wanting to pick up where they’d left off. The one thing he was sure of in all of this mess was that he couldn’t let that happen. He was wiser now and he’d be damned if he’d let her break through his defenses again.
Yet he couldn’t stop himself from taking stock of her classic beauty as she slept—the porcelain complexion, long blond hair, gently winged brows, wide-set eyes, regally sculpted cheekbones—and feel a hard knot of yearning tighten in his gut. He checked it as abruptly as it started. Obviously, she hadn’t lost sleep over their parting. The child at her side was the proof of that. More to the point, it drove home one indisputable fact: she hadn’t wasted any time moving from his bed to another.
A part of him would like to hate her for that. He didn’t have it in him. Just like he didn’t have it in him to love her. Not again. Not even in the face of the danger she was in. Not even in the face of the temptation.
He looked away. For the last time, there was no reason to go there. She was as out of bounds now as she’d been then. Only now, he was wise enough to know up front where the boundaries began. More importantly, he knew where they ended. And he no longer needed her to spell it out for him. She, after all, was a princess. And as she’d so convincingly implied four years ago, he was no prince.
What he was, he acknowledged with a grim set to his mouth, was a sucker for a damsel in distress. What he would be, he assured himself as he looked away from the tumble of blond hair framing her face, was damn glad when this blew over and Her Royal Highness jetsetted out of his life again and got back to the one she’d been born and bred to live.
One
Four months later. The Royal Diner, Royal, Texas
Gearing up for the breakfast rush, Anna snagged a juice glass on her way to the cooler, filled it and breezed on out toward booth number six. She reset the coffeemaker on her way by as a fleeting thought of her wild escape from Obersbourg four months ago ran through her mind. So much had happened—the risky rescue, the safety factor that was at best a fluid thing while Ivan continued a full-scale search for her, her fear for Sara’s babies until Gregory’s brother, Blake, had rescued them and brought them safely to Royal. Yet in spite of all that, a soft smile tilted her lips as she thought of something Gregory had said to her on that midnight flight. Something that had seemed ominous then, amusing now.
“Don’t worry, Anna. No one in town will know who you are, much less recognize you. We’ve seen to that.”
At the time, she hadn’t understood what he’d meant. Two days later he’d shown up at her door with a pink polyester uniform and instructed her to report for work as a waitress at the Royal Diner as part of her cover to keep her identity concealed. She’d understood perfectly then.
As unthinkable as it had seemed at the time, his intent had been as clear as Waterford crystal: Anna von Oberland—whose royal blood lines could be traced back over seven centuries, who had been tutored by the most prestigious private instructors in Europe, then Swiss educated at the collegiate level, who owned advanced degrees m business and economics, who was successor to the throne of kings—was to be transformed from Her Most Serene Royal Highness, the Esteemed Princess of Obersbourg, to a waitress, in the form of down-home girl, Annie Grace.
The unthinkable hadn’t ended there. Neither had the surprises. In the past months since she’d been hiding out in Royal as Annie Grace, she’d not only played the part of Annie Grace, she’d been having the time of her life.
One of the reasons for all that fun grinned at her from behind the grill as she elbowed up to the cook’s counter to place an order.
A pair of coal-black eyes met hers, sparkling flirtatiously. “You have a need, Annie-mine?”
“I have a need for a short stack, two eggs over easy, a side of bacon, wheat-no-butter, please, Manny.”
“Sure thing, Annie sweetheart, darlin’ dear. Anything else I can do for you while my fire’s hot?”
Anna tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile. Even if she hadn’t caught the meaningful waggle of Manny Reno’s dark brows, she’d have known he wasn’t referring to the fire under his grill. Manny, a beautiful Chicano bodybuilder and part-time cook, was an incorrigible and accomplished flirt. And like most of the hardy Texans she’d met since Gregory had eased her quietly into Royal four months ago, he was also about as dangerous as a slice of his coconut cream pie.
Grinning, she clipped the order to the revolving wheel above the counter and reached for the coffeepot. “Give me a break, Manny. It’s 6:00 a.m. It’s Monday. I haven’t built up the strength yet to spar with you.”
“Well, you see now, beautiful girl...” Manny’s black eyes danced from the rich caramel backdrop of his face. “...that’s all part of my strategy. Get’cha while you’re not awake enough to fight this intense attraction you feel for me.”
“Well...there is that.” She shot him a coy smile then sobered abruptly. “Oh, wait.” Bracing a hand to her forehead, she closed her eyes. “I feel something—yes. Here it is now. My better judgment just arrived to save the day. Whew. That was close. For a minute there, I almost lost my head. Sorry, Manny—and we were going to have such a good time, too.”
“Oh, maaan.” Manny groaned, heavy on the theatrics, as he poured batter onto the griddle, then expertly flipped an omelette. “You are breaking my heart here.”
Sheila Foster sidled up to the counter just then, hooked an order on the clip. She sliced Anna a quick, conspiratorial wink before firing her own shot at Manny. “You gotta have a heart to get one broken.”
Sheila was currently single, twice divorced and fighting a size twelve for all she was worth. The fact that she had a hard and heavy case on Manny wasn’t lost on Anna. Neither was it lost on Manny, who, after almost two months of drooling over Sheila, hadn’t worked up the courage to do something about it.
“Who’s callin’ the kettle black, little Sheba?” Manny accused with a grin so sweet Anna could almost taste the honey.
“It’s Sheila, you big ape, and I’ve got a heart. I just don’t see any point wasting any extra beats over you.”
“You know you’re nuts about me, my little chili pepper.”
“The only one nuts around here is you. Now is my number five up yet or did you have to run down a chicken and squeeze the eggs out of her?”
Laughing at their good-natured sniping, Anna headed for the booth where Homer Gaffney sat. Homer smiled when she approached, causing deep creases to dig even deeper grooves into the wizened old face that looked up at her from beneath the dusty brim of a stained and dented straw cowboy hat.
“Here’s your juice, Homer. And you’re drinking regular, not decaf this morning, right?”
“Gotta have the high octane this mornin’, Annie. Full day ahead a’ me. Movin’ the herd. From the sound of things we’ll be bucking stout sou’west winds and a boatload of dust. I’m gonna need all the caffeine I can get.”
As she filled Homer’s cup, she felt that little prickle of unease that sometimes crept up on her when someone looked at her in that I’ve-seen-you-before-kind-of-way. The way Homer was looking at her now.
“I just can’t get over how much you look like that fancy princess woman. Oh, what is her name, anyway?”
“Fergie?”
