Protecting the Princess

by Carla Cassidy

  She didn’t fight him, but rather wound her arms around his neck and leaned into him, molding her body to his as she returned his kiss with fervor.

  Her hat fell to the ground behind her as he tangled his hands in her hair and reveled in the feel of the soft, silky strands.

  He wanted to pull her into a straw-filled stall and make love to her. He wanted to lose himself in the blue depths of her eyes, in the sweet fragrance of her, in the lush curves that confirmed she was, indeed, a woman.

  But she was more than a woman. She was a princess. His client. His responsibility. He tore his mouth from hers and stepped back from her, unsure if he was angry at himself for crossing a line or at her for shoving him over that line.

  “Get in the house,” he ordered, trying not to notice that her lips were red from the kiss they’d shared.

  She crossed her arms over her chest and eyed him with a touch of defiance. “I will not. Not until I make sure Molly is all right.”

  It surprised him, the fact that she’d even thought about the horse. But he needed to get her somewhere safe now. “I’ll have somebody check her later. Right now we need to get you into the house immediately.”

  He took her by the upper arm and led her to the stable door. He paused there, not releasing her. The distance between the house and the stable appeared daunting. A lot of open ground to cover without any protection.

  “Tanner, you’re hurting me,” she murmured. He realized in his urgency he’d been squeezing her arm.

  He released her. “Stay here. I need to get Sam’s attention.” He stepped out of the stable and waved to the man standing on the end of the front porch. Sam Wilson, another valued ranch hand who was as good with his gun as he was with the cattle, caught his gesture and headed toward Tanner.

  As Tanner waited his mind whirled. He needed to get Anna inside, into an interior room in the house. He had no idea who might be out there, waiting to take another shot, readying for some sort of attack.

  “Are you all right, boss?” Sam asked as he reached Tanner.

  “Somebody took a shot at us while we were riding. Burt is out seeing what he can find, but we need to get Anna into the house. I need you to go back to the porch and cover us.”

  Sam nodded and turned on his heels. As he hurried back to the porch, Tanner could see him turning his head from side to side, assessing the area for an imminent threat.

  When he reached the porch he raised his rifle to his shoulder and waited. Tanner turned back to Anna. Her eyes were huge, as if she just now fully understood the danger.

  “We’re going to walk toward the house,” he said. “I’ll be directly behind you, covering you like a shield. If anything happens, if you hear gunfire or if for some reason something happens to me, you run for Sam. He’ll get you safely inside.”

  “Okay.” Her pulse beat rapidly in the hollow of her throat, belying her calm reply.

  “Ready?” Once again he took her arm. Together they left the shadows of the stable and walked out into the sunshine. Although there was some comfort in the fact that there would be few places between the house and the stables for anyone to hide, Tanner couldn’t discount the use of weaponry that wouldn’t need to put the shooter nearby.

  Awkwardly he kept himself as close to Anna’s back as he could, alternating between looking ahead and looking back. He didn’t breathe a sigh of relief until they hit the porch and she disappeared into the house.

  “Thanks, Sam,” he said tersely.

  Sam didn’t lower his rifle. “Nobody is getting through me,” he said with determination, displaying one of the reasons he was a trusted employee.

  Tanner went inside, to see Anna standing just inside the living room. “Go to the study,” he said. The study had no windows, and was an interior room that would be easier to defend if an attack should occur.

  “What happens now?” she asked.

  “I’m going to call Jim Ramsey and tell him what happened.”

  “You’ll tell him who I am?” she asked as she sank onto the chair in front of the desk.

  “No. The fewer people who know who you are, the better. All he needs to know is that somebody took a shot at us.” Tanner had learned a long time ago that things went more smoothly if he kept in touch with the local authorities, but as far as he was concerned it was on a need to know basis. “I’ll also double the guards around the house.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Stay in here and out of the way,” he said curtly. “I’ll let you know when the sheriff arrives.”

  He met Smokey in the hallway and quickly filled the old man in on what had occurred. “I’ll get my gun,” Smokey said.

  Tanner nodded. “Until we know what’s going on it would be a good idea if everyone in the house is armed.”

  It took Tanner only a few minutes to rally more guards and get them stationed around the house. By the time he’d done that, Burt had arrived back at the house.

  “I found a couple of cigarette butts just on the other side of the trees,” Burt said.

  Tanner frowned. “That implies somebody lying in wait. But there’s no way anyone could have known I’d taken Anna out for a ride today. I didn’t know myself until ten minutes before we went out.” He leaned against one of the porch railings, staring out in the distance. “And something else that doesn’t make sense is why there was only one shot. If it was some kind of rebel warrior, why not ten shots? Why not a hundred to see that the job got done?”

  As he waited for the sheriff to arrive, his mind worked overtime. If the security of this location had been breached, then he needed to move Anna.

  Dust in the distance drew his attention and tension ripped through him as he held his gun ready. He relaxed when the car came into view and he recognized it as his father returning from his trip to Oklahoma City.

  By the time he’d filled his father in on what was going on, Sheriff Ramsey had arrived. He went back to the study to get Anna and found her sound asleep in the chair.

  Oddly enough, he wasn’t irritated. Rather he was surprised that she obviously trusted her safety to him enough that she could fall into a deep, easy sleep.

  Anna awoke to a dark room. She sat up and gasped as muscles in her arms, her back and even her neck screamed in protest of any movement.

  For a moment she was disoriented, then remembered. The gunshot. The danger. She was in the study and must have fallen asleep while waiting for the sheriff to arrive.

  She stood and stretched, then checked the clock on the desk. Just after ten. She’d been asleep for several hours. Wondering what had happened while she’d slept, hunger pangs making her aware she’d missed dinner, she opened the door to the study. She nearly screamed in surprise as she saw Tanner seated in the hallway across from the room.

  “You scared me to death,” she exclaimed.

  He rose to his full height, clad only in a pair of jeans. “Sorry. I was sitting here trying to decide if I should wake you up or just let you continue to sleep.”

  “I think if I wasn’t hungry, I would have slept the night away in that chair.”

  “Come on, let’s get you something to eat and I’ll fill you in on what’s happened while you slept.”

  She followed him through the darkened living room to the kitchen, aware that the tension that had emanated from him before seemed to be gone. “Did the sheriff come?” she asked as he gestured her into a chair at the table.

  “Yeah, and he gave us some good news.” He opened the refrigerator door and she tried not to notice that he looked as if he’d recently stepped out of a shower. His hair was tousled and slightly damp, and it made her remember the kiss they had shared in the stable.

  “What kind of good news?” She couldn’t think about the kiss. What she needed to think about was the fact that she’d almost been killed this afternoon.

  “The mystery of the gunshot has been solved.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  He didn’t answer immediate
ly, but took a moment to slap together a ham sandwich and place it on a paper plate. He set it down in front of her, then slid into the seat next to her.

  “Jeffrey Canfield owns the ranch next to ours. Seems his grandson and a friend were out visiting him today. They snuck away from the house and onto our property and spent the afternoon smoking cigarettes and shooting at old tin cans. One of those shots found us.”

  “So, it wasn’t any rebels.” A rush of relief swept through her. She picked up the sandwich and took a bite.

  “Jeffrey called and apologized, said he intended to tan the hides off the two boys, but I’m just glad to find out it was all an accident.” His eyes were the dark green of forest moss, and his expression was serious. “But the same rules apply. I don’t want you outside again. We took a chance today and it was foolish, damned foolish.”

  For some reason she got the impression he wasn’t just talking about the horseback ride, but might just be talking about the kiss they had shared, as well.

  She took another bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. It had been a little bit of madness, that kiss. She certainly had no desire to develop any real relationship with Tanner West. Her destiny was not on a ranch with a cowboy, although at the moment she didn’t know what her destiny was.

  Still, even knowing the kiss had been madness, she wanted a repeat of the insanity. For just that moment when he’d held her so close, when his lips had burned into hers, she’d felt alive for the first time in her life.

  As she ate her sandwich he leaned back in his chair and gazed at her with eyes darkly shuttered. She wished she knew him well enough to guess at his thoughts. He looked half angry with her, but that wasn’t unusual. Half the time she was around him he looked as if he were angry with her.

  A wave of homesickness struck her and she pushed her half-eaten sandwich away, no longer hungry.

  “What’s wrong? You don’t like the sandwich?”

  “No, it’s fine. I’m just not as hungry as I thought I was. Actually I was just struck by a wave of homesickness.”

  “Homesick for Niflheim or your lifestyle or what?”

  She frowned thoughtfully. “I think I’m mostly homesick for Astrid.”

  One of his dark eyebrows shot up. “Astrid?”

  “She was my personal assistant and maid and as close to a real friend as I had in my life. She’d bring me breakfast in the mornings and we’d talk about anything and everything. Have you learned anything about what happened to the palace staff since the coup?”

  “No. I’m sorry.”

  “What about you, Tanner? Do you have friends?”

  “Of course I have friends,” he replied quickly, too quickly.

  “Really? What are their names?”

  He leaned forward, raking a hand through his dark hair. “This is a silly conversation. I have friends. I just don’t have a lot of time to spend with them. None of them bring me breakfast in bed and chat about the party I attended the night before.”

  “Why do you have to do that? Why, when I ask you questions about yourself, do you always have to somehow turn them into an attack on me?”

  He sat back once again and averted his gaze. “I wasn’t aware that I do that.”

  “You do, and I’m growing weary of it.”

  His gaze shot back to her and she saw the narrowing of his eyes. She steeled herself for a retort. Instead he stood and grabbed her plate from the table. “It’s late.”

  She got up from the table and winced as she felt a kink in her shoulder.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing…I’m just a little sore, that’s all.” She reached up and touched her shoulder. “I’m not sure whether it’s from all the shoveling I did this morning or from my contact with the ground when I fell off Molly.”

  He frowned, placed her plate in the sink, then walked over to her. “Stand still,” he said as he moved behind her. He placed his hands on top of her shoulders and began to knead the muscles.

  “Oh-h-h.” A soft moan escaped her as his fingers worked the sore muscles, creating a combination of pleasure and exquisite pain. She dropped her chin to her chest to allow him better access.

  He had big hands, and by touching her he sent the crazy heat cascading through her again. She knew it was strictly physical. She didn’t know him well enough for it to be anything else, but whatever it was, it was wonderful.

  “Hmm.” Another moan escaped her, and what she wanted to do more than anything was turn around and place her hands on his broad, naked chest. She wanted to touch that wide expanse of tanned skin and muscle, feel the warmth of his skin beneath her fingertips. She wanted him to kiss her again, kiss her long and hard so she could forget everything, especially the danger she’d been reminded today that she was still in.

  His ministrations had begun strong and sure, but had softened, so that it almost felt as if he were caressing her shoulders rather than working out the kinks.

  She moaned again and his hands suddenly fell away. She turned, and the look on his face made her breath catch in her chest. Shining from his eyes was a look of hunger. It was there only a moment, then gone.

  He stepped back from her and shoved his hands into his pockets. “You might want to take a hot bath to get the rest of the kinks out.” His voice was deeper, huskier than usual.

  “I’ll do that,” she said, aware that her voice was more breathless than normal.

  “And you’d better get back to bed. Breakfast comes early in the morning.” There was a definite edge to his voice.

  She stepped closer, reached out and placed a hand on his thick biceps. Just as she’d suspected, his skin was warm and smooth. “Thank you for the sandwich.”

  She knew she should drop her hand from his arm, but was reluctant to break the physical contact.

  “No big deal. But if you don’t stop touching me you might get more than you bargained for.”

  Her heart thrummed in excitement. So, he felt it, too, the crazy pull, the sizzling heat. “And that would be so bad?”

  He plucked her hand from his arm. “Lady, that could be downright deadly for both of us.” He inhaled a deep, audible breath. “Go to bed, Anna. Your father will be here in the next couple of days and then you can go back to living the lifestyle you had before coming to Cotter Creek.”

  Moments later, when she was back in her own bed, for the first time since arriving in Cotter Creek the thought of returning to her previous lifestyle didn’t excite her but rather filled her with the familiar loneliness and a strange sense of dread.

  Chapter 8

  “Is Smokey in charge of changing the sheets on the beds?”

  Tanner looked up from the computer to see Anna standing in the doorway of the study. It was after ten. She’d missed breakfast that morning and this was the first time he’d seen her since the night before.

  He’d almost been glad he hadn’t had to face her first thing this morning. Their middle-of-the-night conversation had disturbed him almost as much as the feel of her slender shoulders beneath his fingertips, almost as much as the silky softness of the ends of her hair against the backs of his hands, the scent of her that had whirled in his head.

  “Yeah, Smokey is in charge of clean sheets,” he replied, and got up from the desk.

  “Don’t bother yourself. I’ll speak to Smokey about it.” Whatever fire he’d seen in her eyes last night was gone, doused beneath a frostiness that was comforting to him.

  He had no idea what had caused the distance in her eyes, the coolness in her voice, but he liked it far better than the fire of desire that had lit her eyes the night before.

  “I need to take a break anyway,” he replied. Besides, he wouldn’t miss for the world the princess asking Smokey to change her sheets.

  He followed her down the hallway toward the kitchen, trying not to look at the sway of her hips in the jeans that fit her as if she’d been born into them. But, she hadn’t been born in denim. She’d been born with a crown on her head, he reminded him
self.

  Smokey was in the kitchen, cutting up vegetables for lunch. He looked up as they entered, a frown cutting into his forehead. “What is this? A convention of some kind in my kitchen? What do you want?”

  “I was wondering when you’d be changing the sheets on my bed?” Anna asked. “It’s been several days now. I’m accustomed to them being changed every other day.”

  Tanner held his breath as Smokey set down his paring knife and wiped his hands on a dish towel. The old man’s eyes glittered with a light that Tanner remembered well from his youth, a light that had always made Tanner and the rest of his siblings make themselves scarce.

  “You want to know when I’ll be changing the sheets on your bed?” he asked.

  Anna nodded slowly as if she was aware that she’d made a faux pas but didn’t quite know what to do about it.

  Smokey disappeared into the laundry room and returned a moment later with a set of clean sheets in his hands. He thrust them toward Anna. “This ain’t no full-service hotel and I ain’t your personal maid service. You want the sheets changed on your bed, you do it yourself.”

  Anna glared at Tanner, then at Smokey. “You cranky old toad. You don’t have to be so hateful. All you had to do was explain it to me.” She turned on her heels and, with all the dignity of a queen, exited the kitchen.

  “She’s a pain,” Tanner said.

  “I like her.” Smokey looked up to meet Tanner’s look of surprise. “Oh, she’s spoiled all right, but she’s got gumption. She just doesn’t know our ways. Can’t exactly fault her for being foreign. I ’spect if I went to Paris or some such a place the Frenchies wouldn’t quite know what to make of me. I ’spect they wouldn’t even know what to make of you.”

  Tanner grunted, not having a more intelligent reply. As he left the kitchen Smokey’s words whirled in his head. Had he been too hard on Anna? Had he not taken into account the fact that she’d been unceremoniously thrust into a foreign lifestyle in a foreign country?

  As he walked down the long hallway he heard muttered curses coming from her bedroom. He stepped into the doorway and peered inside to see her wrestling with the bottom fitted sheet. She got one corner beneath the mattress only to have an opposite corner pull free.