Harlequin American Romance November 2014 Box Set: The SEAL's Holiday Babies\The Texan's Christmas\Cowboy for Hire\The Cowboy's Christmas Gift (43 page)

“That's what I'm saying,” Connie answered—and then she paused. “Unless you've changed your mind about the offer.”

“No way,” he told her with enthusiasm. “You won't regret this,” he promised.

She didn't know about that. Part of her already
was
regretting her decision. As a rule, while she remained friendly and outwardly approachable, she didn't really get too close to the people who essentially worked for her. The reason for that was that she never knew if they were being friendly because they liked her—or because they were using her to get to her father.

Not that that approach ever really worked, since her father could never even come close to being accused of being a
doting
father.

She looked at Finn, hardly believing that she'd actually agreed to allow him to put her up for the night. “So, is this the part where you go asking your friends to donate their clothes to me?”

“No, that comes a little later,” he told her. “This is the part where you look up at the sky, say something about being awestruck over how there looks as if there's twice as much sky here as in places like Houston or Los Angeles, and I agree with you—even though I know it's not true. Then I tell you that if you see a falling star, you have to pause and make a wish. Sound too taxing?” he asked her, a hint of a smile on his face.

They had stopped walking again and were standing, in her opinion, much too close, at least for her comfort.

This was a mistake. A big one.

But if she suddenly announced that she had changed her mind about staying the night in his guest room, she'd seem flighty—worse than that, she'd seem as if she was afraid, and she'd lose any chance she had at commanding respect—from him and most likely, from the rest of the men working for her.

Her only recourse was to brazen it out.

Heaven knew it wouldn't be the first time.

“No, I think I can handle making a wish if I see a falling star,” she told him.

“Well, then I'd say you've got everything under control.”

Finn watched her for a long moment, thinking things that he knew he shouldn't be thinking. Things that would probably get him fired before he ever began to work on the project. But there was something about the woman, a vulnerability despite the barriers she was trying to rigidly retain in place, that reached out and spoke to him. It brought out the protector in him.

He wondered what she would say if she knew. Probably,
You're fired.

“It's going to be fine,” Finn told her.

Startled, she looked at him. “What?”

Connie wished she had as much confidence in her succeeding as Finn apparently had—if she was to believe what he'd just said.

But you don't have everything under control, do you?

She felt another knot tightening in her stomach.

This had to be what opening-night jitters felt like for actors, she theorized. It felt as if everything was riding on this.

“I said it's going to be fine,” Finn repeated. “For a second you looked as if you were a million miles away—and you were frowning, so I thought maybe you were worrying about the site. I have to ask—you always this nervous before a project?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that her emotions were none of his business, that she hadn't hired him to subject her to countless questions, but that would really be starting out on the wrong foot, and he did seem genuinely concerned.

“No, I have to admit that this is a first.”

He nodded, giving her the benefit of the doubt. “You've hired on a good bunch of people, and they'll work hard to deliver whatever it is you need done,” he assured her, then asked, “Anything I can do to help squelch your uneasiness?”

She smiled at him. “You just did it.”

“Good to know,” he told her.

They were outside the saloon now. Finn had gently coaxed her over to the side, out of the way of any foot traffic. He directed her attention toward the sky, pointing to a cluster of stars.

“Look.” He indicated a constellation. “Isn't that just the most magnificent sight you've ever seen?” he asked.

To oblige him, she looked up when he told her to. Ordinarily, before tonight, the thought of a heaven full of stars did nothing for her. But looking up now, at Finn's request, she found herself at first interested, then deeply moved. The vastness spoke to her—and she could relate. Relate to feeling isolated, desolate and alone.

Shake it off, Con,
she ordered herself.
Sentimental and sloppy isn't going to build the future. It's not you, anyway.

“Beautiful, isn't it?” he asked again.

She couldn't very well pretend to be indifferent. Because she no longer was.

“Yes,” she agreed, “it is. It kind of takes my breath away.”

She heard him laugh. When she looked at him quizzically, he merely said, “I know the feeling.”

Except that when he said it, he wasn't looking at the sky. He was looking at her.

She told herself to ignore it, that she was misreading him. But even so, Connie could feel herself growing suddenly very warm despite the evening breeze.

Growing very warm and yearning for him to kiss her.

That's the alcohol talking, a voice in her head insisted. But she had only had the one drink, a short one at that, and she could hold far more than that and still remain lucid and steady.

It wasn't the drink. It was the man. But that was an admission she intended to take with her to the grave.

“I think we'd better get going,” he told her. “The whole idea of you staying in town was for you to get extra rest—and if we stay out here like this any longer, I might wind up doing something that's going to cost me my job before I ever set foot on the construction site.”

Her cheeks heated up and for just a second, she felt light-headed and giddy, like a schoolgirl. She hadn't experienced this sensation even when she had been a schoolgirl.

But the next moment, she regained control over herself and willed the moment to pass. “You're right. Let's get going.”

Chapter Ten

“If you need anything,” Finn told her almost an hour later as they stood on the second floor of his house, “I'm just down the hall.” He pointed to the room that was located on the other side of the small bathroom he had already shown her.

Suddenly bone-tired, Connie nodded, murmuring, “Thanks.”

They had stopped on the way to his home to borrow the things that she needed in the way of clothing for tonight and tomorrow. Finn couldn't think of a single other thing she needed to know at this point, so he began to withdraw from the room.

“Okay. Then I guess you're all set. See you in the morning,” he told Connie.

Again she nodded, softly repeating the last word he'd just said, as if in agreement. “Morning.” With that, Connie retreated into the room that he had just brought her to.

Closing the door, Connie took another, longer, closer look around what he'd referred to as the guest room. It looked even smaller now than it had at first glance, barely the size of her closet back home. Perhaps even smaller. There was enough space for a double bed, one nightstand with a lamp and a very small dresser.

The closet itself, which curiosity prompted her to check out, was large enough to accommodate less than half the clothing she'd left at the hotel in Pine Ridge.

Yet from the way Finn had talked about the house as they drove over to it, she got the impression that this small, cramped house had seen a great deal more happiness and love than her father's seven-thousand-square-foot-plus mansion ever had.

There was a kind of worn-down-to-the-nub warmth emanating from the sixty-three-year-old, two-story house that was sorely missing from the place where she had grown up and still vaguely thought of as home.

She found herself envying Finn and his brothers a great deal.

Get it together, Con. You've got a full day ahead of you. Save the pity party for later.

Taking care to lock her door, Connie pushed the room's mismatched chair against it by way of an extra precaution. It wasn't that she didn't trust Finn, because oddly enough, she did, despite knowing the man for less than forty-eight hours. She'd been taught that taking an extra ounce of prevention was always a wise thing to do—just in case.

That hadn't come from her father, but was something that Emerson had taught her. The man at one point had worked as her father's head of security before becoming his general business manager. Emerson had always seemed to be aware of
everything.
She doubted there was a situation in the world that Stewart Emerson was not prepared to handle.

It never occurred to her to dismiss what he said as being useless or inapplicable. She looked to him for guidance the way one should a father. Emerson was the one who always had time for her.

Her father did not.

Connie remembered changing for bed—donning the nightshirt that Brett's fiancée gladly lent her. The verbal exchange between them, with Finn in the middle, had been fleeting. To her chagrin, she could barely recall what the woman had looked like.

But then, she was running perilously close to empty. Connie could vaguely remember lying down.

She didn't remember falling asleep, but she obviously had to have because the next thing she knew, she was looking at the watch she always wore and realizing that it was six in the morning.

Six?

Connie bolted upright. She'd wanted to be up and ready by five. Not because she thought anything actually needed attending to at that time, but because she wanted to be ready—just in case. It was always good to be prepared.

Happily, as far as she knew, everything was proceeding as planned. The necessary machinery was on its way and being delivered by a contractor Emerson had been dealing with for the past fifteen years, Milo Sawyer. Both Emerson and Sawyer knew that failure was not an option for her. Failure would have been worse than death. Emerson had told her that Sawyer took an oath on a stack of figurative bibles that everything would be there when she needed it—if not sooner.

Scrambling, silently lamenting the fact that she needed to sleep as much as she did, Connie was up, dressed and ready in less than twenty minutes.

Her heart kept pace by slamming against her rib cage, reminding her that she was, beneath it all, nervous as hell.

She looked down at what she was wearing. She wasn't keen on starting her first day on a brand-new site in someone else's clothes, but apparently she and Forever's first resident doctor's wife were the exact same size—just as Finn had predicted—and the woman seemed to think nothing of lending her a pair of jeans and a jersey.

Or so Finn had told her when he'd darted into the doctor's house and gotten the items for her. It seemed people just
gave
each other whatever was needed without questioning it. For the umpteenth time it struck her how very different her world was from the world she found herself operating in at the moment.

Moreover, it occurred to Connie, as she glanced in the small oval mirror perched on top of the bureau, that she was wearing something borrowed—the entire outfit—and something blue—the jersey. Not to mention, she also had on something old. Unlike her car, which she laughingly described as her lucky charm, the boots she was wearing were her one
real
concession to superstition: they were her
lucky
boots and they hadn't been considered
new
in the past fourteen years.

Longer, really, because the boots had once belonged to her mother. Unbeknownst to her father, she'd kept her mother's boots in the back of her closet and as luck would have it, when she reached her present adult height and weight, she discovered that the boots fit her perfectly. She had worn them on every occasion that something good had happened to her.

Connie sincerely hoped that they would continue exerting their
magical
influence and make the hotel's construction come off without a single hitch.

Ready and anxious to begin her day, Connie moved the chair away from the door and pushed it back against the wall where it had been. Unlocking the bedroom door, she ventured down the stairs silently.

Her intention was to slip out of the house and drive over to the site—her car was conveniently parked in front of Finn's house. But when she came to the bottom of the stairs, the deep, rich smell of freshly brewed coffee surrounded her before she knew what had hit her—followed by the aroma of bacon and eggs, a classic one-two punch if ever there was one.

Unable to resist, Connie glanced toward the only source of light on the first floor at this hour. It was coming from the kitchen.

The debate between following her nose or leaving while there was no one watching her was a short one that abruptly ended when her stomach rumbled rather loudly, casting the deciding vote.

She went toward the light.

Finn was standing by the old-fashioned stove. He glanced over his shoulder in her direction the moment she stepped over the threshold. It was almost eerie, as if he instinctively knew she would come. He supposed that some people would have said they had some sort of a “connection.” He could think of worse things than being connected to a woman who could scramble his insides just with a toss of her flowing, shoulder-length auburn hair.

“You're up,” Finn declared by way of a greeting.

“So, apparently, are you,” she countered, nodding toward the stovetop. He had three frying pans going at once.

“Everyone gets up early around here. If you don't, you're either sick—or dead,” Finn told her matter-of-factly.

“That doesn't exactly leave a wide range of choice available,” she commented.

He laughed and shrugged before gesturing toward the kitchen table.

“Sit down,” he told her. “Coffee's hot. I'll pour you a cup.”

“I can serve myself,” she told him as she crossed to the counter.

She looked around for a coffeemaker, but didn't see one. But she did notice a coffeepot on the last burner on the stovetop.

Talk about old-fashioned,
she thought. Connie dutifully poured the extra-black substance into her cup and retreated back to the table, getting out of Finn's way.

“Where is everyone?” she asked. She glanced out the kitchen window to see if perhaps one of his brothers was outside, but they weren't. The small area was desolate.

“Liam's holed up in his room, working on another song for his band—he decided he didn't like his last couple of efforts—and I'm guessing that Brett's over at the other ranch house like I said he'd be.” Finn was smiling as he turned away from the stove. “He likes the job I did renovating the ranch house so much, he decided he wanted to stay there, getting it set up for Lady Doc and him once they're married.”

Holding the steaming mug of coffee with two hands, Connie made herself comfortable at the table. “Have you thought of taking up that line of work permanently?” she asked.

He frowned ever so slightly, not at her suggestion but over the fact that he had lost the thread of the conversation. “What line of work?”

“Construction, renovations,” she elaborated. “That sort of thing. There has to be better money in it than there is in bartending,” she insisted. Why was the man wasting his time bartending when he could be earning
real
money?

Finn shrugged indifferently. “I wouldn't know. So far, I've never been paid anything for doing that kind of work.”

Connie stared at him. Had she gotten her information mixed up? “I thought you said you installed a bathroom over the bar.”

“I did,” he confirmed. “But that was for the apartment above the bar—all that belongs to my brothers and me. Seems pretty silly to charge myself,” Finn commented.

“And the ranch house?” she asked, referring to the first time she had seen him. He'd certainly been working hard that day. Free of charge?

“The same,” he replied. “Besides, I told you, that's my wedding present to Brett and Lady Doc. I couldn't charge them,” he said, shooting the mere notion down as beyond ludicrous.

She had no idea that they
made
men like this anymore. Connie looked at him with renewed admiration. “That's exceptionally generous of you.”

He shrugged away her comment. “So, how do you like your eggs?” he asked.

“In the chicken,” she quipped.

Finn stared at her. “Wanna run that by me again?” he requested.

She appreciated what he was trying to do, but there was really no need. “I don't eat eggs,” she told him. “Never have, never will. I just plain don't like them no matter what you do to them,” she added.

He nodded and said, “Fair enough. Got an opinion about bacon?” he asked, testing the waters cautiously.

There was bacon sizzling in the large skillet on the left back burner. “It smells good,” she was forced to admit.

Finn's grin hinted of triumph. “Tastes even better,” he assured her. Without waiting for her to respond, he proceeded to place four strips of what looked like perfectly fried bacon on her plate. But that obviously wasn't enough as far as he was concerned, so since she had vetoed eggs, he gave her other options: “Pancakes, waffles, French toast or...?”

She regarded him with what could be described as innocent confusion. “What about them?”

“Which do you want for breakfast?” he asked patiently.

He'd already gone out of his way more than was required. He might work for her, but there was nothing in the fine print about serving her hand and foot, and she didn't want him feeling as if this was part of his job description.

“The bacon is more than enough,” Connie assured the man. “I usually have just coffee in the morning, nothing else.”

Finn frowned, obviously displeased with the answer. “You can't tackle a new day on just coffee,” he told her. And then he seemed to study her for a long minute, as if he was making some sort of a major decision.

It took everything she had to wait him out, but she had a feeling that she could lose him if she began to ask him too many questions. So she did her best to appear patient—even if it was the last thing in the world that she was right now.

He was probably trying to browbeat her into eating. Simple enough fix, she decided. “Okay, I'll have toast,” Connie finally conceded.

“Just toast?” he asked her.

She stuck to her guns. If she began giving in now, that would carry over to the work site, and she would quickly lose any ground she might have had to begin with. “Just toast,” she confirmed. And quite honestly, she didn't even really want that.

Finn frowned for a moment longer then suddenly brightened—as if an idea had literally hit him—and went to work. A few minutes later, he deposited two large so-called
slices
onto her plate.

Stunned, Connie could only point out the obvious. “I agreed to toast. What is that?” she asked. Whatever it was, it was thick, and it was huge.

“Toast,” Finn responded innocently, then a smile slipped through. “Texas style.”

Each piece was the size of three regular slices of bread and together with what she had before her comprised more than a full breakfast in her opinion.

She sighed and shook her head, knowing that if she protested, she would wind up with something even bigger. And she had to admit that the aroma was definitely working its magic on her, arousing her taste buds. For the first time in years, she was hungry enough to eat something for breakfast.

“You know, it works better if you pick up a fork and put the food into your mouth instead of staring at it,” he advised, sitting down opposite her.

He'd put a plate down for himself. Finn's plate was all but overflowing with bacon, eggs, toast and a sprinkling of hash browns.

Connie could only stare at the heaping plate in complete wonder. “You're really going to eat all that?” she asked him.

“I
need
to,” he emphasized. “If I don't, I'll run out of steam in a couple of hours—like clockwork,” he assured her.