Cowboy for Hire

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.

Finn had every intention of giving her a flippant answer, but there was something in her eyes, something that had him skidding to a grinding halt and reassessing not just his answer, but a hell of a lot of other things, as well. Things that had nothing to do with tools and construction.

The woman on the stool before him probably had no idea that she had the kind of eyes that seemed to peer into a man’s soul while making him reevaluate everything that had happened in his life up to this singular moment in time.

A beat went by before he realized that she was still waiting for him to respond.

“Yes,” he answered quietly, his eyes on hers. He found he couldn’t look away even if he wanted to—which he didn’t. “You do,” he added in the same quiet tone.

Despite the surrounding din, his voice managed to undulate along her skin and lodge itself directly beneath it.

It took Connie more than a full second to come to, then another full second to find her voice and another one after that to realize that her mouth and throat had gone bone-dry. If she said more than a couple of words, they could come out in a comical croak, thereby negating whatever serious, or semiserious thing she was about to say.

Taking the drink that was on the bar before her, she emptied the glass in an effort to restore her voice to its initial working order. Tears suddenly gathered in her eyes as flames coasted through her veins. She’d forgotten her glass contained whiskey, not something less potent.

“Good,” she managed to say without the word sticking to the roof of her mouth. Taking a breath, she willed herself to be steady and then completed her sentence. Nothing could interfere with work. She wouldn’t allow it to. “Because I have just the position for you.”

Most likely not the same position I have in mind for you.

The thought, materializing out of nowhere, took Finn completely by surprise. He was extremely grateful that the words hadn’t come out of his mouth. It wasn’t his intention to embarrass either himself or the young woman.

But he found that he was having trouble banishing the thought out of his head. The image seemed to be all but burned into his brain. An image that was suddenly making him feel exceedingly warm.

Finn focused on the hotel she had been talking about. This represented the first move toward progress that had been made in Forever in quite some time.

“What kind of a position?” he asked her out loud, rubbing perhaps a bit too hard at a spot on the bar’s counter.

“Is there someplace we can talk?” she asked him.

Finn thought of the room that was just above the saloon. Initially, their uncle Patrick had lived there when he’d owned and operated Murphy’s. On his passing, it had been just an extra room that all three of them had sporadically availed themselves of if the occasion warranted it. Currently, however, Brett’s fiancée was staying there, but only when she wasn’t working—or staying with Brett at the ranch. The clinic was still open, which meant that the room would be empty.

But Finn didn’t feel comfortable just commandeering it—besides, Brett would undoubtedly have his head if he found out.

The next moment, Finn felt he had come up with a viable alternative. “Have you had dinner yet?” he asked the woman.

“No.” She had been so worked up about this project, so eager to get it going, that she had completely forgotten about eating.

“Then I know just the place we can talk. Brett,” Finn called, turning toward his brother. “I’m taking my break now.”

Motivated by his interest in anything that had an effect on the town, Brett had discreetly listened in on the conversation between Finn and this woman. He appeared mildly amused at his brother’s choice of words. “You planning on being back in fifteen minutes?”

“A couple of breaks, then—plus my dinner break,” Finn added for good measure.

“You already took that, don’t you remember?” Brett deadpanned.

“Then my breakfast break,” Finn shot back, exasperated.

Brett inclined his head. “That should work,” he told Finn. “Just don’t forget to come back,” he called after his brother as Finn made his way around the bar.

Escorting the woman through the throng of patrons, most of whom were now keenly interested in what this newcomer to their town had to offer, Finn waved a hand over his head. This signified to Brett that he had heard him and was going to comply—eventually.

“Where are we going?” Connie asked once they made it through the front door.

“To dinner,” Finn repeated.

“And that would be—?”

Finn grinned. “At Miss Joan’s,” he answered.

“Miss Joan’s?” she repeated. The name meant nothing to her.

“The diner,” Finn prompted. “It’s the only restaurant in town.”

For now, Connie corrected silently. Plans for the hotel included a restaurant on the premises.

But for the time being, she thought it best to keep that to herself.

Chapter Four

Since she had already ascertained that it was the only so-called restaurant in town, Connie had initially intended on checking the diner out after she left Murphy’s. But seeing the cowboy who had, she admitted—although strictly to herself—taken her breath away—both because of his craftsmanship and his physique—she’d temporarily lost sight of the plan she’d laid out for herself to round out her first day in Forever.

The bartending cowboy opened the door for her and she stepped into the diner. Connie scanned the area, only to discover that everyone in the diner was looking right back at her.

Before taking another step, she unconsciously squared her shoulders.

Inside the brash, confident young woman who faced down all sorts of obstacles, beat the heart of a shy, young girl, the one whose father had always made her feel, through his words and through his actions, that she wasn’t good enough. That she couldn’t seem to measure up to the standards he had set down before her.

Even though he had told her, time and again, that she was a source of constant disappointment to him, Calvin Carmichael had insisted that, from the relatively young age of fourteen, his only daughter replace her late mother and act as a hostess at the parties that he threw for his business associates.

It was while acting as hostess at those very same parties that she developed her polish and her poise—at least on the surface. Only her father knew how to chip away at that veneer to get to the frightened little girl who existed just beneath that carefully crafted surface.

To be fair, her father had been just as demanding of her brother, Conrad. But Conrad had been far more rebellious than she ever was. He absolutely refused to be bullied and left home for parts unknown the moment that he turned eighteen.

She would have given anything to go with him, but she was only fourteen at the time, and Conrad had enough to do, looking after himself. He couldn’t take on the burden of being responsible for a child, as well.

At least that was what she had told herself when he’d left without her.

So Connie resigned herself to remaining in her father’s world, desperately treading water, determined to survive as best she could. Not only surviving, but vowing to one day make her father realize how wrong he’d been about her all along. It was the one thing that had kept her going all this time.

The only thing.

Was it her imagination, or were the occupants of the diner looking at her as if she were some sort of an unknown entity?

She inclined her head in her companion’s direction, lowering her voice to a whisper. “You weren’t kidding about not many tourists passing through this town. These people really aren’t used to seeing strangers walking their streets, are they?”

Finn’s mouth curved ever so slightly. “Forever’s not exactly on the beaten path to anywhere,” he pointed out. Although, even if Forever was a regular bustling hotbed of activity, he could see this woman still turning heads wherever she went.

“That’s becoming pretty clear,” Connie whispered to him.

“Been wondering when you’d finally step in here,” the thin, older woman with the somewhat overly vibrant red hair said as she sidled up to the couple to greet them. “What’ll it be for you and your friend here, Finn?” she asked, nodding her head toward the other woman. “Table or counter?”

Connie was about to answer “Counter,” but the man the hostess had referred to as “Finn” answered the question first.

“Table.”

The woman nodded. “Table it is. You’re in luck. We’ve got one table left right over here.” So saying, the redhead led them over to a table near the kitchen. There was only one problem, as Connie saw it. There was a man still sitting at it.

Connie regarded the other woman. “But it’s occupied,” she protested. Did the woman think they were going to join the man?

The woman appeared unfazed. “Hal here finished his dinner,” she explained, indicating the table’s lone occupant. “He’s just a might slow in getting to his feet, aren’t you, Hal?” she said, giving her customer exactly ten seconds of her attention. Then she looked around for the closest waitress and summoned her. “Dora.” She beckoned the young blonde over. “Clear the table for Finn and his friend, please.” She offered the couple just a hint of a smile. “I’ll be back to get your orders in a few minutes. Sit, take a load off,” she encouraged, patting Connie on the shoulder. And then she added, “Relax,” and turned the single word into a strict command.

Dora was quick to pick up and clear away the empty dinner plate from the table. Within two minutes, Dora retreated, and Connie realized that she and the cowboy were left alone with their menus.

Connie was only mildly interested in glancing over the menu and that was purely out of a curiosity about the locals’ eating preferences. As always, eating, for Connie, took a backseat to orientation.

She decided to begin with the very basics. Names. Specially, his name. “That woman, the one with the red hair, she called you Finn.”

“That’s because she knows my name,” he replied simply. Finn had a question of his own to ask her. “But I don’t know yours.”

“I didn’t tell you?” The omission on her part surprised her. She’d gotten so caught up in getting her operation set up and hopefully rolling soon in this tiny postage-stamp-size town that common, everyday details had slipped her mind.

“You didn’t tell me,” Finn confirmed, then added with yet another, even more appealing hint of a smile, “I’m not old enough to be forgetful yet.”

Not by a long shot, Connie caught herself thinking. Just for a moment, she got lost in the man’s warm, incredibly inviting smile.