by Cara Colter
The bed was a buck private’s nightmare, but she smiled with pleasure at her final result. To his eye, it looked more like a nest than a well-made bed.
“See?” she said. “I can do ordinary things.”
“Yes,” he said, deadpan. “I can clearly see that.”
Something in his tone must have betrayed him, because she searched his face with grave suspicion.
A drill sergeant would have had the thrill of ripping it apart and making her do it again, but he wasn’t a drill sergeant. In fact, at the moment he was just an ordinary guy, trying to survive.
“Okay,” he said, “if you have everything—”
“Oh, I’ll make yours, too. For practice.”
“What do you need practice making a bed for?” he asked crankily. He didn’t want her touching his bedding.
He was suddenly acutely aware of how alone they were here, of how the dampness of the sea air was making the baggy dress cling to her, of how her short hair was curling slightly from humidity, and there seemed to be a dewy film forming on her skin. He was aware of how her tongue had looked, caught between her teeth.
Ignoring him, she marched right by him into his room. He trailed behind her reluctantly, watched as she opened the trunk where the linens were kept and began tossing them on his bed.
“I’m going to do all kinds of ordinary things this week,” she announced.
“Such as?” He didn’t offer to help her make the bed, just watched, secretly aghast at the mess she was making.
“Cooking!” she decided.
“I can hardly wait.”
He got the suspicious look again.
“Washing dishes. Doing laundry. You can show me those things, can’t you?”
She sounded so enthused he thought she must be pulling his leg, but he could tell by the genuine eager expression on her face she really wasn’t.
How did a man maintain professional distance from a princess who wanted nothing more than to be an ordinary girl, who was enthralled at the prospect of doing the most ordinary of things?
He nodded cautiously.
“I would like to learn how to sew on a button,” she decided. “Do you know how to do that?”
Sewing buttons, insignia, pant hems, was right up there with making beds in a soldier’s how-to arsenal, but she didn’t wait for him to answer.
“And I can’t wait to swim in the ocean! I used to swim here when I was a child. I love it!”
He thought of that bikini in their backpack, closed his eyes, marshaling strength.
“You don’t happen to know how to surf, do you?” she asked him. “There used to be a surfboard under the cottage. I hope it’s still there!”
His boyhood days had been spent on a surfboard. It was probably what had saved him from delinquency, his love of the waves, his need to perfect the dance with the extraordinary, crashing power of them.
“This bay doesn’t look like it would ever get much in the way of surf,” he told her. “It’s pretty protected.”
She looked disappointed, but then brightened. “There’s snorkeling equipment under there, too. Maybe we can do that.”
We, as if they were two kids together on vacation. Now would be the time to let her know he had no intention of being her playmate, but he held his tongue.
She gave his bed a final, satisfied pat. “Well, good night Ronan. I can’t wait for tomorrow.” She blew him a kiss, which was only slightly better than the one she had planted on his cheek earlier in the day.
He rubbed his cheek, aggravated, as if the kiss had actually landed, an uncomfortably whimsical thought for a man who prided himself on his pragmatic nature. He listened for her to get into her own bed, then went on silent feet and checked each side of the cabin.
The night was silent, except for the night birds. The ocean was dark and still, the only lights were from the moon and stars, the few lights on the mainland had winked out.
He went back into his bedroom. He knew he needed to sleep, that it would help him keep his thinking clear and disciplined. He also knew he had acquired, over the years, that gift peculiar to soldiers of sleeping in a state of readiness. Any sound that didn’t belong would awaken him instantly. His highly developed sixth sense would guard them both through the night.
He shrugged out of his shirt but left the shorts on. He certainly didn’t want her to ever see him in his underwear, and he might have to get out of bed quickly in the night. He climbed into bed. It had to be his imagination that her perfume lingered on the sheets. Still, tired as he was, he tossed and turned until finally, an hour later, he got out of the bed, remade it perfectly. He got back in and slept instantly.
* * *
Shoshauna awoke to light splashing across her bed, birdsong, the smell and sound of the sea.
She remembered she was on her grandfather’s island and thought to herself, my heart is home. She remembered her narrow escape from marriage, the unexpected gifts yesterday: riding the motorcycle, buying the daring bathing suit and shorty-shorts.
Kissing Ronan on the cheek. Feeling the muscles of his back as they shared the motorcycle, feeling his hands encircle her waist.
Ronan was a gloriously made man, all hard muscle, graceful efficiency of movement, easy, unconscious strength, a certain breathtaking confidence in his physical abilities. Add to that the soft, firm voice, his accent. And his eyes! A soldier’s eyes to be sure, stern, forbidding even. But when the mask slipped, when they glinted with laughter, she felt this uncontrollable—and definitely wicked—shiver of pure wanting. He made her feel such an amazing mixture of things: excited and shy, aggravated, annoyed, alive.
Shoshauna knew it was wrong to be thinking like that. She was promised to another. And yet...if you could pick a man to spend a week on a deserted island with, you would pick a man like Ronan.
She gave her head a shake at the naughty direction of her own thoughts and realized her head felt unnaturally light and then remembered she had cut her hair.
She had glimpsed her hair in the mirror of the motorcycle. Now she hopped out of bed and had a good look in the mirror above the dressing table.
“Oh!” she said, touching her fingers to it. It looked awful, crushed in places from sleep, standing straight up in others. Despite that, she decided she loved it. It made her look like a girl who would never back down from an adventure, not a princess who had spent her life in a tower, at least figuratively speaking! In fact, she felt in love with life this morning, excited about whatever new gifts the day held. Excited about a chance to get to know Ronan better.
But wasn’t that a betrayal of the man she was promised to?
Not necessarily, she told herself. This was her opportunity to be ordinary!
She realized she had not felt this way—happy, hopeful—since she had said yes to Prince Mahail’s proposal. Up till now she had woken up each and every morning with a knot in her stomach that shopping for the world’s most luxurious trousseau could not begin to undo. She had woken each morning with a growing sense of dread, a prisoner counting down to their date with the gallows.
Her stomach dipped downward, reminding her that her reprieve was probably temporary at best.
But she refused to think of that now, to waste even one precious moment of her freedom.
Ronan had left the backpack in her room, and she pawed through it, found the shorty-shorts and a red, spaghetti-strapped shirt that hugged her curves. She put on the outfit and twirled in front of the mirror, her sense of being an ordinary girl increased sweetly.
Her mother would have hated both the amount of leg showing and the skimpiness of the top, which made Shoshauna enjoy her outfit even more. She liked the way lots of bare skin against warm air felt: free, faintly sensual and very comfortable.
She went out her door, saw his bedroom was already empt
y. She stopped when she saw his bed was made, hesitated, then went in and inspected it. The bedding was crisp and taut. She backed out when she realized the room smelled like him: something so masculine and rich it was nearly drugging.
She went back to her own room, tugged the rumpled bedding into some semblance of order, declared herself and the room perfectly wonderfully ordinary and went in search of Ronan.
He was at the outdoor kitchen, a basket of fruit beside him that he was peeling and cutting into chunks. She watched him for a moment, enjoying the pure poetry of him performing such a simple task, and then blushed when he glanced at her and lifted an eyebrow. He had known she stood there observing him!
Still, there was a flash of something in his eyes as he took in her outfit, before it was quickly veiled, a barrier swiftly erected. And there was no hint of that flash in his voice.
“Princess,” he said formally, “did you sleep well?”
It was several giant steps back from the man who had laughed with her yesterday. She wanted to break down the barrier she saw in his eyes. What good was being an ordinary girl if it was as if she was on this island alone? If her intrigue with this man was not shared?
“You must call me Shoshauna,” she said.
“I can’t.”
She glared at him. “I command it.”
He actually laughed out loud, the same laugh that had given her her first glimpse yesterday of just how real he could be, making her yearn to know him, know someone real.
“Command away, Princess. I’m not calling you by your first name.”
“Why?”
“It’s too familiar. I’m your bodyguard, not your buddy.”
She felt the sting of that. Her disappointment was acute. He wanted the exact opposite of what she wanted! She wanted to feel close to another human being, he wanted to feel distant. She wanted to use this time together to explore his mysteries, he was just as determined to keep them secret.
It was frustrating! Her mother would approve of his attitude, a man who knew his place and was so determined to keep their different positions as a barrier between them.
But so would her grandmother love him. Her grandmother said soldiers made the best husbands, because they already knew how to obey. Not that he was showing any sign of obeying Shoshauna!
And not that she wanted to be thinking of this handsome man and the word husband in the same sentence. She had just narrowly missed making marriage her fate.
Still, she wanted him to participate in the great adventure she was on. How could she forget she was a princess, forget her obligations and duties for a short while, if he was going to insist on reminding her at every turn by using a formal title?
“How about my code name, then?” she asked.
He hesitated, glanced at her, shrugged. She couldn’t tell if it was agreement or appeasement, though whichever it was, she sensed it was a big concession from him, he suddenly refused to look at her, took an avid interest in the fruit in front of him.
“I’ll do that,” she said, moving up beside him. Did he move a careful step away from her? She moved closer. He moved away again and without looking at her, passed her a little tiny knife and a mango.
“Don’t cut your fingers off,” he said dryly.
She watched for a moment as his own fingers handled the knife, removed a fine coil of peel from the fruit. He caught her watching him, again, put down the knife and turned away from her to put wood in the oven.
“What are we going to make in there?” she asked eagerly.
“I’m going to make biscuits.”
“I want to learn!”
“What for?”
“It seems like it would be a useful skill,” she said stubbornly.
“It is a useful skill. For someone like me, who frequently finds himself trying to make the best of rough circumstances. But for a princess?” He shook his head.
“I want to know useful things!”
“What is useful in your world and what is useful in mine are two very different things,” he said almost gently.
Rebelliously she attacked the mango with her knife. Ten minutes later as she looked at the sliver of fruit in front of her, what was left of her mango, she realized he was probably right. Domestication at this late date was probably hopeless. She felt sticky to the elbow, and had managed to get juice in her eye. The mango was mangled beyond recognition.
She cast him a look. Ronan was taking golden-brown biscuits off a griddle above the stove. The scent of them made her mouth water.
“Here,” she said, handing him the remnants of her mango. He took it wordlessly, his face a careful blank, and added it to the plate of fruit he had prepared.
She thought they’d take the food inside to the dining table, but he motioned her over to a little stone bench, set the plate down between them, lifted his face to the morning sun as he picked up a piece of fruit.
She followed his example and picked up a slice of fruit and a biscuit with her fingers.
Shoshauna had dined on the finest foods in the world. She had eaten at the fanciest tables of B’Ranasha, using the most exquisite china and cutlery. But she felt as if she had never tasted food this fine or enjoyed flavor so much.
She decided she loved everything, absolutely everything, about being an ordinary girl. And she hadn’t given up on herself in the domestic department yet, either!
CHAPTER FOUR
AFTER A FEW minutes Shoshauna couldn’t help but notice that her pleasure in the simplicity of the breakfast feast seemed to be entirely one-sided.
Ronan, while obviously enjoying the sunshine and eating with male appetite, seemed pensive, turned in on himself, as anxious not to connect with her as she was to connect with him.
“Are you enjoying breakfast?” she asked, craving conversation, curious about this man who had become her protector.
He nodded curtly.
She realized she was going to have to be more direct! “Tell me about yourself,” she invited.
He shot her a look, looked away. “There’s nothing to tell. I’m a soldier. That means my life is ninety-nine percent pure unadulterated boredom.”
She supposed you didn’t learn to make a bed like that if you led a life of continuous excitement, but she knew he was fudging the truth. She could tell, from the way he carried himself, from the calm with which he had handled things yesterday that he dealt with danger as comfortably as most men dealt with the reading of the morning paper.
“And one percent what?” she asked when it became apparent he was going to add nothing voluntarily.
“All hell breaking loose.”
“Oh!” she said genuinely intrigued. “All hell breaking loose! That sounds exciting.”
“I wish you wouldn’t say that word,” he said, ignoring her implied invitation to share some of his most exciting experiences with her.
“Hell, hell, hell, hell, hell,” she said, and found it very liberating both to say the word and to defy him. Her society prized meekness in women, but she had made the discovery she was not eager to be anyone’s prize!
He shot her a stern look. She smiled back. He wasn’t her father! He didn’t look more than a few years older than she was. He couldn’t tell her how to behave!
He sighed, resigned, she hoped, to the fact he was not going to control her. She’d been controlled quite enough. This was her week to do whatever she wanted, including say hell to her heart’s content.
“What’s the most exciting thing that ever happened to you?” she pressed, when he actually shut his eyes, lifted his chin a bit higher to the sun, took a bite of biscuit, apparently intent on pretending he was dining alone and ignoring her questions.
He thought about it for a minute, but his reluctance to engage in this conversation was palpable. Finally he said,
without even opening his eyes, “I ran into a grizzly bear while in Canada on a mountain survival exercise.”
“Really?” she breathed. “What happened?” It was better than she could have hoped. Better than a movie! She waited for him to tell her what she could picture so vividly—Ronan wrestling the primitive animal to the ground with his bare hands...
“It ran one way and I ran the other.”
She frowned, sharply disappointed at his lack of heroics. “That doesn’t sound very exciting!”
“I guess you had to be there.”
“I think I would like to go to the mountains in Canada.” Yes, even with bears, or maybe because of bears, it sounded like an adventure she’d enjoy very much. “Are the mountains beautiful? Is there snow?”
“Yes, to both.”
“What’s snow like?” she asked wistfully.
“Cold.”
“No, what does it feel like.” Again, he was trying to disengage, but he was the only person she’d ever met who had experienced snow, and she had to know.
“It’s different all the time,” he said, giving in a little, as if he sensed her needing to know. “If it’s very cold the snow is light and powdery, like frozen dust. If it’s warmer it’s heavy and wet and sticks together. You can build things with it when it’s like that.”
“Like a snowman?”
“Yeah, I suppose. I built a snow cave out of it.”
“Which kind is better for sledding?”
“The cold, dry kind. What do you know about that?”
“Nothing. I’ve seen it on television. I’ve always had a secret desire to try it, a secret desire to see different things than here, more beautiful.”
“I don’t know if there’s anything more beautiful than this,” he said. “It’s a different kind of beauty. More rugged. The landscape there is powerful rather than gentle. It reminds a person of how small they are and how big nature is.” He suddenly seemed to think he was talking too much. “I’m sure your husband will take you there if you want to go,” he said abruptly.
