LITMIR.BIZ

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“No cook wears black leather and shows belly button,” she said suspiciously. “Not in Texas, anyway.”

      “I’m not from Texas.”

      “Hmm.” Sally crossed her arms, clearly stating with that one little rude “hmm” that if one wasn’t from Texas, one wasn’t worth her time. “I thought you were going to hire someone old and ugly,” she said to Tim.

      Tim had the good grace to look embarrassed. “I said old and ugly when you wanted to hire Nick the Sleaze, remember?”

      “Well I’d stay away from whoever you hired if you hadn’t told Josh that if he touched me again you’d cut off his—”

      “Sally, you’re driving me crazy.”

      “Yeah, well. It’s a short drive. Speaking of crazy, how’s Grandma?”

      “Crazier than even you.”

      Natalia watched this exchange between brother and sister with fascination. Not because she’d never fought with her siblings, because she had. A lot. Mostly with Annie just because Lili being the baby—quite literally sometimes—wasn’t as much fun to wrestle with. And she was a tattletale.

      But Natalia could never in a million years have pictured cool, calm, collected cowboy Tim Banning acting like an obnoxious older brother.

      “So, where is Grandma, Tim?” Sally asked with a false sweetness. “I’m sure with all your charm, you managed to kidnap her away from the life she loves, all in the name of family duty.”

      “Ouch,” said Seth from the table with a wince.

      “She didn’t come with me,” Tim admitted.

      “Probably because she knows you’d ruin her life, too.”

      Tim looked tense again.

      Natalia, the middle child and therefore a peace-maker at heart, stepped forward and smiled. “How about I cook dinner?”

      “Good plan.” Sally strutted across the kitchen and sat at the table with the men. “Though you should know, if you hurt my brother I’ll have to kick your butt. So…is your tongue pierced?”

      Natalia blinked. Good Lord, Americans were certifiable. “Hurt your brother? Why would I do that?”

      “Just a friendly little warning.”

      “Friendly. Right.” Like Tim, Sally Banning was tall, lean and muscular and also sported a crooked eyetooth. Somehow it wasn’t nearly as attractive on Sally as it was on Tim, but Natalia had to admit that it was probably because Sally was looking at her as if she was a bug on her windshield.

      Natalia had felt like that a lot today, and she was getting mighty tired of it. She opened her mouth to say so, but Tim neatly cut her off.

      “Sally, do you have an extra coat you can spare?”

      Sally’s eyes narrowed. “What happened to her coat?”

      “It was stolen,” Natalia said. “I’m visiting the States for a royal friend’s wedding.”

      Sally lifted a single brow. “Royal friend?”

      “I’m a princess.”

      Sally lifted the other brow now and looked at Tim. “What have you done?”

      “I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said lightly. “Everything still in working order around here?”

      “She won’t fit in the stockade with the others.”

      “Others?” Natalia asked.

      “My brother collects the weak, the weary. The pathetic.”

      A funny feeling started in the pit of Natalia’s stomach. She didn’t want to be someone Tim felt sorry for, and it was a tribute to her own privileged upbringing that it hadn’t occurred to her until now that he might see her like that. In a way she didn’t fully understand, she wanted to be someone he liked and respected.

      But who in their right mind would like and respect a pampered princess who’d never lifted a hand to help herself in her entire life?

      Good question, and right then and there Natalia became even more determined to become her own woman, successful in her own right, not her birthright. “I’m not weak or weary.” She’d leave pathetic out of this.

      Sally gestured to the kitchen window. “See that stockade out there? The one filled with the three-legged pig, the ancient horse and the blind goat?”

      “Um…yes.”

      “That’s Tim for you. He collects the needy.”

      And the pathetic.

      Natalia got the message loud and clear. She’d just been added to the save-the-world stockade.

      TIM CALLED a friend of his, who happened to be a cop. No one matching Natalia’s description had been reported missing. Tim didn’t have him run a criminal check, that would have been wrong. But at least his beautiful crazy cook hadn’t walked out of a halfway house or insane asylum. Good. He didn’t have to feel bad about letting her stay.

      Now he had to face what he did have to feel bad about, the fact that he wanted her to stay more than he’d wanted anything in a long time.

      DINNER WAS something so fancy Tim couldn’t pronounce the name of it. Since Natalia looked so utterly pleased with herself, Tim tried to like it. So did everyone else.

      But the moment she turned her back, they stared at each other in horror.

      “What is it?” Red mouthed.

      Sally shrugged and fed it to Grumpster, Tim’s thirteen-year-old mutt lying hopefully beneath the table. Everyone else quickly followed suit.

      Grumpster, who routinely licked his own parts for hours on end, sniffed once and turned his head away.

      Which left everyone scrambling to stuff their napkins with the rest, making it appear as if they’d eaten.

      Tim wondered at all of them—including himself—at the length they went to not to hurt Natalia’s feelings.

      When she saw their empty plates, she beamed with pride. Tim’s chest hurt just looking at her, and he smiled back through the pain. So did his men, while Sally rolled her eyes and looked disgusted.

      “Goners,” she said sadly. “Complete goners.”

      BREAKFAST THE NEXT DAY was more of the same. They were served some wildly foreign-sounding thing that involved very little food and far too much sauce. But because Natalia had obviously tried so hard, and was waiting with bated breath at the side of the table, hands clasped, eyes hopeful, no one said a word.

      They all just smiled at the woman now in denim and a T-shirt, hair still spiked, earrings still in, but face void of makeup except for green lip gloss. The moment she turned her back, they made gagging faces at each other.

      They couldn’t even bribe Grumpster with the stuff because he’d refused to come inside with them for the first time ever. They were on their own.

      AFTER BREAKFAST, Tim entered the barn and found Seth handing out chocolate bars from his personal stash. Five bucks apiece. Highway robbery, but Ryan, Pete and Red were all digging into their pockets for the cash.

      Sally lifted her head from where she was taking care of her horse and shook her head in disgust. “Hey, here’s an idea. Tell her the cooking sucks.”

      “Don’t even think about it.” Tim’s stomach growled with a gnawing hunger, and with a grimace, he pulled a ten from his pocket. “I’ll take two,” he said to Seth.

      “Unbelievable.” Sally leveled her annoyed gaze on him. “Did she call her so-called royal family yet?”

      “No,” he admitted.

      “And do you know why?”

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