Jill Shalvis - A Royal Mess and Her Knight To Remember

The goat, still being charged by the pig, waited until the precise moment to nudge its head into the oncoming animal.

Who once again fell to its side.

“You.” Natalia pushed up to a sit. “Stop that.” Struggling to her feet, she tried not to feel the gross, icky stuff that was now on her hands as well as her bottom.

The pig was up now, and running circles around the goat, who bleated noisily, over the obnoxious squealing of the pig. The horse, old and crickety, just stood and watched the entire circus, slowly rotating her jaw as she chomped down on grass.

Fear had to take a back seat to the fact that Natalia couldn’t hear herself think. “Order,” she demanded in her most royal voice, but all she heard was very male laughter from behind her.

Tim, of course. Because apparently she hadn’t experienced quite enough humility.

He stood just outside the pen, his forearms resting on the wood, one leg bent at the knee, his boot on a fence rung. His eyes were crinkled with good humor at her expense, his mouth curved wide.

She refused to acknowledge the way her pulse tripped at the sight of him. “Did you know your goat is a bully? And she’s a fake blind? She’s torturing your pig, poor little guy.”

“First of all, he’s a she. And she’s a he. Should I show you how you tell?” He grinned that unbearably sexy grin of his. “And by the way, they’re the best of friends. They’re just playing. Pickles loves-”

“Pickles?”

He looked a little chagrined as he scratched his head. “Not my choice, the goat came with the name. And he’s nearly blind, but not completely. Mrs. Pig likes him, trust me.”

“They’re trying to kill each other.”

“No. Watch-” He opened the gate, and sure enough, Mrs. Pig gently nudged Pickles in the right direction, making sure she came out first.

“Want to pet them?” Tim asked as they mobbed him for attention.

“Of course not.”

“Right.” He managed to pet all of them equally. “Because you don’t like animals.”

“That’s correct.” Better he think she didn’t like them than to know she was afraid of them.

“Ah,” he said with a secret smile.

She put her hands on her hips, then remembered what was on those hands and hastily dropped them to her sides. “What does that mean?”

“It means you’re a big, fancy liar, Princess.” He leaned close, too close, so that she could smell soap and hay and horse, and warm, clean man.

“I never lie.” Rarely, anyway.

“Which is why, of course, you’ve been feeding these guys. Because you don’t like them.”

She glanced down at the bag of leftovers sticking out her pocket, but he just laughed softly, in that low, husky way he had that made her insides go all liquidy. “Is there a point to this conversation?”

He just lifted a brow, while her entire body had become so hyperaware of him that she had goose bumps and nipples standing at attention.

This attraction was getting the best of her.

“The point is,” he said patiently, “you act tough, you dress tough, but inside you’re just as soft as the rest of us.”

She tried to come up with some retort and failed.

“I can tell you’re not used to this world,” he said softly. “But you don’t seem big city, either, despite yourself.” From the other side of the fence, he slid a finger up her ear and all her silver hoops, then touched her hair, which she hadn’t spiked in two days. “Who are you, Natalia?”

Wasn’t that just the problem? She no longer knew. She’d been happy with her life, but these past few days, hard and difficult and different as they’d been, had showed her all she’d missed with her rather sheltered existence. “I’ve got to get back to work,” she said. “Nearly lunchtime.” She was out the gate and halfway across the yard before he called her name.

She stopped, but didn’t turn to look at him, afraid she’d weaken and let him do whatever he wanted, which a very bad part of her hoped was something sexual.

“Might want to wash your hands first,” he said. “Before you put lunch together.”

She looked down at her hands. So much for what he wanted, and so much for it being sexual. “It would serve you right if I didn’t,” she muttered and kept going.

BY DINNERTIME, it was raining. Natalia had discovered that the weather in Texas, whether sunny or raining or thundering or whatever, was…big.

Squinting out into the yard while shaping meatballs, She could see Pickles standing in the downpour. Alone. Looking wet and miserable and lost.

“Oh, you damn fool.” She set down a meatball and willed the stupid goat to find his way back to the others, who stood protected beneath a tree.

But no. The goat just stood there and let out a pathetic little bleat she could hear all the way in the house.

She shaped some more meatballs, refusing to look. “Not looking,” she said out loud. But she couldn’t help it.

He was still there.

More rain fell.

Pickles slowly tipped his head up and bleated louder. Sadder.

“Oh, for God’s sake, get under the tree!” she yelled out to him.

He didn’t budge.

Natalia washed her hands. Turned off the stove. Waited for the mentally challenged goat to get a clue. Finally, she stepped out into the pouring rain. “What do you think you’re doing?” she called from the porch. “Get under the tree! Scat! Run! Get moving!”

He lifted his head and stared blindly in her direction.

Damn. She ran toward him. “Go on!”

He just blinked in her general direction.

“Good goat,” she said, patting him awkwardly. “Don’t eat me.” She tried to pull him in the right direction. “This way.”

Instead of being grateful, he dug in his heels and refused to be moved. But at least he didn’t try to eat her. “I’m trying to help you here!” Under the drenching rain, she moved behind him instead, and shoved. “Pickles, move!”

“Bullying goats now, huh?” Sally, fully protected in rain gear from head to toe, tipped back her hat enough to reveal her amused face.

“I’m not bullying him, I’m going to kill him.” Natalia was already muddy again, and drenched through to the bone as she gave up and straightened.

“Oh, well, if that’s what you want to do why don’t you just feed him some of your cooking? That should kill him in record time.”

Natalia stopped with the goat and stared at her. “Talk about being a bully!”

“Girlfriend, I never bully.”

“Ha!” Natalia was cold, wet, muddy and very, very tired of Sally’s holier-than-thou smirk. Furthermore, she’d physically wrestled with Annie enough to know she could hold her own. And she was going to hold her own. Right here, right now. “You’re the rudest cowboy, cow chick, whatever, that I ever met.” She jabbed her finger into Sally’s bicep. “You know that?”

Sally’s eyes blazed, too, and perfectly dry and comfortable in her rain gear, she let out a tight smile. “Jab me again and you’ll be sorry.”

“Really?” Natalia, goaded on beyond help, did as a princess never would. She jabbed at her again. “There. Make me sorry.”

Sally retaliated with a jab of her own.

“Is that all you’ve got?”

Sally laughed. Laughed. “You can’t handle what I’ve got.”

“Try me.”

“No way.”

“Chicken.”

Sally jabbed her back, harder. Much harder, and Natalia found herself sitting in the mud. Again. Without hesitation, she went for Sally’s feet, pulling them out from beneath her, until Sally screamed and hit the mud.

“You got me dirty,” she said in disbelief.

“Yeah, and you know what?” Natalia sank her fingers into the mud at her sides. “You’re still too clean.” She flung a handful. It hit Sally square in the chest with a satisfying splat, then slowly ran down her body. “Oh, yeah. Much better.”

“You’re dead,” Sally said calmly, and lunged for her.

AFTER A LONG, hard day of work, half of which was spent in the rain, Tim stopped to watch Jake eat. His horse was enjoying his hay in a way that made Tim’s stomach growl. He hadn’t enjoyed his food since…since Natalia. “But she means well,” he told Jake.

Jake eyeballed him.

“She wanted me. And I actually talked her out of it. Can you believe it?”

Jake let out a soft nicker that was either a snort of sympathy or a smirk of disgust.

“Yeah.” Tim sighed, then headed across the yard in the rain, ready for something hot in his belly and not sure he was going to get it.

Halfway there he came across a group of his men standing in the rain watching…a mud-wrestling match? To his shock, Natalia was holding her own with…his sister?

Yes, that was definitely Natalia and Sally rolling around on the ground. Startled into running, he pushed his way to a front-and-center view. Covered from head to toe in mud that molded every nuance and curve of her hot body, Natalia pulled free. Breath heaving, she came to her knees and looked at him. “What are you staring at?” she asked, not very friendlylike.

He knew it was wrong, very wrong, but his body responded like a caveman to the gorgeous sight of her shining with mud. “You.”

“Oops. Wrong answer.” She scooped a handful of mud and flung it at him.

The caveman inside him leaped to hopeful, quivering, primal attention. Mud Fight!

But she stood, and with amazing dignity, given she had mud dripping off her nose, walked away.

NATALIA STALKED to the side of the house, past the gawking men, past the blind goat and three-legged pig. Past everyone and everything, while mud fell from her, hitting the ground in little ping-pings as she went.

Since her luck sucked, the rain had stopped and the sun came out, which had the mud drying on her so that when she bent to turn on the hose at the side of the house, she felt like a candy-coated chocolate.

Naturally, the water was ice-cold, but she hosed herself off anyway, figuring it would work on the hot fury bubbling beneath her skin.

“So.”

Sally. Gritting her teeth, Natalia kept her back turned. She bent at the waist and let the cold water run over her head until she felt her brain freeze. “Want to go another round?”

“Actually, no.” Sally sighed rather regretfully. “I don’t suppose you’d believe I suffer from PMS?”

“Pretty crappy apology.”

“Yeah. Look, I’m a little protective of my own.”

Natalia let out a little laugh and kept hosing off, and was tempted to hose off Sally, too. “No kidding.”

“And maybe I went a little too far, okay? Like with all the comments about your food and stuff.”

“Hmm.” The mud was really sticky. Hard to wash off. She concentrated.

“Are you listening?” Sally asked, coming around to face her. “I’m saying I’ve been…well…”

“Rude? Obnoxious?” Natalia shot an uncomfortable, mud-slathered Sally a long look. “Is that what you’re saying? Because if you are, and if you’re also saying you’re going to back off, then great. I look forward to it.”

“Good.” Sally smiled a muddy smile. “So…we’re okay?”

“Sure. Why not?” Natalia shrugged and tossed the hose aside. “After all, we both know I could take you any day.”

Sally’s eyes narrowed.

Natalia’s mouth quirked. “Kidding.”

“I still don’t like you,” Sally warned, fighting off her own smile.

“Good. I still don’t like you, either.”

Her work done, Sally nodded, and still dripping mud, walked away.

Natalia looked down at herself, saw more mud and groaned. She picked the hose back up. How could she have let them get to her like this? Had she so effectively forgotten this was temporary? That she could, at any moment, pick up her cell phone and put an end to it?

At the thought her heart lurched. “Oh, perfect, I’ve gone ahead and started to fall for this place.”

She couldn’t imagine why.

Or why, when she turned around and found Tim watching her with a mixture of heat and humor and wariness, that her heart lurched again.

“What was that about?” he asked.

“Well…” She lifted a shoulder as nonchalantly as she could with freezing water running over her limbs. “Sally and I had some…issues.”

“Issues?”

Bringing the water over her torso and arms made inhaling a detriment. “I’m pretty sure we have them worked out now.” Especially since she’d be leaving soon.

Temporary, she reminded her heart. Temporary.

Tim’s eyes followed the hose running water over her body very carefully. “She can be difficult. I’m sorry.”

“Not your problem. So.” She smiled through blue lips and wondered if he could see every single goose bump riddling her body. “I guess you’ve seen me wet a few times now.”

His eyes darkened. “Have I?”

Wildly, she wondered if she was only imagining the possible sexual context of what she’d said, or the heat in his eyes.