The Cowboy's Cinderella

by Carol Arens

  Shoot, if she’d married Bill, she’d have had enough money to save the Lucky Clover and buy the River Queen.

  Stroking up, she broke the surface of the water.

  “Couldn’t rightly have done that to Bill,” she sputtered, whipping the hair out of her face and looking at the deserted decks of the Queen. “Not loving Travis like I do. I could have had you and the ranch if I didn’t...”

  Maybe it was a strange thing to do, to talk to a boat, but this was the Queen.

  “But all the having wouldn’t mean beans. Not without him. But I reckon he’s never coming back.”

  “I’m here,” came a voice from behind her.

  “Travis Murphy!” She turned, glared hard then backstroked away from him. “You lowdown, note-leaving mudsucker. Get out of my river!”

  He stroked toward her.

  “I heard what you just said.”

  “Well I was about to say that I hoped you’d stay away.”

  She treaded water away from him faster, but still the distance between them was shrinking.

  “You said you loved me.”

  “Doesn’t mean a ding-dong, Travis. You said you loved me but ran away, didn’t even stay to put up a fight for me.”

  “I did what I thought was best—for you, for everyone.”

  “Turns out you just wasted your time. I won the money for the Lucky Clover.”

  “You might have lost everything.”

  “Maybe, but I didn’t run away. I took a risk and it paid off.”

  Only five feet separated his hands from her bare body. She didn’t know what she’d do if he got any closer—kick him in a tender part, or grab him around the neck and never let go.

  “You think I ran away?”

  Three feet now.

  “Hard and fast.”

  “There is no running away from you. I paid the price for leaving every time I thought of you and William together. My heart’s been bleeding raw every minute without you.”

  “Well...good.” Two feet now, and blamed if she wasn’t the one who bobbed forward. “Go away, Travis.”

  “I’ve already done that. I won’t be doing it again.”

  Reaching out, he tangled his fingers in her floating hair, pulled her gently toward him.

  “I love you, Ivy. Don’t turn me away.”

  “Looks like you’ve caught me.” Water lapped between his chest and hers, the sound sucking and seductive. “And it turns out I do need a ramrod. My old one got confused. Got himself all turned around in what his obligations were.”

  “I reckon that fool got lost in the wilderness.” One of his hands treaded water, but the other touched her bare waist, drew her in. “I’d like his job.”

  “Well, there’s more to the position now. It’s permanent, lifelong.” She touched his shoulder, closed the distance so that her breasts floated against the hard plain of his chest. She felt a dusting of wiry hair scrape her skin.

  “Marry me, Ivy. I love you so damn much.” He kissed her with river water on his lips. He tasted like everything that was home. “I promise I’ll never write you so much as a sentence on a wad of paper unless I’m standing there to read it to you.”

  “I couldn’t marry anyone but you. That’s why I had to take the gambling risk...figured I’d win though.”

  She kissed him back, hugging tight to his strong, warm neck.

  “Are you saying yes?”

  “Gull-durned right I am, cowboy.”

  “We’ll go to town first thing in the morning, find the preacher.”

  “Why wait? Captain’s got the watch. We’ll wake Uncle Patrick and be married tonight, right on the deck of the Queen. But that will be second thing.”

  “What’s first?” he asked, his grin crooked, seductive.

  The thick, hard heat of him pressed against her belly, inched lower. She lifted one leg, wrapped it about his hip. She kissed his lips, his neck, then wrapped her other leg around.

  Treading water with one hand, he cupped her bottom with the other. Giving her a squeeze and a grin, he drove into her.

  She undulated her arms in the water, rejoicing in the wonder...the unbearable beauty of having him move inside her.

  Tipping her head back, she opened her eyes and watched stars twinkle like diamonds from horizon to horizon.

  Gosh almighty, wishes did come true.

  Two weeks later

  Ivy Murphy might have ridden her own horse. It would have been a mite more comfortable than squeezing into one saddle...but not nearly as interesting.

  With Travis at her back, his arms around her and his hips pressed against her behind...well, it was a good thing that Uncle Patrick rode half a mile ahead of them.

  She reckoned her uncle was wearing a grin of his own, now that Ivy was a married woman. It was what he had wanted for her all along. He’d sold all he had in order for her to get a husband, settle down respectably and give him grandchildren.

  She figured she’d wait another month to tell him her courses were late. That would be a secret for her and her husband to whisper about for a while.

  “Sure can’t wait to see my sister.”

  She snuggled back against Travis’s warm chest. The weather was beginning to turn. It was a fine thing to know she’d have a good, hot man to wrap her up on the cold nights ahead.

  “Won’t be long now, honey.” He wrapped one arm about her middle, patted her belly. “If you listen, you can hear the cowboys hooting. They’ll let everyone know we’re coming.”

  “I reckon they’ll be relieved to have you home. Mr. Morgan especially. I get the feeling he’d rather be wrangling cows than receipts and ledgers.”

  Rounding the bend, they passed the barn, came to the edge of the yard.

  Señora Morgan and her girls gathered on the front porch waving their arms and aprons. Children ran in circles, chasing each other under the trees.

  Young Jose Morgan was leading Uncle Patrick’s horse to the barn. Her uncle must have rushed into the house.

  He hadn’t kept it a secret how much he missed Antie while they were gone. Every night around the campfire he’d talked about how sweet he was on her.

  More than sweet, it seemed. He’d purchased a pretty gold band back in Spoonlick and was anxious to get it on Antie’s finger.

  But where was Agatha? “Please, dear God, don’t let her be wasting away in her bedroom,” Ivy prayed out loud.

  “Amen,” Travis added.

  While Ivy frowned in concern at Agatha’s second-story window, the front door swung open.

  Everything inside looked black in the midday shadow.

  Laura Lee stepped out, smiling broadly.

  Antie and Uncle Patrick stepped out behind her, holding hands.

  Great glory days! Her teacher was grinning with her mouth open...showing teeth!

  Uncle Patrick hoisted their joined hands. The pretty band of gold caught a beam of sunshine.

  Ivy slipped off the horse with a “Yee-haw!” Sure did feel good to be who she was and shout it out loud.

  All of a sudden, the doorway became filled with color...bright sunny yellow.

  Agatha stepped onto the porch.

  Laura Lee clasped her hands to her heart, fairly dancing up and down in excitement.

  With confident strides, Agatha stepped across the porch and down the stairs.

  Ivy ran to her, arms open. Coming up short, she nearly tripped over her riding skirt because...

  Because... Agatha ran toward her, not quickly but she was running!

  She heard herself screech. If Antie winced, Ivy would never know. She was wrapped up in Agatha’s arms, Agatha wrapped up in hers.

  They rocked and wept.

  All at once a pair of wonderful strong arms circl
ed them both.

  “If your sister wasn’t crying all over you, Agatha, she’d tell you that you are going to need this strength you’ve gained. Nieces and nephews take a lot of running around after.”

  Ivy poked her husband in the ribs, waggled her ring at Agatha.

  Looks like her husband wasn’t a master of keeping things confidential.

  Still, watching his beaming smile and then Agatha’s great joy, she was glad he wasn’t.

  “Uncle Patrick! Come on over here,” she called, waving her hand for him to hurry. “I’ve got something to tell you!”

  Gosh almighty, it was good to be home.

  * * * * *

  If you enjoyed this story,

  you won’t want to miss these

  other great reads from Carol Arens

  REBEL OUTLAW

  OUTLAW HUNTER

  WED TO THE MONTANA COWBOY

  WED TO THE TEXAS OUTLAW

  Keep reading for an excerpt from THE HARLOT AND THE SHEIKH by Marguerite Kaye.

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  The Harlot and the Sheikh

  by Marguerite Kaye

  Chapter One

  Kingdom of Bharym, Arabia—June 1815

  Dawn was gently breaking as Rafiq al-Antarah, Prince of Bharym, trudged wearily out of his stables after another tense all-night vigil. The outcome had been tragically predictable: the loss of another of his prized Arabian thoroughbreds to this mysterious new sickness. Inas, on this occasion, a beautiful chestnut mare, her suffering brought mercifully to an end when it had become obvious that there could only be one outcome. Eight of his priceless breeding stock lost in just six months, and the only mare to have contracted and survived the seemingly random infection left utterly debilitated. Would there be no end to this torment?

  Leaning against the wooden picket fence which bordered the empty paddock, Rafiq surrendered momentarily to the fomenting mixture of grief, rage and frustration which consumed him. It was enough to bring the strongest of men to their knees, enough to make even the most stoic weep. But a prince could not countenance displaying human weakness. Instead, he clenched his fists, threw back his head and roared impotently at the fading stars. His beautiful animals were innocent victims, punished for his crime. He was certain of it. In this darkest hour which was neither night nor morning, when he felt himself the only man alive in this vast desert region, he had no doubt at all. The fates had visited this plague upon him in retribution, making a mockery of the public pledge he had made to his people, the private vow he had made to himself. Reparation, in the form of restored national pride and a salved personal conscience, were both in danger of slipping from his grasp.

  He had to find a cure. If nature continued to wreak her havoc unrestrained, it would destroy everything he had worked so tirelessly to achieve. He and Jasim had come to recognise the tell-tale symptoms, but even his illustrious Master of the Horse, whose claim to be the foremost trainer of Arabians in all of the East was undisputed, even he had been powerless.

  Turning his back on the paddock, Rafiq rubbed his eyes, which were gritty with exhaustion. When he had inherited the kingdom from his father, the stable complex had been quite derelict, Bharym’s legendary Arabian horses, whose blood lines could be traced back through ancient scrolls and word of mouth to the purest of antecedents, long gone, lost in the course of one fateful day. A day that destroyed his father personally and sullied the honour of the entire al-Antarah royal family. A day that his people believed to be the blackest in their kingdom’s long and proud history. A day of humiliation that dealt a fatal blow to their sense of national pride, and his own. The day that the Sabr was lost.

  Rafiq had been sixteen, on the cusp of manhood, as he stood amidst the smoking wooden embers that were all that remained of Bharym’s stud farm. He had sworn then that when he eventually came to power, he would make good the loss. For six more years, he had been forced to witness his father’s slow but terminal decline, and the resultant decline of his kingdom’s fortunes.

  Eight years ago, just days after his twenty-second birthday, he had inherited the throne and a kingdom that seemed to have lost its way and its sense of identity. He had promised then to make Bharym a better place, a richer place, a kingdom fit for the new century, but his changes, improvements, renovations, were met with apathy. Nothing mattered save the restoration of the Sabr, the tangible symbol of Bharym’s pride and honour. Until the Sabr was won, his people would not fully embrace the bright future he wished for them. Until the Sabr was won, it seemed that Bharym had no future worthy of mention.

  And so, five years ago, he made a solemn vow to deliver the one thing his people longed for above all else. He had been certain that his honourable intentions more than compensated for the cold bargain he had struck in order to deliver on that promise. Only later, when the true, tragic price had become clear had Rafiq’s resolve faltered. To continue on a path that had extracted such a terrible cost went against every tortured instinct in his being. But as darkness segued into a grey, gloomy morning on that tragic day, he knew he had no choice but to carry on. The return of the Sabr was not irrelevant in the face of such loss, it was doubly important. To give up would make the tragedy utterly futile.

  A soft whinny carried on the breeze through an open window. Above him, the sky was turning from grey to the milky-white shade which heralded sunrise and a new day. Rafiq drew himself upright. He would not concede defeat now, or ever. He was Prince of Bharym, ruler of all he surveyed, one of the most powerful men in Arabia, and not yet entirely helpless. There was still time to hear word from the renowned English expert to whom he had turned in desperation—more in hope than expectation, if truth be told. Perhaps even now Richard Darvill was on his way, the royal travel warrant which Rafiq had enclosed with his letter helping to speed him towards Arabia. Even Jasim, fiercely resistant to any outside interference in what he considered his personal fiefdom, grudgingly conceded the English horse doctor’s reputation was unimpeachable, his fame well earned.

  It was reputed the man could work miracles, bring horses back almost from the dead. Rafiq certainly needed nothing short of a miracle now. These stables, the thoroughbred racehorses within, had to be protected at all costs. He owed it to his people to be the Prince they believed him to be. He owed it to his father’s memory to repair his family’s reputation. Most importantly of all, Rafiq owed it to himself to honour the debt he had incurr
ed. He had carried the burden of his guilt for so long, he would not permit the fates to extend his punishment any longer. His atonement would be made. He could not alter the past but he would ensure something positive emerged from the darkest chapter in his life. It could never be enough, but it was all he could do.

  Two weeks later

  The end of Stephanie’s long journey was finally in sight. The dhow in which she had sailed the length of the Red Sea from Egypt docked at the closest port to her landlocked destination just as dawn was breaking. On the quayside, a tall, austere-looking man scrutinised her papers before beckoning her to follow him.

  A small train of camels awaited them at the end of the quay. Stephanie’s cumbersome baggage was secured on the accompanying mules while she was assisted into the saddle of a camel with brusque efficiency. The official then took the reins, indicating by means of hand gestures that he would lead her mount. His inscrutable expression faltered only when she spoke to him in his own tongue, informing him that she understood him perfectly well and was grateful for his assistance. But if Stephanie imagined that her command of his language would encourage the man’s demeanour to soften, she was mistaken. The official responded to her overture with a formal bow before turning his attention back to the four men who accompanied them. His short, sharp instructions were immediately and efficiently obeyed. Within half an hour of setting foot on land, Stephanie was once again aboard a ship. Only this time, it was a ship of the desert.

  They traversed the bustling port, a chaotic melee of people, camels, mules and goats. Wagons piled high with goods fought for space on the stone jetties. A cacophony of bleating and braying and shouting filled the air, the clatter of hooves and wheels on the rough-hewn roads competing with the cries of the drivers and riders, the sailors and dock hands, and the excited knots of children who followed anything and everything, for no other reason, it seemed to Stephanie, than for the simple joy of adding to the noise and the crush.

  As they left the coast the sea breeze quickly died and the briny air gave way to a burning heat. The sun rose and the wide road which led them inland narrowed to a rocky track which opened up on to an expanse of true desert, as the air around her grew hotter and drier. Her face protected from the worst of it by her wide-brimmed hat, Stephanie nevertheless began to feel as if she were sitting inside a huge kiln. Occasional gusts of wind blasted red-hot sand on to her face like the fiery breath of a lion. The light cotton jacket and blouse she wore felt like they were made of thick pelts of bearskin. Perspiration trickled down her spine, pooling in the small of her back where her wide belt cinched her waist. Her undergarments and stockings clung unpleasantly to her damp skin. Her eyes, her mouth and her nose were gritty with sand and dust. Inside her long riding boots, her feet throbbed.