The Cowboy and the Princess. Myrna Mackenzie

his soul and hurt his heart. How could you tell a man and his wife that the children that gave light to their lives ripped your world apart even as you thanked God for putting them on the earth? He begged off on dinner as much as he could, especially since Alice tended to invite women she thought might fill what she perceived as a hole in Owen’s life. Now, if he went with Delfyne, after what Ennis had said…

      “I’m really sorry, Alice, hon,” he said out loud to the wind. “It isn’t happening.” What was happening, he saw as he hopped from the vehicle and strode into the house, was that something had exploded in his kitchen.

      “Come on. Let me do that,” Lydia was saying.

      “No. I messed everything up and I will fix it.” Delfyne’s lilting accent floated out, its sexy timbre sending his body into full alert. Don’t react, he ordered himself. Don’t feel. Don’t desire.

      Instead he moved further into the mess, catching both Lydia’s and Delfyne’s attention. They both looked up, and Owen saw that Lydia, while clean, was flustered and concerned. Delfyne’s face was radiant…and covered in numerous smudges of white. Her dark satiny hair had traces of white here and there, too. The kitchen was coated in what appeared to be flour.

      “Problem?” he asked as innocently as he could.

      “I’m trying to cook,” Delfyne declared, “but I hadn’t quite realized just how heavy a twenty-pound bag of flour could be.”