unnerved or relieved that she climbed in.
“You’re not an ax murderer, right?” she asked.
Unnerved, he decided. Definitely, he was unnerved. “No.”
“I’ve never hitchhiked before.” She looked around inside his truck, probably searching for something obvious. Like body parts. “Contrary to what you must think of me, I don’t take this lightly.”
“You’re safe.”
“I bet that’s what all the bad guys say.”
“But I’m like Clint Eastwood, remember?”
She actually laughed.
She carefully settled in as if she was indeed a little princess, and hooked up her seat belt, dripping water everywhere. “You wouldn’t, by any chance, just take me to Taos?”
“Sorry, princess. Do you know how far away that is? I’ve got a ranch that needs my attention. I’ve been gone for a few days myself.” God only knew how his sister had fared in his absence.
“No, thank you. I’ll be your cook, at least for a few days.”
“Not just my cook,” he corrected. “But for all the ranch employees as well.”
She put a confident smile on her face he wasn’t sure was real or forced. “So…how many people is that?”
FOR SEVERAL YEARS Natalia had been having dreams. Dreams wondering what the real world was like. Dreams about being a woman first and a princess second.
She was quite certain Timothy Banning didn’t believe a word she’d said about herself or her heritage, but that was fine. She didn’t need him to believe.
In fact, his disbelief worked in her favor, because for the first time ever, her dream could come true, if only for a few days.
She could be a woman first.
And a princess a very distant second.
“How much farther is your ranch?” she asked, avidly soaking up the landscape. She appeared to be stranded in a desert of grass, grass and more grass. North-central Texas was, without a doubt, one of the flattest places she’d ever seen. So different from her home, which was nestled high in the mountains, between Austria and Switzerland, surrounded by incredible vistas and wild forests.
She thought she’d miss home, but this land was beautiful, too, in a stark sort of way. The terrain was broken up by a few trees here and there, pecan and oak, it appeared. Very different.
She liked it.
“About forty-five more miles.” They’d already made the requested stop at the store, and he’d been right. No leather. But she’d borrowed against her wages and on top of the jeans and T-shirts, had managed to find some interesting wild-apple-green lip gloss, so the whole thing hadn’t been a waste. Now her cowboy looked suddenly tense, as if he regretted taking her with him.
“I’m not crazy or dangerous or anything,” she said. “Just so you know. I wouldn’t hurt anyone on your ranch.”
That made him grin, and oh, my, it was a very appealing one. Slow and easy. Sure and sexy. His teeth were white and straight, except for a crooked eyetooth, which somehow made him look mischievous when he showed it. His face, lean and angular, looked tanned and rugged. He had laugh lines fanning out from his eyes, assuring her he shot that grin of his often. Then there was his body, all long and muscular, and she’d bet it wasn’t any sort of a gym-made body either, but one finely honed from hard physical labor.
And let’s not forget his hands, which were big and sure of themselves on the wheel, tanned and work roughened. Tough. Oddly enough, the most wicked thoughts ran through her head at the sight of those hands.
No doubt, Amelia Grundy would shake her finger and warn her about a man like this. And yet Amelia wasn’t around. For once it was just Natalia.
A woman first, princess second.
Dangerous thoughts. Dangerous but fun. She wondered if he knew how to use those long fingers on a woman, wondered if-
“You’re looking a little flushed there, princess.” He flicked her a glance. “You okay?”
“Of course.”
But she wasn’t okay. She was as crazy as he suspected if she was really daydreaming about this man. She didn’t know what she expected from her Clint Eastwood, she’d never taken the fantasy that far. But behind those green eyes and easy smile was an obvious intelligence that went beyond cow-wrangling abilities.
She sat and wondered about him for a good long while. Until he pulled off the highway onto a road with a sign that said Banning Ranch, 1898.
“Your family has been here a long time.” She liked that. In her life, traditions and family pride meant something. Apparently, it meant something to this man, too.
“Yeah, ever since my great-great-grandfather won the place in a card game over a century ago.”
She shot him a look of horror, which only made him laugh again. “The Wild, Wild West. The good old days.”
“Your great-great-grandfather should have been ashamed of himself.”
“And he might have been,” Tim agreed. “But since my great-great-grandmother’s father shot him a few years later for cheating on his only daughter, we’ll never know.”
She narrowed her eyes at him but he only smiled guilelessly, that slow, easy smile that tended to leave her feeling like jelly. “You have quite the colorful history.”
“
She had no idea if he was teasing. “I really am,” she said. “A princess.”
“Like I said. Colorful history.”
He still didn’t believe her, but that he had been so easy about it, so nonjudgmental…she could really fall for that alone.
As if she’d ever really fall for a cowboy.
Or he for a princess.
“Almost there,” he said, then nodded toward a ranch house at the end of the road. “That’s the main house.”
Home was a freshly painted two-story ranch house, with flowers in the flower beds and neat rows of trees lining the driveway. It was bigger than she had imagined, much bigger, and behind the house she could see several more buildings, corrals and a tower of hay.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked as she stared.
“That I’m grateful I didn’t agree to clean for my bed and board.”
He laughed.
Natalia didn’t. She’d taken gourmet classes,
She really should have thought of this sooner.
But as she’d been doing all her life, she sucked up the fear and put her badass-princess face on. She’d do this. And she’d do it right.
Hopefully.
4
