1 Rednecks and Royalty Don’t Mix

"Gimme the girl that's beautiful,

Without a trace of makeup on,

Barefoot in the kitchen,

Singing her favorite song.

Dancing around like a fool,

Starring in her own little show,

Gimme the girl that the rest of the world,

Ain't lucky enough to know."

- Joe Nichols, Gimme That Girl

PORT GIBSON, MISSISSIPPI

"Uncle Pax! You gotta come up here and watch this!" Courtney's voice called from the direction of the family room.

Pax had adopted his three nieces after the death of his brother, Rusty, ten years earlier. The oldest two, Mae, and Julie, had already graduated from high school. Both were no students at the University of Michigan. With her sisters no longer living just down the hall, fourteen-year-old Courtney had attached herself to her uncle's hip.

Pax pushed his chair away from the mixing board, got to his feet, and slowly made his way upstairs from the home recording studio that he had installed in the basement of his home. "What's up, Court?" He asked once he arrived in his rustically decorated family room.

Courtney was curled up under her tie-dyed comforter on the brown suede couch. She was home sick from school, having caught the flu bug that had been going around town. Port Gibson was small, with a population under two thousand. It seemed like if one citizen got sick, the rest of the town was soon to follow.

"Entertainment Now is doing a segment on royalty. They have a celebrity panel matching celebrities up with members of the English royal family, and they've paired you up with the Queen's oldest daughter, Princess Cordelia," Courtney explained. She seemed way too excited by all of this, but he shouldn't be surprised. She had been dressing up like a princess and obsessing over princes since she was four-years-old.

While Pax was simply 'Uncle Pax' at home, the rest of the world knew him as Paxton Raney, the thirty-six-year-old reigning king of country/rock music. His first number one since, Emerald Eyes, had been released twenty years earlier when he had been barely old enough to drive a car.

"Princess, who?" Pax stared blankly at his niece.

Courtney rolled her eyes. "Princess Cordelia, the Princess Royal. She's Queen Olivia's daughter. Her older brother is the Prince of Wales, Prince Rhys. There was a big fuss about his wedding a few years ago…"

Everything Courtney said was going entirely over Pax's head. He vaguely knew who these people were, but he sensed that he had to pretend to be interested or else his niece would never shut up about it.

"Alright, why have they matched me up with Princess Corey –"

"Cordelia," Courtney corrected.

"Why have they matched me up with Princess Cordelia?" He asked, even though he didn't want nor care to know the answer.

Courtney picked up her feet off the couch and motioned for him to sit down. "Just watch this with me."

Sighing, Pax sat down. Courtney put her feet in his lap and hit the play button on the remote control.

The image on the TV screen that hung from the wood-paneled wall unfroze. Pax found himself watching a panel made up of some vapid reality show family whose last name he didn't care enough about to remember. Against his better judgment, he started listening.

*** VAPID REALTY STAR #1: "Okay, next on our list is everyone's favorite cowboy, Paxton Raney." ***

Pax had never in his almost four decades on planet earth been a cowboy. He rode motorcycles, not horses. Just because a guy had a southern accent, wore a cowboy hat, and sang country music, it didn't mean that he was a cowboy. He had never even been to a rodeo or horse race. Pax was more outlaw than yee-haw.

*** VAPID REALTY STAR WITH THE BAD FACELIFT: "Oh, I know who would make a good match for him…Princess Cordelia." ***

A still-picture appeared on the screen. The woman in the picture had what appeared to be emerald-green eyes (his favorite, he was a sucker for them), medium-length wavy blonde hair, and was of average height. In the photograph, she was wearing blue skinny jeans and a tight white t-shirt that did nothing to hide the fact that she had curves in all the right places. The picture was clearly a paparazzi shot, the fine ass princess having been photographed as she crossed the street. The photograph changed, and now he was staring at the same woman in a much different setting. She was wearing a scarlet-red ballgown that fell all the way to the ground. She wore a pearl choker and teardrop earrings and stop her head was a small, diamond-encrusted tiara. She was standing beside her mother, Queen Olivia, who was similarly dressed except she was wearing a much bigger tiara. She looked like she had stepped right out of a Disney movie. Pax hated to agree with a reality star about anything, but he had to admit, Princess Cordelia was his type…in appearance anyway.

*** VAPID REALTY STAR WITH THE BAD FACELIFT: "Besides the fact that I think they would make, like, a super cute couple, Princess Cordelia is also half-American. People tend to forget that her father, King Robert, was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi."

VAPID REALTY STAR #1: "Really? I didn't know that." ***

Pax suspected that there was a lot that these women didn't know.

*** VAPID REALTY STARS' MOTHER: "Oh, yes. There was a huge fuss back in the early eighties when Queen Oliva married an American."

VAPID REALTY STAR WITH THE BAD FACELIFT: "Total scandal but it blew over. The British people ended up loving King Robert, and the four royal children, Prince Rhys, Princess Cordelia, Princess April, and Prince James, were all raised to value their American roots. While Prince Rhys and Prince James were schooled in England at Ludgrove, and later, Eton, Princess Cordelia, and her little sister, Princess April, were educated here in America at Salem Academy in North Carolina. Princess Cordelia even chose to attend college at the University of Alabama, where she majored in business and non-profit management. So, there's a little bit of country in the princess." ***

Pax chuckled to himself. It was beyond evident that the vain woman on the screen was reading from a teleprompter. He could see her eyes moving back and forth as she read. "Alright, bumblebee, I'm done." He tapped Courtney's leg to get her to move it so he could stand up. "I have a song the label wants me to finish by the end of the week."

Sure, Princess Cordelia was gorgeous, but he wasn't the kind of man to obsess over a woman that he would never meet. He came from a much different background than the princess. Rednecks and royalty didn't mix.