A Royal Mess and Her Knight To Remember by Jill Shalvis Page B

perfectly easy thing to do, she told herself. Perfectly easy. Just open the pen and walk in.
    Slowly, she let herself into the pen and…stepped into something brown, squishy and distinctly stinky.“Uck!” She lifted her foot until it came free with a terrible suction noise, and with considerable less enthusiasm, stepped toward the still-thrashing pig.
    â€œHey.”
    It didn’t respond. “Slow down,” she said. “Have you tried that?” Actually forgetting her fear, she hunkered at his side just as he got traction in the mud.
    Coming to a stand at a run, he plowed into her on his way to run circles around the blind goat. Not for the first time, Natalia fell to her bottom, right in the muck.
    Towering over her, the goat chewed on something green. Then suddenly the pig charged it, charged her, and her fear reinvented itself with a scream as she dived out of the way chest first.
    The goat, still being charged by the pig, waited until the precise moment to nudge its head into the oncoming animal.
    Who once again fell to its side.
    â€œYou.” Natalia pushed up to a sit. “Stop that.” Struggling to her feet, she tried not to feel the gross, icky stuff that was now on her hands as well as her bottom.
    The pig was up now, and running circles around the goat, who bleated noisily, over the obnoxious squealing of the pig. The horse, old and crickety, juststood and watched the entire circus, slowly rotating her jaw as she chomped down on grass.
    Fear had to take a back seat to the fact that Natalia couldn’t hear herself think. “Order,” she demanded in her most royal voice, but all she heard was very male laughter from behind her.
    Tim, of course. Because apparently she hadn’t experienced quite enough humility.
    He stood just outside the pen, his forearms resting on the wood, one leg bent at the knee, his boot on a fence rung. His eyes were crinkled with good humor at her expense, his mouth curved wide.
    She refused to acknowledge the way her pulse tripped at the sight of him. “Did you know your goat is a bully? And she’s a fake blind? She’s torturing your pig, poor little guy.”
    â€œFirst of all, he’s a she. And she’s a he. Should I show you how you tell?” He grinned that unbearably sexy grin of his. “And by the way, they’re the best of friends. They’re just playing. Pickles loves—”
    â€œPickles?”
    He looked a little chagrined as he scratched his head. “Not my choice, the goat came with the name. And he’s nearly blind, but not completely. Mrs. Pig likes him, trust me.”
    â€œThey’re trying to kill each other.”
    â€œNo. Watch—” He opened the gate, and sureenough, Mrs. Pig gently nudged Pickles in the right direction, making sure she came out first.
    â€œWant to pet them?” Tim asked as they mobbed him for attention.
    â€œOf course not.”
    â€œRight.” He managed to pet all of them equally. “Because you don’t like animals.”
    â€œThat’s correct.” Better he think she didn’t like them than to know she was afraid of them.
    â€œAh,” he said with a secret smile.
    She put her hands on her hips, then remembered what was on those hands and hastily dropped them to her sides. “What does that mean?”
    â€œIt means you’re a big, fancy liar, Princess.” He leaned close, too close, so that she could smell soap and hay and horse, and warm, clean man.
    â€œI never lie.” Rarely, anyway.
    â€œWhich is why, of course, you’ve been feeding these guys. Because you don’t like them.”
    She glanced down at the bag of leftovers sticking out her pocket, but he just laughed softly, in that low, husky way he had that made her insides go all liquidy. “Is there a point to this conversation?”
    He just lifted a brow, while her entire body had become so hyperaware of him that she had goose