The Cinderella Rules

by Donna Kauffman

  She looked at the phone again. What would it solve? she asked herself for the millionth time. Nothing had changed. Sure, he was done in D.C. Had freed himself up to do anything he wanted. He’d be leaving town any moment now. If he hadn’t set off already.

  So. Did she want him to come here? Sweep her off her feet? Take her around the world with him? Was that it? Was that what she wanted? Adventure? Excitement? She stared unseeing out the back window. She didn’t want to give up her ranch. But there was no denying that since her little stint in D.C., life here had seemed to lack a bit of . . . color. It was still rewarding, still fulfilling. But there was something missing now. And she suspected it was more than just the alone part. The part about not sharing it with anyone else. She wasn’t cut out for Washington. But maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t cut out for holing up in the middle of nowhere, alone with her horses for the rest of her life, either.

  She snatched the phone off the hook and punched the number for the operator before she could question if she’d truly lost her mind. “Bozeman Airport,” she said when the woman answered. “Yes, connect me please. Thanks.” Her hands were shaking. Both in abject fear over what she was about to do . . . and the fact that she was willing to fly somewhere—anywhere—to do it. If that wasn’t love, she didn’t know what was.

  “Yes,” she said, voice shaky, when a young man answered the phone. “I want to book the first flight you have for Washington, D.C. I don’t care which airport.” She looked around blindly for a pen, then scribbled the information he gave her on the side of the box of Cheerios she’d left on the table. “Yes, yes, thank you.” She dug out her credit card and rattled off the number, then thanked the man, hung up . . . and promptly buried her face in her arms. “Dear God in heaven, what the hell am I doing?”

  She sat like that for too long, anxiety growing to almost paralyzing proportions as she tried to imagine herself striding into Four Stones and announcing to Shane that she’d been wrong, that she was, in fact, willing to give it all up for him. What if he was already gone? Or worse—

  Her head shot up. What if he’d already found someone else? “Shit, shit, shit. Why didn’t I think of that?” Of course he hadn’t sat around like she had, pining like a pathetic, asinine, lovesick fool. The utter silence coming her way from Washington should have been her first clue.

  She immediately grabbed the phone, started punching in the numbers for the airport. She’d been an idiot to think she could wait this long, then just stroll back into his life. She simply had to get over this. Over him. Get a new life. She’d take up square dancing or something. Smitty’s wife gave lessons down at the hardware store in town after hours, she’d heard. She could find a hobby. Knitting, stamp-collecting. Something, anything. But she wasn’t about to go chasing after some man and make a giant fool of herself. She had her pride, right?

  She’d punched in the numbers three times and still hadn’t gotten it right, and was swearing even as the tears trickled down her cheeks. Then she heard the dogs outside begin to bark and smacked the phone onto the table and shoved out of her chair to see what the ruckus was about.

  “Great, just great.” Who in the hell was showing up now? Probably just one of her boarders, wanting to spend time with their horse or go for an evening ride. She stood and looked out the back window, to see which boarder it was, hoping it was a long-timer, so she wouldn’t have to go out.

  But it wasn’t a car that had pulled up, or a truck. It was someone already on horseback. The nearest ranch was a good ten-mile ride away, so it wasn’t impossible that it was a neighbor, but it was unlikely. Besides, she didn’t recognize the mount, or the rider. She pushed out the back screen door to her porch, absently wiping her face dry on her sleeve. “Excuse me, can I help you?” she called out.

  The man was wearing a deep-brimmed cowboy hat that cast his face into shadow. He was a good-sized man, and Darby admitted he filled out his duster pretty nicely. Sat his mount pretty well, too.

  “I came to see if you were looking to hire.”

  Darby froze. No way. She was hallucinating. Or she’d had more of a complete breakdown back in her kitchen than she’d thought. Because that voice sounded just like—

  He doffed his hat then.

  “Shane?” Her heart beat so fast she clutched her hand over it to keep it from busting through her shirt.

  “Ah,” he said, crossing his heart with his hat, “I see my name precedes me. Yes, I am Shane Morgan. At your service. Now, I know you probably heard I was something of an upstart. But I do have experience in ranching. Of course, it was llamas in Argentina. And then there was that emu farm in Tasmania. But horses can’t be all that different, can they? I could get references.” He grinned. “Probably.”

  Darby just stood there, balling her flannel shirt into a knot, trying to process that he was really and truly right there in front of her. Here. He was here. It was the grin that snapped her out of it. Oh, how she’d missing seeing that face.

  “References, hm?” she said, not sure where in the hell she found the aplomb to pull it off. “Well, unfortunately, I’m not hiring at the moment. As it happens, I just scheduled a trip out of town. There’s someone in D.C. I was hoping had waited for me. You see, I can be somewhat of an upstart myself. Not to mention a little hardheaded. Okay, a lot hardheaded,” she amended when he arched one brow. She fought to keep it together. She had to get through this. She owed him that much, at the very least. “And when he gave me the chance to have everything I ever wanted, I blew him off, because I was afraid to take the chance. I was looking for the sure thing. But . . . I guess I realized when I watched my dad wander helplessly around my barns a few weeks later that there is no sure thing. At any given moment, your whole world can be turned upside down. And I’d foolishly thought that if I didn’t risk the danger of heartbreak, that it would never happen to me again.” She wrapped an arm around her middle, fighting for the courage to finish. “Only it did. My whole world turned upside down during the space of one limo ride. Only I was too foolish to see it, to believe in it. So now I’m miserable. And my heart is breaking anyway. It doesn’t seem to want to stop. So . . . I thought I’d go tell him that. Only . . . only I hadn’t heard from him and I wasn’t sure he’d waited for me. And I couldn’t blame him if he didn’t. But—but you see, I love him. With everything I have in me that’s capable of it . . . and if maybe, just maybe, we told the people we love that we love them, you know, more often, or even ever, then we’d all be a lot happier. No matter where we live. Or what we do. You know?” She fought to keep her legs from shaking. But it felt like her whole life had just opened up again . . . in a giant yawning chasm of doubt and anticipation . . . and she was scared to death she’d screw it up. Again. “Say something,” she whispered.

  He looked at her, his own eyes glassy with emotion. And said the only two words she needed to hear. “I waited.” And then he was sliding off his horse and she was climbing over the porch railing.

  She leaped, he caught her in midair. She wrapped her legs around him as he swung her around.

  They were both laughing and a bit dizzy when he finally set her down. She touched his face, his lips. “You’re really here.”

  “Well, I know how you hate to fly,” he said wryly, but gazing at her so intently, and with such open adoration, she could feel it all the way to her toes. “I thought I’d save you the hassle.”

  “You saved me. You have. Oh, Shane.” She couldn’t wait. She pulled his mouth to hers, fell into his kiss, which was a thousand times more wonderful than she’d remembered, dreamed about, moped endlessly over . . . and never thought she’d have again.

  “I missed you, Cinderella,” he said.

  “Yeah, me, too,” she said, reveling in his hands on her. “So,” she said, sniffing a little as she tilted her head back. “Emu-ranching, huh?”

  He shrugged. “It was a few years back, but I’m pretty sure it will all come back to me.”

  She grinned, but even knowing she wanted to take
the next leap, she still had to take a little breath to steel herself to do it. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe we need a refresher course.”

  “What, you thinking of expanding your operation here? I’m not sure emus like the northern climate.”

  “Actually,” she said, holding his gaze steadily, finding her strength right there in his eyes. “I, uh, I was thinking about a firsthand refresher course. I’ve never been to Tasmania.”

  Shane stilled. “Darby, you don’t have to—”

  “I might not be cut out to be a Washington socialite,” she said, far more steadily this time. “Or an undercover spy. But being with you . . . well, I realized I had cut myself off from a lot of what life might have to offer me outside this ranch. So . . . I propose a deal.”

  He leaned down and kissed her hard and fast. “Done.”

  She laughed, feeling giddier and more lighthearted than she could ever remember being in her whole life. “You haven’t even heard it yet.”

  Shane just smiled. “Sweetheart, I have the whole deal. Right here.” He squeezed her. “It’s more than I could ever want. The rest is a bonus. I love you, Darby Landon of the East Coast Landons. I’m sure that my life will always be an adventure with you.”

  “You think?”

  He tipped her chin up. “I know.” He kissed her, only this time it was long and slow.

  “I love you, too, Shane Morgan.”

  He sighed. “And my life is complete.” He swung her around again, making her squeal. “Do we have to do this emu research right off?”

  “Um, no. No, not at all,” she said, reading quite accurately the look in his eyes. “It can wait.”

  “Good.” He swung her up in his arms. “Because I can’t. Four months without you was cruel and unusual punishment, and I’m telling you right now, I’m never going through that again.”

  “On that we’re in total agreement.”

  He carried her toward the house, his stride determined.

  “The tarnish on your armor is showing,” she said, noting the gleam in his eye.

  “And here I thought you wanted Prince Charming on a horse.”

  “Why would you think that? It’s the tarnish that got me in the first place. Well, that and the way you kissed me in the back of that limo. Of course, if you promise to occasionally let the Dark Knight out, you can be as princely as you want. You do look awful cute in those chaps.”

  His grin did lethal things to her pulse. “You happen to have a hammock?”

  “Very funny,” but she was laughing, and planning on just where she’d hang one, as he pushed through the kitchen door.

  “The bedroom is that way,” she said with a nod of her head as he kicked the door shut behind them.

  “We’ll get there, Cinderella,” he said, and sat her on the kitchen counter instead.

  “Shane!” she said, smacking at his hands as he started peeling off her shirt.

  “As it turns out, I’m not all that princely.”

  She started to laugh, then gasped as he pulled her bra down and ran his tongue immediately around one nipple, then the other. He started to lift his head, but she clamped her hands in his hair and kept him right where he was. “As it turns out, Cinderella doesn’t really want a prince.”

  “Then I guess we’re going to live happily ever after, after all.”

  “Oh, yes.” She arched her back as he trailed his mouth lower, closed her eyes, and smiled. “Deliriously so.”

  Cinderella Rule #25

  Life is not a fairy tale. We’re not all Cinderellas. And sometimes Prince Charming wears Hawaiian flowered shorts while riding his trusty steed. But there can be happy endings. You just need work at finding yours . . . and then hang on to it. Even if it means you wear the pants in the family. Some of the time. (Those Hawaiian shorts are pretty comfortable.)

  —DARBY LANDON MORGAN

  GLASS SLIPPER GRADUATE

  Epilogue

  No. Absolutely not.” Darby smacked Shane’s hand away from the phone. “No, I won’t let you talk to Shane. He’s as bad as you are.”

  “Oh, come on,” Pepper wheedled. Or, Pen, as she liked to be called now that she’d finished training and had been unleashed on the world.

  “You still owe me a foaling season,” Darby reminded her. Again. “Convenient that you happen to be on a mission every time that rolls around, huh?”

  Pepper ignored her. Again. “You have to admit that you guys had a good time on our last case.”

  “Good time?” Darby all but shrieked. “I was on my freaking honeymoon! And you had us racing around the desert on camelback.”

  “Which you were really good at, remember? And tell Shane that trick he showed me, about distracting a charging bull, came in really handy in Spain last month.”

  Darby just sighed and flopped her head back on the pillow. Pressing the phone to her chest, she turned to her husband of six months. “She’s hopeless. It’s amazing the world still turns on its axis with her in charge of international safety. We should have never caved in to her that first time. I swear to God, when I said I wanted adventure—”

  Shane snagged the phone from her. “Hey there, Pen. Listen, we’ve got to hang around here this time out. We’re right in the middle of breeding season.” He paused, then said, “Uh-huh, sure, anytime. They’re just like most men, easily distracted by something flashy.”

  Darby elbowed him in the stomach.

  He oophed a little, then said, “Right. Okay. Hey, any word on you know who?” He sighed. “Yeah. I know. You’ll get him one of these days. Yep. I’ll tell her. We love you, too.” He hung up, then wrestled Darby under the covers, until they were both laughing.

  Darby rolled him to his back when they finally came up for air. “How do you do that, anyway?”

  “I thought it was pretty self-explanatory,” he said, amused.

  “Not that, Mr. Hammock Hockey. I mean, get my sister to back off without so much as a whimper. She never listens to me like that. She didn’t pull her little sniffles on you, and you didn’t have to yell, then cry all over me about how guilty she makes you feel when you don’t give her what she wants.”

  He shrugged. “It’s a gift, what can I say.”

  “And what was that about breeding season? It’s not breeding season for another two months.”

  Shane rolled her to her back. “I wasn’t talking about horses.”

  “Oh, well, because—” She broke off, her eyes going wide. “What? We haven’t even celebrated our first wedding anniversary yet.”

  “Yeah, but it took me two years to get you to agree to marry me.”

  “And if I’d known you were going to let the godmothers do the wedding, I might have held off another three or four. Or ten.”

  “They loved doing it, and you know it meant a lot to them. Besides, we did eventually get all the costume stuff off the horses. Although Rookie still has a strong aversion to ostrich feathers.”

  Darby just rolled her eyes.

  Shane chuckled. “Come on. We don’t have to start now. But just start thinking about it, okay?”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said grudgingly. “But you finally get me over my fear of flying, and now you want to trap me here with babies.”

  “Babies can travel.”

  She thought about that.

  Shane pressed his advantage, and pulled her beneath him. “We’ll just practice for now, okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, tucking her ankles behind his. “Just promise me one thing.”

  “Done.”

  She smacked him. “You always do that.”

  “I usually like your deals.”

  “No letting the godmothers plan any baby showers.”

  He thought about that. “Can they baby-sit for us when we want some travel time alone, just the two of us?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Done.” He rolled to his back and pulled her on top of him. “See, I told you I was easy to live with.”

  Darby thought about the
ranch outside. The one that had turned into a small zoo, with all kinds of exotic pets, some of which she still couldn’t name. Then there were the wounded animals in the rehab shelter he’d built with the forestry guy he’d become buddies with. And the bunkhouses he was building for the camp he wanted to run that summer.

  She didn’t know why she’d worried about Shane needing to leave home for adventure. He’d just brought the adventure home to live with them. And she wouldn’t have him, or her life, any other way.

  “I’ll show you easy,” she said. And wrestled him back under the covers.

  about the author

  Once upon a time, Donna Kauffman was born in Washington, D.C. Alas, there were no glass slippers in her closet, but fate was kind, and a trustworthy (and totally hot) knight did cross her path. No fool she, Donna didn’t need a fairy godmother to point out a good thing when she saw it. Their happily ever after is currently taking place in Virginia.

  Also by Donna Kauffman

  The Big Bad Wolf Tells All

  The Charm Stone

  The Royal Hunter

  Your Wish Is My Command

  Legend of the Sorcerer

  The Legend MacKinnon

  Yours 2 Keep

  With Kay Hooper, Marilyn Pappano,

  Jill Shalvis, and Michelle Martin

  Did THE BIG BAD WOLF TELLS ALL

  leave you howling for more?

  Are you all brushed up on your

  CINDERELLA RULES?

  Then turn the page . . . and take

  a sneak peek at what happens when

  DONNA KAUFFMAN gets her

  hands on a fairy tale.

  Dear Prince Charming

  Coming from Bantam in

  Summer 2004