The Black Sheep and the Princess

by Donna Kauffman

  Her students would be housed in the central camp area anyway, so there was no rush. Her hope was that as the camp got established, she’d refurbish the lakeside cabins to house members of her full-time staff.

  She sighed, not as quick to smile as she played out her well-developed dream in her mind. She shivered a little instead, and pulled her hands from her pockets so she could wrap her arms around herself and tuck her hands in close to her sides. She looked at the sky, which was growing more heavily clouded by the minute as the stars continued to vanish. She’d been so preoccupied by Donovan since he’d barged into her life, she hadn’t followed her normal routine. She hadn’t looked at the weather report today, much less the local news.

  She trudged on around the circular path, slowing down when she came to the offshoot that led to the stables, paddocks, and the outdoor arena. Both the buildings and the paddocks were in almost complete shambles and needed a total overhaul. Those were high on her list, right up there with the lodge buildings and the first wave of cabin refurbs.

  There were no horses yet, but there would be. The methods of therapy she wanted to offer involved using animals as a way to connect with some of the more severely challenged children. She’d witnessed the miracle of that magical connection on many occasions and had become involved in developing a course of study that focused on the benefits of using animals in such therapy.

  But while it was becoming a more acceptable adjunct, it was nowhere near the level of acceptance or implementation Kate required in order to get her complete regimen fully integrated into an actual practice or university. The only way to do that was to run her own place, funded by her own money, backed by her own blood, sweat, and tears. She stopped at the crossroads of the trail and looked down the path toward the lake, then ahead to where the stables and corral were situated. She made a slow turn, not caring that it was too dark to see the actual layout of the camp beyond what was right in front of her. She could see it all clearly in her mind’s eye. “And I’ll be damned if you’re going to ruin this, Shelby. Just take my money and give me my damn camp already.”

  Her stomach tightened, her gut telling her what her heart didn’t want to hear. There was a reason he hadn’t shown up yesterday. And first thing tomorrow, she was going to do whatever it took to hunt him down and drag the truth out of him. As far as she was concerned, that was the most direct way to take matters into her own hands and solve her problems.

  Or, at least define what her problems really were.

  She turned down the path toward the lake, without really knowing why. She just knew she wasn’t ready to return to her cabin yet. Maybe if she stayed out here long enough, he’d head out to whatever cabin he intended to claim and bunk down for the night. Wasn’t it enough that he’d invaded her life unannounced? If she was lucky, he’d leave the report behind so she could look it over alone.

  The moon peeked out from behind the clouds just as she rounded the bend in the path that opened up to a view of the lake. The wind had picked up a little, and white sparks of light danced across the rippling surface. Before too long the days would get warmer, and mist would rise from the water when the temperature dropped at night. Fireflies would twinkle along the shore, and the owls would accompany them from their nocturnal perches. She carefully picked her way to the edge of the lake and walked down to the one dock she knew was still in decent shape. Tucking her arms more tightly around her, she made her way to the end, then sat down cross-legged, staring over the water.

  Think, Kate. Should she just confront Shelby with what she suspected? Demand answers? Deliver an ultimatum? She tucked her chin and closed her eyes. Why couldn’t this just move on as planned? She really didn’t want this to be happening. Yesterday, when she’d left the lawyers’ offices, she’d been pissed, but not particularly unnerved. Now? Now Donovan was here. Drawing conclusions she didn’t want to hear. Making predictions. And she was seeing monsters in the shadows where before there were only minor nuisances.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  She startled badly. Good thing she’d been seated or she might have ended up in the freezing cold waters of the lake. Hand pressed to pounding heart, she shifted around, only to see Mac at the other end of the dock. Naturally, the clouds chose that precise moment to part, bathing him in an otherworldly glow. He stood feet braced, hands planted on his hips, his hair a wild halo, his face in shadows. She didn’t need to see his expression to know it wasn’t charming or sunny.

  “I’m solving the problems of the world,” she said with exaggerated calm as she willed her rapidly beating heart to slow down. “What are you doing?”

  “Wondering where the hell you went and losing a year or so off my life when I walked the base camp path and you weren’t on it.”

  She smiled, which was totally incongruous with the fact that she was getting yelled at. As it turned out, he was pretty cute when he was mad. “You do know I’ve managed to live out here for a whole month without your help.”

  “It’s a wonder.”

  Said through such a tightly clenched jaw, she thought, increasingly bemused. She pulled her knees up to her chest and looped her arms around them. “I see you brought your trusty sidekick with you for protection.”

  Donovan glanced down to where Bagel sat, winsomely, at his feet. “He was worried, too.”

  “Then he should have come with me.” Or you should have.

  That last thought took her by surprise. She’d left the cabin precisely to get away from him for a bit. So why was she sitting here, more happy than annoyed that he’d tracked her down?

  “You ready to head back?”

  “Not really. I came down here to sort some things out.”

  “You don’t have all the facts yet.”

  “That’s partly what I’m sorting out. I needed to get out here, clear my head, think things through.”

  “Which things specifically?” He stepped onto the dock, then paused to signal Bagel to stay. With a little whine, the dog dropped his chin, then sighed and flopped fully down on the ground, chin on his paws.

  “How do you do that? He never stays for me.”

  “You’re harder to resist than I am.”

  Her eyes widened briefly at that. “He wasn’t exactly in any hurry to follow me out here.”

  “Are you kidding? He’s been pawing at the door for the past twenty minutes.”

  She considered that, then said, “So you tracked me down to make my dog feel better?”

  He walked closer, until she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. “No, I tracked you down because someone out there doesn’t wish you well.”

  She willed her heart to stay steady. “So they’ve spray painted a few words. I’m still not completely convinced I’m in the immediate danger you think I am. Nor am I convinced there is some nefarious scheme going on.” She leaned back so she could see his face. “I know you want to keep all the options open, and fine, but can you at least admit to me that it’s possible you’re seeing problems where none exist? I mean, I have problems, yes, but Shelby will do what is best for him, and what’s best for him is to take all my money. I’ll get the sheriff to come out and patrol things here, or I’ll get a bigger dog.” She glanced at Bagel. “Sorry, sport. No insult intended.” She looked back to Donovan, but said nothing more.

  “So those are the conclusions you’ve drawn, sitting out here?” He crouched down on his haunches, bringing his face closer to eye level. In the moonlight and dark shadows, his eyes gleamed an almost otherworldly pearl gray. “I didn’t just have my partner fly a load of state-of-the-art surveillance equipment out here on a hunch.”

  “Did I miss something, then? You know for a fact that this isn’t just a string of bad luck on my part, but a concerted effort to whip my property and my camp out from underneath me? That this isn’t just you seeing monsters and villains where there aren’t any?”

  “Even you have better instincts than that.”

  “So now I’m sticking my head in t
he sand, is that it?”

  He stood and reached his hand down. “Come on.”

  She stayed put. “I don’t take kindly to orders.”

  “Not an order, a request. Come read the thing for yourself, then ask me anything you want explained. Then you can decide where best to focus your energy.”

  Energy. It emanated off of him in waves without him even trying. His speaking voice was low, calm, smooth. Only the tic in his jaw, the gleam in his eyes, would give away his agitation with her at the moment.

  “You wouldn’t let me read it earlier. Why now?”

  “I didn’t earlier because it would be better explained by me. Now, it appears the only way you’re going to take this situation seriously is by seeing it with your own eyes.” He reached his hand down again. “It’s not like I need this job, Kate. I’m here because I think you need me to be here. But read the report and tell me what you think. I can be out of here by morning.”

  It wasn’t until he threatened to leave that she realized how badly she wanted him to stay. Maybe she really did want to hide her head in the sand and pretend nothing was going on; maybe she needed to hear him like he was just now to jolt her into action.

  Or maybe she just didn’t want him to leave because she wasn’t done figuring out what she wanted to do about him yet.

  She could have rolled to stand on her own, but something made her deliberately take his offer. She reached her hand up to his. The contact was every bit as electric as she’d known it would be. His palm was wide and warm, his grip steady and strong as he tugged her easily to her feet. But rather than let her go as she’d expected, he kept tugging, until she stumbled a step closer and came up flush against his body. His free arm was instantly around her back, steadying her, keeping her tucked up against him.

  “I’m not playing games,” he told her, the intensity of his gaze impossible to look away from at such close range. “You’re in trouble here, Kate. Don’t wander that far off alone like that again.”

  She was in trouble, all right. Deep, heart-thumping trouble. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. It had been a very long time since there was anyone in her life who cared where she was, or what she did. Much less if she was safe or okay. She’d be lying if she said she didn’t like the feeling of being looked after, for the moment anyway. “I can take care of myself.” Her voice wobbled dangerously. He didn’t have to know it was more because of him than some unseen enemy.

  “I’d like to believe that. More than you know.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means—” He broke off, his gaze making its own telltale slip down to her mouth, then back up again. “I don’t usually worry that much about other people.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me.”

  “I may not need to, but I do. Just do me a favor and follow my rules while I’m here.”

  “Like you’re following mine?”

  Rather than set her loose, his arm flexed against her back, drawing her even closer, making her gasp as she came up against the full, hard length of him. Harder in some places than others. “You get out of arm’s reach, you get into trouble. Seems like the obvious solution is to keep you close.”

  She tried to smile, tried to find some way to make light of a situation that was rapidly becoming anything but. “That’s certainly a new approach, I’ll give you that.”

  He pulled her hand up to his chest, pressed it there before letting it go so he could slide his fingers beneath the hair at her nape and tug her mouth closer to his. And she didn’t do a damn thing to stop him. “You made me crazy eighteen years ago, and you’re making me crazy now. I have no defense.”

  “You managed to resist back then,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper against her suddenly constricted throat.

  “You have no idea how hard it was for me to stay away from you back then. Now? I’m finding it even harder to remember why I did.”

  “Convenient excuse.”

  “No excuses. Just the facts.” He brushed a strand of hair off her forehead, and when he spoke, his tone was gentler, completely undoing her.

  “Just…stick close. Okay?”

  “And if I don’t?”

  “I’ll have to find a way to make you want to.”

  Chapter 11

  She tasted like the heat of a sunny day, not the chill of an early spring night. And when she softened rather than stiffened beneath his hands and mouth, he gave up any pretense of trying to control himself where she was concerned.

  The past, the present, were so tangled up in his head and in his heart, he didn’t even try to convince himself that he knew the difference anymore. He wanted to think he was well past that part of his life. Clearly, he was not. Because no woman of such recent acquaintance would have him this tied up. For that matter, no woman would, regardless of how long he’d known her.

  Except, apparently, Kate Sutherland.

  “You’re supposed to be stopping me,” he murmured against her lips.

  She slid her arms around his neck and tugged him closer. “Now, why would I want to do that?”

  His body soared to life. Like it needed encouragement. “You had rules.” He kissed his way along the soft line of her jaw.

  She sighed and relaxed more fully into him, tipping her chin to allow him access to that tender spot beneath her ear. “My rules were hasty and very shortsighted.”

  He kissed the spot where her pulse throbbed, eliciting the tiniest of moans. It was enough to make him hard to the point of pain. And he wanted desperately to hear her do that again. “How so?”

  “Life is challenging enough these days.” She gasped when he nipped at her earlobe.

  “Mm hmm.”

  “I just—” She broke off on a short moan when he slid his fingers into her hair and massaged her scalp a little as he tilted her head so he could reach that spot where her neck curved into her shoulder. “That,” she managed.

  “That what?” he murmured, wishing like hell she didn’t have a jacket on. Or anything on, for that matter.

  She turned her head and surprised him by dropping her own set of fast, hot kisses against his neck, ending with a nip of his earlobe that had his body twitching hard and maybe a groan of his own in the back of his throat.

  “That,” she said, her voice soft and husky. “There should be more of that in life. Why did I think I should deny myself that?”

  “I have no idea.” He turned her mouth to his and took it hard and fast.

  She didn’t miss a heartbeat. She ran her fingertips up the back of his neck and dug them into his hair, holding him where she wanted him, which was with his mouth against hers, lips parting, tongues dueling.

  He started to push her jacket down her arms, then remembered where they were standing. Not that she was stopping him. The very idea that she wouldn’t stop him—at all—surged through him until standing still became a challenge. “This is crazy, you know that,” he said, his breaths coming more rapidly as they tore at each other. “You are—” He was unable to finish the thought as she elicited a long groan of satisfaction from him when she raked her nails down his back and tugged his belt loops so he bumped more tightly against her.

  “Tired of waiting, tired of always doing what I’m supposed to do,” she said, her voice rough with need, with want, punctuated by the hot press of her lips along the side of his jaw and down the very same line of his neck as he’d explored with her. So damn sensitive, every place she touched, tasted, nibbled. He thought he’d simply explode. Madness, indeed.

  She shivered, and he wrapped his arms around her. “Inside,” he said, unable to manage more than a single word.

  She nodded, but didn’t make a single move toward leaving the dock. Instead, she turned her mouth back to his. Only this time, as their lips met, they slowed down, gentled the onslaught, which perversely jacked him up that much higher and harder. She teased, he taunted, they slipped their tongues more sinuously along the other, tasting, touchin
g. Soft moans filled the rapidly cooling night air. His, hers, he wasn’t keeping track. He was drowning, and he didn’t want to be saved. Reality would rear its ugly head soon enough. It always did. He wasn’t going to hurry it along any faster than necessary.

  She shivered again, and he wasn’t entirely sure it was in pleasure. He wanted her almost savagely at that moment. To throw her down on the dock, strip her naked, and take her like a howling wolf. So he had no idea where the tenderness came from that sprang up within him. He nuzzled the side of her chin, then tipped it up until she opened her eyes and looked at him. “Come on, it’s getting cold out here.”

  “We’re outside?”

  He saw the twitch at the corner of her mouth, even as the heat in her eyes screamed “Take me!” And he slipped further under her spell for bringing humor into what was already a tantalizing mix.

  “Yeah. But not for long.” He bent down, intending to scoop her up, but she sidestepped him with surprising agility.

  “I can walk just fine.”

  He almost commented that that made one of them. The fit of his jeans was strained to the point of threatening to emasculate him if he stepped the wrong way. “But why walk when you don’t have to?”

  She was suddenly once again in his arms, face tilted up to his, and the moon chose that moment to slip from behind the clouds and illuminate the smile on her face as she looked into his eyes. “Don’t go all Neanderthal on me here.”

  “I like being the guy. Sue me.”

  “I like being the girl, but that doesn’t mean I can’t walk.”

  “I rather like that girl part myself.” He bumped hips with her, pulse spiking again when her eyes went darker.

  “I’m just not—” She had to stop, clear her throat.

  He liked that part, too. A lot. Happy to know he was far from the only one so deeply affected here. Thrilled, in fact. It was a lot easier to lose your mind when the person you were losing it over went merrily along on the same trip.