Cowboy Fairytales Omnibus

by Lacy Williams

There was a small mirror on the tall chest of drawers next to the twin bed in the room she'd been given, and she squinted at her reflection in the fading light filtering through the curtains. Squinted her eyes more tightly together, so she wouldn't have to see the rat's nest that was her hair. The braid she'd put in earlier had come halfway apart, and one side of her hair stuck up in a matted mess where she'd slept on it.

  This was one time she wouldn't have minded having her stylist on hand. She'd never had to worry about getting her hair right, because Anna was there to help her.

  She untangled the rest of the braid and picked up the brush that Gideon had found for her somewhere. It pulled her hair when she began the first strokes. She'd showered earlier, and the conditioner was a cheap brand that made her hair feel rough between her fingers.

  She didn't even have her own toiletries.

  She stifled the whine that wanted to escape and set about brushing her hair and then pulling it into a tight French braid that hopefully wouldn't look as messy as she felt inside.

  A quick stop in the bathroom to splash her face and pinch her cheeks—neither did she have any makeup—and she forced herself to the head of the stairs.

  Her stomach rumbled, making the decision for her.

  Plus, there was no use hiding up here. She had a hunch Matt would come looking for her, even if the irascible Gideon wouldn't.

  Downstairs, it was even louder. Men's voices and raucous laughter rang out through the house. The swinging door to the kitchen was closed, but she could hear the clanging of dishes and the movement of what might have been two people in there.

  Most of the noise was coming from the living room.

  She hesitated in the shadowed hall, looking in.

  Gideon was closest to her, on the other side of the large open archway. He stood with feet slightly apart and arms crossed, what might be a scowl under his beard.

  On the far couch, two men she didn't recognize lounged negligently, their dusty boots stretched out in front of them. She winced, thinking about the floor. One still wore a cowboy hat and let his head loll back on the couch. Both of them looked as if they'd been in their faded, dirty clothes for days. And both sported long, unkempt beards, like Gideon wore. Was this a Texas thing? Or a ranch hand thing? Did no one wash up for supper?

  Matt perched on a barstool across the room, talking animatedly with another man, this one with a shock of short-cropped red hair. She couldn't see his face.

  She must've moved, or maybe Gideon just sensed her presence, because his head turned toward her before she was ready to be spotted.

  He cleared his throat and the room quieted instantly, everyone's attention on him.

  "Guys, this is the little gal I was telling you about. Meet Allie."

  She stepped into the light as three pairs of eyes—plus Matt's glinting gaze—swiveled toward her.

  She'd keynoted enough that she was used to being the center of attention. Used to being in the spotlight, having cameras pointed at her. But this...she felt their attention acutely.

  "Nate and Trey there on the couch," Gideon said with a nod.

  She tried to smile, but it felt tremulous.

  "And Brian," he motioned to the redhead near Matt. "Chase and Dan are putting the finishing touches on supper."

  Often at public events, she had an aide nearby at all times to whisper a name in her ear or prompt her into conversation before she could make a mistake.

  She floundered now.

  "Thank you for opening your home to me," she said softly.

  "It's Gideon's place," either Trey or Nate said from the couch with a big grin. "Interesting that he brought you out here. He usually keeps his distance from any pretty woman."

  Trey-slash-Nate cut him off with an elbow to the ribs, eliciting a huff of air from the other man.

  Gideon growled.

  "It's my place too," Matt said easily, diverting attention from his brother.

  "For now." Gideon said. "Not sure how long me'n Carrie will let you keep your shares, since you're pretty much career military."

  She let her gaze slide to Gideon. Had he helped Matt avert the conversation from her purposely?

  "He's never liked shoveling—" Brian started to say something crude but caught himself halfway through the word with a glance at Alessandra. Splotches of red climbed in his cheeks—he was clean shaven. "Sorry, ma'am."

  She let it go with a shrug and a smile. She had no intention of coming in here and asking these men to change their lifestyles to suit her. They were doing her a favor.

  But a glance at Gideon showed his face looked like a thundercloud.

  Then someone knocked on the door. Matt jumped up from his stool.

  She moved out of the way as Matt came toward her, heading for the door. He didn't quite get it open.

  "Uncle Matt!"

  The exuberant cry preceded a tornado of a small brunette girl who launched herself through the doorway at her uncle. Matt swept her up easily into his arms. A woman who must be Carrie, Gideon and Matt's sister, stepped over the threshold, and she too threw herself at Matt. He caught her too.

  Alessandra caught the small sob that escaped the woman, even though her face was buried in Matt's shoulder.

  Alessandra was intruding.

  Her gaze connected with Gideon's where he stood opposite, behind the cluster of his family.

  If she wasn't mistaken, his eyes had a sheen of moisture too.

  * * *

  Gideon was intensely aware of Alessandra at the dinner table, two seats away with his niece Scarlett between them.

  Part of him really wanted to know what the princess thought of their gathering. This must be a lot different than what she was used to. The hands were in fine form, boisterous and loud as they showed off for both women. The one-course meal of hearty spaghetti and meatballs, salad and crusty garlic bread, was probably much simpler fare than she was used to. Their cutlery could never be called silverware. And Apollo made a practice of crawling on the floor beneath the table, licking up any crumb that dared be dropped.

  Although Scarlett had clung to Matt for a good ten minutes when his sister had arrived, she'd elected to sit next to Gideon at the supper table, and somehow wrangled Alessandra into the chair on her other side. With the shortie between them, he kept catching glances, finding himself in the laser sight of Alessandra's bright smile.

  Although she was definitely out of place—quiet and unassuming—he caught the tail end of several of her smiles in response to something the guys or Scarlett had said. She was fresh, like a spring tulip. The diamond in a room full of coal lumps.

  Once, when she'd laughed at something dumb Nate had said, Gideon had gotten a bite of meatball lodged in his esophagus. It stayed there, a hard lump that had him shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

  He felt old. Out of place. Grumpy. Just like Matt had said earlier.

  His brother was quieter than usual. Gideon still believed something had happened during his tour. Gideon had had one or two near-fatal incidents, and when you came home after something like that...well, it changed how you looked at things. How you treated the people you cared about.

  He just wished his little brother hadn't had to go through it.

  "Uncle Gid," Scarlett piped, distracting him from his thoughts.

  "Yeah, squirt?" He never got tired of looking at the little upturned face.

  Scarlett was four going on twenty-five, and he was a sucker for the freckles splashed across the bridge of her pert nose and those big, cornflower blue eyes.

  Scarlett scooted close, her little shoulder brushing his elbow. She motioned for him to lean down. So he did, aware of Alessandra's attention on the two of them.

  "I think Allie is a princess." Scarlett's breath was warm and smelled of garlic, and it distracted him long enough that he had to play her words over a second time before he grasped their meaning.

  His stomach somersaulted. If his four-year-old niece could recognize Alessandra, they were in for a world of tr
ouble. Had Carrie been playing the national news channel at home?

  "What makes you think that, squirt?" Somehow he managed to get the words out evenly.

  "Look how long her hair is," the pipsqueak whispered, her head bumping his chin as she turned to shoot a look at their guest and then quickly turned back when Alessandra caught her looking. "I think she's Rapunzel."

  Reality intruded as his eyes focused on the long braid that hung down Alessandra's back and past her waist. Rapunzel, indeed.

  "I don't know, squirt," he said softly. "She looks kinda regular to me."

  Not really. Even wearing clothes that were similar to every one else's at the table, there was a different air to Alessandra. It wasn't entirely her posture—although she sat straighter than anyone he'd ever met, as if she balanced a book on her head at all times—and she hadn't tilted her nose up once. It was something else. Just her, maybe. She was too fine.

  Whatever it was, she didn't belong here.

  Tired of waiting on him or maybe dissatisfied with his answer, Scarlett turned to the princess. "Are you Rapunzel?"

  "No, I'm not," Alessandra answered. "Is she your favorite princess?"

  Scarlett shrugged. "I like the ice princess and her sister."

  He didn't figure she was up on the latest animated princess movies, but Alessandra leaned closer to Scarlett. "Oh, I like her too. But really, the reindeer is my favorite character from that movie. Do you know the song he sings?"

  She hummed a few bars until Scarlett belted out some words that sounded like gibberish to him, then both females dissolved into giggles.

  Someone kicked his foot from beneath the table. He glared across to see his sister, squished in between Matt and Brian, watching him speculatively.

  His ranch hands weren't as subtle.

  "Boss, you planning on needing some time off?" Dan asked from the other end of the table. "Maybe doing some courting?"

  Guffaws went around the room.

  Fire flared in his cheeks, but hopefully the beard camouflaged it. Scarlett was chattering to the princess, so maybe they'd missed the joke at his expense.

  He wasn't sitting here mooning over the girl. He was listening in to make sure she didn't slip up and put his family in danger. Protecting Scarlett.

  That was it.

  If he did feel a bolt of attraction, he would never have an opportunity to act on it. Right. Imagine someone like her taking up with him. They'd rub each other the wrong way. What about him attending a palace function? They'd probably want to sprinkle glitter in his beard.

  But an uncomfortable clutch of his chest remained.

  * * *

  The group sat around the table, talking, for a long time after supper. Scarlett relocated to Matt's knee, regaling her uncle of tales about her preschool friends while Matt listened attentively. Gideon would have to get to the bottom of what was bugging his brother eventually.

  Scarlett's desertion left a space between him and the princess, and he noticed Alessandra disappear from the table before too long. She'd probably gone upstairs to sleep. Or relax. Or whatever. Was probably bored with their simple talk of ranching and the folks in town. It was for the best, anyway. She'd be here a few days, maybe, then go back to her ritzy life.

  The hands had accepted his explanation of a damsel in trouble without asking for a lot of details—but apparently they wanted to believe she was more to him than a mere acquaintance.

  Ha.

  When he carried his plate from the table into the kitchen, he found her elbow-deep in a sink full of sudsy water, scrubbing pots. Apollo lay at her feet, his black nose resting on brown paws.

  Seeing her like this made that uncomfortable pinch in his chest return full bore.

  Of all the things he'd imagined her doing, the dishes wasn't one of them. Had the noise of their conversations completed drowned out the clanking of pots and pans, the swish of the water?

  "Everything okay?" he asked.

  She startled and looked over her shoulder at him, their gazes connecting again. He easily read the shadows in her eyes.

  "I'm fine." The firm set of her lips might indicate otherwise.

  He wasn't going to push her, not now.

  "We're kind of a rowdy bunch," he said. Not really apologizing. And stating the obvious.

  She hmmed, but didn't agree or disagree.

  "Sort of an acquired taste. Like black coffee. Or sushi."

  This time, he won a small smile, seen only because she'd turned her head slightly toward him. He didn't know why it mattered, but seeing it made the tight knot in his chest loosen up, just slightly.

  "Don't blame you at all for needing to take us in small doses."

  She smiled again, just a small twitch of her mouth, but shook her head. Agreeing that his hands and his family were best a teaspoon at time? Or was she disagreeing?

  She didn't explain.

  "Nobody expects you to clean up after us, you know." He deposited his dirty plate and fork on the counter near her. It was conspicuously clean, as if it'd been freshly scrubbed—and the counter along the opposite side of the sink was laid out with clean dishes drying on towels. She'd been busy.

  He moved to her other side. He picked up the last towel on the line she'd laid out and started drying the nearest item, the scrambled eggs skillet from this morning. It was spotless. He well knew how the egg residue cemented to the pan when it was left all day. And that was only one of the dishes that had littered the kitchen.

  It even smelled cleaner in here. Like lemons.

  He might've thought that Brian—on dinner duty—had cleaned up, if he didn't know his men so well. They preferred to leave the mess until there were no more dishes to use before anyone would take initiative.

  "Inspecting my work?" she asked. Her attention remained on the pot she was vigorously scrubbing. He winced. Was it from yesterday? Or two days ago?

  "No..."

  But she must've heard the weak denial in his tone, because she frowned as she scrubbed even harder. "Maybe you think a pr—" She glanced over her shoulder. So did he. They were alone. "A person like me wouldn't know how to wash dishes."

  That was exactly what he'd thought. Didn't being born a princess mean she'd grown up with a silver spoon in her mouth?

  * * *

  It shouldn't bother Alessandra that Gideon thought she was unable to perform a simple task, such as doing dishes. It wasn't exactly a skill she was known for.

  She used the dishrag to scrub at one particular caked-on bit of gunk in the bottom corner of the pan. "When I was fourteen..." Soon after her father had started to seriously decline. "I started sneaking down to the kitchens in the wee hours of the morning. Our on-staff chef put me to work. Baking bread, helping with breakfast...and other things. He believed that anyone working in his kitchen should know how to clean up after themselves. Even me."

  Chef Marco had become like a beloved uncle to her, though he was paid staff. Even as a teen, she'd known better than to air the family's private business to anyone. So even though she'd never talked about the overwhelming grief of watching her father decline, Marco had known. Had provided a steady presence, even as he put on a gruff outward act of not wanting the princess in his domain.

  Marco and Krissy and Bella, two of the housemaids, had been more of a family to her than anyone else, but as her responsibilities to represent Glorvaird grew, she'd grown more distant from them.

  Thinking about her sort-of-staff, sort-of-friends was why she'd eventually had to leave the group of boisterous cowboys and Carrie and Scarlett. She missed the familiar. Missed home.

  More than anything, she'd wanted a family like this one. Oh, they didn't all have DNA ties, but it was clear that the cowhands had an affection for each other, even through the ribbing and teasing. It was also clear they respected Gideon and his leadership as he ran the place.

  Her own family...well, her father and older sister were difficult. And Mia, her younger sister, was often gone, flitting around social events.

>   He hadn't responded to her story about helping in the kitchen, and she glanced at him to see his brow furrowed above the flat cookie tray he was drying.

  She nudged his elbow with hers and tried for a smile. "It isn't as if I haven't made judgments about you, too."

  She couldn't pinpoint what exactly made her spout the teasing statement. There was safety in being reserved, holding herself separate from someone she would likely only know for a matter of days. But something inside her wanted to erase the deep grooves in his forehead.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Just that." She was unable to prevent her lips from twitching with a smile at his frown.

  She motioned to his face. "I spent the entire morning thinking of you as Gideon the Bear, because of how you go around growling and grunting at everyone. And, well...you seem sort of dangerous..." She trailed off. She'd meant to say something about his dark, overgrown beard and hair that needed a trim, even motioned in a halfhearted circle toward his head. She'd meant to make him smile. It hadn't worked.

  His frown didn't lift. It deepened. Her stomach pitched.

  "But," she continued quickly, "when you're with your niece, you're more of a teddy bear." She'd been shocked at first, to see him smiling with Scarlett, who obviously had him wrapped around her little finger.

  She'd even heard him chuckle once. Seen the flash of white teeth behind his beard. His eyes had sparkled.

  Those moments had been like looking at a totally different man. An attractive one, like the picture she'd stumbled upon in his bedroom.

  "So my initial assessment was wrong," she said quickly, before her thoughts could get—more—out of control. "Or at least, not completely correct. You have a tough side that was probably necessary as an active-duty soldier. And you also have a...sweet side."

  She snapped her mouth shut, realizing she was babbling. And blundering. She'd nearly scrubbed the finish off the pot and quickly moved to rinse it in the second sink.

  There was no avoiding Gideon as she upended the damp pot on one of the drying towels. He set aside the towel and leaned one hip against the countertop. Crossed his arms over his chest.