The Cowboy and the Princess Read online

  They left the ladies’ room to find Brady, Joe, Prissy, and Paul waiting outside the door talking to a couple Annie hadn’t yet met.

  Prissy had a brand-new purple cowboy hat perched on her head. “Look what Paul bought me.” She grinned.

  Rosalind would have said Prissy’s taste was all in her mouth, but Annie liked Prissy’s unabashed individuality. She didn’t seem to care what anyone thought. It was a frame of mind Annie envied.

  Beside Prissy stood a black-haired woman as tall as Joe and Brady. She was wire thin but muscular, and she patrolled her gaze over Annie like she was frisking her. The man she was with was closer to Annie’s height than the Amazon’s.

  He wore a big smile and a bigger Stetson. His eyes crinkled up into joyous slits the minute he saw her. When he smiled, he looked a bit like a younger version of the country-and-western singer Clint Black.

  “Hi,” he said. “I’m Cordy Whiteside, Joe’s ranch foreman. I missed meeting you yesterday and this is . . .” He paused to sling his arm around the tall woman’s waist. “My fiancée, Ila Brackeen.” Cordy puffed his chest out proudly. “She’s a deputy for the Parker County Sheriff’s Department.”

  Annie could picture that. She pitied the criminal who ran up against the formidable Ila.

  The crowd was growing. As more people came streaming through the door, the group shifted toward the back wall to get out of the main flow of foot traffic.

  Ila nodded at Annie. “Nice to meet you. I do advise against hitchhiking.”

  Annie looked at Brady. “You were quite serious about the no-secrets thing, were you not?”

  Brady shrugged. “I warned you.”

  “His brutal honesty is both his greatest strength and his biggest flaw,” Ila said to Annie, then to Brady, she said, “I also advised against picking up hitchhikers. But I guess it’s a good thing neither one of you followed that advice or you wouldn’t be here together.”

  “Here we are. Sorry we’re late.” Lissette came rushing up, tugging on the arm of an arrestingly handsome man striding behind her. He had a military buzz cut, broad shoulders, and piercing blue eyes.

  “I just realized, we’ve got half of the Jubilee Cutters Co-op right here. Who’s watching the horses?” Cordy teased.

  “The other half,” Joe said.

  “Cutters Co-op?” Annie repeated, feeling dumb and out of the loop. “What’s that?”

  “We all belong to a group that takes care of each other’s ranches and horses when we’re out of town,” Ila explained.

  “Along the line of house sitting?” Annie asked.

  “Except more work.”

  “Why do you do it?”

  Ila gave her a weird look. “Because we’re like family. Families look out for each other.”

  “Oh.” Annie felt like a girl alone in a hot air balloon with a spent pilot light, frantically cutting sandbags to keep her dream afloat. No matter how much she might wish it were so, she wasn’t a part of their warm community, and it made her exquisitely sad.

  “Well, everyone’s here now,” Mariah said. “Let’s go find our seats. The rodeo is about to start.”

  Joe led the way and everyone paired off to follow him. Brady came up behind Annie and put a hand to the small of her back. It felt startlingly sweet, the familiarity of his touch.

  He guided her up the steep steps of Will Rogers Coliseum. Below, the arena stretched out with clean, fresh dirt. The smell of beer and popcorn filled her nose.

  “Can we get popcorn?” she asked Brady.

  “Once we find our seats I’ll go back for it.”

  She smiled at the joy skipping through her, but Queen Evangeline’s voice drowned it out. “Filthy concession food. Filthy commoners.” Ruthlessly, she shoved her dead mother’s voice aside. She was old enough to make up her own mind about people. She could like whatever she wanted to like, and she liked being here with people from the cutters co-op, smelling concession stand food and horses and leather and Brady’s tangy aftershave.

  “Here are our seats,” Mariah called from her place on the steps ahead of them. She moved into the aisle, scooting down to make room for everyone.

  Once they were settled, the men went after refreshments, leaving Annie sandwiched between Ila and Mariah, with Lissette and Prissy on the other side of Mariah.

  “I am so delighted to be here,” Annie exclaimed. “This is just as I imagined.”

  “You’ve never been to a rodeo?” Ila sounded shocked.

  Annie shook her head. Ila intimidated her a bit. She wondered what the deputy sheriff would think if she knew who Annie really was.

  “Where you from?” Ila leaned in close. Her fingernails were clipped short and she had ragged cuticles and wore no nail polish. Annie knew what her mother would have had to say about a woman sheriff and it would not have been complimentary.

  “You have such pretty eyes,” Annie said. It was true. Ila’s eyes were a mesmerizing shade of brown—the color of expensive aged Scotch.

  Ila’s cheeks pinked. “What?”

  “Your eyes are very pretty.”

  “Thanks.” Self-consciously, Ila reached up to brush the fringe of bangs from her eyes. “You cut your hair yourself, didn’t you?”

  Alarmed, Annie touched her spiky locks. How had the deputy known? Her dread fear was that the sheriff’s office had received some kind of all-points bulletin to be on the lookout for a runaway princess and Ila knew all along who she was and was just waiting to trap her. But that was silly. Wasn’t it? “I am experimenting with a new look.”

  To her surprise, Ila nodded. “Been there.”

  “But your hair is so pretty. Naturally black and straight.”

  “Comes from my Cherokee heritage,” Ila said. “I used to wear it to the middle of my back.”

  Me too. She had not expected to have anything in common with Ila.

  Annie didn’t know what else to say, so she focused on watching the helpers rake the dirt smooth in the ring.

  “So,” Prissy asked. “What’s going on with you and Brady?”

  This was one thing she had not expected. How inquisitive everyone would be. When you were royalty, people did not go around asking you a lot of questions unless you had granted an interview. Maybe that was the key to dealing with their curiosity. Pretend she was granting an interview. She sat up straighter, rested her hands in her lap. “Nothing is going on.”

  “C’mon,” Lissette said, “we’ve got eyes. We see the way he looks at you.”

  Annie’s heart fluttered. “What way is that?”

  “Like he could eat you up with a long-handled spoon.” Prissy readjusted her purple hat.

  “What!”

  “Prissy, you scared her. Annie isn’t from here.”

  “Where you from?” Prissy asked.

  “England,” Annie lied just to get them to shut up about it.

  “You don’t sound like a Brit,” Lissette commented. “I spent two years in London when I was in college.”

  Annie panicked. What was she going to say? Before she could think of a reply, Ila said, “You’re the first woman Brady has ever brought around for us to meet.”

  “He has a lot of women?” Jealousy jabbed at her.

  “Depends on what you mean by a lot,” Ila said.

  Mariah frowned at Ila.

  Ila slapped a hand over her mouth. “Forget I said that.”

  Annie turned to Mariah. “He’s had a lot of girlfriends?”

  “Brady’s really good-looking and he’s got the horse whisperer thing going on. He’s had his share of girlfriends,” Mariah said.

  “They don’t last,” Ila rushed to say.

  “Do not concern yourselves. I am not upset by the fact he has been with a lot of women,” Annie said.

  “You’re not?” Mariah canted her head.

  “I cannot last either.”

  “What does that mean?” Lissette asked.

  “We are just having fun.” Annie rubbed her hands down over her thighs, enjoyed the
feel of the stiff denim. She’d never worn blue jeans before coming to Texas, and while she found the material heavy, there was nonetheless something very comfortable about them. She understood why everyone in town wore them. “We are on an adventure.”

  “Well then, more power to you,” Ila said.

  “Hey,” Mariah said, “here they are.”

  The guys were back. The women scooted and rearranged to sit beside their men, each couple pairing off, parceling out beers, colas, hot dogs, cheesy nachos loaded with jalapeños, and roasted peanuts.

  “I got you a souvenir program.” Jake smiled at Lissette. A look passed between the couple and Annie couldn’t help wondering if Jake was giving it to her to commemorate the memory, just in case he didn’t come back from Afghanistan. The thought brought a lump to her throat.

  Brady handed Annie a bucket of buttery popcorn. The delicious aroma made her nose twitch. “I didn’t know if you wanted a beer or not, so I bought a large if you want to share.”

  She had never drunk beer before either. “You mean drink from the same cup?”

  “Is that a problem? I can go back and get you something else.”

  “No, no, sharing is fine.” Sharing was a concept she needed to learn. As an only child—she was already grown by the time Henry came along—she had never had to share anything. She took a sip of the beer. It had a bitter taste she found unexpectedly likable and took another drink, felt foam stick to her upper lip. She patted it off with a napkin.

  “Here.” Brady took the oversized cup from her and settled it in the cup holder in the arm of the seat and nestled the bucket of popcorn in her lap.

  The seats were packed in tightly together and Brady’s thigh was pressed against hers. His legs were long and lean and tightly muscled. Annie was acutely aware of him. So aware that she scarcely noticed that the rodeo had begun with the singing of the United States national anthem by country-and-western legend Tanya Tucker.

  Then the singing was done and the first bareback bronco rider came shooting from the gate and Annie was transfixed.

  This! Oh, this was what she had been hoping to see. What an adventure!

  She smiled and reached for a handful of popcorn, and her fingers brushed against Brady’s as he reached for popcorn at the same time. This must be exactly what Princess Ann had felt when she’d taken off on that Vespa with Joe Bradley hanging on behind her.

  Sheer, unequivocal joy.

  He moved his leg, pressing his knee against hers. No accident, that. She tilted her head, cast him a sideways gaze. She wanted this man. She wanted the fantasy, she wanted to experience great sex, she wanted . . .

  To be normal.

  Annie moistened her lips with a flick of her tongue, heard a small, frustrated noise break from Brady on a long exhale. She darted another glance his way, saw amusement jostle with the hunger in his eyes, and she had a strong feeling that it wasn’t popcorn he craved.

  Brady had been to the rodeo more times than he could count. As a teen he’d even ridden on the back of an ornery bull a time or two himself. He’d been raised on the lifestyle, and for him, attending a rodeo was as routine as getting a haircut.

  Another thrashing horse shot kicking and bouncing from the chute. The crowd cheered, pulling for the rider. Brady wasn’t thinking about the cowboy clinging on with all his might, but about the stallion and what the animal was experiencing. How angry and/or scared the horse must be.

  He studied Annie, gauging her reaction to the event.

  She was captivating. Her breathing grew shallow and she leaned forward, hands curled around the railing in front of them, absorbed everything going on in the arena.

  Her hair had been styled, the spiky waves softened into looser curls, and excitement flushed those incredible cheekbones a high pink, almost as if she had a high fever. She wore a form-fitting blue blouse the color of the sky at twilight. The hue accentuated the flecks of blue in her gray eyes and drew his attention to her well-shaped breasts. She had on black denim jeans, and they molded snugly across the curve of her thighs.

  His gaze bounced like a super ball from her eyes to her breasts to those honeysuckle lips, then back to the boobs again. He was within inches of actual drooling.

  She turned her head and caught him staring.

  “Nice top,” he said so it wouldn’t seem like he was doing exactly what he was doing—staring at her tits.

  Buttercup. Bright, saucy, sunny flower.

  What had she done to his mind? He couldn’t seem to think of anything else. He was a muddled mess and worst of all . . . worst of all . . . he did not care. He liked being ravenous for her. It made him feel powerful, alive.

  Not good. The wheels were coming off his life. He couldn’t have been more stalled if the wheels had come off his travel trailer.

  He couldn’t have been more surprised. This feeling was new to him. Normally, if he felt particularly attracted to a woman, he immediately started getting itchy feet. He was a roamer who liked his space, and anything that smacked of intimacy, he avoided.

  His feet remained strangely calm. No familiar restlessness, and that worried him.

  I know why you’re not itching to run away. She’s only passing through, same as you. She’s not a threat. That’s why you like her more than usual.

  Was it? The explanation soothed him and he blew out a relieved breath.

  She slanted her head, cocking him a coy smile that made him want to shimmy right out of his pants, fall to his knees, and beg her for sex.

  Nope. Can’t. Never mind dignity. This one’s a virgin. You are not going to have that on your conscience.

  The bareback bronco-riding event transitioned into the saddle bronc riding. Wide-eyed as a kid, Annie watched the action as if she’d never seen anything so enthralling.

  “Ouch!” She cringed and drew her legs up as if scrambling out of the way of the high-stepping steed when the cowboy was thrown three seconds in.

  Prissy laughed and leaned across the seats to touch Annie on the arm. “Don’t worry, the horse isn’t coming up into the stands.”

  “I know.” Annie wrung her hands. “It just feels too real. That cowboy’s got to be hurting in more ways than one.”

  “You’ve got too much empathy,” Ila said. “You’re just like Brady with horses. But while you’re feeling sorry for the cowboy, Brady’s rooting for the horse.”

  Annie shot him a look.

  Brady shrugged. “What can I say? She’s right. I love the rides where the cowboys get thrown before the eight-second buzzer.”

  “Really?” Annie whispered. “I was rooting for the horse too.”

  They stared at each other. Annie chewed her bottom lip.

  “Don’t be nervous,” Brady said.

  “I’m not nervous,” Annie denied, and reached for the beer. The hell she wasn’t. He was nervous too.

  She looked so sexy, her full pink lips pursed so sweetly. Her hair stuck up in the cutest damn spikes. Funny, he’d never found short hair particularly sexy before, but on Annie, hell, he found everything sexy.

  Down at the end of the aisle, Lissette let out a squeal of delight. “Jake!”

  Everyone turned to see what was going on. Lissette fanned out three tickets and waved them for the group to see. “For Disney World next summer, and we’ll be staying at the Grand Floridian. It’s the nicest place at the resort! He hid them in the souvenir program.”

  “When my final deployment is over,” Jake said. “I am coming home, darling, and I know how much you’ve wanted to take Kyle to Disney World. Just hang on one more year. We’ll get it done.”

  Annie put a hand to her mouth and her eyes glistened with tears. Brady leaned over and rested his hand on her knee, felt his own eyes grow a little misty. They smiled at each other, and then both simultaneously looked away.

  “Yes, we will,” Lissette said, and slid into her husband’s lap. She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissed him hard. “And you will come home to me, Jacob Ray Moncrief, or I will never, e
ver forgive you.”

  “Let’s pray like hell he does,” Brady murmured to Joe, who was sitting on his right.

  “He’s making a lot of sacrifices for us all. We have to keep an eye on Lissette and Kyle for him.”

  “Sure, sure,” he said, but that was kind of hard to do when he’d be off on the road again as soon as Miracle was recovered. Guilt chewed on Brady. He admired the hell out of Jake. When his ego got the best of him, he’d do well to remember that as much good as he did healing horses, it was nothing like what Jake did for his country.

  Lissette stayed in her husband’s lap as the bronco riding ended and team roping took its place. Brady explained the rules of team roping to Annie. She listened, taking it all in. The woman was a sponge. Nothing got by her. She asked sharp, insightful questions.

  “So what do you think of Mariah’s wedding planning business?” Brady asked during an intermission segment when chuck wagon races kept the audience entertained while the behind-the-scenes activities got ready for the upcoming events. “Are you going to like that kind of work?”

  “Mariah is phenomenal,” Annie said. “She is a multitasker of the highest order. I will learn so much from her.”

  “I’m glad,” he said, his gaze hanging on her mouth. Why couldn’t he look away?

  Why? Because he wanted her. Wanted her bad. Even now the smell of her talcum scent was driving him wild. What he wouldn’t give to be a Neanderthal, to be able to sling her over his shoulder and carry her back to his cave.

  Dust flew up from the chuck wagon races and the announcer was joking with the drivers. Neither one of them was watching the halftime show. Annie sat with the posture of a Buckingham Palace guard. She reached up to brush aside a tendril of dark hair that had fallen over her forehead. He wished he could see how she looked with her natural hair color.

  “So you plan on staying in Jubilee for a while?” he asked.

  “A while. How about you?”

  “I’ll be leaving as soon as Miracle is on the mend.”

  “How long will that take?”

  He shrugged. “Depends.”

  “You should stay longer.”