A Royal Mess and Her Knight To Remember

But if she ever did get married-say when hell froze over-there would not be a single pink satin dress in sight.

With all Annie’s considerable theatrical talents-she’d been staging temper tantrums since she was two years old-she’d done her best to get out of coming here in the first place. She had work, didn’t she? Publishing A Child Affair, her monthly magazine on child care and development, took time.

But Amelia Grundy, former nanny, and current friend and companion, had happily stepped in for her, offering to cover until she returned.

Annie had then tried to plan events that only she herself could attend. So Amelia, with her strange and inexplicable ability to make things happen, had cleared those off her calendar with a wave of her pencil.

Damn her efficient, British-and seemingly magical-hide. Amelia always knew best, always.

How infuriating.

While Annie had packed for this trip, Amelia had come into her room and hugged her tight. “Try to keep trouble at bay, Annie,” she’d said. “Try real hard.”

Annie had laughed. Oh, yes, Amelia knew her well. “I’m grown-up now. Trouble doesn’t follow me as it used to.”

“No, it leads,” had been Amelia’s wry reply.

Now Annie took her mind off the home she missed with all her heart and looked around the store. The silence startled her. The place was surprisingly empty. Odd. She’d come from the Taos Mountain Inn, which Lissa had rented out for the entire wedding party. She’d come alone, but still, there had been customers in here only a few moments ago.

And again, Annie wished Natalia was here. Her middle sister wasn’t required to be in the wedding, and therefore didn’t have to show up until Saturday morning. Same for her younger sister, Lili.

Not fair.

Then she imagined the look on Nat’s face when she caught sight of Annie dressed up like a fairy-tale victim waiting to happen and decided she was better off by herself.

“Get out of here.”

Annie, startled by the rough command, turned around. Well, she turned, but it took the dress a moment longer, and then once it got momentum, it nearly took her in a full circle.

The voice came from her right, where a man in a black tux stood on a white platform in front of a triad of mirrors.

Not just a regular man, either. Oh, my, no. Surrounded by mirrors and the specially contrived lighting to make all brides beautiful, this man…well. He was huge, and built like a Greek god. Tall, dark and incredible, was her first thought. Probably the most amazing, sexy-looking guy she’d ever seen-even given the handicap of the tux.

Not that an amazing, sexy-looking guy turned her head. No sirree, she wasn’t that vain. She required more than a mouthwatering body-which he happened to have in spades-to turn her head.

He needed a brain. A sense of humor. A tough, I’m-in-charge attitude. Definitely the attitude. She’d never denied being attracted to the bad-boy type.

Only problem was, the bad-boy type didn’t readily make himself available to princesses. Nor was she available. She’d had her fair share of trying, and she was done. Amelia had agreed in relief, saying the male population just wasn’t ready for her.

Oh, well. There always were fantasies. And in her fantasy, her main requirement of a man…it was almost too embarrassing to admit, even to herself.

He had to dote on her.

“Get out of here now,” the man in the tux said through his teeth, his eyes dark with fury.

He couldn’t be talking to her. No man would dare speak to her that way.

“Lady, move it.”

Well, how rude. And he was trying to intimidate her. They’d never even met, so his boorish behavior was completely unwarranted. She squinted to read the name on the piece of paper pinned to his jacket and went still.

Moore.

As in Kevin Moore. None other than Lissa’s groom. Terrific. It was this big lug’s fault that she was weighed down with tons of pink satin. That fact made it easier to stand up tall and glare at him in return, because she did not take looking like Little Bo Peep lightly.

“Are you deaf?” he asked.

Annie had many, many faults, the foremost being a rather formidable temper when stirred. It definitely was stirred now. She stepped forward, fists clenched at her side.

“I am most certainly not deaf,” she replied with what she thought was remarkable dignity, given what a jerk he was. “I just refuse to listen to rude-”

“Stop right there.”

She could hear the danger in his voice, but dangerous, edgy men didn’t scare her. Nothing did.

So she took another step and heard something that sounded an awful lot like the sound of the bad guy cocking a gun in a movie.

Slowly, carefully, she craned her neck toward the second man in the room, the man she’d assumed to be the tailor, since he was standing below Mr. Tux. Only, this man looked far more like a thug, with his short, stocky body sporting a badly fitted suit.

And now that she was staring at him, she realized he had no pins sticking out of his mouth.

Didn’t all tailors have pins sticking out of their mouths?

Furthermore, he had short stocky fingers to go with his short, stocky body, and she couldn’t imagine them being agile enough to thread a needle, much less wield it.

But what he did wield in his hand caught her attention, and everything came to a screeching halt, including her heart.

He held a gun. Pointed directly at her.

She revised her earlier thought. She was afraid of something.

She was afraid of guns pointed directly at her.

2

“THAT DOESN’T LOOK like a needle and thread,” the woman in pink said slowly. “Because I really need a needle-and-thread person here. Take a look at me in this dress, would you?” She lifted her arms and Kyle had to give it to her, her hands shook only slightly.

“I told you to get out of here,” he said beneath his breath.

“I thought you were just being rude,” she said beneath her breath right back, her eyes never leaving the gun still trained on her.

“Rude?” He might have laughed, if this wasn’t a nightmare waiting to happen. “I was trying to save your sorry ass.”

“Hey, now, that’s no way to talk to a lady.” This from the guy holding the gun.

Why had Kyle bothered to get out of bed that morning? It wasn’t enough to be forced into a tux. No, he had to be killed while doing it.

Well, damn it, he didn’t plan to go easy, and he sure didn’t plan to go while looking like a penguin, arguing with an insane lady in the most godawful dress he’d ever seen.

But when Jimmy the thug had turned his gun on her, every muscle within Kyle had tensed. This was his battle, and he refused to let anyone else get hurt, especially innocent bystanders. “Jimmy, remember who your target is here,” he said in quiet warning.

“I remember.” The gun didn’t waver from the Lady In Pink. “But maybe I’ll take a detour from killing you and have some fun first.”

Kyle heard the woman’s gasp, but he kept his eyes on Jimmy Tarintino, nephew of Joseph Tarintino, the local