“Anyone related to you would have the same problem,” Sally muttered.

Tim ignored her. “Natalia, these guys at the table-Ryan, Pete, Seth and Red-they’re my head guys.”

All four men smiled.

She smiled back.

Tim turned her toward the refrigerator, and the woman who was standing there scowling. “And this is my sister, Sally, who is going to try very hard to be kind and sweet. Sally, this is Natalia. The woman who’s going to relieve you in this very kitchen, so be nice.”

Sally eyeballed Natalia up and down.

Natalia eyeballed Sally up and down right back.

“Sally,” Tim warned.

“I’m always nice,” Sally said with a sniff, but she at least came forward and gave her brother a great big bear hug, resting her head on his shoulder as if she was very happy to see him.

“I’m always nice, too,” Natalia said, oddly touched by the obvious show of affection between siblings.

“Good. We’re all nice. No problem.” Tim pulled back and gave an extra long look to his sister. “So, I guess you’re still mad about Josh.”

“Gee, give the man a prize.”

“Where is he?”

“Outside eating. Like you said he had to.”

“Yeah, let’s hear more about Josh,” Seth said from the table. “Details.”

“In your dreams,” Sally said, then turned on Tim. “So if she’s only the cook, why do you have your hand on her?”

He did, it was still on Natalia’s back, lightly. He didn’t remove it. Instead, his thumb brushed her spine as his green, green eyes gazed down at her from beneath the brim of his hat. “I was protecting her from you.”

The men laughed heartily, while Sally sent them daggers with her eyes.

“If this is going to cause problems…” Natalia started. “I can-”

“No problems,” Tim said with another pass of his thumb, which in return, caused most of the thoughts to dance right out of Natalia’s head.

But she wasn’t some silly teenager, run by racy hormones. She wouldn’t get all flustered and tongue-tied over a sexy-as-hell cowboy whose jeans should be registered as an illegal weapon. “I don’t want to be the cause of any bad feelings.”

“Well, don’t leave on my account.” Sally smiled sweetly and held open the kitchen door. “Unless you feel you must. How about I call you a cab? You can take it to the nearest body-piercing saloon. In say, California.”

Tim reached out and shut the door.

But Natalia stepped forward. She spoke for herself, always, and had since the age of two. “I’m-”

“Staying,” Tim interrupted again.

He was going to have to stop doing that. Natalia frowned at him.

He frowned right back.

Sally frowned at the both of them. “No cook wears black leather and shows belly button,” she said suspiciously. “Not in Texas, anyway.”

“I’m not from Texas.”

“Hmm.” Sally crossed her arms, clearly stating with that one little rude “hmm” that if one wasn’t from Texas, one wasn’t worth her time. “I thought you were going to hire someone old and ugly,” she said to Tim.

Tim had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I said old and ugly when you wanted to hire Nick the Sleaze, remember?”

“Well I’d stay away from whoever you hired if you hadn’t told Josh that if he touched me again you’d cut off his-”

“Sally, you’re driving me crazy.”

“Yeah, well. It’s a short drive. Speaking of crazy, how’s Grandma?”

“Crazier than even you.”

Natalia watched this exchange between brother and sister with fascination. Not because she’d never fought with her siblings, because she had. A lot. Mostly with Annie just because Lili being the baby-quite literally sometimes-wasn’t as much fun to wrestle with. And she was a tattletale.

But Natalia could never in a million years have pictured cool, calm, collected cowboy Tim Banning acting like an obnoxious older brother.

“So, where is Grandma, Tim?” Sally asked with a false sweetness. “I’m sure with all your charm, you managed to kidnap her away from the life she loves, all in the name of family duty.”

“Ouch,” said Seth from the table with a wince.

“She didn’t come with me,” Tim admitted.

“Probably because she knows you’d ruin her life, too.”

Tim looked tense again.

Natalia, the middle child and therefore a peacemaker at heart, stepped forward and smiled. “How about I cook dinner?”

“Good plan.” Sally strutted across the kitchen and sat at the table with the men. “Though you should know, if you hurt my brother I’ll have to kick your butt. So…is your tongue pierced?”

Natalia blinked. Good Lord, Americans were certifiable. “Hurt your brother? Why would I do that?”

“Just a friendly little warning.”

“Friendly. Right.” Like Tim, Sally Banning was tall, lean and muscular and also sported a crooked eyetooth. Somehow it wasn’t nearly as attractive on Sally as it was on Tim, but Natalia had to admit that it was probably because Sally was looking at her as if she was a bug on her windshield.

Natalia had felt like that a lot today, and she was getting mighty tired of it. She opened her mouth to say so, but Tim neatly cut her off.

“Sally, do you have an extra coat you can spare?”

Sally’s eyes narrowed. “What happened to her coat?”

“It was stolen,” Natalia said. “I’m visiting the States for a royal friend’s wedding.”

Sally lifted a single brow. “Royal friend?”

“I’m a princess.”

Sally lifted the other brow now and looked at Tim. “What have you done?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said lightly. “Everything still in working order around here?”

“She won’t fit in the stockade with the others.”

“Others?” Natalia asked.

“My brother collects the weak, the weary. The pathetic.”

A funny feeling started in the pit of Natalia’s stomach. She didn’t want to be someone Tim felt sorry for, and it was a tribute to her own privileged upbringing that it hadn’t occurred to her until now that he might see her like that. In a way she didn’t fully understand, she wanted to be someone he liked and respected.

But who in their right mind would like and respect a pampered princess who’d never lifted a hand to help herself in her entire life?

Good question, and right then and there Natalia became even more determined to become her own woman, successful in her own right, not her birthright. “I’m not weak or weary.” She’d leave pathetic out of this.

Sally gestured to the kitchen window. “See that stockade out there? The one filled with the three-legged pig, the ancient horse and the blind goat?”

“Um…yes.”

“That’s Tim for you. He collects the needy.”

And the pathetic.

Natalia got the message loud and clear. She’d just been added to the save-the-world stockade.


TIM CALLED a friend of his, who happened to be a cop. No one matching Natalia’s description had been reported missing. Tim didn’t have him run a criminal check, that would have been wrong. But at least his beautiful crazy cook hadn’t walked out of a halfway house or insane asylum. Good. He didn’t have to feel bad about letting her stay.

Now he had to face what he did have to feel bad about, the fact that he wanted her to stay more than he’d wanted anything in a long time.


DINNER WAS something so fancy Tim couldn’t pronounce the name of it. Since Natalia looked so utterly pleased with herself, Tim tried to like it. So did everyone else.

But the moment she turned her back, they stared at each other in horror.

“What is it?” Red mouthed.

Sally shrugged and fed it to Grumpster, Tim’s thirteen-year-old mutt lying hopefully beneath the table. Everyone else quickly followed suit.

Grumpster, who routinely licked his own parts for hours on end, sniffed once and turned his head away.

Which left everyone scrambling to stuff their napkins with the rest, making it appear as if they’d eaten.

Tim wondered at all of them-including himself-at the length they went to not to hurt Natalia’s feelings.

When she saw their empty plates, she beamed with pride. Tim’s chest hurt just looking at her, and he smiled back through the pain. So did his men, while Sally rolled her eyes and looked disgusted.

“Goners,” she said sadly. “Complete goners.”


BREAKFAST THE NEXT DAY was more of the same. They were served some wildly foreign-sounding thing that involved very little food and far too much sauce. But because Natalia had obviously tried so hard, and was waiting with bated breath at the side of the table, hands clasped, eyes hopeful, no one said a word.

They all just smiled at the woman now in denim and a T-shirt, hair still spiked, earrings still in, but face void of makeup except for green lip gloss. The moment she turned her back, they made gagging faces at each other.

They couldn’t even bribe Grumpster with the stuff because he’d refused to come inside with them for the first time ever. They were on their own.


AFTER BREAKFAST, Tim entered the barn and found Seth handing out chocolate bars from his personal stash. Five bucks apiece. Highway robbery, but Ryan, Pete and Red were all digging into their pockets for the cash.

Sally lifted her head from where she was taking care of her horse and shook her head in disgust. “Hey, here’s an idea. Tell her the cooking sucks.”

“Don’t even think about it.” Tim’s stomach growled with a gnawing hunger, and with a grimace, he pulled a ten from his pocket. “I’ll take two,” he said to Seth.

“Unbelievable.” Sally leveled her annoyed gaze on him. “Did she call her so-called royal family yet?”

“No,” he admitted.

“And do you know why?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Oh, I think it does. She hasn’t called home because she doesn’t have one.”

“I couldn’t leave her at the bus stop, Sally. And you know what? You couldn’t have, either.”

“This isn’t about me, but, yes, I could have.” Her eyes softened. “You can’t take care of everyone.”

Tim let out a sound of frustration and ripped into the chocolate. “Look, I know she cooks a little strangely.”

“She lied about knowing how to feed a large group.”

“She never claimed to know how to do that.”

Sally’s mouth dropped open. “You’re telling me you hired without asking? Damn, Tim.”

“She’s trying hard, and that counts. And anyway, she’s only going to be here a few days, just enough to earn her way to New Mexico.”

“So you’re really not going to tell her everything she touches in that kitchen turns to lead in our guts?” She sighed theatrically. “It’s going to be a long few days. Damn it, someone front me a five and hand over the chocolate.”

Tim waited until her first bite, then nudged her away from the others. “I need you to go to the grocery store today.” He spoke cautiously, because sure as the sun came up every morning, coaxing Sally into doing this was going to cost him.

“No way.”

“If you do, I’ll…”

“You’ll what?” She cocked a hip and crossed her arms, shooting him the universal irritated-sister-to-idiot-brother look. “Let me date Josh?”

“Is that what you call what you were doing with him?” She just lifted that brow of hers, making him sigh. “Do you really like him?”

“I like how he fills out his jeans, and that’s all that matters right now.”

Tim cringed. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“Then don’t ask.”

“Please? Go fill up the refrigerator?”

“Because your new cook can’t be trusted with your truck?”

“Because she’s just learning the ropes, I don’t want to dump that chore on her right now.”

“But you have no problem dumping it on me.” She rolled her eyes, swore beneath her breath. “Fine. But I’m going out with Josh on Friday night.”

“What if he doesn’t ask?”

“Oh, he’ll ask.” She took another bite of her chocolate bar.

So did Tim. “You being smart?” he asked.

“I know how to have safe sex, if that’s what you’re asking. You made sure of that when you gave me the birds and bees talk, remember? I make him wear a party hat.”

Tim groaned.

“Would you rather I use the word condom? Or better yet, multipack?”

Tim shut his eyes and covered his ears, making Sally laugh as she dug into her chocolate.

For a long moment there was no sound in the barn except the rustling of paper as everyone continued to fill their empty bellies.

“I’ll make a store run,” Seth promised. “Tomorrow I’ll sell something more substantial.”

“Like Jelly Bellys?” Josh asked hopefully.

Seth laughed. “Maybe.”

Then the barn door opened.

With the sun pouring in, Tim couldn’t immediately see much, except a very memorable silhouette of a body in jeans and a T-shirt. A real woman’s body-lush breasts, curved hips, long legs. How had he ever mistaken her for a jailbait juvenile delinquent?