The Cowboy and the Princess Read Online Free PDF Page B

too nice.”
    “You are abandoning me because I am nice?” Perplexed, she stared at him.
    “You’re a big complication and I’m an uncomplicated guy. With me what you see is what you get.”
    She raised her chin. “I see a chicken.”
    A grin crawled across his handsome face. “You’re going for the insults, huh? Does that normally work for you?”
    “I just want a ride.”
    “Somehow, I don’t believe that.”
    “Sir, obviously you have mistaken me for a woman of loose moral character,” she said.
    His grin widened. “Those are your words, not mine.”
    Why was she holding on to him so tightly? She didn’t need Brady Talmadge to have an adventure. True, he was the most magnificent kisser she had ever come across.
    He’s only the second man you’ve ever kissed. How would you know? Let him go.
    But it was raining outside and he made her feel safe and . . . and . . . She wanted to go with him. To see this town called Jubilee, to watch him whisper to horses. It might not make much sense to anyone else, it did not really make much sense to her, but the impulse punched against her hard.
    “All right,” she said, pulling the strap of the satchel up higher on her shoulder and flapping her hand dismissively. “Away with you.”
    She didn’t need him.
    Hmm, just as Audrey Hepburn had not needed Gregory Peck?
    That was a movie. This was different. She learned from Audrey. She had Lady Astor for company, five hundred dollars in a secret compartment in the satchel. It had been all the money she could get her hands on. Her trust fun paid a monthly stipend to her bank account, but she wasn’t allowed to carry her own cash. Or as her mother had been fond of saying, filthy lucre should never sully royal hands. Cash was crass.
    Chandler and Strawn provided her with money when she needed it and she had credit cards. But if she used the credit cards, she could be traced. She planned on getting a job to tide her over through the next six weeks. She wanted a job. Longed to have the pleasure of making her own money. Yearned to feel that surge of independence one presumably got from providing for oneself.
    And she would have it. She was determined. She didn’t need Brady to make her dreams come true. There would be other cowboys. She would meet other people. There was nothing special about this man.
    “Thank you for the meal,” she said. “It was a pleasure to have made your acquaintance. You have my permission to depart.”
    The skin around his eyes crinkled as if he found her amusing. “I wasn’t aware that I needed your permission.”
    “You do not.” She had to be careful. She could give herself away with comments like that. She was not in Monesta where everyone was at her beck and call.
    “Please have a safe journey to your destination.” Annie held out her hand.
    The minute their hands touched, she felt it again, that powerful surge of electricity that stole the air from her lungs.
    He looked startled and quickly snatched his hand back, his eyes coded. “You have a safe journey too,” he mumbled, and ambled away.
    Annie watched him go, a lump of sadness blocking her throat. She would have enjoyed kissing him again, but never mind. She had other problems. Like where to spend the night?
    She found the ladies’ room, but when she stepped inside and caught her reflection in the mirror, she startled and for the briefest second wondered: Who is that?
    A foreigner looked back.
    Inky black hair, which had once been the color of twenty-four-karat gold, curled in short, spiky wisps with impish bangs. Just a few short hours ago her tresses had trailed to the middle of her back. She wore the brand-new cowgirl clothes that she had borrowed from Echo—a white, Western-cut blouse that caused the blue in her gray eyes to pop, a big silver belt buckle with a Texas Star on it, stiff, sharply creased dark blue jeans, brown, round-toed cowboy boots with a slanted riding heel. Just looking at her, no one would believe she