Montana Royalty

As drunk as he was, he’d had no business riding a horse, and she intended to tell him so first thing in the morning.

In the meantime…She knelt down next to him, gave him a nudge. He didn’t budge. Nor did he quit snoring. Sliding under the edge of the blanket with her back to him, she shoved him over.

“Blanket hog,” she muttered.

He let out a soft, unintelligible murmur, his warm breath teasing the tender skin at the back of her neck as he snuggled against her. She started to pull away, but his body felt fairly warm and definitely very solid, even the soft sound of his snoring reassuring. At least the man was good for something.

As much as she had grumbled and complained, the truth was she didn’t mind having company tonight. As she began to warm up, she almost forgot about the storm raging around them as she closed her eyes and snuggled against him, drifting off to sleep.

RORY WOKE to the sound of her horse’s whinny. Aware of being wonderfully warm, as if wrapped in a cocoon, the last thing she wanted to do was open her eyes.

Her horse whinnied again close by. Confused, since her horse should have been out by the barn some distance from her ranch house, she opened her eyes a slit.

Three things hit her at once.

She wasn’t in her bed at the ranch.

There was an arm around her, a body snuggled behind her.

And she was naked.

Rory froze, listening to the man’s soft, steady breathing as the events of the previous night came back in a rush. The storm, the shack, the groom she’d taken in out of the goodness of her heart.

But she was absolutely certain she had been wearing her undergarments, as skimpy as they were, when she’d lain down next to him last night. She recalled snuggling against him under the blanket to get warm…

She let out a silent curse as she recalled drowsily coming, half-awake, during the night to what she’d first thought was an erotic dream.

He stirred behind her, his warm breath tickling her bare shoulder, his arm tightening around her, one large hand cupping her left breast.

With a silent groan, it all came back, every pleasurable dreamlike moment of it, up until she’d awakened to the shock of her life.

She wasn’t in the habit of waking with a stranger in her bed, let alone with a stranger on the floor of a shack under a horse blanket after having wild wanton sex.

This was all Bryce’s fault. After breaking off her engagement with him four years ago, she’d been gun-shy of men. But then, who could blame her?

Blaming Bryce for this made her feel a little better. And of course there were other factors to blame: the storm, her fear of storms, the intimacy of the dark shack, the closeness of their near-naked bodies, the need for warmth to survive, Bryce again and that other need she’d ignored for obviously too long.

Not to mention trying to run the ranch single-handedly. She hadn’t had time to date even though she’d had a few offers. Shoot, she’d bet everyone in the county was laying odds that she would end up a spinster. After all, she was nearly thirty.

Not that any of that was an excuse. She had her principles. And sleeping with a royal groom, whose name she didn’t even know, didn’t meet any of them.

As his breathing slowed again, signaling he’d fallen back into a deep sedated sleep, Rory slowly lifted his arm and slipped out from under it and the horse blanket. He stirred. She froze.

Then he rolled over, pulling the blanket with him, but not before she’d seen his naked backside.

She closed her eyes as she was assaulted with images of the two of them in the throes of lovemaking. A groan escaped her lips. She clamped a hand over her mouth, her eyes flying open, fearing she’d awakened him.

With relief, she saw that he was still sleeping soundly.

Her clothing was on a nail, where she’d hung it the night before. Her underwear was at the end of the horse blanket next to the groom’s bare feet.

She gingerly extracted the lingerie and pulled it on. From the nail, she retrieved her shirt, which was almost dry, as were her socks. Her jeans and jean jacket were still cold and wet.

But she hardly noticed as she dressed and tried her best to ignore the hot flush of her skin or the slight whisker burn on certain parts of her body.

Don’t think about it.

She wished it were that simple. She was appalled that she’d made love to a perfect stranger—and that she’d enjoyed it more than she should have.

Completely dressed, she stood for a moment telling herself maybe it had just been a dream. Right. She wasn’t letting herself off that easily. Last night had been reckless, scandalous and…and…amazing. At least according to her limited experience.

As she turned to stare at the man curled in her horse blanket, she felt almost guilty about just leaving him there to meet his fate. When she’d found him lying in the pine needles drunk and confused, she’d thought he deserved whatever punishment his royal boss would give him for riding, in an inebriated state, such a beautiful horse.

But this morning she worried that he really might be sent home to face a firing squad. She hoped that wasn’t the case, but there was nothing she could do about it. In fact, since she’d refused to sell her property to his employer, it was good that no one would ever know where the groom had spent the night—or with whom.

She was grateful that he didn’t know who she was. With luck, she would never see him again since the man obviously was a bad influence on her.

It dawned on her that the only two men she’d ever slept with she now had to avoid.

Not a great track record, she told herself as she picked up her saddle, eased open the door and slipped out.

DEVLIN BARROW WOKE with the worst hangover of his life. He opened his eyes to find himself wrapped in a horse blanket.

Sitting up with a start, he looked around in confusion—and alarm. He spotted his clothing draped over nails on the log walls of what appeared to be a very small cabin. But he didn’t recall hanging his clothing there anymore than he could remember this place or the previous night.

The sun was up and a slight breeze blew through several cracks between the logs, chilling what he realized was his very bare skin.

“What the devil?” He rubbed his stubbled jaw and desperately tried to remember how he’d gotten there.

He had not the faintest idea. Not as to how he’d come to be there nor where he even was. Nor could he explain his massive headache or the cut over his left eye or the tender bump he felt on his temple.

Getting shakily to his feet, he retrieved his clothing and dressed. Since he’d been wearing his riding britches and boots, he could only assume he’d gone for a ride. So where was his horse? Where was he?

His riding britches were cold and damp to the touch. He frowned as he remembered something. He quickly searched his pockets, only to find the first empty. In the other, he discovered a slip of paper.

The note that had been slipped under his door yesterday afternoon.

The ink had run on the paper, but he could still make out the words: I must see you. Meet me in the aspen woods a mile to the east of Stanwood tonight after dark.

If he’d met someone in the woods last night, he couldn’t remember it.

The bump on the head, the hangover from alcohol he couldn’t remember drinking and the feeling that something important had happened last night made him fear that he’d been tricked into coming to this isolated spot not to receive the news he so desperately sought, but to be…what? Killed?

He stuffed the note into his shirt pocket and, fighting a wave of nausea, opened the door and stumbled out into the sunlight. To his growing concern, he saw no sign of his horse. Nor had the horse blanket he’d been wrapped in been one from Stanwood stables.

He was becoming more concerned about the consequences of finding himself in such a predicament. He licked his lips, his mouth dry and tasting of stale brandy. Another taste teased his memory.

He shook his head as if to clear away the cobwebs and shuddered at the pain. Why was it he could remember having only one drink since he must have imbibed more than that to be feeling this awful?

Common sense told him he wouldn’t have gotten drunk before his meeting in the woods. So how did he explain this headache, his lack of memory?

The thick pines outside at least told him he was in Montana, but nothing looked familiar. Not that he’d been there long enough to know his way around. Yesterday had been his first day at Stanwood.

That seemed to jar a memory. He saw himself standing in the main parlor, having a brandy with several of the nobility visiting Stanwood. He’d been called up from the stables and complimented on his riding abilities. After that, he recalled nothing.

His riding abilities? How ironic since it appeared he’d not only lost his memory—but his horse, as well.

The ground, he noted, was still wet, the pine boughs dripping bejeweled drops that caught the sunlight in blinding prisms. When had it rained? He recalled being cold, then warm.

An image flirted with his memory, but didn’t stick around any longer than to make him anxious. He had to get back to Stanwood.

Taking a moment, Devlin studied the angle of the sun and started walking down the mountainside, hoping to find a road or fence or someone who could tell him where he was.

As he rubbed the knot on his temple, he chastised himself for being a fool. He’d wager he’d been tricked into riding into the storm and woods last night. As terrible as he felt, he had a feeling he was lucky to be alive.

He’d gone on a fool’s errand and now he would have to pay the price. He feared it would mean his job and being sent back to his home country. He couldn’t let that happen. He’d come too far, had already taken too many chances to get at the truth.

Stumbling through the woods, he headed due west. He wasn’t sure how far he’d gone when he heard the thunder of hooves pounding toward him, and he looked up to see a half dozen of the royal police bearing down on him.

ALL RORY WANTED was to get back to the ranch, take a hot shower and put the storm and the groom out of her mind.

If only she could exorcize the images of the groom as easily. His lips on her skin, his strong arms around her, his hard body pressing into—

She swore as she rode out of the pines and saw the car parked in front of her ranch house.

Deputy Griffin Crowley stood against his patrol car, arms crossed over his chest, a frown on his face. He glanced at his watch as she approached, then back up at her with obvious irritation.

Rory had completely forgotten about her call to the sheriff’s department yesterday morning when she’d discovered the tracks in her ranch yard. The sheriff had been unavailable. The dispatcher had promised to give someone the message though.

And here was Deputy Crowley. He’d certainly taken his sweet time getting there.

But that didn’t bother her as much as the fact that she was going to have to put off the shower and dry clothing awhile longer.

“Rory,” Griff said with a nod as she swung down from her saddle. He was a big man, with a head of dark blond hair and a thick mustache that curled around his thin lips. He looked like the boy next door, more boyish than handsome.

“I heard you called. The sheriff’s off to some lawman’s seminar in San Francisco. I got here as soon as I could. I was getting worried.” He studied her openly. Almost as if he knew that she’d spent the night in the line shack with a fancy-dressed foreign groom.

She and Bryce Jones had double-dated with Griff and his girlfriend back in high school when the boys had been football stars, taking the team to state all four years. The two men had been close friends. She’d always suspected that Griff hadn’t forgiven her for breaking her engagement to Bryce anymore than Bryce had.

But Griff and Bryce weren’t such close friends that the deputy hadn’t asked her out soon after the breakup and after Bryce’s leaving town. She’d turned Griff down all four times he’d asked her out since. To her relief, he’d finally quit asking.

Unfair or not, Griff reminded her of Bryce, which was the kiss of death as far as she was concerned, not to mention she couldn’t forget the way Griff had tormented her when they were kids.

“Sorry. Let me put my horse up.” Needing a moment, she led her horse into the barn, slipped off the saddle and tack and hung everything in the tack room.

On the ride back to the ranch, Rory had told herself that she’d put last night behind her. It was over and done. No reason to beat herself up over it. And no one had to know about her lapse in judgment. Or whatever it had been in the middle of the night during the storm. The groom had no doubt been fired by now and was probably on his way back to whatever country he’d come from.

She filled the mare’s bucket with oats before turning to find Griffin standing in the doorway watching her.

“Early morning ride?” he asked.

She knew her hair was a mess as well as her clothing, and saw no reason to lie. “Got caught in that storm last night. I had to spend the night in an old line shack.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you had a line shack on your property.”

“I don’t. The one to the west was closer than trying to make it back to the ranch,” she said avoiding his gaze.

Fortunately, he let it drop. “Well, at least that explains why I couldn’t reach you when I called last night and again this morning,” he said. “I was worried about you out here all alone after you called the department. That was a pretty bad storm last night. Temperature dropped quite a bit. I’m surprised you didn’t freeze to death.”

She’d always been a lousy poker player, every emotion showing in her face. “It wasn’t bad in the line shack,” she said, turning her whisker-burned face away.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him frown. “Isn’t that line shack on the old Miller place? I thought that land was bought by—”

“That’s the reason I called you,” she cut in. “Someone has been hanging around the ranch. I think it’s my new neighbors, that Duke—”

“Prince. He’s a prince.”

“Whatever.” She just wanted to cut this short and get a hot shower and into some dry clothes. “He’s been trying to buy my property and since I’ve made it clear I’m not selling—”

“You’re telling me that the prince has been sneaking around your ranch? Come on, Rory, that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

This was exactly why she hadn’t wanted Griff responding to her call. “What are those people doing in Montana anyway? Do you even know? They could be infiltrating our country to attack us.”

Griff shook his head as if he couldn’t believe this. “A prince and princess?”

“How do you know that? Have you checked their identification? What do you actually know about these people?” She could see that he didn’t know any more than she did. Maybe less since she doubted he’d been over there, while she had.

“Shouldn’t someone try to find out exactly what these people are up to given they have soldiers over there carrying semiautomatic weapons?”

“How do you know what kind of weapons they carry?” he demanded.

She said nothing, not about to incriminate herself further.

Griff let out a long sigh. “First off, because they are royalty of course they are going to have armed guards. Second, you don’t have to sell your land to them. Just ignore the offers.”

“What about whoever’s been on my property snooping around?” Rory saw his expression. “You’re not going to do a thing, are you? Why am I not surprised?” She started to turn away from him, too angry to have this discussion with the pigheaded, son of a…

“Hold on, now,” Griff said grabbing her arm and turning her back to face him. “I’ll have a look around, okay?”

She jammed her fists on her hips and said nothing.

Apparently he seemed to think it best to follow her example and stepped past her to circle the house.

She thought about going into the house and letting him do his job, but she knew Griff. Tailing after him, she watched him wander around her ranch yard, looking bored and annoyed. He glanced back once to see if she was watching him. She was.

After a few minutes, he stopped his pretense of investigating and came back to where she was standing, her arms crossed over her chest.

“There’s some tracks where someone has been hanging around, all right,” he said.

“I believe I’m the one who told you that,” she said, trying to contain her temper. She was cold and tired and couldn’t wait for him to leave. It would be a cold day in hell before she called him out there again. Maybe when the sheriff got back…

The deputy sighed. “Look, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this very thing. I don’t like you living out here alone. I’m worried about you, Rory.”

She shot an eyebrow upward. “Why? Since you’re so sure I have nothing to worry about with my new royal neighbors…” She couldn’t help the sarcasm. His concern apparently only went so far.

“Damn it, Rory, you have no business trying to run this ranch alone and this proves it. By your own admission, you got caught in that storm last night. What if you hadn’t been able to get to the line shack? Or worse—what if you’d gotten bucked off your horse and hurt?”

She bristled. “I’m fine.”

Griffin was shaking his head. “I’m not sure you can trust your judgment on this. You aren’t behaving rationally, and you know it.”

If he only knew. “If you’re going to tell me you think I should sell the ranch—”

“You know you’re doing this out of sheer stubbornness. It would be different if you had a man around—”

“I’m in no mood for this.”

“I can see that you didn’t get much sleep last night,” he said. “Maybe this isn’t the best time to bring this up.”

“There is no good time if this is about me getting rid of the ranch,” she said with heat although she knew others in town had speculated on the same thing—if not bet on how long before she ran the place into the ground. What Griffin and everyone else didn’t seem to understand was that she loved the ranch and couldn’t bear to part with it.

Just this year, she’d sold off the cattle and leased the land, telling herself it was only temporary, just until she could get the ranch back in business.

“I’m not selling.” With that she turned and stomped toward the house.

“I wasn’t offering to buy the place,” Griff called after her. “I was asking you to marry me.”

Rory stumbled to a halt, his words pelting her like stones. Slowly she turned to look back at him.

“What?” she asked, telling herself she must have heard wrong. She’d turned him down for even a date. What would make him think she would marry him?

“We should get married.” He walked to her, kneading the brim of his hat in his fingers nervously as he approached. “I’d planned to ask you a lot better than this, but when you weren’t around this morning…I’m asking you to marry me.”

Her first indication was to laugh, but the deputy looked so serious…“Griff, I don’t know what to say.” That was putting it mildly.

“I know this is probably a little unexpected.”

You think?

“But I’ve been considering it for some time,” he continued, clearly nervous. “You need a man out here. You can’t run the place by yourself.”

She bristled at that. “Even if that were true, it’s no reason to get married,” she said, still stunned by his proposal.

“Hell, Rory, people get married every day with a whole lot less in common than the two of us. You and I have known each other all our lives. There shouldn’t be any surprises.”

Yeah, who’d want any surprises in a marriage? Or mystery? Or excitement? Or, say…love?

“Griff, I appreciate the offer, but I believe people should be in love when they get married. I don’t love you.” She hardly liked him after the way he used to tease and taunt her when they were kids.

“Love?” He snorted. “Like you’re one of those silly romantic types.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Come on, Rory. Look at you. The way you dress. The way you act. Hell, if someone saw you out in the pasture they’d take you for a cowhand rather than a woman.” He sounded angry with her.

For a moment, she was too shocked to speak. She might be a tomboy, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a woman under these clothes. She had a right to romance, love, passion. A redhot memory of last night in the shack leaped into her thoughts against her will. Talk about passion…

“You know what I mean,” he said, softening his words. “You’ve never acted like a woman.”

“If there is a compliment in there, I’m afraid I missed it,” she said, fire in her eyes.

“What are you getting all riled about?” Griff demanded. “I was just saying that you could do a whole lot worse than me.”

“I think you’ve said enough, Griff.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“I’m not offended.” She was. Not that everything he’d said wasn’t the truth. Obviously, she didn’t dress or act much like his idea of a woman. But under her damp dirty clothes, there was a woman’s body and a beating heart.

Her thoughts flashed to the groom she’d shared her horse blanket—and a lot more—with last night. He’d found her desirable, hadn’t he? True, he’d been drunk as a skunk and thought she was a forest sprite.

“Well, at least consider my offer,” Griff said irritably. “I’ll give you some time to think about it. But I could be the answer to your problems.”

“I don’t have any problems,” she snapped. Except Griff right then. “You and I are friends.” A lie. “Let’s leave it at that.”

“Friends isn’t a bad place to begin a marriage.”

“My answer is no,” she said more forcefully.

“You are one mule-headed woman, you know that?”

“Thank you. That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me this morning.” She turned again and headed for the house, calling over her shoulder, “Let me know about what you find out about my new neighbors.”

Once inside the house, the front door locked behind her, Rory waited until Griff drove away before she stripped off her damp clothing and stepped into the shower, hopping mad. Griff had caught her off guard with his ridiculous marriage proposal. But it was his description of her that had her fuming because she feared it was too close to the truth.

She’d been so involved in saving the ranch that maybe she had forgotten how to be a woman.

Until last night.

Chapter Four

With dread, Devlin watched the horsemen approach. Jules Armitage, the head of royal security, rode in the lead, his back ramrod straight.

Devlin heard Armitage referred to as “Little Napoleon” behind his back. Small in stature but with an air of importance because of his long-standing position with the royal family, Jules was a man easily ridiculed.

But Devlin knew Jules Armitage was also a man to be feared. Jules had been in the service of the royal family for thirty years. His loyalties were never questioned, his harsh dealings with those under him legendary.

Devlin had seen Jules take a horse whip to one groom. Another groom had simply disappeared. The head of security had free rein here in Montana. Anything could fall under the protecting of the only daughter of the king, including murder.

Devlin could see even from a distance that the head of security was furious. It showed in the set of his shoulders, in the way he forced his horse’s head up. Jules would report this incident—if he hadn’t already.

This was the worst thing that could happen. Devlin couldn’t be sent home now, and yet he knew the princess could do whatever she wanted with him. He was at her whim. As were the rest of those under her rule here at Stanwood.