Harlequin American Romance November 2014 Box Set: The SEAL's Holiday Babies\The Texan's Christmas\Cowboy for Hire\The Cowboy's Christmas Gift (40 page)

“So tell me how everything's going,” Emerson encouraged.

“I found someone in town who's willing to help hire the right people for the crew,” she told him.

“Does he have any kind of experience with construction?” Emerson asked her.

“I came across him rebuilding a ranch house. I was really impressed with what I saw,” she told him.

“Are you talking about the man, or the job he did?” He put the question to her good-naturedly.

“The job he did. I don't have time for that other stuff,” she told him.

“Maybe you should make time,” Emerson tactfully suggested.

“Someday, Stewart,” she promised strictly to placate the man. “But not today. Anyway, from the looks of it, the man seems pretty skilled.”

“And you can work with him?” Emerson questioned.

“I think so,” she answered honestly. There was only one problem in the foreseeable future. “But I'm still worried that it might be hard meeting the deadline Dad set down.”

“You'll do it,” Emerson told her with no hesitation whatsoever.

“Thanks, Stewart.” And then, radiant even though there was no one to see her, or to appreciate the sight, she added, “Hearing you say that means a lot to me.”

“I'm not just saying it, Connie. I know you. You're just as determined and stubborn to succeed as your old man. The only difference is that you're still human,” he qualified. And then he warned her, “Don't drive yourself too hard.”

She smiled to herself. “I won't.”

There was a slight pause, and then he asked her, “Are you remembering to eat?”

Connie caught herself laughing at that. “Now you're beginning to sound like my mother.”

“There are worse people to sound like,” Emerson responded. There was a fond note in his voice, the way there always was when the conversation turned toward her mother.

Connie had long suspected that there had been a connection between Emerson and her mother. He'd never actually said as much, and she hadn't asked him. But one day, Connie promised herself, she intended to ask him. Not to pry, but to feel closer to not just her mother, but to the man she was speaking with, as well.

Her father had been no kinder to her mother than he had been to her brother, or to her. It would make her feel better to know that while she was alive, her mother'd had an ally in Stewart, someone she could turn to for emotional support, even if not a single word had been exchanged between them at the time.

That was Stewart Emerson's power, she thought now. He could make a person feel safe and protected without saying a single word to that effect. He conveyed it by his very presence.

“How about the supplies?” she asked, suddenly stifling a yawn. “Are they still coming?”

“They're already on their way,” Emerson confirmed. “Now if you've had dinner, I suggest you get to bed and get some rest. If I know you, you're going to drive yourself relentlessly tomorrow—and all the tomorrows after that,” he added.

Because no one ever fussed over her, she allowed herself a moment just to enjoy Stewart behaving like an overprotective mother hen.

“Been looking into your crystal ball again, Stewart?”

“Don't need one where you're concerned, Connie,” he told her. “I know you like a book.”

She didn't bother stifling her yawn this time. Instead, still holding her cell phone to her ear, Connie stretched out on her bed for just a moment. With little encouragement, she could allow her eyes to drift shut.

“You need new reading material, Stewart,” she told him with affection.

“No, I don't. You are by far my very favorite book. You don't get rid of a favorite book, Connie, you treasure it and make sure nothing happens to it. Now say good-night and close your phone,” he instructed.

“Good night,” Connie murmured obediently.

She was asleep ten seconds after she hit End on her cell phone.

Chapter Seven

Connie was not unaccustomed to sleeping in hotels. In the past few years, she'd had to stay in more than her share of hotel rooms, most of which were indistinguishable from the hotel room she now had in Pine Ridge. Despite all this, it was not a restful night for her.

Exhausted though she was, Connie found she couldn't sleep straight through the night. Instead, she kept waking up almost every hour on the hour. The cause behind her inability to sleep in something more than fitful snatches was not a mystery to her. She was both excited and worried about what the next day held.

There was a great deal riding on this for her and although, despite her father's mind games Connie
did
have faith in herself, she was not narcissistic enough to feel that everything would turn out all right in the end—
just because.
That was her father's way of operating, not hers.

As a rule, Connie tried to proceed confidently, but keeping what to do in a worst-case scenario somewhere in the back of her mind. She knew better than to believe that the occasion would never come up. She was also well aware that while she seemed to have the beginnings of a decent relationship going with the man in charge of the crew, she wasn't exactly home free in that department yet.

Added to that, she wanted the people who would be working for her to like her. It just stood to reason that employees worked a lot better for people they liked and admired than for people whom they feared and who rode roughshod over them. This would not be an ongoing job for the people she hired but rather a one-time thing. She had to get the very best out of them in the time that she had.

And, if that wasn't enough to prey on her unguarded mind, there was that added
thing
that kept buzzing around in her brain. She had no succinct description for this feeling, other than to call it unsettling. She could, however, easily trace it back to its source: one Finn Murphy. There was something about him, something above and beyond his capability, his craftsmanship and his obvious connection to the men of the town.

Though she would have rather not put a label on it, Connie had always been honest and straightforward with people—and that included herself.

With that in mind, she forced herself to admit that there was no other way to describe it. The man was sexy—not overtly, not in a showy, brash manner, but more in an inherent way. It was part of the fabric of his makeup. Sexiness seemed to be just ingrained in him. There seemed to be no way to separate the trait from the man. They were, apparently, one and the same. But no matter how she described it, how she qualified it, the bottom line was that she was attracted to him.

This was going to be a problem, she thought uncomfortably.

Only if you let it be,
her inner voice, the one that always kept her on an even keel, told her firmly.

The internal argument continued back and forth for the duration of her morning drive from Pine Ridge to Forever, blocking out whatever songs were being played on the radio station.

The argument was so intense, she wasn't even aware of the time as it went by. One moment she was half asleep, slipping behind the steering wheel of her car, aware that she wanted to arrive in town early, the next, miraculously, she found herself there, parking in front of
Murphy's,
wondering if Finn had remembered their conversation about conducting the interviews in his establishment.

She shouldn't have worried, Connie realized as she got out of the vehicle. There was a line of men that went out the saloon's front doors and wound its way down the street.

Some of the men were standing in clusters, talking, others were on the ground, sitting cross-legged and giving the impression that they had been sitting there for a while. A handful looked as if they had just stepped out of a movie about cattle ranchers from the last century, complete with cowboy hats, worn jeans and dusty boots, and still others appeared downright hungry for work.

The last group was the one she paid attention to most of all. Born into the lap of luxury, she nonetheless had an endless capacity for empathy and could just imagine how it had to feel, facing financial uncertainty each and every morning.

The moment the men saw her approaching, everyone got to their feet, their posture straightening as if they were elementary school students, lining up for the teacher and hoping to pass inspection.

Connie glanced at her wristwatch, half expecting to discover that she had somehow managed to lose an hour getting here.

But she hadn't.

She was early, just as she'd initially intended. The men were even earlier.

Butterflies suddenly swooped in, clustering around her stomach, pinching her. Connie did her best to ignore them.

Approaching the entrance to
Murphy's,
she greeted the hopeful applicants.
“Hi, I'm Constance Carmichael. I'll be conducting the interviews today.” She quickly scanned the line, amazed at how many people had turned up. Finn was to be commended—either him, or Miss Joan, she amended. She had no doubt that the older woman had been quick to pass the word along that there would be jobs available. Still, she thought it judicious to ask, “Are you all here about the construction crew jobs?”

To a man they all answered in the affirmative, the chorus of
yeses
all but deafening.

Connie nodded, letting the moment sink in. She felt a little overwhelmed but she did her best not to show it.

“Okay, then I guess we'd better get started. Give me five minutes to get things together and then we can begin.”

Hurrying past the long single line, Connie made her way into the saloon.

In contrast to the way it had looked when she'd first seen it, the place was lit up as brightly as any establishment that didn't require an ambiance for its clientele.

Finn was there along with his older brother, Brett, and another, younger man with blond hair. She took a closer look at the latter and realized that this had to be Liam, the youngest of the Murphy brothers. The family resemblance was hard to miss.

But Finn wasn't talking to either one of his brothers when she walked in. Instead, he seemed to be deep in conversation with a tall athletic man with straight, thick, blue-black hair, and skin that looked as if it would be right at home beneath the hot rays of the Texas sun.

The other man's bone structure intrigued her for a moment. It was all angles and planes, and there was almost a regal appearance to it. The man's most outstanding feature, at least for the moment, was that he was wearing what she took to be a deputy sheriff's uniform.

Did they expect things to get a little rowdy? she wondered uneasily.

Only one way to find out, Connie decided, braced for anything.

Walking up to Finn and the man he was talking to, she greeted one and introduced herself to the other. “Hi, Finn, I didn't think you'd be ready so early. I would have been here sooner if I knew,” she told him honestly. Her eyes darted over to the other man. “I'm Constance Carmichael. Is there something wrong, Officer?”

“Deputy,” the man corrected her. “I'm Deputy Sheriff Lone Wolf, but you can call me Joe, and no, there's nothing wrong.”

Finn joined in. “Joe brought some of his friends from the rez with him when he heard you were hiring.”

“The rez?” she questioned uncertainly.

“That's short for reservation,” Finn explained. “Everything gets shortened these days.”

Joe had been around long enough to be aware that there were those who still viewed Native Americans differently from others. He'd come to unofficially make sure that there would be no trouble erupting due to any misunderstandings that might flair up.

“You
are
hiring, right?” Joe asked the young woman.

“Absolutely,” Connie answered with enthusiasm.

She knew what it was like to have a strike against her for no apparent reason other than a preconceived—and false—notion. Contrary to some opinions, her name did
not
open doors. In some cases, it actually slammed them in her face. Her father was a powerful man, but he was definitely
not
liked.

“I'm looking for able-bodied men with strong backs who don't mind working in the hot sun for an honest day's wage,” she told the deputy, summarizing exactly what her criteria was. Once that was met, everything else could be taught.

“How many men are you going to need?” Finn asked her.

“How many men have you got?” she countered, indicating that the number of positions she was looking to fill was far from small.

Finn grinned. This really was going to be good for the town. “Let's get started,” he told her.

He gestured to a table he'd set up for her. He and his brothers had temporarily cleared away the others, putting them off to the side for the time being, until the interviews were over for the day.

“Let's,” she echoed.

Sitting down, Connie beckoned to the first man in line.

* * *

S
HE
KEPT
AT
IT
,
nonstop, until she had seen and talked to every single man in line. She reasoned that if they could stand in line all this time, waiting to talk to her, the least she could do was interview them.

Except for a few who had shown up out of idle curiosity, or had decided after the interview that the work would be too physically taxing, she wound up hiring all the men she interviewed.

Since that number turned out to be higher than she'd initially intended, rather than work a given number of employees full-time, she'd decided to spread the work out, employing all of the men she'd hired on a part-time, as-needed basis. Some, she discovered during the course of the interviews, already had jobs and had approached this position as a way to pick up some extra money, while others were looking to this construction job as a way of feeding their families.

In making her preliminary decisions about the schedule, Connie gave the latter group the most hours while the people in the former group, since they already had some sort of gainful employment, she used accordingly.

In the end, the general schedule Connie ultimately wound up putting together looked a bit complicated, but she was satisfied that she had done the very best job she could and more important to her, had done right by some of the town's residents.

She also found that her initial instincts involved in selecting Finn were right. Finn had remained with her through the entire ordeal. He'd stood off to the side to give her space, but he always remained close enough to be there if she decided she needed backup for some reason, or to resolve some issue.

While acting as her more or less silent second in command, he'd also gotten to observe her more than holding her own. Finn found himself impressed by the way she did business as well as her underlying sincerity. Any doubts he might have still been entertaining about her were laid to rest by the end of the long session. The woman wasn't here just to take advantage of the labor or the town.

Right from the first interview, she made no secret of the fact that this hotel was important to her, but so were the people she was hiring. She made a point of telling them that she wanted them to speak up if at any time they were dissatisfied with the work conditions or the treatment they received from a superior.

All in all, he thought that this newcomer in their midst conducted herself better than some far more experienced people that both he and Brett had dealt with at one time or another.

* * *

W
HEN
THE
LAST
man had finally filled out a form and given it to Connie, then left the saloon, Finn came up behind her, leaned over and said, “You look like you could use a drink right about now.”

Turning her head, her eyes met his, and she allowed herself a weary smile. That had been grueling, she couldn't help thinking. Even so, she felt wired—and very pleased with herself.

“Quite possibly more than one.” The one thing that hosting those parties for her father and hanging around with his associates had taught her, other than how to listen and absorb information, was how to hold her liquor.

“That can be arranged,” Finn told her. “I happen to know the bartender in this joint. It's a pretty well-established fact that he's a pushover for a pretty woman's smile.”

God, but she felt stiff, Connie suddenly realized. She'd been sitting so long in one spot, she felt as if she could have very well melded into the chair.

“Do you know where we can find one?” she murmured, rotating her head from side to side. She could almost hear it making strange, creaking noises.

“I'm looking at one,” Finn told her very simply, his eyes on hers.

Connie caught herself raising her chin. It was a purely defensive move on her part. She was waiting for some sort of a disparaging remark to follow because right about now, she felt about as pretty as a dried-up autumn leaf.

“This bartender doesn't set the bar very high, does he?” she quipped dismissively.

“On the contrary, it's pretty much an absolute,” he told her.

He realized that she wasn't being cute or angling for some sort of a bigger compliment. She actually meant what she'd said. She didn't think of herself as attractive. How was that even possible? he couldn't help wondering. One glance at her more than established that fact.

“You do have mirrors in your house, don't you?” he asked. How could she possibly not see just how really gorgeous she was? He would have been willing to bet that a number of the men who had lined up today would have been willing to work for her without any monetary compensation, as long as she was on the job with them every day.

“I don't need mirrors,” she answered. “I've got my father. He does more than an adequate job of keeping me aware of myself.”

He was about to say that, obviously, it was her father who was suffering from some sort of blindness, but Finn never got the chance. Their conversation was abruptly curtailed when one of Miss Joan's waitresses—Dora—walked into the saloon, clutching a large insulated carrier in both hands.