A Royal Mess and Her Knight To Remember (8 page)

Wasn't that just the problem? She no longer knew. She'd been happy with her life, but these past few days, hard and difficult and different as they'd been, had showed her all she'd missed with her rather sheltered existence. “I've got to get back to work,” she said. “Nearly lunchtime.” She was out the gate and halfway across the yard before he called her name.

She stopped, but didn't turn to look at him, afraid she'd weaken and let him do whatever he wanted, which a very bad part of her hoped was something sexual.

“Might want to wash your hands first,” he said. “Before you put lunch together.”

She looked down at her hands. So much for what he wanted, and so much for it being sexual. “It would serve you right if I didn't,” she muttered and kept going.

 

B
Y DINNERTIME
, it was raining. Natalia had discovered that the weather in Texas, whether sunny or raining or thundering or whatever, was…big.

Squinting out into the yard while shaping meatballs, She could see Pickles standing in the downpour. Alone. Looking wet and miserable and lost.

“Oh, you damn fool.” She set down a meatball and willed the stupid goat to find his way back to the others, who stood protected beneath a tree.

But no. The goat just stood there and let out a pathetic little bleat she could hear all the way in the house.

She shaped some more meatballs, refusing to look. “Not looking,” she said out loud. But she couldn't help it.

He was still there.

More rain fell.

Pickles slowly tipped his head up and bleated louder. Sadder.

“Oh, for God's sake, get under the tree!” she yelled out to him.

He didn't budge.

Natalia washed her hands. Turned off the stove. Waited for the mentally challenged goat to get a clue. Finally, she stepped out into the pouring rain. “What do you think you're doing?” she called from the porch. “Get under the tree! Scat! Run! Get moving!”

He lifted his head and stared blindly in her direction.

Damn. She ran toward him. “Go on!”

He just blinked in her general direction.

“Good goat,” she said, patting him awkwardly. “Don't eat me.” She tried to pull him in the right direction. “This way.”

Instead of being grateful, he dug in his heels and refused to be moved. But at least he didn't try to eat her. “I'm trying to help you here!” Under the drenching rain, she moved behind him instead, and shoved. “Pickles, move!”

“Bullying goats now, huh?” Sally, fully protected in rain gear from head to toe, tipped back her hat enough to reveal her amused face.

“I'm not bullying him, I'm going to kill him.” Natalia was already muddy again, and drenched through to the bone as she gave up and straightened.

“Oh, well, if that's what you want to do why don't you just feed him some of your cooking? That should kill him in record time.”

Natalia stopped with the goat and stared at her. “Talk about being a bully!”

“Girlfriend, I never bully.”

“Ha!” Natalia was cold, wet, muddy and very, very tired of Sally's holier-than-thou smirk. Furthermore, she'd physically wrestled with Annie enough
to know she could hold her own. And she
was
going to hold her own. Right here, right now. “You're the rudest cowboy, cow chick,
whatever,
that I ever met.” She jabbed her finger into Sally's bicep. “You know that?”

Sally's eyes blazed, too, and perfectly dry and comfortable in her rain gear, she let out a tight smile. “Jab me again and you'll be sorry.”

“Really?” Natalia, goaded on beyond help, did as a princess never would. She jabbed at her again. “There. Make me sorry.”

Sally retaliated with a jab of her own.

“Is that all you've got?”

Sally laughed.
Laughed.
“You can't handle what I've got.”

“Try me.”

“No way.”

“Chicken.”

Sally jabbed her back, harder. Much harder, and Natalia found herself sitting in the mud. Again. Without hesitation, she went for Sally's feet, pulling them out from beneath her, until Sally screamed and hit the mud.

“You got me dirty,” she said in disbelief.

“Yeah, and you know what?” Natalia sank her fingers into the mud at her sides. “You're still too clean.” She flung a handful. It hit Sally square in the
chest with a satisfying splat, then slowly ran down her body. “Oh, yeah.
Much
better.”

“You're dead,” Sally said calmly, and lunged for her.

 

A
FTER A LONG
, hard day of work, half of which was spent in the rain, Tim stopped to watch Jake eat. His horse was enjoying his hay in a way that made Tim's stomach growl. He hadn't enjoyed his food since…since Natalia. “But she means well,” he told Jake.

Jake eyeballed him.

“She wanted me. And I actually talked her out of it. Can you believe it?”

Jake let out a soft nicker that was either a snort of sympathy or a smirk of disgust.

“Yeah.” Tim sighed, then headed across the yard in the rain, ready for something hot in his belly and not sure he was going to get it.

Halfway there he came across a group of his men standing in the rain watching…a mud-wrestling match? To his shock, Natalia was holding her own with…
his sister?

Yes, that was definitely Natalia and Sally rolling around on the ground. Startled into running, he pushed his way to a front-and-center view. Covered from head to toe in mud that molded every nuance
and curve of her hot body, Natalia pulled free. Breath heaving, she came to her knees and looked at him. “What are you staring at?” she asked, not very friendlylike.

He knew it was wrong, very wrong, but his body responded like a caveman to the gorgeous sight of her shining with mud. “You.”

“Oops. Wrong answer.” She scooped a handful of mud and flung it at him.

The caveman inside him leaped to hopeful, quivering, primal attention.
Mud Fight!

But she stood, and with amazing dignity, given she had mud dripping off her nose, walked away.

N
ATALIA STALKED
to the side of the house, past the gawking men, past the blind goat and three-legged pig. Past everyone and everything, while mud fell from her, hitting the ground in little ping-pings as she went.

Since her luck sucked, the rain had stopped and the sun came out, which had the mud drying on her so that when she bent to turn on the hose at the side of the house, she felt like a candy-coated chocolate.

Naturally, the water was ice-cold, but she hosed herself off anyway, figuring it would work on the hot fury bubbling beneath her skin.

“So.”

Sally. Gritting her teeth, Natalia kept her back turned. She bent at the waist and let the cold water run over her head until she felt her brain freeze. “Want to go another round?”

“Actually, no.” Sally sighed rather regretfully. “I don't suppose you'd believe I suffer from PMS?”

“Pretty crappy apology.”

“Yeah. Look, I'm a little protective of my own.”

Natalia let out a little laugh and kept hosing off, and was tempted to hose off Sally, too. “No kidding.”

“And maybe I went a little too far, okay? Like with all the comments about your food and stuff.”

“Hmm.” The mud was really sticky. Hard to wash off. She concentrated.

“Are you listening?” Sally asked, coming around to face her. “I'm saying I've been…well…”

“Rude? Obnoxious?” Natalia shot an uncomfortable, mud-slathered Sally a long look. “Is that what you're saying? Because if you are, and if you're also saying you're going to back off, then great. I look forward to it.”

“Good.” Sally smiled a muddy smile. “So…we're okay?”

“Sure. Why not?” Natalia shrugged and tossed the hose aside. “After all, we both know I could take you any day.”

Sally's eyes narrowed.

Natalia's mouth quirked. “Kidding.”

“I still don't like you,” Sally warned, fighting off her own smile.

“Good. I still don't like you, either.”

Her work done, Sally nodded, and still dripping mud, walked away.

Natalia looked down at herself, saw more mud and groaned. She picked the hose back up. How could she have let them get to her like this? Had she so effectively forgotten this was temporary? That she could, at any moment, pick up her cell phone and put an end to it?

At the thought her heart lurched. “Oh, perfect, I've gone ahead and started to fall for this place.”

She couldn't imagine why.

Or why, when she turned around and found Tim watching her with a mixture of heat and humor and wariness, that her heart lurched again.

“What was that about?” he asked.

“Well…” She lifted a shoulder as nonchalantly as she could with freezing water running over her limbs. “Sally and I had some…issues.”

“Issues?”

Bringing the water over her torso and arms made inhaling a detriment. “I'm pretty sure we have them worked out now.” Especially since she'd be leaving soon.

Temporary, she reminded her heart. Temporary.

Tim's eyes followed the hose running water over her body very carefully. “She can be difficult. I'm sorry.”

“Not your problem. So.” She smiled through blue lips and wondered if he could see every single goose
bump riddling her body. “I guess you've seen me wet a few times now.”

His eyes darkened. “Have I?”

Wildly, she wondered if she was only imagining the possible sexual context of what she'd said, or the heat in his eyes.

He stepped closer and she retreated, lifting the hose up as a weapon. “Stay back.”

Stopping short, he lifted his hands. “Staying back.”

“Good. Because you're looking at me funny again.”

“I am?”

“I nearly threw myself at you before,” she reminded him, still wielding her weapon. “And you didn't take me up on it, so—”

“Clearly, I was not in full use of my faculties at the time. Natalia, put down the hose.”

She didn't. “You're in use of your faculties now, do you think?”

“Oh, yeah.” He lifted his gaze from the hose in her hand and ran his eyes slowly over her, from her wet head to her wet toes, then back again, touching on every place in between. “You look good all wet and dirty, Natalia.”

“Obviously, you need your eyes checked.”

“My eyes are fine.”

She looked at him then,
really
looked. He was no longer devouring her body, but looking right into her eyes, and it was clear he was thinking he liked what he saw. Natalia the woman, not the princess.

Her dream come true.

So why then did she take another step back? And suddenly, oddly, wish with all her heart that he wanted both the woman
and
the princess? “I think I'm going to get a hot shower and change,” she said slowly.

He stepped forward. “I need a hot shower, too.”

Lord, all that heat and hunger in his gaze. Once again she lifted the hose. “I can arrange a cold one.”

“You wouldn't do that.”

A dare. He didn't know her well enough, or he would never have said such a thing. She was the middle child. A born hellion. Never had she let a dare pass unanswered.

The adolescent in her warred with the woman. The woman who wanted to be noticed. Wanted. Held.
Kept.

None of these things were a really good idea. Not when the princess within her suddenly reared her head and demanded equal time as the woman.

Truth was, she was this whole, complicated human being, and she wanted cowboy Timothy Banning to see it.

Would he?

Maybe if he could ever stop “rescuing” her for long enough to really
see
her. She glanced at him from beneath lowered lashes and realized…he was again looking at her body. Her wet body.

And there was nothing in his expression that signified he wanted to do anything but devour her.

On the spot.

She shivered in delight and reservation at the same time.

“Natalia? Put down the hose.”

“I can't do that, Tim,” she said softly, wondering how he'd look all drenched with water. Probably pretty darn breathtaking.

“Why not?” he asked, just as softly.

“Because I find I'm still a little mad.” Not really. Hot, yes. Very hot.

And it was mostly his fault. Given that, no one could blame her for what she wanted to do. Not a single person.

He was looking at her, focusing all his attention on her in a way that made her feel indelibly female. And powerful. The powerful part was a definite mistake on his part. “Natalia—”

“I'm sorry,” she said ahead of time, and leveled him in the chest with the hose.

But the joke was on her because as the droplets
slid down his chest and absorbed into the waistband of the soft jeans hung low on his hips, her mouth watered. Her body overheated. And ached.

Damn it, all she'd done was reawaken those pesky lust hormones.

 

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Tim still couldn't get over it. He was miles from the house on his horse, checking fences, and already he needed a shower.

A cold one.

It wasn't the weather making him hot, though it was an unseasonably warm day. It wasn't the torn fence he'd just found. Nor the missing cattle. Nor the fact he had a sick calf.

It happened to be his cook. The woman he'd hired only to help
her
out. The woman he'd brought home intending to give her a leg up, a place to regroup.

Instead she'd knocked him for a loop. And it wasn't about how she'd pushed him flat on his ass into the mud with the cold water from the hose the day before.

It was how she made him see things. Food for instance. Watching her eat and enjoy her food was pretty much a mind-blowing experience, even if they obviously had very different ideas on what good food was.

Bottom line, he'd had no idea how little passion he'd put into his life lately.

She made him smile, too, at every turn. When was the last time he'd wanted to kiss a woman stupid and laugh at the same time?

And then there was how she made him feel when she looked at him as if he were the greatest man on the face of the earth. Why did she do that? Didn't she know it cut right through his heart and made him want things he was better off not wanting?

She was leaving, possibly today. Tomorrow for certain. He'd paid her daily, expecting every morning to wake up and find her gone, but she was always in the kitchen ahead of him, no matter how early.

Cooking.

The food had been awful. He swiped his forearm across his forehead and pulled his shirt away from his body, wondering how many candy bars and other snack foods he'd consumed with the guys in the past few days trying to ward off starvation.

But he'd miss her.

The thought was sudden and strong. Which was how he found himself heading back to the house in the middle of the day, with no real reason except to see her.

The house was quiet. Too quiet. Damn, he was too late. She'd gone, just like she'd come.

Then a sound came from the kitchen, a horrible sort of caterwauling, and he moved through the house with growing urgency. Someone was hurt. Someone was dying.

Bursting through the double doors from the living room, Tim took in the sight of Natalia, her back to him, wildly gyrating as if she had a bee in her pants.

“Natalia?”

She didn't answer, and that's when he saw the earphones on her head, attached to his portable CD player hooked on her belt.

And the noise? It was singing.
Natalia's
singing, and it was beyond horrible.

She had a large bowl tucked under one arm, the other hand whipping whatever was in it into a frenzy. Her entire body shook and shimmied while she sang at the top of her very untalented lungs.

Leaning against the wall, he shook his head as a big grin split his face. Oblivious to his presence, she continued singing in her godawful pitch, wailing with pure, passionate abandonment. She danced better than she sang—slightly. Her moves were decidedly late eighties, but the wriggle she had going was enough to make his eyes cross with lust. Definitely he liked the wriggle.

Then she slowed with the music as it came to a halt, and thrust a
Saturday Night Fever
finger into the
air. She had one hip out, legs straight, passion on her face and he couldn't contain his laugh.

With a screech, she whirled around, whipping off the earphones. There was a rim of chocolate around her mouth and a spot over her left breast.

“You just took five years off my life.” She put a hand on her chest. “Maybe ten.”

“Don't stop on my account.” He pushed away from the wall, still grinning. “Come on. Dance for me some more.”

“I wasn't dancing for you.” She took in his ear-to-ear grin and narrowed her eyes. “And you know what? I think any employee whose boss who sneaks up on her when she's making him a truce dessert deserves a raise.”

“Do you?” He tried to remain casual and cool, but her tongue darted out and licked the chocolate off her lips.

Oh, man, did his body leap to attention at that, and he stared at her, hoping she'd do it again.

She said something to him, but he was a man—a very weak man at that—and he'd lost his train of thought. And his ability to hear.

Looking amused now, she opened the top of the blender on the counter and poured in the contents from the bowl. “Are all men as easy as you?”

He followed her like a puppy, watching her every move. “What?”

She dipped a finger into the chocolate mix. Brought it to her mouth and slipped it between her lips. Closed her eyes. Moaned a little as she sucked off the chocolate.

He groaned out loud.

She opened her eyes. “See? Easy.”

He cleared his throat. “Yeah.”

She put the top on the blender and contemplated the buttons. “I wanted this to be a surprise.”

What she said slowly sank in. Was it a goodbye dessert? God. All the heat vanished—well, a good chunk of it—as the protective feelings he'd had for her from the very first moment reared up and bit him again. “About your leaving…where will you go after the wedding?”

“Well, what do you know. Progress.” She was still studying the buttons on his machine. “You admit you believe I was going to go to a wedding in New Mexico the day after tomorrow.”

Was going to go.

“Which means,” she said, lifting her gaze and meeting his, “that you must believe I'm a princess. When did that happen?”

“Uh…”

Her gaze shuttered. Just like that. “Oh, I see. You don't. Not really.”

“Natalia—”

“No. No biggie.” She slammed down a button and sent the blender whirling. “Please go away,” she said over the whir of the machine. “I'm busy working here and don't need any distractions.”

“Natalia—”

She put the earphones back on. “Sorry. Can't hear you.”

“Look, let's talk about it. You came from…Grunberg, right? Near the Alps?”

“I'm trying to concentrate.”

He lifted the right earphone and spoke in her ear. “You like to ski. What else do you do for fun, Natalia?”

“Cook.” She pulled away. “Believe it or not, some people think I'm quite good at it.” She took her hand off the top of the blender to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear, purposely not looking at him. Then she hit another button sending the blender into high gear. “Now go away.”

“But I just wanted to—”

Which was all he got out before the top of the blender blew off, sending chocolate spraying across the room, over the counters and floors.

And all over them.