The Accidental Princess Read online

  Despite the cold cream on her face and the towel on her head, something about C.J. Maxey demanded respect.

  Her quiet dignity gave Clint pause.

  Clint was no monk, not by a long shot. He’d had his share of flings, but that’s all they’d been—brief romps with women no more interested in attachments than he.

  But this was different. C.J. was a wild card, her true nature completely unknown to him.

  Warning bells clanged, and stoplights flashed.

  The smart thing to do? Rein in his appetite. Put a lid on his libido. Get the story on this delectable Dairy Princess. And get out of town!

  Dear Reader,

  Our resolution is to start the year with a bang in Silhouette Special Edition! And so we are featuring Peggy Webb’s The Accidental Princess—our pick for this month’s READERS’ RING title. You’ll want to use the riches in this romance to facilitate discussions with your friends and family! In this lively tale, a plain Jane agrees to be the local Dairy Princess and wins the heart of the bad-boy reporter who wants her story…among other things.

  Next up, Sherryl Woods thrills her readers once again with the newest installment of THE DEVANEYS—Michael’s Discovery. Follow this ex-navy SEAL hero as he struggles to heal from battle—and save himself from falling hard for his beautiful physical therapist! Pamela Toth’s Man Behind the Badge, the third book in her popular WINCHESTER BRIDES miniseries, brings us another stunning hero in the form of a flirtatious sheriff, whose wild ways are numbered when he meets—and wants to rescue—a sweet, yet reclusive woman with a secret past. Talking about secrets, a doctor hero is stunned when he finds a baby—maybe even his baby—on the doorstep in Victoria Pade’s Maybe My Baby, the second book in her BABY TIMES THREE miniseries. Add a feisty heroine to the mix, and you have an instant family.

  Teresa Southwick delivers an unforgettable story in Midnight, Moonlight & Miracles. In it, a nurse feels a strong attraction to her handsome patient, yet she doesn’t want him to discover the real connection between them. And Patricia Kay’s Annie and the Confirmed Bachelor explores the blossoming love between a self-made millionaire and a woman who can’t remember her past. Can their romance survive?

  This month’s lineup is packed with intrigue, passion, complex heroines and heroes who never give up. Keep your own resolution to live life romantically, with a treat from Silhouette Special Edition. Happy New Year, and happy reading!

  Karen Taylor Richman

  Senior Editor

  The Accidental Princess

  PEGGY WEBB

  For my enchanting new grandson,

  William, with love

  Books by Peggy Webb

  Silhouette Special Edition

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  *The Smile of an Angel #1436

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  The Accidental Princess #1516

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  Angel at Large #867

  PEGGY WEBB

  and her two chocolate Labs live in a hundred-year-old house not far from the farm where she grew up. “A farm is a wonderful place for dreaming,” she says. “I used to sit in the hayloft and dream of being a writer.” Now, with two grown children and more than forty-five romance novels to her credit, the former English teacher confesses she’s still a hopeless romantic and loves to create the happy endings her readers love so well.

  When she isn’t writing, she can be found at her piano playing blues and jazz, or in one of her gardens planting flowers. A believer in the idea that a person should never stand still, Peggy recently taught herself carpentry.

  Dear Reader,

  I’m thrilled to be part of Silhouette’s innovative READERS’ RING. Finally the rest of the world will see what authors, editors and loyal fans of the romance genre have known all along: these wonderful love stories with the happy endings are as complex and well crafted as any books on the market. Do romance novels have tightly woven plots and well-defined themes? You bet. Do they have lovable but multifaceted characters who grow and change in the course of the story? Absolutely. Are they rich with sense of place, symbolism and lyrical language? Yes, indeed.

  You have long appreciated the wonder of romance novels. I’m delighted that you can now use the questions at the back as a guide to discuss these books, perhaps discover new ways of looking at them and even get an inkling of what goes on in the minds of the authors who write them.

  So gather a circle of friends, grab a cup of coffee (or perhaps a mint julep!) and spend a lovely afternoon with C.J. Maxey, Clint Garrett and a host of zany Southern characters who populate Hot Coffee, Mississippi.

  Happy reading!

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Readers’ Ring Discussion Group Questions

  Chapter One

  Leaning back so the chair tilted dangerously on two legs Blake Dix asked, “You know any pretty women in this one-horse town I can date?”

  C.J. started to say she was the church’s secretary, not a matchmaking service, but she decided to bridle her tongue. After all, Blake Dix, the new music director at Trinity Baptist Church, had recently arrived in Hot Coffee, Mississippi, from Las Vegas. He was probably in culture shock.

  “You might try hanging out at Chat ’N Chew BarBQ. That’s the only spot in Hot Coffee that has any action.”

  “Thanks for the tip.” The chair banged against the worn wooden floor as Blake stood up and tossed a bundle of papers on her desk. “Would you type those for me? I need them by tomorrow.”

  “Sure. I’ll rearrange my social calendar.”

  “You’re a hoot, C.J.”

  She wanted to throw her shoe at him and yell, “I could have a social life if I wanted to,” which was a baldfaced lie.

  It’s true that she lacked grace and beauty, but women homelier than she had lovers and husbands and babies and sweet little houses all their own. C.J. didn’t know what she was doing wrong. Maybe her expectations were too high. Maybe she should settle for less than intelligence and integrity and kindness. And it wouldn’t hurt if they were good-looking, to boot. Maybe she should quit longing for excess and be satisfied with the likes of Leonard Lumpkin who wanted to move her to his farm and make her a domestic goddess.

  Maybe she should just quit dreaming.

  She did, temporarily. C.J. set to work typing. If she hurried she would be home by eight o’clock. Not that it mattered. Nobody was waiting for her except her dad, and he would barely notice what time she got home. Just the same, she
stopped typing long enough to call and say she’d be late.

  She was the only twenty-five-year-old she knew still living with her daddy. Not that she minded taking care of Sam: in addition to being a wonderful parent, he was the only hero she’d ever had.

  In high school everybody had said C.J. was “going places.” So far the only place she’d gone was to Itawamba Junior College only fifty miles from home.

  Not that she minded home, either. C.J. liked the little yellow cottage on the outskirts of town. She enjoyed the pecan trees in the front yard and the big pasture in back that harbored an assortment of strays her father had collected over the years—a Siamese cat, four dogs of undetermined lineage and Suzy the fat cow. The animals were the only evidence left that Sam had once been the county’s finest veterinarian. C.J. had planned to follow in his footsteps, perhaps even set up practice with him, but the accident changed everything.

  She pushed the accident from her mind as she drove home. When she turned into the familiar driveway she saw Ellie Jones’s little red VW bug parked in front of the house. It wasn’t unusual to see Ellie there. She and C.J.’s mother, Phoebe, had been best friends as well as sorority sisters. Since Phoebe’s death Ellie had been a mother to C.J., a quiet strong presence hovering over her and Sam like a guardian angel.

  C.J. found Ellie and Sam on the back porch drinking lemon balm tea, he still in bedroom slippers and she in tennis shoes with her feet propped up on the railing.

  “Ellie! You look wonderful.”

  “Piffle. I’m a dried-up old prune with a face like the map of China. Sit. I brought cookies.”

  “Macadamia nut?”

  “What else?”

  “Yum.” C.J. grabbed three, nevermind the calories. The only thing she had in her favor was the fact that no matter how much she ate she was still so skinny she could stand sideways and you’d never know she was there.

  “I came to see if you’d be Lee County’s Dairy Princess,” Ellie said, and C.J. nearly choked on her cookie.

  “This is a joke, right?”

  “No. I won’t beat around the bush, C.J.”

  “Have you ever?” Sam said, deadpan.

  “Nobody entered the local pageant and I need a contestant to represent Lee County in the state’s pageant. There’s scholarship money, not much on the local level, but it will be yours automatically when you assume the title. The state’s scholarship is big enough to put you through vet school.”

  “I think you should do it, C.J.,” Sam said.

  C.J. figured her chance of winning the state’s scholarship money was as remote as her chance of turning into a raving beauty overnight, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t willing to help an old friend. As the county’s Extension Agent, Ellie was responsible for the local Dairy Princess pageant as well as overseeing the 4-H Clubs and homemaking activities for the entire county. In view of all Ellie had done for them over the last six years, being princess by default was the least C.J. could do.

  “Would I have to parade onstage in a swimsuit?”

  “No. Evening gown only. That, plus give a speech about the dairy industry.”

  The only time C.J. ever gave a speech, she broke out in hives. This Dairy Princess business was sounding worse by the minute. Still, she owed Ellie and certainly didn’t want to hurt her feelings. Maybe she could find a graceful way out.

  “I don’t know anything about the dairy industry. I probably don’t even qualify. What about Sandi Wentworth? She’s a natural,” C.J. added.

  Sandi had grown up next door with only her grandmother to guide her. She was more than a friend to C.J. She was like a sister.

  “She doesn’t qualify. Too old and no dairy herd.”

  “That leaves me out. I don’t have a dairy herd.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Suzy?”

  “A herd of one. Fatten her up and she’ll pass for two.”

  “That takes care of the cow, but what about me? There’s only so much a push-up bra and a new hairstyle can do.”

  “I’ll help,” Ellie said, and that’s when C.J. knew she was in trouble. Ellie’s only brush with beauty was the roses she grew, and as far as glamour went, nobody had seen her legs since l979. Ellie Jones wore khakis everywhere. She added a black jacket for somber occasions and red for festive.

  Still…C.J.’s mother had been considered the most beautiful woman in Lee County, if not the whole state of Mississippi, and had collected beauty queen trophies the way other girls collected charms for their bracelets. C.J. had always had a secret yen to be like her mother.

  “I’ll do it,” she said.

  “You want me to what?”

  “Cover the local Dairy Princess.”

  The irony didn’t escape Clint Garrett. He’d covered a beauty queen or two in his time, but not in the way the editor of the Hot Coffee Tribune meant.

  “I’m a crime reporter, Wayne,” he said, which was mostly true. The last big crime in Hot Coffee was when Eldridge Messingame stole Luther Arkett’s Brahmin bull. Except for an occasional break-in and a purse-snatching incident every now and then, Hot Coffee didn’t have any crime. Clint’s job was cushy. Most days he could ride around on his motorcycle listening to country-western songs.

  He covered funerals and society events to fill in the gap. Actually, the biggest society event in Hot Coffee was a funeral, which suited Clint just fine. He wasn’t looking for fame and fortune; he was looking for a way to drift through life with the least amount of effort and attachment.

  The only woman he’d ever cared about had died—his mother. When he’d come home from school crying because the other kids called him “bastard,” she’d say, “That’s all right, son. Just hold your head up. Someday you’ll really be somebody.”

  She’d died while he was still in college, and took the heart right out of his dreams. Without the anchor of her love, he had become a drifter. His current lifestyle required nothing of him except to exist on the most elemental level—eat, drink and sleep, with an occasional fling thrown in.

  “You could be a crime reporter, Clint, and a damned good one.” From time to time Wayne tried to play father to Clint and make him see the error of his ways. It never worked, though. Clint knew how to dodge good intentions. “What beats me is why you bury your talent in a little burg like Hot Coffee.”

  “Maybe I’m like you, Wayne.”

  Wayne turned red all the way to the top of his bald head, then cleared his throat. “Difference between me and you is that you’re half my age. I wasted my life. I hate to see you waste yours. You’re the best reporter I’ve got.”

  “I’m the only one you’ve got besides Charlie.” Charlie wrote sports, which Clint knew little about and cared less in spite of the fact that he was six foot five and looked like a linebacker. Except for running track, Clint’s only brush with sports was what he read in the sports section.

  “Okay, I get the hint.”

  “Where do I find this princess?”

  “Go out county road six about two miles till you come to a pecan grove and a little yellow farm house.”

  “Sam Maxey?”

  “Yep, his daughter.”

  “I don’t recall her. What is she, former homecoming queen?”

  “Nope, church secretary.”

  “This ought to be good.”

  “Play it up, Clint. Make it a feature. I want you to cover her all the way to the state pageant.”

  “What about crime? What about obituaries?”

  “If anybody kicks the bucket or takes a notion to steal a cow, I’ll write about it myself. You get out there and bust your butt over the princess.”

  “Thanks, Wayne. You’re all heart.”

  C.J.’s transformation began with a new hairstyle. Ellie had gone with her to the Kut ’N Kurl. “For moral support,” she’d said. Three hours and endless torture later, they were back home.

  As C.J. stared at herself in the mirror she decided she looked like something that needed a transfusion. What ha
d once been a perfectly nice head of sleek brown hair now resembled a cow pile, a tall about-to-topple one.

  “All I need is pointed fingernails and a long black dress and I’d look like Morticia on The Addams Family,” she told Ellie.

  “Well, it’s not exactly what I’d envisioned,” Ellie admitted. “I think the perm’s a little tight.”

  “What about this makeup?” The Kut ’N Kurl sold makeup on the side, and their resident expert had done C.J.’s face. “I look like yesterday’s leftovers that somebody tried to garnish.”

  “Maybe the lipstick is too red. And, I don’t know, the cheeks…”

  “Look like stop signs.” C.J. grabbed a washcloth and started scrubbing just as the doorbell rang. “Would you get that, Ellie?”

  Hearing an unfamiliar deep male voice, C.J. peeked around the bathroom door. Standing in the hall with Ellie was the best-looking man she’d ever seen, on screen or off. To top it off, he looked as if he could lift a small bull without blinking an eye, plus he had longish thick black hair that just begged to be tousled and eyes so blue they didn’t look real.

  C.J. ducked back inside, caught a glimpse of herself and nearly screamed. All she needed was a wart on her nose and a tall pointy hat to make her transformation complete.

  “Is Miss Maxey here?”

  Tell him no, C.J. silently screamed. “Yes,” Ellie said, and the gorgeous hunk said, “Could I please speak with her? I’m Clint Garrett from the Tribune. I’ve come to interview her.”

  “I’ll go tell her.”

  C.J. was going to die. She was still the same plain girl she’d always been, but before this morning’s ill-fated journey to the Kut ’N Kurl, at least she’d had nice hair. Furthermore, hives were popping out all over her face. Probably from the makeup they’d shoveled on.