Alice Sharpe - Westin's Wyoming

“You must be Cody,” she said, extending a cashmere-covered hand. Her accented voice held the tiniest trace of an edge as though she was exerting a lot of effort into sounding casual.

“No,” he said, taking her hand, “my brother was called away. I’m Pierce Westin. And you are—”

“Hold it!” the older man called and immediately strode across the field toward them. The hulk stayed behind. “I thought we agreed you would wait inside the chopper until we establish security. I’m informed this man will not show his ID.”

“Why the hell should I show you my ID?” Pierce said evenly. “Seems to me it ought to be the other way around.”

“You don’t expect trouble here, do you?” the woman asked, glancing left and right, those beautiful eyes suddenly flooded with anxiety. She withdrew her hand from Pierce’s grasp and anchored it in front of her chest with the other.

“After Seattle, I expect trouble everywhere which is why I made sure you have a new bodyguard.” The older man nodded at the bald guy. Then, with thin lips pressed together, he shifted his hooded gaze to Pierce.

Beautiful woman and interesting undercurrents aside, this was all just too bizarre. “Listen, folks,” Pierce said calmly, “this has been…well, interesting, anyway, but there’s a storm approaching. I don’t know what kind of deal you made with Cody, but I don’t have time to—”

“There isn’t a doubt in my mind you’re one of Melissa Browning’s sons,” the woman said. “You look just like her. Same dark hair, same gray eyes.”

“You know my mother?”

“No, not exactly, but I do see you bear a striking resemblance.”

She had dazzled him with her looks, aroused his curiosity with a couple of telltale signs of apprehension, but to hear her accented voice speak his mother’s name—her maiden name at that—just kicked it all into overdrive. “How in the world do you know what my mother looks like?”

“I’ve upset you,” she said softly.

“Nothing about her can upset me,” he said as his gut clenched. Liar…

“I’m so relieved. Actually, I saw a photograph of her taken when she was young.”

He stepped back a few inches. “Who are you? What are you and all these other people doing here?”

She rested her hands on the boy’s shoulders. “This is my cousin, Toby.”

“No, Analise,” the child protested, looking up at her. “You promised you’d call me Tex.”

She smiled down at him. “My mistake, Tex. And this gentleman—” here she nodded at the older man “—is General Kaare. I am Analise Emille.” She frowned, her forehead wrinkling just a little, her luscious lips slightly puckered. “You weren’t expecting us?”

“Not exactly,” he admitted. “See, Cody didn’t say much before he…left.”

The aqua eyes widened. For a second he wondered if she and his brother were fooling around, then he remembered she hadn’t known Pierce wasn’t Cody until he’d announced it. Besides, Cody was still married and he wasn’t the kind of man to get involved with another woman even if he and his wife were estranged.

“Princess Analise,” the general said smoothly. “Let’s at least get you out of the open.”

“Princess?” Pierce said softly as the woman reacted to the general’s warning by flinching.

When she met Pierce’s gaze again, she tried a smile but it looked forced. “You didn’t know that, either, did you?”

“Princess of what exactly?” For the moment, Pierce let the “out of the open” comment slide.

“Of Chatioux, of course,” the general growled. “Surely you recognize King Thomas’s youngest child, Analise Elsbeth Emille.”

So that explained the accent. He’d heard of Chatioux—it was one of those little countries tucked somewhere in Northern Europe. As he tried to make sense of a genuine princess visiting the Open Sky Ranch, another man and a middle-aged woman stepped out of the helicopter. They both threw curious glances toward the princess but scurried to the waiting truck, hunkered inside their coats as if freezing. The ranch hand opened doors for them and they climbed inside. Meanwhile, the helicopter pilot began emptying the external luggage bins, piling trunks and cases on the field.

Pierce turned around and caught Jamie’s eyes. Jamie shrugged and shook his head. Even the horses looked confused.

“Your brother requested we keep our group small,” the general announced. “The princess and her cousin, one bodyguard, the princess’s attendant, Mr. Vaughn and myself. Six, that is all. We left double that number behind at the hotel in Jackson Hole.”

Pierce ran a gloved hand over his jaw. What the hell was he supposed to do with royalty in March on a cattle ranch? This was insane and he found himself itching to ask his usually predictable brother what in the world he’d been thinking.

Maybe the ranch was losing money and had started taking paying guests… Maybe Adam’s push into organic beef wasn’t panning out the way everyone hoped it would…

Man, if that was true, did his dad know? Impossible to wrap his brain around the old man agreeing to turn the Open Sky into a damn dude ranch.

“Let me explain something,” Pierce began. “If you get caught in the weather system that’s coming, you might end up in Wyoming for days. Considering the fact Cody isn’t here as planned and I wasn’t expecting people of your stature, it would be best to reschedule your visit. I’ll see about a refund—”

“I don’t understand,” the princess said. “Refund of what?”

“If you paid something up front—”

“Paid!” the general barked. “We do not pay!”

Okay, so there was no money involved. That wasn’t it. “Sorry,” Pierce said. “I just assumed—”

“It seems your brother kept his word to say nothing of our identity,” the general added. “That kind of honor is admirable. I should liked to have met him.”

“Exactly,” Pierce said. “And that’s why it would be best all around if you people leave now and reschedule a visit for after Cody gets home. We’ll just get your stuff back in the chopper and—”

“But I want to stay,” the boy cried in panic. He looked longingly toward Jamie who with his bowed legs and ancient chaps did look the part of a real cowboy. “Look how big the brown horse is and it has a white star on its forehead just like the one in my book. Can we have a campfire with real grub?”

“It’s twenty-three degrees out here,” Pierce said.

The princess touched his arm and turned her back to the others. He turned with her. She took a few steps and he followed. “I understand your reservations about hosting us, Mr. Westin, I really do,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper but it sure traveled through his body like a hot tornado. “I can’t explain right now why it’s so important for us to stay for just a day, but will you trust me that it is? Please? And, well, it means so much to my cousin.”

Pierce took a deep breath as he gazed into her eyes. Not a movie star, not a paying guest, just a beautiful princess with a quiver in her voice as if denying her would crush her. He glanced back at the little boy who appeared damn close to crying.

Cripes.

“If it’s money—” she began.

“No, no,” he said. “It’s not money.” It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her what she was afraid of and if that’s why she needed to stay on the ranch but he didn’t. For now it would suffice that it was important to her—hell, be honest, what else did he have to do for the next twenty-four hours that was any more important than giving aid and, dare he hope, comfort to a gorgeous woman? “We have an indoor arena,” he said at last. “I guess we could build a campfire in there.”