The Cowboy and the Princess

by Lori Wilde

  Brady handed him fifteen dollars.

  “I am not even sure I want it,” she said.

  “Hey, it’s a memory. Might be the only picture you’ll ever have of us together,” he tossed it off casually, but something about his tone punctured her lungs, instantly deflating them like a pinprick to a balloon.

  The attendant passed Brady the picture encased in a cheap but cute paper frame of the Fright House background. He handed it to Annie.

  In the photograph, she had her eyes clenched closed, her hands gripping the restraining bar as if it were a life preserver, her spiky hair wildly tousled, her mouth open in an ecstatic shriek.

  But it was Brady’s image that mesmerized her. He was in profile, his gaze clipped to her face; the expression carving his features said, I want to take this woman to bed. The heat from his stare blistered her skin. Both now and in the photograph.

  Annie raised a hand to her heated cheeks. “You were staring at me.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “You did not even see the ride.”

  “I saw what I wanted to see.”

  “You missed out on the experience.”

  “No, I didn’t. The experience was watching you experience Fright House for the first time. Thank you for taking the ride with me.”

  She beamed at him. “It was fun, was it not?”

  “Hollywood could make a movie of it—the thrills, the chills, the kissing. Who should play us?”

  She wanted to say Gregory Peck should play him, but the reference was too old and besides he didn’t look that much like Peck. She squinted at him, trying to decide which young actor he looked the most like. “Colin Farrell, minus the Irish accent. The dark hair, those soulful eyes.”

  Brady cocked his head. “You look like someone familiar. I’ve thought so all along. Audrey Hepburnish.”

  Annie’s breath came out in a hot whoosh. Was he going to finally recognize her? Her pulse quickened. No, no. He could not recognize her. Not yet. She wanted—needed more time.

  He snapped his fingers. “I know. You look a bit like Carey Mulligan.”

  Tension leaked from her limbs. “Oh yes. Maybe so. I never thought of it.”

  “Wispy with a winning smile. Coy but sensible. Smart eyes.”

  “I am not wispy.”

  “You’re thin as a barbwire fence.” He raked a gaze over her body. “You need to eat more banana cream pie.”

  “You are given to hyperbole. I have hips.” She slapped both palms against her derriere.

  His smile turned sly. “Yes, yes, you do. Very nice hips, I might add.”

  She wanted him to stop looking at her. She was afraid he would finally see Princess Annabella beneath the short, black hair. “May we go through the Fright House a second time?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  “And this time you can grab on to me if you get scared.”

  Brady chuckled. “You, Annie Coste, are awesome. The more I hang out with you, the more I want to hang out with you.”

  “I agree. About hanging out with you I mean.”

  “This could be seriously habit-forming.” He leaned closer.

  Annie did not pull away. “Addictive.”

  “One thing leads to another.”

  “The next thing you know your friends will be staging an intervention. No more Fright House for Brady and Annie.”

  “Then come the withdrawal symptoms.”

  “Ouch. Painful.”

  “Ah, but the yearning.”

  “Tragically melancholic. You, sir, are a romantic.”

  “So we should stop it right now. Let’s not take a second turn through the Fright House.”

  “Or we could just say to hell with it and take the gamble.”

  “You said hell.” Brady looked shocked. “I’ve never heard you curse.”

  “You are rubbing off on me. Those bad habits again.”

  Laughing, they got back in line.

  After the second ride through Fright House—this time neither one of them saw the ride, they were too busy kissing—they came out to find their friends had dispersed. Brady got out his cell phone and called Joe. They agreed to meet at the entrance in an hour.

  “It’s just you and me.” He winked.

  Annie’s mouth went dry. Alone with a cowboy at a carnival. Queen Evangeline would highly disapprove.

  “Wanna get some junk food?” He inclined his head toward the concession stand.

  “I would love some.”

  “Name your poison?”

  “You sound like a Wild West barkeep.”

  “Louis L’Amour again?”

  “John Wayne Western.”

  “Turkey leg? Nachos? Fajitas?”

  “How about something sweet?”

  His eyes lit up. “I’ll go for that.” It was their turn at the counter. “What’ll you have?”

  “Cotton candy.”

  “Really?” He scratched his cheek. “You’re full of surprises.”

  “What’s wrong with cotton candy?”

  “You seem more like a cherry cheesecake kind of girl to me. Rich and off limits,” he said.

  “You are on a fishing expedition. Trying to figure out where I am from.”

  “You,” he said, “are too smart for my own good. We’ll have one cotton candy, a package of moist wipes, and a large water.”

  “You expect me to get messy?”

  “No, I expect me to get messy. Here. You take the water.” He paid for the purchases, and Brady unwrapped the plastic from the cotton candy as they walked away. He plucked a chunk of cotton candy from the pile of pink fluff on the stick. “Open up.”

  “What?”

  “Open up.”

  “You are going to feed me.”

  “Please don’t tell me that you’ve never done that either.”

  “I have told you. I have been seriously deprived. What is the custom?”

  “When teens start dating they do dopily romantic stuff like feed each other.”

  “So this is an accepted courtship ritual?”

  “Only when you’re into acting like a kid at a carnival. Or . . .” He lowered his voice. “Sex play with food.”

  Annie shivered. “My, I am getting quite an education.”

  He dangled the cotton candy in front of her. “Open up.”

  Annie opened her mouth, felt the spun sugar dissolve instantly on her tongue. It tasted as delicious as she remembered.

  “More?”

  She opened her mouth.

  Brady fed her another mouthful.

  “Now,” she said, plucking the cotton candy from his hand. “My turn to feed you.”

  They walked around the fairgrounds feeding each other cotton candy and talking.

  “So what else have you never done?” Brady asked.

  “It would be easier to ask what I have done.”

  “What have you done?”

  “Acquired my PhD.”

  “Yeah, let’s not talk about that. It makes me feel dumb.” He tossed all that was left of the cotton candy—a cardboard tube—into a nearby trash can and opened up one of the premoistened towelettes.

  “Where did you go to college?”

  “Didn’t.”

  “Oh?”

  “And before you ask, I didn’t finish high school either. Got my GED though.”

  “That counts.”

  “Not really.”

  “Why did you drop out of high school?”

  “I wasn’t the studying kind.”

  “The bad boy we were talking about earlier.”

  “Not really bad,” he said. “I just didn’t fit in at home.”

  Annie knew that feeling. They might be miles apart education-wise, but they had things in common.

  Not that it matters. In fact, the less you have in common, the better. This is just going to be a lovely affair. A good time. That adventure you are craving.

  “I’m guessing you never played a carnival midway game.”


  “You would be correct.”

  Brady stopped in front of a basketball toss. The barker was urging him to come over. Three balls for two dollars. Try his luck. Win a prize.

  “Which game would you like to try?”

  “Let us select one in which we can compete with each other.”

  “Like the shooting gallery? Or the water guns and the balloons.”

  “Yes.”

  “This way.” He ushered her over to the water gun game. People were sitting at stools waiting, while the barker tried to round up more people to get the game going.

  “Ooh, I want the red one.” Annie plunked down on the stool with a red water gun.

  Brady took the stool beside her. “I’ve got to warn you, when I was a kid, I was wickedly accurate with a water gun.”

  “I feel led on.”

  “I’ll go easy on you.”

  “I want to win one of those,” Annie said, pointing at a large plastic dog bone chew toy. “For Lady Astor.”

  “That thing is bigger than your Yorkie.”

  “So? She’s a determined little dog.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “Ready?” called out the barker. “On your mark . . .”

  Annie readied her gun, closed one eye, sighted the scope. Her target was a red balloon.

  “Get set.”

  She waved a hand at Brady. “You better get into position.”

  He grinned. Curled his finger around the trigger.

  A bell rang and immediately everyone on the stools around them started pumping the squirt gun as hard and fast as they could. Annie shot a quick glance over at Brady; they were neck and neck. “I am going to beat you,” she crowed. “I am going to claim that bone.”

  “Ha! No first timer is going to beat me.”

  In a syncopated rhythm, they pumped the triggers of their squirt guns, sending cool streams of water jetting through the air into the holes of the round balloons. They were laughing and squirting and Annie couldn’t remember when she had ever had this much fun.

  Bam!

  A balloon popped but it was neither Annie’s nor Brady’s.

  A kid jumped up, did a little victory dance. “I won it, I won it, uh-huh, uh-huh.”

  “He is a gloaty winner,” Annie said, getting up from the stool. “Apparently I am a failure at this.”

  “Don’t blame yourself,” Brady teased. “The kid is younger and quicker. Better reflexes. Face it, we’re over the hill.”

  “Speak for yourself.” Annie pushed a fallen strand of hair from her eyes, spied a panda bear the size of Bolivia dangling from a hook over at the ring toss game. “Oh look, look.” She tugged on Brady’s sleeve. “Win that for me.”

  “You obviously have more confidence in my ring tossing skills than I do.”

  “Cowboys play horseshoes, do they not?”

  “Maybe in your Louis L’Amour Westerns. Not in real life.”

  “Come on.” She reached up to squeeze his biceps. “You’ve got muscles. You’re a natural.”

  “Tossing a hoop around the neck of a bottle has nothing to do with muscular strength.”

  “All right. I admit it. I was just trying to butter you up so you would win that panda bear for me.”

  “What’s the attachment to the panda?”

  “When I was a girl, the ambass—” Annie broke off. She had just been about to tell him a story of the Chinese ambassador visiting Farrington Palace and bringing with him the present of a stuffed panda bear for her.

  “The what?”

  “Nothing, never mind.”

  “You were about to tell me something. I want to hear it.”

  “Win me the panda bear and I’ll consider telling you.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll give it a shot.”

  He spent ten dollars on rings. The barker showed him where he had to land the rings in order to win the panda bear. They were in the dead center of a lot of bottles and they had the widest necks.

  “That does not seem fair,” Annie said. “It is rigged against winning the big prize.”

  “Of course it is. That’s how a carnival midway works.”

  “Like casino gambling.”

  “On a very inexpensive scale. You’ve been to a casino?”

  “With my father.”

  “Vegas?”

  “No.”

  “Atlantic City?”

  “Win me the bear and I will tell you.”

  “Get ready to part with your secrets, Annie Coste.” Brady aimed, let go of the first ring. It bounced off one of the bottles that would have garnered him the panda if it had landed. Annie held her breath. What if he won? Was she really prepared to tell him who she was?

  She imagined the expression on his face when he found out. She knew that everything between them would change immediately. No more rodeos. No more carnivals. No more banana cream pie at a truck stop or feeding each other cotton candy. No chance of having sex with him.

  He took a second throw.

  She crossed her fingers, prayed that he missed.

  The ring fell over the neck of a bottle but it was not a prize-winning bottle.

  The next ring went wide and the next.

  Yes. He only had one ring left. The odds of him winning were very slight indeed. Annie let out her breath.

  “This is it, Buttercup. I’m gonna win that panda and you’re gonna have to start talking.”

  He poised, eyeing the bottle. Annie’s muscles tensed. He flicked his wrist, released.

  The ring flew into the air, flipped once, and landed around the neck of one of the bottles. It had a yellow tag on it.

  “We have a winner!” the barker enthused.

  “Yes!” Brady pumped his fist. “Hand over the panda.”

  Perspiration broke out on Annie’s forehead. She wasn’t ready to tell Brady who she was and ruin everything. She had been having so much fun. Why had she made this stupid bet? Maybe she could lie. Except she was a terrible liar. He would see right through her.

  “You owe me some secrets,” Brady murmured, his mouth near her ear.

  A shiver—part sexual anticipation, part fear—ran through her.

  “You didn’t win the panda, sir,” the barker said.

  “What do you mean? The ring landed over the bottle fair and square.”

  “Your bottle had a yellow tag. Not a cream tag. A cream-colored tag is for the panda.”

  Brady blew out his breath. “Well, what did I win?”

  “This, sir.” The barker reached under the counter and pulled out a cheap plastic rhinestone-encrusted tiara.

  Brady started laughing, leaned over, and settled the tiara on her head. “It’s no panda bear, Buttercup, but hell if this doesn’t make you a princess in my book.”

  He slung his arm around her and guided her toward the front gate.

  Annie glanced up. Brady looked down. His eyes locked on to hers, dark and intense. His fingers tickled the back of her neck, teasing, stroking. She burrowed against his side, breathed in his scent, and grinned to herself. She was utterly aware of this masculine man. How his full lips tipped up at the corners, how the faint lines at his eyes crinkled, how his warm laugh heated her up inside. For one glorious moment she was completely happy.

  And then she spied the men in sunglasses and fedoras.

  Chapter Ten

  You might be a princess if . . . you’ve never had to work for a living.

  Annie tensed beside him, faltered in her step.

  “Buttercup?” Brady asked.

  She did not answer. Brady followed her gaze.

  The Blues Brothers.

  They’d tracked her here. He didn’t know how or why or who. He only knew Annie was trembling.

  Instinctively, he tucked her closer to his side. Brady did not understand his impulse. She could have been on the lam from the law. In their suits and Ray-Bans, these guys could surely be FBI. But right or wrong didn’t even factor into it. She was threatened and he was going to take up for her.


  End of story.

  “Easy, Annie,” he murmured. “I’ve got your back. They’ll have to go through me to get to you.”

  “It is not . . . I am not . . .” She wrapped an arm around his waist and said no more.

  The Blues Brothers were combing the edges of the crowd. Smoothly, Brady put a hand to Annie’s back and guided her toward a side exit away from the two men. He could feel the snaps of her bra through the thin cotton of her shirt, felt her lungs expand and contract in quick, shallow breaths. He used his body to camouflage her from view in case the men in the fedoras happened to glance his way.

  “We gave ’em the slip,” he said, stopping a moment to watch the Blues Brothers move in the opposite direction until they were swallowed up in the crowd.

  Annie shifted nervously. “Let us depart before they return.”

  “We have to find Joe and Mariah.”

  She hitched in a deep breath. Brady peered at her in the light from the Ferris wheel circling on the other side of the chain-link fence. Damn, but she was so beautiful. Just looking at her made it hard for him to think. Her long eyelashes fluttered like a delicate butterfly flitting over a vibrant trumpet vine. He pictured himself holding her in the crook of his arm, depositing kisses on her eyelids, feeling those lashes flicker against his lips. She stirred every lustful impulse in his body and drove him crazy with desire.

  “C’mon,” he said, escorting her over the asphalt, away from the festivities and toward the other end of the coliseum where they’d parked.

  His cell phone rang. He answered it one-handedly, knowing it was Joe. “We’re already in the parking lot.”

  “We’ll be right there,” Joe said, then hung up.

  Brady pocketed his cell.

  “I feel so lawless.” Annie planted a palm on her chest and Brady couldn’t help checking the placement. Right over one magnificent breast.

  “Why’s that? Does the law want you? Are those guys G-men?”

  “G-men?”

  “FBI.”

  “No, oh no.”

  Damn him, he wanted so much to believe her. “So why the lawlessness?”

  “Because being with you makes me feel . . .” Her cheeks pinked. “As if I’m breaking all the rules.”

  “What rules?” He laughed, feeling uncertain.