The Texan's Tennessee Romance / The Rancher & the Reluctant Princess

MILLS & BOON

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Available in September 2010

from Mills & Boon®

Special Moments™

The Texas Billionaire’s Bride by Crystal Green & The Texas Bodyguard’s Proposal by Karen Rose Smith

Kids on the Doorstep by Kimberly Van Meter & Cop on Loan by Jeannie Watt

The Texan’s Tennessee Romance by Gina Wilkins & The Rancher & the Reluctant Princess by Christine Flynn

Loving the Right Brother by Marie Ferrarella

A Weaver Baby by Allison Leigh

A Small-Town Temptation by Terry McLaughlin

A Not-So-Perfect Past by Beth Andrews

GINA WILKINS is a bestselling and award-winning author who has written more than seventy novels for Mills & Boon. She credits her successful career in romance to her long, happy marriage and her three “extraordinary” children.

A lifelong resident of central Arkansas, Ms Wilkins sold her first story to Mills & Boon in 1987 and has been writing full-time since. She has appeared on the Waldenbooks, B Dalton and USA TODAY bestseller lists. She is a three-time recipient of the Maggie Award for Excellence, sponsored by Georgia Romance Writers, and has won several awards from the reviewers of Romantic Times BOOKreviews.

As always, for my family:

John, Courtney, Kerry, Justin and David.

Chapter One

He was quite possibly one of the worst maintenance men Natalie Lofton had ever seen. Pretty, but incompetent. Watching as he fumbled with a leaky pipe under her kitchen sink, she wondered where on earth her aunt and uncle had found this twenty-something guy, who had introduced himself only as Casey. She couldn’t imagine what had made them think he was qualified to be a handyman for the vacation cabins they owned in the Smoky Mountains around Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” she asked the third time she heard an ominous clang followed by a muttered curse.

Her voice from the doorway must have startled him. She saw his nice backside jerk, heard what sounded like a painful thump from beneath the sink and then yet another colorful expletive, bitten off midway.

He emerged ruefully rubbing a spot on the top of his head, and she couldn’t help noticing again that he was certainly good-looking. His appearance, she decided, defied simple, one-word adjectives. His hair was just a shade more brown than blond, and his almost-crystalline-bright eyes looked blue one moment, green the next. His jawline was sharply carved, but flashing dimples softened his cheeks. She suspected his personality was just as multifaceted.

“What did you say?” he asked.

She moved closer, bending over to see what he’d been doing under there. How much time did it take to replace a leaky trap, anyway? “I asked if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“Thanks, but I’ve got it. It won’t be much longer.”

“Uh-huh.” She hoped she didn’t sound as skeptical as she felt.

His polite smile fading, he ducked back under the sink, flipping over to lie on his back this time. She couldn’t help noticing that he looked just as good from waist down as he did above. Long legs, flat stomach, nice…

“Could you hand me that wrench, please? The big one?”

She picked up the biggest wrench she saw in his box and leaned over to hand it to him. “This one?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

She watched as he fitted it to the pipe. “Um, don’t you think you should—”

“What?” he asked loudly, unable to hear from beneath the sink. Even as he spoke, he gave the wrench a big twist. She saw the wrench slip, smashing through the thin copper water pipe next to him.

Cold water sprayed in a geyser from the broken pipe, hitting her squarely in the face. Gasping, she heard Casey sputter as he lay at the bottom of a veritable waterfall. While she stumbled backward, he scrambled frantically clanging and muttering until he reduced the gushing to a dribble by turning off the water valve.

“—shut off the water supply?” she finished her question in a grumble.

“I am so sorry,” he said, awkwardly climbing from beneath the sink. He was even wetter than Natalie, if that was possible. His light brown hair dripped around his face, and his blue polo shirt was plastered to his well-defined chest.

Which reminded her…

Glancing downward, she noted that her thin, yellow cotton shirt had molded itself to her, going almost transparent when wet. She grabbed hold of the front, pulling the fabric away from her body. “I’ll go find some towels.”

He raised his gaze quickly to her face. “Yeah, okay. I’m really sorry.”

She nodded and darted out of the kitchen, heading straight for the cabin’s only bedroom. She wasn’t bringing towels to him until she had changed her shirt.

Catching a glimpse of herself in the antique oval mirror over the rustic dresser, she groaned. Water trickled from the ends of her chin-length, honey-blond, angled bob. The bare minimum of makeup she’d applied that morning was water-splotched. And her now-transparent shirt made it very clear that she’d donned a comfy—and very thin—nude-toned bra that morning.

She changed quickly into a dry, slightly thicker bra and a dark blue, scoop-neck T-shirt. Deciding her jeans weren’t damp enough to change, she ran a brush through her wet hair. After dusting a little powder over her now-shiny face, she grabbed an armload of towels and headed back toward the kitchen where surely the world’s worst handyman waited for her.

Way to go, Casey. Drench one of the tenants. The owner’s niece, to make it even worse. Some handyman you are.

Of course, that was the problem. He wasn’t a handyman at all. Just a twenty-six-year-old man in the middle of an identity crisis.

“Here.” Reentering the room, Natalie tossed a fluffy white towel to him. “Dry yourself. I’ll start on the floor.”

He draped the towel over his head and rubbed his soaked hair, then dragged it over his neck and the front of his shirt. While he did so, he watched Natalie kneel to swab up the water pooled on the oak floor. She’d changed clothes, he noted. He tried to push away a lingering image of her wet, yellow shirt plastered to very nice curves.

“I’ll have to install a new pipe. And the flooring of the cabinet needs to be replaced,” he said. “The slow leak you found has pretty much rotted it out.”

“The fast leak you created didn’t help any, either,” she muttered, gathering wet towels to carry into the small laundry room attached to the kitchen.

He supposed he deserved that. But it rather annoyed him, anyway. Especially since he’d broken the damn pipe because she’d distracted him and made him self-conscious by watching him and talking to him while he was trying to work. Serious control issues, this one.

As if she’d read a hint of his thoughts in his eyes, she grimaced slightly. “Sorry,” she said, pushing a damp strand of hair off her cheek. “I know it was an accident.”

“Yeah. But you’re right. I didn’t help matters much,” he conceded, softened by her apology. No matter how grudgingly she’d offered it.

“How long have you worked for Uncle Mack?” she asked, glancing at the tool box beside his feet.

“Just over a week now.”

“And how long have you been a handyman?”

“Maintenance facilitator,” he corrected her with a grin. When she only looked at him, he shrugged and said, “Just over a week now.”

“Oh.” She looked as though she’d like to ask a few more questions, but either manners or lack of sufficient interest kept her from doing so. Whatever the reason, he was relieved that she kept her questions to herself.

There were a few things he would like to know about her, too. But this wasn’t the time. He reached down for his tools. “I’m going to have to get a new copper pipe to replace the one I broke. Might have to get some help changing it out. I’m afraid you’re going to be without water in here for a few hours, but you still have water in the bathroom.”

She nodded. “Aunt Jewel told me the cabin is undergoing renovations and repair work. That’s why she’s letting me use it while I—for now,” she corrected herself. “I can get by without the kitchen sink for a while.”

“Okay. Well then, I’ll be back later,” he said, moving toward the door. “Sorry again about—you know.” He motioned toward her still damp hair, then let himself out of the cabin before he made a bigger fool of himself.

Which wouldn’t be easy to do, he thought as he climbed into the black SUV parked in the gravel driveway. He hadn’t exactly wowed Natalie with his maintenance skills. No wonder she had wanted to know how long he’d been doing this.

Because it was the first week in November, the fall colors had begun to fade, and the leaves were already beginning to drop. It wasn’t cold yet, but a nip in the air promised that it would be soon. Driving down the winding mountain road that ran alongside one of the many rushing creeks in the area, Casey noted the signs of approaching winter, even as he wondered what Natalie would have said if he’d told her the whole truth about himself.

He’d been doing a few maintenance chores for the past week, but he was actually an associate attorney in a high-powered, Dallas law firm. One of the youngest ever hired by the firm, starting right after earning his law degree when he was only twenty-four.

The six-week leave of absence he’d taken almost two weeks ago hadn’t exactly cemented his future with the firm. No one but his cousin Molly Reeves understood or approved of his need to take that time now to reevaluate his life and the future that had been laid out for him almost from birth. Molly and her husband, Kyle, partners in Mack and Jewel McDooley’s vacation property management business, had given him a place to stay during the hiatus, and the space he needed to deal with his issues.

As payment for their hospitality, he’d volunteered to fill in for the regular full-time handyman, who’d been in a car accident recently and wouldn’t be able to work for at least another month. Molly had been understandably skeptical about his offer. She knew he hadn’t spent a lot of time working with his hands while he’d concentrated on school for most of his life. But he’d convinced her and the others that he could handle some simple repair work.

And darned if he hadn’t messed up for the first time right in front of the owner’s niece, he thought with a scowl. Not only that—the owner’s very hot niece.

He didn’t know what he’d been expecting when Mack mentioned that his wife’s niece was staying in one of the cabins for a few weeks, but the woman he’d met that morning had taken him by surprise. Tall and classy, she was a cool blond with warm chocolate eyes. Her age was hard to guess, but he’d estimated a little older than himself. The extra couple of years looked good on her.

She’d even held on to her dignity for the most part when he’d doused her with cold water from beneath the sink. He could still see her standing there, dripping, her wet shirt clinging to her like a second skin, her expression more exasperated than angry. He doubted that she would have appreciated knowing the thoughts that had gone through his mind at that moment, though he’d tried very hard to rein them in.

He wondered what her story was. All he’d been told was that she was taking a quiet, solitary vacation while she was between jobs. He hadn’t been informed, nor had he asked, what she did for a living or what she might be hiding from in her isolated mountain retreat.

He shook his head impatiently, bringing the speculation to an abrupt end. Just because he had issues that had sent him running to the mountains to brood and reevaluate his life didn’t mean everyone else was in the same boat. Maybe Natalie just wanted to take advantage of a free vacation in her relatives’ under-renovation cabin.

And maybe he was going to sprout wings and fly. He didn’t know Natalie Lofton or the details of her current situation, but the studied calm of her demeanor hadn’t completely hidden the storm in her deep brown eyes. That was one of his talents—reading other people’s emotions, no matter how hard they tried to keep them hidden. The skill had served him well in his law career, giving him an edge that he had never hesitated to exploit.

So while he might not know what was eating at Natalie, he knew something was. And he suspected that she wouldn’t be averse to taking her frustration out on the less-than-proficient handyman.

Casey returned just after lunch. Natalie let him back in, noting that he’d brought help this time. “Hello, Kyle,” she greeted the second man.

A hard-carved ex-soldier in his mid-thirties, Kyle Reeves had been the McDooleys’ business partner for almost five years. Their late son, Tommy—Natalie’s favorite cousin in her childhood—had been Kyle’s best friend. They had served in the military together for several years, until a roadside bomb in the Middle East had ended Tommy’s life and almost killed Kyle at the same time.

It had taken Kyle a long time to recover, both physically and emotionally. He still walked with a slight limp and had a few faintly visible scars, which only added to his rough appeal.

Because Kyle had no family of his own, Mack and Jewel had taken him in. They had given him encouragement and support and had found in him a reason to put aside their grief and focus on someone else who needed them. He had become a surrogate son to them, and Natalie had no question that they loved him like one. Nor did she doubt that Kyle would willingly die for either of the couple who had given him a reason to keep living when, from what she had surmised, he’d been all too close to giving up.

Kyle returned her greeting with a nod. “How’s it going, Natalie? You comfortable here?”

“Very much so, thank you. It’s a lovely cabin.”

“It will be when we’ve finished the renovations.” He glanced at Casey with a wry half smile. “And if I can keep my cousin-in-law, here, from flooding the place.”

“Cousin-in-law?” she repeated, glancing at Casey, who stood quietly behind the man who was probably his senior by a decade. “You’re Molly’s cousin?”

He nodded. “On my father’s side. My last name is Walker, which was Molly’s maiden name.”

“I didn’t realize.” But it explained a lot, she decided. She knew now how he’d gotten the job.

He grinned as though he had somehow read her thoughts. “Gotta love nepotism, right?”

Her lips twitched with a smile she had a hard time containing. At least he admitted he hadn’t been hired for his maintenance skills.

“Molly told me to ask you to dinner,” Kyle said, shifting a heavy toolbox in his left hand. “Maybe Friday night?”

Though she still wasn’t feeling very social, it seemed ungracious to decline. “I’d like that. Tell her I said thank you.”

He nodded again. “She’ll be pleased. Since Micah was born, she hasn’t been able to get out much. She spends a lot of time with the kids and with Jewel, but she’ll enjoy having someone new to talk with for a change.”

Because she’d been so busy with her career the past few years, Natalie hadn’t been able to visit her aunt and uncle much. She had met Molly only a few times, but she liked Kyle’s bubbly, redheaded wife quite a bit. The young mother of three-year-old Olivia and two-month-old Micah had an infectious smile and an inviting Texas drawl. She seemed to have a knack for putting people at ease within minutes of meeting her. She had certainly done so with Natalie.

Leaving the men to work in the big, eat-in kitchen, Natalie returned to the bedroom she’d been sleeping in since she’d arrived four nights ago. This was the only real bedroom, though the couch in the large living room was a sleeper that pulled out into a queen-sized bed. The cabin had two bathrooms, a smaller one with a shower off the living room, and the master bathroom with a shower-tub combo. The master bath was also being renovated during this off-season remodel. A new toilet, sink and countertop had already been installed. There was no mirror in the bathroom now, though she could see that one had hung above the sink.

She’d been told that a new mirror would be installed within the next few days. In the meantime, she was able to use the mirror over the bedroom dresser for applying her makeup and doing her hair.

Like the rest of the small, older vacation cabin, the bedroom decor was country casual. A big iron bed was covered with a hand-pieced quilt for a bedspread and lots of comfy pillows. Matching oak nightstands topped with a pair of antique lamps sat on either side of the bed. Country prints hung on the log walls. What appeared to be homemade lace curtains framed the window that looked out over the mountaintops. Too bad she hadn’t been able to really appreciate the stunning view while she’d been here.

Her laptop sat on the tiny writing desk in one corner of the room. The screen saver had activated, and colorful animated fish swam across the screen. She’d always wanted a real aquarium, but her demanding career had taken so much of her time that she wouldn’t have been able to maintain or enjoy one.

She had time for an aquarium now, she thought glumly. Not that she would be able to afford one once her savings were depleted, as they would be rather quickly if the private investigator she had hired recently didn’t come up with some answers soon.

A flick of the wireless mouse made the screen saver disappear, replaced by a list of her former associates in the large Nashville law firm where she had worked for the past four-and-a-half years. It was a lengthy list—thirty-five members, seventy-five associates, and fifteen staff attorneys, which didn’t even count all the clerical staff. A big firm. A lot of suspects. And she could rule out only about half of them. She wondered if Rand Beecham, the rather eccentric P.I., had had any more success in the week that had passed since her last update from him.

She heard a clang from the kitchen, and a curse that sounded like Casey’s voice, followed by a quick laugh that might have come from Kyle. She glanced that way, then looked back at the names on her screen, her slight smile fading. Someone on this list had set her up, framed her for leaking confidential client information to the media in return for under-the-table payments. Because of that untrue accusation, she had lost a position she’d spent several long, hard years working to achieve. Until she proved her innocence, her career—her very life—was on hold.

“So, when are you coming home?”

Leaning back in a patio chair on the deck of the tiny, A-frame cabin in which he was staying—one of the two cabins currently under renovation and not rented during this off-peak season, the other being Natalie’s—Casey gazed at the wooded path stretched in front of him, and tried to come up with a satisfactory answer to his cousin’s question. “I don’t know, exactly,” he said into the cell phone he held to his ear. “A couple more weeks, maybe.”

“You’ve been there almost two weeks already,” Aaron Walker complained. “What are you doing there all this time?”

“Kyle and Mack are renovating two of their vacation cabins during the off season, and I volunteered to give them a hand.”

“You’re doing carpentry work?” Aaron made no effort to hide his skepticism.

“Yeah. And a little plumbing. Some painting. Cleaning gutters. That sort of thing.”

“You. Plumbing. That can’t be good.”

Casey was glad Aaron couldn’t see him wince as he remembered the way he’d soaked Natalie with a spray of cold water. Wouldn’t Aaron and his twin, Andrew, have gotten unholy delight out of that scene? Not to mention their slightly older cousin, Jason, who was always commenting on the younger trio’s proclivity for trouble.

Maybe he’d tell them about his first real attempt at plumbing sometime. But not now. “I’m doing okay. Kyle said I’ve been a lot of help.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve had your vacation and you’ve gotten to play with tools. So, don’t you think it’s time to come home now? Everybody’s asking about you. And this hiatus can’t look good to the powers that be at your firm. If it weren’t for the family connections, there’s no way they’d have let a junior associate take off this long without repercussions.”

Casey scowled in response to the reminder of those “family connections.” It was true that his paternal aunt Michelle D’Alessandro was one of the firm’s wealthiest and most prestigious clients. And that his maternal grandfather was a nationally known and admired prosecutor in Chicago, who’d roomed with the senior partner in Casey’s Dallas firm years ago back in their college days and had maintained that friendship ever since. And that Casey’s father was a partner in the largest and most respected private investigation and security company in Dallas and his mother the CEO of an acclaimed accounting firm. All of which might have gotten him hired in the first place, but he’d worked damned hard to justify that decision. He’d earned every dollar of his generous paychecks.