The Polo Prince (Foxworth Stud Ranch Book 4)

by Mia Madison

  “I wish you could still go inside the circle,” I say. “Our lives are lived all roped off.”

  Diego nods and I can see he’s thinking, probably that I’m an alien life form in a girl’s body. And then on the Solstice, he drives out of London refusing to tell me where we’re headed. And I get my wish of spending time alone encircled by the towering pillars of rock.

  I hugged Diego so tight for being such an amazingly thoughtful man, always wanting to give me a surprise that means something to my healing. His arms circled me with a powerful hold. It must have been the stars and the planetary alignment because I couldn't stop running my mouth off.

  “I’m so enamored by you,” I said into his solid chest. “If I'm honest, it’s really scary.

  “Enamored,” he repeats. “Have you ever dissected the Latin construction of that word?”

  I look up and he’s grinning like he just won a thousand trophies.

  “Not having had the benefit of a royal education no, I haven't quite found the time yet.”

  “Amor – en amor – in love, baby. You’re in love with me.”

  “You don't have to be so cocky about it.” I laugh.

  I’m not even going to try to deny it. I know he loves me too. I can feel it in his stone hard towering body.

  “I’m not – I’m delighted. I’ve been waiting to hear you admit it.”

  “How unchivalrous,” I joke.

  “How so?”

  “Making a lady go first isn’t gallant this time.”

  “I didn’t want to scare you, Piggie.”

  I still crack up laughing whenever he calls me that.

  “Me on my knees in front of you had you so freaked out I could hardly tell you I was ready to get down there for real whenever you were.

  “What?” I murmur not believing what I’m hearing.

  “But we’ll have to go to Buenos Aires to get the ring.”

  “Ring? Buenos Aires?”

  “Yeah, it’s the family heirloom.”

  My cheeks are heating up. Every freaking part of me is heating up. I might shatter and splatter so I do the only thing that comes to mind.

  “You really love me, you want to marry me.”

  I dance around the stone circle, waggling my hips toward him and singing the stupid song. As I shimmy past him, Diego loops his thick arm around my waist and draws me to him. Hard. His mouth slams down on mine and claims me. His kiss so deep I melt against his torso.

  Tears are pouring down my cheeks.

  Diego takes me to Paris, which is like London with even better food. It has the same romantic old buildings and art galleries – Diego shows me a life I never really knew about. We stay in The Ritz which is itself a palace. I didn’t know hotels this opulent existed. Then we head to Australia, the flight so long he amuses himself with my body for days, it seems like. Not that I’m complaining. He’s teaching me a lot there also.

  He rents a truck to drive me across endless desert. You’d think that would be boring af but to be alone with him, holding his hand as he drives like a mad man and we talk about our lives is the best week of my life. Then finally some other magical huge rock looms up out of nowhere.

  I say magical because again, I can feel some power drawing negative emotion out of me, making me whole. I know it sounds nutty, I guess you just had to be there.

  After Oz we head to Dubai where the Royal princes are playing another polo match with D. I get to meet a few of the wealthiest men in the world, Arabs with oil wells. But not their wives.

  We’ve circled the world and finally land back in the US in Miami. D rents a flashy car and we drive north to my house. That’s when the trembling sets in.

  “Everything okay,” he asks me, taking my hand in a squeeze.

  “I haven’t been home for six months,” I say. “I bet my house has collapsed in a pile of wreckage.”

  When we pull up it is indeed on its last legs.

  “Welcome to my tear-down,” I tell him, sadly.

  Humiliation seeps into me as I now know how he sees it, compared to all the palaces we’ve both been living in.

  “Oh my darling do you know how amazing you are to have held it together? To have kept a house running all alone, when you probably just wanted to hide under the covers.

  “Yep that about sums it up,” I agree. “The extent of my ambition. Or it used to be,” I suddenly brighten, seeing that D isn’t remotely put off my the shambolic dwelling. “No more hiding, because now I'm excited for the future.”

  D pulls me into his solid chest, his arms hugging around me, my favorite place in all the world to be.

  “That works out great,” he says. “I need a woman – you Baby– at my side. Always. And you can take on the task of running that million acres with me.”

  “Me?” I squeak and receive a look that tells me not to be self-deprecating. “Okay, I was pretty good at math in school, until I dropped out.”

  “Perfect because I don't have the attention span for that stuff. And what do you think about us diversifying?

  Us?

  And what do I think?

  “How about we also start the equine therapy stuff, the wedding stuff, like at Foxworth?” He rolls his eyes at that last one with a smile.

  My heart is galloping harder than a horse on a chukka.

  But I’m excited.

  So excited. And happy. My head is filling with ideas.

  “What about having those experience days,” I suggest. “Come play polo at a real estancia.”

  “You see, that’s what I’m talking about – I knew I’d pick a gorgeous girl, not only beautiful and sexy as fuck, but a genius with ideas too.

  I love it and more than that, I love you. So damn much, Violet. You make my heart want to bust out of my chest. I’m breathless every time I look at you.”

  I’m not at all nervous about our flight to Buenos Aires tomorrow. I’m excited to meet his father and I know what that means to D.

  I can’t wait.

  Thank you so much for reading The Polo Prince. These characters were dear to my heart as, like Prince Harry, I support further acceptance of emotional and mental dis-ease.

  The Polo Prince is Book Four of Stud Farm Foxworth Ranch series. All are standalone featuring a new couple but they intertwine in the same setting so you’re sure to enjoy reading them all. Now scroll on down to read the full Quint and Edie story, The Blacksmith.

  And if you’re curious about Kennedy and Prince Lucien (Lucy) of Monaco, their story is featured in Dad’s Royal Buddy.

  Chapter 1

  Quint

  My fire's burning good and hot.

  Now that it's reached the perfect temperature for bending the metal to my will, I have a small window of opportunity to take control.

  I pull the heavy leather glove onto my right hand and slam the hammer down with a resounding metallic bang. The steel puts up the tiniest hint of resistance before caving to my pounding. I bring the huge iron head crashing down again, my bicep flexing with every jarring clang. Over and over I slam the hammerhead and see the steel surrendering its strength and giving in to mine. It's the most satisfying thing in my life. I know the exact degree of the molten steel's temperature just by looking, by the color of the orange red point.

  The instant it starts to cool, I shove it back into the fire to take it back to the pinnacle of perfection. Then I slam down the heavy hammer forcing the volcanic metal to bend into shape. My body feels slick with a glistening of sweat. Drops fall from my shoulders and let out a sizzle as they expire in the embers. Most blacksmiths wear a thick shirt and leather apron for protection.

  I don't do protection.

  Ever.

  I like to feel my skin heat up from the flames and start to cool as they die back. I can sense the perfect temperature for forging in my every pore. It's like me and the metal are doing battle. Until it has no choice but to cave and we become one. Then she molds to the form I designed.

  She.

  As though th
e steel is my woman. Perhaps she is. The only one I want. I don't need anyone else in my life but the momentary surrender of the metal at last, after a finely drawn battle for control. It's delicious. Lascivious. As climactic as anything I've ever known. Yeah, I know, I have a tendency to get poetic about my steel.

  It's nearly midnight, my favorite time to work on a project. Beating the metal into shape works off stress and fatigues me enough for sleep.

  I let the fire cool at last, my taut body spent of pent up tension and the metal formed to my design without losing its power. Over-hammering makes for weak design. I make sure the embers are doused in my workshop forge and head out, ready to be alone with the night, in my small house.

  “Hey Quint, you out were-wolfing?”

  It's Shea, one of the hands on the ranch, although they prefer to call themselves cowboys. They think it's the Wild West out here on Foxworth Ranch, so huge in acreage, it's the perfect place for a man to hide. Three of them are sitting around a fire, sprawled across hay bales, one on an oil drum, watching the flames and shooting the shit like always.

  Shea is rarely seen now, since he brought that little girl, Dallyce, to live with him, the only other woman on the ranch aside from the boss's daughter. Together the two women are building some fancy retreat as part of the ranch. It wont be long 'til all those fancy ass New Yorkers are coming down here seeking real life. I look up and see the moon is nearly full, hence the lame remark from Shea.

  “Nah, just a little personal work,” I tell him and keep walking on by.

  “What you making in there, hammering away at midnight?”

  “What else is he gonna hammer?” Rafe says. “Quint hasn't had a woman in years.”

  “What's it to you?” I growl, like the wolf they're joshing me about.

  “Nothing, Dude, just kidding around to pass the time. Sit down. Grab a brew.”

  “Not tonight. I got an early start.”

  “We all got an early start. And some have got princesses to keep happy.”

  The guys laugh and exchange looks. There's been nothing but jock talk since the announcement was made that Shea's taking himself a bride. None of us older guys ever expected to find ourselves a lifetime girl.

  “Hey Quint, what do you think your chances are of scoring a princess?” Jessop calls at my back.

  “We're running a pool with the guys next rodeo. First one to get a princess's panties off takes the pot.”

  That's Rafe, always acting like a stud.

  “Count me out,” I say. “Don't we have enough trouble with Princess Foxworth?”

  A round of jeers passes between the cowboys. We all struggle with the boss's daughter, Chloe, since she turned eighteen and went to Europe to train in dressage at some fancy school. Whereas she was once a cute kid, hanging around the cowboys begging to be taken for a ride on a wild horse, now she's turned into a little snot that turns up her nose at the muck on their boots.

  Speaking of muck.

  “I'm fucking filthy guys, I'll say goodnight and hit the shower.”

  My shoulders and forearms are covered with wide black smears from the heat and metal. My chest is gritty with ash from the flame. I still feel the exhilaration from taming the raging heat and the powerful exercise of wrestling the metal into shape. The cowboys and I have that in common. They love to ride a wild beast into submission while I take out my control needs on molten steel. Same thing, different beast.

  “You look same like always Quint, hot and in need of a good woman.”

  “Whaddaya think he's headed to the shower for. Let the horny bastard go.”

  I walk away, giving them a soot-blackened finger and am rewarded with another round of jibes. We're all good. Aside from Jessop, who arrived six months ago, on the lam it would seem although I don't judge, I've worked with the rest of the guys for a couple years now. I wouldn't say we're close buds because I keep myself pretty much to myself, but we get along. Nothing serious, just simple joshing around like guys do.

  I cross the yard and open the door to my little house with the toe of my boot. My hands are blackened. I flip the light with an elbow and as I undo my pants, notice the mixture of grease and filth smeared in the sweat across my round biceps and washboard torso. The exposure to air has made my wood springing up. One more steel bolt that needs to be tempered.

  I step into the shower with the solid rod burning in my palm. Sliding the length in my fist, slowly first, then picking up speed and grip until I feel my thighs clench. After working the tension out of my muscles, the release in my dick is so good. Not like being tightly hugged inside a woman, nowhere near, but then I might have forgotten how that goes at this stage in the game.

  “Someone fuck you over?” Edie had once asked, when a couple of beers had loosened my tongue at one of our barside chats.

  I shrugged it off. Not wanting to get into my past at all, not even with the cute bartender – the only woman I ever have a convo with now. If ever I feel lonesome, all I have to do is head into town for a couple of beers at McDools. I bend Edie's ear with the three sentences that amount to a week's worth of chit chat for me.

  “Let it go,” she'd said. “There's plenty of other salmon in the stream.”

  I tossed her a grin.

  “Out here in the desert is about the furthest you can get from any salmon.”

  She gave me a cute nose wrinkle.

  “We don't get to meet that many women out here on a ranch surrounded by a hundred thousand acres of dust.”

  “You could come into town now and then,” she quips.

  “Yeah I don't like to pick up bar cats.”

  “Best kind. One mewl and you're out of there with only a few scratches for a souvenir.”

  See that's why I dig Edie. She and I are alike. Lonesome, not needing the company of others, even resisting it some.

  “You talking personal experience?” I joked and had a shrug in return. Was I imagining the tiny scowl that accompanied it?

  Chapter 2

  Edie

  Everyone's got secrets they're trying to keep hidden.

  Maybe that's part of the reason I tend bar. Listening to others allows me to forget my own. And every dude that comes in here only wants to talk. No one ever wants to hear the bartender's woes. I just smile and come back with a smart quip or whatever stoic sage advice I can dredge up. They're usually so glad of my attention, not to mention plenty soused, that they're grateful for anything and treat me like I have the wisdom of the freaking Dalai Lama.

  Quint's different from all the others. I noticed that about him the first time he came in to McDools, the bar I own I a one horse town sandwiched between two mega ranches. There's always a pungent odor of macho alpha in the wood-floored establishment but Quint reeks of masculine man more than all the cowboys put together.

  First few times he took a stool at the bar, he just stared at his drink deep in thought the entire time. I couldn't help but notice the wide breadth of his bicep, flexing as he clasped his hands together, fingers interlaced in a prayer position, although the guy was the furthest thing from devout. He clearly had stuff on his mind and I know better than to intrude on a man until he wants it. What's that they say about crashing into a man's cave and getting bear mauled?

  At the same time, I was intrigued. Not at all like me – I'm usually as bland as a tourist in a foreign country when it comes to my patrons – they all look alike. But the strapping nature of Quint's huge arms had me curious. Just curious, nothing more than that.

  “Getchoo another there?” I asked, real casual, right as he was about to leave.

  “Thanks,” he grunted and sat back down at the stool he always takes.

  Same stool, two from the left every time. Not even looking up from gazing into his drink like a gypsy fortune teller with a crystal ball at the fair.

  “If you find the answer in there, tell a friend,” I quipped, hoping he'd look up.

  “Ain't many of those round here,” he came right back.

  “I h
ear you. Imagine how it is for me, the only girl in a thousand miles. Running this place, I don't even get to go out for a drink myself.”

  Lo and behold he lifted his head and gave me those astounding dark eyes, almost demonic in their intensity. A sharp pang daggered up through my insides and almost made me stagger like a drunk. Of course, I never drink a drop while the bar's open. As the boss lady, I have to keep myself fully alert for the shenanigans of the cowboys. I could tell he had a bit of the devil in him. Not like any I'd known in the past, who were just plain rotten to the core.

  Quint had a lone wolf nature along with something soulful. I know it sounds stupid, but I'm never wrong about the guys sitting at my bar. I've learned how to decipher a man from cradle to grave as he spills his soul over a brew. The secrets I know, I ought to write one of those how-to books. And then he really surprised me.

  “Have one now,” he husked out in the raspy woodsmoke voice.

  I was about to refuse just because it's become a habit, not to drink with the customers. But then I put down my bar rag, pulled two drafts and two shots and lifted the flap. I hitched up onto the stool beside him and we got to talking.

  “You look like a guy who's running away,” I said.

  “I'm no criminal,” he'd barked through tight lips.

  “I said running away not on the run. Some girl?”

  “Nope. Been a long time since I seen one of those.”

  “You ever need one, you know, a friend, you let me know.”

  “You'd be my first,” he said.

  “You'd be mine too,” I replied right back, then I felt a warm gush of color rush to my cheeks from the double meaning. Quint looked at me strangely, like he was trying to figure out whether I could be trusted. Well, back at you, Dude. I have zero reason to place any faith in your species.

  Then he gave me a wide grin that sparked the room.

  “Friend?”

  “Well, I guess if we're spending so many evenings together, we ought to make it official.”