The Princess and the Prepper

by Barbara Elsborg

  She hesitated before pulling open the desk drawer. Dieter had once bruised her knuckles after she disturbed his papers. Grant’s drawer was packed with handwritten pages, his writing as neat as everything else. She was tempted to read what he’d written, but instead, she closed the drawer. Her handwriting was awful. No matter how hard she’d tried, she’d never managed the loops and curls her teachers demanded. Her desperation to keep up in lessons made her write faster and faster and as a result, not many could read what she’d written. Even she couldn’t sometimes.

  She grabbed a paperback at random from the shelves. No Line Uncrossed by G. Thomas. She settled on the couch, tucked her feet under Shadow, and started to read. Three pages in, she was hooked.

  One thing she excelled in was reading. Not just reading, but reading fast. She’d devoured books since she was a little girl, reading them under the covers with a flashlight when she was supposed to be sleeping. Doing the same at boarding school. She hid away with a book on days when parents visited because hers rarely did. Her father was always away on business, always, always, always. But her mother could have come. Lili had a hiding place in the eaves of the school and stayed there all day, lost in another world.

  She’d wondered if she could work for a publisher, but when she told her mother, she laughed.

  “You don’t need to work,” she said. “You’re pretty enough to make up for your intellect.”

  The cruelty of the comment made her try harder at school, though she was never going to shine. Better than expected exam results still didn’t make her parents think of her any differently. She’d wanted to go to university, but instead had been sent to a Swiss finishing school. It became clear her role in life had been predetermined. The only way she could please her parents was by marrying a rich, successful, and important man.

  Enter Dieter Kohl.

  Lili had wondered if her father had picked him out for her when he’d offered him the job as marketing manager of his company. Her mother seemed to think so. Dieter could do no wrong. A perfect match for a daughter who could do no right.

  ***

  By the time Grant pulled up in front of the shed, more snow had fallen, and he had to clear the drift from the entrance before he put the SUV away. Despite the fact that Lili had no clothes and no transportation, a niggling worry she’d be gone had made him drive faster than he should have. The acknowledgment that he was looking forward to seeing her left a gnawing ache in his belly.

  He grabbed the bags, closed up the shed, and trudged to the door. On the way, he caught sight of her through the window. She lay on the couch, reading. Oh Christ. One of my books. It crossed his mind, just for a moment, that this whole thing had been set up, that someone had been ready to rescue her from hypothermia if he hadn’t turned up, that all she wanted was an exclusive, to reveal his identity and whereabouts, or to uncover the secrets of Evans Point, and then he mentally kicked himself. Talk about paranoia.

  As he opened the door and came in, she jumped to her feet with a smile. And didn’t that make him feel happy? He’d forgotten what it was like to have someone waiting for him, someone who wasn’t covered in fur. He kicked the door closed, shook the snow from his hair, and put the bags down, then nudged one of them further away. He didn’t want her looking in that one.

  “I was starting to worry,” she said. “All this snow.”

  “The roads were fine.”

  “Shadow wandered off into the woods.”

  “He’ll scratch at the door if he wants to come back in. Like to make me a coffee?”

  “Of course. Er…how?”

  He gave a short laugh, hung up his coat, and changed out of his boots. “I’ll show you.” He pulled the jug from under the filter and handed it to her. “Fill it to about here.” He pointed three-quarters of the way up.

  When she reached for the tap, the shirt went up and exposed the crease at the top of her thighs. At the sight of the swell of her butt, the hard-on he’d managed to subdue roared back to life. Maybe rolling in the snow would help. He suspected not. He grabbed the ground coffee from the freezer and showed her how much to spoon it into the filter. “Now you just close it up, switch it on, and wait.”

  She stretched for two mugs from the cupboard. The shirt rode up again, and he had to look away. He stuck his hands in his pockets to disguise the tent in his pants and tried to think of something else she could reach for. I’m bad.

  “I bought you some tea,” he said. “They had Earl Grey.”

  “Oh.” She turned, the smile bright on her face. “That’s really kind of you. I’ll have coffee this time though, since I made it.”

  “Come and see what I’ve bought.”

  He carried all bags but the one he needed to keep out of sight to the other side of the couch and dropped them on the floor.

  “I hope everything fits,” he said.

  The eagerness with which she looked in each bag made him wonder if she rarely had presents. This was a woman who wore underwear that cost hundreds of dollars, boots the same, and yet she turned wide-eyed with delight at the sight of a pair of ten-dollar cream lounging pants covered with little reindeer. She loved them so much, she put them on. Grant sighed. Good-bye, fantastic butt. He’d bought panties, socks, boots, hat, gloves, and a coat, as well as jeans and T-shirts and a pink sweater. Maybe he’d gotten a little carried away. She sat in the middle of the floor surrounded by clothes and looked close to tears.

  “You’ve been extraordinarily kind,” she said in her funny English accent. “I don’t know how to thank you for all this.”

  His cock could think of a couple of ways. More than a couple. Lucky it couldn’t speak, but it tried to wave.

  She chewed her lip and he wanted to chew it for her. “I…I suppose you want to take me to town now.”

  He glanced at the window. “Be dark soon. The snow’s getting worse.” Two lies. He was going to hell, though he already knew that.

  “And Shadow might come back and want to be let in,” she said.

  He nodded. The weather wasn’t a problem for the wolf. He was kind of surprised the wolf wasn’t a problem for her. How many people would have just accepted that a Timber wolf occasionally stayed with him? She slipped socks onto her feet then carefully folded all the things he’d bought and set them to the side.

  “Oh, did you want me to take off your shirt?” She glanced down and fingered the buttons running down her chest.

  Yes, roared his cock. “No, it’s fine. Like to give me a hand with dinner?”

  She nodded. He picked up the bag he’d knocked aside, reached in for the potatoes, and handed them to her.

  “Want to peel a few of these while I put things away?”

  “Okay.”

  Grant took the clothes to the bedroom and pushed the box of condoms he’d bought into a bedside drawer. It wasn’t that he planned to make a move on her, but—oh fuck it, yes I do—condoms were the one thing he didn’t have plenty of. He did now.

  He took the other items he’d bought back to the kitchen and dropped the bag on the counter. When he saw the tiny potato in Lili’s hand, he had to bite back his laugh. She hadn’t found the peeler and was instead using a knife, but she’d cut away huge chunks instead of the skin.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “Trying to peel it.”

  “We’re not going to have enough potatoes if you do every one like that, princess.”

  And as fast as he could blink, the knife went into her palm and blood welled.

  “Ah shit.” He grabbed her wrist and held her hand under the cold tap.

  To his relief, the cut wasn’t deep, no more than a scratch. He dried her hand and pressed a sheet of kitchen towel to her palm. He should have let her go then, but didn’t.

  “Have you never peeled potatoes before?” he asked.

  “We had a cook.”

  The gulf between them gaped like the Grand Canyon. She was from a privileged background. His parents had a small ranch on the other
side of town. Sometimes it had been a struggle to survive. He felt a pang of regret for what might have been and then slammed the gate on his heart.

  “Sit down and drink your coffee.” He set it in front of her and picked up the potato peeler.

  “I’ve never had to cook,” she said. “I wanted to learn but my parents said no.”

  His mother had made them all learn from being knee-high.

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she asked.

  “Two older brothers.” He hadn’t seen them for two years. That wasn’t quite true. He’d seen them, he just wouldn’t talk to them. “You?”

  “No. Just me.”

  He put the potatoes on to boil and grabbed the venison from the fridge.

  “Are you from Wyoming?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you like it here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you ever been to England?”

  “No.”

  Well, he wasn’t going to win any prizes for conversation. He worried she’d ask a question he didn’t want to answer. He worried he’d do the same to her. He was crap at this, being normal.

  “We were on our way to Yellowstone,” she said suddenly.

  Her and the guy he suspected he’d punch if he met him. “At this time of year?”

  “He has business in a town called Evans Point and then we were going to the national park.”

  He glanced across at her. “You could still go.”

  Not difficult to miss her shudder.

  “Have you visited Yellowstone?” she asked.

  “Yes.” He forced himself to keep going. “A few times. Last time was three years ago with my oldest brother’s kids. I had to lock the car doors to stop them getting out to pet the bison. I spent the whole drive worrying they were going to climb out the car window. They never stopped talking the entire trip. I found out more trivia about Yellowstone than I ever needed to know.”

  “Such as?”

  “That Sheepeater Cliff isn’t called that because it eats sheep. Sheepeaters were a tribe of Native Americans.”

  She giggled and the sound made his cock preen.

  “I’m sort of disappointed the cliff doesn’t eat sheep,” she said.

  He smiled. “Yep, so were the boys. Apparently, there’s place where you can catch a fish, swing your rod over your shoulder, and cook what you’ve caught in a hot spring without taking it off the line. ’Course, the boys were desperate to try that, but it isn’t allowed anymore.”

  “Do you want children of your own?” she asked.

  He opened his mouth to say no way in hell did he want to bring kids into a world like this, to have to look after them, care for them, worry about losing them, and “Yes,” came out. He knew why. If he’d have said no, it would have seemed like a betrayal of…. He turned back to the cooking. “Like to set the table?”

  She brushed against him as she reached for plates and a handful of silverware. Don’t you dare he warned his cock. He put a pan of water on to boil and pulled a bag of frozen vegetables from the freezer. Would shoving them in his pants help?

  “Where do you keep the napkins?” she asked.

  He stifled his laugh. “The nearest you’re going to get is paper towels.”

  She ripped off two sheets.

  When he brought the plates of food to the table, he saw how neatly she’d set it, the knives and forks precisely placed. She’d even folded the paper towels into the shapes of flowers.

  “Beer? Wine?” he asked.

  “Wine would be lovely, thank you. This smells great.”

  Like you.

  He poured the wine, relieved the table hid his erection.

  “Tastes delicious,” she said.

  He was sure she would, too.

  “Do you get snowed in here a lot?” she asked.

  “It depends.” Not really, when he had a snowmobile at the back of the shed.

  “I noticed you have a lot of supplies in your cupboards.”

  “I’m a prepper.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Someone who takes personal responsibility and self-reliance seriously. Someone who’s prepared for the unexpected. I’m not fanatical about it. It isn’t that I think the world’s going to end.”

  “No point storing food if it is. You wouldn’t be around to eat it.”

  He smiled. “That’s true.”

  “If the earth’s scorched in a nuclear holocaust, I don’t want to survive.”

  “Nor do I, but I reckon coping with natural disasters is harder than just accepting your fate under manmade idiocy. Evans Point was hit by a series of tornadoes a while back. Six touched down while it was dark, mostly in the downtown district. Ripped brick buildings clean apart, sent vehicles flying, people died. My aunt was one of them. This was her cabin. She was trapped in town and after the tornadoes moved on, the place looked as if it had been bombed. A lot of folks left after that, but those who stayed are working hard to rebuild the town and to put measures in place to make sure Evans Point isn’t caught out again.”

  They’d asked him to join the Cooperative, and he’d said no because he knew his parents and the brother still living here would be involved. He wasn’t ready to face them yet.

  “Were you here when it happened?”

  “No. If my aunt had been in this cabin, she’d have been safe. Not a tree in the woods fell down. Crazy.”

  “How near is Evans Point?”

  “Fifteen minutes. A few miles.”

  He saw her swallow and guessed she was thinking of the guy she’d run from.

  “Whereabouts in Wyoming does your family live?” she asked.

  “One brother’s in Jackson Hole. The other brother and my parents live in Evans Point.”

  Don’t ask me about them. “How are you enjoying the book?”

  “Brilliant. I’ve just about finished it. I had no idea the bad guy was really a good guy. What a twist. Oh, you have read it, haven’t you?”

  He nodded and smiled.

  “The scene on the river was terrifying. I think I’ll add whitewater rafting to the things I’m not going to try. I noticed you have four of his books. You like Houston, then?”

  “He’s not bad.” Oh God.

  “The heroine, Cate, was great. That wouldn’t be me swinging from a crane. I’m scared of heights. I think that’s why I find thrillers such fun to read. They’re a safe sort of excitement.”

  His heart thumped hard. “Do you always play safe? You’re not tempted to go wild sometimes?”

  She gulped her wine. Oh yeah, she understood that.

  “I threw myself out of a truck in the middle of nowhere and I’m still here, aren’t I?” she whispered.

  He pinned her with his gaze, begging her not to look away. “I could take you to town.” Why did I say that?

  “I don’t want you to.”

  His hand was flat on the table and as though he was watching the scene in a movie, and it wasn’t his hand, he inched his fingers closer.

  The howl at the door made them both jump.

  He exhaled and laughed as he pushed up from his chair. When he opened the door, Shadow loped in.

  “Great timing, wolf.”

  Chapter Four

  Lili carried the plates to the sink. She didn’t bother asking for rubber gloves. She could guess the answer. Grant put more logs in the stove and then helped her dry. She handled each item as if it were made of spun sugar, petrified of breaking it. That was something else she’d done while he’d been gone, pulled the pieces of mug from the trash, wrapped them in kitchen towel, and hidden them. She’d take them when she left, and find a way to get him another.

  Grant worked by her side, close enough to touch, though he didn’t. Dieter rarely touched her gently unless it was a prelude to sex or because it looked good to others—a hand on her arm or on her waist, possessive gestures she hated because that was the only meaning behind them. You belong to me. But she wanted Grant to touch her, would l
ike him to do more than touch her. Deep down, she knew that in a few days she’d be forced to confront Dieter and regardless of what happened, she wanted something to hold in her heart. Something he could never take from her.

  “I bought dessert,” Grant said. “There’s chocolate in that bag.”

  “I’m not allow—” Shit.

  He came up behind her. “Allowed? Why the hell not?”

  She turned to look at him and chewed her lip.

  “Why not, Lili? If you tell me he said it’ll make you fat, I’m going to hunt him down and give him a few bruises of his own.”

  “Fatter,” she said and smiled.

  Grant shook his head in disbelief. “Is he insane?”

  “Of course, if I don’t actually break the pieces off and put them in my mouth myself, I don’t think it counts.” Her heart thumped.

  He laughed and then looked at her as if he wanted…. Her cheeks heated.

  When she sat on the couch, he dropped down next to her, his gaze sucking her in until it consumed every sense. Her heart pounded, knowing those beautiful eyes with their long, dark lashes focused only on her. Breathing became tricky.

  “Open your mouth,” he said.

  Grant slid a square of chocolate onto her tongue. It was dark chocolate, and she hated dark chocolate almost as much as broccoli though not as much as squid, but she’d sooner have chopped off her arm than tell him. She chomped the chocolate in half and swallowed fast.

  He chuckled. “I’d expected you to suck that for ages. Let’s try again.”

  Oh God. She opened her mouth, and this time his fingers brushed her lips as he put the chocolate in. His touch was compensation for the slight bitterness, but she still couldn’t resist the chomp and swallow. It was the way she dealt with anything she didn’t like. Do it fast, get it over with.

  He shot her a puzzled glance.

  “You have some.” She took the bar from his hand, broke off a larger chunk, and held it out.

  Grant opened his mouth but as well as the chocolate, he enveloped her fingers. Her toes curled and her scalp prickled as desire spiraled though her body. He caught her wrist to hold her fingers in his mouth, and then he sucked and licked. The feel of his tongue, the way he rolled and wrapped it around her fingers, locked her lungs.