Brenda Harlen - The Prince's Cowgirl Bride

He shrugged, as if it didn’t matter, as if he didn’t have a hundred questions about the woman who’d walked out the door without so much as a backward glance in his direction. But he sat down on the stool she’d recently vacated as Crystal waved goodbye to an elderly couple as they headed out the door.

“So what brings you to Alliston?” she asked, turning her attention back to him.

“Road construction on the highway,” he admitted.

She smiled at that. “Where are you headed?”

“California eventually.”

“Driving?”

He nodded.

“You’ve got a long way to go.”

“I’m not in a hurry,” he told her.

“What’s in California?” she asked. “Friends? A job? A wife?”

He fought the smile that tugged at his lips in response to her not-so-subtle probing. “None of the above.”

“You have to give me more than that if you expect me to answer any questions about my sister.”

“What makes you think I have any questions about your sister?”

She lifted a brow. “Then you aren’t interested in seeing Jewel again?”

“Jewel?” he echoed, then realized it was her sister’s name, and an apt description for the woman with wildly sexy hair and eyes the color of a summer sky before a storm.

And then there were her lips, glossy and full and as perfectly shaped as a cupid’s bow. And her hair, miles of honeygold corkscrew curls tumbled over her shoulders and down her back. And—

He caught a glimpse of Crystal’s satisfied smile out of the corner of his eye and forced himself to sever the thought.

Her smile widened. “I believe you were telling me how much you weren’t interested in my sister.”

“Actually,” he said, “you were going to tell me where I could find her.”

Jewel was faxing her Help Wanted ad to the classifieds department at the local newspaper when the knock sounded at the door.

“Come in,” she said, her eyes never lifting from the machine where she was manually inserting pages because it had a tendency to chew the paper if she used the automatic feeder. She’d been meaning to take the machine in for service, but kept forgetting. With so many other tasks to deal with on a daily basis, those that didn’t directly impact the horses tended to get shifted to the bottom of the list and frequently forgotten.

The door creaked as it was pushed open, reminding her that oiling the hinges was another one of those tasks that she never seemed to get around to doing. On the other hand, she didn’t have to worry about anyone sneaking up on her.

She fed the last page into the machine before turning around, and found herself looking at a pair of very broad shoulders—not covered in flannel or denim, as was usual around the stables, but a royal-blue polo shirt, complete with the embroidered logo of pony and rider on the left side. The shirt stretched over those shoulders, across a broad chest and tucked into a pair of belted jeans that fit nicely over narrow hips and long, muscular legs.

Her eyes shifted and discovered that the face was just as spectacular as the body, and not entirely unfamiliar.

It was the man from the café, and along with the sense of recognition came a quiver inside—a humming vibration that rippled from her center all the way to her fingertips and churned up everything in between. The sensation was both unexpected and unwelcome, and she fought against it as her gaze locked with his.

Amusement lurked in the depths of his dark eyes, as if he’d been aware of her perusal and wasn’t bothered or surprised by it.

He was probably used to women ogling him—a man who looked that good would have to be—but that didn’t excuse her own behavior. It had just been so long since Jewel had looked at a man and recognized him as such.

Around the stables, the men were her employees or customers, and over the past few years, she hadn’t had much of a life beyond the stables. Her instinctive reaction to this man’s arrival at the café had been proof of that. Her response now only reinforced that truth.

“Can I help you?” she asked, the politely neutral tone giving no hint of the hormones zinging around inside of her.

“Actually, I’m here to help you.” His warm, rich voice was as sensual as a caress and caused another quiver of sensation deep in her belly.

She mentally cursed her sister, certain that Crystal was somehow responsible for this man’s appearance here now.

“How do you think you can help me?” she asked cautiously.

“By taking the job you were talking about at the café.”

She looked him over again—had, in truth, not been able to take her eyes off of him—and shook her head. While she didn’t doubt that long, lean body was more than capable of the physical work she needed done, she did doubt that he’d ever done such physical labor. “I’m looking for someone to muck out stalls as well as groom and exercise my horses.”

“That’s what Crystal said,” he agreed.

Yep—her sweet but interfering little sister’s sticky fingerprints were all over this ambush.

“And you are?” she asked, vaguely recalling that he’d offered his name at the café but unable to remember what it was.

“Mac Delgado.”

Her father had taught her that she could learn a lot about a man from his handshake, so she moved forward to take his proffered hand, undeniably curious about this one. His grip was firm, strong and the contact of his palm against hers sent an unexpected jolt of heat through her.

She saw a flicker of something in his eyes, as if he’d felt the jolt, too. Or maybe she was just imagining it. She disengaged her hand and lowered herself into the chair behind her desk. “I have to be honest, Mr. Delgado, you don’t look much like a stable hand.”

He shrugged. “I have a lot of experience with horses and I’m between jobs at the moment.”

She eyed him skeptically but gestured to the chair across from her desk. “Tell me about your experience.”

He sat, somehow owning the space rather than merely occupying it. There was an aura about him, a sense of command, as if he was accustomed to giving orders rather than taking them. It made her wonder again why he was really here, because she didn’t believe it was to muck out her stalls.

“I assume you’re asking about my experience with horses?” There was just the hint of a smile on his lips, and the gleam in those sinfully dark eyes suggested he was flirting with her.

She’d known guys like Mac Delgado before—guys who trusted their good looks and easy charm to get them what they wanted in life, whatever that might be. Jewel wasn’t going to fall for it, not this time, no matter how hard her heart pounded when he smiled at her.

Still, there was a part of her—a shallow, sex-deprived part—that was tempted to hire him just so she could have the pleasure of looking at him every day. Because she had no doubt that those muscles would ripple very nicely as he mucked out stalls—if he knew which end of a pitchfork to grab hold of. But hiring a man who obviously expected to get the job by offering little more than his name and a smile would be a mistake, and Jewel Callahan didn’t make mistakes. Not anymore and especially not when it came to the business that carried her name.

“Yes, Mr. Delgado. I was asking about your relevant job experience.”

He propped one foot onto the opposite knee, a casual pose that allowed her to picture him in Levi’s and flannel, rather than the designer threads he was wearing. “I grew up around horses,” he told her. “Even before I could walk, I was sitting on a pony.”

“That doesn’t prove you know the difference between a curry comb and a hoof pick,” she noted.

He shrugged again, and she couldn’t help but notice how his shirt moulded to the broad shoulders. “I’ve groomed more than a few horses, even helped train some of them.”