The Rancher's Christmas Princess (14 page)

She hung her heavy coat on the hall tree and then led the way
upstairs. By the time they got to Ben’s room, the kid was conked out, fast
asleep.

“Naptime,” Belle whispered. She left the room.

Pres knew what to do. He carried the limp little body to the
changing table and got him out of his coat and winter clothes. Belle returned
with a warm, damp cloth. She handed it over and he gently, with great care,
washed Ben’s tear-stained face.

His diaper had a load in it. Pres made short work of cleaning
it up and putting on a fresh one. He snapped him into a footed, long-sleeved
baby union suit—what Belle called a onesie.

When he put him in the crib and covered him with a blanket, Ben
didn’t even open his eyes. Pres stood over him, watching him, ready to scoop him
up and hold him close if he woke up and started in screaming again.

But nothing happened. The hot flush had left his innocent
cheeks. He slept the deep sleep of the safe and the blameless.

Belle turned on the monitor base and grabbed the receiver. They
went out to the hall, where he caught her free hand and pulled her into his
room.

He took her in there and shut the door, then shucked off his
winter coat and his Sunday jacket. He tossed them both across a chair. “What
was
that?” He sank to another chair by the
window. “Is he all right? Is he...” He hardly knew what to ask her, didn’t know
where to begin.

She remained at the door, her back against it, leaning on it,
as though Ben’s fit of crying had worn her out, too. “He’s as all right as can
be expected, given that he lost his mother sixteen days ago.”

“Sixteen days...” It was no time at all. He should have
remembered that. It was so easy to forget, because he’d hardly known Anne,
hadn’t seen her in two and a half years. Sometimes it was hard to keep in mind
how recently she’d been lost to those who loved her.

Belle lifted her proud chin. “Already, he’s healing. Forgetting
her. You can see that in the way he behaves most of the time now. Sunny-natured,
happy, curious and sweet.”

“It hurts you.” He could see it in her eyes, in the trembling
of her mouth as she spoke of her friend. “That Anne is fading from his
memory.”

She gave a brave little shrug. “It’s part of who we are, as a
species, to learn to forget. It’s survival. When we’re small, we’re so
vulnerable. All we know then is to bond with the ones who care for us.
Ben’s...mechanism for memory isn’t really formed yet. He’s letting her go as
he’s meant to do, and bonding with you. With Silas. As he’s already bonded with
Charlotte and me. But now and then, something triggers him. The last few times,
it’s been when he suddenly woke from a sound sleep. He wakes up and he...seems
to remember her, to know that she’s not there.”

“You think maybe he’s been dreaming about her?”

“Perhaps. That makes sense. But whatever triggers him, he’s
flung back to needing his mother, the one he knew first. And then he cries for
her to come and comfort him. Anne...” Her voice caught. She coughed to clear her
throat. “Anne was a fine mother, Preston.”

He raked his fingers back through his hair. “I have no doubt.”
His voice sounded raggedy to his own ears, rough with all the things he didn’t
exactly know how to say.

“I think that was the worst thing of all for her, about dying
so young, to have to leave Ben behind.” She shut her eyes, drew in a breath and
then finally looked at him again. “I suppose that’s every mother’s worst
nightmare, to go away forever and leave a helpless child behind.”

He rose. “And this...this bonding thing that babies do. That’s
one of the reasons you got here so fast, brought my son to me not even a week
after his mother was in the ground. So he wouldn’t have to get too...attached to
you and then lose you, too.”

She swallowed, hard. “Yes,” she said on a bare breath’s worth
of sound.

“You brought him right quick, even though no one would have
faulted you if you had waited a little, kept him to yourself a while
longer.”

“
I
would have faulted me. It
wouldn’t have been right.”

He had no words then. Sometimes words were just a bunch of
pointless noise anyway. He ate up the floor between them in four long strides.
She watched him come to her, those eyes huge and haunted. He reached for her and
she fell against him with a soft, surrendering sigh, her slim arms sliding
around his waist.

And he held her, wanting somehow to soak up all her hurts into
his own flesh, to take them away from her, into himself.

A careful tap on the door behind her had them pulling apart.
Belle stepped to the side, smoothing her hair and straightening the front of her
suit jacket.

He opened the door enough to stick his head through.
“Yeah?”

Charlotte gave him a prim little smile. “We were worried about
Ben....”

It began to seem a little ridiculous, peering at her through
the crack in the door. She had to have figured out that Belle was in the room
with him. He pulled the door wide, so the women could see each other and he
said, “We were just talking about Ben.”

“Ah.” Charlotte’s expression was neutral, those prominent eyes
giving nothing away. “Is he all right, then?”

Belle was nodding. “He’s fine now.” She gestured across the
hall at Ben’s open bedroom door. “As you can see, he’s fast asleep.”

“Good. I just thought I ought to come up and...” Charlotte
waved her hand in a gesture that said she couldn’t figure out how to go on.

Belle told her softly, “Thank you, Charlotte. We’re fine.”

“All right, then. We will see you downstairs.”

“Yes, we’ll be right there.”

With a nod, Charlotte turned and left them.

As soon as she disappeared from view, Pres shut the door again.
This time, he was the one who leaned on it. He folded his arms across his chest
and shook his head. “That was awkward.”

Belle chuckled. The sound lifted his spirits. She didn’t seem
so sad and wounded anymore. “Charlotte is very perceptive. She’s also the soul
of discretion. And she never presumes.”

Pres translated. “You mean she knows about us, but she won’t
make judgments or shoot her mouth off.”

“Precisely.”

“How does she know?” he asked carefully.

She gave him a patient look. “I didn’t tell her, if that’s what
you’re asking. We haven’t discussed what happened in this room last night. And
yet, I do believe she knows.”

“Yeah, well. And
we
know about her
and the old man.”

“Yes, Preston, we do.”

He confessed, “I worry about the old man a little, that he’s
getting carried away with her.”

“Perfectly understandable,” she said lightly. “Because
Charlotte, after all, is a dangerous seductress.” She was joking, he got
that.

He just didn’t think it was all that funny. “I don’t want him
to get hurt is all.”

“I could say the same for Charlotte. But then I remind myself
that she is a mature adult and more than capable of making her own decisions
about her life and about love.”

“Love?” He said it a little too strongly and he knew it, a
little too accusingly.

She gave an elegant shrug. “Or...romance or relationships.
Whatever you would prefer to call it. Charlotte’s relationships are her own
affair. I trust her judgment absolutely.”

He looked at her sideways, thinking that she was way too smart
and sophisticated for a man like him. And too beautiful. He wanted to touch her,
to pull her close again. But if he put his hands on her now, it wouldn’t be to
comfort her.

Which was why he wasn’t going to reach for her. Now was hardly
the time to be thinking about getting her out of that pretty blue church suit of
hers. The others were waiting for them downstairs.

He kept his arms folded across his chest. “You lecturing me,
Your Highness?”

“Let’s just say I am reminding you that what is between
Charlotte and your father is not for us to judge.”

When she talked like that, all prissy and correct, it got him
hot—but then,
whatever
she did, it got him hot. And
that bugged him because he knew that what he
should
do was call a dead halt to this thing that was going on between them. He knew he
should stop it with her—and he also knew that as long as she was in his house,
he wasn’t going to be able to keep away from her. Not as long as she was
willing.

And she
was
willing. Even as she
lectured him, he could see his own desire reflected in those golden-brown eyes,
see how much alike they were deep down—even though they belonged in different
worlds. Both careful people. Controlled.

Until now. With each other.

With her, especially since last night, he felt he teetered on
the brink of losing control.

Feeling on the verge of losing it made him hotter still. In a
minute, if he didn’t rein himself in a little, she’d be asking him if he had a
gun in his pocket.

To keep from grabbing her, he taunted, “And your bodyguard
knows about you and me, too. Were you aware of that?”

She didn’t turn a hair. “It is Marcus’s job to know such
things. And like Charlotte, he is the soul of discretion.”

“The soul of discretion,” he echoed in a growl.

She drew her slim shoulders up. “That is what I said.”

“The point is, he knows about us and it’s none of his damn
business.”

“Of course it’s his business. That we are lovers concerns him
directly. It’s his task to protect me. That means he must stay close to me. And
that
means he will have to know things about me
and my...activities that no one else knows. The point, though, is that he is
trustworthy and discreet and will only use what he knows in the furtherance of
his job as my bodyguard.”

“Wow, you said a mouthful.” He laid on the sarcasm—and yeah,
okay, he should back the hell off. He knew it. She was not the enemy. But this
whole situation was eating at him. Every time he touched her, it only made him
want her more. And where could it go? Nowhere.

She said, “I’m only trying to make you see that Marcus will
keep my secrets. And yours as well.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Your preference is duly noted,” she replied, so proper and
prissy, it made him long to snatch her up and throw her on the floor and have
his evil way with her, right then and there.

He muttered darkly, “Around these parts, the women don’t need
some hired man living off the kitchen to protect them.”

Those amber eyes flashed real fire. She opened her mouth to
come right back at him—but then she shut it without saying a word. She gave him
a long, searching look. And then she asked him quietly, “What’s happened? Why
are you so angry? What did I do?”

Shame flooded him.

She had only ever treated him with respect and honesty and
tenderness. He had no right to go getting up in her face because she trusted her
companion and had confidence in the ethics of her bodyguard.

He made himself answer truthfully, “I’m not angry. I just want
to kiss you so bad it hurts. And now’s not the time for kissing and I feel like
the biggest damn fool in Montana. I...” He forgot whatever he was going to say
next.

Because she stepped right up and into his arms.

Chapter Eleven

“T
hen kiss me,” she said.

Her mouth was right there, inches below his. She smelled of
flowers and wonderful, sweet spices he didn’t know the names of. And beneath her
perfume: woman. All woman.

He tried to remember all the reasons that kissing her now was
not a good idea. “We have to—” She cut him off by surging up and sealing his
lips with her own.

That did it.

He hauled her even closer, banding his yearning arms tight
around her, lifting her feet right off the floor. She opened beneath the hot
push of his tongue. He tasted the sweet wetness within. His pulse was pounding,
his blood roaring in his ears.

Never ever in his life had he felt like this. He wasn’t...that
kind of man.

The kind who took without thinking. The kind who let himself
lose control.

She lifted her legs and hooked her dressy little boots around
his waist. The roaring in his blood got louder, it blocked out everything but
the primal need to be with her.

Joined with her.

All at once he was reeling, kissing her without end, carrying
her, all wrapped tight around him, to the bed.

They fell across it, mouths still fused, her pinned-up hair
coming loose, tangling between them, catching in the beard shadow on his cheeks,
caressing his throat.

They rolled, their hands all over each other, unzipping,
unbuttoning, tugging up and away. She took down his zipper, kicked off the short
boots she wore. He heard them go flying.

He hadn’t thought to lock the door. It was crazy and stupid.
But that didn’t make it any less urgent, any less absolutely necessary.

She had on tights. Pantyhose. Whatever women called those
things. But she hiked up that slim skirt without a second thought and shimmied
them down. He pulled them off the rest of the way.

He touched her there, at the womanly core of her. Wet. Hot.
Ready.

She moaned as he stroked her, rocking her hips against his
hand.

He absolutely had to be inside her. And she was reaching for
him, pulling him down. He took her mouth again and below, he touched her some
more, stroking the velvet-slick secret flesh, seeking the center of her
pleasure. He found it. She cried out. He took the sound into himself. He drank
that cry.

“Please.” The word passed from her into him. And again,
“Please...” She reached down between them, found him, wrapped her fingers around
him and guided him home.

At the last possible second before he buried himself in her,
the all-important word appeared in his reeling brain: condom. With a groan of
pure agony, he jerked his hips back. She moaned in protest and tried to pull him
to her again.

“Wait. Condom,” he somehow managed to tell her. He made low,
reassuring sounds as he reached for the bedside drawer.

“Contraception.” She breathed the word against his lips. “So
inconvenient.” She laughed into his mouth. The low, teasing sound ricocheted
inside his skull. She had one hand around the back of his neck, holding the
kiss, holding
him.
Her soft, clever fingers sifted
up into his hair. Her other hand remained between them, encircling him,
stroking, driving him out of what was left of his mind....

He lifted up enough to glare at her. “We shouldn’t even be
doing this.”

“Oh, yes.” Her eyes were so deep. Oceans of amber. So deep, so
impossibly soft. “We
should.
We absolutely
should....” She tried to pull his mouth down on hers again.

“Wait...” And at last his fumbling fingers closed over the box
of condoms in the open drawer. Somehow, he got the top flap back, pulled one
out. He ripped the package open with his teeth.

She helped him then, taking the opened pouch from him, removing
the condom and then easing both hands between them to neatly roll it on.

“There.” She gazed up at him, shameless. Beautiful.
Waiting.

How did he get so lucky?

She held up her arms.

He went down to her, claiming her mouth again, burying himself
in her with one quick, sure stroke. She gasped. They stilled, the world
centering down to only the two of them, only this magic that would not be
denied.

Finally, she lifted her legs to wrap them around him. He surged
into her harder. Deeper.

Everything flew away. There was this moment and it was endless.
They moved together toward the heart of the fire.

When his climax shuddered through him, she held him tight. She
pressed her body up to him, giving him everything, making it last. And then,
finally, she joined him, all that wet, hot sweetness, pulsing around him.

She said his name, “Preston,” soft and low and tender. And her
body went loose and easy beneath him.

* * *

Belle couldn’t believe what had just happened: urgent,
amazing sex in the middle of the afternoon. She’d never done anything like it
before. She hadn’t known what she was missing.

“I don’t think we locked the door,” she whispered as she tried
to catch her breath.

“Nope.” He was breathless, too. “We didn’t.” He kissed her
temple, his lips so soft and warm, and he smoothed her wildly tangled hair.

She laughed low. “Oh, we are very, very bad.”

He caught her face between his big, rough, tender hands. And he
kissed her mouth again. “It’s not funny.” But in those blue eyes she saw the
spark of humor he was trying to hide.

And she thought how never ever in her life before had anything
felt so right, so good, so exactly suited to her as this man—as being with this
man.

She gazed up into those sunny-day eyes and she knew, right
then. At that moment.

I love him.

The room all at once seemed suffused with light.

But only for a second or two. Then her more logical self
prevailed.

She’d known him for exactly one week. He belonged here, was
rooted here, on this land, in this harsh and beautiful northern state in the
brash, young country where her father had been born. He wasn’t going to leave
Montana, would not walk away from his horses, from his family ranch. She knew
that in her soul.

If she chose him—and if he chose her in return—her life would
change dramatically. She would be a rancher’s wife.

She waited to be horrified at the very idea.

But she wasn’t horrified. Instead she felt...excited.
Anticipatory.

If I married him, I could stay here, with
him. And with Ben. In this lovely little town, in this big, sturdy
house...

All right. So the thought of moving here did hold a certain
appeal. At least it did right now. And she could still do the work that mattered
to her. She could travel when necessary, could still speak up for those in need.
There might even be important causes right here in Montana to which she could
contribute a helpful voice.

But she didn’t have to leap straight to forever-after. They
could take a little time over this, see how it went in the next couple of weeks,
see if this thing that felt like love right now got stronger.

There was no downside to giving the two of them more time to
know each other, more time to discover if they could be a team in a forever kind
of way.

Yes, she might be a hopeless romantic who had always dreamed of
finding just the right man for her.

And Preston might very well be that man.

But they had weeks yet, together, here in this house, in this
fine, rugged land he called home.

He was a careful man in many ways. And cautious. He would
probably be scared out of his wits if she announced right now, out of the blue,
that she loved him.

In fact, he was already starting to look a little anxious.
“Belle? What is it? What’s the matter?”

She laughed again and pulled him closer and kissed him slow and
deep and sure. “Nothing’s the matter,” she said when he lifted away to frown
down at her. “On the contrary, things right now are just about perfect.”

“If you keep looking at me like that, we’ll never pull
ourselves together and get downstairs.”

“So true. And then they will be certain that we’re up here
doing exactly what we
have
been doing. But then
again, they’re probably already certain.”

He kissed her once more, hard and quick, then he pushed himself
away and stood. “We need to go down there.”

Her skirt was still up around her waist. His Sunday trousers
were all in a wad down on his boots.

From the waist up, they were both fully dressed, although more
than a bit rumpled. He turned away long enough to dispose of the condom, after
which he pulled up his trousers. Tucking in his shirt, he zipped and buttoned
and hooked his belt.

She sighed and put a hand to her tousled head. “I’m going to
need a few minutes to pull myself together.”

He held down a hand. She took it and rose to stand with him. So
sweetly and tenderly, he smoothed her skirt back down. “Go ahead, then. I have
to change into work clothes anyway. Once we’re both ready, we can go down
together.”

* * *

Pres stopped in the kitchen with Belle before he went
out to check on the sick mare. It didn’t seem right to leave her to face the
others alone after what the two of them had been doing up in his room.

But it turned out to be no big deal. His dad, who’d changed
from his Sunday clothes into jeans and an ancient sweatshirt, sat at the table
reading the Sunday issue of the
Elk Creek Gazette.
Charlotte, wearing one of Doris’s aprons, stood at the counter cutting up
vegetables. Marcus was nowhere in sight.

“Need some help?” Belle asked her companion.

Charlotte looked over with a warm smile. “I just popped that
lovely rib roast Doris left for us into the oven. Feel like peeling
potatoes?”

“I would adore peeling some potatoes.”

The old man didn’t even look up from his newspaper.

Pres said, “Well, I’ll head on out, then, check on Lady
Bluebell.”

The paper rustled as his dad turned the page. “No need, son.
I’ve been out there. She’s looking good. Breathing easier. More alert.”

That his dad had done his chores for him was the last thing he
wanted to hear. He’d been all ready to escape the house for a little while, kind
of pull himself together after what had happened upstairs.

He
needed
some time on his own.
“Good. But there are a few other things that want tending to. I won’t be
long.”

The paper rustled again. “Suit yourself, son.”

* * *

Belle, still aglow with what had happened upstairs, with
the blinding realization she’d experienced right afterward, heard the door close
as Preston went out. She picked up another potato and went to work with the
peeler.

I love him. I
love
Preston McCade.

Every time she thought the words, they seemed more real to her.
More true.

Charlotte said, “It’s supposed to snow later tonight.”

From behind his newspaper, Silas added, “Six to ten inches,
maybe more. Says so right here.”

Belle beamed down at the potato in her hand. Such a beautiful
potato, such a fine, comfortable kitchen. And truly, Charlotte and Silas were
two of the dearest people in the world. She could already smell the savory aroma
of that rib roast in the oven. Doris had studded the meat with garlic and rubbed
it with fragrant herbs. Out in the side yard, which she could see through the
window over the sink, the snow had already started falling, great, white flakes
of it gently drifting down.

It was going to be a lovely holiday evening.

And best of all, at the end of it, she would spend at least a
few perfect hours in Preston’s big, strong arms.

“It’s already starting to get dark out there,” Charlotte
said.

Belle picked up another potato. “We should turn on the tree
lights.”

“We should indeed.”

So Belle finished the potatoes and then went around the
downstairs turning on the tree and the lights strung across the mantels. She
even turned on the television to that channel that played holiday music. When
she returned to the kitchen Michael Bublé was singing “It’s Beginning to Look a
Lot Like Christmas.”

“Very festive.” Charlotte nodded approvingly.

When Preston came back in, it was full dark outside—or it would
have been if the yard hadn’t blazed with thousands of Christmas lights. Belle
was in the dining room by then setting the table. She heard the door close and
knew that it had to be him. That lovely, fluttery feeling happened in her
midsection. She paused in the act of adjusting a fork and listened for the sound
of his footsteps on the stairs. Already, she knew his habits. When he came in
from working, he would go straight upstairs to clean up.

But he must have left his boots outside. He went up without her
hearing him.

A few minutes later, as she was filling the water glasses, he
appeared in the archway to the living room. He wore a clean shirt and had Ben in
his arms.

Their gazes met. Her heart turned over.

I love you, Preston. I love you. I
do.

“Hi,” he said softly. In his eyes, she saw it all. Everything.
The night before. The wild and wicked magic they had shared just that
afternoon.

“Hello.”

“Belle, hi!” Ben did his own version of a wave, fisting his
little hand, then spreading his fingers wide.

She gave the wave back to him in kind. “Hello, Benjamin.”

He sighed and leaned his head on Preston’s shoulder. “Dada...”
He sounded dreamy. Content—his suffering of that afternoon forgotten, his bond
with his father growing stronger by the day.

She said, “Dinner’s almost ready.”

Silas came in from the living room. “How about a little whiskey
first?”

So they went into the living room. Silas offered drinks around.
The McCade men had their whiskey. Ben had a sippy cup of watered-down apple
juice. Belle and Charlotte each took a small amount of the Cabernet they would
be enjoying with dinner.