The Runaway Princess

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.”