Читать книгу Cinderella's Prince Under The Mistletoe - Cara Colter - Страница 13

IMOGEN WOKE WITH a start, struggling to think where she was. Then she remembered. She had frantically come up with a plan for the Prince’s dinner, but when he had not come down for the meal she had been somewhat relieved. Her offering had hardly seemed princely!

Then she had come to her office, the place in the Lodge where the cell signal booster was located. She had tried desperately to get news of Rachel, but the thickening storm outside had made even intermittent service impossible. And then the power had gone out completely. It was the reality of life on a mountain, but sometimes nature’s reminders of human smallness and powerlessness could be incredibly frustrating.

She must have fallen asleep on the couch. But she didn’t recall covering herself with a blanket. She pulled it tighter around herself, until only her nose peeked out. The Lodge was already growing cold. She would have to get up soon and light some fires, but right now...

A crash pulled her from the comfort of the blanket. The unmistakable sound of shattering glass had come from the direction of the kitchen.

Here was another reality of mountain life: the odd creature got inside. On several occasions raccoons had invaded. Once a pack rat, adorable and terrifying, had resisted capture. On one particularly memorable occasion—a framed picture in the kitchen giving proof—a small black bear had crashed through a window and terrorized the cook for a full twenty minutes before they had managed to herd it out the door.

Aware of these things, Imogen stood up and looked around, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. There was a very heavy antique brass lamp on the side table beside the sofa. She picked it up and slid off the shade. She tiptoed across the floor and down the short hall, past the dining room, to the kitchen. She took a deep breath and put the lamp base to her shoulder, as if it was a bat she might swing.

She went through the door and saw a dark shape huddled by the fridge. She squinted, her heart thudding crazily. Too big to be a raccoon. Wolverine? Small bear? What had the storm chased in?

“Get out,” she cried, and lunged forward.

The dark shape unfolded and stood up. It wasn’t a bear! It was a man.

“Oh!” she said, screeching to a halt just before hitting the shape with her heavy brass weapon. She dropped the lamp. The weight of it smashed her toe, and she heard the bulb break. She cried out.

The shape took form in front of her in less time than it took to take a single breath. It was Prince Luca. He took her shoulders in firm hands.

“Miss Albright?”

What kind of dark enchantment was this? Where a bear turned into a prince? Where his crisp scent enveloped her and where his hands on her shoulders felt strong and masterful and like something she could lean into, rely on, surrender some of her own self-sufficiency to? The pain in her foot seemed to be erased entirely.

She bit back a desire to giggle at the absurdity of it. “Oh my gosh. I nearly hit you. I’m so sorry. Your Highness. Prince Luca. I could have caused an international incident!”

He didn’t seem to see the humor in it. His handsome face was set in grim lines. His eyes were snapping.

Somebody else had eyes like that when they were annoyed. Who was it?

“What on earth?” he snapped at her. “You were going to attack what you presumed to be an intruder? Who would come through this storm to break into your kitchen?”

“I wasn’t thinking a human intruder. I was thinking it might be a bear.”

“A bear?” he asked, astounded. He took his hands from her shoulders, but his brow knit in consternation.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Seriously?” His face was gorgeous in the near darkness, and his voice was made richer by the slight irritation in it.

“It’s not unheard of for them to get inside. Or other creatures. Storms, in particular, seem to disorient our wild neighbors in their search for food and shelter.”

His brows lowered over those sinfully dark eyes. “I meant seriously, you were going to attack a bear with—” He bent and picked it up. “What is this?”

“A lamp base.”

“It is indeed heavy.”

“As I found out when I dropped it on my foot.”

“It seems impossibly brave to attack a bear with a lamp. Or anything else for that matter.”

“I may not have thought it through completely.”

“You think?” He set the lamp base carefully aside.

“On the other hand, I’ve lived here all my life. I’ve learned you have to deal with situations as they arise. You can’t just ignore them and hope they go away.”

“It was extraordinarily foolish,” he said stubbornly.

“You obviously have no idea what a bear can do to a kitchen in just a few minutes.”

“No. And even though Casavalle has missed the blessing of a bear population, I have some idea what it could do to a tiny person wielding a lamp as a weapon in the same amount of time.”

Did he feel protective of her? Something warm and lovely—suspiciously like weakness—unfolded within her. She saw the wisdom of fighting that particular weakness at all costs.

“Let’s make a deal,” she said, and heard a touch of snippiness in her tone. “I won’t tell you how to do your job, if you don’t tell me how to do mine.”

He was taken aback by that. Obviously, when he spoke, people generally deferred. Probably when he got that annoyed look on his face, they began scurrying to win back his favor. She just pushed her chin up a little higher.

The Prince shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and rocked back on his heels and regarded her with undisguised exasperation.

“Are you all right, then?” he asked, finally.

“Oh sure,” she said, but when she took a step back from him, she crunched down on the broken bulb, and let out a little shriek of pain.

To her shock, with no hesitation at all, Prince Luca scooped her up in his arms. Imogen was awed by the strength of him, by the hardness of his chest, by the beat of their hearts so close together. His scent intensified around her, and it was headier than wine: clean, pure, masculine.

The weakness was back, and worse than ever!

“There’s more broken shards over here,” he said, in way of explanation, “and it’s possibly slippery, as well. I dropped the soup bowl.”

“That’s the sound that made me think there was a bear in here.”

“Ah. Well, let me just find a safe place for you.”

As if there could be a safer place than nestled here next to his heart! An illusion—the way she was reacting to his closeness, being nestled next to his heart was not safe at all, but dangerous.

He kicked out a kitchen chair and set her in it. He slipped a cell phone from his pocket and turned on the flashlight, then knelt at her feet.

“You should try and save the battery,” she suggested weakly.

He ignored her, a man not accustomed to people giving him directions. “Which foot?”

“Left.”

Given the stern look of fierce concentration on his handsome face as he knelt over her foot, he peeled back her sock with exquisite gentleness. He cupped her naked heel in the palm of his hand and lifted her foot. Her heart was thudding more crazily now than when she had thought there was a bear in her kitchen!

“Miss Albright—”

“Imogen, please.” Given the thudding of her heart and the melting of her bones, that invitation to more familiarity between them was just plain dumb.

“Imogen.” His voice was a soft caress, and his tone was one that might be used to reassure a frightened child. Perhaps he could feel the too-hard beating of her heart and had mistaken it for pain and fear instead of acute awareness of him?

“There seems to be a bit of blood here.” He leaned in closer, so close that his breath tickled her toes and made her feel slightly faint. “And just a tiny bit of glass. I think I can remove it with tweezers, if you can point me in the direction of some. A first aid kit, perhaps?”

“On the wall over there.” Her voice, in her own ears, sounded faintly breathless, as croaky as a frog singing a night song.

He set her foot down carefully, stood and crossed the room. She took this brief respite from his touch to try and marshal herself, to slow down the beat of her heart.

She told herself it was a reaction to the circumstances, to the adrenaline rush of waking to a crash in the night and preparing to do battle with the unknown, and not a reaction to his rather unnervingly masculine touch and presence.

But as soon as he returned with the first aid kit and knelt at her feet again, she knew it had nothing to do with the circumstances. Even in the dark, his hair was shiny. There was a little rooster tail sticking up from where he had slept on it. She had to fight the urge to smooth it back down.

A nervous giggle escaped her as he picked up her foot again, his hand warm, strong, unconsciously sensual.

“Am I tickling?” His voice—deep, and with that faintly exotic accent—was as unconsciously sensual as his touch.

Her giggle deepened, and he smiled quizzically.

Oh, that smile! Though somehow it seemed familiar, she realized it was the first time she had seen it. It changed his entire countenance from faintly stern and unquestionably remote. His smile made him even more handsome. He appeared dangerously approachable, and as if he was quite capable of enchanting people with hidden boyish charm.

“No,” she managed to gasp out, “not tickling. It’s just this situation strikes me as being preposterous. I have a prince at my feet? Somehow when I got up this morning, I could not have predicted this event in my day.”

“Yesterday morning,” he corrected her, absently. “It’s already a brand-new day.”

She contemplated that. It was, indeed, a new day, ripe with potential, full of surprises. When was the last time she had allowed herself to be delighted by the unexpected? A long, long time ago. Since her breakup with Kevin, she realized now, she had tried desperately to keep tight control on everything in her world.

“It’s true,” he continued, and she detected an unexpected edge of harshness to his voice, “that sometimes we cannot predict the surprises our days will hold.”

“Ouch.”

“Sorry.”

Tentatively, she said, “You said that as if you’ve had an unpleasant surprise recently.” She realized she was being much too forward and was glad for the darkness in the room that hid her sudden blush of insecurity. “Your Highness.”

He looked at her. “Shall we just be Luca and Imogen for a little while?”

His invitation to familiarity was quite a bit more stunning than hers had been. It was as stunning as finding a prince at her feet, giving tender loving care to her very minor wounds.

Maybe she was dreaming! If she was dreaming, would she give in to the temptation to reach out and touch the dark silk of his hair? Her fingertips tingled with wanting.

She tucked her hands under her thighs.

“Luca,” she said experimentally, and then, “Ouch!”

“It’s a bit of disinfectant. It’ll just sting for a second.”

Had he done that on purpose? To distract her from the question she had asked about his recent unpleasant surprise?

He finished with her foot, cleaning and bandaging it with exquisite sensitivity. Imogen had to steel herself over and over again from gasping, not with pain, but delight.

“That’s great,” she said, the second he was finished. She started to get up. “Thank you.”

His hand on her shoulder stayed her. “Don’t get up yet. I have shoes on. Let me find all the broken glass and clean it up.”

“No, I’ll just—”

“Do as you’re told?” he suggested drily.

Despite herself, she giggled again.

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “What?”

“I can clearly see you are used to telling people what to do, but I was just wondering if you’ve ever cleaned up anything before in your whole life? It doesn’t seem very...er...princely somehow.”