The Cowboy and the Princess (4 page)

When she turned back around, Owen was striding away, his white shirttail flapping around his hips. She ran to catch up with him. When she drew even with him, she could see that his mouth was drawn into a thin line. His jaw looked granite-hard.

“I came in at a bad time, didn’t I?” she asked. “And I embarrassed you with your friend.”

He turned that ice-blue stare on her. “Len is a pain in the—he’s a pain, sometimes. But he’s a good vet, or he will be when he finishes his training. He knows he’d have to do something pretty heinous for me to fire him, and he likes mouthing off. He especially likes women,” he pointed out.

“I could tell.”

Owen chuckled. “I’m sure you could. I’d like to see Len’s eyes roll back in his head if he found out he was trying to flirt with a princess. That would shut him up.”

“Don’t be so sure. Sometimes knowing a woman is forbidden brings out the worst in men.”

Owen studied her carefully. “I don’t intend for you to see the worst side of any man around here. I owe Andreus a great deal. Letting his little sister be harassed isn’t in the cards while you’re here. I’ll keep Len away.”

She frowned. “You don’t have to. Len seems harmless.”

Owen’s frown intensified. “If he thinks he can get you into bed, he’ll use all the charm he has to do it. Women tend to fall for Len. Sometimes I think that’s why he’s taking so long to finish his training. Not being licensed yet leaves him with more time for his love life. None of those middle-of-the-night calls that full-fledged veterinarians get.”

“You think I’d be susceptible to someone so obvious?”

“I think I don’t know you at all, so I can’t answer that. I do know that friend or not, Len’s just the kind of man Andreus would want me to protect you from.”

She raised her chin.

To her consternation he smiled.

“What?” she asked.

“Your identity may be a secret, but your manner is purely royal.”

“I’ll have to work on that, then. My manner…these clothes…Len knew I didn’t fit in, and I don’t. I want to become part of the woodwork, to be a part of my surroundings.”

“Sort of an experiment,” he suggested.

“No. A life experience. I want to immerse myself.”

“Well, you certainly got a good start with what happened back there with that cow and her calf.”

“It was…interesting.”

He laughed out loud then. “Did they teach you diplomacy before you learned how to walk? You nearly fainted. And…I understand your desire to have some fun and live a little before you get on with your life, but Andreus must have taken leave of his senses. This is no place for someone like you.”

And even though he was right in some ways—this ranch was not the place she would have chosen to spend this summer—Delfyne couldn’t help but bristle a bit.

“I didn’t faint. I’m not just fluff.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it.” She couldn’t keep the slight edge and the hint of hurt from her tone, and to her surprise he reached out and gently grasped her chin.

“I guess I did, and I’m sorry about that. Len would tell you that I’m more of a pain than he is, and I guess I’m the one who should be told off for having bad manners instead of him, because no, you didn’t faint.”

His hand was warm against her skin, his touch was doing terrible, wonderful things to her senses. As if he suddenly realized his effect on her, he released her. “Timing is important when life hangs in the balance. The fact that you sent me back to work enabled us to get the job done, for which I’m grateful, but that doesn’t change things. It doesn’t mean that I think this is a good place for you. And yes, I can be silent about who you are, but I can’t ignore it.

“This is a ranch, Delfyne. It’s a big ranch and a prosperous one, but even the biggest ranches revolve around cattle. Animals. Heavy, dangerous machinery. There’s a lot of dirty work, some blood, a ton of sweat and a fair amount of muck. Most of my men are regulars, but sometimes for the short term there are rough, transient workers about, and there are plenty of things a woman like you wouldn’t ordinarily be exposed to. I can’t like that. What
were
you doing out there, anyway?”

She hesitated. Her first instinct was to say that she had spent two days alone and wanted company. But that sounded a whole lot like, “I’m bored,” the whining of a pampered princess.

“I need to do something,” she said instead.

“In the calving shed?” Was he smiling? Was he laughing at her? Somehow the thought didn’t offend her. It cheered her up.

She laughed. “Oh, is that what you call that place? I had no idea. Will the cow and her baby be all right?”

She expected him to say yes automatically, the way people
did. “Probably,” he said instead. “Len is careful but there’s always the danger of infection. One of the men will check in on the two of them round the clock tonight.”

It occurred to her that in his line of work he probably saw a lot of sickness and more. “Did you ever…I don’t know…keep one of them? Name it?”

He stopped and faced her, his shirt still hanging open, his bare chest gleaming in the sun. For a second she felt faint again and she fought not to sway. “This is a ranch, Delfyne. It’s not smart to get attached.
I
don’t get attached. I know the rules and I always live by them.”

She was pretty sure that he was talking about more than cows. She also knew that he was being smarter than she was, but she was going to be here for several months. This situation—living alone with nothing to do—was unacceptable.

“I need to do more than lounge around reading,” she said. “You may think that’s what—” she glanced to the side “—princesses do,” she whispered. “But I’m not that useless.”

“All right.” He placed his hands on those lean hips. “What kinds of things are you used to doing?”

She thought about that, about the charities and the school and library openings, the things she was good at and would continue to be good at for the rest of her life. But…

Delfyne shook her head. She didn’t want to tell him what she did, because she was sure that he would consider it to be inconsequential. The hilarity of that—that a princess should be concerned that a commoner might not think well of her—didn’t escape her, but it didn’t change the truth, either.

She wanted Owen Michaels to respect her. She hated the fact that he considered her a bit of a pest, an obligation, his friend’s annoying little sister who had been foisted on him. She knew now that he would never send her elsewhere. His sense of duty to her
brother was too great. But neither would he be happy until he had carried out his duty and sent her back to her family. He wanted her gone…preferably yesterday.

Anger rose up within her. Wanting a man to like her had gotten her into major unforgettable, never-get-past-it trouble before. She wouldn’t play that role again, and she wouldn’t ever allow a man to make her cower and cringe and beg again.

So, she stepped closer to him. She dared to do what she wouldn’t have done a few minutes earlier. She placed her hand on his bare chest.

It had been meant to be an imperious gesture, a way of showing that she was beyond being affected by him and a way of emphasizing what she was about to say. Instead, instant heat pulsed through her body and it was all she could do to keep herself from leaning toward him. She could feel his heartbeat beneath her fingertips, strong and solid and powerful. There was something very masculine about it, and something much too personal about what she was doing. But if she pulled away too quickly, he would know that he had unnerved her.

“I just want you to know that I’m
not
going to play the part of the prima donna, lounging around drinking champagne, eating chocolates and giving air kisses to everyone.” She fought to keep the angry edge to her words, to hold on to what she hoped would pass as imperiousness that could not be denied.

“Air kisses?” His hand covered hers, and now her own heart was thundering.

“You know,” she said, losing the battle, her voice coming out soft and strangled. “Where you bring your face close and pretend to kiss someone but you really don’t?”

Now he smiled. “I know what an air kiss is. I just…Do you really think that I believe you do all those things? You don’t, do you?”

Slowly, she shook her head. “Hardly ever.”

“So you’re going to continue
not
to do those things you don’t do, anyway. Delfyne, I have absolutely no experience with princesses, so tell me…what
are
you going to do? What do you
want
to do?”

“Everything,” she said. And for some reason she couldn’t explain, she looked at his lips. Longing washed over her, and she knew darn well that it was completely wrong. The one thing she knew she
wasn’t
going to do was develop a crush on Owen Michaels. Or on any man, for that matter. But especially not this one. He would hurt her. She knew that…so clearly.

It was that thought and only that thought that enabled her to step back and away from him.

“Just so you know,” she told him. “I want to do everything.”

For several seconds he said nothing, but his eyes said it all. He was not a happy man.

“Define
everything
,” he finally said.

But she had had enough. Besides, she didn’t have a clue about the specifics of what she had meant.

“I’ll make it up as I go along,” she said.

“Don’t make me regret saying yes to Andreus’s request,” he said.

Which was the perfect thing to break the tension. Delfyne laughed and headed for the house. “Too late. I know that you’ve regretted it from the start, haven’t you?”

He didn’t answer, and for some reason that fact was still bothering her hours later.

A
LL RIGHT
,
Owen thought the next day while he was freeing a cow that had gotten stuck in a broken bit of fence. Delfyne had been here only a few days and already she was playing havoc with his world and also—he didn’t even want to think about this—his senses.

It had been a mistake to touch her. Her skin had been soft, softer than any woman’s skin he could remember. And her lips had been so close that he’d wanted to swoop in and taste. He’d wanted his hands on more than just her chin.

“Get a grip, Michaels,” he ordered himself. He was fantasizing about kissing a princess, one who was going to marry a prince. Besides the fact that finding himself with some sort of fatal attraction was really on his list of things never to do, a man would have to be some sort of idiot to put his hands on a forbidden woman.

“That frown on your face can’t mean anything good. Do you need help with that cow?”

Owen looked around to see Ennis approaching in an old open-top Jeep. The man stared at the cow, who was bawling loudly but standing still.

Owen was glad that he wasn’t a man to redden up with embarrassment. “No, my mind was just wandering,” he admitted as he freed the patient animal. “I do need you to mend this fence, though.”

“Done.”

“I thought you were changing the oil in the truck.”

“I was. Lydia sent me to get you.”

“Lydia?” She’d worked for him for years and had never sent for him unless there was an emergency. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know, but I gather it has something to do with your gorgeous, exotic visitor.”

Owen’s head swiveled around and he looked at Ennis, who had worked for him for five years and been the most circumspect of men. “Gorgeous, exotic visitor?”

Ennis held up his hands. “I’m just saying…”

“Yeah, well, you better not let Alice hear you ‘just saying…’”

Grinning, Ennis went to the Jeep and got his tools. “Alice was the one who told me Delfyne was gorgeous and exotic.”

“Really? What else did your wife say?”

Ennis gave him a look. “She said that if any woman could jolt you out of your ‘idiotic ways with women’ Delfyne could.”

Owen scowled. “What idiotic ways?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Ennis mused, squatting to get closer to the fence. “Maybe the ones where you bed them but never wed them.”

“Is that right? Well, Ennis, you know how much I adore your wife, but she’s dead wrong on this one. Delfyne is getting married when she goes home.”

“Hmm, Alice isn’t going to like that. She was hoping for the chance to go to a wedding.
Your
wedding.”

Owen smiled. “Send her my condolences, but it’s not happening. She’ll have to find some other wedding to attend. You’re sure you don’t know what Lydia wants?”

“She just said that she had some important questions to ask you. And she said that you needed to give her a raise if she was going to have to worry about Delfyne hurting herself or setting the house on fire. Maybe you’d better hurry.”

Ennis chuckled as Owen swore, hopped on his ATV and started to take off.

“Oh, Alice says she wants you to come to dinner on Saturday, and she wants you to bring Delfyne, too.”

“Tell her thank you, but I don’t think I’ll be able to make it.”

“She’ll be disappointed.”

Owen stopped and looked at Ennis, his employee and friend. “I’m sorry.”

He was, too, he thought as he sped away on the ATV. Alice was a sweetheart and she was good for Ennis. She was good to everyone, and she tried to fix people’s troubles, including his. She’d started inviting him to dinner not long after Faye had gone, but…Ennis and Alice had two kids, sweet little munchkins. The very sight of them seared his soul and hurt his heart. How could you tell a man and his wife that the children that gave light to their lives ripped your world apart even as you thanked God for putting them on the earth? He begged off on dinner as much as he could, especially since Alice tended to invite women she thought might fill what she perceived as a hole in Owen’s life. Now, if he went with Delfyne, after what Ennis had said…

“I’m really sorry, Alice, hon,” he said out loud to the wind. “It isn’t happening.” What
was
happening, he saw as he hopped from the vehicle and strode into the house, was that something had exploded in his kitchen.

“Come on. Let me do that,” Lydia was saying.

“No. I messed everything up and I will fix it.” Delfyne’s lilting accent floated out, its sexy timbre sending his body into full alert.
Don’t react
, he ordered himself.
Don’t feel. Don’t desire.

Instead he moved further into the mess, catching both Lydia’s and Delfyne’s attention. They both looked up, and Owen saw that Lydia, while clean, was flustered and concerned. Delfyne’s face was radiant…and covered in numerous smudges of white. Her
dark satiny hair had traces of white here and there, too. The kitchen was coated in what appeared to be flour.

“Problem?” he asked as innocently as he could.

“I’m trying to cook,” Delfyne declared, “but I hadn’t quite realized just how heavy a twenty-pound bag of flour could be.”

“Hmm, I see. Cook a lot, do you?” Okay, she looked so proud of herself that it was difficult to keep the amusement from his voice. His state-of-the-art kitchen had never looked so distressed and neither had Lydia, at least not in his memory.

“This is my very first time,” Delfyne admitted. “I’ve practically given Lydia a heart attack. Lydia, don’t be upset. I will take care of the mess.”

Lydia was shaking her head. “That’s not why I’m upset. A little mess isn’t going to kill me. You just stop right there. Put that broom down. I mean it, darn it. I’m the one who’s cleaning this up. Don’t make me wrestle that broom away from you.”

Lydia’s voice brooked no argument. She was a decent-sized woman and a stern one. Stronger men than he had fled when Lydia gave an order. But Delfyne just wrinkled her nose and grinned. “Lydia, I’m sorry but I cannot allow you to do that.”

Uh-oh, the queen of the kitchen and the princess from birth were about to have some issues over who was in charge. But Owen knew Lydia well enough to know that what was bothering her went deeper than maintaining control of her domain.

“Excuse us, Delfyne,” he said, motioning to Lydia, who followed him out onto the patio. “Okay, spill it. What’s happening and why are you so upset?”

“Owen, that girl is a guest here. And my lands, she’s clearly never set foot in a kitchen before, at least not to make a meal. This morning she tried to light that old gas stove that we only use when we have extra-big affairs, and she nearly blew her head off. I swear my heart stopped dead for five whole seconds. What
are you about, having your house guest messing in the kitchen when she should be seeing the sights?”

Good question. He knew the answer—he didn’t want to take her out to “see the sights,” such as they were, for fear that sooner or later someone would figure out who Delfyne was and the world would come running. They would spoil her vacation from royalty and they’d post his son’s photo all over the newspapers and the Web. Heartbroken Rancher Heals his Sorrow over Loss of his Child by Falling for Princess, or something obscene like that. But he couldn’t tell Lydia that, at least not all of it. To Lydia, Delfyne had to be just another guest.

“She values her privacy and isn’t really into sightseeing. And, Lydia, look at her,” he said, motioning to Delfyne, who could be seen through the window. “Does she look unhappy?”

Lydia grunted. “She looks way too happy for a woman who is sweeping the floor.”

He laughed. “Lydia, I know you’re not used to sharing your kitchen, but I’m asking you…share it, teach her what she wants to know. Ennis mentioned you wanted a raise, so yes, there’s a raise in it for you.”

Lydia blushed. “You know I didn’t mean that when I said it. I was talking off the top of my head because I was upset.”

“Nonetheless, you’re getting one. I’ve been paying you to cook, not give cooking lessons, so now that I’m asking you to do that, too, I’ll pay you more.”

Lydia gave him a grateful smile and a thank-you. “I’d better go help her clean up. If we’re going to start lessons, we’ll need a clean kitchen.”

“All right, but let me talk to her first. Give me fifteen minutes.”

She nodded. “I’ll just do a little weeding in the kitchen garden.”

Owen stepped back into the kitchen and shut the door behind him. “Delfyne,” he said.

She turned in a swirl of white.

“So…what
are
you doing exactly?” he asked, now that they were alone.

“I told you,” she said. “Everything. It occurred to me that here, in this place away from everything and everyone I know, I can try things I’ve never had a chance to try. Here, not a soul other than you and my guards knows who I am, and they’re posing as working guests on a ranch vacation. So, I’m anonymous. I’m free. At home no one lets me near the kitchen, but here I can do anything. Still, I’m really sorry I upset Lydia. I didn’t mean to make a mess.”

He shook his head. “Lydia’s not upset about the mess. She just feels she’s being a bad hostess.”

Delfyne frowned. “Oh, no. Lydia is a fine hostess. I practically forced my way in here—I guess I do have a tendency to be imperious—and what was she to do? She’s a love even to let me in her kitchen. Just look what I did!”

She held out both arms. They and her clothing were coated in white. Without thinking Owen reached out and traced a finger down the inside of one arm, leaving a trail of soft pink skin and revealing the delicate blue veins in her wrist.

A visible shiver went through her and he abruptly pulled back.

“What were you making?”

She glanced to the side. “There’s the problem. I don’t even know. In fact, I have absolutely no idea where a complete novice like me starts, but flour seemed a good idea. Don’t most things have flour in them?” she asked, looking up at him as if she genuinely expected him to know.

For some reason he couldn’t explain, he wished he could answer her question. Her eagerness was so charming that he wanted to be the one to show her the ropes, to be privy to that delicious enthusiasm. He wanted to lick chocolate frosting from her fingertips…

“Lydia is going to help you,” he said, his voice rough. “She’ll teach you.”

Delfyne leaned back and looked up. “What did you say to her? You didn’t order her to help me, did you? I don’t want people to spend time with me out of obligation. There’s always so much of that in my life. Even you—”

“No.” The word came out harsher than he had intended. “I’ll admit that I wasn’t enthusiastic when Andreus approached me, and there are reasons why I still don’t think it’s the best idea in the world…”

“You think I’m a pest.”

“I think you’re a distraction. You’re very beautiful.”

“Distracting to…you?” Her eyes were wide.

“And pretty much any male in your vicinity.”

“But you’re implying that I’m no longer an obligation. Why?”

He glanced to the side. “I like you.”

When he turned back she was beaming. “I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me before.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“No, it’s true. When you’re a—” she glanced around “—a you-know-what, people do things with you because they have to or because they think you can get something for them. Liking doesn’t have anything to do with it. I like you, too. You didn’t yell at Lydia, and your men respect you. You let me stay here and now you’re giving me free access to your kitchen.”

That elicited a laugh from him. “You could go anywhere you wanted to,” he began, but then he stopped. That wasn’t true. That was the reason she was here, because she
couldn’t
go anywhere. She wasn’t safe anywhere. And maybe not even here, with a man who found that her smile made him burn…

He wasn’t going to do anything that might bring harm or pain or disgust to her life. He should get smart, go into town and hook
up with one of the female sometime friends he knew. He definitely needed to bank the fire this woman had fanned to life within him. Yeah, he was going to do that real soon. And, as for Delfyne…

“Do
not
try to light that old gas stove again. We don’t usually use it, and only Lydia understands it. She’ll help you.”

“I’ll listen to her carefully,” she promised. “And one day I’m going to serve you something that I made with my own hands. It will be a treat.”

“I’ll consider it as such.”

She laughed, a sound that made him want to lean closer. “I meant
me
. It will be a treat for
me
to be able to say that I actually made something. I’ve never made anything in my life.”

Suddenly she rose on her toes and kissed Owen on the cheek.

Like a torch filled with fuel, his senses burst into flame. Carefully he held himself in check, not following through on his impulse to turn so that his lips met hers, his warmth against her warmth, his mouth covering her mouth.

“I’ll look forward to whatever you give me,” he said, his voice brusque.

“And you’ll be honest with me about how it tastes?” she asked.

Again he thought of her lips and how
she
would taste.

“I’ll do that,” he promised.

Later, when he stood outside beneath the stars thinking about the fact that Delfyne slept in one of his beds upstairs, he reminded himself that her glow, her enthusiasm, the way her whole body seemed barely to keep her spirit locked inside was simply the result of the newness of this experience.

To him this was home, a place he’d lived all his life. It wasn’t exactly ordinary, but it was familiar. When the ranch became familiar to Delfyne, the new would have worn off, the enthusiasm would be gone.

Then she would see the rough parts, the lonely parts, the lack
of things she was used to and wanted and she would look forward to leaving. That was the way it was with people who were brought or sent here rather than coming of their own accord.