The Cowboy and the Princess (8 page)

“Hey,” he said gruffly.

“Hello.” She tucked her hands behind her back. “Do you require any assistance in making the bed?”

There it was again, that overly formal speech. Where was she from? His curiosity climbed into a rocket ship, took a blast to Mars.

“Naw, I just about got it.” He shifted away from the sight of her in the frothy nightie.

Brady slid his hands under the corner of the mattress, tucking in the sheet. He’d been in bedrooms with more than his share of women, but he could not recall a moment as odd and awkward as this one. He could hear her breathing, soft and quick. She was as unnerved as he. No doubt in his mind. Maybe even more so.

Annie cleared her throat.

He turned. “Yes?”

“Your face needs attention.” She gestured toward her own cheek.

“What?” He reached a hand to his face. “Oh yeah.” He’d forgotten about the cut, but now that he touched his jaw, he felt the sting anew.

“Sit down.” She patted the seat of the straight-backed chair.

“It’s okay, I’ll tend to it later.”

She gave him that do-as-I-say look that she was so good at and pointed at the chair. “Sit. Attending to your wounds is the least I can do after you were carved up over me.”

Feeling like Trampas, he sat.

“Do you possess first aid supplies?”

“Under the bathroom sink.”

She hurried into the bathroom, reappeared with the first aid kit. She stepped close to him. He tried not to look at her breasts, so perky and high, but hell, he was only human. He did his best to be covert about it, but one look at those smooth, perfect breasts and he stiffened.

Quickly, he crossed his legs, settled his hand over his lap.
Do-da-do-da. Stop with the boner, champ.

Luckily, Annie was busy digging around in the first aid kit. She came up with a small bottle of hydrogen peroxide and a folded square of gauze. She soaked the gauze with the peroxide, then leaned over to slowly start working on the dried blood.

Brady’s entire body tensed. The gauze scratched. The peroxide bubbled foamy against his skin. He closed his eyes. He needed something to distract him from her nearness, from the silky glide of her peignoir rubbing over his knuckles, from the soft sound of her breathing, from her baby powder fragrance mixed with the lemony zest of his bar soap. His mental gears ground hard, trying to make sense of this situation and how he’d gotten here with her. He fisted his hands.

“Does that hurt?”

“It’s okay. Keep going.”

He gulped, wanting to ask her the question he’d been dying to ask. He kept his eyes closed, so he wouldn’t intimidate either one of them. He knew how intimidating direct confrontation could be. His old man had been one of those kinds of guys who crowded your space, got in your face, and spewed spittle when he yelled. When the old man was really picking on him, when his bullying was in high form, and beating Brady just wasn’t taking the edge off his anger, but instead inflaming it, his four brothers would form a human shield, encircling him, screaming at their father to back off.

That’s when he felt the safest. Encircled by his brothers. He was going to ask Annie the question he needed to ask, but he wasn’t going to make eye contact. Wasn’t going to do anything to threaten her.

“Annie,” he said softly, “I really need to know something.”

It took her a minute to answer. “Yes?”

“You can keep your secrets, but since I am sticking my neck out for you, then you have to tell me if you are in any danger from the Blues Brothers? Am I?”

“The Blues Brothers?”

“You really aren’t from America, are you?”

“No.”

“Are you from Canada?”

“Do not worry. You are in no danger from the . . . er . . . Blues Brothers.”

“Not Canada, huh? I know you’re not from Australia. I have a good friend from there and you don’t sound anything like him. New Zealand?”

“Why does it matter where I am from?”

He shrugged and finally opened his eyes. She was standing back, examining her handiwork. They were only a couple of feet apart, but in this small space it was as far apart as they could get. “It doesn’t.”

Their gazes met.

“That’s not your real hair color, is it?”

She reached up a hand to her choppy hair. “How did you know?”

“You dyed your eyebrows to match the hair, but your eyelashes are blond. Can’t hide that. You’re a natural blond. Iceland?” He reached up to finger her hair.

She drew back. “What?”

“Are you from Iceland?”

“No.”

“You’re on the run. Hiding out.”

“If I say yes will you drop the questions?”

“Okay.”

“Then yes, I am hiding out.”

“Did you—” He broke off. He’d been about to ask her if she’d committed a crime, but a promise was a promise. He would drop the questions. For now. But somehow he couldn’t see her as a criminal.

That’s how they lure you in.

“I am going to put the butterfly closures on your wound. So hold still.” She seemed in no hurry to return to violating the boundaries of his personal space.

“I’m waiting.”

She cleared her throat, hardened her chin, and ripped open the package of butterfly closure strips. She didn’t look at him, she looked
into
him and he stared boldly back, seeing past the wide-eyed mystery she wore like a veil.

Her eyes told him things that her fear and distrust would not let her say.

I need help. I’m in over my head. You’re all I’ve got.

Or maybe it was just his damn ego talking. Two hours ago, he’d ditched her as trouble he didn’t need. Now he realized she was as vulnerable as an orphaned newborn foal in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley, where the wolves lived.

She dropped her gaze, worked on closing the edges of his wound with the butterfly bandages. Her gentle fingers pressed against his skin. It was all he could do not to shiver.

“There,” she said breathlessly, and stepped away again. “All done.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

A long silence stretched between them, sticky as a cobweb.

“It’s after one in the morning. Time for bed.” He uncrossed his legs, placed both palms on his knees.

“Time for bed,” she echoed, her voice slow as maple syrup on a winter morning.

They kept watching each other. Her gaze roved over his face. He could feel her sizing him up. He was doing the same. The woman was different and he could not reconcile the fact that she was on the run from something, someone. What had he stumbled into?

“I’ll get into the bunk first,” he said. “That way you won’t be closed in.”

“Thank you.” The grateful expression on her face told him he’d nailed it. She was afraid of having her back against the wall.

He shucked off his boots. “I’m just going to brush my teeth.” He jerked his thumb in the direction of the bathroom.

“I’ll get Lady Astor settled.”

He went his way. She went hers.

Inside the bathroom, Brady stared at himself in the mirror. His cheek was mended with the stark white skin closures. He squirted a dab of toothpaste on his hard-bristled toothbrush. Winced when he opened his mouth wide enough to get the brush in. The damn cut hurt.

“What in the hell are you doing?” he mumbled to his reflection. “You wanna get your teeth knocked out by whoever is looking for her?”

No, no, he did not. Tomorrow he would find someone else to pawn her off on, but for tonight, he couldn’t really do anything except live up to his offer to give her a place to sleep. Port in the storm. That was him. More than one woman had told him so.

You’re my port in the storm, Brady
, his last girlfriend had said.

He’d liked that. His stupid ego. Then she’d dumped him for another man.

No one gets serious about a port in the storm
, she said when she walked out carrying the Jack LaLanne juicer she bought him for Christmas, a pair of inline skates slung over her shoulder, and wearing a diamond engagement ring big enough to choke Santa Fe that he had not given her.

No one needed a safe port when the sun was shining.

A
nnie couldn’t believe she was in bed with a cowboy. She had dreamed it for so long she could not be sure she was really awake. To prove it, she pinched the underside of her arm.

Ouch.

All right. Wide awake. This was no dream. She curled her toes against the crisp, cool sheet and thought of the way Brady had looked as she had tended to the wound he acquired while defending her honor. Her white knight. There was no ignoring him. His big body filled the tiny space, his scent filled her nose, his face filled her mind. A cowboy. An honest-to-goodness honorable cowboy.

He climbed into bed wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs and a cotton T-shirt. She had tried not to notice how the cotton material stretched over biceps as hard and round as Granny Smith apples. The inked artwork on his right arm of a galloping horse, mane flying, fascinated her. She had an urge to press her mouth to it, trace the outline of it with her tongue.

The rain started again, drumming against the roof.

She smiled into the darkness. She was here. Now what? How did a princess go about seducing a cowboy?

The spot behind her knees went itchy. Her entire body heated. The sensation started at the tips of her toes and rolled upward, spicy as truck stop chili—hot, heavy, urgent.

Brady wasn’t asleep either. She could hear his quick, shallow breathing. Neither one of them had moved. Both lay on their backs, staring up at the ceiling.

Don’t make waves.
Rosalind had drilled it into her head.
Remember the three A’s. A princess is always accommodating, accepting, and agreeable.
The triple A princess. That was she.

Annie had struggled so hard to live up to that diktat. She’d been an obedient daughter never questioning the plan for her life. She believed she had accepted her marriage to Teddy. Would do whatever was required of her by her country.

Or so she thought.

Then she received the invitation to Echo Glover’s wedding. She and Echo had met as teenagers when Echo’s father had been president of the United States and Echo and her mother had vacationed in Monesta. Her stepmother, Birgit, had invited the first lady and her daughter to stay at Farrington Palace, and for four wonderful weeks, Annie had known what it was like to have a sister.

She and Echo had kept in touch over the years, through letters, phone calls, text messaging. Neither one of them had been allowed to have a Twitter or Facebook account. It was considered improper conduct, not to mention a legal and security liability for women of their positions.

The minute Annie opened Echo’s wedding invitation, so close to her own impending wedding, she had known it was her last chance to experience a normal life, if only for a few brief weeks. It had taken a heated argument to persuade her father to allow her to attend the wedding. Teddy, surprisingly enough, had been on her side.

“Let her spread her wings, King Phillip,” Teddy advocated. “I’m pleased that my future queen has friends in America, and it would serve me well for my wife-to-be to gain a more sophisticated view of the world.”

That had made her feel extremely disloyal. Here Teddy was trying to help her and she was planning on cheating on him.

It’s not cheating. Not technically
.

Although she’d been promised to him, and their wedding was planned, Teddy had not yet slipped an engagement ring on her finger, wanting to play the field as long as he could in the fading glory of his bachelor days. They had never been intimate and they both knew their relationship was not a love match.

Justifications. She knew a rationalization when she heard it.

Suddenly, she felt ashamed of herself. What was she doing here? What did she really expect to come of this? Even if she seduced Brady and they had wonderful sex, then what? What if she went back home and Teddy turned out to be a lousy lover and she spent the rest of her life longing for Brady? That would be tragic. Better to never know what she was missing.

Oh dear. She sank her top teeth into her bottom lip. Her hands were clasped over her chest. She twiddled her thumbs.

“Can’t sleep?” Brady asked.

“Strange bed,” she said. “Hard mattress.”

“I can’t sleep either and it’s my bed.”

“Strange bedfellow.”

“There is that.”

They inhaled a simultaneous breath.

“We could talk,” Brady said. “If you like.”

“About what?”

“Whatever comes to mind.”

Hmm. That left plenty of open ground to cover.
Think of something nonsexual.
“How did you get to be a horse whisperer?”

“I was always naturally drawn to horses.”

“I like horses too,” she said.

“Do you know how to ride?”

“No, but I’ve always wanted to learn.”

“I could teach you to ride. If you’d like.”

“Really?”

He rolled over on his side. She stayed put on her back, but from her peripheral vision, in the glow of the nightlight, she saw him stack his hands underneath his head. He was watching her.

“Sure,” he said.

“Does that mean I can stay here with you for a little while?” she ventured.

“Until you can find other arrangements.”

“You’re very generous.”

“Not really. I’m just a sucker for a pretty face.”

“You say the oddest things.”

“You find compliments odd?”

“Manipulative, generally.”

“You think I’m manipulative?”

“Most people are.”

“You must come from money,” he said flatly.

“What makes you say that?” She wasn’t about to confirm it. She didn’t want anyone in Jubilee connecting her to Princess Annabella, because when word finally got out that she was missing, it would be all over the media. Everything she’d ever done had ended up in the media. Which was part of the reason she never did anything that would shame or embarrass the royal family.

“I don’t know.” Brady paused. “I suppose it’s in the way you carry yourself.”

“In what manner?”

“As if the world is your oyster.”

“I do not do that . . .” She bit her bottom lip. “Do I?”