CHAPTER FOUR
“WHAT ARE YOU going to wear?” Queen Liana asked, her face showing worry on their Skype call.
“Mo-om, seriously? I’m not five. I know how to dress.”
“I know you know how to dress, Bethany. What I’m asking instead is do you have anything that isn’t a T-shirt and jeans? I saw your luggage. I would be thrilled to think you actually packed two duffels worth of clothes, but we both know the second duffel held a sleeping bag and pillow, don’t we?”
Bethany suddenly felt like that five-year-old. “How come you know me so well?”
“I love you and you’re my favorite daughter.”
“I’m your only daughter.”
Her mother laughed. “Then you don’t have to question my sincerity, do you?”
“I have one nice shirt,” Bethany said with a sigh. “And a pair of dark wash jeans. And flats.” Not exactly her mother’s elegant style but hopefully it was good enough for a family Thanksgiving. “Did you have a nice dinner?” Because while it was still late morning in Happily Inc, it was after ten at night in El Bahar.
“We did. We had a delicious turkey dinner with all the trimmings. Louis outdid himself. I had him freeze leftovers for when you get home, darling.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
Louis was the family’s French chef and a master at both the fancy and the simple. The man made a grilled cheese sandwich that could reduce Bethany to whimpering.
“Enjoy your dinner tonight,” her mother said. “I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. Give my love to everyone.”
“I will.”
Bethany hung up, then headed for the shower. She’d already fed and exercised Rida. One of the other stable hands would check on him later that afternoon and Bethany would see him after dinner. With Harry hanging out near his stall all the time, she didn’t have to worry about her horse being lonely.
After showering, she blew out her hair, doing her best to use her round brush to add a little curl. It wasn’t as if she’d brought her curling iron, so that was all she could do.
She dressed in her good jeans and pulled on her shirt, then reached into her duffel for her flats. There was a plastic folder at the bottom of her duffel. She pulled it out and opened it, then unfastened the heavy cardboard protecting the document underneath.
Handwritten calligraphy covering thick parchment paper detailed Rida’s lineage back over five hundred years. Tiny drawings at each corner depicted Arabian horses in four different scenes.
She would give this to Cade before she left. He would receive a bill of sale, along with other documents, but to her, this was the one that mattered most. It didn’t just say Rida was his—it explained who Rida was.
Twenty minutes later, Bethany joined Cade in the living room and they went out together to his truck. Like her, he wore dark jeans, but with a long-sleeved shirt and leather boots. With luck, everyone else would be dressed similarly and she wouldn’t have to worry about fitting in.
“Do you know how to drive?” Cade asked as he held open the passenger door. “You’re scheduled to be here another three or four weeks. That’s a long time to be stuck on the ranch. I can arrange for you to have the use of one of the ranch trucks if you want to head into town or something.”
“I’d appreciate that.” She settled in the seat. “Thanks. I do know how to drive.”
One corner of his mouth turned up. “On our side of the road?”
She laughed. “Yes. We have that in common.”
“Good.”
He got in and started the engine, then turned to look at her. “So here’s the thing. My family is a little bit strange.”
“All families are, or so I’ve been told. Your sister also pointed out there would be a crowd.”
“My Grandpa Frank is the best. He’s funny, active and very unconventional. Libby, my mom, can be a bit more...” He hesitated. “Traditional. She loves working in the family bank and it shows. Seriously, if you were to line up twenty women her age and have to pick out the banker, you’d pick her every time.”
“Sounds interesting.”
He started down the driveway. “That’s one way to put it. You’ve met my sister, Pallas. Her fiancé, Nick, will be there, too. We have over a dozen cousins. Don’t worry about trying to keep them straight. I can’t and I’ve known them forever.”
She smiled. Cade was doing his best to make her feel comfortable and welcome. He was a very nice man. The fact that the nice man was packaged in a rather sexy exterior was also appealing. So far she hadn’t found a flaw, which was a tiny bit scary. Not that she wouldn’t mind meeting someone she could fall for, assuming she could ever trust herself or the guy in question enough for that to happen. She’d been burned more than enough.
Besides, she told herself firmly, it wasn’t going to be an issue. She wouldn’t be around long enough for anything to happen. Still, a girl could dream...
“You probably know a lot about El Baharian history,” Cade said as he drove along the road.
“It was required learning in school. Why? Should I be prepared to dazzle with assorted factoids at dinner?”
“We have a history here, too.” He winked at her. “It’s pretty interesting.”
“Do tell.”
“About fifty or sixty years ago, my grandfather realized the town was dying. There was no industry, no tourists, and if the town died, he would lose the family bank. To keep that from happening, he spun a story of how the town was founded. That in the 1800s, during the gold rush, a group of mail-order brides were stranded here when their stagecoach broke down. By the time the parts came from back east, they’d all fallen in love.”
“That’s lovely.”
“It’s a crock. Never happened. But the locals liked it enough to change the name of the town and the word spread. Hollywood got all excited and a few stars came here to get married. From that point on, Happily Inc became a destination wedding town.”
“Very slick,” she murmured. “And innovative. I’m very excited to meet your grandfather.”
“You’ll like him.” He glanced at her again. “And he’ll like you. He’s single, so be careful.”
She laughed. “Is he into younger women?”
“Since my grandmother died, he’s pretty much been playing the field.”
“Impressive.”
They drove through an older neighborhood with large homes on big lots. At the end of the street was the biggest house. There was a long driveway with a dozen or so cars parked on one side. Cade parked at the end and turned to face her.
“You start to freak out, just come find me. I’ll change the subject to hoof rot or bloat and that will gross out my mother, who will make a big fuss and forget what she was saying before.”
Bethany thought about all the state functions she’d survived. She doubted anyone in Cade’s family was even close to as tedious as some of the diplomats she’d been seated next to.
“Thank you for that lovely offer. I think I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure you will be. Just know there’s an escape hatch.”