princess. I hate that. I
really
hate that.”

He could tell. Her voice was terribly sad.

“And I know that’s kind of selfish and spoiled,” she went on. “I have so much. I’ve always had so much. I live in a world that most people can’t even imagine, but—”

“But you want more,” he said. He’d heard that before. Heard his mother telling his father that as she dragged her suitcase out, packed it full of clothes and left him behind, telling Owen to be a good boy before the door closed and she disappeared from his life forever. He’d heard it from Faye as she’d begged him to sell
the ranch, take all his money and go somewhere fun and fine. He’d almost decided to do it, too, until his son’s death and the total disintegration of his marriage. After that, it had been too late and now he would never leave the Second Chance.

“You’re wrong, Owen,” Delfyne was saying, and for a moment he thought she’d read his mind. “I don’t want more. I want less. Just for this summer, I want to be like everyone else. I want to see what other people see and to live like they do. If people know I’m a princess I can’t do that. All right?”

He frowned. Although he could see her point…“I may have kept your visit to myself but now that you’re here, this plan sounds like a recipe for disaster. I’ve never been good at pretense.”

“You don’t have to pretend. Just leave a few little things out. Like my title.”

He couldn’t keep from smiling. “Not exactly a little thing.”

“Just for this summer. After that—”

They would never see each other again. She would marry her prince, and he would go on with life here at the ranch that had sustained his family for generations. His life would be just the way he liked it. What happened at the end of her time here wouldn’t be a problem. But what was happening right now…

“If you’re worried about Andreus being upset—” she began.

Now he did laugh. “I promised to keep you free from harm, not to keep from upsetting your brother. He might not have told you this, but I pretty much drove him nuts most of the time we were roommates. I’m stubborn, and so is he. Andreus isn’t the problem. I’m just trying to envision the pitfalls if I agree to keep your identity a secret.”

A light came into her eyes, and her lips lifted into a smile that made Owen’s breath catch. “Think of the pitfalls if you
don’t
keep me a secret. You said that your friend—Suze?—was a talker. If she talks and tells a few friends and they tell a few friends and
then the newspapers find out, you’ll have half the population of Montana lining up outside your ranch.”

“You think?” he said, holding back a smile, wondering how far she would take this.

“At least,” she said, “Andreus told me that you like your privacy. I’m to behave and not annoy you.”

“Are you now?” Owen seriously needed to smile, but he fought the urge.

“I tend to be a bit impetuous at times, and that always annoys my family. Andreus asked me not to do that with you.”

“And you don’t think pretending you’re someone you’re not is impetuous?”

Delfyne bit her lip. “Do you?” She twisted her hands in her lap, and suddenly Owen was tired of teasing her. This situation hadn’t been created by her or by him. This had been Andreus’s idea, and much as he loved the man and owed him, it was a terrible one. Besides, she was right about all of his neighbors and the press coming to call if the truth came out. Heck, he had a ranch to run. He couldn’t spend his time dodging reporters. He
did
like his privacy.

No, he
needed
his privacy. If the press came calling, they would want to know about Delfyne but also about the man keeping her here. Then they would want a little history, and if they delved into his background, the tragedy of his past…He didn’t want anyone writing sob stories about how he’d lost his child and his wife and now a beautiful, unattainable princess had come to call.

Owen’s blood chilled at the thought.

“Who do you want to be?” he demanded suddenly.

She stared straight into his eyes. “Just Delfyne. That’s all. Just an ordinary woman.”

Oh yeah, people were going to believe that this woman was
ordinary. She had a foreign lilt to her voice, skin like expensive silk and a body that would make even the tamest of men take notice. But he hadn’t been lying when he’d said that he wasn’t good at pretending. He’d leave that part to her.