The Cowboy and the Princess

The Cowboy and the Princess
Myrna Mackenzie

To lasso a princessWatch over a princess for the summer? Keep Her Royal Highness out of trouble? Not happening. But when the Princess’s brother asks reclusive rancher Owen Michaels for help with the defiant Princess Delfyne, Owen can’t say no. He should say no. Delfyne is regal. Gorgeous. Kind. And dangerous to this tormented cowboy’s heart.Owen will have to fight his hardest to keep love away – because, no matter how strong their attraction, Delfyne is betrothed to another man!

“I was under the impression that youaren’t pleased about coming here.”

Delfyne’s exact words had been that she would rather rot in the royal dungeon than spend a summer on a secluded cattle ranch. “I hadn’t fully researched the situation at the time,” she said pleasantly. “I hadn’t examined the upside of the location. Now I have.”

Owen gave a terse nod. He looked down at her hand. “I’m rusty on my royal etiquette. Do I shake your hand, or kiss it?”

His deep voice rumbled, and something primal and earthy and terribly unnerving simmered through Delfyne. She lowered her hand. “I think we’ll settle for hello for now.” This man, after all, was her jailer, even if he was a reluctant one. She could not and would not feel an attraction for him. He was her brother’s friend. He was a commoner. And she was soon to marry.

Still, despite the fact that she should feel nothing for him, she and Owen Michaels were going to be stuck together for a while. She glanced into his flinty, wary eyes. Maybe he had limits, and if she pushed them he’d send her away. She wondered just what Owen Michaels’s limits might be.

She would soon find out.

Myrna Mackenzie is a self-proclaimed ‘student of all things that concern women and their relationships’. An award-winning author of over thirty novels, Myrna was born in a small town in Dunklin County, Missouri, grew up just outside Chicago, and now divides her time between two lake areas, both very different and both very beautiful. She loves coffee, hiking, cruising the internet for interesting websites, and attempting gardening, cooking and knitting. Readers (and other potential gardeners, cooks, knitters, writers, etc…) can visit Myrna online at www.myrnamackenzie.com, or write to her at PO Box 225, La Grange, IL 60525, USA.

Dear Reader

My first thought when I decided to write this book was How incredibly awesome to be able to marry two of myfavourite fantasies into one book! Because as a child (and way past the time when I could be called a child), I was in love with stories of princes and princesses.

I read them all—from those with happily-ever-after endings to those with sad endings, the fairy tale stories and the real ones. There was just something about a world so different from my own that enthralled me. It was a world of privilege, but also one closed off from so many of the ordinary pleasures most of us know on a day-to-day basis.

Then, when I grew up and visited the American West for the first time, I fell in love with that part of the country. It’s big, beautiful, rugged and still untamed. There are gorgeous mountains and there are ranchers—hardworking rough, tough guys who never know what hand they’ll be dealt from day to day.

So…a princess and a cowboy? Two people whose worlds would ordinarily never intersect—one tied to the crown and one tied to the land—who could never marry? What a challenge! What fun! I had to write Delfyne and Owen’s story. It begins something (but not exactly) like this:

There once was a princess who was rather disobedient,so her family sent her off to a part of the world where shecouldn’t get into trouble…or so they thought…

This book is for those of us who have imaginary princess centres. You know who you are—and, yes, if you still like to play dress-up, even though you’re a grown-up, you are a princess at heart.

I hope you enjoy the story!

Best wishes

Myrna Mackenzie

THE COWBOY AND THE PRINCESS

BY

MYRNA MACKENZIE

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

CHAPTER ONE

“OH MAN. There are good ideas and bad ideas, and believe me, sending your sister here so that I can chaperone her is an unbelievably bad idea.” Owen Michaels leaned back in his chair and propped his boot-clad feet up on his desk.

“Nonsense, Owen, it’s a master plan,” the voice on the other end of the line said.

Owen glanced out the window at miles of empty space. Beautiful stuff, if solitude was what you craved. He did. Most people didn’t. No denying that. “You been hitting the cognac, Dré? Or…it has been a long time since you’ve been to Montana. Maybe you’ve forgotten that while I may be a wealthy man, the Second Chance is a working ranch. It’s pretty isolated. Your sister’s a princess. This isn’t what she’s used to.”

Oh no, Owen thought. A woman like that is usedto a heck of a lot more. She would crave culture and the excitement of being at the hot, happening center of things. She’d expect to take part in events that involved the cream of society. He already knew too much about women like that. Women didn’t transplant well here, as evidenced by his mother, who had run away, and his wife, who had divorced him after—

Owen swore beneath his breath, halting the painful thought. The point was that everything he knew told him that bringing a princess here was a recipe for doom and disaster. “Nope, buddy. What you’re asking…it’s just not happening. You can’t send her here.”

“Owen, stop. Let’s talk. Or I’ll talk. You listen. This plan is perfect. Absolutely perfect,” Owen’s former college roommate said, excitement evident in his voice. “And in answer to your question, I’ve never been more serious, and no, I haven’t been drinking even a little. At least, not since I came up with this solution. Before that, I was going mad trying to figure out what to do with Delfyne.”

Andreus’s groan brought a frown to Owen’s face. “Why do you have to do anything with her?”

His friend sighed. “Because she is a princess, one who’s getting married soon. As such, she’s demanding the summer of freedom from royal life that the rest of us had. It’s her right. We all get that opportunity to shake off our bonds once—just once—before we settle in to live our fate.”

Owen watched as the almost-too-bright-to-look-at sun began to sink over the landscape, painting the work vehicles red as it began its retreat. When it was finally gone, the darkness would be a black blanket, thick and impenetrable out here where there were no streetlights of any kind, no neighbors for miles. And the silence…well, a person couldn’t get much farther from the royal life than this, but Owen was pretty darn sure that that wasn’t the kind of vacation Andreus’s sister had in mind. “She wants a few months off before she gets married? A trip away from her life? So, what’s the problem? Send her on some exotic retreat, or on a cruise or a trip to Manhattan.”

“No.”

The word seemed a bit too emphatic, and Owen swung his feet off the desk and stood up, dragging the telephone over to the window where he stood in the gathering darkness, watching the clouds turn fiery oranges and purples. “Why?”

Andreus uttered an audible sigh. “Delfyne…is…”

Owen was getting a bad feeling. He turned away from the setting sun and gave all his attention to his friend. “What about Delfyne?” He vaguely remembered meeting Andreus’s sister seven years ago when he had been twenty and visiting Andreus in Xenora on spring break. All he remembered was that she had been seventeen, thin and pale, with a posture that had been far more perfect than that of any seventeen-year-old he had ever met. She’d left to visit a cousin in Belgium soon after his arrival. He’d had the feeling that she’d been sent away so that she wouldn’t be tainted by the American cowboy running loose in the palace. Even he had to smile at that. Still.

“Delfyne…” Andreus was saying. “My younger sister is… The problem is that Delfyne isn’t like our other brothers and sisters. She’s lived a sheltered life—a spoiled life in many ways—and she’s impetuous and naive. She knows no boundaries and doesn’t believe that anything bad can happen to her. She’s the girl who had to learn that fire is hot by touching it. Warnings were never enough. Send her out into the world with a total freedom pass and…well, I’m pretty sure you can imagine what could happen.”

Silence settled in. Owen could imagine all kinds of things, none of them good.

“Owen?”

“So what you’re asking me to do is to babysit your little sister,” he said finally.

“Well, I wouldn’t put it that way. At least, not to Delfyne’s face. She has a temper.”

Great. Owen wanted to groan, but, sensitive to the fact that this was his good friend’s sister they were talking about, he held back. Just what he needed. A princess with no common sense and a bad temper.

“Andreus…” he tried. “Hell, Dré, you know how unpolished and rough I am. I’m not cut out to take care of a princess.”

“Nonsense. Your rough edges will be a boon. You won’t let her get into trouble.”

“You want me to ride roughshod over a woman?”

Andreus hesitated. “I want you to restrict her a bit.”

“Sounds like major babysitting.”

“She won’t be a problem.”

“You just said she was a handful.”