The Prince's Cowgirl Bride

Amusement lurked in the depths of his dark eyes, as if he’d been aware of her perusal and wasn’t bothered or surprised by it.

He was probably used to women ogling him—a man who looked that good would have to be—but that didn’t excuse her own behavior. It had just been so long since Jewel had looked at a man and recognized him as such.

Around the stables, the men were her employees or customers, and over the past few years, she hadn’t had much of a life beyond the stables. Her instinctive reaction to this man’s arrival at the café had been proof of that. Her response now only reinforced that truth.

“Can I help you?” she asked, the politely neutral tone giving no hint of the hormones zinging around inside of her.

“Actually, I’m here to help you.” His warm, rich voice was as sensual as a caress and caused another quiver of sensation deep in her belly.

She mentally cursed her sister, certain that Crystal was somehow responsible for this man’s appearance here now.

“How do you think you can help me?” she asked cautiously.

“By taking the job you were talking about at the café.”

She looked him over again—had, in truth, not been able to take her eyes off of him—and shook her head. While she didn’t doubt that long, lean body was more than capable of the physical work she needed done, she did doubt that he’d ever done such physical labor. “I’m looking for someone to muck out stalls as well as groom and exercise my horses.”

“That’s what Crystal said,” he agreed.

Yep—her sweet but interfering little sister’s sticky fingerprints were all over this ambush.

“And you are?” she asked, vaguely recalling that he’d offered his name at the café but unable to remember what it was.

“Mac Delgado.”

Her father had taught her that she could learn a lot about a man from his handshake, so she moved forward to take his proffered hand, undeniably curious about this one. His grip was firm, strong and the contact of his palm against hers sent an unexpected jolt of heat through her.

She saw a flicker of something in his eyes, as if he’d felt the jolt, too. Or maybe she was just imagining it. She disengaged her hand and lowered herself into the chair behind her desk. “I have to be honest, Mr. Delgado, you don’t look much like a stable hand.”

He shrugged. “I have a lot of experience with horses and I’m between jobs at the moment.”

She eyed him skeptically but gestured to the chair across from her desk. “Tell me about your experience.”

He sat, somehow owning the space rather than merely occupying it. There was an aura about him, a sense of command, as if he was accustomed to giving orders rather than taking them. It made her wonder again why he was really here, because she didn’t believe it was to muck out her stalls.

“I assume you’re asking about my experience with horses?” There was just the hint of a smile on his lips, and the gleam in those sinfully dark eyes suggested he was flirting with her.

She’d known guys like Mac Delgado before—guys who trusted their good looks and easy charm to get them what they wanted in life, whatever that might be. Jewel wasn’t going to fall for it, not this time, no matter how hard her heart pounded when he smiled at her.

Still, there was a part of her—a shallow, sex-deprived part—that was tempted to hire him just so she could have the pleasure of looking at him every day. Because she had no doubt that those muscles would ripple very nicely as he mucked out stalls—if he knew which end of a pitchfork to grab hold of. But hiring a man who obviously expected to get the job by offering little more than his name and a smile would be a mistake, and Jewel Callahan didn’t make mistakes. Not anymore and especially not when it came to the business that carried her name.

“Yes, Mr. Delgado. I was asking about your relevant job experience.”

He propped one foot onto the opposite knee, a casual pose that allowed her to picture him in Levi’s and flannel, rather than the designer threads he was wearing. “I grew up around horses,” he told her. “Even before I could walk, I was sitting on a pony.”

“That doesn’t prove you know the difference between a curry comb and a hoof pick,” she noted.

He shrugged again, and she couldn’t help but notice how his shirt moulded to the broad shoulders. “I’ve groomed more than a few horses, even helped train some of them.”

“Do you have references?”

“Give me a trial period,” he said. “A week to prove that I can do the job.”

“No references,” she concluded.

“I’m a hard worker.”

“This is a busy stable—”

“Three days,” he interrupted.

She shook her head with more than a little regret as she pushed her chair back from her desk. “I don’t have the time or the patience to train anyone.”

“Give me a chance—I promise you won’t be disappointed.”

“I might have been willing to give you that chance, if not for your hands.”

His brows lifted. “What’s wrong with my hands?”

“They lack the calluses of a man accustomed to physical labor.”

“I’ve spent the last few years at school,” he admitted. “But I wouldn’t risk my life around animals who weigh more than six times as much as I do if I didn’t know I wasn’t capable.”

She leaned back in her chair. “At school where?”

“If I give the right answer, do I get the job?”

“You’re assuming there is a right answer.”

His smile was filled with confidence and charm, and she felt a distinctly feminine flutter in her belly. “Isn’t there?”

“No,” she said. “And no about the job.”

She might end up regretting her hasty decision if no one else responded to her ad, but she instinctively knew that hiring Mac Delgado would present a bigger risk than turning him away. Not just because his experience was unproven, but because of the way her heart raced whenever he was near.

Chapter Two

Four hours later, Marcus had checked out of his hotel and was retracing the route to Callahan Thoroughbred Center after Jewel had—reluctantly—reversed her decision about hiring him.

He wasn’t sure he believed in fate, but he couldn’t deny feeling that he’d been in the right place at the right time—first, when he’d walked into the café and noticed Jewel sitting at the counter, and again when a young stable hand rushed into her office to warn that an expectant mare was having trouble with her labor.

Not just any mare, as it turned out, but one Jewel had raised since it was a newborn filly, and she’d been frantic at the thought of losing both mother and baby.

With the vet more than an hour’s drive away and most of her own personnel at the track in preparation for the next day’s race, she’d had almost no choice but to trust Marcus’s assurance that he could turn the breech foal. Of course, she’d given it her own best effort first, demonstrating more strength and stamina than he would have expected of a woman who was about five-feet-three-inches tall and hardly more than a hundred pounds. And only when her own efforts proved futile had she stepped aside for him.

He’d been sweating when he was done, not just because it was a messy and physically demanding task, but because he knew this was his only chance to convince her to give him a chance. He hadn’t considered why it mattered or why the opinion of a woman he’d only just met meant anything to him, he only knew that it did.

Having been born royal, even if he had been the last of four sons, meant that he was accustomed to a certain amount of deference from the cradle. The wealth he’d inherited aside from his title ensured that he could live his life as he chose, while dictates of custom and tradition established the parameters within which he was expected to make those choices.