The Cowboy and the Princess

“With other people. Not with you.”

Owen couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “Are you trying to snow me?”

His friend sighed. “Owen, buddy,” he said in that stilted way he had. Andreus was a prince through and through. Americanisms didn’t come easily to him. “My friend, I’m sure it sounds terrible, but I’m not trying to…to snow you, as you say. You’re very good at getting your way and barking orders, aren’t you? Remember when I showed up in your dorm room when we were freshmen at the university? I’d been raised a prince, destined to take over the throne. Power was in my blood, but I’d barely made it through the door when you told me which bunk was going to be yours, that you liked quiet when you studied and that you intended to study a lot.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know you were a prince.”

“Maybe, but my being a prince didn’t seem to matter to you. You treated me like an equal. Like an ordinary person. I appreciated that more than you can ever know. You became my friend. My best friend,” he stressed.

Owen finally gave in and groaned. “And you saved my butt when four guys jumped me outside a bar. You flew halfway around the world when…”

The pain was still searing even though years had passed. Owen still couldn’t say the words. “You helped me when I needed you to,” he finished lamely. “I owe you.”

“You owe me nothing,” Andreus said. “You know I don’t operate that way. That’s not what this is about. I’m not calling in a favor.”

No, that wasn’t the kind of man Andreus was. And, Owen remembered, he wasn’t the kind of man who asked for favors lightly, either. Despite the lightness of his tone, this couldn’t have been easy for him.

“You’re really worried about your sister, aren’t you?” he asked his friend.

“She holds a special place in my heart, Owen. Delfyne is…sunshine. She’s special. And then, too, I know just what she’s feeling right now. Being royal has many benefits, but it also provides iron bars that separate a person from the world. Permanently. Freedom to choose one’s life is an illusion for a prince or a princess. Her life will never be her own after this time. She knows that.”

And what was a man to say to that? Owen valued his freedom and his open spaces above all else. He’d sacrificed other peoples’ happiness to that freedom.

And even if his friend would never call his cards in, he owed Andreus his sanity.

“Send her,” he said. “Do it. I promise you I won’t let anything happen to her and I’ll return her to you just as she is now.”

“Thank you, Owen. You’ll never know what this means to me. You are a saint, my friend.”

Owen couldn’t help chuckling. “If you think I’m a saint, then you’re delusional. But then, I must be delusional, too, saying yes. I hope neither of us ends up regretting this decision.”

Of course, it was too late for that, Owen thought as he hung up the phone. Regrets were already pouring in. He’d been called many things in his life. Stubborn, arrogant, rough, a loner. Despite his millions, which would have enabled him to live anywhere he wanted to, he liked his silence and the relative peace he found on the ranch. He’d sacrificed everything for this and he always would.

His peace and his loner status were about to end. A princess was coming to visit the Second Chance Ranch.

“A princess?” Owen muttered when he hung up the phone. “On a ranch? That’s crazy talk. Maybe she’ll hate it and go back home right away.”

A man had to have his hopes and dreams.

Delfyne emerged from her family’s private jet, took one look at the very tall man waiting for her and instantly knew that she was in trouble. It wasn’t because she found him physically attractive, although she did. What woman wouldn’t respond to long legs encased in form-fitting denim, broad shoulders, dark hair and silver-blue eyes? But good looks could be ignored.

What couldn’t be ignored was something much more difficult to describe. The expression on his face…this man was a wall, even more of a wall than she remembered from the time he’d visited Andreus years ago. He was a warrior. Stubborn. What’s more, he didn’t look especially pleased to see her, and she was pretty sure she knew why.

Her brother had told Owen Michaels to look after her. There was no question of that. Because, despite the fact that for her entire life she had been promised this time outside her princess skin, when it came to actually granting her this freedom, every member of her family had been nervous. They’d fussed, they’d tried to give helpful advice without looking as if they were giving helpful advice. Delfyne had come upon her father and Andreus whispering and then acting as if they hadn’t been whispering all too often. Because of that and because all her suggestions for places she wanted to stay had been brushed aside with carefully planned criticisms, she’d known months ago that no one was ever going to let her have a true taste of freedom.

They were afraid she was going to make an impetuous mistake…again. Like the time she had slipped away to go swimming alone in the middle of the night and nearly drowned, or the night when one of her maid’s daughters had talked her into going to a local town party unescorted and she’d almost been abducted. And yet they didn’t know even half the mistakes she’d made as she struggled against the bonds that had always kept her from joy and freedom. She was never going to let them know the very worst thing that had happened to her. She didn’t want to think about it herself and she wouldn’t, Delfyne thought as the old panic began to rise up.

Still, that didn’t mean she was going to spend her life hiding away from the world and from life. She needed this time away from who she was. Just this once to live in the real world, to experience the heady freedom of normalcy, to know what ordinary people knew. She craved that desperately.

But now they had assigned her two bodyguards and a reluctant babysitter and… She glanced at Owen Michaels’s square, solid jaw, noting the tension visibly coiled in every muscle in that lean, tough body.

For a moment she felt sorry for him for being stuck watching over her, but she was never going to say that. That would be admitting that he was in charge of her. That wasn’t acceptable. She appreciated his hospitality even if it was done as a favor for an old friend, but he was standing between her and her dreams. At least until she could come up with a plan.

Taking a deep breath, Delfyne pasted on the smile she had been trained to wear almost before she had learned to walk and talk. She lifted her head, automatically slipping into regal mode.

“You’re Owen, aren’t you?” she said, moving toward the man and holding out one hand in a gracious, queenly gesture. “How very kind and generous of you to offer me lodging during my time here in your United States.”

A hint of an amused look lifted the warrior’s lips slightly before his grim expression returned. He raised a brow. “You’re Delfyne? I was under the impression that you weren’t especially pleased about coming here.”

Her exact words had been that she would rather rot in the royal dungeon than spend a summer on a secluded cattle ranch. Even though it had been a childish statement to make and even though there was no royal dungeon and never had been. It was simply an expression she and her siblings had used to protest parental rule. It had seldom worked and obviously hadn’t worked this time.

Andreus had sung the praises of Montana’s wide-open spaces, blue skies, starry nights and the proud, nurturing nature of the people, especially Owen. Her parents had been completely sold on “the Montana plan.”

Delfyne had wanted to protest, but a part of her had also been won over, at least a little. She couldn’t help being curious about Montana, too, after she’d heard that parts of this place were still wild and untamed. Like me, she’d thought.

“I hadn’t fully researched the situation at that time,” she said pleasantly. “I hadn’t examined the upside of the location. Now I have.”

“Ah. The upside. You’ll have to tell me later what you think that is.” The warrior gave a terse nod loaded with meaning, if only she knew what that meaning was. He looked down at her hand. “Meanwhile…I’ve never actually touched a princess and I’m a bit 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 to her side. “I think we’ll settle for hello for now. Touching isn’t really necessary.” This man, after all, was her jailer, even if he was a reluctant one. She could not and would not allow herself to feel an attraction for him. That would be wrong and foolish in so many ways. He was her brother’s friend. He was a commoner, and she was soon to marry a man she barely knew but who would bring great connections to her people. She would, of course, do her duty…after she had her taste of life.

Still, despite the fact that she knew she could feel nothing for her brother’s friend, she and Owen Michaels were going to be stuck here together for a while unless she could talk him into letting her go off and do all the dazzlingly wonderful and normal things she’d been waiting to do all her life. And unless she could also convince him not to tell anyone about her plans.

She glanced up into his flinty, wary eyes and knew that this wasn’t a man who could be convinced easily.

Delfyne withheld a sigh. “Is it very far to your home?” she asked.

He smiled then, and this time his smile looked genuine. And far too dazzling. His silver-blue eyes lit up, and something hot and sparkly zinged right through Delfyne’s body, heating up parts of her she preferred to ignore. “Everything is far around here if you’re not used to driving distances,” her captor-babysitter said. “Are you ready to go?”

She nodded. “Yes.” The sooner she assessed her surroundings, the sooner she could figure out how she was going to manage these next few months and what she intended to do either to make this situation palatable or to change it.

Turning toward the airplane, she gave another nod. Immediately, two members of the royal guard appeared. Stoic. Big. Their expressions gave away nothing.

“Who the hell are they?” Owen asked, his voice quiet but deadly. She thought she heard him say something worse than hell beneath his breath.

“My escort,” she said simply.

“Your escort,” he repeated as if she’d just said she’d traveled here accompanied by flying pink ponies. “They’re going home?”

She wished. “If you think you can convince them to leave, you’re welcome to try. They follow me everywhere. It’s their job.”

Owen Michaels frowned. “Any other members of your entourage I should know about?”

For the first time since she’d left home, Delfyne felt like laughing. “I see Andreus didn’t tell you about my guards,” she said with a smile. “I wonder why.”

But they both knew why. Owen didn’t want her here, and friendship only went so far. If he’d known he was going to have to house a brooding pair of guardsmen in addition to a princess for months on end, she wondered if he would have agreed to let her stay.

Maybe the man would have said no. Maybe he had limits, and if she pushed them, he’d send her away to where she wanted to go. That was definitely something to think about. Delfyne wondered just what Owen Michaels’s limits were.