The Rancher's Christmas Princess. Christine RimmerЧитать онлайн книгу.
went up the steps and disappeared inside. Preston offered his arm and she took it. They proceeded up the steps at a slower pace. “So...do we wait out here until he gives the okay?”
She felt her cheeks redden. Really, all these security protocols did become tiresome. “It should be only a minute or two. And the good news is, once he gives the all clear, if you ever invite me back, he won’t insist on doing this again.”
“You sure?” Blue eyes teased.
“I promise.” Her gaze drifted to his mouth. It was a fine mouth, firm and yet well-shaped. She wondered what it might feel like pressed to hers—which was a completely unacceptable and inappropriate thing to be wondering.
She was not going to kiss this man. She hardly knew this man. This evening was not about kisses and she desperately needed to remember that.
“Don’t look now, but here comes my father.” Preston’s gaze had shifted. He was looking out across the front yard. Which meant maybe he hadn’t seen her staring at his lips—she hoped. “Whatever he says, don’t believe a word of it.”
She turned to look. A tall, rangy white-haired man with a thick, walrus-worthy moustache came striding toward them dressed in a pair of jeans that had seen better days and one of those waffle-weave shirts that looked like it doubled as his pajamas. He had bushy gray brows and a definite gleam in his eyes.
“Preston,” he said, his voice deep and rumbling and full of good humor. “Where’s your manners? You bring a lady home, you know I need to meet her. It’s only right I give her warning about you.” The old guy’s mustache twitched. He gave Belle a wink. “I’m Silas. The charming half of the family.” He offered a leathery hand.
Belle took it. “Arabella. Please call me Belle.”
He enclosed her hand between both of his. His gray eyes twinkled down at her. “I heard about you. They say you’re a princess....”
“Back it down a notch, Dad,” Preston muttered dryly.
The door opened and Marcus emerged. “All clear, ma’am.”
Silas patted her hand before letting it go. “A bodyguard. I can tell by that thing in his ear. And the lack of any facial expression whatsoever.”
Preston appeared to be suppressing a groan. “Why don’t we go in?” He gestured at the open door.
“Don’t mind if I do, son.” Silas gave a little bow. “But after you, Your Loveliness.”
Belle grinned. She couldn’t help it. So often, people were intimidated by her background. Not Silas McCade. “Why thank you, Silas.” She led the way into a roomy two-story foyer. Wide stairs led to the upper floor. It seemed to her a sturdy, solid house. A house that could do with a woman’s touch—some brighter colors, different curtains. But still, it was a fine house. Clean and well-maintained.
“Let’s go in the living room.” Preston helped her out of her coat and hung it on the hall tree, along with his own and that handsome cowboy hat he always wore. Then he gestured toward the open double door to her left. She went in. The McCade men followed. Marcus remained behind, near the front door. Preston told her, “Have a seat.”
She did, on the sofa.
Silas took an easy chair across from her. “A little whiskey would be welcome, son. You, Belle?”
“Nothing right now, thank you.”
Preston poured a drink, gave it to his father and sat down in the other easy chair.
Silas started talking. About how he had the foreman’s cottage across the yard, about how it got lonely at the ranch on a cold winter night. “Nice,” he said, “to have a little feminine company around this old place.” He started in about the horses they raised. “Preston’s good with horses and our breeding program is one of the best in the state. But I’m what they call a natural. You heard about those horse whisperers? I can do them one better. I don’t even have to whisper. A horse just naturally wants to please me. They know what I’m thinking and they do what I want them to do without me having to breathe a word.”
Preston advised softly, “Don’t let false modesty stand in your way, Dad.”
“Never have. Never will.” Silas drained the last of his drink and stood again. “Well, I guess I’ve monopolized the conversation enough for this evening.” He gave a nod of his shining silver head. “Belle, it’s been a delight to meet you.”
“And to meet you, Silas.”
Now Silas seemed almost shy. “You come back again. Anytime. Often.”
“Thank you.”
He left them.
Preston waited until the front door closed behind him. “No one quite like my dad.”
“He’s a charmer, definitely.”
“For God’s sake, don’t ever tell him that. He’s impossible to live with as it is.”
“I doubt that. I’m guessing he’s good company. And that the two of you get along quite well together.”
Preston looked at her levelly then. “Yeah, you guessed right.”
She thought of her cousin Charlotte, her companion, who was back at their lodgings, with Ben. She counted on Charlotte in so many ways. They’d been together for four years. And they did well together, she and Charlotte. She imagined that Preston’s relationship with his father might be somewhat the same.
He was watching her.
She met and held his gaze. It was so easy to do, to look at him. And it felt...good. Warm and exciting to be here with him. She hadn’t expected this. To be so attracted to him. As a rule, she was a down-to-earth, practical person, not prone to flirtations or easy infatuations.
It probably wasn’t a good thing to be so taken with him, when you came right down it. It was hard enough to be calm and objective about the task before her without these sparks flashing back and forth between them.
He said, “You’re so quiet, all of a sudden....”
“Sorry. Just...thinking.”
“About?”
“I was...” Tell him. Tell him now. But her courage deserted her. “...wondering if you have this big house all to yourself?”
“I do. My dad moved across the yard when I got back from college. He said it was a fine thing that I wanted to work with him. But the house would be mine one day and I might as well lay claim to it. He said the smaller house suited him. Doris, our longtime housekeeper, used to live in. But she remarried last year and moved to her new husband’s place. He’s got five acres not far from here. She comes in Monday through Friday to clean—here and across the yard at the old man’s place. She also cooks for us.”
“How many hired men do you have here?”
“We keep two hands on year-round, and then hire at least two more in the spring. There’s another house, the men’s cabin, with a living area downstairs and an open sleeping loft that holds six beds.”
She remembered. “The cabin near the barn?”
“That’s right. Doris cooks for the hands, too, Monday through Friday. Weekends, we play the meals by ear. It works out fine.”
He would need a full-time nanny. Ben would change his life completely. He had no idea....
In her mind’s eye, she saw him, suddenly, sitting in Anne’s lap, his blond head tipped back to smile at her adoringly, in those last days before she grew too ill to sit up.
Anne.
A sudden, hard wave of loss rolled through her. Her stomach knotted, her throat clutched and tears welled. She swallowed them down, blinked the moisture away.
“Belle?” He was