Excerpt of The Cowboy And The Princess by Lori Wilde

CHAPTER ONE

You might be a princess if...you have to ditch your bodyguards to get some "me" time.

Brady Talmadge had five unbreakable rules for leading an uncomplicated life.

One stormy June night in Texas, he broke them all. Starting with rule number five.

Never pick up a hitchhiker.

He'd honed the rules through twenty–nine years of trial and error, most of them compiled while towing his vagabond horse trailer from town to town, and as long as he stuck to his edicts, life flowed as smooth and simple as the Brazos River ambling to the Gulf.

In regard to the hitchhiker rule, he learned it the hard way. He had a permanent whup–notch on the back of his skull from a pistol–whipping meted out by a wiry, goat–faced thief who'd taken him for thirteen hundred dollars, his favorite belt buckle and a pair of ostrich skin cowboy boots. Never mind the four–day hospital stay that drained his savings account to zero because he'd had no health insurance.

On the satellite radio, the weatherman warned of the fierce line of unrelenting storms moving up from Hurricane Betsy. "It's gonna be a wet night folks. Find some place warm and dry to hole up with someone you love."

Brady took the exit ramp off Interstate 30, heading for the parking lot of Toad's Big Rig Truck Stop on the outskirts of Dallas. His headlights caught a lone figure huddled on the road shoulder, thumb outstretched. Automatically, his hand went to his occipital bone.

No dice.

Lightning flashed. Thunder crashed. Rain slashed. The hitchhiker shivered violently.

Sorry about your luck, fella.

The eighteen–wheeler in front of Brady splashed a deluge of water over the skinny stranger. Small, vulnerable. Been there. Done that. Lived through it. The fella raised his face and in a flash of fresh lightning, from underneath the hooded sweatshirt, he saw it wasn't a guy at all, but a woman.

No, a girl actually. Most likely a runaway.

Don't do it.

Trampas, his Heinz fifty–seven mutt—who come to think of it, was a hitchhiker of sorts as well—peered out the window at the dark night and whimpered from the back seat. A year ago, Brady had found the starving puppy, flea bitten and tick ridden, on a long stretch of empty road in the Sonoran desert.

He was already driving past her. He'd almost made it. Then hell, if he didn't glance back and meet the girl's eyes.

"Please," she mouthed.

Aw, shit.

He didn't mean to do it. Hadn't planned on doing it, but the next thing he knew he was slowing down and pulling over. And that's when he broke rule number four.

Avoid damsels in distress.

That rule came to him courtesy of a short–skirted cowgirl broke down off Route 66 in Flagstaff. She thanked him for changing her flat by inviting him back to her place for a home–cooked fried chicken dinner and rocking hot sex, except she neglected to tell him she had a grizzly bear–sized husband with a high temper and a hammy fist.

Brady rubbed his jaw. He wasn't going to give the runaway a ride. Just get her inside the building and out of the storm. Maybe buy her a meal if she was hungry. He would toss her a few bucks for one of the cheap "bunk and bath" motels attached to the truck stop and advise her against hitchhiking.

Meddling. That's meddling in someone else's business.

Yeah, and where would he be if Dutch Callahan hadn't meddled in his life fourteen years ago?

Prison most likely. Or the bone orchard.

He hit the unlock button, knowing it was a bad idea, but doing it anyway. The hitchhiker ran for his truck. She was short enough so that he couldn't see anything but the top of her head from his perch behind the wheel without peeping into the side view mirror, but he heard her fumble the door handle on the passenger side.

The howling wind snatched at the door, ripping it from her pale, trembling hand and throwing it wide open.

Brady glanced down.

The hitchhiker looked up.

Her eyes were a dusty gray, too large for her small, narrow face and she stared right into him as if she knew every thought that passed through his head, yet didn't hold it against him.

He tried to take a deep breath, but to his alarm, discovered that he couldn't.

For one brief moment, they dangled in suspended animation. Their gazes meshed, their futures strangely entwined.

Drive off!

Of course, he didn't, couldn't. Not with her standing there looking like a soaking wet fawn who just lost her mother to a hunter's gun. But the impulse to run, Brady's instinct to avoid complications at all costs, fisted around his spine and wouldn't let go.