Harlequin American Romance November 2014 Box Set: The SEAL's Holiday Babies\The Texan's Christmas\Cowboy for Hire\The Cowboy's Christmas Gift (38 page)

“She actually said something very sweet about my mother. At this point, it's been so long since she's been gone that there are times I feel as if I just imagined her, that I never had a mother at all.” She shrugged somewhat self-consciously. She'd said too much. “It's rather nice to hear someone talk about her, remember her in the same light that I do.”

Because his heart was going out to her, Finn had this sudden desire to make her realize that she wasn't the only one who had suffered this sort of numbing loss so early in her life.

“I lost my mother when I was a kid, too. Both my parents, actually,” Finn amended.

Despite his laid-back attitude about life and his easygoing manner, to this day it still hurt to talk about his parents' deaths. One moment they had been in his life, the next, they weren't. It was enough to shake a person clear down to their very core.

“Car accident,” he said, annotating the story. “My uncle Patrick took my brothers and me in.” A look Connie couldn't fathom crossed his face. The next moment, she understood why. “A few years later, Uncle Patrick died, too.”

Completely captivated by his narrative, she waited for Finn to continue. When he didn't, she asked, “Who took care of you and your brothers after that? Or were you old enough to be on your own?”

“I was fourteen,” he said, answering her question in his own way. “Brett had just graduated from high school. He was turning eighteen the following week, so he petitioned to be officially declared our guardian.”

What he had only recently discovered was that his brother had done that at great personal sacrifice—the girl Brett loved was setting out for the west coast. She'd asked Brett to come with her. Given a choice between following his heart and living up to his responsibility, his older brother had chosen responsibility—and never said a word about it.

“I guess you might say that Brett actually raised Liam and me—it just became official that year,” Finn concluded fondly.

He and Brett had their occasional differences, but there was no way he could ever repay his brother for what Brett had done for him as well as Liam.

Connie laughed shortly. “When I was fourteen, my brother took off.” She said the words dismissively, giving no indication how hurt she'd been when Conrad left her behind.

“College?” Finn guessed.

She actually had no idea where her brother went or what he did once he left her life. She hadn't heard from him in all these years.

“Maybe.” She thought that over for a second. It didn't feel right to her. Conrad had been neither studious nor patient. “Although I doubt it. My father wanted my brother to go to college, and Conrad wanted to do whatever my father didn't want him to do.”

“Is that why you're working for Carmichael Construction?” he asked. “Because your father wants you to?”

Remembering the look on her father's face when they had struck this deal, Connie laughed at the suggestion. Having her as anything but a lowly underling in the company was
not
on her father's agenda. The man was not pushing her in an attempt to groom her for bigger, better things. He was pushing her because he wanted to get her to finally give up and settle into the role of family hostess permanently.

“Actually,” she replied crisply, “my father doesn't think I have anything to offer the company. I'm working at the corporation because
I
want to,” Connie emphasized.

Reevaluating the situation, Finn read between the lines. And then smiled. “Out to prove that he's wrong, is that it?”

It startled her that he'd hit the nail right on the head so quickly, but she was not about to admit anything of the kind to someone who was, after all, still a stranger.

She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Out to build the very best damn hotel that I can,” she corrected.

Her voice sounded a little too formal and removed to her own ear. After all, the man had just been nice to her. She shouldn't be treating him as if she thought he had leprosy.

So after a beat, she added, “And if that, along the way, happens to prove to my father that he'd been wrong about me all these years, well, then, that's just icing on the cake.”

Icing. That was what she made him think of, Finn realized. Light, frothy icing—with a definite, tangy kick to it.

Finn leaned back in his chair, scrutinizing the woman he'd brought to the diner. The next few months were shaping up to be very interesting, he decided.

Chapter Five

“How would you like to come and work for me?”

The question caught Finn completely off guard, but he was able to keep any indication of his surprise from registering on his face.

Rather than laughing or turning the sexy-looking woman down outright, he decided to play along for a little while and see where this was going.

“Doing what?” he asked her, sounding neither interested nor disinterested, just mildly curious as to what was behind her offer.

He'd lowered his voice and just for a split second, Connie felt as if they were having a far more intimate conversation than one involving the construction of the town's first hotel.

His question caused scenarios to flash through her brain, scenarios that had absolutely
nothing
to do with the direction of the conversation or what she was attempting to accomplish.

Scenarios that included just the two of them—and no hotel in sight.

She'd never had anything that could be labeled as an actual
relationship,
but it had been a while between even casual liaisons. The truth of it was, she'd gotten so involved in trying to play a larger part in the construction company, not to mention in getting her father to come around, she'd wound up sacrificing everything else to that one narrow goal.

And that included having anything that even remotely resembled a social life.

Just now, she had felt the acute lack.

The next second, she'd banished the entire episode from her mind.

Without realizing it, she wet her lips before answering his question. “I want you to head up my construction crew for the new hotel.”

She might not have been aware of the small, reflexive action, but Finn definitely was. It drew his attention to the shape of her lips—and the fleeting impulse to discover what those lips would have felt like against his own.

Reining in his thoughts, Finn focused on what she had just said. The only conclusion he could reach was that she had to be putting him on.

“The fact that I've never headed up a construction crew before doesn't bother you?” he asked, doing nothing to hide his skepticism.

Connie shrugged carelessly.

“There always has to be a first time,” she told him.

That wasn't his point. “Granted, but—”

She wanted him for the job, but there had to be others in this blot of a town who were qualified for the position. What she'd seen at
Murphy's
convinced her of his leadership qualities. She was not about to beg.

“Look, if you don't want the job, just say so. I'll understand.”

He raised his hand to stop her before she could go off on a tangent—or for that matter, leave. When he came right down to it, he'd be more than happy to accept her offer. But there were extenuating circumstances—even if he was to believe that she was really serious.

“Trust me,” he told her, “it's not that I don't want to.”

If this had been a legitimate offer, he would have snapped it up in an instant. He'd had a chance to compare how he felt when he was working on making something become a tangible reality—first the bathroom for the room above the saloon, and then restoring and renovating Brett's ranch house. He had to admit that was when he felt as if he'd come into his own, when he felt as if he'd finally found something he enjoyed doing that he was really good at.

Those were all reasons for him to pursue this line of business—God knew there was more than enough work for a builder in the area.

But that notwithstanding, Constance Carmichael had no way of knowing any of that. The woman had only been in Forever a few hours, not nearly enough time to orient herself about anyone or anything. Besides, there wasn't anyone to talk to about the quality of work he did because Brett—and Alisha—were the only ones who would have that sort of input for this woman. As far as he knew, Connie hadn't talked to either one of them about him—or about anything else for that matter.

Since she'd seen for herself that strangers really
were
rare in Forever, her fishing around for workers would have instantly become the topic of conversation.

He had no doubt that now that they had left
Murphy's
, the rest of the patrons were busy talking about the hotel that she had come to build. The skeptics would maintain that the project would never get off the ground because Forever didn't need a hotel, while the hopefuls would declare that it was high time progress finally paid Forever a visit.

Every one of those patrons would secretly be hoping that the promise of extra employment would actually find its way to Forever, at least for the duration of this project.

And he was definitely in that group.

“It's just that,” he continued honestly, “I don't quite understand why you would want me in that sort of capacity.”

The simple truth was that Connie had good gut instincts, and she'd come to rely on them.

“When I drove by the ranch house this morning, I liked what I saw.”

The second the words were out of her mouth, Connie realized what they had to have sounded like to Finn. It was a struggle to keep the heat from rising up her cheeks and discoloring them. She did her best to retrace her steps.

“I mean, you looked like someone who knew what he was doing.” That still didn't say what she wanted to say, Connie thought in frustration.

She tried again, deliberately refraining from apologizing or commenting on her seemingly inability to say what she meant. She did
not
want this cowboy bartender getting the wrong idea.

Trying it one more time, Connie cleared her throat and made one last attempt at saving face as well as stating her case.

“What I'm trying to say is that I was impressed with what you had apparently done with the ranch house you said that your brother inherited.”

“How do you know what I did and what was already there?” Finn asked.

“When you've been in the construction business for as long as I have, you develop an eye for it,” she told him.

Finn didn't bother challenging that outright, instinctively knowing that she would take it as a personal attack on her abilities. But what he did challenge was her timeline, her claim to having years of experience.

“And just how long have you been
in the
business?
” he asked. “Ten weeks?” he hazarded a guess, given her fresh appearance and her less than orthodox approach to the work.

Connie's eyes narrowed. Maybe she was wrong about this cowboy. “Try more like ten years.”

Finn stared at her. The woman before him was far too young to have had that many years invested in almost
anything
except for just plain growing up. “You're kidding.”

“Why would I joke about something like that?” she asked, not understanding why he would ever
think
something like that. “I got a job in the company right out of high school, working part-time. What that amounted to was any time I wasn't in college, working toward my degree, I was on one site or another, learning the trade firsthand.”

Since she'd brought the subject up, he was curious. “What was your major in college?”

“It was a split one, actually,” she answered. “Architecture and engineering. And I minored in business,” she added.

New admiration rose in his eyes as he regarded her. “A triple threat, eh?”

She didn't see herself as a triple threat, just as prepared—and said so. “I wanted to be prepared for any possibility.”

Finn nodded. His opinion of her was taking on a different form. The woman sitting opposite him, seemingly enjoying a rather cheap dinner, was multidimensional. To begin with, she had the face of an angel and the body, from what he could tell, of a model.

If she wasn't exaggerating about her background, the woman wasn't just a triple threat, she was a barely harnessed dynamo.

“Well, I think you've covered that,” he told her with no small appreciation.

Because of her father, Connie was accustomed to being on the receiving end of a great deal of empty flattery uttered by men who wanted to use her as a way to get ahead with her father. She would have been inclined to say that was what was going on now, but something told her that Finn Murphy wasn't given to offering up empty flattery—or making empty gestures, either. That put his words under the heading of a genuine compliment.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

Finn leaned across the table. “Let's say, for the sake of argument, that I'm interested in working for you,” he began. “Exactly what is it that you see me doing?”

“What I already said,” she told him. “Heading up the work crew.”

“You mean like telling people what to do?”

She nodded. “And seeing that they do it,” she added with a hint of a smile. “That's a very important point,” she underscored.

This didn't seem quite real to him. Who did business this way, just come waltzing into town, making snap decisions just by
looking
at people?

“And you really think I'm the one for the job by spending fifteen minutes looking at my handiwork on the ranch house?” he asked her incredulously.

“That and the way you handled yourself at the bar,” she told him.

“You intend to have me serve drinks on the job?” he asked wryly. In actuality, he had no idea what his job at
Murphy's
would have to do with the job she was supposedly hiring him for.

“The way you handled
the men
at the bar,” Connie corrected herself, emphasizing what she viewed was the crucial part. “You have an air of authority about you—it's evident in everything you do. And just so you know, that air of authority doesn't have to be loud,” she told him, second-guessing that he would point out that he had hardly said a word and when he had, none of the words had been voiced particularly loudly.

“The upshot of all this is that men listen to you,” she concluded.

She was thinking specifically of the man who had tried to hit on her at the bar. Finn had made the man back off without causing a scene of any sort, and she appreciated that—and saw the merit in that sort of behavior—on many levels.

“When's this job supposed to start?” he asked. “Brett's getting married in a couple of months. I can't just leave him high and dry. He needs someone to run
Murphy's
while he and Alisha are on their honeymoon.”

She assumed that
Alisha
and the woman he had referred to earlier as
Lady Doc
were one and the same, although she wasn't really interested in names.

“We can make arrangements regarding that when the time comes,” she promised. “Besides, I gather that most of
Murphy's'
business is conducted after six.” She raised a quizzical eyebrow, waiting for his confirmation.

“Most of it,” Finn agreed. “But not all of it. Brett opens the doors officially at noon, just in case someone really needs to start drowning their sorrows earlier than six.”

“There's a third brother, right?”

“Liam's more into providing the music for
Murphy's
than he is into actually serving the drinks.”

“But he can, right?”

Finn inclined his head. “Right.”

That meant the solution to Finn's problem was a very simple one.

“Then you or Brett tell Liam that his services as a bartender are more important than his playing whatever it is that he plays.”

“Guitar,” Finn prompted. And family pride had him adding, “And he's pretty damn good. A better musician than a bartender,” he told her.

That might be so, but in her estimation, this third brother's talent was not the source of the problem. Apparently, Finn needed a little more convincing.

“I guess it all boils down to what do
you
want more? To continue working at the bar, or to stretch your wings and try doing something new, try challenging yourself,” she urged. “Maybe,” she concluded, “it's time to put yourself first for a change.”

What she had just suggested he saw as being selfish and self-centered. “That's not how family works,” he told her.

“That's
exactly
how family works,” she corrected with feeling. “
If
the members of that family want to get ahead in the world,” she qualified, her eyes meeting his, challenging him to say otherwise.

For a moment, Finn actually thought about terminating the informal meeting then and there. He debated getting up and walking out, but then he decided that the young woman with the blue-diamond eyes apparently was here on her little mission and that if someone didn't come to her aid and pitch in, this whirling dervish in a dress would spin herself right into a huge pratfall—and a very painful one at that.

But first, she needed to be straightened out.

“I think there's something you have to realize,” he told her in a slow, easy drawl that belied what he felt was the seriousness of his message.

“And that is...?” she asked.

“The people in Forever aren't really all that interested in ‘getting ahead in the world' as you put it,” he told her. “If they were, they would have left the area when they graduated high school, if not sooner. We're well aware that there's a big world out there, with bigger opportunities than Forever could
ever
possibly offer.

“But that's not what's important to us,” he stressed, looking at her to see if he was getting through to her at all. It wasn't about the money or getting ahead; it was the pride in getting something done and done well. “You might find that bit of information useful when you're working with us.”

This is a whole different world,
Connie couldn't help thinking. It was totally foreign from anything she was accustomed to. But there was a bit of charm to this philosophy, to this way of viewing things—she just didn't want that
charm
getting in the way of her end goal: completing the hotel and ultimately getting it on its feet.