A Royal Mess: A Royal Mess / Her Knight To Remember

Natalia had felt like that a lot today, and she was getting mighty tired of it. She opened her mouth to say so, but Tim neatly cut her off.

“Sally, do you have an extra coat you can spare?”

Sally’s eyes narrowed. “What happened to her coat?”

“It was stolen,” Natalia said. “I’m visiting the States for a royal friend’s wedding.”

Sally lifted a single brow. “Royal friend?”

“I’m a princess.”

Sally lifted the other brow now and looked at Tim. “What have you done?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said lightly. “Everything still in working order around here?”

“She won’t fit in the stockade with the others.”

“Others?” Natalia asked.

“My brother collects the weak, the weary. The pathetic.”

A funny feeling started in the pit of Natalia’s stomach. She didn’t want to be someone Tim felt sorry for, and it was a tribute to her own privileged upbringing that it hadn’t occurred to her until now that he might see her like that. In a way she didn’t fully understand, she wanted to be someone he liked and respected.

But who in their right mind would like and respect a pampered princess who’d never lifted a hand to help herself in her entire life?

Good question, and right then and there Natalia became even more determined to become her own woman, successful in her own right, not her birthright. “I’m not weak or weary.” She’d leave pathetic out of this.

Sally gestured to the kitchen window. “See that stockade out there? The one filled with the three-legged pig, the ancient horse and the blind goat?”

“Um…yes.”

“That’s Tim for you. He collects the needy.”

And the pathetic.

Natalia got the message loud and clear. She’d just been added to the save-the-world stockade.

TIM CALLED a friend of his, who happened to be a cop. No one matching Natalia’s description had been reported missing. Tim didn’t have him run a criminal check, that would have been wrong. But at least his beautiful crazy cook hadn’t walked out of a halfway house or insane asylum. Good. He didn’t have to feel bad about letting her stay.

Now he had to face what he did have to feel bad about, the fact that he wanted her to stay more than he’d wanted anything in a long time.

DINNER WAS something so fancy Tim couldn’t pronounce the name of it. Since Natalia looked so utterly pleased with herself, Tim tried to like it. So did everyone else.

But the moment she turned her back, they stared at each other in horror.

“What is it?” Red mouthed.

Sally shrugged and fed it to Grumpster, Tim’s thirteen-year-old mutt lying hopefully beneath the table. Everyone else quickly followed suit.

Grumpster, who routinely licked his own parts for hours on end, sniffed once and turned his head away.

Which left everyone scrambling to stuff their napkins with the rest, making it appear as if they’d eaten.

Tim wondered at all of them—including himself—at the length they went to not to hurt Natalia’s feelings.

When she saw their empty plates, she beamed with pride. Tim’s chest hurt just looking at her, and he smiled back through the pain. So did his men, while Sally rolled her eyes and looked disgusted.

“Goners,” she said sadly. “Complete goners.”

BREAKFAST THE NEXT DAY was more of the same. They were served some wildly foreign-sounding thing that involved very little food and far too much sauce. But because Natalia had obviously tried so hard, and was waiting with bated breath at the side of the table, hands clasped, eyes hopeful, no one said a word.

They all just smiled at the woman now in denim and a T-shirt, hair still spiked, earrings still in, but face void of makeup except for green lip gloss. The moment she turned her back, they made gagging faces at each other.

They couldn’t even bribe Grumpster with the stuff because he’d refused to come inside with them for the first time ever. They were on their own.

AFTER BREAKFAST, Tim entered the barn and found Seth handing out chocolate bars from his personal stash. Five bucks apiece. Highway robbery, but Ryan, Pete and Red were all digging into their pockets for the cash.

Sally lifted her head from where she was taking care of her horse and shook her head in disgust. “Hey, here’s an idea. Tell her the cooking sucks.”

“Don’t even think about it.” Tim’s stomach growled with a gnawing hunger, and with a grimace, he pulled a ten from his pocket. “I’ll take two,” he said to Seth.

“Unbelievable.” Sally leveled her annoyed gaze on him. “Did she call her so-called royal family yet?”

“No,” he admitted.

“And do you know why?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, I think it does. She hasn’t called home because she doesn’t have one.”

“I couldn’t leave her at the bus stop, Sally. And you know what? You couldn’t have, either.”

“This isn’t about me, but, yes, I could have.” Her eyes softened. “You can’t take care of everyone.”

Tim let out a sound of frustration and ripped into the chocolate. “Look, I know she cooks a little strangely.”

“She lied about knowing how to feed a large group.”

“She never claimed to know how to do that.”

Sally’s mouth dropped open. “You’re telling me you hired without asking? Damn, Tim.”

“She’s trying hard, and that counts. And anyway, she’s only going to be here a few days, just enough to earn her way to New Mexico.”

“So you’re really not going to tell her everything she touches in that kitchen turns to lead in our guts?” She sighed theatrically. “It’s going to be a long few days. Damn it, someone front me a five and hand over the chocolate.”

Tim waited until her first bite, then nudged her away from the others. “I need you to go to the grocery store today.” He spoke cautiously, because sure as the sun came up every morning, coaxing Sally into doing this was going to cost him.

“No way.”

“If you do, I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” She cocked a hip and crossed her arms, shooting him the universal irritated-sister-to-idiot-brother look. “Let me date Josh?”

“Is that what you call what you were doing with him?” She just lifted that brow of hers, making him sigh. “Do you really like him?”

“I like how he fills out his jeans, and that’s all that matters right now.”

Tim cringed. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“Then don’t ask.”

“Please? Go fill up the refrigerator?”

“Because your new cook can’t be trusted with your truck?”

“Because she’s just learning the ropes, I don’t want to dump that chore on her right now.”

“But you have no problem dumping it on me.” She rolled her eyes, swore beneath her breath. “Fine. But I’m going out with Josh on Friday night.”

“What if he doesn’t ask?”

“Oh, he’ll ask.” She took another bite of her chocolate bar.

So did Tim. “You being smart?” he asked.

“I know how to have safe sex, if that’s what you’re asking. You made sure of that when you gave me the birds and bees talk, remember? I make him wear a party hat.”

Tim groaned.

“Would you rather I use the word condom? Or better yet, multipack?”

Tim shut his eyes and covered his ears, making Sally laugh as she dug into her chocolate.

For a long moment there was no sound in the barn except the rustling of paper as everyone continued to fill their empty bellies.

“I’ll make a store run,” Seth promised. “Tomorrow I’ll sell something more substantial.”

“Like Jelly Bellys?” Josh asked hopefully.

Seth laughed. “Maybe.”

Then the barn door opened.

With the sun pouring in, Tim couldn’t immediately see much, except a very memorable silhouette of a body in jeans and a T-shirt. A real woman’s body—lush breasts, curved hips, long legs. How had he ever mistaken her for a jailbait juvenile delinquent?

She stepped closer, eyes locked on their hands, and what they were eating. When it registered, she went still. “Well.”

There was a wealth of things in that well, with hurt leading the pack. Damn it. “Oh, this?” He looked at the chocolate in his hands. “It’s…a morning ritual.” He stepped on Sally’s foot as she was about to open her big, fat mouth. “Eating chocolate together before we head out for the day.” He nodded and smiled. “Yep, we do it every morning.”

Seth, Pete, Ryan and Red’s heads all bobbed up and down in collective agreement.

“Yessiree,” said Seth.

“Yeppers,” echoed Red and Ryan.

“Perfect dessert to your breakfast,” Red added.

Natalia visibly brightened, her smile becoming full. “Really?”

Tim’s gaze lowered to her lips, and allowed himself to imagine she tasted as good as she looked. “Really.” She looked so different today. She looked real. And he wanted, quite suddenly, to bury his face in the skin in the crook of her neck and inhale like a bloodhound.

“But,” she continued in a sweet, soft chastising voice, “you should have just said you were still hungry.” She smiled. “Never mind. I’ll cook more at lunch.”

“M-more?” Seth glanced in horror at Tim.

“Oh, yes.” She laughed and headed out. “Can’t have you going hungry!”

“Can’t have that,” Sally said through her teeth, and shot Tim a look to kill.

5

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, Tim rode back to the barn. He dismounted Jake, who immediately began searching his pockets with his warm, wet muzzle.

“Stop that.” Tim hoisted off Jake’s saddle. “You’ve already had your goodie today.”

The horse snorted and looked pouty, and behind them a soft laugh sounded.

Natalia stood there wearing a smile that shot straight through him, a smile that got to him when he hadn’t planned on her getting to him at all. “You make it look so easy,” she said. “Getting on and off. Riding. All of it.”

Which meant she’d been watching him. He wondered if she watched him as much as he watched her.

“My mom loved horses.” A flicker of sadness touched her eyes as she looked at Jake, though she carefully stayed back from him. “She, um…died in an avalanche twelve years ago.”

“God. I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Yeah.” He stroked Jake. “Let me guess. You’d be rich if you had a penny for every time someone told you it’ll get easier, you’ll see her again someday, she’ll live on in your heart forever…right?”

She lifted her head. “You’ve lost someone, too.”

“My parents. In a car accident.”

“So you know.”

“I know,” he agreed. “I also know the only consolation that works is to say that it sucks.”

That got a laugh out of her. “Yeah. Sucks.”

He smiled at her, thinking she looked good standing there in her new casual wear. The jeans clung to her hips and thighs, the T-shirt to her breasts. The wind ruffled her hair and had put color into her cheeks. She looked different here, far more earthy than wild, and though he knew that was because her makeup had been stolen, he liked it.

Too much.

“So that’s why you put up with your sister,” she said. “You’re raising her.”

“Someone has to.”

“You love her.”

He sighed, even as he smiled. “Like I said, someone has to.”

She smiled back, then shifted when he just stared at her. “What?”

“I was just thinking you don’t look anything like the woman from the plane.”

Immediately she lifted a hand to her hair and looked regretful. “I know, I—”

“I like it.”

“Are you saying you don’t miss the leather?”

“No.” He grinned. “The leather was good. But I like seeing your face.”

“Which is why I was fond of the makeup.”

“You liked hiding.”

“I liked hiding. I didn’t realize how much, or…”

“Or?”

“Or that I wouldn’t miss the hiding at all.”

They stood there, smiling at each other stupidly, until Jake shifted his weight, moving between them, ready to get back to his stall for his feeding if there were no goodies to be had.

Eyes wide, Natalia nearly tripped over her own feet in her hurry to back up.

At her sudden movement, Jake snorted, this time stomping his front hoof for emphasis. Feed me, he said with a toss of his head.

Natalia took another step back, and this time she did trip over her own feet, and would have fallen if Tim hadn’t grabbed her.

“Hey. You okay?”

“Oh, sure.” She forced a smile. “Just fine—”

Jake’s large head swung around, and he leveled Natalia with a baleful stare. Food!

Natalia staggered back from both man and horse, until the fence was at her back. “He’s…uh, really huge, isn’t he?”

If he didn’t know better, this outwardly tough woman was trembling in her boots. “Not a horse person, I’m guessing?”

Her eyes didn’t move from Jake. “Not an animal person.”

Jake, oblivious, thrust out his neck and nosed at Natalia’s front pockets, which earned him a petrified shriek.

Tim stepped between the nose and Natalia. “You must smell good.” Fact. “Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you.”

“I’m…fine. I’m not afraid.”

Uh-huh. She was only holding her breath. Trying to soothe, he ran a hand up her arm. “Natalia? Honey, breathe.”

“Yes.” She gulped air. “Of course. Breathing.”

He smiled at her attempt to be cool and calm. “What kind of pets did you have growing up?”

“Actually, where I’m from, there are plenty of horses and cattle.” She managed to tear her gaze from Jake. “It’s me. My failing. It’s a silly little phobia.”

“Nothing to be afraid of with Jake. He’s just looking for a snack. He thinks everyone loves him. Watch.” He turned to the horse and let out a soft whinny noise.

The horse repeated it, and affectionately rubbed the side of his face on Tim’s arm. Tim looked at Natalia. “Want to try?”

Before she could say no, before she could so much as let out a shriek, Tim had slipped an arm around her waist, pulled her against his side and let out that soft whinny again.

Jake mirrored the noise and rubbed the side of his huge face against Natalia’s arm. It felt warm and damp. And terrifying. In fact, she would have screamed if she hadn’t just swallowed her tongue. She would have shrunk away, but she was plastered against Tim, and—

And she was plastered against Tim. Oh my God. Heat, confusion, more heat. A noise escaped her and it had nothing, absolutely nothing to do with fear.

“Okay?” he asked quietly, staring into her eyes, completely focused on her.

It was the oddest thing—she’d been surrounded by people all her life, and yet for the first time she really felt as if she had someone’s one-hundred-percent-undivided attention focused on her. Totally and completely on her.

It was intoxicating. He was intoxicating. “Not sure,” she whispered slowly.

His gaze slid to her mouth, which fell open, just to get air to her suddenly deflated lungs.

At that, his eyes darkened, and his arm tightened around her. “And now?” he whispered across her cheek.

Senses on full alert, she leaned toward him, unable to resist his big, solid, warm body. Standing so close like this, feeling him react to her, surround her, it felt like coming in from the rain.

“Natalia?”

In anticipation her entire body tingled. She even licked her lips and…

A sound escaped him, a near groan, and her eyes fell closed.

Here it came…a kiss…a perfect kiss…

Only it wasn’t a man’s hard, demanding lips that met hers. It was a horse’s demanding whinny in her ear, as Jake once again thrust his head between theirs.

Her eyes whipped open just as Tim let out another groan. “Nice timing, Jake.” He pushed the horse’s big head away, but Jake was persistent, and finally Tim had to laugh. “Sorry, but the big lug here thinks he’s my baby.”

Heart still pounding, Natalia pulled back. “Yeah. Baby.” The biggest baby she’d ever seen. “I…have to get back to work.”

Tim looked at her, an easy smile on his lips, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to stand so close, to have blood racing through her body, to want him with all her being…. Unless he didn’t feel it.

Of course he didn’t.

“See you at dinner,” she managed, then walked out calmly, sedately, as if she had near-miss kisses every day of her life.

Alone in the kitchen, she sagged against the sink and drew a deep breath.

And wondered at the fact that she wished they hadn’t missed at all.

THE NEXT DAY after breakfast, Natalia stepped out into the sunshine. Everyone had been in a huge hurry to be out and gone. Though they’d all smiled—well, except Sally—at what Natalia thought had been an incredibly inventive casserole dish made from bread, eggs and sausage, they’d still vanished the moment she’d turned her back.

They were busy, she understood. It didn’t matter. She was having a great time. It felt almost wrong, this lovely rush of joy she got piddling around in the kitchen, and she didn’t want it to end.

Feeling good and nice and sure of herself, she moved off the porch, lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the bright sun. She would have denied it to her dying day, but she stood there, a kitchen full of work to do, secretly hoping for a peek of Tim.

Just a peek, mind you, just one, of his tall, built, wildly sexy self. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him since yesterday, when he’d touched her.

Nearly kissed her.

She hoped to catch him working, which meant she’d get a good look at all those muscles in action, stretching taut beneath his shirt. Maybe he’d be hot—hot enough to have removed said shirt, for an up-close-and-personal view.

Something deep inside of her pitter-pattered at that, and she moved off the porch. When she did, the animals in the side stockade, the “pity pets” Sally had called them, all came to hopeful attention.

Her heart stopped. Her palms went damp. It was ridiculous, this terror, and she knew it. She even knew where it came from. Every year in her hometown the royal family rode in the Christmas parade. When she’d been five, her father had deemed her old enough to sit on a pony by herself. How proud she’d been, forgetting to hold on to the reins so that she could wave to one and all.

But then a pack of Labrador retrievers from the float behind her had broken loose, and startled her pony into rearing. In her velvet Christmas finery, Natalia had slid off the back and to the ground. She had still been sitting there when the pony had decided to let go of all it had eaten for a week.

Covered in pony dung, which stuck nicely to her dress, the dogs had run in circles around her while the entire town…laughed.

Yep, nearly twenty years and she still harbored this irrational fear of animals.

She took another couple of steps and so did Tim’s animals—toward her. Actually, the little three-legged pig came running. Well…hopping, but he was good at it, moving as fast as three short legs would take him, his snout quivering with such velocity it nearly took him off the ground into flight. At the fence that separated them he pressed his snout against it and let out a series of frustrated snorts.

Startled, Natalia stopped short, her heart pounding. But there was a fence between them. A good one. She was safe. Determined to get over herself, she took another step, even closer.

The goat came, too, but it wasn’t until it bumped right into the pig that Natalia remembered the thing was blind. Which didn’t stop it from lifting its head over the fence and sniffling, searching…for food, she realized as she nearly fell backward to get out of the way.

The ancient horse shuffled forward, too, stepping over the pig until all six eyes—four good and two not—waited expectantly.

“But…I don’t have anything,” she told them, lifting a hand to her racing heart. “I’m sorry.”

Still, they pressed against the wood, putting out whatever they could, which in this case was a very muddy snout, a set of teeth surrounded by a goat’s beard and a soft, searching muzzle.

They cried, each looking so unexpectedly adorable she had to laugh. “I’m telling you, I’m not carrying food.” She lifted up her hands, which turned out to be a bad idea as it started a wave of enthusiasm on their part.

They looked so hungry, her heart tugged. “Hold on,” she said, then raced back to the house and grabbed the first thing she found in the fridge.

Back at the stockade, her three new friends were now making a huge ruckus. Oh, boy. They looked ready to rumble for the three carrots she’d brought, and not nearly as adorable as she remembered. “Don’t eat me,” she begged, and bravely handed one to the old horse, who in its excitement, dropped the carrot to the ground.

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