The Rancher's Christmas Princess Read online

  “The northern lights.” He said it softly, with reverence, his gaze turned upward to the sky. And his warm, strong fingers closed around hers. The distance she’d put between them moments ago vanished. It was gone as though it had never been.

  There was only pure beauty lighting the heavens. And the two of them, together, hand in hand, watching the wonder unfold.

  Red, yellow, green, blue, a purple as deep as the heart of the night, a pink like the blush on the cheek of an angel, the colors moved and slid and dipped and danced across the giant canvas of the sky. Alive, rhythmic, majestic, otherworldly—perfect notes in a silent symphony.

  Preston pulled her closer as they watched, until she stood tucked up against him, his arm around her shoulders. She didn’t think to resist. Why should she resist? How often in a lifetime did magic like this occur? She’d been born in a palace, seen the wonders of the world. But a concert of pure color pulsing above her, filling the endless star-scattered darkness of the sky?

  Never, until that night. Never in her life before.

  How long did it last? Minutes only. Minutes that seemed to her sweetly, enchantingly, perfectly endless.

  But then the brightness began to fade. She sighed when she saw the end coming after all. The bands of color were losing brightness and form. Much too soon, it would be over.

  And he was gazing down at her. She saw the magic reflected in his eyes. He touched her chin, brushed that rough, warm hand across her cheek.

  She didn’t stop him. She couldn’t, not right then. And even if she could have, she wouldn’t have. She wanted what happened next.

  He lowered his golden head. His fine lips touched hers. She sighed again and turned her body into him. It was wrong of her, and she knew it. But for that moment and that moment only, wisdom was silenced for the sake of a kiss.

  For that moment, it was the most natural, the most right thing—to press her lips to his under the last pale and fading echoes of the aurora borealis.

  And it was a beautiful kiss, as magical as the sight they had just witnessed together. She forgot everything—the bodyguard waiting close by, her duty to her lost friend, even the precious child she would soon have to surrender to him.

  Finally, he lifted his head. He stared down at her, bemused. “Belle...” The way he said her name required no answer. He raised her hand to his mouth. She shivered at the touch of his lips. It wasn’t with cold. “Come on. Inside...” He still had his arm wrapped around her. She let him hold her, let him guide her. Together they turned for the warmth of the house.

  In the foyer, he took her coat. She gave it reluctantly. She knew what came next and it was not going to graceful or pleasant.

  She turned to Marcus, who had followed them in. “Will you wait in the car, please?”

  Marcus frowned, but he did as she bade him. He went out the front door, closing it quietly behind him.

  Preston said nothing. He’d grown watchful again.

  “Could we perhaps...sit down?” she asked, the words carefully measured.

  He gestured her ahead of him. They went into the living room. As before, she sat on the sofa, in the same spot she’d taken earlier.

  He offered, “Coffee, maybe?”

  Perhaps a little false courage. “I don’t suppose you have any brandy?”

  He went to the cabinet in the corner, got out a crystal decanter and a proper brandy snifter. He poured her the drink and brought it to her.

  She thanked him and took a larger sip than she should have. Brandy, after all, was meant to be savored. It burned going down. And when it spread its warmth in her belly, she felt no braver than she had before. She set the glass on the low table in front of her.

  He settled into the easy chair. “All right, hit me with it. Why are you here in Elk Creek, Montana, at Christmastime, Belle?”

  Where to start? “Do you...happen to remember a certain archaeology student named Anne Benton? She came to Elk Creek three summers ago.”

  He frowned. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m getting there. I promise I am. But could you just...” She sighed, shook her head. “Do you remember Anne?”

  He stiffened. And he looked at her steadily for several awful seconds. But then he shrugged. “Sure I remember her. I liked her. Why?”

  * * *

  Pres had no idea why they were suddenly talking about Anne Benton.

  He’d hardly known the woman, though he had liked her. She’d told him she was getting a doctorate in anthropology. A couple of times he’d gone riding out near the caves where she and the others in her group were working, cataloging the artifacts and pictographs in the caves, they said. Pres would stop. Visit a little with them—and with Anne especially. He remembered she was friendly, with an easy, open way about her.

  It hadn’t been anything romantic. He’d just liked her, that was all.

  He’d rested his elbows on the chair arms, his hands folded between. He looked down at them. “I...spent an evening with her once, just before she left town.” He hadn’t realized he would say that out loud until he heard the words coming out of his mouth.

  “Spent an evening?” Belle prompted softly.

  Pres didn’t like this. Not one bit. He ought to be the one asking the questions—and she should be coming up with the answers.

  But somehow, she brought out the truth in him. She made him want to open up to her, to tell her all the things he’d never told a living soul. “It was a bad time for me that summer. I was going to get married. My fiancée dumped me for another guy.”

  Belle made a low sound, of sympathy. “Oh, Preston...”

  He went on, “She married that other guy on the second Saturday in September, which was right at the end of Anne’s stay in Elk Creek. I ran into Anne that night, at a certain roadhouse not far from town.”

  Belle drew in a slow, careful breath. “You were with Anne on the night your fiancée married another man?”

  “That’s right. I was trying to drown my sorrows. Anne was with her scientist friends, celebrating the end of their dig. She was drinking, too. Almost as heavily as I was. I’m ashamed to say, I drank enough that my memory of that night is pretty much a blur. I didn’t go home. I wasn’t safe to drive. I got a room in the motel adjacent to the roadhouse. I think I remember Anne being there, in the motel room, with me. But maybe I just imagined that.”

  “Imagined it?” Belle was frowning.

  He raised both big hands, palms up. “I don’t know. I know that when I woke up in the morning, there was no sign of her and I was alone. I pulled myself together and came home.”

  Belle studied his face. She seemed to be looking for answers there.

  He had no answers. And what in the hell was this all about anyway? It was time—well past time—she came out with it. “I think I’ve said enough, a damn sight more than enough. And you’ve told me nothing. What’s Anne Benton got to do with anything? Are you telling me you know her? Did she mention me or something?”

  “Oh, Preston. Yes. Yes....”

  “What? Yes, you know her? Yes, she mentioned me?”

  “I...both. Anne has been my dearest friend in all the world. We met at Duke University. She was getting her undergraduate degree and I was studying nursing. She had no extended family, but her parents had been wealthy. They adored her. She was their only child and she never wanted for anything. Her father died when she was eight. And her mother raised her alone—and then died the year Anne graduated from high school. She was on her own in life by the time I met her. And I was far from home. She and I...we became like sisters.”

  He still didn’t get it. What did any of this have to do with him? “What are you saying? Anne wants to talk to me, is that it?”

  “I...oh, I really am trying to explain. I’m not doing a very good job and I realize that...”

  He felt that need again, the one he seemed to have around her—to go to her, to hold her, soothe her, tell her that everything was going to be all right.

  How could he
tell her that? He didn’t know that. He was the one in the dark here. “Just go ahead, okay? Just...continue.”

  “Oh, sweet Lord...” She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, steadied herself, lowered it. “I’m sorry to tell you, so sorry. Not long ago, Anne was diagnosed with ALL—acute lymphocytic leukemia. I went to her, took care of her, but she didn’t make it.”

  He tried to wrap his mind around that one. “You’re telling me that Anne is dead?”

  She swallowed, convulsively. Her eyes brimmed. She shook her head, blinked the tears away. “Yes. She died ten days ago.”

  “My God.” It seemed impossible. “She was such a great woman. So young, so full of life...”

  “Yes. And she...had a little boy. His name is Benjamin. He’s eighteen months old.”

  Pres remembered. “The boy folks in town say you brought with you to Elk Creek?” He watched her head bob with her swift nod. She swallowed hard again. And right then, as he stared into her wide, wounded eyes, he made the connection. He raised both hands, palms out, shook his head. “Wait a minute. I still don’t even know for certain if she...if we...”

  “I know.” Belle’s voice had gained strength again. She spoke firmly now. “Anne would never claim you were Ben’s father if she didn’t know beyond a doubt that you were. She named me his legal guardian. She knew I would always take care of him and that I would give him all the love in my heart and an excellent start in life. She also knew she should have contacted you. She realized that both you and Ben deserve to know each other, that Ben needs his father and you have a right and a duty to be with your son. So she set me the task of making that happen.”

  Pres was not keeping up with this flood of information. He was still stuck back there with the fact that, apparently, he actually did have sex with Anne Benton on the night that Lucy married Monty Polk. “Damn it to hell. If it happened, it was only one night.”

  Beautiful Belle gave him a sad little smile. “Sometimes one night is all it takes.”

  “Dear God.” He realized he was on his feet. And his knees didn’t want to hold him up. He sank to the chair again. “A boy. A little boy...Ben, you said? His name is Ben?”

  “Yes. Ben.” Belle produced an envelope from the pocket of her skirt. Her hands were shaking. “She gave this to me two days before she died. It was tucked inside a note she wrote to me. She told me to...” The tears welled again. She pressed her lips together, forced herself to go on. “...to read the note addressed to me after she was gone. That note told me who you were and where to find you. Also in that note, she asked that I give you this.” She extended the envelope across the coffee table toward him.

  He took it from her trembling fingers. Struck with a sense of complete unreality, he tapped the end on the table, tore off the other end and removed the single sheet of folded paper within. He unfolded the thing, stared down at the words on it, words written in a hand that didn’t appear to have been all that steady. Those words ran together at first, kind of wiggling, like a caravan of ants trudging without direction across the paper, refusing to take any recognizable form. With effort, he read it through once.

  And then again.

  And finally, on the third time through, the ragged writing made sense to him.

  He dropped the letter onto the coffee table and tossed the envelope on top of it. And then he made himself speak, although his voice sounded rough, ill-used, raggedy as Anne Benton’s handwriting. “She says the boy is mine. She says she woke up in that motel by the roadhouse with me and...she didn’t know what she would say to me. So she just...left. She says when she found out she was having my baby, she didn’t know how to tell me. She kept meaning to do it, but she never managed to work up the courage.”

  Belle was nodding again. “She told me she always intended to get in touch with you, to tell you...”

  “But she didn’t.” How could she not? How could she keep the reality of his own child from him? It wasn’t right. For the first time since he’d met the princess across from him, he felt the heat of anger in his veins, the blood pumping in furious spurts. Wrong. All wrong, what Anne Benton had done. “By God, she didn’t come to me, didn’t tell me....”

  Belle stood up. He stiffened in the chair and watched her warily as she came around the coffee table to his side. Gingerly, she touched his shoulder. “Preston, please... Try to understand...”

  He jerked free of her hand and glared up at her dead on. “I want you to go.”

  * * *

  Belle longed to stay, to soothe him, to ease his confusion and frustration—and perhaps even to come to an agreement about how they would proceed from there. She had plans, detailed plans. She knew what to do and was prepared to move forward.

  But she understood that she couldn’t force him. He would need time to process such momentous news.

  Plus, there was the way she’d handled telling him the situation: badly. She should have told him sooner—and she should have done a better job of it. So far, she’d mucked everything up, taking forever to get to the point, finding endless excuses to put off the inevitable.

  And kissing him. What had possessed her to think that it would be all right to kiss him? It wasn’t. It was wrong.

  So very wrong. She’d...completely misled him. Indulged herself in an impossible romantic fantasy when she should have kept her focus on the important information Anne had trusted her to deliver with a certain delicacy and tact.

  Of course he was angry. With Anne. And with her.

  “Please go.” He wasn’t even looking at her. He had his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. “Go now.”

  She thought again of all the things she still had to say to him. And then she reminded herself that none of those things had to be said that night. The least she could do after botching her first task here so completely was to leave the poor man alone to deal privately with the life-altering information she’d finally managed to deliver to him.

  She turned for the foyer, where she took her coat off the hall tree and put it on. She pulled her gloves from the pocket and put them on, too. Then, quietly, she left through the front door, closing it gently behind her.

  Out in the snow-dusted driveway, Marcus was waiting. He had the SUV’s engine idling, ready to go. He got out when he saw her emerge from the house and opened the door to the backseat for her.

  She ran down the front steps, pausing only for one brief second to glance up at the star-thick indigo bowl of the sky, hoping to see a last echo of the northern lights.

  But there was nothing and that made her sad, made her feel as though the magic had never been.

  * * *

  Pounding sounds invaded her dreams.

  Belle struggled up through dragging layers of sleep, groaning. The room was dark. The time glowed at her from the bedside clock: 6:14 a.m.

  More pounding—on the door that led out to the landing. What in the...

  In the crib across the room, Ben woke with a startled cry. He began calling for Anne. “Mama! Mama!”

  Belle flicked on the lamp, threw back the covers, pulled on her robe and went to him. The pounding continued.

  “Mama!” Ben cried.

  She scooped his warm, plump body up into her arms and hugged him close.

  Ben pushed at her with his little fists and kept crying. “Mama! Mama...”

  Outside, she heard Preston’s voice, followed by another that sounded like Silas. She held on to Ben, stroking his back, rocking him from side to side, kissing his forehead, whispering, “Shh, shh, now. It’s all right, sweetheart. It’s all right...” as he continued to wail and push her away. Outside, there were scuffling noises. Someone fell heavily against the door.

  The startling sound brought another frightened cry from Ben. Then he grabbed on to her, buried his face against her neck and sobbed, “Mama, Mama...” The words broke her heart. And his plaintive, lonely little cries made her feel powerless and useless and somehow cruel—to deny this perfect, beautiful child what he needed most o
f all. He shook his head against her neck, his hot tears smearing on her skin at the same time as he pressed himself so close against her, needing comfort so desperately, he grabbed for her even as he cried for the one he really wanted.

  “Darling, shh. It’s all right. You’re all right....” She pressed her lips to his fine blond hair, breathed in the baby smell of him, milky and warm, a scent like fresh bread and baby lotion enchantingly combined.

  “Mama, Mama...” He let out a garbled string of sad little nonsense words.

  “Shh, Mama loves you. She loves you so much. But she can’t come,” she whispered against skin. “I’m here, though. I have you. You’re safe, you’re all right....”

  Outside, the scuffling sounds continued. Again, something heavy bounced against the door.

  And then she heard her cousin Charlotte’s sharp voice. “Stop this. Stop it this instant.”

  A few more thuds and grunts followed.

  And then she clearly heard Silas McCade say, “You damn fool, get hold of yourself.”

  After that, there was silence from outside at last.

  Charlotte spoke again, more quietly. Belle couldn’t make out the words. Then a door shut.

  A moment later, Charlotte tapped on the door that joined their rooms. Ben had stopped wailing. He had his head buried in the crook of her neck and he was sniffling dejectedly, his little body shuddering in the aftermath of his tears.

  She carried him to the inner door, rubbing his back, her lips to his temple as she went. When she reached the door, she settled the baby a little higher on her shoulder and turned the lock to admit her cousin, companion and dear friend.

  “The...father has arrived,” Charlotte said, her prominent gray-green eyes wider than ever. She clutched the high neck of her ruffled robe with one hand and held the other hand around her middle.

  “I heard,” said Belle.

  “He wants to see Ben. He and Marcus had a bit of an altercation. They’re waiting outside with a loud-mouthed older fellow whom I’m assuming is the grandfather.”

  “Has he been drinking?” Belle asked.