Harlequin American Romance November 2014 Box Set: The SEAL's Holiday Babies\The Texan's Christmas\Cowboy for Hire\The Cowboy's Christmas Gift (36 page)

Connie had every intention of showing her father just what a vital asset she could be to his construction conglomerate. She also promised herself that she was going to make him eat his words; it was just a matter of time.

Stopping her vehicle behind
Murphy's,
Connie
parked the car as close to the building as she could. The gleaming white sports car wasn't a rental she was driving, it was her own car. She wasn't superstitious by nature, but every good thing that had ever happened to her had happened when she was somewhere within the vicinity of the white sports car. It was, in effect, her good-luck talisman. And, as the embodiment of her good fortune, she wanted to keep it within her line of vision, ensuring that nothing could happen to it.

She intended on keeping an eye on it from inside the bar.

However, Connie quickly discovered that was an impossibility. For one thing, the bar's windows didn't face the rear lot.

Uneasy, she thought about reparking her car or coming back to
Murphy's
later, after dinner.

But then she reminded herself that her car had a tracking chip embedded within the steering wheel. If her car was stolen, the police could easily lay hands on it within the hour.

Provided they knew about tracking chips and how to use them, she qualified silently. She took measure of the occupants within the bar as she walked in. The first thought that crossed her mind was that the people around her could never be mistaken for the participants in a think tank.

Still looking around, she made her way to the bar, intending on ordering a single-malt beer.

A deep male voice asked her, “What'll it be?” when she reached the bar and slid onto a stool.

The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but she shrugged the thought away. She didn't know anyone here. “What kind of beer do you have on tap?” she asked, continuing to take inventory of the room.

“Good beer.”

The answer had her looking at the bartender instead of the bar's patrons. When she did, her mouth dropped open.

“You,” she said in stunned surprise.

“You,” Finn echoed, careful to hide his initial surprise at seeing her.

Unlike the woman seated at that bar, he'd had a couple of minutes to work through his surprise. It had spiked when he first saw her walk across the threshold. Disbelief had turned into mild surprise as he watched her make her way across the floor, weaving in and out between his regular patrons.

When she'd left the ranch this morning, he'd had a vague premonition that he would be seeing her again—but he hadn't thought that it would be this soon. He should have known better. The woman had asked too many questions for someone who was just passing through on her way to somewhere else.

“So what are you?” The woman posed the question to him. “A rancher or a bartender?”

“Both,” he said without the slightest bit of hesitation. Around here, a man had to wear a lot of hats if he planned on surviving. “At least, that's what my brother says.”

“The one who's getting married,” she recalled.

So, she had been listening. That made her a rare woman, Finn concluded. The women in his sphere of acquaintance talked, but rarely listened. “That's the one.”

“You have any more brothers?”

“Yeah, he's a spare in case I wear the other one out.”

The woman looked around, taking in the people on either side of her. The bar had its share of patrons, but it was far from standing-room only. Still, there were enough customers currently present—mostly male—for her to make a judgment.

“Something tells me that the men around here don't wear out easily.”

“You up for testing that theory of yours out, little lady?” Kyle Masterson proposed, giving her a very thorough once-over as he sidled up to her, deliberately blocking her access to the front door.

Chapter Three

Although he remained behind the bar, Finn's presence seemed to separate the talkative cowboy from the young woman who had wandered onto Brett's ranch earlier. Finn was 85 percent certain that Kyle, a rugged, rather worn ranch hand, was harmless. But he was taking no chances in case Kyle was inspired by this woman and was tossing caution to the wind.

“Back to your corner, Masterson,” Finn told him without cracking a smile. “The lady's not going to be testing out anything with you tonight.”

Kyle, apparently, had other ideas. “Why don't you let her speak for herself, Murphy?” the other man proposed. “How about it, little lady?” he asked, completely ignoring Finn and moving in closer to the woman who had caught his fancy. “We could take us a stroll around the lake, maybe look up at the stars. See what happens.”

His leer told her exactly what the hulking man thought was going to happen. Amused, Connie played out the line a little further. “And if nothing happens?” she posed.

“Then I will be one deeply disappointed man,” Kyle told her, dramatically placing a paw of a hand over his chest. “C'mon, little lady. You don't want to be breaking my heart now, do you?” He eyed her hopefully, rather confident in the outcome of this scenario he was playing out.

“Better that than me breaking your arm, Masterson,” Finn informed him, pushing his arm and hand between them as he deliberately wiped down the bar directly in the middle.

Kyle glanced from Finn to the very appealing woman with hair the color of a setting sun. It was obvious he was weighing his options. Women came and went, but there was only one saloon in the area. Being barred from
Murphy's
was too high a price to pay for a fleeting flirtation.

“Oh, is it like that, now?” the cowboy guessed.

“Like what?” Connie looked at the man, not sure she understood his meaning.

Amazingly deep-set eyes darted from her to the bartender and then back again, like black marbles in a bowl.

Kyle grinned at the bartender. “Don't think I really have to explain that,” he concluded. Raising his glass, he toasted Finn. “Nice work, laddie.” And with that, the bear of a man retreated into the crowd.

Brett approached from the far side of the bar. “Problem?” he asked, looking from his brother to the very attractive young woman at the bar. He'd taken note of the way some of his patrons were watching her, as if she were a tasty morsel, and they were coming off a seven-day fast in the desert. That spelled trouble—unless it was averted quickly.

“No, no problem,” Finn replied tersely. As grateful as he was to Brett and as much as he loved and respected him, he hated feeling that his older brother was looking over his shoulder. He wasn't twelve anymore, and hadn't been for quite some time. “Everything's fine.”

“That all depends,” Connie said, contradicting Finn's response. She had a different take on things, one that had nothing to do with the hulking cowboy and his unsuccessful advances.

Brett looked at her with interest. “On?”

“On how many men I can get to sign on with me,” Connie replied.

The sudden, almost syncopated shift of bodies, all in her direction, plainly testified that the exchange between the young woman and two of the saloon's owners was far from private. Leers instantly materialized, and interweaving voices were volunteering to sign on with her no matter what the cause.

In Finn's estimation, it was obvious what the men's leers indicated that they
believed
they were signing up for—and tool belts had nothing to do with it.

To keep the crowd from getting rowdy and out of control, Finn quickly asked the question, “Sign on to what end?” before Brett could.

Crystal-blue eyes swept over the sea of faces, taking preliminary measure of the men in the saloon. “I need a crew of able-bodied men to help me build a hotel,” she answered.

“Build a hotel?” an older man in the back echoed incredulously. By the way he repeated the proposed endeavor, it was obvious that a hotel was the last structure he would have thought the town needed. He wasn't alone. “Where you putting a hotel?”

Connie answered as if she was fielding legitimate questions at a business meeting. “The deed says it's to be constructed on the east end of town, just beyond the general store.”

“Deed? What deed?” someone else within the swelling throng crowing around her asked.

Connie addressed that question, too, as if it had everything riding on it. She had learned how
not
to treat men by observing her father. He treated the men around him as if they were morons—until they proved otherwise. She did the exact opposite.

Employees—and potential employees—had her respect until they did something to lose it.

“The deed that my company purchased a little less than three weeks ago,” she replied, then waited for the next question.

“Deeds are for ranches,” Nathan McHale,
Murphy's'
most steadfast and longest-attending patron said into his beer, “not hunks of this town.”

Connie shifted her stool to get a better look at the man. “I'm afraid you're wrong there, Mr—?” She left the name open, waiting for the man to fill it in for her.

Nathan paused to take a long sip from his glass, as if that would enable him to remember the answer to the newcomer's question. Swallowing, he looked up, a somewhat silly smile on his wide, round face.

“McHale.”

“Don't worry about him, missy. Ol' Nathan's used to being wrong. The second he steps into his house, his wife starts telling him he's wrong,” Alan Dunn, one of the older men at the far end of the bar chuckled.

Nathan seemed to take no offense. Instead, what he did take was another longer, more fortifying drink from his glass, this time managing to drain it. Putting the glass down on the bar, he pushed it over toward the bartender—the younger of the two behind the bar.

Connie noticed that the latter eyed his customer for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to cut the man off yet. She knew that she definitely would—and was rather surprised when the bartender decided not to.

For all his girth and folds, McHale looked like a child at Christmas, his eyes lighting up and a wreath of smiles taking over his rounded face. He gave the bartender who had refilled his glass a little salute as well as widening his appreciative smile.

Using both hands, he drew the glass to him, careful not to spill a single drop. Then, just before he took his first sip of his new drink, McHale raised it ever so slightly in a symbolic toast to the newcomer. “You were saying?”

“I was saying—” Connie picked up the thread of her conversation where it had temporarily stopped “—that my construction company has purchased the deed for a section of the town's land.”

“You here to see if the town wants to buy it back?” Brett asked, curious.

There'd been complaints from time to time that there was nowhere to stay if anyone was stranded in Forever overnight. But things always got sorted out for the best. The sheriff enjoyed telling people that was how he and his wife, Olivia, had first gotten together. On her way to track down her runaway sister, Olivia'd had no intentions of staying in Forever. Her car had had other ideas. She'd wound up relying on the hospitality of the town's resident wise woman and diner owner, Miss Joan.

“No,” Connie replied patiently, “I'm here to build a hotel.”

“A hotel?” It was someone else's turn to question the wisdom of that. Obviously, more than one person found this to be an odd undertaking. “What for?” the person asked.

“For people to stay in, you nitwit,” the man sitting on the next stool informed him, coupling the sentence with a jab in the ribs.

“What people?” a third man asked. “Everyone around here's got a home.”

Connie was ready for that, as well. She'd read up on Forever before ever setting out to see it. She knew her father wouldn't have given her an easy project. That had never been his way.

“Well, if there's a hotel here,” she said, addressing her answer to the entire bar, “it might encourage people to come to Forever.”

“Why would we want people to come here?” the man who'd asked her the question queried again. “We got all the people we know what to do with now.”

Several other voices melded together, agreeing with him.

Connie was far from put off, but before she could say anything, the good-looking man she'd seen this afternoon beat her to it.

“She's talking about the town growing, Clyde,” Finn pointed out. “You know,
progress.
”

Connie fairly beamed at the bartender, relieved that at least
someone
understood what she was trying to convey. “Exactly,” she cried.

“Hell, progress is highly overrated,” Clyde declared sourly. He downed his shot of whiskey, waited for it to settle in, then said, “I like this town just fine the way it is. Peaceful,” he pronounced with a nod of his bald head.

This was not the time or the place to become embroiled in a hard sell. The land officially now belonged to her father's company, thanks to some negotiations she had not been privy to. That meant that the decision as to what to do or not do with it was not up to the people lining the bar.

Be that as it may, she was still going to need them, or at least some of them, to help with the hotel's construction. That meant she couldn't afford to alienate
any
of them. Besides the fact that local labor was always less expensive than bringing construction workers in, hiring locals always built goodwill. There wasn't a town or city in the country that hadn't felt the bite of cutbacks and didn't welcome an opportunity to obtain gainful employment, even on a temporary basis.

This was not the first project she was associated with, although it was the first that she was allowed to helm on her own. She already knew she was going to need a few skilled workers, like someone who could handle the backhoe, and those people would be flown in. But as for the rest of it, the brawn and grunt part, those positions she hoped she would be able to fill with people from in and around the town. The one thing she knew she could count on was that extra money was always welcomed.

Connie raised her voice, addressing Clyde. “I promise not to disturb the peace.” For good measure, she elaborately crossed her heart. “I came here to offer you jobs. I need manpower to help me make this hotel a reality.”

This time it was Kyle Masterson who spoke up. He hired out to some of the local ranchers, but he had never been afraid of hard work. “What kind of money we talking about?”

She made eye contact with the big man. “Good money,” she responded in all seriousness.

“How much?” Brett asked, trying to pin her down not for himself, but for the men who frequented
Murphy's,
men he knew were struggling with hard times and bills that were stamped
past due.

“Depends on the level of skills you bring to the job,” she replied honestly. “That'll be decided on an individual basis.”

“Who's gonna do the deciding?” another man at the bar asked.

The question came from behind her. Connie turned to face whoever had spoken up. They were going to find out sooner or later, might as well be sooner, she thought. “I am.”

“Big decisions,” the man responded with a laugh. He eyed her in clear amusement. She obviously looked like a slip of a thing in comparison to the men she was addressing. “You sure you're up to it, honey?”

Connie had never had any slack cut for her. Her father had made sure that she was treated like a crew member no matter what job she was doing. The fact that she was willing to—and did—work hard had not failed to impress the men, even if it seemed to have no effect whatsoever on her father.

Connie looked the man asking the question directly in the eye and said with no hesitation, “I am. Are you?”

Her answer generated laughter from the other men around the bar.

“She's got you there, Roy. Looks like you better make nice if you want to earn a little extra for your pocket,” the man next to him advised.

“It'll be more than just a
little extra,
” Connie was quick to correct. “And if you work hard and get this project in on time and on budget, everyone on the project will get a bonus.”

The promise of a bonus, even an unspecified one, never failed to stir up positive goodwill, and this time was no exception. Snippets of responses and more questions furiously flew through the air.

“Sounds good!”

“Count me in.”

“Hey, is the bonus gonna be as big as the salary?”

“You calculating that by the hour or by the day?”

Finn had stood by, holding his tongue for the most part. The woman doing the talking had intrigued him right from the start when she'd first approached him this morning. Since his bent was toward building, anyway, he figured that he might have to do a little negotiation with Brett to get some free time in order to get involved on this construction project.

But he didn't see that as being a problem. Brett was fairly reasonable when it came to things like this. He'd given Liam a lot of slack so he could practice and rehearse with his band. As far as older brothers went, a man would have to go to great lengths to find someone who was anywhere near as good as Brett.

“Looks like you've got them all fired up and excited,” Finn commented to the young woman as he checked her glass to see if she needed a refill yet.

“How about you? Do I have you all fired up and excited?” she asked, going with his wording. Connie shifted the stool to face him. The man was still her first choice to head up the work crew. The other men might be good—or even more capable—but so far this so-called bartender's handiwork had been the only one she'd seen firsthand.

But the moment she phrased the question, she saw her mistake.