The Accidental Princess Read online

  She didn’t want to think about how shallow that made her…as well as him. She was just going to enjoy her fleeting moment as a vamp.

  What would a vamp do in a situation like this? Think, she ordered herself. You’re the one with the brain.

  “My, what big muscles you have.”

  She’d meant to sound sexy instead of scared, but he didn’t seem to notice. Nor did he notice how her hands trembled when she ran them over his broad chest. She saw an enticing glimpse of chest hair and was tempted to delve inside his shirt, but instead erred on the side of caution. She wanted him to think she was sophisticated and sexy. A panic attack would spoil the effect.

  “You should see them up close and personal.”

  “I plan to.”

  C.J. actually licked her lips. He’d think she was an idiot. But no, he watched as if he’d never seen anything more fascinating than her tongue.

  “I wouldn’t do that again if I were you, princess.”

  “Why not?”

  “The dairy barn is just around the corner.” He lifted one eyebrow which gave him a devilish look and her another panic attack. “All those haystacks.”

  His voice vibrated through her like a bass kettle drum. Every inch of her caught fire—her skin, her bones, her blood. Lord, what would she do if he kidnapped her and took her to one of those haystacks? Her heart hammered so hard she was sure he’d see what a fraud she was.

  Shoot, she didn’t want the game to end. “Promises, promises,” she murmured.

  He bent so close she thought he was going to kiss her. Lord, she’d scream. She’d swoon. She’d die. She squeezed her eyes shut and parted her lips.

  “Save the pucker, Crystal Jean. It’s party time.”

  He plopped her unceremoniously onto the flatbed truck, then climbed in behind her and strolled toward her throne as if nothing unusual had happened. Meanwhile she sat on the hay-littered flatbed with a dusty bottom and a bruised ego.

  “Better climb onto your throne, princess. The parade’s about to start.”

  Ignoring her outstretched hand he made a big to-do of plumping up the red velvet seat cushion on her throne. Up front Leonard revved the motor and in the distance animals snarled while their trainers yelled commands.

  C.J. picked herself up, gathered the remnants of her dignity and walked toward her throne in a manner that would have been regal except the bits of hay clinging to Sandi’s sequined gown spoiled the effect.

  As she breezed by Clint she snapped, “You’re no gentleman.”

  “That makes us a matched set.” He plucked the hay off her gown, then swatted her bottom. “You’re no lady.”

  Oh help. Now what had she done? Every time she set out to be something she wasn’t, the ploy backfired. You’d think she’d learn. The only problem was, it was so much more fun being something besides plain, boring C.J. Maxey, the church secretary.

  The truck lurched and C.J.’s banner slid one way, her crown the other. She sat down in the nick of time, otherwise she’d have sailed over the top of Leonard’s cab and smack into the rump of the elephant bringing up the rear of the pachyderm parade.

  “You look right at home on a throne.” Clint strolled to the front end of the flatbed as if the truck were not pitching and rolling over bumpy asphalt.

  C.J. thought she looked ridiculous, but she didn’t say so. She’d made up her mind to curb her tongue for Ellie’s sake. Just for a few weeks…until the pageant was over. Then she’d go back to being her old acerbic self.

  “Give me that royal smile,” Clint said, and she grimaced for the camera while the shutter clicked. She hated this. All of it. The posturing and preening, the gaudy public display, the tacky spray-painted throne. Everything except the chance for a heady flirtation just like an ordinary girl.

  “Look, there she is,” Ellie yelled. She and Sandi and Sam were under the awning of Wright’s Drugstore wearing sun visors and eating ice cream.

  “You look mighty fine,” Sam hollered, and suddenly C.J. became one of the characters in her favorite childhood stories. Her heart filled with such love and joy she figured it was at least two sizes bigger.

  Okay, so she didn’t hate everything about being princess. She’d gladly suffer a few indignities if she could make Sam smile.

  “Your dad?” Clint asked, and when C.J. nodded he waved, but his smile was directed mostly at Sandi.

  The green-eyed monster tweaked C.J., and she was ashamed of herself. She decided it was easier to be sweet when you’re plain and nobody ever looks at you anyhow. Put on padding and too much lipstick and all of a sudden you’re somebody even you don’t like.

  No wonder Clint was craning his neck to get one last glimpse of Sandi. Forget it, C.J. told herself, then applied her newly acquired royal waving skills to the crowd. It looked as if everybody in Hot Coffee had turned out for the parade. Not that C.J. took any credit. It was the exotic animals, the clowns, the bespangled trapeze artists that folks came to see.

  If C.J. had been planning the parade she’d have put the circus up front with her own float trailing along behind instead of smack in the middle. Being behind the elephants had distinct disadvantages. For one thing there was no way Leonard could see around several tons of pachyderm.

  All of a sudden the truck lurched left and Clint said, “This is not the parade route. What does that fool think he’s doing?”

  “Following the elephants.”

  “The elephants are going the wrong way.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to get out and argue with them.”

  There. Her stinger was back. Maybe her sanity, too. She was fed up with pretense.

  Behind them the prancing horses made the turn, followed by the caged lions and tigers, fifteen clowns in the trick clown car and the brass band blaring “Seventy-six Trombones.”

  “The whole parade is going the wrong way.” Clint rapped on the back window of the cab, but Leonard ignored him. “Stop,” he shouted. “You’ve got to turn this truck around.”

  But Leonard kept on driving.

  “I don’t think he hears you. Either that or he’s getting his revenge.” C.J. laughed. “It must be so sweet.”

  “He’s going to think revenge.”

  “What diabolical plot are you hatching now?”

  He lifted one devilish eyebrow that shot her temperature up ten degrees. “You think I’m diabolical?”

  “Among other things.”

  “What other things?”

  Up front a huge commotion cut off the lie C.J. was fixing to tell. People yelled, sirens screamed and Leonard screeched to such an abrupt stop, she toppled off her throne.

  Clint knelt beside her and helped her up. “Are you all right?”

  She barely had time to say yes before two Arabian horses streaked by followed by trainers hollering, “Whoa, whoa boy.” The horses galloped into the midst of the elephants who started trumpeting their alarm. The one bringing up the rear backed into the front of Leonard’s truck which sent C.J. crashing straight into Clint’s arms.

  Was she imagining things, or did he caress her softly before scooping her up?

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting you out of here.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t answer until he’d got her safely off the truck. “Look at the intersection up ahead.”

  On one side of the intersection cops milled around their motorcycles tooting their whistles and waving their arms while on the other side, people wearing their Sunday best bailed out of their cars shouting and craning their necks. Where the streets converged the elephants lumbered round and round with their chains rattling and their owners shouting commands. And in the midst of it all sat a long black hearse.

  “Good grief,” C.J. said.

  “That’s right. The elephants crashed through a funeral procession.” Clint practically dragged C.J. to the top of a grassy slope that overlooked the cemetery.

  “You should be safe here,” he said, then took off running.

>   “What are you going to do?” she shouted, but he didn’t answer.

  What did he think she was? Some hothouse flower? She wasn’t about to miss the most excitement Hot Coffee had seen since a sore loser turned a skunk loose at the postmistress’s wedding.

  As she descended the slope the brass band started playing “Amazing Grace.” Somebody must have told them the parade had crashed a funeral procession. The haunting strains fell over the melee like a warm cozy blanket. A hush fell over the crowd, and the animals began to settle back into line.

  C.J. skirted the clowns and made a beeline for the woman in black standing outside a Lincoln Continental. Petite and gray-haired, she lifted the veil on her hat and shaded her eyes as she peered toward the elephants.

  “Mrs. Lars! I had no idea.” C.J. squeezed the hand Doris Lars offered.

  “Crystal Jean.” Her hand fluttered to her mouth. “I was trying to see Lars.” She cast a glance toward the hearse still held captive by the circle of marching elephants.

  “I’m so sorry. How terrible for you.”

  The bereaved widow smiled at her. “Oh, no. There’s nothing Lars loved more than a parade. He’d be tickled pink to know his last journey on this earth was right in the middle of one. I couldn’t have planned it better myself.”

  “That’s a relief. I’d hate to know I was part of something that added to your grief.”

  “Oh, no, dear. That nice man told the band to play Lars’s favorite song.”

  “What nice young man?”

  Doris nodded toward a tall, broad-shouldered man who was helping lift a big cat wagon with a broken axle.

  “Clint Garrett?” Who would have thought he’d have a chivalrous bone in his body.

  “Yes, he’s the one. He said he’d get the band to play at the graveside if I wanted to. Isn’t he nice?”

  Nice was hardly the word she’d use to describe him. Still, sometimes people rose to the occasion.

  “He surely is.” She’d told so many lies, what did one more hurt? “Is there anything I can do for you, Mrs. Lars?”

  “Well, dear, it would be lovely if you and that nice young man would come to the graveside services.”

  C.J. looked down at herself. “This dress…”

  “It’s perfectly wonderful. I always thought people should wear party clothes to funerals. To celebrate a homecoming, you know. The only reason I’m in black is Lars’s mother. Poor dear, she’d never speak to me again.”

  C.J. glanced into the Lincoln at a stooped woman with a hearing aid and a cane. She had a black shawl draped over her shoulders in spite of the ninety-degree heat.

  “I wouldn’t want to upset her.”

  “Here, dear, put this on.” Doris pulled off her linen suit jacket and draped it over C.J.’s shoulders. “Now go fetch that young man. It looks like the elephants are moving.”

  Chapter Four

  A sense of unease nagged at Clint and he glanced toward the top of the hill to see if he could spot C.J. She was nowhere in sight.

  “Damn!” His anxiety ratcheted up a notch. He wasn’t accustomed to worrying about anybody, and he didn’t like it. He felt as if tentacles were wrapping around him, smothering him.

  “Heave,” the man at the head of the wagon yelled, and Clint put his shoulder to the task. C.J. could take care of herself. She was a big girl.

  All dressed in red. C.J. Maxey was a magnet that would attract every red-blooded male in the circus. He swore again just as somebody tapped him on the shoulder.

  “Clint.”

  It was C.J., the man-magnet, in spite of the fact that she was now partially covered by a black jacket.

  “What do you want?” She jumped back as if he’d slapped her. Good. Maybe that would put things back into perspective.

  “I came to deliver a message. I’ll go tell Mrs. Lars your answer is no.”

  He motioned a burly clown to take his place at the wagon, then took C.J.’s arm and led her away from the commotion.

  “I’ll decide the answer for myself. What’s the question?”

  Her face glowed when she softened, and Clint’s insides melted like a toasted marshmallow. “Mrs. Lars wanted to know if you would attend her husband’s graveside services.”

  “Of course.”

  “Of course?”

  “Why does that surprise you?”

  “I don’t know. I never figured you for the soft type.”

  “I’m neither soft nor sentimental, and don’t you forget it.” He came very close to telling her the truth, that he was a man without a heart, but he didn’t want to reveal that much of himself to her. The less she knew about him, the better.

  “I’ll go tell her.”

  “You do that.” She walked off, stiff-backed. “C.J!”

  “What?”

  “You be careful.”

  “Ha!” She whirled around and marched off, mad as any woman he’d ever seen.

  Lord, he was lucky not to get involved. Women were nothing but trouble, always wanting to make a man over, tie a noose around his neck and lead him to the altar. He hung around the wagon long enough to get it rolling, then he moved up and down the line, doing what he could till the circus was moving back toward town.

  Everything except the band. Clint followed as they headed to Peaceful Valley Cemetery. C.J. was standing beside the widow, stunning in red, the coat clasped tightly around her throat, her short hair ruffling in the breeze that had come up.

  She’s safe. Something inside Clint settled down. He took several deep breaths, then moved to the opposite side of the grave, away from trouble.

  The band struck up a song he remembered from his mother’s funeral, “Shall We Gather at the River.” An overwhelming sense of loneliness took him by surprise, and he tried to push it back by observing C.J. as she wiped away tears. She was either a good actress or else she had a tender heart. A good actress, he decided. Believing that was the only way he could continue on the course he’d set.

  After the services, he paid his respects to the widow, then took C.J.’s arm. “Come with me.”

  She waited until they were outside the gates, then jerked her arm out of his grasp. “Don’t you ever do anything besides give orders?”

  He grinned. “Yeah. If you can hold off long enough, I’ll show you.”

  “Hell will freeze over before I’ll sleep with you.”

  “Who said anything about sleeping? I’m going to take you home.”

  The flush on her cheeks looked genuine. Men were suckers for blushing maidens with lots of cleavage. Innocence and sensuality. A lethal combination.

  “I have my car.”

  “All right then, I’ll take you back to your car.”

  But not right away. He didn’t tell her that, of course. She’d have walked back to town, stubborn, temperamental woman that she was.

  No, what he had in mind for C.J. Maxey wouldn’t do to tell.

  The motorcycle parked half a block from the cemetery screamed power. It exuded excitement. It reeked of adventure.

  Lord, she’d forgotten about that big Harley hog. Nervous sweat popped out all over her, then trickled down her neck and into her cleavage.

  “How did that get here?” she asked.

  “Cell phone. I called my editor and he and Charlie brought it over.” He retrieved two helmets from the saddlebag, then handed her the smaller one. “Here. Put this on.”

  “If you think I’m riding that thing, you’re crazy.”

  “I never figured you for a coward.”

  “I’m not. I just don’t like the company, that’s all.”

  “’Fraid you’re stuck with me, princess. Unless you want to walk back to town.”

  It was only a couple of miles. She would have walked if she hadn’t been wearing high-heeled shoes and Sandi’s dress. She could imagine what it would look like after a two-mile trek in this heat.

  From the look on Clint’s face, he was ready to leave her behind if she kept being mule-headed. She’d never been on a
motorcycle. The idea of riding along behind the town’s biggest hunk scared her, but it excited her, too. Thrilled her, actually. All that proximity. Bodies pressed against each other.

  “Fine. I’ll go with you.”

  She put the helmet on and struggled with straps and fastenings and earphones. Clint watched long enough to make her want to scream, then without a word stepped over and fixed it for her. He took his sweet time, too.

  “Wait right there. I’ll get on first to steady it, then you climb on behind me.” He gave her a wicked grin. “Better lift that skirt out of the way.”

  “Naturally. I knew that.”

  It took her a while to get on, mainly because she was trying to preserve a shred of modesty. There was no way she could lift her leg over the Harley without ripping Sandi’s dress. In the end, she lifted her skirt to the point of indecency and climbed aboard.

  By the time she was seated she felt like she was showing practically everything she had. Even if the helmet did hide most of her face, everybody in town would recognize that red dress. Served her right for parading around pretending to be something she wasn’t.

  If she’d worn the yellow sundress, she could have looked more like Audrey Hepburn riding behind a hero with her skirt billowing gracefully.

  Clint revved the motor. The sound thrilled her all the way to her toes. Here she was doing something dangerous and sexy, and even if it didn’t mean a thing to Clint, still it was one of the high points of C.J.’s drab, unexciting life.

  “All you have to do is hang on tight and lean in the same direction I do when we take the curves. I’ll try not to scare you.”

  “I’m not scared of anything.”

  “All right, then.” He peeled out and roared down the road. Trees and houses blurred. C.J. felt airborne; she felt exhilarated; she felt free.

  “How’re you doing back there?”

  “I’m rather enjoying myself.” Oh, lord, she sounded like somebody’s maiden aunt. “Great,” she added.

  “Since you’re enjoying the ride so much, why don’t we take a little spin?”