The Cowboy and the Princess Read online

  Brady reached over and clasped Joe’s shoulder. “It’s okay. We’re going to get your horse back for you.”

  “I don’t care if he ever competes again. I just want him to be his old self. Miracle was a thing of beauty. I never met a horse with such spirit.”

  “I won’t stop until he’s healed.”

  “I’ll pay whatever it costs.”

  “It’s not about the money,” Brady said. “I just want to see Miracle reborn.”

  “Thank God you’re here. I’ve missed the hell out of you, you ol’ reprobate.” Joe gave him a quick hug, patted him on the back.

  “Who me?” Brady teased, happy to shift the tone of the conversation.

  “So, Annie.”

  “Yep.”

  “You broke your unbreakable rules.”

  “Back to that, are we?” Except he didn’t mind so much this time. If razzing him would take Joe’s mind off Miracle’s plight for a few minutes, Brady would happily put up with it.

  “Hey, for what it’s worth, I think Annie’s really nice and she’s pretty darn easy on the eyes.”

  “I don’t recall asking your opinion.”

  “You know, I wouldn’t hate it if you finally decided to settle down. Make Jubilee your permanent home. You know you can always come work for me.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but it’s never going to happen, my friend. Footloose and fancy-free. That’s me.”

  “Never say never,” Joe said. “You should add that to your list of unbreakable rules.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” Brady tipped his Stetson back on his head. “Why don’t we start work on Miracle?”

  “Today?”

  “You got more important things to do?”

  Joe swallowed, toed the dirt with the tip of his boot. “I’m scared, Brady.”

  “I know.”

  “What if you can’t fix him?”

  “My cure rate is ninety percent.”

  “What if he’s in the ten percent you can’t help?”

  “Stop borrowing trouble, and get me a rope. I’m cocky enough to know I’m good. He’s going to be healed.”

  Joe straightened and nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

  He went to the tack room, and Brady turned his attention back to the horse. “Your name’s not Miracle for nothing, right? We’re gonna get you through this, buddy.”

  Brady jiggered the metal clasp up and pushed the stall door open.

  Miracle chuffed in a heavy breath. The hair along his spine rose. His nostrils twitched. His forelock quivered.

  Brady stepped back and waited. From his peripheral vision, he saw Joe standing off to one side, a coiled lariat in his hand. Oftentimes owners acted like idiots, running up, getting in his way, not listening to Brady’s advice, but his friend knew horses. And he knew Brady, so Joe didn’t interfere. Didn’t even speak.

  A moment of atypical self-doubt took hold of him. What if he couldn’t fix Miracle? His talent with horses was natural. God-given. He didn’t plan it. He didn’t advertise his skills. All his business came through word of mouth and that’s how he liked to operate. Nothing formal. Nothing set in stone. Just free and easy. He’d done nothing to earn his good fortune, although he learned as much as he could about horses. Brady ran strictly on pure instinct. It was the way he lived his life. Spontaneous. Organic. And everything had always worked out.

  But now, with Joe looking on, it occurred to him he had a helluva big ego, claiming he could heal a horse ninety percent of the time. It was true, but maybe he was just the luckiest son of a bitch on earth.

  Miracle flattened his ears against his head, and his mouth pulled back to show his teeth in a horsey version of a snarl. The morning sun sloped through the open barn door, casting shadows over the animal.

  “Let’s ease off.” Brady took a few steps back and accepted the rope from Joe. “We’ll give him a straight shot toward the corral, then you close the barn door when he’s clear of it.”

  Joe nodded and they moved aside, closing the other doors so that only the one leading directly into the corral remained open. Then they stepped outside the barn and waited.

  Within seconds Miracle burst from the barn into the corral at a full charge, head tossed high, snorting like a steam engine. Joe ran to shut the door behind the stallion, leaving Brady alone in the ring with him. The sky was fresh and filled with cotton-puff clouds after yesterday’s rain.

  Brady stood loose-limbed and relaxed, the rope resting lightly against the fingers of his right hand. He controlled his breathing, keeping it slow and even. Miracle ran nervously around the ring, tossing his head, kicking up mud. Brady stayed stationary in the middle of the corral, calm, passive, waiting.

  Miracle kept running, gaining speed, going faster and faster around until Brady felt dizzy just watching him. That was good. Let the horse play himself out. Expend that nervous energy. Joe was sitting on the fence beside the barn, a tense expression on his face. Brady understood how anxious his friend was, but Joe had unwittingly been transferring his disquiet onto Miracle.

  A vehicle drove up into the yard, tires crunching on gravel. Car doors shut and he heard murmured voices, but Brady did not turn to look to see who had arrived; every bit of his attention was focused on the task at hand.

  After a long while, Miracle finally slowed, his flanks heaving. The stallion stopped a few feet away, nervously eyeing Brady and the rope in his hand. He nickered and started backing up.

  “It’s okay, boy. We’re not doing anything today except getting to know each other. You run all you want and I’ll just stand here with this rope. Not going to touch you. Not going to rush you.”

  As if he understood what Brady had said, Miracle started a fresh round of sprints, while Brady stood like a touchstone in the middle of the ring, releasing all tension from his body, keeping his mind empty of any thoughts except those of quiet healing.

  When the horse slowed again, Brady signaled to Joe. “That’s enough for one day.”

  Joe opened the door.

  Brady eased toward Miracle.

  The horse skittered away from him, skirting around Joe, and rushed back to the safety of the barn. Brady trailed after him, following Miracle until he returned to his stall. Once the stall door closed tight after the stallion, he handed the rope back to Joe. “It’s going to take a few days, but your horse is going to be fine. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Really?” Joe expelled a long-held breath. “How do you know?”

  “That horse knows he’s loved. He’s just lost his way. All we have to do is show him how to get back home.”

  They left the barn and as they walked outside, Brady saw that it was Mariah, Jonah, and Annie who had driven up, and they’d been standing outside the corral the whole time, watching him with Miracle.

  Mariah looked concerned and she went straight to Joe, but it was Annie who captured Brady’s attention.

  She was standing beside the wooden fence, her gaze fixed on his, her face alight with quiet reverence and a soft, encouraging smile.

  And Brady had a powerful, perplexing urge to turn tail and run.

  It was just after nine in the morning as Mariah and Annie drove into Jubilee. Past all the cowboy/cutting horse-related businesses. The feed store, the farrier, the farm and ranch supply, the First Horseman’s Bank of Jubilee, Western Wear Palooza, the Mesquite Spit barbecue restaurant. All foreign—and therefore mesmerizing—establishments to Annie.

  Mariah parked Joe’s extended cab King Ranch Ford pickup in a circular lot of one of the four parking areas that formed a cloverleaf pattern around the limestone building of the county courthouse. They got out and made their way to Mariah’s shop on the corner of Main Street and John Wayne Boulevard.

  “There is a street in this town named for a cowboy actor?” Annie asked.

  “Oh yeah. There’s John Wayne Boulevard and Slim Pickens Parkway and Tom Mix Lane and Rory Calhoun Circle.”

  Annie laughed. “I love it!”

  “Quaint
R Us.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Mariah waved a hand. “Never mind. That’s me being silly. Don’t worry. You’ll pick up on the lingo around here soon enough. You are staying awhile?”

  “For a while,” she echoed.

  Annie absorbed her surroundings. The town square had been constructed in the late 1800s (which compared to the buildings and landmarks in Monesta were quite young and new) and the town had preserved the old Western façade. The buildings were all limestone and completely square. The flat roofs had wooden awnings stretched out over the sidewalks to shade pedestrians. Crepe myrtle bushes were everywhere—white, lavender, pink, red. There were no parking meters on the square and most of the parking spaces were taken by pickup trucks or SUVs. She was not accustomed to seeing such large vehicles. Most people in Annie’s home country got around on bicycles or motor scooters or in fuel-efficient minicars.

  Everything in Texas seemed oversized. It made her feel tiny, insignificant, unimportant, and to Annie’s surprise, she enjoyed the sensation.

  “Howdy,” they were greeted repeatedly, most people calling Mariah by name. Gentlemen tipped their hats. Ladies wriggled their fingers in a wave.

  “This is a very friendly place,” Annie observed.

  “Very. Much different from where I grew up.” Mariah chuckled.

  “Big city versus small town.”

  “You’ll see the difference soon enough. Where are you from?”

  Annie hesitated. She didn’t want to lie, but she couldn’t come out and tell Mariah the truth, so she hedged. “A small place.” That was true enough. The entire country of Monesta was about the same size as the city of Dallas.

  “So you should feel right at home here,” Mariah said. “There’s just something about cowboys that makes a woman feel welcome.”

  “I love cowboys,” Annie admitted.

  “Cowboys are something else.” Mariah sighed dreamily. “But they have their challenges as well.”

  “Which are?”

  “For the most part, they tend to be the strong, silent types.”

  “This is bad?”

  “Only if you’re in a relationship with one and you have the normal feminine urge to discuss your feelings.”

  “I see.”

  “That sounds bad, doesn’t it? I didn’t mean it as a bad thing. In fact, speaking in generalities of course, a cowboy doesn’t have to tell you what he’s feeling. He shows it by his actions. You can count on a cowboy. They’ll be there for you through thick and thin. And although they might not talk much, when they do talk, you know it’s because they truly have something to say.”

  “This is how it is between you and Joe?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you been married?”

  “It’ll be two years in December. I can’t believe it’s been that long because it feels like two minutes.”

  “You have a happy life.”

  “Very. I’ve been blessed.”

  “You have a beautiful family.”

  “Thank you. We’ve been talking about having another baby, but this thing with Miracle—”

  “Miracle?”

  “The horse Brady is working with. Miracle is Joe’s prizewinning cutting horse. He was injured in an accident on Valentine’s Day and he hasn’t been the same since. Joe is grieving that horse something fierce.”

  Across the street, on the corner in front of the UPS shipping store, was an old-style pay phone. Not that she had ever used a pay phone herself, but she’d seen them on television. What luck! Whenever she got a chance, she could slip away and call Rosalind from the pay phone. It would be difficult to trace her through a pay phone.

  They reached Mariah’s shop with the whimsical name, The Bride Wore Cowboy Boots.

  “That is an unusual name for a wedding planning business,” Annie said.

  “I specialize in cowboy-style weddings. Business is thriving. We’ve got people driving out from Fort Worth and Dallas and beyond for real cowboy-style weddings.”

  “I am intrigued.”

  “I’ll show you inside. Introduce you to the crew. It’s going to be kind of crazy in here, but it’s a good chaos. You’ll get used to it,” Mariah assured her.

  Mariah was right. The minute they entered the building, a pert red-haired woman, wearing her hair in braided pigtails, the way Annie had worn her hair when she was six years old, came running up. She had on a crinkly purple skirt—broomstick skirts, Annie believed they were called from her readings on cowboy culture—a bright orange, puffy sleeved blouse with wooden buttons in the shape of cow horns, and a pair of hunter green cowboy boots. She had cinnamon-colored freckles sprinkled over the bridge of her pug nose.

  “Howdy,” she said to Annie, and then immediately turned to Mariah. “The bride has changed her mind. She’s decided she wants tussy-mussies instead of arm sheath bouquets for the bridesmaids. Where are we going to get five tussy-mussies at this late date? What are we gonna do?”

  “Prissy,” Mariah said in a calm voice. “Take a deep breath.”

  Prissy obeyed.

  “This is Annie, she’s going to be working with us starting Monday. Today, she’s just going to hang out and observe.”

  “I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Prissy,” Annie held out her hands as she had been trained in a proper princess handshake designed to show deference, respect, and caring.

  Prissy ignored the handshake and instead enveloped Annie in a big hug. “Pleased ta meet ya.”

  Annie was caught off guard by Prissy’s enthusiasm, but luckily Prissy had already swung her attention back to Mariah. “The tussy-mussies?”

  “What do we specialize in?” Mariah asked.

  “Cowboy weddings.”

  “So think about it a minute. We’ve got the long-stemmed flowers for a sheath spray. Tussy-mussies are nothing more than cone-shaped vases with ring chains for easy carrying. Given those two parameters, what could we use to quickly make inexpensive tussy-mussies?”

  Prissy’s eyes lit up as she followed Mariah’s line of reasoning. “Horse training cones. The small ones.”

  “Clever woman,” Mariah praised. “What could we use for the ring chains?”

  “Loose ring snaffle bits!” Prissy crowed.

  “And how do we make the cones look elegant?”

  “Gold foil?”

  “Absolutely, and perhaps some white lace streamer ribbons.”

  “I’m on it.” Prissy beamed and took off.

  Mariah’s aplomb and quick thinking impressed Annie. Plus, she admired how she’d guided Prissy to the answer and made her feel good about herself.

  The office was small. Just the front desk where Prissy had been sitting, a small bistro table and chairs with sample books, and a computer for Internet searches. The walls were decorated with photographs of simple yet elegant cowboy-themed weddings.

  This was the kind of wedding Annie wanted. Uncomplicated white dress made of a natural silk. Instead, her dress was a rococo monstrosity made of satin organza with heavy beading, an excess of hand-tatted lace, and a thousand-mile train. She wished she could hold her wedding in a simple white chapel instead of an ornate cathedral. Dreamed of riding away on a horse instead of in a Bugatti.

  A set of double doors led to backroom storage. That’s where they found another employee.

  “Morning, Lissette,” Mariah greeted the woman who was crouched searching through a box on a bottom shelf. “Need help?”

  Lissette raised her head. Her dark brown hair was pulled up in a bun, but numerous corkscrew tendrils escaped to frame her face. She wore a yellow and white sundress and matching yellow sandals. She sported a French pedicure and a gold ankle bracelet. “Coffee and lots of it.”

  “I’ll make a run to the Java Hut. What’s up?”

  “I dropped the cake topper last night and broke it,” Lissette said. “I was hoping we had a similar replacement to save me a trip into Fort Worth.”

  “We should have something.”
/>   “I thought so too, but I can’t seem to find it. Then again, I’m so sleep deprived it could be right in front of me and I’m just not seeing it. Kyle’s not sleeping on a regular schedule and I ended up having to finish the cake at three in this morning, hence the fumble fingers and brain drain.”

  “After this wedding is over,” Mariah said, “we are all going out. Joe’s got VIP seating for the Fort Worth Chisholm Trail Rodeo tomorrow night. You need a break and some fun with Jake before he ships out again. Ruby will be happy to watch Kyle. I pay her triple time after hours. The woman is pure gold.”

  “That sounds wonderful.” Lissette sighed wistfully. “Thank you so much for the offer.”

  “Kyle is Lissette’s two-year-old son,” Mariah explained to Annie. “And her husband, Jake, is going back for his third tour in the Middle East. Afghanistan this time.”

  Lissette pressed her lips into a straight line and Annie could see unshed tears glistening in her eyes. She did not want her husband to return to war.

  “Lissette, this is Annie. I hired her to help out around here.”

  “Hello,” Lissette said, as reserved as Prissy had been exuberant. “Welcome aboard.”

  “Thank you. I am delighted to meet you.” Annie didn’t miss the quick look Lissette darted Mariah’s way. A look that said, Where did you find this character?

  “Annie is a friend of Brady’s,” Mariah said in explanation of Lissette’s unasked question.

  Annie was fully aware she did not fit in. She was doing her best. Her mother had started her on elocution lessons when she was six so that her speech would sound neutral and as sophisticated as possible. Her father had kept up the tutoring after Queen Evangeline had passed away.

  “You are a princess,” King Phillip had said on more than one occasion. “You must sound like one as well.”

  Sometimes, Annie felt that with all the lessons and the tutoring and the coaching and the rules to follow, her essential self had been buried deep and she had no idea who she really was anymore. Honestly, had she ever known? She was merely an image of what other people wanted her to be.