The Runaway Princess
Patricia Forsythe
They came from different worlds, but sexy and sincere Jace McTaggart was exactly the husband regal Alexis would have chosen for herself. Every tender kiss they shared seemed to bring this commitment-shy bachelor closer…to a proposal?Marriage to a man who could love her was Alexis's most cherished dream. But what would Jace say when he discovered the truth? When the proud rancher learned that the quiet substitute schoolteacher was actually a princess escaping the husband candidates her father had chosen?And then came the day when he demanded to know what she was hiding….
“Alexis, what are you thinking?”
Jace asked softly.
“I’m thinking about the kind of man you are,” she replied.
Surprise flickered in his eyes. “What kind of man am I?”
“I…I think you’re hard. And honest.”
“I hope so. Anything else?”
She swallowed. “You like your life here and would never want to leave.”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “That’s right. My life is here.”
She had no idea where these thoughts and questions were coming from, but she went on. “Did you like being alone all the time? Because I know what it’s like to live in a big place and to be lonely….”
“Do you, Alexis? I’m sorry.” He raised his hand to touch her cheek. He ran his finger along her velvety skin. “Being lonely is hell. Have you been lonely since you came to Sleepy River?”
She looked into his steady dark eyes. “Not recently…”
Dear Reader,
Although the anniversary is over, Silhouette Romance is still celebrating our coming of age—we’ll soon be twenty-one! Be sure to join us each and every month for six emotional stories about the romantic journey from first time to forever.
And this month we’ve got a special Valentine’s treat for you! Three stories deal with the special holiday for true lovers. Karen Rose Smith gives us a man who asks an old friend to Be My Bride? Teresa Southwick’s latest title, Secret Ingredient: Love, brings back the delightful Marchetti family. And Carla Cassidy’s Just One Kiss shows how a confirmed bachelor is brought to his knees by a special woman.
Amusing, emotional and oh-so-captivating Carolyn Zane is at it again! Her latest BRUBAKER BRIDES story, Tex’s Exasperating Heiress, features a determined groom, a captivating heiress and the pig that brought them together. And popular author Arlene James tells of The Mesmerizing Mr. Carlyle, part of our AN OLDER MAN thematic miniseries. Readers will love the overwhelming attraction between this couple! Finally, The Runaway Princess marks Patricia Forsythe’s debut in the Romance line. But Patricia is no stranger to love stories, having written many as Patricia Knoll!
Next month, look for appealing stories by Raye Morgan, Susan Meier, Valerie Parv and other exciting authors. And be sure to return in March for a new installment of the popular ROYALLY WED tales!
Happy reading!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
The Runaway Princess
Patricia Forsythe
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
PATRICIA FORSYTHE
admits that she’s a lifelong daydreamer who has always enjoyed spinning stories in her head. She grew up in a copper mining town in Arizona, which was a true adventure because of the interesting characters who inhabited the place. During the years when she was going to college, earning her degree, teaching school, marrying and raising four children, those characters were in her mind. She wanted to put them in a book, but it wasn’t until she discovered romance novels with their emotional content and satisfying resolutions that she found a home for those characters.
Patricia still lives in Arizona with her family and pets and continues to spin stories about interesting places and compelling characters.
Contents
Chapter One (#u9bceead3-db64-501f-aca7-7b91f1249053)
Chapter Two (#uf2a0ee44-9502-5051-a055-9ba43d7d7c11)
Chapter Three (#ucc265e40-134b-5985-b815-47bb26a5a838)
Chapter Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One
Her Most Serene Royal Highness Princess Alexis Mary Charlotte of the House of Chastain and the principality of Inbourg ran out of pavement and hope at exactly the same moment.
Dumbfounded, she stared over the hood of the compact car. Where had the road gone? She had been following this dratted ribbon of asphalt through Arizona’s White Mountains for hours now. It seemed like days. She’d seen nothing but trees, though she wouldn’t have been surprised to come upon the last remains of a hapless traveler propped against the base of a pine tree, his bony fingers holding a sign reading Abandon All Hope.
She sighed, leaned forward over the steering wheel and peered into the darkness.
Even after she had left the highway and turned off onto this side road, everything had seemed all right. She’d been sure that all she had to do was continue following it. Things would be fine once she reached Sleepy River. She’d been repeating it like a mantra since early that morning.
However, a few minutes ago, clouds had drifted in to cover the moon and these woods were desperately dark without its glow. This section of tall, dark pines was hardly ablaze with streetlights.
Squinting into the night, she tried to see something; a road sign, a blazed trail, a friendly native, anything around her besides trees, trees, and more trees.
She had long since left Morenci, the last town, far behind and she knew she couldn’t turn back. Wherever she was, she knew she was closer to Sleepy River than she was to Morenci, so she might as well keep going. She gripped the steering wheel and lifted herself up to gaze forlornly over the hood. She would keep going as soon as she figured out what had become of the road.
She knew she had taken exactly the right turns every step of the way as she followed the Coronado Trail, which had supposedly been scouted out by the Spanish conquistadors four hundred years ago.
“Too bad I don’t have one of them along to help me now,” she muttered in annoyance. A glance at the dashboard clock told her it was after eleven o’clock. The efficient little car, borrowed from her friend Rachel Burrows, was easy to drive, but every tense and aching muscle in her body told her it was time to quit.
But how could she? Somehow she’d managed to get herself lost—a rarity for her. She would have called for help if her cell phone hadn’t died on her. Besides which, she had a map and precise directions, and she was excellent at following both. Until a few days ago, her entire life had been a perfect model of direction-following.
In spite of that, she’d done something wrong because the paved road had petered out into nothingness leaving only a dirt track for her to follow.
“Oh blast and bother,” she groused.
With a discouraged sigh, she leaned her head against the steering wheel and closed her eyes. This had been the most impossibly longest day of her life and it was far from over.
Exhaustion nearly swamped her as she tried to recall exactly how all this had happened. Oh, yes. She’d been pursuing her dream; a dream of independence, self-reliance, having a career instead of being a glorified baby-sitter for her nephew. A dream of being her own person instead of the last of the three daughters of Prince Michael of Inbourg whose occupation seemed to be, as one tabloid so gracelessly put it, “Squandering the money of the citizens of Inbourg with marathon sessions of power shopping.”
Never mind that her sisters, Anya and Deirdre, had been photographed buying supplies for the disaster relief society they co-chaired. Tabloid reporters didn’t care about the truth, only about publishing the flashiest headlines. What would they think if they knew that Princess Alexis had taken a long-term substitute teaching job in a one-room schoolhouse in the mountains of Arizona? It didn’t matter what the truth actually was. Their assignment would be to put the most negative possible spin on it.
It would be bad if the tabloids discovered that she had come to the States on the pretense of spending several weeks pampering herself at a health spa. It would be disastrous if they learned she had installed Esther Wanfray, her lady-in-waiting, there in her place.
Oh, why was she thinking about that now? Alexis looked about in quiet desperation. She had to turn around, go back, and figure out where she’d gone wrong. Carefully, she put the car in reverse and started to back up.
A sickening thud and then a splintering of wood told her she’d hit something.
“What on earth…?” Quickly, she threw the car into drive and lurched forward. This time a jarring scrape on the front right fender split the air.
“Oh, no.” Horrified, Alexis stared straight ahead for an instant trying to think what to do next. Get out and take a look was the only thing that occurred to her.
She reached across the seat and scrambled in the glove compartment for the flashlight only to find to her astonishment that there wasn’t one.
Suddenly furious, she sputtered as she threw open the car door and hopped out, “Oh, Rachel,” she wailed. “Why don’t you carry a flashlight in your car?” She stood peering into the darkness beyond the beam of the headlights for a moment, then remembered a small book of matches she’d picked up somewhere. She didn’t know how much good they would be, but a little light was better than nothing.
She took the matches from her purse, struck one carefully, and turned toward the back of the car to see what she had hit. The wind immediately blew out the match.
“Drat.” She struck another match and tried again. It blew out before she’d taken two steps, as did matches number three, four and five.
Frustrated, she glanced back into the car and spied the magazine she’d bought before boarding the plane to Phoenix. With a glad cry, she picked it up, tore out several pages and wrapped them into a roll. She then lit the end and had a crude but effective torch. Holding it carefully, she moved to the rear of the vehicle where she saw a splintered pole lying on the ground and on the end of it, tilting crazily skyward, was a mailbox.
“McTaggart,” she read, and then read it again. “McTaggart!” Astounded and relieved, her voice rose an octave. “I’m in the right place.” Whirling around, she held the torch up and tried to peer farther into the darkness. “But where’s the house?”
McTaggart was the name of the school board president. She was to pick up the key to her own cottage and to the schoolhouse from him. Now all she had to do was figure out where the house was.
She wasn’t lost, after all, she thought, elated. She had ended up exactly where she was supposed to be. She had reached Sleepy River community and, as she’d been promising herself all day, everything was going to be just fine.
Hurrying back to the front of the car, she looked for the house, but could see nothing and finally concluded it was farther down this dirt road. Hope and confidence surged. With the help of her trusty torch, she could find it, though she moved her hand farther down toward the end of the burning papers, and prayed the flame would last until she found the house.
In a rush, Alexis reached in and took her shoulder bag from the car, paused to lock the doors, then began moving forward cautiously. She paused to see what she’d scraped the car against when she’d pulled forward.
It was a vine-covered wall. If the moon had been out, she probably would have seen it as well as the mailbox. The damage to the car didn’t appear to be too bad.
As she straightened, she heard the crunch of gravel behind her, and then a deep male voice saying, “What the devil…?”
With a start of surprise, Alexis whirled. The sudden movement fanned the flare of the torch, sending a speck of burning paper flying down to scorch her hand. With a cry, she dropped the torch into the grass beside the wall.
Immediately, the dry grass burst into flames.
“Hey,” the man yelled. In the flare of light, she saw only shadows and had the impression of a large body flying past as he leaped forward to stamp out the flames. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, dropping her purse beside the car and jumping onto the flames. She stomped for all she was worth but the fire was moving faster than she was. “I…I didn’t see…”
Fire licked hungrily at the tinder-dry weeds and grass. Within seconds, the flames were moving too rapidly for the two of them to handle.
“Run to the house,” the man ordered. “There’s a triangle on the front porch. Ring it and yell ‘Fire.’”
“Yes, all right.” She started to scurry away, but then stumbled around and threw out her hands desperately. “Where’s the house?”
“Where’s the house?” he repeated, astounded. “Over there where the porch light is.”
Frantically, Alexis glanced around to see that, sure enough, not one hundred feet away stood a two-story ranch house with a porch light sending out a bright glow.
“How did that get there?” she gasped.
“It’s been there for seventy years!”
Alexis didn’t waste any more time. She dashed for the steps leading to the porch. At one end was a set of heavy redwood lawn furniture and at the other was an old-fashioned iron triangle of the type farm women had once used to call the family to supper. It hung suspended from a ceiling beam. An eight-inch rod swung from a leather loop which was threaded onto the open side of the triangle.
Shrieking, “Fire, fire, fire!” Alexis grabbed the rod and began beating the triangle until the sound rang out to who knew where.
Behind her in the house, she could hear shouts and the thumping of feet as lights were switched on. Having given the alarm, she abandoned the triangle and looked around for anything that could be used to fight the fire. She knew there was no use in trying to find a garden hose or bucket because that would waste a great deal of time. She spied a blanket folded up on a chair, snatched it up, and ran, full tilt back to the fire.
“Here,” she gulped, thrusting it at the man who was fighting the blaze. He took it without a word and began beating out the flames while she continued to pound at them with her feet. A minute later, two more men joined them, dragging a long garden hose. They turned it on and within seconds, the flames were doused.
Shakily thankful, Alexis slumped against the front of the car and put her trembling hands in front of her face. A minute. She only needed a minute to compose herself.
“Hey, miss, are you all right?” one of the men asked. It wasn’t the voice of the first one who’d startled her into dropping the torch.
She glanced up. Suddenly, the clouds parted, the moon shone down with a dim glow, and Alexis could see three men facing her. All of them were wearing hastily donned shirts, boots and jeans. The tallest of the three approached her furiously.
“Who are you and why are you trying to burn down my ranch?”
“I’m not…I’m…I certainly didn’t do this on purpose,” she defended herself, lurching upright once again. “You startled me by sneaking up on me.”
“You’re saying this is my fault?”
Alexis couldn’t make out his features very well, but there was no mistaking the anger in his voice and the furious thrust of his jaw. “I’m only saying I was startled,” she shot back, beginning to grow angry herself. “I was trying to find my way to the house, and…”
“Carrying an open flame?”
“I don’t have a flashlight. Making a torch was all I could think of to do after I knocked over that mailbox and ran into the wall.”
“You knocked over the…” With a strangled sound, he stalked behind the car and stood staring down at the shattered pole and the mailbox that now pointed skyward. The other two men followed and the three of them stood shaking their heads and speaking in low tones.
After a moment, the first man stomped back to her. “Who are you? Do I have enemies somewhere that I don’t know about and they sent you here to burn me out?”
“Oh, of course not,” she said, her annoyance growing. “I don’t know if you have any enemies or not. I don’t even know who you are. I was looking for Mr. McTaggart. Mr. Jace McTaggart.”
“Well, you found him,” the man snapped. He clapped his hands onto his hips and thrust his jaw forward.
Alexis’s heart plummeted to the scorched soles of her sneakers. She leaned forward and squinted at him, but she could barely see his face. What she saw didn’t look very promising.
“You’re…you’re Mr. McTaggart, the head…the head of the Sleepy River school board?”
“Yes, heaven help us, I am.”
“Oh.” Of course, she thought. Why not an attempt at arson to cap off this long, miserable day? Week? Month?
She didn’t fold easily, though. Three hundred years of royal blood flowed in her veins. Her ancestors had once held out for three weeks against Napoleon’s forces. Her grandfather had personally buried much of the royal treasury in a farmer’s field rather than surrender it to the Nazis. She could handle this.
With the regal nod she’d copied from her grandmother, she held out her hand and said, “How do you do? I’m Alexis Chastain, the new schoolteacher.”
Jace squinted through the darkness. “Alexis…?”
“Chastain,” she supplied. “I’m here to teach at Sleepy River Community School.”
He leaned forward and stared into her face, though he couldn’t see much even with the help of the moonlight. “No. I don’t know who you are, or what you’re trying to pull, but the teacher we’ve hired is named Rachel Burrows and she’s…”
“Not coming,” the woman said firmly. “I’m here instead.”
This was a nightmare, Jace assured himself firmly. The past few minutes when he’d awakened to the sound of a car stopping, followed by a muffled thump and splintering of wood, jumped into his clothes, and dashed outside to find a strange—emphasis on the word strange—woman holding a flaming torch were all part of the nightmare. He blinked, ran his hand over his face, and looked around. No. It all looked too real. Maybe he wasn’t dreaming. Whatever was going on, he had to figure it out because this was his ranch. He was responsible for it and everyone on it. Jace took a deep breath. “What do you mean that you’re here instead?”
“Rachel couldn’t come, so I’m taking her place.” She gave a firm little nod.
“No, no, no.” He shook his head. “That’s not how it works. See, how it works is that the school board interviews then hires a teacher who arrives when the contract says, and…what’s the matter?”
The woman, the one with the fancy name of Alexis Chastain, was copying the way he shook his head as she said, “I told you, she can’t come so I’m taking her place.”
“That’s impossible,” Jace began with heat and not a little frustration. “You can’t do that….”
“Boss,” one of the other men broke in. “Does this have to be decided now? Can’t we go into the house? It’s near midnight and she looks about ready to drop.”
Jace looked over at the brothers who’d worked for him since graduating from high school just over a year ago. He couldn’t see much in the gloom, but he knew Rocky was the one who’d spoken. No doubt, Gil was nodding in agreement. He glanced back at the woman. He didn’t think she looked ready to drop. Her hands were on her hips, her spine was straight as a railroad spike, and if she tipped forward, that outthrust chin of hers would spear him in the chest. As far as he could tell, she looked ready to argue.
“Okay,” he said finally, giving her a wary look. “Gil, can you get this car out of here and park it up by the barn? Miss Chastain, give Gil your key and he’ll take care of the car for you.”
He was glad to see that she obeyed without question, meekly handing over the car key to Gil, who quickly started the vehicle and pulled away. Jace winced at the sound of metal scraping against the wall, then against the broken mailbox post, but Gil gave an apologetic wave and disappeared up the long, graveled driveway.
“I’ll put the hose away.” Jace took the end of the garden hose from Rocky and began looping it as he did a rope. He didn’t need to do this, but he always thought better if his hands were busy with something. What was he supposed to do with her? he thought furiously as he made loops in the plastic hose. Why hadn’t that Rachel Burrows girl they’d hired shown up as she’d promised? She’d signed a contract. Didn’t that mean anything? Blast it, he didn’t want to deal with this. He hadn’t even wanted to be head of the school board. He didn’t have kids. He would probably never even have kids. Why should he need to do the job?
Because it was his turn. In a community as small as Sleepy River, everyone took a turn at some job. This year, Jace was head of the school board.
Disgruntled, he nodded toward the other man. “Rocky, you take her up to the house.”
“I’ll go get your bag for you, miss,” Rocky said. “As soon as Gil parks your car for you.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary,” she said, and Jace could hear determination in her voice. She turned and stumbled around until she located her purse on the ground. She hitched the strap over her shoulder as she said, “I can take care of everything myself. If you’ll point me to the cottage I’m to occupy, I’ll be fine.”
Obviously, she thought that once she got inside the teacher’s cottage, they couldn’t dislodge her.
“It’s not ready,” Jace said.
“Not ready?” Now he heard a thread of panic in her voice. Hands thrust out, she turned from one to the other of them. “What do you mean?”
“You weren’t…I mean, Miss Burrows wasn’t expected until next week. No one’s lived in the cottage for a couple of years. It needs to be cleaned. No, I’ve got a guest room. You’ll stay there until we get this straightened out.”
She opened her mouth as if to argue further, but then snapped it shut. Rocky could be a gentleman when he wanted to and he turned on the charm now as he said, “Don’t you worry about a thing, miss. We’ll get you settled in and things will look a lot better in the morning.” Quickly, he took her arm and supported her as he guided her toward the ranch house. Jace could hear him talking quietly all the while, much as he did to a skittish filly.
Even as he wondered what in blazes he was going to do now, Jace finished winding up the hose and followed Rocky and Alexis to the house. Gil joined him as he reached the porch steps and the two of them walked inside together.
Jace nearly stumbled over his own size twelve feet at the sight that greeted him in the living room. Beside him, he heard Gil draw in his breath, and then choke out a cough.
Rocky was transfixed by the woman who stood, blinking in the glare of the overhead light Jace had flipped on when he’d run from the house. She didn’t notice the men because she was busy inspecting the very masculine-looking living room.
A sideways glance at Gil told Jace that he, too, was thunderstruck. Jace wouldn’t have been surprised to see the boys’ eyes begin to slowly twirl cartoonlike in their heads. Their jaws had gone slack. Jace hoped they didn’t start drooling.
He couldn’t blame them, though, he thought as his own gaze was drawn back to her. She was a beauty all right, he admitted grudgingly.
Curly chestnut hair cascaded to a slim waist. Her face was fine-boned with almond-shaped green eyes and lips as luscious as a fresh peach. She wore sage green slacks and a matching cotton sweater that, even streaked with soot, made her look cool and unruffled.
A feeling he hoped was dread stirred within him. Great, he thought. Just great. It didn’t matter what she called herself. He already knew her name. It was Trouble.
All this room needed was a chair made out of steer horns and cowhides, Alexis thought. The furnishings were dark, covered in scarred leather or faded Mexican serapes. There was a huge rag rug on the floor to lighten the somber mood of the room. For all its masculinity, the room felt invitingly comfortable. In fact, she wouldn’t mind curling up on that old sofa right now and falling asleep—after crying her eyes out for half an hour.
A low noise that sounded like undisguised irritation broke off her interest in the living room. She turned to see all three men staring at her. To her surprise, she realized Gil and Rocky were twins. They appeared to be in their late teens or early twenties, with dark eyes and thick black hair that looked as if it needed attention from a barber who knew his way around a haystack. Both men were staring at her as if they were in a trance. She’d had that look turned on her before and she automatically began to stiffen her spine and give them a cool look, but then she realized that they only saw her as an attractive woman, not as a marriageable princess. Gratefully, she gave them a warm smile that seemed to buckle their knees.
“Gwarp,” they said in unison and leaned on each other for strength.
Laughing softly, she looked at Jace McTaggart who was scowling ferociously. Her amusement died an instant death. This most definitely was not a man to be charmed. In fact, right now he looked mad enough to spit bullets.
Everything about him looked tough. He could fit right into an old western movie where it was often hard to tell heroes from villains.
This man could have played on either side of the law.
He was tall, at least six feet two, with broad shoulders that strained the seams of a white T-shirt, muscular arms and big hands that rested now at the waist of unbelted jeans that rode low on his hips.
His face would have invited comment anywhere. His dark brown eyes were deep-set and searching, his nose was long and straight over a firm mouth. Even his hair, as dark and rich as mahogany, was straight, swept away from his broad forehead, and precisely cut. It was as if nature had put him together using a ruler and T-square, leaving off any softening effects. She felt a jolt of dismay, followed by a surge of warmth when his eyes lifted to meet hers.
“Miss Chastain,” he began. “You don’t belong here, but we’ll discuss that in the morning. Right now Rocky is going to fetch your bag while Gil shows you to the guest room.” He nodded toward the back of the house. “It’s right through there and it has its own bathroom.” He gave his two young employees a significant look. “As well as a lock on the door. Feel free to use it.”
Alexis wanted to argue, to tell him she certainly belonged here, but she was too tired. “All right,” she said with a meekness that surprised her.
“Rocky. Gil,” Jace said. “Get moving.”
The two men finally seemed to come out of their trances. With a blush, Rocky turned and plunged toward the front door, but was brought up short by the sight of a pile of rags beside it.
“Hey, Jace,” he said, bending to pick it up. Alexis recognized it as the blanket she’d grabbed off the front porch. “What’s this?”
Jace glanced at it. “That’s what Miss Chastain grabbed to fight the fire she started.”
She gave him a disgruntled look. She thought she’d done pretty well to find something to use.
Rocky held it up and she could see that it was an old quilt, streaked now with dirt and mud, and with long scorch marks running its length. “But isn’t this…?”
Jace’s direct gaze swung back to Alexis. “The heirloom quilt my great-grandmother made out of her wedding dress,” he said.
When she shut the guest room door behind her five minutes later, Alexis’s face was still burning with embarrassment.
How could she possibly have known that quilt was an heirloom? And what on earth had it been doing lying on a chair on the front porch if it was so important? Her family certainly never left such things thrown around, she thought self-righteously. Not that it would be easy to do so with one of the fifteenth-century tapestries that filled her family home.
Still, Alexis felt terrible about the ruined quilt and she knew she’d need to make up for it somehow, along with any other fire damage she had caused.
This was not an auspicious beginning to her new job.
She was too tired to think about that right now. Reaching up, she rubbed her temples with her fingertips, then looked at the room which was hers for the night.
Like the rest of the house, it was decidedly masculine. The bed had an old-fashioned iron bed frame and a high mattress covered with a black-and-blue plaid bedspread. A fifties-style lamp with a tiered shade in Chinese red stood on a rickety table that had been painted a cheerful yellow. A faded rag rug much like the one in the living room covered an oval section of floor beside the bed.
The riotous color scheme didn’t matter to her. Cleanliness was the most important thing and this room definitely looked clean. Stark, she thought with a grim smile as she set her suitcase on the bed and flipped it open, but certainly clean.
Delighted with the luxury of a private bathroom, Alexis quickly prepared for bed, then climbed gratefully between the covers. Even as she drifted off to sleep, she pictured Jace McTaggart’s face as he’d told her she didn’t belong in Sleepy River.
Tomorrow she would prove him wrong, she thought as she drifted into exhausted sleep. She appeared to be on some kind of quest to prove a number of people wrong. She might as well add him to the list.
Alexis thought of his snapping dark eyes, firm jaw, and emphatic statement that she didn’t belong. In fact, she would put him at the top of the list.
Chapter Two
Pounding on the bedroom door and a loud male voice announcing, “Breakfast in ten minutes,” had Alexis springing upright as if the palace guards had shot off a cannon over her head.
Hand clutched to her throat, she looked around wildly for Esther before she realized that her lady-in-waiting wasn’t there and she wasn’t in her own apartments in the palace.
It was several more seconds before her mind cleared enough to tell her that she was in Sleepy River, Arizona, where she had run for a temporary refuge from family tensions and responsibilities.
Exhaling a relieved sigh, she looked around and was pleased to see that the room didn’t seem quite as dauntingly colorful as it had the night before. In fact, the furnishings held a somewhat eclectic charm. The cheerful August sun streaming in the east-facing windows helped a great deal, sending a warm glow across the foot of the bed, the wooden floor and the cozy rug.
Alexis yawned, stretched and stared at her bedside clock. Even though she’d barely had six hours of sleep, she felt refreshed. More than that, she felt eager. She would begin preparing for her new job today—as soon as she had convinced her reluctant host/school board chairman that her presence there was no mistake.
She slipped out of bed and walked over to the window. Blinking in the bright morning sunlight, she gazed out at the view, and was pleasantly surprised to see an open pasture dotted with cattle in the distance. Towering pine, aspen and spruce trees covered the upslope of the nearest mountain and a fruit orchard grew nearby.
It was a lovely, pastoral scene marred only by the faint, lingering stench of burned grass from last night’s fire.
Wincing at the memory of her clumsiness, Alexis pulled away from the window and wondered how she was going to make up for that fiasco. Half-smiling, she remembered what her mother used to say, “Sometimes, all one can do is hold the head high and keep going, saying nothing.”
Somehow, Alexis didn’t think that Jace followed that philosophy.
What had he said? Ten minutes? Alexis glanced at the clock again. And she’d already wasted three. She scurried out of bed, grabbed some clothes from her suitcase and dashed for the bathroom.
Jace looked dubiously around the breakfast table. Rocky and Gil had arrived earlier than usual. Since Jace was the best cook of the three of them, he cooked breakfast while Gil and Rocky did some outside chores, then came in, unshaven, grizzled and already dusty, to eat eggs, toast and bacon and slurp coffee while they discussed the day’s work.
This morning, though, they hadn’t been able to make it outside for any chores because they’d been busy fighting over use of the bathroom. Jace had heard the unaccustomed weekday sounds of a couple of buzzing electric razors. He was then treated to the sight of his two hired men arriving in the kitchen with slicked-down hair, clean shirts, jeans and boots, wearing enough aftershave and cologne to knock over a nine-hundred-pound steer.
“You two boys going somewhere?” he’d asked, staring first at one, then the other of them.
“Nah,” they’d answered in harmony, then shuffled their feet and sat down. In unison, they turned to stare, unblinking, at the new schoolteacher’s bedroom door. They reminded him of a couple of coyotes waiting outside a prairie dog’s den for the tasty morsel to appear.
When her bedroom door did open and she emerged, Alexis jumped back immediately, alarmed by the rush of two large male bodies in her direction. The cowboys bowed before her and she threw Jace an alarmed look over their bobbing heads. He fought a grin, pleased to see that for all her boldness, these two hired hands could perturb her.
“Morning, Miss Chastain,” Gil said, grinning like a fool as he rose from his sweeping bow.
“Did you sleep well, miss?” Rocky asked, elbowing his brother aside.
Gil placed his booted foot in front of Rocky’s, reached out with his own elbow, and gave his brother a poke in the ribs that had Rocky’s eyes bugging from their sockets as he made a strangled sound.
“F…fine,” she stammered, looking at Jace’s two crazed cowboys and then at him as if trying to figure out which way to run.
“Boys,” he said mildly, strolling across the kitchen to take charge. “Quit crowding the lady. Let her sit down and have some breakfast.” He looked at her and nodded toward the table.
She gave him a wobbly smile that had him focusing on her. Last night, he had been too caught up in his surprise and annoyance to notice much beyond her knockout looks and her insistence that she had come to stay.
Now, he saw that she had courage, as well, because these two idiot cowboys hadn’t sent her shrieking back to her room. She also had compassion because she was still smiling at Gil and Rocky. Jace felt his interest in her growing and he didn’t like that at all. He frowned at the boys so furiously, they leaped to do his bidding.
“Oh, oh yeah, sure Jace.” They both stood back, still grinning, as she skirted cautiously around them. As she reached to pull out a chair, the boys seemed to recall their manners and, as one, vaulted to do it for her. She saw them coming and managed to dart aside just in time to avoid being flattened in the rush. As it was, they tripped over each other, hissed a few expletives into each other’s ears, and had a minor skirmish, but they eventually dragged the chair out. They gazed at Alexis like a couple of puppies waiting for a treat. Jace decided it was time he took matters in hand.
“You two sit down,” he ordered them. “You’re scaring the hel…heck out of her,” he growled. For a moment, he considered telling one of them to pour her some coffee, but realized that putting anything hot into their hands at this moment was just asking for trouble.
He poured some for himself, and when he held up the pot inquiringly, she nodded and gave him a nervous smile as she seated herself.
There was a moment of awkward hesitation before Gil and Rocky realized they were supposed to be passing food and hurriedly grabbed for platters of toast and eggs which they shoved at Alexis. Bewildered, she reached jerkily for them before the contents sailed down her shirtfront.
Jace sighed. It was a good thing she would be leaving today or they would never get any more work done. He might be hoping for something that wasn’t going to happen, though. The real teacher they’d hired, Rachel Burrows, was only slightly less attractive than this woman.
Still, he’d better send her on her way directly after breakfast because Gil and Rocky had some branding to do and the way things were going, they’d be decorating each other’s rumps with the Running M brand.
He sipped his coffee as his gaze drifted over the bright red-brown fall of her hair. It cascaded down her back and contrasted with the pale gold camp shirt she wore with a pair of faded jeans. The combination of colors made him think of fall leaves, but her green eyes looked like spring.
When he realized what direction his thoughts were taking, Jace choked on a sip of coffee and coughed several times. Alexis gave him a concerned look, but neither Gil nor Rocky spared him a glance. They were so enthralled with her that he could have dropped dead on the tabletop and they would have done no more than reach across his cold, stiff body to get the butter for her. Obviously, it was time he got this situation under control.
“Miss Chastain, we appreciate you stopping by,” he began lamely. “But there’s been a mistake. You’re not the one we hired for the teaching position, so we’ll just wait until Miss Burrows comes, and…”
“But she’s not coming,” Alexis interrupted, blinking those big green eyes at him.
Gil and Rocky turned and stared at him as if he’d suddenly begun singing soprano. He ignored them.
“Not coming?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you last night. You see, Rachel and I are old friends, college roommates, in fact. On her way here, she came to visit me at the pal…place…at my place, and said she had this job, but was going to have to call and resign from her contract, so I came instead.”
Jace stared at her for a long moment, trying and failing to take this in. He leaned forward on one elbow and stared at her. In a dead-level voice he said, “She signed a contract. When a person signs a contract, they’re supposed to fulfill it, at least that’s the way the rest of the world does it.”
“Uh, yes.” A nervous smile fluttered across those full lips. “And she feels really terrible about not being able to fulfill it, but something…came up. Something very important, and she can’t come. I have a letter from her, though,” Alexis added eagerly. “We thought it would get here faster if I brought it rather than depending on the postal system. I’ll go get it.”
She scooted back in preparation for a dash to her room. As soon as she moved, Gil and Rocky were on their feet to assist her. Another scuffle ensued while they fought over her chair. The tenuous hold Jace had on his temper snapped like a stretched elastic band.
“Will you two please eat your breakfast and get out of here?” Jace roared. “You’re so jumpy you’d make a snail nervous.” They gaped at him and bounced back into their chairs. “Miss Chastain, why don’t you just tell me why she didn’t come, what came up that was so important?”
Alexis met his gaze, which was beginning to look mighty scary. This was what she’d been afraid of. Oh, he looked big and intimidating and very, very businesslike this morning. It didn’t help that he also looked virile and manly, and slightly disreputable with a day’s growth of beard shadowing his jaw.
It would have been so much easier if Rachel had handled this in a professional manner, calling and talking to Jace in person, but she’d been afraid of a lawsuit, of being talked into coming here when her heart had been somewhere else, that she’d ducked her responsibility. So Alexis was covering for her. It wasn’t the first time she’d done it. Covering up for people was an old habit of hers because she hated to see her loved ones hurt. Besides, Rachel was a rare commodity, a true friend who’d never spilled anything about Alexis or her family to a tabloid.
She drew in a deep breath and looked at the hard, curious face of the man sitting across the breakfast table from her. She had to tell him the truth about Rachel.
She glanced around the kitchen, at Gil and Rocky, and then back at him. Nope. No way out of it. Finally, she picked up her cup and mumbled something into it.
“What? She what someone?”
Alexis took a sip of coffee, cleared her throat, then beamed a high-voltage smile at him. “She met someone.”
“Someone? You mean a man?”
“Oh, not just any man. Her soul mate.”
“Soul mate.” The two words dropped into the atmosphere like stones thumping into mud.
“At least that’s what she said. It was love at first sight. She couldn’t leave him.” Boy, oh boy did that sound lame, and unprofessional, and well, a little stupid. Alexis sighed. “It’s not as bad as it sounds….”
“She’s not here to fulfill her teaching contract because she met her soul mate and she can’t leave his side. Does that about cover it?” he asked testily.
Alexis attempted a smile. “Well, it sounded a little more romantic when she said it.”
He glowered at her.
She started to her feet once again. “I’ll go get the letter and you can read…”
“Sit down,” he growled.
She plopped back into her chair.
Gil—at least she was pretty sure it was Gil—dragged his gaze away from her face long enough to ask, “What difference does it make, Jace, as long as we have a qualified teacher to teach the kids?”
“Yeah,” Rocky agreed. “Miss Chastain here is obviously well-qualified.”
Jace raised a brow at him. Rocky’s eyes were glued on a part of her anatomy that had nothing whatsoever to do with her teaching ability. Blushing, Alexis crossed her arms over her chest.
Leaning forward, Jace said, “Why don’t you two go out and get to work? I need to talk to her alone.”
Alexis saw the twins look at their boss as if he’d suggested they hop in the truck and run over their favorite pet. Jace jerked his head toward the barn.
Grumbling, his two men cleared their places, took their dishes to the sink, and then trooped out glumly, but over his shoulder, Gil said, “Just don’t do anything stupid.”
When they were gone, Jace said, “What I don’t like here is the unprofessional way this has been handled, and the fact that I feel that I, and the other members of the school board, are being manipulated.”
“Um yes, I understand that.” What could she say? That she had jumped at the chance offered by her old roommate because she wanted to get away from home? No, that would really make her sound desperate. And she certainly couldn’t tell him that “home” was a two-hundred room palace situated in one of the most beautiful valleys in Europe.
“Well, then you understand that you have to leave?”
She blinked at him. “No, I mean I understand how you might feel manipulated.” Quickly, she leaned forward and placed her hands on the tabletop, palms up in a pleading gesture. “I truly am a qualified teacher. I’m certified by the state of Arizona, I’ve done my student teaching. I can do this job.”
He lifted a thick, dark eyebrow at her as he shook his head. “No, this won’t work.”
“School starts in less than two weeks,” she said desperately. “Where are you going to find someone else at the last minute? I’m here. I’m available. I want to do the job. Please let me stay.”
She had made her plea too heartfelt. Now he was staring at her with open curiosity. “Why do you want it so badly?”
She paused as her mind scrambled for an answer. Anxious perspiration popped out on her top lip. “Why?” she stalled, giving him her most guileless look.
He crossed his arms on the tabletop and stared at her. “That’s right. Why? If you’re so qualified, why do you want to work here? And on a job that will only last one semester?”
Because things will have cooled down at home in four months. Her father would have a new project going and would have the let’s-marry-off-Alexis light out of his eyes. And because Alexis would be at least partly over her anger and disappointment with her father. While Prince Michael had been wrangling with his national council, revising the constitution of Inbourg, she had stayed quietly at home as he had requested, supporting him, helping run the household and taking care of her nephew Jean Louis while Anya and Deirdre had been Prince Michael’s ambassadors to the country and to the world.
She didn’t do any of the things she had planned like living on her own and working on her master’s degree in education so she could help bring the schools of Inbourg up to a higher standard. As soon as the constitution was rewritten and approved, her father had turned his attention to her and begun making sweeping statements about it being time for her to marry. She was the steady, sensible one who wouldn’t make a foolish marriage as Anya had done with her race car driver, nor would she be a flirt like Deirdre. She knew her father loved her, but she also knew he didn’t see her as the professional she wanted to be.
“Did you forget the question?” Jace asked, bringing her attention back to him.
“While it’s true that Rachel and I have gone about this job switch in a somewhat…” She flashed him a glance. “…unconventional way, you have nothing to worry about.”
Jace raised an eyebrow at her again. He was really very good at that, she thought nervously. He could exhibit rank skepticism with the twitch of a few muscles.
“Unconventional?” he asked.
Realizing she wasn’t getting anywhere with this tactic, Alexis said, “I want to work here because I need the experience,” she said honestly. “It’s a job I’m qualified for.” She stood. “I’ll get Rachel’s letter and my references as well as a copy of my state certification. You can judge for yourself.”
She sped to her room, grabbed her papers and was back in a flash. Somewhat breathlessly, she handed them to him and while he read them, she hung over his shoulder anxiously. “Rachel’s letter explains everything. She says how sorry she is, and that she knows me and my qualifications, and…”
“I can read it for myself,” Jace grumbled, giving her a steady look that had her backing off.
Chastened, she sat down and ate a few more bites of her breakfast and had a couple of sips of coffee. For the first time since the meal began, she paid real attention to the food. The bacon was perfectly cooked and, before they’d grown cold on her plate, the scrambled eggs had been moist and fluffy. Had Jace prepared this meal?
She glanced up to see the way he was examining Rachel’s letter of resignation. His angular face was lined in a mighty frown. In the long, third floor gallery of her family’s palace there was a painting of an ancestor who’d been rumored to put to death those who disappointed him. Right now, Jace’s face looked a great deal like that painting.
He put down the letter and picked up the folder with Alexis’s certificate and letters of reference. She bounced up and hurried around the table to hover at his shoulder once again.
In a hearty voice, she said, “See? I’m fully qualified.” She pointed to the date on her certificate. “For at least the next seven years.”
Jace answered with a grunting sound and picked up one of the letters.
“And see?” She crowded him as she pressed forward over his shoulder. “This says that I have specialized training in diagnosing and solving reading difficulties.”
He gave her another one of those “back-off” looks and asked, “Do you have any training in washing dishes?”
Alexis stared blankly into his deep brown eyes for a few seconds, then looked at the dirty plates and cups on the table. She straightened immediately. “Oh, of course. Um, you’d like to read these things without me chattering away at you, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes.” He stood and gathered them up. “And I need to talk to the other members of the school board.”
Hope flooded her face and joy sparkled in her eyes. “You mean there’s a chance you’ll change your mind and let me stay?”
“I mean I’ll talk to the other members of the school board.”
She would have to be satisfied with that, so she swallowed the little lump of disappointment and gave him a bright smile as she held up her hands, palms outward, “Fine. Fine. Go right ahead.”
“I intend to.” He turned away. “I’ll be in my office.”
Before he left the kitchen, Alexis took a quick look around. “Um, where’s the dishwasher?”
For the first time, she saw a hint of amusement in his face. His craggy features rearranged themselves into what must pass for a smile. Taking a step back to her, he reached out and lifted her hand by the wrist. He held it in front of her face and said, “You’re looking at it, kid.”
She started at the hard warmth of his touch and her gaze flew to meet his. Wide-eyed, she stared at him. Why had he done that?
The flash of humor she’d seen vanished. Jace looked into her eyes as if he was asking himself the same question. Hastily, he dropped her hand and turned to stride from the kitchen. “I have to make some phone calls.”
When he was gone, Alexis stared blindly around the room, then moved to clear the table. Why had he touched her? She found it vaguely disturbing. It made her think of him as someone other than a boss, someone she had to convince to let her stay. His touch made her think of him as a man.
Silly, she thought. She was overreacting, that was all. Just fearful that he wouldn’t let her stay. Pushing her disturbing thoughts away, she began clearing the table.
“Jace, I think you’re overreacting,” Martha Singleton told him in a flat tone.
“You do?” Jace sat with his elbows propped on the desk as he talked to the woman who was the regular teacher of Sleepy River Community School—on the years she wasn’t having a baby.
“Yes. First of all, where are we going to find someone at this late date? If the one we hired didn’t show up and another, qualified teacher did, I don’t see that we have anything to worry about. Check her references. If they’re okay, she’s okay. Believe me when I say qualified teachers willing to teach in a one-room schoolhouse in the mountains for the amount of money we can pay aren’t exactly thick on the ground.”
Jace scratched his chin. “I guess you’re right,” he said in a reluctant drawl. He paused and he could feel Martha waiting for him to go on. In the background, he could hear her three-week-old son fussing, wanting his mother’s attention.
“So, what is the problem, then?” she asked.
Jace knew she was too polite to say so, but he was wasting her time. “No problem,” he said, with more decisiveness than he felt. “I’ll check her references. Sounds like you need to get back to that baby of yours.”
“Demanding little stinker,” she said fondly. “Tell you what, if her references check out okay, but you’re still worried, I can go watch her teach. If she’s totally incompetent, we don’t have to keep her.”
It was a slim thread, but Jace grasped it gratefully. “Sure, Martha. That sounds good. We don’t want a teacher who’s incompetent.”
Only he had a feeling Alexis wasn’t incompetent. Jace hung up the phone and gloomily stared out the window in the direction of the schoolhouse.
In spite of her tendency to run into walls, back into mailbox posts and set fires, there was something about her that seemed capable of handling anything, even the challenges of their local school.
Admit it, sucker, he thought. It wasn’t her capabilities that worried him. It was her presence, the way she had looked at him a little while ago as if she’d never seen anything like him. No doubt, she hadn’t. To him, she appeared to be accustomed to much more sophisticated surroundings than Sleepy River, Arizona.
She disturbed him, had done so since the moment he’d looked into those eyes of hers. Touching her hand had rocked him back on his heels.
He was reluctant to have her around, but as Martha had said, where were they going to find someone else at this late date? Grumbling, he reached for the phone to contact her references.
Why did it have to be Alexis Chastain, though?
Chapter Three
“Okay, the job’s yours,” Jace said abruptly half an hour later.
Alexis started and turned from the sink where she’d been rinsing the dishcloth after wiping down the counter for the sixth time. She’d had to fight the temptation to listen at the door of his office. In fact, she’d begun tiptoeing in that direction, but a squeaking floorboard in the dining room had announced itself loudly and sent her scurrying back to the kitchen.
Resigned to wait, she had instead done the washing up, wiped the table and the counter and swept the floor. Her sisters, and most of the people employed at the palace, would have howled with laughter at the sight. Bevins, the palace manager, who’d been an English butler in another life, would have been appalled. Esther, her lady-in-waiting, would have called for smelling salts.
“I do?” she asked with a delighted grin.
“Looks like it,” he responded with a shrug.
“Thank you. That’s wonderful. I’m so glad.” Alexis stepped forward excitedly and reached out to shake his hand. She’d forgotten to put down the dishcloth, though, so he got a fistful of wet rag. He grimaced and her face flushed scarlet.
“Oh! I’m sorry,” she cried, turning away to throw it into the sink. They both wiped damp hands on their jeans while she gave him an apologetic look.
“As I was saying,” Jace nodded toward the papers he’d laid on the edge of the table. “Your references checked out, though a couple of them seemed to think it was pretty funny to hear you wanted a job here.”
Nervousness fluttered in her stomach. Alexis folded her hands and gave him a cautious look. “They did?”
“Especially one of your professors who said he thought you were in Europe.” He gave her a sharply inquisitive look as he raised a dark brow. Again he reminded her of that painting in the palace’s long gallery. It took her a second, but she finally recalled that ancestor’s name. Hedrick. They’d called him Hedrick the Henchman.
Her gaze skittered away from Jace’s. If she remembered correctly, Hedrick had been fond of the technology of the time, most significantly, anything to do with the latest thing in torture devices.
“Were you?”
She blinked at him. “Was I what?”
“In Europe.”
“Oh, that. Yes. Yes, I was. Family business.”
He gave her another measured look. “Exactly what kind of business is your family in?”
Alexis’s smile froze. Her mind scrambled over scenes of the past months; her father working with the national council late into the night, her sisters making endless rounds of social gatherings to convince the people of their tiny country that the changes Prince Michael wanted would be the best for everyone. Alexis, herself, shunning the spotlight and staying behind to watch out for young Jean Louis, her nephew, eventual heir to the throne, and an unrepentant con artist and charmer who was able to convince everyone in the palace from his nanny to the guards at the front gates that it was perfectly acceptable behavior for a six-year-old to attempt to hang by his shoe tips from an upstairs window so he could “see everything upside down.”
“Alexis?” Jace prompted.
She glanced up. “Public relations…” she blurted. “…and government work. I chose to take a leave from the family business and pursue my real interest, which is teaching.” Inwardly, she winced at the half truth. Her “leave” had actually been a bit less forthright than that since she had told her father she was going to a spa in Arizona for an extended stay.
Prince Michael, who considered his daughters’ purpose in life to be purely decorative, anyway, hadn’t objected to her visit since he assumed she was planning to make herself even more alluring in order to appeal to one of the young men he would soon begin parading before her. The thought of that old-fashioned idea made her fume. She wouldn’t think about that right now, though.
Jace opened his mouth to say something, but she barreled ahead. “Now that you’ve decided I can stay, why don’t you show me to the school, so I can get started? There’s a great deal to be done before the first day.”
She held her breath, thinking he was going to question her further, but after a long moment in which he seemed to be trying to see right inside her head, he nodded slowly and said, “All right. You can drive your car over there and park it by the teacherage.”
Relieved, she nodded and broke into a wide smile that made her face glow. “Teacherage,” she breathed in delight. “That sounds so…”
“Old-fashioned,” he supplied with a lift of his brow. “Out-of-date?”
“Respectable,” she answered and saw surprise flicker in his eyes. “Remember that in the days of the Old West, the local teacher was the one people came to for information or to have disputes settled.”
This time his eyes narrowed and he gave her another long look. She wished he wouldn’t do that. It was unnerving. A lifetime of adeptness at hiding her thoughts seemed to do no good around him.
“You don’t think you’re in the Old West, do you?”
“No, of course not.” Alexis clasped her hands at her waist. She didn’t know how she could explain what she meant. If she told him how delighted she was to have the job, to be living in this remote corner of Arizona away from prying eyes and from her wellmeaning but meddling family, he might become suspicious of her and her abilities.
Evasively, she cleared her throat. “Well, never mind that.” She turned away from his too-penetrating gaze and said, “Let me get my things and I’ll be right with you.” She dashed to her room where she grabbed her things, made sure the place was neat, and then met Jace outside.
One of the twins had brought her car around front and she was dismayed to see the dent she’d put in the back fender. At least only a few people knew about it, she thought, with the instinctive reaction of someone whose family had long been stalked by the paparazzi. In Inbourg, the accident would have been front page news in their tiny weekly newspaper. In Sleepy River, it hardly mattered. She knew Rachel would trust her to have the damage repaired.
Jace drove by in a dark blue pickup truck and called out, “Follow me,” as he passed.
She doubted that he would be willing to wait long, so Alexis tumbled into her car and followed, wincing at the sight of the burned area of grass. She sincerely hoped it would grow back quickly and the near-disaster would be forgotten. Of course, there was still the matter of what to do about the heirloom quilt she’d ruined, but she decided to worry about that another time. She was determined to handle her problems like one of those American television martial arts experts handled the bad guys—one at a time.
Halfway down the lane leading to the highway, Jace turned off on a road she hadn’t noticed the night before. Through towering trees that almost scraped the sides of the car, they emerged into an open field that held a small white schoolhouse, an even smaller cottage and a baseball diamond.
Alexis’s happy gaze swept the area, then lighted dubiously on the ball field. She hoped no one expected her to coach baseball. She knew very little about it. Tennis, now, that was something she could coach, but she didn’t think she’d be called on to do so.
Her eyes were drawn back to the school and teacherage, pleased that everything looked to be in good repair. She stopped the car and bounced out, then up the ramp that led to the front door of the school.
Jace had stepped from his truck and was following her actions with puzzlement. “Don’t you want to see where you’re going to live?”
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