B.J. Daniels - Montana Royalty

“It would serve the danged fool right,” she muttered to herself as she stomped down the mountainside to where she’d seen the horse. “Who with any common sense would go out in this kind of weather?” Unless they were trespassing on their royal neighbors’ property, of course.

In a flash of lightning, she spotted the man lying in an open spot between the trees, surrounded by a bed of soft brown pine needles and a thick clump of huckleberry bushes, both of which, she hoped, had broken his fall.

She heard a groan as she neared, relieved he was alive. As he tried to sit up, she saw the blood on his forehead before the rain washed it down onto the white shirt and riding britches that he wore. He saw her and tried to struggle to his feet and failed.

“Easy,” she said as she dropped down next to him on the ground.

A lock of wet black hair had tumbled over his forehead. She brushed it back to check the source of the blood and found a small cut over his left eye. There was also a goose egg rising on his temple.

Neither looked fatal.

He turned his face up to her and blinked into the driving rain. His dark hair fell back and she saw the dazed look in his very dark blue eyes. His lips turned up in a ridiculous grin as those eyes locked with hers.

“A beautiful forest sprite has come to save me?”

A forest sprite?

Clearly he was either drunk or delirious. Maybe he’d hit his head harder than she thought. He had that odd accent like the others she’d seen at her royal neighbors’. As she leaned down to gaze into his eyes, lightning flashed around them and she was able to rule out a concussion.

“It is my lucky day, is it not?” From the smell of brandy on his warm breath and that goofy grin on his face, she’d say the man was tipsy.

Now that she saw he wasn’t badly hurt and was apparently intoxicated, she took some satisfaction in the fact that he’d been thrown from his fancy mount and immediately felt guilty for the uncharitable thought.

Her teeth chattered as she glanced around for his horse, wanting nothing more than to get out of the cold and rain. His horse had apparently hightailed it back to its expensive heated stables. She couldn’t blame it. She would have loved a heated stable herself just then.

A horse whinnied nearby, startling her. Not his horse. She’d seen the way it had bolted, and she doubted the horse had doubled back for the groom. Was it possible he hadn’t been out riding alone? More than possible, she realized. One of the other grooms must have been with him.

“Hello?” she called through the rain and the thick darkness of the pines and descending nightfall. “You’ve got a groom down over here.”

No answer.

She looked at the groom at her feet. He was still grinning up at her. She might have found him cute and charming and this whole incident humorous under other circumstances. Or not.

Her horse whinnied from the lean-to. This time the answering whinny was farther away. If he had been riding with someone else, they had turned back toward home, leaving him to fend for himself.

She was almost tempted to do the same thing given that the man was clearly inebriated and would now have to share her shack.

“Come on,” she said cursing under her breath as she bent down to help him up. “Let’s get you on your feet.”

Like her, he was underdressed for this type of storm, soaking wet and shivering. She had no choice. Given his condition, he would never be able to find his way back.

“Take me to your palace beautiful forest sprite,” he said and attempted a bow.

“Palace, indeed,” she muttered.

Unsteady on his feet he plainly wasn’t going far under his own power. He slung an arm over her shoulder. As they started up the mountainside, she wondered if he had any idea of how much trouble he was in.

He was bound to get fired for taking such an expensive horse out while drunk. He’d better hope that horse made it back to the barn safely. She’d bet that animal was worth more than this groom made in a year.

Lucky for him that he would be able to sleep it off before he had to face his boss—the duke or prince or whatever. As long as the horse returned unharmed, he might be spared being returned to his country to face a firing squad.

He shifted against her. “You are too kind, fair forest sprite.”

“Aren’t I, though,” she grumbled. Lucky for him she couldn’t let him die of hypothermia or wander off a cliff in the dark.

Lightning illuminated the landscape, the line shack appearing for an instant out of the rain and darkness. She stumbled toward the structure, staggering under the man’s drunken weight as thunder boomed overhead.

“I owe you a great debt,” he said as she shoved open the line shack door. “How shall I ever repay you?”

Rain pounded the tin roof overhead as Rory closed the line shack door behind them. It was pitch-black in the small room except for the occasional flashes of lightning that shot through the holes in the chinking. Earsplitting booms of thunder reverberated through the shack.

Teeth chattering, Rory untangled herself from the groom and eased him to the floor beside the horse blanket. He slumped against the wall, shuddering from the cold, his eyes half-closed, making her aware of his long dark lashes—and the fact that he looked as if he was about to pass out.

Thunder rumbled overhead again, and she shivered from the cold—and her aversion to storms. She could feel the damp seeping into her bones. She was going to have to get out of her wet clothes, and quickly. So was he. And they had only the one blanket.

Fortunately, the groom looked harmless enough.

“You need to take off your wet clothing,” she informed him over the pounding rain.

No response. She kicked off her boots, then started to unbutton her jeans in the dark of the cabin. She heard a thump and in a flash of lightning saw the groom had fallen over onto his side. He was curled up, shaking from the cold and apparently out like a light.

“Great.” She cursed and knelt down to shake him lightly. The lashes parted, the blue behind them clearly fighting to focus on her as another shaft of light from the storm penetrated the slits between the logs. “Your clothes. They’re wet,” she said enunciating each syllable.

He grinned, pushed himself up and attempted to unbutton his shirt, but she saw in the flickering light from the storm that he was shivering too hard to do the job.

“Here, let me help you,” she said, pushing his ice-cold fingers away to work at the buttons.

“I’m afraid my life is in your hands, my fair forest sprite.” His eyelids drooped again, and she had to catch him to keep him upright.

“You should be afraid,” she said, her own fingers trembling from the cold as she unbuttoned the dozens of tiny buttons on his fancy shirt.

As the storm raged over their heads, she pulled him forward to slip the fabric off one broad shoulder, then the other. His muscles rippled across his chest and stomach, a trail of dark curly hair dipping in a V to the waist of his riding britches.

She half turned away as she removed his britches. He slid down the wall to the floor, eyes fluttering open for a moment. Britches off, he drew the horse blanket to him, curled up and closed those blue eyes again.

Two seconds later he was snoring softly.

“Just like a man,” she muttered as she stripped down to her underwear. She was chilled to the core and he had the horse blanket.

She stared down at the man for a moment. He had passed out, obviously having consumed more than his share of alcohol. Outside, the storm wasn’t letting up. There was little chance it would before morning. She was stuck there, and while she didn’t mind sharing what little she had—the shack and her only dry horse blanket—she was piqued by the groom.