The Accidental Princess

by Peggy Webb

  He’d written beautiful things about her in the article, which didn’t surprise her at all now that she’d put some distance between them, now that she’d had time to simmer down and reflect.

  The words blurred as she reread the piece. Her father walked through the den and said, “Anything interesting?”

  Holding the paper in front of her face, she wiped her eyes. “Not much,” she said.

  “I’m headed to Ellie’s.”

  “Have a good time.”

  “You can count on it.”

  She didn’t even feel jealous. How could she? She’d been numb ever since she left Jackson yesterday.

  “Dad? Before you go, there’s something I’d like to talk to you about.”

  Sam settled into his favorite easy chair. “Fire away.”

  “Maybe this is callous youth talking and maybe you’re going to say it’s none of my business, but you and Ellie aren’t getting any younger.”

  Sam laughed. “It’s your business because we’re a family, and you’re right. Ellie and I aren’t young anymore, but that doesn’t stop us from having a heck of a wonderful time together.”

  “That’s just what I mean. It doesn’t make sense for the two of you to live in separate houses. One of you should move in with the other. It’d save a lot of wear and tear on both of you. All this racing back and forth.”

  “What brought all this discussion on?”

  “Well, I’ll be gone soon…and maybe I’m finally growing up.”

  She didn’t fool her father for a minute. Sam polished his glasses, a sure sign he was concentrating on what he considered a problem.

  “Crystal Jean, you haven’t been yourself since you came back from Jackson. Is there anything you’d like to talk to me about?”

  “No, Dad. I have a lot on my mind, that’s all.”

  “Okay. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

  “Give Ellie a kiss for me.”

  “You bet I will,” he said, then he was out the door and for the first time since her return she had the house all to herself. A dangerous thing for a woman in her condition.

  C.J. felt raw, all nerve endings and very little brain. Every time she thought of being in Clint’s arms, which was practically every waking moment, she got giddy and nostalgic and even hopeful. Where there was that much passion, surely there was love.

  But if he’d felt love, wouldn’t he have said so? Of course he would, which led her to one conclusion: the night that would live forever in her memory was nothing more than another rescue mission to him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Two weeks after Gabrielle Jones won the dairy princess crown, all hell broke loose in Mississippi’s dairy industry. And all because of Clint Garrett.

  While covering the dairy princesses he’d uncovered one of the biggest scandals to hit the state. The pageant’s director, Leroy Levant, was up to his neck in dairy kickbacks on both the state and national level. Several prominent politicians were involved in the scheme, including Senator Marcus Tobias whose daughter was the anonymous source. Using information she provided, Clint bulldogged the story until he had enough evidence to break it wide open.

  The story broke in the little-known weekly in Hot Coffee then was picked up by the likes of the Washington Post. Wayne, bursting with pride and newfound notoriety, traveled down the Natchez Trace Parkway to Jackson to talk with his former ace reporter.

  They sat in lawn chairs on the postage stamp-sized deck of Clint’s recently rented apartment sipping bloody Mary’s although it was only two in the afternoon.

  “You’re now the hottest reporter in the state,” Wayne said, and Clint replied in his typical, laid-back fashion.

  “I guess so.”

  “Hell, I know so.”

  The silence that fell over them was comfortable and easy, the kind that happens only when two good friends get together. As always when he had nothing else to do but think, Clint cogitated on C.J. Maxey.

  He wondered where she was and what she was doing and whether she was thinking of him. And what she was thinking of him. Whatever it was, it was probably venomous.

  She’d been madder than a ’coon cornered by hound dogs when she left.

  There was just no pleasing some women.

  Wayne shifted his feet onto the deck’s railing, tipped back his head and studied the sun. “It’s getting late.”

  He didn’t have to say, “I’ll soon be going.” Clint knew, so all he did was say, “Yep.”

  Though Wayne had no schedules to keep and no one waiting for him at home, he was a man in love with routine. He watched the ten o’clock news, then poured himself a bourbon and Coke and settled into his nest, which consisted of four pillows stacked on the right side of his bed within easy reach of the latest novel he was reading.

  He would read till eleven-thirty and then put out the lights, no matter if he was right in the middle of the most interesting scene in the book, even if he was in the middle of murder.

  Everybody who knew Wayne Vaughn knew his routine. He told it every year at the office Christmas party, and that was the extent of his socializing.

  Driving three hundred miles out of his way for a visit was rare for the editor of the Hot Coffee Tribune. The visit was a tribute to their friendship as well as to Clint’s heretofore hidden talent.

  “I guess you’ll be leaving soon, yourself,” Wayne said.

  “Maybe.”

  “That’s some mighty attractive offers you got.”

  Clint didn’t say anything. Every time he tried to envision himself working at a big paper in Chicago or Atlanta or Washington, he felt such a sense of emptiness he wondered if he might be coming down with a serious disease.

  Heart problems.

  It could happen. Men younger than he had died from failed hearts.

  “Decided which one you’ll take yet?”

  “I’m still mulling it over.”

  “Don’t wait too long. Lightning might not strike twice.” Wayne stood up and shook his hand. “You’re always welcome at the Tribune, but nothing would make me happier than to see the taillights of your Harley disappearing in the direction of Atlanta. There’re some mighty good newsmen over there. A man could go places and learn a lot.”

  So far the only place Clint could think about going was a certain little yellow house in Hot Coffee, Mississippi, which was proof of only one thing: C.J. Maxey was some kind of witch. Obviously she’d cast a spell over him.

  He knew his obsession with her would peter out in a few days. After all, he’d never kept a woman in his mind longer than the time it took her to get out the door and down the road a piece.

  What he needed was to find a good fishing hole and sit on the bank for a while until his natural wandering instincts took over again. Then he’d be free to strike out wherever the notion took him.

  Maybe he’d go to Atlanta, give big-city life and heavy-duty reporting a whirl. Nothing was holding him in Mississippi.

  Nothing except a sassy woman he couldn’t seem to forget.

  The only person who knew what had happened the night before C.J. withdrew from the dairy princess pageant was Sandi, and she didn’t know the particulars. All she knew was that C.J. needed her now as never before, and for the rest of the summer she was in the Maxey house more than in her own.

  Sandi stopped accepting work that would take her out of town. Instead she stayed in Hot Coffee photographing weddings and painting portraits and making sure that C.J. was too busy to mourn her lost love.

  But her efforts were in vain. As long as Sam was in the house C.J. pretended perkiness, but as soon as he was out the door she fell into a deep sorrow that nothing could cure.

  “Nobody ever died of a broken heart,” she told C.J.

  They were standing in the middle of C.J.’s bedroom sorting through clothes deciding what C.J. would take to school and what she would leave behind. “It doesn’t feel that way.”

  “How well I know. Of course, in hindsight I’l
l have to say that I never loved any of the men I was going to marry.” Sandi held up a pair of faded jeans that happened to be C.J.’s favorites, then tossed them into the discard pile. “I thought I did, though, and that’s what counts.”

  “My situation is not like yours, Sandi. I really do love Clint Garrett.” C.J. rescued her jeans and tossed them into a suitcase.

  “How can you be sure? Maybe you only think you do because he was your first. Women are often sentimental about their first.”

  “I just know, that’s all.”

  “Yes, but how do you know?”

  C.J. wished for her mother’s common sense, Ellie’s wisdom and even Dolly’s self-assurance, but all she had to guide her was a night of paradise and a heart on fire.

  “If it’s true love, it’s magic. That’s how I know.”

  And having known she could never settle for less.

  C.J. glanced around the room that had been her haven for twenty-five years. Leaving was bittersweet.

  “Don’t worry, C.J. Your dad’s in good hands.”

  “I know.”

  “You’ll be less than a hundred miles from home.”

  “It already seems like more.”

  “I’ll come down when I can to visit, and you’ll be home often.”

  “It’s not that.”

  “What, then?”

  “I feel as if I’m saying goodbye to a whole way of life.”

  “In a way, you are.” Sandi took her hands. “I know I can never take the place of Phoebe or Ellie, and I know I’m not very wise, but I have learned a few things from my travels and my many failed relationships. When you walk away from one thing, you’re walking toward another.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The main problem with choosing a new city and a different newspaper and getting on with his life was that Clint had a few loose ends to tie up in his old one. Namely C.J. Maxey.

  She hadn’t vanished from his mind. If anything, she’d gotten stronger.

  Everything would have been okay if she’d gone along with his plan, but no, she had to go off on a tangent and refuse to see reason. What she’d done was destroy his peace of mind.

  Until he saw her and set things right, there was no way he could have a future. He was a man in limbo.

  Even fishing couldn’t rescue him. Even drinking and shooting pool and trying to pick up other women didn’t work because while he hadn’t been looking the other women had all turned into silly, simpering sheep wearing too much eye makeup and not enough clothes.

  Furthermore, he couldn’t drink enough to drown C.J., and he lost so many billiard games he was laughed out of the pool hall.

  And so one fine September morning he packed a duffel bag and struck out on his motorcycle for Hot Coffee. He didn’t have a plan but he did have a goal: to marry C.J. Maxey.

  He stopped in Shady Grove for lunch, then on impulse bought a dozen roses—red this time because pink didn’t seem to work very well—and a bottle of cheap champagne.

  Cheap because he hadn’t earned a paycheck in six weeks, and although he was borderline famous that still didn’t make him rich. Or even successful.

  By the time he got to Hot Coffee he was sweating profusely, partially because it was one of those hotter-than-the-hinges-of-hell September days that acted more like July, but mostly because he was nervous.

  Any man in his shoes would be. Face it, he was fixing to propose to a woman who had already turned him down once. Plus, he didn’t even know what he was going to say.

  He guessed he’d let the roses and champagne do the talking for him. Women liked that kind of thing. Shoot, if C.J. had seen his pink roses she might have changed her mind.

  Maybe he’d made a mistake getting red instead of pink. Maybe he ought to drive back over to Shady Grove and get some pink ones just in case.

  He was still vacillating between going back and going on when the yellow house leaped out at him. Too late to turn back now.

  Before he killed the engine he could tell no one was home. The house had a deserted look. Too, his instincts told him that C.J. was nowhere near.

  Wasn’t that just his luck? The champagne was getting lukewarm, the roses were wilting and he wasn’t far from it himself.

  Maybe something he ate in Shady Grove didn’t agree with him. Maybe the idea of marriage didn’t agree with him.

  If he had a lick of sense he’d give the roses to the next woman he met, drink the champagne and head to someplace as far away from Hot Coffee as he could get.

  Maybe Alaska. Where it was cool. Where there were no dairy princesses, accidental or otherwise.

  “Clint?” Sandi appeared out of nowhere. “I saw the motorcycle and guessed it might be you.”

  “Where’d you come from?”

  “Through the hedge.” She laughed. “C.J. and I made that path between our houses when we were children.” She looked at the roses and her face lit up. “You’re looking for C.J!”

  “Yes. Do you know where she is?”

  “She’s in Starkville. In school.”

  Good news for her, bad for him. Or maybe not. Maybe Sandi was the voice of Fate saying, Keep on going.

  “She got a marvelous scholarship,” Sandi added. “That plus a student loan and a part-time job in the campus bookstore will see her through.”

  “So she’s an independent woman now? Good for her.”

  “She has her own apartment. I can give you her address.”

  He meant to say, “Don’t bother,” but what he actually said was, “Where does she live?”

  Fifteen minutes later he was twenty miles down the road heading back the way he’d come, calling himself fifty different kinds of fool.

  Thirty minutes down the road he was still telling himself he could take any turn he wanted to and head in the other direction.

  Five minutes later he stopped at a service station to get some fresh water for those aggravating little plastic doodads the rose stems were in, and ten minutes after that he stopped at another one to ice down the champagne. He bought a Mars bar and sat on a rickety picnic bench for thirty minutes while the champagne cooled off. Then he hopped on his Harley and tore out for Starkville.

  There was no turning back now.

  When C.J. first heard the roar of a motorcycle she told herself not to be silly, that it couldn’t possibly be Clint Garrett. She went back to folding her laundry, then as the roar came closer instinct propelled her across the room where she eased back the curtain and tried to see out. Unfortunately an overgrown tea olive bush was in the way.

  Any sane woman would have gone back to her laundry, but where Clint was concerned, C.J. was not sane. She raced into the bathroom to wash her face and comb her hair. As if it mattered.

  Even if Clint did show up on her doorstep, he’d surely be up to no good.

  The motorcycle ground to a stop and so did C.J.’s heart. When her doorbell rang she couldn’t move. What if it was Clint? What would she say?

  What if it wasn’t? Would she die of disappointment?

  The bell rang again. It was Clint. She sensed his presence even before she opened the door.

  She nearly cried when she saw him. Never had a man looked so wonderful. And when he smiled at her, she floated two feet off the floor on secret wings unfurling beneath her T-shirt.

  “Hello, Clint.”

  “Hello, C.J.”

  They stared at each other the way intimate almost-strangers will, long and deep. Their thoughts hovered above them, screaming, drowning out any possibility of speech.

  Paralysis slowly left C.J. and she swung open the door. Clint followed her inside, a tall, well-built man who made the apartment seem tiny. She took a straight-backed chair near the window, and he sat on the sofa with his knees bumping the coffee table.

  “I brought these for you.”

  The roses he held out for her drooped and gasped on stems he’d squeezed within an inch of their life.

  “They are wonderful. Thank you.”

  Her
eyes got tangled up with his again and she had to look away. Burying her face in the blossoms she took a deep, steadying breath while she tried to figure out the meaning of flowers. It wasn’t her birthday, it wasn’t Valentine’s or Christmas or Easter.

  Men didn’t bring flowers unless they were serious, did they? Of course, Clint was not any man. Flowers could mean anything to him or nothing at all. They could mean…

  “Are you going to smell the roses all day or are you going to look at me?”

  She looked, and discovered that looking was dangerous. Every erotic dream she’d had of him for the last six weeks sprang to life, and she wanted to race across the room and throw herself into his arms. She wanted to moan and scream and carry on like a woman dying of love. Which she was.

  “I’m looking.”

  “You don’t have to bite my head off.”

  “I’m not snarling. That’s just my natural personality shining through.”

  “Try shining a little less.”

  “Try judging a little less.”

  Great. He’d been here less than five minutes and already they were at each other’s throats. When there was so much to be said between them, why couldn’t C.J. curb her sharp tongue for just three minutes and let him talk? Why couldn’t she be meek and mild and gentle and tell him exactly how she felt?

  “Look, I’m sorry, C.J. We got off on the wrong foot.”

  “Again.”

  “Yeah, again.”

  The endearing way he smiled could break a woman’s heart. And did. C.J. heard pieces of hers falling.

  “Why don’t I put these in water, then when I come back we’ll pretend you’ve just walked in the door and we’ll start all over.”

  “Deal.”

  In the kitchen for no reason at all she started to cry. Grabbing a dish towel she wiped her tears and swore she’d do better.

  She didn’t have a proper vase to put the roses in, so she washed a peanut butter jar she’d emptied at lunch. She tried to peel the label off but most of it got stuck and wouldn’t budge. Since she didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon in the kitchen thinking dirty words to an inanimate object, she went back into the den carrying Clint’s wilting floral offering as if it were the crown jewels of England.