The Cowboy and the Princess. Myrna Mackenzie
hint of an amused look lifted the warrior’s lips slightly before his grim expression returned. He raised a brow. “You’re Delfyne? I was under the impression that you weren’t especially pleased about coming here.”
Her exact words had been that she would rather rot in the royal dungeon than spend a summer on a secluded cattle ranch. Even though it had been a childish statement to make and even though there was no royal dungeon and never had been. It was simply an expression she and her siblings had used to protest parental rule. It had seldom worked and obviously hadn’t worked this time.
Andreus had sung the praises of Montana’s wide-open spaces, blue skies, starry nights and the proud, nurturing nature of the people, especially Owen. Her parents had been completely sold on “the Montana plan.”
Delfyne had wanted to protest, but a part of her had also been won over, at least a little. She couldn’t help being curious about Montana, too, after she’d heard that parts of this place were still wild and untamed. Like me, she’d thought.
“I hadn’t fully researched the situation at that time,” she said pleasantly. “I hadn’t examined the upside of the location. Now I have.”
“Ah. The upside. You’ll have to tell me later what you think that is.” The warrior gave a terse nod loaded with meaning, if only she knew what that meaning was. He looked down at her hand. “Meanwhile…I’ve never actually touched a princess and I’m a bit rusty on my royal etiquette. Do I shake your hand or kiss it?”
His deep voice rumbled, and something primal and earthy and terribly unnerving simmered through Delfyne. She lowered her hand to her side. “I think we’ll settle for hello for now. Touching isn’t really necessary.” This man, after all, was her jailer, even if he was a reluctant one. She could not and would not allow herself to feel an attraction for him. That would be wrong and foolish in so many ways. He was her brother’s friend. He was a commoner, and she was soon to marry a man she barely knew but who would bring great connections to her people. She would, of course, do her duty…after she had her taste of life.
Still, despite the fact that she knew she could feel nothing for her brother’s friend, she and Owen Michaels were going to be stuck here together for a while unless she could talk him into letting her go off and do all the dazzlingly wonderful and normal things she’d been waiting to do all her life. And unless she could also convince him not to tell anyone about her plans.
She glanced up into his flinty, wary eyes and knew that this wasn’t a man who could be convinced easily.
Delfyne withheld a sigh. “Is it very far to your home?” she asked.
He smiled then, and this time his smile looked genuine. And far too dazzling. His silver-blue eyes lit up, and something hot and sparkly zinged right through Delfyne’s body, heating up parts of her she preferred to ignore. “Everything is far around here if you’re not used to driving distances,” her captor-babysitter said. “Are you ready to go?”
She nodded. “Yes.” The sooner she assessed her surroundings, the sooner she could figure out how she was going to manage these next few months and what she intended to do either to make this situation palatable or to change it.
Turning toward the airplane, she gave another nod. Immediately, two members of the royal guard appeared. Stoic. Big. Their expressions gave away nothing.
“Who the hell are they?” Owen asked, his voice quiet but deadly. She thought she heard him say something worse than hell beneath his breath.
“My escort,” she said simply.
“Your escort,” he repeated as if she’d just said she’d traveled here accompanied by flying pink ponies. “They’re going home?”
She wished. “If you think you can convince them to leave, you’re welcome to try. They follow me everywhere. It’s their job.”
Owen Michaels frowned. “Any other members of your entourage I should know about?”
For the first time since she’d left home, Delfyne felt like laughing. “I see Andreus didn’t tell you about my guards,” she said with a smile. “I wonder why.”
But they both knew why. Owen didn’t want her here, and friendship only went so far. If he’d known he was going to have to house a brooding pair of guardsmen in addition to a princess for months on end, she wondered if he would have agreed to let her stay.
Maybe the man would have said no. Maybe he had limits, and if she pushed them, he’d send her away to where she wanted to go. That was definitely something to think about. Delfyne wondered just what Owen Michaels’s limits were.
She would soon find out.
CHAPTER TWO
SO ANDREUS’S kid sister wasn’t a kid anymore, Owen mused as he led Delfyne to his SUV. She’d been skinny before. Now she was willowy and curvy and stunningly gorgeous, with sable hair and violet eyes. And her legs… He swept his gaze down those sweet legs, ending at a pair of barely there lacy stiletto heels that would have looked at home in a ballroom, a boardroom or…oh yes, they would have looked very fine in a bedroom, but they sure didn’t belong on a rough, tough ranch or anywhere near a man like him.
It was all he could do to stop himself from banging his fist on the Land Rover. This was going to be a hellish mistake of an experience. He certainly had no business imagining his calloused palm skimming over a princess’s legs.
Frowning, he glanced at her and saw that she was studying him with dismay. And no wonder. He realized that in addition to blatantly eyeing her curves, he had been slamming her bags around and had been silent for several minutes.
“I apologize,” he said.
Those pretty violet eyes blinked. “For what?”
Oh, she was good. Her parents had probably trained her to maintain that cool princess aura in the face of bad manners from birth.
Owen shook his head. “I’m supposed to be your host, to make you feel welcome. I don’t think I’ve done that.”
She studied him for a moment and then reached out and placed her hand on his arm. Heat shot through his skin and sank deep into his body. Great. Just great. He was lusting after a princess, one who was destined for a prince. What’s more, Delfyne was his best friend’s little sister, a woman he had sworn to protect, not seduce.
Owen took a deep breath. He forced himself not to look at the point where his skin connected with this beauty’s soft palm. She was smiling. No, she was practically dancing, her eyes lit up like twin candles.
“Enough,” she said. “Let’s not pretend anymore, all right?”
He waited.
She shook her head and, as if she had just realized that she was touching him, looked at her hand and slowly eased it from him. “My brother forced me on you. He and my parents sent me here so that I couldn’t be tempted into trouble or so that trouble couldn’t be tempted into finding me and hurting me. I’m not your guest, Owen. I’m your short-term obligation. I don’t expect you to pretend otherwise.”
He considered that. “You didn’t want to come to a ranch. This can’t be fun for you.”
“Well, it’s not at all what I’d planned when I planned it.”
“When was that?”
She looked to the side and for a second he thought she wasn’t going to answer. “I started making my plans when I was eight, when I realized that no matter how carefully I planned my birthday party and no matter how many commoners they reluctantly allowed me to invite, my guests would always be screened, some wouldn’t be allowed near me and those that were admitted would be coached on etiquette before they came into my presence. It would never really be a truly free experience completely of my own choosing…except for this one summer.”
“I see,” he said. And he did. He was another one of those people who was