“Alexis, what are you thinking?”
Jace asked softly.
“I’m thinking about the kind of man you are,” she replied.
Surprise flickered in his eyes. “What kind of man am I?”
“I…I think you’re hard. And honest.”
“I hope so. Anything else?”
She swallowed. “You like your life here and would never want to leave.”
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “That’s right. My life is here.”
She had no idea where these thoughts and questions were coming from, but she went on. “Did you like being alone all the time? Because I know what it’s like to live in a big place and to be lonely….”
“Do you, Alexis? I’m sorry.” He raised his hand to touch her cheek. He ran his finger along her velvety skin. “Being lonely is hell. Have you been lonely since you came to Sleepy River?”
She looked into his steady dark eyes. “Not recently…”
Dear Reader,
Although the anniversary is over, Silhouette Romance is still celebrating our coming of age—we’ll soon be twenty-one! Be sure to join us each and every month for six emotional stories about the romantic journey from first time to forever.
And this month we’ve got a special Valentine’s treat for you! Three stories deal with the special holiday for true lovers. Karen Rose Smith gives us a man who asks an old friend to Be My Bride? Teresa Southwick’s latest title, Secret Ingredient: Love, brings back the delightful Marchetti family. And Carla Cassidy’s Just One Kiss shows how a confirmed bachelor is brought to his knees by a special woman.
Amusing, emotional and oh-so-captivating Carolyn Zane is at it again! Her latest BRUBAKER BRIDES story, Tex’s Exasperating Heiress, features a determined groom, a captivating heiress and the pig that brought them together. And popular author Arlene James tells of The Mesmerizing Mr. Carlyle, part of our AN OLDER MAN thematic miniseries. Readers will love the overwhelming attraction between this couple! Finally, The Runaway Princess marks Patricia Forsythe’s debut in the Romance line. But Patricia is no stranger to love stories, having written many as Patricia Knoll!
Next month, look for appealing stories by Raye Morgan, Susan Meier, Valerie Parv and other exciting authors. And be sure to return in March for a new installment of the popular ROYALLY WED tales!
Happy reading!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
The Runaway Princess
PATRICIA FORSYTHE
PATRICIA FORSYTHE
admits that she’s a lifelong daydreamer who has always enjoyed spinning stories in her head. She grew up in a copper mining town in Arizona, which was a true adventure because of the interesting characters who inhabited the place. During the years when she was going to college, earning her degree, teaching school, marrying and raising four children, those characters were in her mind. She wanted to put them in a book, but it wasn’t until she discovered romance novels with their emotional content and satisfying resolutions that she found a home for those characters.
Patricia still lives in Arizona with her family and pets and continues to spin stories about interesting places and compelling characters.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter One
Her Most Serene Royal Highness Princess Alexis Mary Charlotte of the House of Chastain and the principality of Inbourg ran out of pavement and hope at exactly the same moment.
Dumbfounded, she stared over the hood of the compact car. Where had the road gone? She had been following this dratted ribbon of asphalt through Arizona’s White Mountains for hours now. It seemed like days. She’d seen nothing but trees, though she wouldn’t have been surprised to come upon the last remains of a hapless traveler propped against the base of a pine tree, his bony fingers holding a sign reading Abandon All Hope.
She sighed, leaned forward over the steering wheel and peered into the darkness.
Even after she had left the highway and turned off onto this side road, everything had seemed all right. She’d been sure that all she had to do was continue following it. Things would be fine once she reached Sleepy River. She’d been repeating it like a mantra since early that morning.
However, a few minutes ago, clouds had drifted in to cover the moon and these woods were desperately dark without its glow. This section of tall, dark pines was hardly ablaze with streetlights.
Squinting into the night, she tried to see something; a road sign, a blazed trail, a friendly native, anything around her besides trees, trees, and more trees.
She had long since left Morenci, the last town, far behind and she knew she couldn’t turn back. Wherever she was, she knew she was closer to Sleepy River than she was to Morenci, so she might as well keep going. She gripped the steering wheel and lifted herself up to gaze forlornly over the hood. She would keep going as soon as she figured out what had become of the road.
She knew she had taken exactly the right turns every step of the way as she followed the Coronado Trail, which had supposedly been scouted out by the Spanish conquistadors four hundred years ago.
“Too bad I don’t have one of them along to help me now,” she muttered in annoyance. A glance at the dashboard clock told her it was after eleven o’clock. The efficient little car, borrowed from her friend Rachel Burrows, was easy to drive, but every tense and aching muscle in her body told her it was time to quit.
But how could she? Somehow she’d managed to get herself lost—a rarity for her. She would have called for help if her cell phone hadn’t died on her. Besides which, she had a map and precise directions, and she was excellent at following both. Until a few days ago, her entire life had been a perfect model of direction-following.
In spite of that, she’d done something wrong because the paved road had petered out into nothingness leaving only a dirt track for her to follow.
“Oh blast and bother,” she groused.
With a discouraged sigh, she leaned her head against the steering wheel and closed her eyes. This had been the most impossibly longest day of her life and it was far from over.
Exhaustion nearly swamped her as she tried to recall exactly how all this had happened. Oh, yes. She’d been pursuing her dream; a dream of independence, self-reliance, having a career instead of being a glorified baby-sitter for her nephew. A dream of being her own person instead of the last of the three daughters of Prince Michael of Inbourg whose occupation seemed to be, as one tabloid so gracelessly put it, “Squandering the money of the citizens of Inbourg with marathon sessions of power shopping.”
Never mind that her sisters, Anya and Deirdre, had been photographed buying supplies for the disaster relief society they co-chaired. Tabloid reporters didn’t care about the truth, only about publishing the flashiest headlines. What would they think if they knew that Princess Alexis had taken a long-term substitute teaching job in a one-room schoolhouse in the mountains of Arizona? It didn’t matter what the truth actually was. Their assignment would be to put the most negative possible spin on it.
It would be bad if the tabloids discovered that she had come to the States on the pretense of spending several weeks pampering herself at a health spa. It would be disastrous if they learned she had installed Esther Wanfray, her lady-in-waiting, there in her place.
Oh, why was she thinking about that now? Alexis looked about in quiet desperation. She had to turn around, go back, and figure out where she’d gone wrong. Careful
ly, she put the car in reverse and started to back up.
A sickening thud and then a splintering of wood told her she’d hit something.
“What on earth…?” Quickly, she threw the car into drive and lurched forward. This time a jarring scrape on the front right fender split the air.
“Oh, no.” Horrified, Alexis stared straight ahead for an instant trying to think what to do next. Get out and take a look was the only thing that occurred to her.
She reached across the seat and scrambled in the glove compartment for the flashlight only to find to her astonishment that there wasn’t one.
Suddenly furious, she sputtered as she threw open the car door and hopped out, “Oh, Rachel,” she wailed. “Why don’t you carry a flashlight in your car?” She stood peering into the darkness beyond the beam of the headlights for a moment, then remembered a small book of matches she’d picked up somewhere. She didn’t know how much good they would be, but a little light was better than nothing.
She took the matches from her purse, struck one carefully, and turned toward the back of the car to see what she had hit. The wind immediately blew out the match.
“Drat.” She struck another match and tried again. It blew out before she’d taken two steps, as did matches number three, four and five.
Frustrated, she glanced back into the car and spied the magazine she’d bought before boarding the plane to Phoenix. With a glad cry, she picked it up, tore out several pages and wrapped them into a roll. She then lit the end and had a crude but effective torch. Holding it carefully, she moved to the rear of the vehicle where she saw a splintered pole lying on the ground and on the end of it, tilting crazily skyward, was a mailbox.
“McTaggart,” she read, and then read it again. “McTaggart!” Astounded and relieved, her voice rose an octave. “I’m in the right place.” Whirling around, she held the torch up and tried to peer farther into the darkness. “But where’s the house?”
McTaggart was the name of the school board president. She was to pick up the key to her own cottage and to the schoolhouse from him. Now all she had to do was figure out where the house was.
She wasn’t lost, after all, she thought, elated. She had ended up exactly where she was supposed to be. She had reached Sleepy River community and, as she’d been promising herself all day, everything was going to be just fine.
Hurrying back to the front of the car, she looked for the house, but could see nothing and finally concluded it was farther down this dirt road. Hope and confidence surged. With the help of her trusty torch, she could find it, though she moved her hand farther down toward the end of the burning papers, and prayed the flame would last until she found the house.
In a rush, Alexis reached in and took her shoulder bag from the car, paused to lock the doors, then began moving forward cautiously. She paused to see what she’d scraped the car against when she’d pulled forward.
It was a vine-covered wall. If the moon had been out, she probably would have seen it as well as the mailbox. The damage to the car didn’t appear to be too bad.
As she straightened, she heard the crunch of gravel behind her, and then a deep male voice saying, “What the devil…?”
With a start of surprise, Alexis whirled. The sudden movement fanned the flare of the torch, sending a speck of burning paper flying down to scorch her hand. With a cry, she dropped the torch into the grass beside the wall.
Immediately, the dry grass burst into flames.
“Hey,” the man yelled. In the flare of light, she saw only shadows and had the impression of a large body flying past as he leaped forward to stamp out the flames. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, dropping her purse beside the car and jumping onto the flames. She stomped for all she was worth but the fire was moving faster than she was. “I…I didn’t see…”
Fire licked hungrily at the tinder-dry weeds and grass. Within seconds, the flames were moving too rapidly for the two of them to handle.
“Run to the house,” the man ordered. “There’s a triangle on the front porch. Ring it and yell ‘Fire.’”
“Yes, all right.” She started to scurry away, but then stumbled around and threw out her hands desperately. “Where’s the house?”
“Where’s the house?” he repeated, astounded. “Over there where the porch light is.”
Frantically, Alexis glanced around to see that, sure enough, not one hundred feet away stood a two-story ranch house with a porch light sending out a bright glow.
“How did that get there?” she gasped.
“It’s been there for seventy years!”
Alexis didn’t waste any more time. She dashed for the steps leading to the porch. At one end was a set of heavy redwood lawn furniture and at the other was an old-fashioned iron triangle of the type farm women had once used to call the family to supper. It hung suspended from a ceiling beam. An eight-inch rod swung from a leather loop which was threaded onto the open side of the triangle.
Shrieking, “Fire, fire, fire!” Alexis grabbed the rod and began beating the triangle until the sound rang out to who knew where.
Behind her in the house, she could hear shouts and the thumping of feet as lights were switched on. Having given the alarm, she abandoned the triangle and looked around for anything that could be used to fight the fire. She knew there was no use in trying to find a garden hose or bucket because that would waste a great deal of time. She spied a blanket folded up on a chair, snatched it up, and ran, full tilt back to the fire.
“Here,” she gulped, thrusting it at the man who was fighting the blaze. He took it without a word and began beating out the flames while she continued to pound at them with her feet. A minute later, two more men joined them, dragging a long garden hose. They turned it on and within seconds, the flames were doused.
Shakily thankful, Alexis slumped against the front of the car and put her trembling hands in front of her face. A minute. She only needed a minute to compose herself.
“Hey, miss, are you all right?” one of the men asked. It wasn’t the voice of the first one who’d startled her into dropping the torch.
She glanced up. Suddenly, the clouds parted, the moon shone down with a dim glow, and Alexis could see three men facing her. All of them were wearing hastily donned shirts, boots and jeans. The tallest of the three approached her furiously.
“Who are you and why are you trying to burn down my ranch?”
“I’m not…I’m…I certainly didn’t do this on purpose,” she defended herself, lurching upright once again. “You startled me by sneaking up on me.”
“You’re saying this is my fault?”
Alexis couldn’t make out his features very well, but there was no mistaking the anger in his voice and the furious thrust of his jaw. “I’m only saying I was startled,” she shot back, beginning to grow angry herself. “I was trying to find my way to the house, and…”
“Carrying an open flame?”
“I don’t have a flashlight. Making a torch was all I could think of to do after I knocked over that mailbox and ran into the wall.”
“You knocked over the…” With a strangled sound, he stalked behind the car and stood staring down at the shattered pole and the mailbox that now pointed skyward. The other two men followed and the three of them stood shaking their heads and speaking in low tones.
After a moment, the first man stomped back to her. “Who are you? Do I have enemies somewhere that I don’t know about and they sent you here to burn me out?”
“Oh, of course not,” she said, her annoyance growing. “I don’t know if you have any enemies or not. I don’t even know who you are. I was looking for Mr. McTaggart. Mr. Jace McTaggart.”
“Well, you found him,” the man snapped. He clapped his hands onto his hips and thrust his jaw forward.
Alexis’s heart plummeted to the scorched soles of her sneakers. She leaned forward and squinted at him, but she could barely see his face. What she saw didn’t look v
ery promising.
“You’re…you’re Mr. McTaggart, the head…the head of the Sleepy River school board?”
“Yes, heaven help us, I am.”
“Oh.” Of course, she thought. Why not an attempt at arson to cap off this long, miserable day? Week? Month?
She didn’t fold easily, though. Three hundred years of royal blood flowed in her veins. Her ancestors had once held out for three weeks against Napoleon’s forces. Her grandfather had personally buried much of the royal treasury in a farmer’s field rather than surrender it to the Nazis. She could handle this.
With the regal nod she’d copied from her grandmother, she held out her hand and said, “How do you do? I’m Alexis Chastain, the new schoolteacher.”
Jace squinted through the darkness. “Alexis…?”
“Chastain,” she supplied. “I’m here to teach at Sleepy River Community School.”
He leaned forward and stared into her face, though he couldn’t see much even with the help of the moonlight. “No. I don’t know who you are, or what you’re trying to pull, but the teacher we’ve hired is named Rachel Burrows and she’s…”
“Not coming,” the woman said firmly. “I’m here instead.”
This was a nightmare, Jace assured himself firmly. The past few minutes when he’d awakened to the sound of a car stopping, followed by a muffled thump and splintering of wood, jumped into his clothes, and dashed outside to find a strange—emphasis on the word strange—woman holding a flaming torch were all part of the nightmare. He blinked, ran his hand over his face, and looked around. No. It all looked too real. Maybe he wasn’t dreaming. Whatever was going on, he had to figure it out because this was his ranch. He was responsible for it and everyone on it. Jace took a deep breath. “What do you mean that you’re here instead?”
“Rachel couldn’t come, so I’m taking her place.” She gave a firm little nod.
“No, no, no.” He shook his head. “That’s not how it works. See, how it works is that the school board interviews then hires a teacher who arrives when the contract says, and…what’s the matter?”
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