Chasing Dreams

That was too bad. Because what he had thought was not the least appealing.

And this girl in front of him, inspecting the dead mouse—vole—with grave interest was appealing in a way he didn’t even want to think about.

The guys all laughed at her reaction, knowing damn well he’d hoped for quite a different one. Clive gave him a very unsubtle be nice look.

“It’s not even a deer mouse,” she said with a touch of disdain. “I might have been afraid of that. Hanta virus carrier.”

What the hell was she studying at university? Obviously not what he had thought: Mansion Decorating 101 and Social Climbing 303.

After that, it was guy talk over morning coffee. Cars. Baseball. Fishing. The princess, unfortunately, didn’t look the least bit bored. In fact, she rather looked as though she was enjoying rubbing shoulders with the common folk.

And the mischievous light burning in her eye deepened when there was finally a break in the conversation. “Garner and I had a small bet this morning.”

She had their full attention, and she enjoyed every minute of it.

“He seemed to think I was the wrong person for this job.”

“Hey, two hours doesn’t make you employee of the year!” he said.

“The bet wasn’t whether I was going to be employee of the year. The bet was whether I would make it two hours or not. And gentlemen, I have!”

There was hooting and loud applause. He saw the pleasure flash across her face at the rowdy male approval, and he realized that probably sealed it. Miss Jessica King wasn’t going anywhere.

“What was the bet?”

“Clive, I’m so glad you asked,” she said sweetly. “The bet was if I made it working here for two hours, Garner was going to eat his shorts.”

This announcement was followed by great guffaws and knee-slapping.