“I don’t want…”

Jack tightened his hold on Charlie’s waist, pulling her closer. “Something told me I was about to hear those words again.”

She stumbled and then caught up with his easy, steady steps. Her soft, curly hair tickled his chin, and he breathed in her clean scent. Nothing floral or herbal, no tropical fruits or exotic musks for Charlie Keene. More like freshly washed linens flapping on the line strung out across his mama’s back porch on a summer afternoon.

She shifted to one side, and her thigh grazed the outside of his knee. And he realised he was enjoying this dance too much.

“You know,” he said, setting some distance between them, “acting in such a predictable manner might tip your hand in a tricky negotiation.”

She glared at him. “Are you giving me business advice now?”

A Small-Town Temptation

by

Terry McLaughlin

www.millsandboon.co.uk

TERRY MCLAUGHLIN spent a dozen years teaching a variety of subjects, including anthropology, music appreciation, English, drafting, drama and history, to a variety of students from kindergarten to college before she discovered romance novels and fell in love with love stories. When she’s not reading and writing, she enjoys travelling and dreaming up house and garden improvement projects (although most of those dreams don’t come true). Terry lives with her husband in Northern California on a tiny ranch in the redwoods. Visit her at www.terrymclaughlin.com.

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Available in September 2010
from Mills & Boon®
Special Moments™

The Texas Billionaire’s Bride

by Crystal Green

&

The Texas Bodyguard’s Proposal

by Karen Rose Smith

Kids on the Doorstep

by Kimberly Van Meter

&

Cop on Loan

by Jeannie Watt

The Texan’s Tennessee Romance

by Gina Wilkins

&

The Rancher & the Reluctant Princess

by Christine Flynn

Loving the Right Brother

by Marie Ferrarella

A Weaver Baby

by Allison Leigh

A Small-Town Temptation

by Terry McLaughlin

A Not-So-Perfect Past

by Beth Andrews

For Rob

Chapter One

JACK MAGUIRE WOULDN’T BE needing a second look to confirm the rumor: Charlie Keene was a woman who could give a man hell. She stood a dozen yards away, her muddy boots planted at the edge of Earl Sawyer’s gravel yard, flaring up like a pint-size serpent to poke a pointy finger at his gut. And if that image wasn’t enough of a giveaway, all a guy had to do was listen. She hissed and spat in a fire-and-brimstone vocabulary, providing Sawyer with an impressive preview of everlasting damnation.

The plant operator who’d pointed out Charlie and Earl climbed back on his loader. Jack waved his thanks and leaned against his rental sedan to enjoy the show. Sawyer tried to duck out of the fight with a feint to the left, but Charlie cut off his escape with some fast footwork and another round of curses.

One side of Jack’s mouth twisted in a lopsided grin. He’d enjoy doing a little ducking and weaving of his own before he delivered the knockout punch.

Before he put her out of business.

Sawyer laughed at something Charlie said and shook his head. She sure was a cute little thing, an inch or two over five feet and close to ninety pounds of atomic energy bundled up in workman’s coveralls. Her firecracker hair exploded out the back of her visored work cap, and her square, stubborn chin shoved up toward Sawyer’s grizzled beard. Not Jack’s usual taste in women, perhaps—too much spice in her attitude, not enough sugar in her shape—but kind of appealing, in a handle-at-your-own-risk kind of way.

Jack always had enjoyed the adrenaline rush of a calculated risk. His smile spread with one part anticipation and three parts pure male speculation. It looked like this business trip up the coast from San Francisco might be more interesting than he’d figured.

Charlie tossed up her hands with a frustrated growl, shot Sawyer one final, lethal glare and stomped toward the battered Keene Concrete pickup truck parked near Jack’s car. Her pretty mouth moved in a muttered litany of maledictions as she rammed her hands into her mud-spattered coverall pockets and kicked at a loose piece of cobble in her path.

She stumbled over another when she noticed Jack grinning at her, and she faltered, just for a moment, while a charming blush flooded her cheeks. And then her eyes—Jack thought they might be as dark and gray as the wet gravel—narrowed to slits, and a touch of the heat she’d been directing at Sawyer snapped across the yard and sizzled right through him.

Jack rubbed a fist over his heart. God almighty, the lady could torch the countryside with that flamethrower stare of hers. Probably came in handy for keeping badass drivers and fresh-handed boyfriends in line. He worked up another grin, just to show he wasn’t completely charred, while she yanked her abused pickup’s door open, climbed inside and peeled out of the yard, spitting gravel in her wake.

“Maguire?” Sawyer sloshed through a gravel-lined puddle, one work-roughened hand outstretched to take Jack’s. “Jackson Maguire?”

“That’s right.”

“Earl Sawyer.” The wiry man had a grip like a vise on a machinist’s bench. “Welcome to BayRock. Understand you represent some folks who’re looking to get a piece of the Carnelian Cove ready-mix business, Mr. Maguire.”

“Folks call me Jack.” He paused to watch a mixer truck pull under the concrete batch plant and stop, idling for the next load. The driver climbed down from the cab and headed for the office, juggling his clipboard as he lit a cigarette. “Looks like a busy place.”

“Can be, sometimes.” Sawyer nodded with muted pride and satisfaction at a loader dumping a scoop of sand into the bed of a customer’s pickup truck.

Jack took the opportunity to scan the yard, quickly assessing the equipment and layout at Sawyer’s BayRock Enterprises. A few streaks of rust edged the seams of the batch plant, and the dozen assorted loading and delivery trucks were mostly older models, but everything appeared to be operational and in good repair. To the north, near the gunmetal-gray ripples of the Ransom River, conveyor belts dribbled freshly screened material over neat cones of sand and gravel, and a vast, misshapen mound of river run hulked beneath February’s sullen, fog-dampened sky.

It was the river run Jack’s employer had an interest in acquiring—tens of thousands of cubic yards of rough material waiting to be sifted into gravel gold. That, and the permit to scrape still more sand and gravel from the river’s bars when the water level fell in the summer.

Sawyer hitched his pants up an inch over hips as spare and angular as the rest of his build. “Got a big pour at the tribal casino today.”

“Saw some pier forms going up for a bridge just south of here,” said Jack. “You doing that, too?”

Jack already knew the answer. The bridge job was Keene Concrete’s, just like most of the government projects in the area. Which was surprising, considering Sawyer’s outfit was the only one in town with a union contract.

Jack didn’t like surprises. That was one reason he’d informed his regional manager that he was making the trip north to check out the situation for himself.

“We couldn’t have handled a bridge pour today,” said Sawyer with a shrug. “We’ve got our hands full with the casino.”

“How many yards?”

“Plenty.” Sawyer squinted at the mixer truck spinning its drum as material fell from the batch plant’s weigh hopper. “Had to rent a couple of trucks from our competitor to handle it.”

“Keene Concrete?”

“Yep.” Sawyer’s measuring gaze settled back on Jack’s face. “It’s just the two of us around here.”

Jack followed Sawyer across the yard, pausing to let a loader rumble past and dump a scoop of pea gravel into the feeder bin at the base of the batch plant’s conveyor belt. “Pretty wet winters here, I s’pose,” said Jack. “Projects get backed up to spring?”

“A few.” Sawyer shrugged away the region’s long, gray rainy season. “If a fellow was interested in buying a place like this one, it might be a good time to get a deal cooking, so he could get in on the early summer rush.”

“Might be,” said Jack with a noncommittal smile.

Sawyer paused outside his squat concrete-block office building with his hand on the doorknob. “Just thought I should mention I’ve already got one offer on the table. Figured I’d take it.”

Jack nodded. He already knew about the offer, too. “Smart move,” he said, “since you probably figured you wouldn’t get another one.”

“Told the other party I’d take it, too.”

“No problem.” Jack shoved his hands into his pockets. “And no harm in listening to what I’ve got to say.”

“Just wanted to be up front about the situation here.”

“Being up front is always good business.”

Sawyer continued to study Jack with that squinty-eyed stare for another long moment and then twisted the knob and motioned him inside. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

CHARLIE CHARGED INTO THE cramped reception area of the office trailer at Keene Concrete twenty minutes later and slammed the door shut behind her. The fiberboard paneling on the walls vibrated in sympathy, and fine gray cement dust whirled in eddies around her feet. On the cork display board hanging over the scarred laminate counter, an oversize aerial photo of the Ransom River swung and settled back into place.

“Shit,” she muttered. Here she was, scrambling to keep the place from coming apart at the seams while her brainless younger brother made a hash of today’s schedule by renting out two of their trucks. She’d harassed the shop mechanic to get a wheezing mixer ready to roll in record time, and then had spent the morning making deliveries herself. Her back ached, her head throbbed and her stomach was begging for the take-out breakfast grown stone-cold on her desk. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Come on, Charlie,” said Gus Guthrie, Keene’s ancient dispatcher. He tilted back on his chair’s casters and balanced his massive coffee mug on one of his spindly thighs. “Why don’t you tell us how you really feel?”

She pointed a warning finger. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Fine by me.” He aimed his thumb toward the phone on his massive metal desk. “Red Simpson’s on line two. Doesn’t think he should have to pay the standing time on the Maple Street job last month.”

“Then he should’ve had his crew finish up the forms before we showed up with the truck.”

Some of her customers kept forgetting they weren’t the only ones with a clock ticking on payroll expenses. Keeping a mixer truck idling at the curb while a construction crew got ready for a concrete pour meant the driver was getting paid for sitting in his cab, listening to the radio or flipping through a magazine—and that his truck was unavailable for making other deliveries and selling more product.

Argumentative customers, botched delivery schedules, increasing fuel prices, union contract negotiations…Charlie rubbed her forehead and tried to remember if the king-size aspirin bottle in her lower-left desk drawer had already run to empty. “I’ll take the call.”

“Figured you might.” He lifted the giant mug to his lips and sipped one of the half dozen coffees he drank daily. “Figured you might be primed to deal with your good buddy Red right about now.”

“Now, Gus.” She spared him a nasty smile as she punched at the blinking light on the phone panel. “You know the customer’s always right.”

Gus humphed and slurped more coffee. “Unless he’s dumber than dirt.”

She took a deep breath and tamped down her anger over the morning’s scene at BayRock. Dealing with Red was going to hitch her blood pressure into the danger zone as it was. “Hey, Red,” she said in a neutral voice. “How’s it going?”

She paced the length of the counter and back again as Red blasted her for adding her driver’s extra time on the site to his bill. Red was one of those contractors who worked a little too close to the edge, shaving his costs by trying to shift some of his risks onto his subcontractors and suppliers. Better to force Charlie to pay her driver to wait on the job than to pay his own crew to wait for the truck to arrive.

She and Red had gone this round before. They’d likely go it again. Red never seemed to figure out how hard he could push his crew or how long he could push the odds. But the talk around town was his twin daughters were going to need braces to fix those twisted teeth, and Red was going to need every penny he could squeeze out of every angle if he was going to pay for them.

“I can take off thirty minutes,” said Charlie. “And that’s my final offer.”

“Thirty minutes? Hell, just last week Buzz wasn’t here any longer than ten. How come you get to charge for overtime, and I don’t get a break for under?”

“Thirty, Red. Take it or leave it.”

“Your old man would have listened to reason. Mitch knew how to run a fair business.”

Charlie’s fingers tightened on the receiver. “Yeah, that’s right,” she said, her voice sounding much steadier than she felt at the moment. “My father would have listened. And then he would have offered exactly the same kind of deal I’ve given you.”

She paused for a moment to control her temper. “I listened, too, Red. I listened in on plenty of conversations just like this one when he was alive—enough to know what I’m doing.”

Red growled and muttered his standard filth about women in the construction business. “Guess I’ll be calling BayRock when I get that Hawthorne job.”

“Guess you might.”

They both knew it was a bluff. Earl Sawyer probably wouldn’t let Red add any charges to his BayRock account right now, since Earl didn’t have Charlie’s patience with delinquent payments. “Thirty,” she said again.

Red ranted a while longer before disconnecting. Charlie slowly, carefully lowered the receiver into its cradle, her fingers shaking. The comment about her father had stung. “Comparing that man to dirt does dirt a disservice.”

“Well,” said Gus with a sympathetic shrug, “we’ll make up the difference on the Hawthorne pour.”

“That job bid already?” Charlie checked her watch. Pinch-hitting as a driver had thrown her day out of whack. “Who got it?”

Gus’s homely face cracked with a wide grin. “Bradford.”

“Yes.” She punched the counter with her fist, already figuring the profit in her head. Bradford Industries was efficient, cooperative, paid on time and was a rock-solid customer. If Bradford got the bid, Keene would do the pour. A big one, with plenty of deep, wide surface area and a minimum of the kind of detail work that kept trucks idling while pump operators and concrete finishers filled and smoothed every nook and cranny.

“David seems happy enough about the news,” said Gus.

“Yeah. Right.”

Charlie regretted the sarcastic remark the moment it flew from her mouth. Her younger brother meant well, most of the time. Well, some of the time, anyway, but his heart simply wasn’t committed to the family business. Never had been, though their father had struggled for years to find some aspect of Keene Concrete that might engage his only son’s interest. Nothing had worked.

David claimed he had a talent for metal sculpting and ambitions to make his mark in the art world, but he’d sold only two pieces and hadn’t completed the application for the San Francisco art academy he hoped to attend. Instead, he’d complained his responsibilities were holding him back, and he’d launched a campaign to sell the business the day after they’d put their father in the ground, two long and difficult years ago.

Charlie sighed. “Is he in his office?”

“Yep.” Gus stared at the mug in his hands. “Been on the phone most of the morning.”

“Could be woman trouble.” David hadn’t yet figured out the math: dating more than one woman at a time didn’t mean his problems would multiply, it meant they’d increase at exponential rates.

“Yep.” Gus turned the mug in one circle, and then another. “Could be.”

Watching Gus spin that mug knotted up Charlie’s guts. She knew her dispatcher was aware of the arguments behind the scenes. David had stormed out of the office more than once lately, threatening to force the issue. To force her to sell.

Bad enough her employees had to deal with a female boss who, at twenty-nine, was younger than most of them. Bad enough they had to deal with the rigors of the job itself, with the long, grueling hours when the weather cooperated and the uncertain hours when it didn’t. She didn’t want them to have to worry about whether they’d keep their jobs on top of all that.

There were few secrets in a town the size of Carnelian Cove, and no secrets when it came to Keene family business, thanks to David’s indiscretion. Their father had split the company stock equally among his three heirs: his wife, his son and his daughter. Once David convinced their mother to let him put it up for sale, Keene Concrete would go to the highest bidder, and Charlie would likely be looking for another steady job along with some of her current employees.

Unless she could convince both her mother and David to help her buy BayRock, which might provide her mother with enough security to soothe her worries and give David a big enough raise to either purchase his loyalty or pay for his tuition. And unless she could make Keene Concrete too big for the hungry conglomerates down south to swallow without getting a bad case of heartburn.

Just last week she’d heard that a Continental Construction rep had been prowling among the sand and gravel suppliers in the neighboring county. That was entirely too close for comfort.

She turned her back on the reception counter and started down the short hall that led to the back offices and storage areas. Avoiding the bookkeeper’s attempt to flag her down and the view of her messy desk piled high with invoices and mail, she stopped at David’s door. It was closed, as usual. She stared at the shiny new brass name plate covering the lettering still visible in the wood below: Mitch Keene, Owner.

Not President or CEO, like the puffed-up titles on David’s nameplate. Owner. Their father had been a plain, quiet man, with a plain, quiet pride in the business he’d built from one delivery truck and a two-year lease on a river bar. He’d taken a simple satisfaction in what he’d been able to provide for his family and offer to his employees, and a quiet pleasure in what he’d contributed to his community. Keene Concrete had earned a reputation for solid dealing to match the solid foundations it poured.

How could David want to auction off that legacy?

She sucked in a deep breath, raised her hand, prayed for patience and knocked on the door.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me,” said Charlie. “I’m coming in.”

Chapter Two

CHARLIE IGNORED DAVID’S SCOWL as she dropped into one of his plush visitors’ chairs.

“Why don’t you ever make ‘coming in’ a question instead of a fact?” he asked.

“Because it saves time.”

He leaned back in his tall leather swivel chair and bounced the eraser end of a freshly sharpened pencil against his tidy desk calendar. The weak winter sun sneaking through the window behind him picked out strands of copper in his well-mannered chestnut hair, a head of hair that Charlie, with her out-of-control carrot curls, never ceased to envy. Just as she never ceased to envy the way his clothes neatly outlined his long, rangy frame, while hers simply buried what little there was of her figure.

Today he wore a dress shirt and tie, and she spied a new leather jacket hanging from the mirrored wall rack behind him. “Going somewhere?” she asked.

“Already been.” His expression brightened with the trace of a smile. “I stopped by that new hotel going up south of the marina—you know, Quinn’s job. He liked my sketches. He’s going to show them to the architect, see if he might be interested in using my design for the water feature near the entrance.”

Charlie didn’t respond to David’s smile with one of her own. Quinn was one of the busiest contractors in Carnelian Cove, a dour, hard-working man who probably didn’t appreciate David traipsing around his job site, artwork in hand.

Her brother cleared his throat, and then he flipped the pencil in his hand and drew a box around a calendar item. “And then I’ve got a business appointment.”

“Here?”

Obviously annoyed, he flicked an impatient glance in her direction. “This is a place of business.”

“Yeah. Right.” She tossed her chin at the jacket. “Where did you get that?”

“The city.” He took a deep breath and blew it out with a martyred sigh. “Is that why you barged in here? To comment on my wardrobe?”

Charlie shifted forward. “You loaned out two of our trucks this morning.”

He shrugged. “Earl called me at home last night and asked for them.”

And she’d just made sure Earl would never pull that stunt again. “How many times have I told you not to make a move without checking with Gus first?”

David jammed the pencil into a bristling mass of writing tools corralled in a slick chrome cup. “Gus isn’t the boss around here.”

“He’s the dispatcher, and when it comes to which truck goes where, and when, that’s more important than whose name is on whose check.”

“Damn it, Charlie—”

“Just shut up and listen, for once.” She came out of her chair, slapped her hands on his desk and leaned over him. “I let you declare yourself president of Keene Concrete because I hoped it would change your attitude. It’s time for you to start acting like you give a damn what happens to it.”

“Don’t you lecture me.”

“Someone’s got to.”

He clenched his jaw, and she knew he wouldn’t budge on this. Not today, anyway.

“Aw, hell.” She spun away and moved to the window to stare at the wide, gravel-coated yard. Outside, Buzz pulled beneath the batch plant to load his truck for the preschool playground job, and Lenny rumbled by in the transfer with sixteen yards of sand headed for Delores Fregoso’s riding arena.

“Don’t make this harder than it has to be,” she said in a near whisper. “Don’t sabotage this. Please.”

“I’m not sabotaging anything. I’m trying to find a way for all of us to get what we want. All of us, Charlie. Not just you.”

She turned as he stood to pull his jacket off its hanger. “There are going to be some changes around here,” he said. “Whether you like them or not.”

TWO HOURS LATER, CHARLIE leaned back in her chair with a groan that morphed into a yawn. Time for another dose of caffeine. She tugged her coffee mug from under a stack of Department of Motor Vehicles forms and trudged toward the reception area. Around the corner, she heard a deep murmur followed by Gus’s wheezy chuckle. Someone was busy charming her dispatcher. Someone with a syrupy Southern drawl in his smooth, low-pitched voice.

That stranger, the guy who’d been staring at her in Earl’s gravel yard that morning. He leaned against the counter as if he’d been born with the laminate attached at the hip. His jeans were white at the seams, poised on the edge between ragged and stylish, his wool shirt faded enough to show some use but soft enough to advertise its pedigree. The outfit may have said everyday working guy, but she suspected the labels whispered weekend leisure wear.

He straightened and turned to face her, and she couldn’t help but stare at the flesh and blood embodiment of every bittersweet promise and mortifying low point in her brief and forgettable dating career. There was the lean-muscled build of that high school wrestler, the one who’d been such a perfect fit during a long, slow number at the homecoming dance—the one who’d lost his dinner all over her first formal gown. There was the wavy, dark blond hair of that sexy grad student, the one who’d whisked her away for her first taste of grown-up excitement—the one who’d ducked out in the middle of a double date, doubling her mortification. There were the dark blue, crinkle-cornered eyes of the man who’d been her first serious love affair, the one who’d said he was serious about her, too—the one who’d stood her up for Christmas dinner at her parents’ house four years ago.

And then the lean, sexy, blue-eyed stranger standing at her counter smiled, and his tanned skin stretched and molded in a wonderful combination of sharp cheekbones and square jaw and deeply carved grooves far too manly to pass for dimples. Okay, so the grooves were something new. And that look in his eyes that was making her stomach twist in a breath-robbing knot—no one’s eyes had ever looked at her in quite that way before. As if they were peeling away her clothes and counting every freckle on the skin underneath.

She hated it when guys made her stomach knot up. It gave her heartburn.

Gus gestured with his coffee mug. “This here’s Jackson Maguire, Charlie. He says he has an appointment with David.”

Jackson Maguire thrust his hand forward. “Call me Jack.”

She placed her hand in his, noting a healing nick on his thumb and the calluses rubbing against her palm. This was a man who used his hands for work, but the careful weight of his grip gave the impression of precise and practiced manners. An interesting man, this Call-Me-Jack Maguire. A man of intriguing contrasts and textures.

“Charlie Keene,” she said, and then she pulled her hand from his and shoved it into her pocket, where it would be safe.

“Do you know when David’s due back?” Gus asked her.

“He mentioned he had an appointment,” she said, “but all I know is that it was set for sometime after lunch.”

“I’m afraid I’m early,” said Jack. “Y’all just go about your business, now. Never mind me. Gus, here, is keeping me plenty entertained, in between all those phone calls he handles so well.”

Maguire winked at her. A slow burn kindled in her cheeks, and she knew she’d soon be wearing the same blush he’d seen on her that morning. She covered it with a nod and a shuffle to the coffeemaker.

“Pretty busy place here, even in the afternoon,” Maguire rambled on in his amiable way. “Trucks coming and going, steady as can be. I would have thought things might slow down some after the morning pours, especially in a town this size. I s’pose most of the traffic must involve gravel deliveries about this time of day.”

She couldn’t tell if he was simply making conversation or prying into her business affairs. There was something about the sly specificity of his questions—wrapped up in that “aw, shucks” delivery—that tickled the hairs on the back of her neck.

She turned with a shrug. “Some,” she said.

“Some.” His mouth turned up at one corner. “But not all.”

“Nope.”

Behind her, Gus sputtered through a strangled cough.

Maguire’s grooves deepened. “Now, that’s as concise, and yet at the same time, as eloquent an answer as I think I’ve ever heard.”

“And I imagine you’ve heard all kinds,” she said.

That crooked smile of his seemed to tweak and tease at each of his features before coming to rest in his eyes. Quite a trick. Her stomach was knotting up so tight she wondered if she’d be able to make it back to her office without getting a cramp.

David sauntered in through the office door. He took one look at Maguire, a second at Charlie, and his golfer’s tan faded several shades.

Charlie narrowed her eyes. “David?”

“David Keene?” asked Maguire, although it was obvious he already knew the answer.

At David’s hesitant and guilty-looking acknowledgment, Maguire extended his hand. “Jack Maguire,” he announced. And then he paused and flashed yet another grin in her direction. “From Continental Construction.”

Continental. Charlie’s mug clattered down on the counter, and coffee sloshed over the rim. Oh God oh God oh God.

Maguire tsked at the spilled coffee as he followed David through the doorway to the back offices.

That damn, cocky grin. The stomach-knotting trademark of the man who had appeared out of nowhere, the one who could get her juices flowing with his easy talk and his rough hands—the one who could hurt her more than any other man had ever hurt her in her life.

The hell he could.

Charlie snapped out of panic mode and strode down the hall after them. David’s business appointment was about to get his agenda adjusted.

JACK TOOK ONE OF THE visitors’ chairs in David Keene’s office and crossed an ankle over a knee. He figured he had about ten seconds before David’s sister came barging in.

Five seconds later the office door swung open so hard it bounced off the baseboard spring and closed behind her with a smack. His guess had been off. Charlie Keene moved fast when she was in a temper.

“Don’t let me disturb you,” she said as she dragged the other chair behind David’s desk—to the administrative side of the small room—and tucked it under an anemic-looking potted palm. “Go right ahead and discuss what it was you wanted to discuss. Just ignore the co-owner in the corner.”

She dropped into her seat and slouched with her arms folded across her nearly flat chest, a fraudulent smile thinning her lips.

David leaned back with a sigh. “You’ll have to forgive my sister, Jack. She tends to forget her manners when she walks through that door.”

Jack glanced at the woman glaring at him from her spot beneath the greenery. One scrawny frond brushed against her cheek, and she swatted it out of the way. “There’s nothing to forgive,” he said. “I’m perfectly capable of ignoring something, or someone, I’m told to ignore. Discretion is an important social skill, along with manners and the like.”

He hadn’t thought it was possible for Charlie’s expression to get any more hostile, but he’d guessed wrong about that, too.

He stifled a smile, figuring it would be like setting a torch to a short fuse. Except for his slight miscalculations about her temperament, so far Ms. Charlene Elizabeth Keene was living up to her reputation and his research. Which meant the rest of what he’d discovered was probably true—the lady had a clever enough brain and a strong enough back to carry most of the load at Keene Concrete.

He knew she was after Sawyer’s ready-mix company, too, scheming to ease her competitor into an early retirement and secure her company’s future in Carnelian Cove. Jack wondered how quickly she might blast through her family complications once she learned the purpose of this visit. Soon, he hoped. He relished the challenge of a tough, resourceful adversary.

Her brother cleared his throat, and Jack realized he’d been staring. David swiveled his chair a few degrees, attempting to cut Charlie out of the conversation. “I hope you had a nice trip north.”

“I did at that.” Jack nodded. “Enjoyed the scenery on the way in from the airport. Nice country you’ve got around here.” That was an understatement—the views were spectacular. Massive redwoods crowding the pavement’s edge, twisted cypress hugging cliffs dashed with sea spray. Mountains carpeted in thick forests and rolling pastures dotted with fat dairy cows. Rivers so clear he was tempted to pull over and toss in a lure.

“We like it.” David squeezed a pencil with white-knuckled fingers. “The tourists do, too. We get plenty of visitors. In the summer, when the weather gets nicer.”

Jack nodded. “That would bring ’em out, all right.”

Charlie shifted in her seat and rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. Jack had to give her points for keeping her mouth shut.

“I’m glad you could make it up here,” said David. “I was hoping you’d be able to check out the situation for yourself.”

“That’s why I’m here.” Jack gave him a wide smile. “To check out the situation.”

David sketched a zigzag in one corner of his desk blotter. “I hear you stopped by Sawyer’s yard this morning.”

“I did, yes.” Jack’s smile stayed in place. “Part of the situation, don’t you think?”

“But not an important one,” said David. “Well, not in a…What I mean is, he’s retiring, and…” He cleared his throat again. “There won’t be any competition around here once he does. Retire, I mean.”

“Continental’s not worried about a little competition,” said Charlie. She leaned forward, her hands on her knees. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Maguire?”

“Please,” said Jack as he leaned more comfortably against the back of his chair, “call me Jack.”

“In fact,” said Charlie, ignoring his request, “Continental doesn’t care which ready-mix outfit it buys. BayRock or Keene Concrete—it doesn’t matter at all, not in the end. It’s a buyer’s market here in Carnelian Cove, isn’t it, Mr. Maguire?”

Jack spread his hands. “It would sure be nice to think so, especially if a fellow were on a shopping trip.”

David sent his sister a murderous look. “Be that as it may, I’m sure Continental will want to consider getting the best value for its money in the Cove—in the local market.”

“The best value? The local market?” Charlie stood and shoved the palm frond out of her way. “If Continental buys Keene Concrete, Earl won’t be able to sell his outfit to anyone, and there go his retirement plans—everything he’s worked so hard for all these years. If Continental buys BayRock, it’ll cut the price of concrete below cost and bleed us into bankruptcy in a matter of months.”

She rested a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “Either way, Mr. Maguire’s bosses aren’t going to have any competition in Carnelian Cove.” She tilted her head to the side and leveled her dark gray eyes on Jack’s. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Maguire?”

“It’s Jack.” God almighty, going a round or two with this woman was going to be a whole lot of fun. Not to mention that the more he looked at her, the more he wanted to keep right on looking at her. She’d pulled off her cap, and that thick, springy hair seemed to wave and wind around her shoulders with a will of its own. Her wide mouth softened into a pillowy curve during those rare moments she wasn’t frowning or cursing or arguing. And the crackling intelligence in her smoky eyes made it difficult for him to tug his gaze from hers.

“Well now, David.” Jack set his foot on the ground and rose from his chair with a friendly smile. “I’d like that look at your operation you promised, if you don’t mind.”

Chapter Three

JACK SWUNG HIS GARMENT bag over his shoulder later that afternoon and paused to admire the gaily colored Victorian houses standing shoulder-to-shoulder in their postcard pose along Oyster Lane. Stretched atop the rail of a white picket fence, a fat tabby spared him a crotchety meow before shifting its attention to the gulls overhead. The scents of salt-crusted docks, wood smoke and early hyacinths blended in the offshore breeze, a perfume that was Carnelian Cove’s own.

An interesting town, he thought, packed with the kind of character that came with several different interests nurtured in relative isolation. Fishermen and artists, lumberjacks and university professors, dairy farmers and silversmiths—all rubbing up against each other in an eclectic collection of shops and neighborhoods that appeared to predate the concept of zoning restrictions. Untidy and unexpected, and charming in an offbeat way.

Sort of like the carved driftwood sign hanging from a reproduction London gaslight: Villa Veneto Bed and Breakfast.

He wondered what his boss would make of such a jumble. Bill Simon liked his private surroundings and business dealings streamlined and simplified, so he could make his personal and executive decisions as quickly and neatly as possible. Such a cool efficiency had its own appeal, but Jack sometimes preferred mucking through life’s muddles—especially when he discovered the diamonds in the rough patches.

Uncut, unpolished diamonds like Sawyer’s BayRock Enterprises. Buying Sawyer’s company could satisfy Continental’s insatiable appetite for raw materials while establishing a viable—and potentially valuable—presence north of San Francisco. And it was up to Jack to prove that viability and estimate that potential.

To streamline and simplify the muddle.

He nodded an apology for disturbing the tabby cat before opening the low picket gate and strolling up aged concrete steps to the stained-glass entry. The gingerbread tacked onto every nook and cranny made the villa look homey and fussy, giving the impression the inside was likely stuffed to its curlicued rafters with antiques and doodads.

As he stepped onto a wide wooden porch furnished with wicker and ferns, one of the lace curtains swagged across a bay window twitched discreetly and settled back into its graceful curve. Jack grinned, pleased to see his hunch had paid off. Just as he’d suspected when he’d phoned, Agatha Allen was a nosy hostess. Bed and breakfasts weren’t the typical business-trip lodgings, but they often provided one benefit in addition to a comfortable place to sleep and a home-cooked meal to start the day: a built-in source of small-town gossip.

Moments after he twisted an ornate brass bell knob, a handsome woman, neat and trim and somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty, opened the heavy mahogany door.

“Agatha Allen?” he asked.

She nodded and stepped aside, waving him in. “And you must be Jack. Welcome to Villa Veneto. Oh, put that away,” she said with another wave as he shifted his bag over his arm and reached into his back pocket for his wallet. “We can take care of the paperwork after you’ve had a chance to settle in.”

She plucked a tasseled key ring from a row of hooks behind her tiny reception desk and led the way up a steep, narrow flight of stairs covered with a floral runner. “I hear you’ve been in the Cove practically all day already. Kate down at the Abalone waited on you at lunch, and she called to tell me you got here safe and sound, since she knew I’d be worrying. You must have caught your plane at the crack of dawn, you poor thing. I’ll bet you’re ready for a cup of tea. Which do you prefer—black or herbal?”

He shook his head at her back. “Neither, though I truly appreciate the offer.”

“Coffee, then.” Agatha tossed him a no-nonsense glance over her shoulder and nodded with a finality that let Jack know he’d be having a cup of coffee before he stepped foot out her front door again, come hell or high water.

“And something to eat,” she continued. “I took the last batch of coconut macaroon cookies out of the oven not five minutes ago. I make them up to crush for my chocolate silk pie crust—and don’t you go telling anyone about that secret while you’re here, or I’ll find out—but I can always spare a couple of cookies for a snack.”

“Coconut macaroons just happen to be one of my favorites,” he said.

She paused when they reached the second floor and studied him as if she were attempting to divine the truth of his statement, and he suffered through the panic of a guilty moment. He wondered what the penalty might be if she discovered he could barely tolerate coconut, in macaroons or pie crusts or anywhere else.

“And my secret?” she asked at last.

“Is safe with me,” he answered with relief.

He followed her along a wide balcony and a curve in the hallway that wrapped back around the stairwell, past several tall, transomed doors punctuating rose- and lily-papered walls. Doors with exotic names calligraphied in gold paint on thickly trimmed panels: Lido, Rialto, Murano.

She stopped at the last in the line and handed him the key to the San Marco suite. “They have these in Venice, you know,” she said.

“Venice?” He stared at the old-fashioned brass key in his hand, struggling to make the transition from coconut crust to canals.

“The tassels.”

“Ah.” He gave her a suitably impressed nod. “Nice touch.”

“It’s in the Italian style, you see.”

“Yes,” he said, although he really didn’t.

“Like Versace and Armani.”

“Two of my favorites,” he said as he jiggled the key into the lock. He wondered what she’d think of his Armani suit and nearly regretted leaving it behind. He hadn’t thought there’d be much occasion for designer labels in Carnelian Cove. “Just like coconut macaroons.”

“Oh.” She flipped her little wave at him again. “There’s no need to lay the charm on so thick. Although I do enjoy a dose of it every once in a while, just like the next person. And especially when it comes out sounding so nice, like it does with that accent of yours. Louisiana?”

“No, ma’am. South Carolina.”

“Charleston?”

He stepped into the room and spread his bag across the quilt-covered double bed. “A small place west of there. Nothing anyone’s ever heard of.”

Nothing—and nobody—from nowhere. That’s what he’d felt like when he’d left, and that’s why he’d never go back. He’d worked his way across the country and struggled for a foothold on the corporate ladder, and he’d done it on his own.

And now he was going to collect the rest of his things, and settle down for some late-afternoon coffee and cookies, and pump Agatha Allen for every shred of information he could coax out of her. He’d kick back and relax, thicken his accent a touch and see what unexpected tips it might tickle loose.

Corporate intrigue came in all shapes and sizes, even coconut macaroons.

A KELP-SCENTED, BONE-CHILLING fog thickened the darkness on Cove Street that evening when Charlie steered her truck toward A Slice of Light, the stained-glass shop owned by Addie Sutton. The jeweled tones of the samples dangling in the windows slid over her windshield as she angled into the parking space behind Tess Roussel’s sporty red compact. Her two best friends in the same place at the same time—twice the sympathy, double the outrage. Fewer brownies to go around, she thought as she stuffed a pink bakery box inside a deep grocery bag and slipped out the driver’s door, but the moral support would be worth it.

She needed all the support she could muster after today’s potentially devastating developments.

Ignoring the Closed sign in the window, she rapped on the shop door. After a shivering wait and a second round of more insistent knocking, Tess—long-legged even without her three-inch heels—appeared in the darkened shop and sauntered over to open the door. Why the town’s newest architect wanted to wrestle her way into pantyhose and thigh-hugging skirts every day was a mystery.

“Well, look what the tide washed in,” said Tess. “A little red-shelled crab.”

“What are you doing here?” Charlie angled past her and headed toward the long, deep counter dividing the shop’s display area from Addie’s work space. She paused near a table bristling with pins holding dozens of cut glass pieces in place. It was the beginning of a peacock, the body crafted in rich hues and the tail cascading in intricate detail over the jagged outline of a tree limb.

“Same as you,” said Tess. “Scrounging for dinner company.”

“Shouldn’t you be out on some hot date with some hot dude?”

“It’s Thursday. Give me another twenty-four hours.” Tess closed the shop door and flipped the lock. “On the other hand, another day probably won’t make a difference. I’m fresh out of hot prospects in this town. Nothing but lukewarm lately.”

Charlie shot a skeptical glance at the woman with whom she’d shared every summer vacation during their school years. Tall, dark and drop-dead gorgeous, Tess had only to crook a manicured finger at any available man in Carnelian Cove to have him panting after her.

“Besides,” said Tess as she brushed her short, layered hair out of her eyes, “I’m too busy being brilliant.”

“And humble.”

“Only when required.”

Charlie followed Tess through the curtained glass door at the rear of Addie’s shop and stepped into the odd apartment ranged along the building’s back wall. Antique kitchen appliances lined one side of the open space, and a thrift-shop sofa and woodstove directly opposite defined the seating area. Pipes and heating ducts snaked around lighting fixtures suspended from the high ceiling. The loft effect at ground level.

She passed an old, claw-footed oak table crowded with books, rolls of paper and a fat yellow pitcher stuffed with tulips and set her package on the slanted farmhouse sink, near the wreckage of a fast-food meal. She helped herself to one of the fries heaped on wrinkled paper and waved another one toward the mess on the table. “Is that your stuff taking up all the eating space?”

“My latest sketches. Look.” Tess spread one of the rolls of paper and anchored the corners with the books. “Look.”

Charlie popped another fry into her mouth and wiped her hands on her jeans before studying Tess’s sketch for a proposed bayside project. The opportunity to develop the property with her own design had played a major role in luring Tess from a large architectural firm in San Francisco. Charlie and Addie had been delighted when their childhood friend had hung her shingle above one of the Cove’s Main Street storefronts.

“I’ve decided the main entrance should feature stained-glass sidelights,” said Tess. “Maybe some more touches, here, and here—” she indicated “—if I can incorporate the design into the structure.”

Charlie marveled again at the way Tess had managed to capture and update Carnelian Cove’s architectural traditions with clean lines and decorative details. The building would add a fresh touch to the waterfront while blending in with its nineteenth-century neighbors “I hate to admit it,” she said, “but you’re right. You are brilliant.”

“Best idea I’ve seen in a long time,” said Addie in her low, raspy voice as she stepped around the partition screening her bedroom from the rest of her apartment. Her long blond hair fell in tangled spirals from a clip that had slipped to one side of her head. “Although I told her she should come back tomorrow morning so we can look at some glass samples in the sunlight.”

Charlie traced a finger over the drawing. “All that glass looks like a lot of work.”

“I could use a lot of work,” Addie said. “Business has been slow.” She crossed to the sink, rummaged through the large brown bag holding Charlie’s contributions to the impromptu dinner party and pulled out the pink box. “Is this from Bern’s Bakery?”

“Marie-Claudette’s brownies?” Tess snatched the box from Addie and ripped through the tape. “God, yes.”

“The ones with the fudge frosting?” Addie reached around Tess and fished out a chunky pastry. “And sprinkles. Look—red ones, for Valentine’s Day.”

“Dibs on the blondies,” said Tess.

“Don’t worry. They’re all yours.” Addie licked dark brown frosting from the corner of her mouth. “They’re disgusting.”

“Just because they’re not chocolate—”

“Which makes them disgusting—”

“Please.” Charlie pulled her soda six-pack from the crumpled grocery sack and wrenched a can from its plastic ring. “I’m in the middle of a crisis here.”

“Charlie.” Addie’s blue eyes darkened with worry. “What is it?”

Charlie took a long sip of her soda. “David’s really done it this time.”

“He convinced your mom to sell?”

“He burned down the plant?”

“He totaled his fancy new company truck?”

“He got Missy Turner pregnant?”

Charlie zeroed in on Tess. “What was that about Missy Turner?”

“Nothing. Not a thing.” Tess stuffed a wedge of yellow brownie into her mouth, cutting off any chance for an explanation.

Addie pulled one of the mismatched chairs from beneath the table. “Here. Sit down.” She gestured for Charlie to take the seat and gave her arm a sympathetic pat before settling into the chair beside hers. “You look beat.”

“I feel beat.” Charlie stared at the tulip leaves drooping over the edges of the pitcher. “Finally, totally beat.”

Tess popped the top of one of the soda cans. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure yet what part David played in this,” said Charlie, “but a rep from Continental showed up at the plant today.”

“Continental?” Tess’s eyebrows winged up in surprise. “The Continental that owns a piece of every construction firm between here and Vegas?”

Addie frowned. “What’s a representative from a big company like that doing here?”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to know,” said Charlie. “And what—or who—put Carnelian Cove on their radar.” She rubbed her temples. “He was at Earl’s plant this morning, too.”

“God.” Tess lowered her drink to the sink’s drainboard. “They’re moving in.”

“Looks like it.”

“They want to buy BayRock?” Addie’s forehead creased with worry. “But I thought Earl was going to sell it to you.”

“Wait a minute.” Tess folded her arms and leaned one hip against the sink. “There was this guy talking to Ramón at the self-serve pump when I stopped for gas on my lunch break. Someone I’ve never seen around here before. Medium height, wavy dark blond hair. GQ weekend look with slightly muddy work boots. And dimples to die for. God, that smile…”

She sighed and then straightened with a guilty look in Charlie’s direction. “But maybe not your guy. And probably not a genuine hot prospect.”

“Liar.” Charlie bit into Marie-Claudette’s chewy brand of comfort. “That’s him, right down to the dirty boots. And he’s a hottie, all right.”

“But a scary one,” said Addie. “With ulterior motives.”

“Definitely not a prospect,” said Tess.

“Prospect or not, he’s the enemy.” Charlie took another bite of chocolate fortification. “And I’m going to take him down, dimples and all.”

Chapter Four

JACK SKIPPED THE postbreakfast coffee at Agatha’s early Friday morning, likely adding another black mark to his ledger sheet. His hostess had figured out—at some point between her warm-from-the-oven cookie party in the kitchen and her considerably cooler good-night greeting on the stairway—the reason for his visit, and it was obvious her sympathies lay with the home team.

Besides, he was eager to check out the Carnelian Cove market for himself. Figures on spreadsheets were never as revealing as the businesses and consumers and connections they represented. And getting out of the office and meeting folks had always been the best part of his job.

He’d sipped an excellent espresso in a café near the marina, and then he’d shared a scone and an interesting conversation with a scruffy fellow fishing from one of the docks. He’d watched a blacksmith on Main Street shaping an iron scroll for a garden gate, and he’d discussed the difficulties of pigeon population control with a woman scrubbing the walk in front of her knitting supply shop.

He’d needed this break in the corporate routine, he realized as he hiked south of the marina, circling toward Oyster Lane. Needed to clear his mind and reorganize his priorities. Needed to concentrate on one of the most important reasons for this trip: gathering more ammunition for the skirmishes brewing in the San Francisco office.

Bill, his boss, hadn’t yet answered his morning call—most likely preoccupied with pinning down the source of the latest corporate rumors and more cautious than usual about the dicey projects Jack had made his specialty. Projects like this foray north to Carnelian Cove. Noah Fuller, Jack’s perennial rival and general pain in the butt, was eager to take advantage of the situation, looking to sink this deal—and Jack with it. And Jack’s assistant was pressuring him to cut his trip short and fly back south to defend his office turf from another of Noah’s coup attempts.

Calls, coups, pressure. Jack kicked at a pebble wedged in a sidewalk crack, wishing he could get rid of his problems as easily. He liked his job, and he enjoyed living in San Francisco. But there were parts of any job he’d ever had, and aspects of any location he’d ever lived in, that had shredded his patience and dampened his spirit and made him consider moving on.

He’d been on the move for over a dozen of his thirty-two years, heading west until he’d reached the ocean at the other side of the continent. And no matter where he headed now, he’d run up against the same types of shifting, fluid obstacles, the same office politics and the same corporate insecurities. Best to hunker down and pull off a coup of his own here in Carnelian Cove, to blast Noah out of his path and earn another recommendation for a promotion from his grateful boss. He was too young to feel so tired and worn, particularly on such a promising day in a town full of possibilities.

He rounded a corner and discovered the source of the construction-related clatter he’d heard across the water. Up ahead, a concrete pump operator wound thick black hoses over his screen trailer, and another driver washed out a Keene mixer angled near the muddy gash of a job site. Curious about the project, Jack ambled toward the crew laboring over a freshly poured slab.

One of the finishers stretched his float in practiced swoops across the glossy, wet surface of a new drive, while another knelt to scrape deep joints in the mix with a trowel. Though finishing concrete had never been one of his favorite chores, Jack itched to pick up one of the tools and get his hands dirty. Moments like this made him miss the hands-on satisfaction of the construction business and yearn for more opportunities to get out of the office.

Behind the crew, a taller-than-average man with wavy black hair pitched a cell phone into the cab of a black pickup truck. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“Just watching, if that’s okay.” Jack extended his hand. “Jack Maguire.”

The dark-haired man wiped his hand on his jeans before shaking Jack’s. “Quinn. You the man from Continental?”

“Word gets around,” said Jack with a grin.

Quinn’s mouth tightened in a thin line that might have passed for a smile if his level stare had warmed a degree or two. But it didn’t. “Is Continental putting in a bid on Sawyer’s outfit?” he asked.

“Not sure.” Jack studied the finishing work. “Depends on the market around here. The supply.”

“The customers.”

“That, too.”

Jack already knew Quinn was considered one of the best contractors in the area. He had a steady crew, did the job well and on time and paid his bills promptly. Agatha had offered a few more details with her macaroons: in spite of his professional reputation for quality work, Quinn’s personal reputation—as a recovering alcoholic with a troublesome past—kept him scrambling more than most for opportunities to keep his crew employed and his redemption on track.

“In my experience,” said Jack with a glance at the Keene mixer, “customers tend to be loyal to one supplier.”

“Unless there’s enough incentive to switch.” Quinn raised one shoulder in a casual shrug. “Might be a one-time deal, though. Loyalty and all.”

Jack matched Quinn’s shrug with one of his own. “You get what you pay for.”

Quinn gave him another long, level stare and then nodded and moved off to check on his crew. Loyalty was an admirable virtue, and Jack understood better than most how it greased the gears of small-town economics, but the home-team advantage wouldn’t last long if it came at a premium price.

He glanced up to watch gulls swoop overhead, searching for scraps. Scavengers had a purpose and a place in life, too. But all in all, he mused as he shoved his hands back into his pockets and started the trek toward the Villa Veneto, he’d rather be a hawk than a gull.

CHARLIE COASTED TO THE curb in front of her mother’s house an hour after dark on Friday night. She pulled the key from the ignition and slumped in her seat, waiting for hunger to override the temptation to skip another rerun of her real-life family feud.

Dad had been fond of saying the reason his daughter and his wife couldn’t understand each other better was because they were two peas in a pod. When she was young, Charlie had spent a lot of time wondering what alien legume life form Dad had had in mind when he’d made that crack.

She was in no mood to face the coming scene with her mother. The day had been a trial, starting before dawn with a couple of big pours and continuing with David’s stubborn resistance to engage in a meaningful discussion about BayRock. She’d spent a tense lunch hour reminding Earl about all the reasons he’d agreed to sell BayRock to the Keenes—and reassuring him he’d have a business left to sell once she’d sent the visitor from Continental packing.

Now all she had to do was figure out a way to do it. She’d imagined every worst-case scenario and best-case possibility, plotted her way through every twist and turn, and all she had to show for the long day of physical labor and mental efforts were a headache and a queasy stomach.

She was still sitting there a quarter of an hour later, staring at the mellow light glowing through her mother’s ruffly gingham curtains hanging from slightly sagging café rods. Charlie had banned ruffles and gingham from her house on the other side of town, along with Jell-O, doilies, Barry Manilow or anything pink. She was also opposed, on nearly religious principles, to anything that could be done to a woman in a beauty parlor.

It wasn’t just a matter of style; her differences with her mother went deeper than that. While Charlie had always struggled for independence, Maudie Keene had cultivated clinging as a survival tactic. She’d had more than thirty years to practice the technique on her husband.

And now, Charlie thought as she watched her brother’s overdeveloped, overpriced truck muscle its way into their mother’s driveway, Maudie was directing the full force of her neediness at her son. In spite of Charlie’s frustrations with her brother, she didn’t envy him the burden of their mother’s insecurities.

She climbed out of her truck. “David. Wait up.”

He turned at the sound of her voice and shifted a paper bag to one hip. “What are you doing here?”

“Same as you. Getting a free meal.”

“Nothing’s free in this house,” said David.

She bit back her reply. No point in starting an argument before they sat down together at the table. He had his own reasons for his resentment. “Well,” she said, “tonight we’re getting dinner in trade. What’s in the bag?”

“Beer. She never has any in the house since Dad died. And ice cream. She asked me to pick some up, ’cause she made apple cobbler.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They stood for a moment, awkward with sharing an appreciation for their mother’s cobbler in the midst of everything dividing them. “Go ahead and knock,” he said. “My hands are full.”

Maudie opened the door, her large brown eyes shadowed with a habitual anxious expression. The silver threads winding through her hair—a faded version of David’s rich, dark red—glinted in the porch light. “Come in, come in. Is that the ice cream? Better get it in the freezer.”

David brushed past them both, heading for the back of the house. Maudie rubbed her hands on her apron and stared after him. “I made cobbler.”

“So I heard.” Charlie shrugged out of her coat and tossed it over one of the hooks on the coat rack. “Sounds great, Mom.”

“Pot roast, too. With extra gravy. Just the way you like it.”

“And potato chunks? The crispy ones?”

“Of course.”

“Mmm.” Charlie took a deep breath and let it out on a long sigh, trying to ease away some of the tension with it. “Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.”

Maudie beamed at the compliment and toyed with the edge of her apron. “I don’t mind the extra trouble. It’s nice to have some company at a meal for a change.”

An appetizer of guilt served before the first course. It was going to be a long evening.

“Mom,” David called from the kitchen. “How come the table’s set for four?”

“I forgot to mention.” Maudie blushed and lifted a fluttering hand to smooth her hair. “Ben’s joining us.”

Ben Chandler. It was difficult to imagine her mother having romantic feelings for someone else. Charlie pasted on a smile. “It’ll be good to see him again.”

Maudie smiled. “I’d better see to the gravy.” She turned and walked down the hall, her stylish pumps clicking over the wood floor. She was a trim woman who looked younger than her age, an energetic woman who filled her mornings with volunteer activities and lunched with friends in the afternoon. Which left the evenings…

Her mother. And Ben Chandler.

Charlie took a deep breath and stepped into the front room. She wasn’t sure she approved of her mother’s flushed cheeks or the reason for the pearl earrings and the dressy green sweater beneath the apron, but she approved of Ben. He’d maintained his dignity and reputation while so many members of the wealthy and influential Chandler clan had ruined their lives with drink and disastrous choices.

And he’d helped keep David in check. As Maudie’s financial adviser, Ben had cautioned against making any decisions about selling Keene Concrete until all the ramifications could be considered. And it hadn’t been difficult for Charlie to provide enough complications to keep things tied up for months.

But Ben hadn’t yet been able to reassure Maudie that her investments of the insurance funds or her bonuses from the family company would keep pace with her expenses. Maudie seemed obsessed with running her own figures and making her own calculations and projections, so much so that Charlie had wondered if Ben would quit in frustration. Instead, he’d listen quietly, nodding and smiling, and then he’d go over the figures with her one more time. He seemed to have an endless supply of patience where her mother was concerned.

Charlie wandered into the front room to stare at the family photos lined up like soldiers on the brick mantel. There was Dad, standing on the riverbank with a long fish dangling from the line and a wide grin on his face. There he was again, with another smile for the six-year-old daughter on his lap as he guided her hand toward the controls of an old loader. And there was her favorite, the shot of her parents at a holiday costume party, dressed as pirates.

David stepped behind her. “They always looked so happy.”

“Don’t you think they were?”

“No couple is happy all the time.”

She turned to face him. “Maybe not, but at least they did their best to hide most of the bad times from us.”

“Sheltered us, you mean.”

“What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with that kind of security?”

“Security.” David shook his head. “Is that why you’re trying so hard to hold everything in place?”

“You still don’t get it, do you?” She took a deep breath and tried, for the hundredth time, to get through to him. “Dad handed us something lots of people never have in their lifetime. The opportunity to work for ourselves. The chance to build something that belongs to us.”

“We don’t have that chance, Charlie. It’s already built. He did it.” David glanced behind her to the row of photos. “And as long as we keep Keene Concrete, we’ll keep working for him.”

A knock on the door summoned their mother from the kitchen. “That must be Ben,” she said as she passed through the front room. “Charlie, would you mind getting the rolls from the oven to the table? There’s a basket for them near the sink.”

David followed Charlie into the kitchen. “What’s up with Mom and Ben?”

“I think they’re seeing each other.”

“Isn’t that unethical?” David scowled. “He shouldn’t be discussing money matters with her if he’s trying to get her into bed.”

“Please.” Charlie squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t want to think about it.”

“Face it, Charlie. She’s going to hook up with someone as fast as she can. Mom can’t handle being alone.”

“She’s been doing okay so far.” Charlie dumped the rolls into the basket. Her mother probably would have arranged them in some more attractive fashion, but Charlie figured they’d get eaten no matter how they looked. “I just hope she doesn’t rush into something she’ll regret.”

“I don’t like him.”

“Who, Ben?”

David’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t trust him.”

“I do.”

“That’s because he always takes your side.”

“Maybe that’s because I’m always right.”

She caught him by the arm before he could turn and stalk from the room. “We need to talk—all of us. About the timing of the visit from the Continental rep. About what might happen if Earl sells to someone other than Keene, and how we’re going to handle it.”

“What’s the point of talking? Your mind’s already made up, just like always.”

“And you’re not thinking things through.” She closed her eyes and scrambled for patience. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to fight. I need your help with this, David.”

“You don’t need anyone. That’s the problem.”

Their mother walked into the kitchen with a clutch of daffodils. “Aren’t these pretty? Ben brought them for the table.”

“I’m glad he’s here,” said Charlie. “We need to talk.”

“Not business,” said Maudie with a sigh. “Not tonight.”

“Maybe it’s for the best, Maudie.” Ben stood in the doorway, steady and solemn, tall and broad shouldered. His silver-gray suit seemed to match his silver hair, and he looked every inch the successful owner of a respected accounting firm. “I understand there’s something we all need to discuss. Isn’t that right, Charlie?”

She nodded slowly, dreading the dinner conversation to come. “Yes,” she said. “I think a discussion would be good.” She glanced at David. “Arriving at an agreement would be even better.”

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