Harlequin American Romance November 2014 Box Set: The SEAL's Holiday Babies\The Texan's Christmas\Cowboy for Hire\The Cowboy's Christmas Gift (39 page)

“I appreciate you sharing that with me,” she told Finn.

He grinned. He could still read between the lines. “No, you don't. You think what I'm saying is hopelessly lazy at its worst. Horribly unproductive at its very best.”

“Fortunately, I don't have to think about it at all,” she told him, then smiled broadly. “Because I have you for that—” And then she realized that he still hadn't accepted the job in so many words. “Unless you've decided to turn down my offer.”

“It's not an offer yet,” he pointed out to her. “It's only a proposition. To be an offer,” he explained when she looked at him in confusion, “you would have had to have mentioned a salary—and you haven't.”

“You're right,” Connie realized, then nodded her head. That, at least, could be fixed immediately. “My mistake.” She rectified it in the next breath by quoting Finn a rather handsome salary.

“A month?” Finn asked, trying to put the amount in perspective. She had just quoted a sum that was a more than decent amount.

Connie shook her head. “No, that's payable each week,” she corrected.

Finn stared at her. It was all he could do to keep his jaw from dropping open. The amount she'd quoted was enough to cause him to stop breathing for a moment, sincerely trying to figure out if he was dreaming or not.

“A week,” he repeated, stunned at the amount of money that was being bandied about. “For someone with no work experience in the field?” he asked incredulously.

She had to be testing him, he concluded. To what end he had no idea, but nobody really earned that sort of money in a week, not unless they were crooked.

“You have life experience,” she countered. “That trumps just work experience seven ways from Sunday.”

Hearing the phrase made him grin.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing.” He began to wave the matter away, then stopped. What was the harm of sharing this? “It's just that I haven't heard that phrase since my mom died. She liked to say it,” he confessed.

That in turn brought a smile to
her
lips.

Small world, Connie couldn't help thinking. The phrase had been a common one for her own mother.

“Wise lady,” she said now.

“I like to think so.” Finn gave it less than a minute before he nodded his head. “She would have liked you,” he told Connie. And as far as he was concerned, that cinched it for him. Besides, it wasn't like he was signing away the next twenty years of his life.

Putting out his hand, Finn said to her, “Well, Ms. Carmichael, looks like you've got yourself a crew foreman.”

Connie was fairly beaming when she said to him with relish, “Welcome to Carmichael Construction,” and then shook his hand.

Chapter Six

“Well, you two seemed to have come to some sort of an amicable agreement,” Miss Joan noted.

Having covertly observed the two occupants of the table from a discreet distance for the duration of their conversation, Miss Joan decided that now was the proper time to approach them.

Not that she was all that interested in restraint, but this was someone new to her, and she wanted to start out slowly with the young woman. Picking up a coffeepot as she rounded the counter, she used that as her excuse to make her way over to their table.

It was time to see if either of their coffee cups was in need of refilling. High time.

Pouring a little more coffee into both their cups, Miss Joan looked from the young woman to Finn. They had dropped their hands when she had come to their table and had now fallen into silence.

Silence had never been a deterrent for Miss Joan. On the contrary, it merely allowed her to speak without having to raise her voice.

“Anything I might be interested in knowing about?” the older woman asked them cheerfully.

Connie could only stare at the other woman, momentarily struck speechless. Granted, she was accustomed to her father's extremely blunt approach when he wanted to know something. The man never beat around the bush. His demand for information was nothing if not direct.

However, everyone else she'd ever dealt with was far more subtle about their desire to extract any useful information from her.

Miss Joan, apparently, was in a class by herself. Polite, but definitely not subtle.

Since she was in Forever for the singular purpose of getting this hotel not just off the ground but also completed, and to that end she was looking to hire local people, Connie told herself that she shouldn't feel as if her privacy had been invaded—even though she had a feeling that Miss Joan would have been just as straightforward and just as blunt with her query.

You're not here to make lasting friendships—just to get the hotel erected,
Connie told herself sternly.
Act accordingly.

So Connie smiled at Miss Joan, a woman her gut instincts told her made a far better ally than an enemy, and said to her, “Mr. Murphy here has just become my first hire.”

Miss Joan's shrewd eyes darted from Finn back to the young woman. “You're looking to hire men?” she asked with a completely unreadable expression.

Finn could see that Connie's simple statement could easily get misinterpreted and even once it was cleared up, there would undoubtedly be lingering rumors and repercussions. He came to Connie's rescue before she could say anything further.

“Ms. Carmichael is going to be building a hotel in town, and she's looking to hire construction workers,” Finn told Miss Joan succinctly.

Miss Joan leaned her hip against the side of the table, turning his words over in her head.

“A hotel, eh? Something tells me you'll get the show on the road a hell of a lot quicker if you two stop referring to each other as
Ms.
and
Mr.
and just use each other's given names.” And then she considered the project Finn had mentioned a moment longer. Her approval wasn't long in coming. “Might not be a bad idea at that, putting up a hotel around here. Give people a place to stay if they find themselves temporarily in Forever for one reason or another.”

She straightened up then and looked directly at the young woman. “Speaking of which, where is it that you're going to be staying for the duration of this mighty undertaking, honey?” she asked.

Connie wasn't used to being accountable to anyone but her father, so it took a second to talk herself into answering. The woman was just being nosy.

“I've got a room reserved at the hotel in Pine Ridge,” Connie replied, thinking how ironic that had to sound to anyone who was listening.

“Pine Ridge?” Miss Joan repeated incredulously. The expression on her face went from disbelief to dismissive. “That's at least fifty miles away from here. You can't be driving fifty miles at the end of the day,” Miss Joan informed her authoritatively. “You'll be too damn tired, might hit something you didn't intend to.”

As opposed to something she
had
intended to hit? Connie wondered. She shrugged in response. “I'm afraid it can't be helped.”

“Sure it can,” Miss Joan insisted. “You can come and stay with me and my husband. I've got an extra bedroom you can have. No trouble at all,” she added as if the discussion was over and the course of action already decided.

But it wasn't decided at all. Again, Connie could only stare at the other woman, completely stunned. How could this Miss Joan just come out and offer her a bed under her roof? Things like that just weren't done where she came from.

Wasn't the woman afraid she might be taking in a thief—or worse? Apparently, people around here were far less cautious.

“But you don't know me,” Connie pointed out.

Miss Joan snorted as if that made no difference at all.

“Finn here seems to trust you, and that's good enough for me,” the older woman told her. “Besides, you just said you were building a hotel here. That'll put some of our boys to work, earning more money than they have in a long while, and that's
really
good enough for me. Especially if you include some of those boys on the reservation. They're a proud bunch, but they need work just like the others.” Miss Joan leveled a gaze at the younger woman. “Whatever you need,” she told Connie, “you come check with me first. I'll see that you get it.”

With that, Miss Joan took her leave and sauntered away.

Finn could almost see what his table companion was thinking by the stunned expression on her face. Survivors of a hurricane had the exact same expression.

“Well, that's Miss Joan all right,” he commented. “She's pretty much a force of nature. But she means well. She comes through, too. And just so you know, you wouldn't be the first person who's stayed with her when they first came to town.”

Connie didn't care if the woman had a guest registry a mile long, she wasn't about to accept anyone's charity. “Thanks, but I do have that hotel room reserved, and I don't mind the drive.”

The latter statement wasn't really true. Connie very much
did
mind the drive, especially since she was going to be doing it at night. She was, perforce, independent, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't have preferred not having to drive a long, lonely, relatively unknown stretch of road in the dark. But she had no choice—unless she got a pup tent and camped out.

What she
did
plan on getting sent down, once the work got underway, was an on-site trailer. She'd definitely be able to sleep in it. That way, all she'd have to do was step outside her door, and she would be at work. And once her day was over, her bed wouldn't be far away.

“Suit yourself,” Finn was saying. “But if I know Miss Joan, her offer stands and will continue to stand until either the hotel is finished or you actually move into someone's place here in Forever.”

Connie paused for a moment, captivated by what he was saying despite the fact that her mind was racing around a mile a minute, pulling together myriad details and things she had to take care of before this work got fully underway.

She was having a hard time accepting what he was telling her. “Are you people really this open and generous?”

The corner of Finn's mouth rose in an amused semismile, just like the one, he was told, that on occasion graced his older brother's face.

“I wouldn't know about open and generous,” he confessed. “We see it as business as usual,” Finn told her matter-of-factly. “Everyone just looks out for everyone else here in Forever.”

Any moment now, the people here were going to join hands and sing, Connie thought sarcastically.

“Yes, but I'm not an insider,” she pointed out—needlessly, in her opinion. “I'm an outsider.”

He laughed at her statement. “An outsider is just an insider who hasn't come in yet,” Finn informed her very simply.

He was kidding, right? “That's very quaint,” she told him.

He took no offense at the dismissive note in her voice. Finn had learned that some people needed a little more time to come around. He had no doubts that once her hotel was framed, she would see things differently. He could wait.

“And also true,” he added.

“If you say so.” Connie looked down at her plate. Dinner had somehow gotten eaten without her taking much note of it or of the process of consuming it.

Okay, it was time to call it a day for now, Connie decided. She discreetly pushed back her plate, away from her.

“Thank you for dinner,” she told him, rising to her feet. “I'm going to start heading back to Pine Ridge now, but I'll be back here in the morning. We can start signing up workers then.”

Finn was on his feet, as well. Knowing the prices on the menu by heart, he took out several bills and left them on the table.

“Sounds good.” Getting up from the table, he walked her to the front door, acutely aware that Miss Joan was watching their every move, no matter where she was in the diner. “Where do you plan to set up?”

She stepped across the threshold. “Set up?”

He nodded. “I figure I can spread the word, round up a bunch of people for you to interview, but you're going to need to set up somewhere so you can conduct these interviews.”

He was right; she needed a central place, somewhere everyone was familiar with and felt comfortable in. It took Connie less than a minute to think of the perfect place.

“How about at
Murphy's?
Could you open early for me?” she asked, turning directly toward him. “I could conduct interviews there, although if you vouch for the people you bring to me, I don't foresee the interview process taking very long.”

She supposed that her father would have accused her of being crazy. She'd had just met this man, and she was behaving as if he was a lifelong trusted friend. But there was just something about Finn Murphy that told her he was the kind of man who always came through, who wouldn't let a person down, not even for his own personal gain. If he told her that someone was worth hiring, she saw no reason to doubt his assessment.

“
Murphy's
is doable,” he told her.

Brett might take some convincing, Finn thought, but he had no reason to think that his brother wouldn't come around. After all, this was ultimately for the good of the town, something that always interested Brett.

“How soon are you looking to get started?” he asked.

“Yesterday,” Connie answered.

He believed her.

“Then
we
have some catching up to do,” he told her, walking her to her car.

* * *

I
T
WAS
A
long drive, Connie thought as she
finally
saw the lights of Pine Ridge come into view in the distance.

It wasn't a drive she relished. Maybe she'd see about having that trailer brought in as soon as possible. Granted, the road between Forever and Pine Ridge was pretty empty, but that didn't mean she couldn't find herself accidentally driving into some sort of a ditch, especially if she fell asleep. The road was exceedingly deserted and boring. Monotony put her to sleep, hence her problem.

Mornings wouldn't be a problem. She'd be fresh in the morning, far less likely to have an accident. But even so, it was still time wasted, time she was taking away from getting the actual hotel completed.

For the good of the job, Connie began to seriously entertain taking Miss Joan up on her offer. God knew she valued her privacy, and she liked keeping to herself, separating the public Connie from the private one, but this was business and, as such, she was willing to sacrifice a lot of her own personal beliefs.

Anything to show her father she could live up to her word and be the asset to the company he was always saying he wanted.

The first thing she did when she got into her room at the hotel—besides immediately kick off her shoes and allow her toes to sink into the rug—was place a call to her father's business manager on her cell phone.

Stewart Emerson answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

The familiar, deep voice vibrated against her ear, magically creating a comfort zone for her. “Stewart, it's Connie.”

Instant warmth flooded his voice. “By the tone of your voice, I take it that all systems are a go.”

She laughed. Good old Stewart. The man seemed to be able to read her thoughts before she ever said anything. She'd discovered long ago that a simple hello could tell the man volumes.

Ever since she could remember, Emerson was like the father that Calvin Carmichael wasn't, the man who made her feel that she had a safety net beneath her if she ever really needed one.

She knew without being told that he had her back in every project she had ever gotten involved in. He'd always made sure that her father only received the positive reports.

Granted, the senior Carmichael paid his salary, but Calvin Carmichael's lifelong associate reasoned that his boss's daughter had a great deal to contend with as it was; he just wanted to make it a little easier for her. He knew the sort of demands that Carmichael placed on his daughter—and he also knew that each time she came close to meeting those demands, Carmichael would raise the bar that much higher.

He had watched her grow from a little girl to the woman she had become. Watched, too, as she heartbreakingly attempted to cull and gain her father's favor, only to fail, time and again. Carmichael was the type to drive himself—and everyone in his world—hard. It made for a very successful businessman—and at the same time, a rather unsuccessful human being.

Emerson strived to somehow prevent the same sort of fate from ultimately finding Carmichael's daughter.