Read Online The Cowboy and the Princess by Myrna Mackenzie - Free Book Online Page B

Delfyne said. “I’m just an ordinary person in need of a place to stay who wanted to experience the Second Chance and your Montana. Owen agreed to let me visit and help out a little. I think you call those working vacations, don’t you? The ones where you get to experience ranch life and also do some good? I so hope I’ll be a credit to the Second Chance. I hear that Owen has lots of guests sometimes, and Lydia has all those rooms to clean and…”
    Delfyne left her sentence hanging.
    Slowly, Molly nodded. “Yes, I guess you’re right. I wouldn’t want to have to handle a crowd at the ranch all by myself. It’s good of you to help Lydia. Nice to meet you, Delfyne. So…how did you hook up with Owen?”
    Molly glanced down at Delfyne’s shoes again. Owen was sure Molly had a million questions about Delfyne, but the working vacation wasn’t a bad story. It was certainly more believable than the truth—that Owen had been asked to be knight errant for a princess who had been banished to Montana and the Second Chance for the summer.
    “Oh, my brother knows him from college.” Delfyne gave Molly a pitiful glance. “You must think Owen is getting a very poor deal having me as a helper, don’t you? I know I don’t look very useful, and I do have my limitations. I’m quite good at cleaning things, but not so very handy with a stove yet. I haven’t eaten since breakfast, so after I spent the morning scrubbing rooms, I guess Owen thought I needed sustenance, and with Lydia out…”
    Delfyne held out her hands in dismissal.
    Sustenance? Inwardly, Owen groaned, but he couldn’t let it show. It was, in his mind, unbelievable that Delfyne was spinningthis ridiculous tale and Molly was buying into it. Besides the expensive shoes and clothes, the very tilt of Delfyne’s head, her accent, the way she enunciated her words and looked around the room as if she were surveying her domain practically shouted breeding to Owen. But while the men in the room were giving Delfyne surreptitious appreciative looks and the women were studying her as if she were a new rival come to town, none of them seemed to see anything out of the ordinary other than her obvious beauty.
    Except Molly still seemed to be fixating on those shoes. “Well, of course, you needed food and Owen brought you to just the right place to get a decent meal. Those shoes are just so…perfect,” she said. Owen knew how Molly’s mind worked. She was probably estimating the cost of the shoes and wondering who Delfyne had gotten them from.
    “Molly, are you listening? We need food, not shoes. Just look at this woman,” Owen said suddenly. “The merest breeze will blow her over. She worked like a dog this morning. She needs feeding. Soon.”
    It was perhaps unfair, but Owen knew Molly’s hot-button issues. Food ranked right at the top. Immediately she seemed to forget everything that they had been discussing, including Delfyne’s designer shoes.
    “Oh, you’re right. Just look at you, you little thing,” Molly agreed, patting Delfyne’s hand. “You’re gorgeous, of course, and tall, but so slender. And there’s lots of hard work on Owen’s ranch. All those rooms. No wonder Owen decided that Lydia needs some help. Lyd’s not as young as she once was even if she won’t admit it. We all have to slow down and give the young blood a chance to do their part and she’s no different than the rest of us. Now you just wait there. I’ll get you something that will fill you up and get you through the rest of the day.”
    She seated them at a table and when she had gone, Owen leaned over and, keeping his voice low, said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
    The look in her eyes was incredulous. “Are you kidding? This is marvelous! Molly thinks I’m a real person.”
    “You are a real person.”
    “I know. She thinks I’m a real regular person.”
    Owen sincerely doubted that, but Delfyne was smiling so brightly that he wasn’t about to