Pole Position (Country Roads 2)

“No, it’s your turn now.”

“It is?” Brant gave it a fair shot at sounding excited. What an effort. He straightened his shoulders and decided he really needed to loosen up. She was a kid, for crying out loud. Not the enemy.

“Yep,” she said, nodding her head up and down. “And you’d better hurry, because I’ll bet he’s hiding behind the shower curtain right now. He wanted to take a bath and get that mud off his face.”

Brant laughed. “Perceptive little thing, aren’t you?”

“Yes, sireee!” she squealed, clapping her hands together.

He was pretty sure she didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. “How old are you, kid?”

“Nine.”

Brant took a deep breath. Nine years old and living all alone. What in the bloody hell had happened to her parents? He’d have Colt ask her. He wasn’t sure he wanted to pry, and he was one hundred percent certain he didn’t want to hear her answer.

“How come you call me kid?”

“What do you want me to call you?”

She shrugged and acted like she really didn’t care. “I guess Princess will work for now.”

“Okay, Princess,” he said, trying to brush her off. “Go hide. Your king will find you shortly.”

“No,” she said. “Colt is a prince. You’re the king.”

“Why? Do I look like a king?”

She shook her head. “Nope, but you act like one.”

“How does a king act?”

“Like a man who doesn’t know how to act,” she said all at once, trotting off like she was riding a make-believe stick horse, with leather reins to boot.

Colt entered the small kitchen area with a wide grin claiming his cheeks. “That’s a child’s nice way of saying you look like a fellow with a corncob up his ass.”

Brant grunted. Yep, he needed to loosen up some.

“What’s eating at you?”

“This kid is getting to me.”

“She’s something else.”

“Yeah, but Colt, we have to be careful. Attachments are formed in a short period of time.”

“What’s your point?”

“Right now, I don’t have one.”

“Good,” Colt said. “Let me know when you do.”

Chapter Five

They were about to send the little girl “home,” and to what? A soggy box? By morning that’s about all she’d have left if Kentucky caught another few inches of snow.

Halfway through dinner, that’s about when Princess’s reality hit him. It was around the time Brant asked their young guest if she wanted to walk down to the campfire and roast marshmallows, which sort of took him by surprise. That’s pretty much when the world as Colt had known it changed forever.

Princess stood up all at once and cleared the dishes, carrying them gracefully to the small area where there was a wet bar with an aluminum sink, refrigerator, and microwave. “I need to get back. I like to be in bed before the weather sets in for the night.”