The Cowboy and the Princess (9 page)

He grinned and shook his head and swept her into a dance that was a combination of various styles. A few people laughed but some joined them on the dance floor and tried to imitate their moves.

When the song was over and everyone was breathing hard, Delfyne smiled up at Owen. “Excuse me,” a feminine voice said. Delfyne looked over her shoulder to see the woman whose slightly angry and unhappy eyes told Delfyne that she must be Nancy. She had a man who looked to be in his mid-twenties in tow.

“Sorry for interrupting,” the woman said, even though she didn’t sound sorry at all. “I would have waited until Owen brought you over, but I could see he wasn’t going to do that. Don’t deny it,” Nancy said to Owen.

He shook his head. “I wasn’t going to. You were occupied and so was I. Delfyne, this is Nancy, a friend. Delfyne is—”

“I know. A house guest. You know her brother. She likes to play pretend, especially the maid game, and every man in this room is drooling over her. Do I have that right?”

“Just about,” Owen conceded with a smile.

“Well, he could have introduced us earlier. I don’t bite,” Nancy told Delfyne.

Delfyne couldn’t help liking the woman’s frank ways even though Nancy had been looking daggers at her a minute ago.
Not a surprise. Every time Nancy looked at Owen, longing filled her eyes.

“You know I’m not one to make announcements,” Owen chided gently. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

The air seemed to go out of Nancy. “I know.” She sighed. “And you didn’t hurt my feelings exactly. I just like to be the center of attention. You know that. But, Delfyne,” she said, turning away from Owen and toward Delfyne. “I have to warn you. Be careful with this man. He’s unfailingly honest and frank. If he tells you something is so, believe him. That was the problem with Owen and me. I told him I wasn’t interested in long-term relationships.
He
said he wasn’t interested in long-term relationships. But only one of us meant it.”

Owen shifted uncomfortably. “Nancy, I—”

“I know. I speak my mind too much,” she said, and Delfyne couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. “But hey,” Nancy continued. “Here’s my new man, Pete. He’s very cute and hot even though he’s pretty much a puppy.”

“Hey!” Pete objected, but already Nancy was rushing on, turning her attention back to Delfyne. “I really love that dress and the way you’ve made up your eyes. There’s something so…I don’t know…truly exotic about you. Unusual name, too. Do you have a social networking page on the Internet?”

“Excuse me?” Delfyne said, and something about the way Nancy was looking at her gave her pause. Nancy might be friendly, but she also clearly had more than a casual interest in Owen. Finding out more about the woman who was living at his house right now might be a real priority.

“You know, My Space, Facebook…your own Web place.”

“I’m sorry, no,” Delfyne answered, but, of course, there was plenty of other information about her on the Internet. Photos. Articles. And her name
was
unusual.

Owen was obviously thinking the same thing. “Pete, you look really thirsty. Why don’t you go buy yourself and Nancy a drink and just put it on my tab.”

The young man stared at Owen in confusion for a second, but then he shrugged and veered off toward the bar.

Owen looked down at the red-haired woman he obviously had a past with, his expression grim and serious. “You’ve always been a very good friend, Nance. Don’t change your ways now. Don’t stop being a friend.”

“Is that a request?” she asked.

“You can view that however you want to. The point is—and I know you already know this—I take my responsibilities seriously. Having one of my guests treated shabbily wouldn’t sit well with me at all.”

Nancy frowned. “Are you threatening me, Owen?”

He laughed at that. “What would I threaten you with?”

“Good point,” she answered. “So, if I turned out to be my usual nosy self toward Delfyne here?”

“I would be extremely disappointed in you. No matter what our differences have been, I
have
always viewed you as a friend.”

The woman uttered a swear word that Delfyne had seldom heard. “Damn you, Owen. I hate it when you use the word
disappointed
. You
know
I hate it. But, all right. I’m sure you realize that you’ve only intrigued me more with your
disappointment
, but I’ll stay out of your business. For now at least.”

She sighed and turned to Delfyne, looking anything but happy. “He really must like you a lot.”

Delfyne shrugged. “It’s just a big-brother kind of thing.” And a lot of it was, she hated to remind herself. “He would do the same for the sister of any of his friends.”

“Sounds like you know him almost as well as I do.”

But she didn’t, Delfyne knew. Looking up at Owen’s long,
lean form and noting the affectionate smile he gave Nancy, Delfyne envied the woman her familiarity with him. She’d never had this kind of easy closeness with a man. All her experiences had been either familial or…ones she didn’t want to remember or think about.

“I owe you, Nance,” Owen said in that husky, gravelly voice that made Delfyne want to lean close.

Nancy laughed. “You don’t owe me a thing, but I know that next week a few of my favorite charities will contact me telling me that they’ve received sizable donations in my name.” She blew out a breath that lifted her bangs, then smiled. “You absolutely do not have to do that, Owen Michaels, but I’ll accept it, anyway.

“Well, I guess I’d better go before the gossips really start wondering what we’re talking about and even I won’t be able to stop them. It was nice meeting you, Delfyne, whoever you are,” she said softly. She took two steps toward Pete, then turned back. “Delfyne, I just have to say one more thing. Watch out for Owen, girl. He’ll break your heart without meaning or wanting to. You just can’t tie a man like him down, and you can’t have a lot of other things a woman like you probably wants,” she ended lamely with a small wave.

Owen frowned, and when Delfyne touched his sleeve she could feel the tension in his muscles. But she didn’t ask any questions, even though she wanted to.

“Nancy wants babies,” he said simply. “In the worst way. She should have them, too, but my friendship with her kept other men at bay. The right kind of men. Maybe Pete can finally give her what she needs.”

“You feel guilty,” Delfyne said softly. “Because she waited for you and expected more than you could give.”

He looked at her. “Any man would feel guilty.”

But Delfyne knew it wasn’t so. “Did you encourage her?”

“No, of course not, but I didn’t shun her, either.”

“You wouldn’t. Not if you were friends. Did you tell her what she could and couldn’t expect?”

“I’m not a complete jerk,” he said.

Delfyne couldn’t help herself then. She reached up and touched his jaw. “I think you were honest with her. She said that you were. In which case…you can’t be responsible for her pain. She doesn’t seem like a woman who would let a man take credit for what she should take credit for.”

“You’re a very perceptive woman. Does that go with the package?”

She knew what he meant. “Of course. It’s required of my kind.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I suspect that you’re one of a kind.”

Delfyne’s heart swelled. She was almost grateful that Angus and some more of Owen’s friends appeared at that time and started talking to him. She needed a moment to compose herself, to try to remember who and what she was and who and what
he
was. And that there was no common ground. Not really.

But she had no time to dwell on that. Nancy’s visit seemed to have broken the ice, and for the next hour people came up and introduced themselves. They talked business with Owen, and some of them appeared to be begging monetary favors. He asked them questions about their feelings regarding the wood products company, whether it was something they wanted or needed and how he could help them. And all of them looked at Delfyne with unrepentant curiosity.

She explained her charade to Molly and Martin, offering her apologies and telling Molly as much of the truth about her situation as she could. As she and Molly bonded on the dance floor, the easy way the woman accepted her explanation nearly brought tears to Delfyne’s eyes. She hoped Molly wouldn’t be hurt if the whole truth ever came out.

Some of the men asked Delfyne to dance, and at one point, she and Molly corralled everyone and got a conga line going, which made Owen roll his eyes. Still, as if Owen and Nancy had sworn them to secrecy, no one delved too deeply into the personal beyond mentioning Delfyne’s maid charade.

“Heck that must have been kind of fun. Sort of like Halloween in the off season,” one woman said.

“Exactly,” Delfyne exclaimed and barely stopped herself from explaining that she had never actually experienced an American Halloween. That would only have elicited questions she couldn’t answer without saying too much.

“I love playing dress-up,” another woman cut in. “Even though some people think it’s rather juvenile. I know. Let’s have a costume party next Halloween. Maybe we could even get Owen to wear something yummy. Like a gladiator costume or something. I’ll bet he looks real good without his shirt on.”

“Hmm, there’s a thought,” Delfyne said with a smile, turning around to look for him and finding him not three feet away. She reached out and tugged on his arm, snagging his attention. “
Do
you look good without your shirt on?”

Owen blinked, then gave her a simmering look that curled her toes and sent heat spiraling through her body, but told her she was treading on thin ice. “I don’t know what all of you have been talking about, but don’t encourage her,” he told the women, who simply laughed.

“Let’s plan something,” they told her.

“That would be fun,” Delfyne agreed as she bade her good-nights. But of course, there was no point in planning anything. She would be gone long before October. Everything here—life, the ranch and Owen—would go on without her. It would be as if she’d never been here at all.

Now was the time to make memories. It was the
only
time.

O
WEN
breathed a sigh of relief when he finally got Delfyne outside. Despite the fact that his friends had been friendly and polite, he knew that a lot of them were more than curious about Delfyne.

Even if she was dying to know every gritty detail there was to know about Delfyne, Nancy would stand by her word and corral her curiosity, at least until Delfyne’s visit was over. He couldn’t be so sure about other people, and much as he’d like to threaten to split some heads he couldn’t do that. It would only intrigue people more.

“I probably shouldn’t have brought you out tonight,” he told her. “I bet at least half a dozen people are already looking you up on Google.”

She turned to face him. “I know, but we didn’t tell anyone anything other than my first name, and this night was so worth the risk of exposure. I had fun.”

“I can’t believe you got Doug Spears to pretend he was a karaoke singer. He’s going to wake up in the morning totally red-faced once the beer wears off.”

She punched him. “He is not. He was good!”

Owen laughed. “He was, but that you actually talked him into it…Doug is about the shyest man I know. I can half see why Andreus was so worried about you.”

Delfyne was suddenly quiet. She looked away.

“That wasn’t a complaint or a criticism,” he said gently.

“I know, but—” She sighed. “Sometimes, Andreus is right. I do go too far at times. I confused Molly and probably hurt her feelings and I really have to work on curbing my tendency to jump in without thinking. In my world, being watchful and careful is part of life. It’s necessary.”

And because she knew her world and its requirements, he had to assume she might be right. He hated to think that life would judge her unfairly. For half a moment he thought of the prince she was to marry and hoped the guy wouldn’t criticize her or try to tame her spirit too much. Anger at the thought boiled up in Owen, but he didn’t have the right to feel that way, to feel any way at all where she was concerned. With difficulty, he fought his anger and set it aside.

But on the ride home both of them were quiet.

The next day brought something unexpected: visitors. Lots and lots of visitors.

Owen had left so early that he hadn’t had a chance to see Delfyne, and, wanting to make sure she wasn’t suffering buyer’s remorse about her night on the town, went up to the house to check on her. He was halfway through the door when a sound he’d avoided for a long time met his ears. A baby was laughing. In his house.

He went cold. Then hot. Then cold again. Crushing pain hit him full in the chest. He staggered a bit as he walked through the kitchen, then caught himself. In the living room he found Delfyne sitting next to a woman he didn’t know. The woman was holding a child about a year old, older than James had been but still with that chubby wide-eyed innocence about him.

Owen felt faint. He fought the light-headedness. The little boy was studying him intently.

“Buh,” the boy said.

Owen closed his eyes. James’s tiny face, wreathed in smiles, swam in his memory. His boy had never lived to talk.

“Owen?” Delfyne’s worried voice broke in and he turned to see her and the oblivious young mother studying him.

The little boy squealed in delight again and bucked on his mother’s lap.

Owen tried to control his urge to flinch. Obviously not successfully. “I’m afraid when he takes a liking to something or someone he’s not old enough yet to realize how loud he is,” the mother explained.

Shaking his head, Owen held out his hand. “He’s fine,” he managed to say in a voice that was a bit lower and thicker and far more ragged than usual.

“Cute little guy, isn’t he?” he said, faking a smile for the mother and Delfyne’s sake.

“This is Charley. He’s adorable,” Delfyne agreed. She introduced him to Janet, who was new in town and had met Delfyne last night. “I thought you were working,” she admonished, but what she meant, he knew, was
I thought it would be okay to have this woman and baby over while you were gone
.

“I was. I am,” he said. “I just forgot something in my room. Please, go on with your visit,” he said, though he could see that Delfyne wanted to say more.

But what could she say in front of the woman? He knew she wouldn’t do anything to make the young mother uncomfortable and he would never want her to. So, pasting on the biggest, fakest smile he could muster, he winked at the child, nodded to the mother and swiftly went to his room.

Once there he took deep long breaths. He fought against memories of the past and tried not to think about the stricken look in Delfyne’s pretty eyes. He hated that he had made her feel that
she had done something wrong or that he had caused her even one second of worry.

Grabbing up the first thing at hand, he quickly marched back downstairs, held up the object, which turned out to be a comb. Then he smiled brilliantly, exchanged thirty seconds of pleasantries with Delfyne’s guest and went back out the door to his truck. There was plenty of work to keep him busy, and he stayed away as long as he could.

When he finally pulled back into the yard, Delfyne came out to meet him.

“Owen, I—”

He held up one hand to stop her. “Don’t even think about saying you’re sorry. Babies are a fact of life.”

“But not in your house, they’re not.”

“I can’t hide from every child in the world.”

But he did his best. She’d probably guessed that, but he didn’t want her beating up on herself for his flaws. Andreus had sent her here because of what her brother felt were
her
flaws. She’d been hidden away because of that. She certainly didn’t need to take on more restrictions.

He came toward her and took her hands. “Delfyne, you met a friend, someone who liked you. She came to visit you. You invited her in. Do you think I would have expected you to ask her to take her baby home?”

She shook her head, a wistful, worried look in her eyes. He thought she’d say no and that would be the end of that.

“Tell me more about your past, about what makes you…you,” she said. Of course, she wasn’t a woman who would do the easy thing and ignore his thorny past the way everyone else did.

He sat down on the porch and drew her down with him. “There’s not much to tell. This ranch has been in my family for
four generations. It’s a demanding life. At least, if you’re really going to ranch and not hire someone else to do the work it is.”

“You wouldn’t hire someone, would you?”

He shrugged. “If I did, I’d just be playing a game.”

“The gentleman rancher,” she said with a soft smile.

“Yes. Anyway, my father went away on a trip and brought my mother back here, where she proceeded to wilt and disappear, she said. After I was born, she got worse. Before that she had been unhappy, feeling tied to the ranch and my father, but having a child was even worse. It meant beginning a dynasty, really becoming glued to the lifestyle. It was as if she hadn’t really committed herself to my father, but once I came along she knew she had to do that or leave. She chose to leave. And he became an angry, bitter man. This ranch and I became his world.”

“I would think you would hate it.”

“You would, wouldn’t you? But it was never that way. I’ve always felt as if part of my soul goes missing when I leave here. I went away to college, but part of me was here. I traveled, I made money elsewhere, but this was where I found my greatest satisfaction. And like my father, I found my bride and brought her back here.”

“She hated it, too?”

“Not right away. Part of her even liked it, but it wasn’t enough. She was…a collector of sorts and she liked to have things that were outside the norm. Where she came from a rancher was an oddity, but once she’d collected a rancher, she needed to move on to the next thing, to have more. To her credit, she tried to hide her unhappiness. She felt she’d made a pact and she needed to be a grown-up and stick to it even if she grew more weary of the life every day. She missed the city. She missed being at the center of fun, the lights and the noise. But she stayed. Until James died. And then we both discovered that he was the only glue holding us together.”

“So she left you and now you stay here alone and avoid babies.”

She sounded so sad that he couldn’t hold back a laugh. “I’m not a sad man, Delfyne. I like my life. It’s full enough.”

“But you won’t marry.”

“It’s doubtful. Every woman I meet gets hurt by my reticence to commit. You saw that with Nancy. They all seem to feel I’m not giving my all. And I suppose I’m not.”

“
I
suppose you have reason. Why should you give your heart when it’s been thrown back at you by women who held it in their keeping? And not wanting to have another child, of course you wouldn’t make promises you didn’t intend to keep when you’d already been on the wrong end of a broken promise yourself. But I wish I could make things right for you, give you something.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Ah, I see. Now you’re being the benevolent lady, bestowing her gifts upon the poor hapless knight who came calling.”

She gave him a mock incredulous look. “Well, you certainly don’t look hapless, much less like a knight right now. You’ve torn your shirt,” she said, laying her palm over the ripped section just above his heart. Her skin was warm.

And suddenly the world shifted. The very air seemed to change. Owen’s heart thudded crazily as if a woman had never touched him before.

“And…” She licked her lips nervously. “And a knight would never sit side by side with…with his…”

“Shh, don’t say it. Someone might hear,” he whispered, leaning near. And then his lips found the sensitive skin beneath her ear.

She shivered.

“Would a knight do that?” he wondered.

“I—I don’t think so,” she began.

“Then maybe this.” He nuzzled his way farther down her neck.

She tilted her head to give him better access, and heat flared
within him. Slipping his arms around her, he kissed her, he touched her, he slid his palms up her torso, his thumbs resting beneath her breasts.

“Don’t worry about me, Delfyne,” he urged, his mouth dancing over her skin. “Please. Don’t try to make me feel better, don’t make me into something more or better than I am. I’m a rancher, simply a rancher. The fact that I have more money than most doesn’t make me any different. And the fact that I’m kissing you now when I know that there’s no future in it for either of us, no wisdom in it at all, means I’m worse than most. Don’t trust me, ever. I don’t trust myself.”

With that, he let her go. He rested his forehead against hers for a minute and listened to the sound of their deep, uneven breathing.

“Go inside now,” he said in a voice that betrayed the fact that letting her go was too damn difficult to enable him to speak clearly.

“I wasn’t teasing you,” she said. “I—that is, I was. We were playing, but I didn’t mean my pretense to cause you regret.”

He smiled against her forehead. “If you think I regret touching you, you’re dead wrong, Delfyne. It’s what I’m not going to do that I regret.”

She looked at him and kissed the corner of his mouth. “I wouldn’t have stopped you.”

He groaned. “Could you please not tell me that? Or could you at least try a lie?”

She smiled against his skin. “All right. I wish you hadn’t kissed me, and actually a part of that isn’t a lie. Because once I leave here, I can’t ever look back and wonder what would have happened next. Sometimes it’s best not to know desire at all, I think.”

“Delfyne…” he said on a groan. “All right, I am sorry.”

“Don’t be. That part, the touching, was wonderful, but also not wise. Because from here on out, this moment of weakness and desire will always be between us.”

And with that she got up and went inside.

She was right, he thought. More right than she knew. Long after she had forgotten her brief moments on the porch of a ranch with a man she should never have met, he would be remembering the taste of her.

There was an edginess between Owen and herself for the next few days, Delfyne couldn’t help noticing. She knew he was blaming himself, but really she was the one who had started the teasing. She had a distinct feeling that Owen didn’t get teased very often.

She had pushed him too far. As she always did.

Now she wanted to make up in some small way, so she set to work on learning to make that cake. Lydia had told her that double fudge surprise was Owen’s favorite, and Delfyne was determined to make him the lightest, fluffiest, most delicious cake he had ever tasted. Better than Lydia’s.

“Or maybe almost as good as Lydia’s,” Delfyne whispered out loud as she mixed ingredients. She had better get it right. Lydia had run into town with Nicholas—who’d taken to ranch duty so well, Delfyne wondered if he’d rather be a cowboy than a bodyguard—to pick up a replacement part for her vacuum cleaner. There was no one to consult if Delfyne made a baking mistake.

In fact, she was concentrating so hard that she almost didn’t hear the knock at the door, but finally it snagged her attention just as the person started to bang harder. “Lydia, damn it, open up. I’m frying my butt off out here.”

“I’m on my way,” Delfyne said. “Just let me wipe my hands.” She pulled up a piece of her apron and did just that as she hurried to the door.

Standing on the kitchen stoop was a big, grizzled man, and he looked miffed. “Took you long enough. I was ready to come through the window,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you. Come in,” she said. “Are you looking for Lydia? Or Owen?” She moved into the house to get the two-way radio.

But when she turned around, the man had moved up right behind her. He was staring at her intently. “I’m here to see Owen. We’ve got business, but now that I’m out of the hot sun, there’s no need to hurry,” he said. “Who are you? Anyone else here?”

Something in his voice and his words didn’t sound or feel right. Definitely the way he was staring at her was wrong. There was something too fierce and wrong about his interest. He glanced to the side as if looking out the window, but Delfyne knew that no one was there.