The Rancher's Runaway Princess

Brody leaned forward, the gleam in his eyes intense. “My grandparents used to come here. They’d build a fire and…

“You can guess,” he said. His voice was a sexy rumble that came from the center of his chest. His fingers plucked her hat from her head, dropping it onto the dry grass.

As his hands sank into her hair, her heart trembled. She could well imagine what his grandparents had done around a blazing campfire, with the wide open prairie spread out beneath them. Had he brought his wife here too? The thought slid away into oblivion as his dark gaze centered on her lips, clung there.

She took off his hat too, dropping it beside hers and running her fingers through the short black strands of his hair. His eyes closed briefly, and when they opened they stared right into her core. There was no point in denying the attraction now, or making excuses. It was all too clear to both of them: it was bigger than any of the secrets they’d been hiding.

Donna Alward can’t remember a time when she didn’t love books. When her mother would take her to town, her ‘treat’ was not clothes or candy but a trip to the bookstore. This followed through university, as she studied English Literature, writing short stories and poetry, but never attempting full-length fiction.

In 2001 her sister told her to just get out there and do it, and after completing her first manuscript she was hooked. She lives in Alberta, Canada, with her husband and children, and when not writing is involved in music and volunteering at her children’s school.

To find out more about Donna, visit her web-page at www.donnaalward.com, or her blog at www.donnaalward.blogspot.com, and sign up for her newsletter!

Recent titles by this author:

FALLING FOR MR DARK & DANGEROUS

THE SOLDIER’S HOMECOMING MARRIAGE AT CIRCLE M HIRED BY THE COWBOY

Dear Reader

As an author, I’m often asked, Where do you get your ideas? And the answer is as varied as a field full of wildflowers.

But I can tell you that with this book I got the idea from real life. But wait, you say. This is a book about a cowboy and a princess, isn’t it? That can’t be right.

But it is. For a few blissful days in the summer of 2007 this was absolutely correct. Our family went camping in southern Alberta, at a family-run place called the Great Canadian Barn Dance. The kids had a marvellous time, and my husband had a crash course in cowboy—namely learning to play an instrument called the ‘gutbucket’ and also learning to two-step. I felt like the luckiest woman in the world. The children were tuckered out and crashed in their sleeping bags, and we could still hear the music from the dance as we sat beneath the stars. We danced the last dance beneath them.

It was one of those perfect moments that happens so rarely it needs to be cherished.

There’s a part of me in every book I write. In this one, it’s that moment of pure and simple romance.

Love

Donna

BY

DONNA ALWARD

To Suzanne, who let me go first.

CHAPTER ONE

“IN TWO hundred meters, turn left.”

Lucy grinned lopsidedly in the direction of her GPS sitting on the dash. “Thank you, Bob,” she replied with mock seriousness, looking up the long stretch of road for the intersection her “companion” kept insisting was approaching. The freedom—this wide-open space—was a revelation compared to how claustrophobic she’d felt lately.

“In one hundred meters, turn left.”

She obeyed the monotone instruction and put on her turn signal. A small sign announced a numbered road. Thank goodness she’d been able to program in a waypoint for the Prairie Rose Ranch. Otherwise she would have kept driving the rented SUV through this fairly empty landscape for God knew how long. Not that she’d have minded; there was something comforting in the rolling green hills, their undulating curves broken only by random fences and trees.

She turned onto the road, only to discover after the first few seconds it had gravel instead of pavement. She rolled up the window against the dust curling up from her tires.

Prairie Rose Ranch was out in the middle of nowhere, just as Mr. Hamilton had said in his e-mail. All that isolation and space had sounded wonderful to her ears after the scrutiny she’d experienced the past few months. She couldn’t wait to get there, away from all the prying eyes and whispers from behind hands. In Canada there would be no expectations, even for a short time. At Prairie Rose she would just be Lucy Farnsworth.

Whoever that was.

She frowned as Bob announced he’d lost the satellite signal, grateful he’d got her this far. She was here to buy horses, to look into Hamilton’s breeding program and negotiate stud fees. It was her first real responsibility and one she was more than equipped for. Granted, she couldn’t shake the feeling that King Alexander was placating her, but it didn’t matter. For the first time in a long time she felt in control of something. No one to tell her who she was or how to act.