time was no exception. Snippets of responses and more questions furiously flew through the air.
“Sounds good!”
“Count me in.”
“Hey, is the bonus gonna be as big as the salary?”
“You calculating that by the hour or by the day?”
Finn had stood by, holding his tongue for the most part. The woman doing the talking had intrigued him right from the start when she’d first approached him this morning. Since his bent was toward building, anyway, he figured that he might have to do a little negotiation with Brett to get some free time in order to get involved on this construction project.
But he didn’t see that as being a problem. Brett was fairly reasonable when it came to things like this. He’d given Liam a lot of slack so he could practice and rehearse with his band. As far as older brothers went, a man would have to go to great lengths to find someone who was anywhere near as good as Brett.
“Looks like you’ve got them all fired up and excited,” Finn commented to the young woman as he checked her glass to see if she needed a refill yet.
“How about you? Do I have you all fired up and excited?” she asked, going with his wording. Connie shifted the stool to face him. The man was still her first choice to head up the work crew. The other men might be good—or even more capable—but so far this so-called bartender’s handiwork had been the only one she’d seen firsthand.
But the moment she phrased the question, she saw her mistake.
Finn had every intention of giving her a flippant answer, but there was something in her eyes, something that had him skidding to a grinding halt and reassessing not just his answer, but a hell of a lot of other things, as well. Things that had nothing to do with tools and construction.
The woman on the stool before him probably had no idea that she had the kind of eyes that seemed to peer into a man’s soul while making him reevaluate everything that had happened in his life up to this singular moment in time.
A beat went by before he realized that she was still waiting for him to respond.
“Yes,” he answered quietly, his eyes on hers. He found he couldn’t look away even if he wanted to—which he didn’t. “You do,” he added in the same quiet tone.
Despite the surrounding din, his voice managed to undulate along her skin and lodge itself directly beneath it.
It took Connie more than a full second to come to, then another full second to find her voice and another one after that to realize that her mouth and throat had gone bone-dry. If she said more than a couple of words, they could come out in a comical croak, thereby negating whatever serious, or semiserious thing she was about to say.
Taking the drink that was on the bar before her, she emptied the glass in an effort to restore her voice to its initial working order. Tears suddenly gathered in her eyes as flames coasted through her veins. She’d forgotten her glass contained whiskey, not something less potent.
“Good,” she managed to say without the word sticking to the roof of her mouth. Taking a breath, she willed herself to be steady and then completed her sentence. Nothing could interfere with work. She wouldn’t allow it to. “Because I have just the position for you.”
Most likely not the same position I have in mind for you.
The thought, materializing out of nowhere, took Finn completely by surprise. He was extremely grateful that the words hadn’t come out of his mouth. It wasn’t his intention to embarrass either himself or the young woman.
But he found that he was having trouble banishing the thought out of his head. The image seemed to be all but burned into his brain. An image that was suddenly making him feel exceedingly warm.
Finn focused on the hotel she had been talking about. This represented the first move toward progress that had been made in Forever in quite some time.
“What kind of a position?” he asked her out loud, rubbing perhaps a bit too hard at a spot on the bar’s counter.
“Is there someplace we can talk?” she asked him.
Finn thought of the room that was just above the saloon. Initially, their uncle Patrick had lived there when he’d owned and operated Murphy’s. On his passing, it had been just an extra room that all three of them had sporadically availed themselves of if the occasion warranted it. Currently, however, Brett’s fiancée was staying there, but only when she wasn’t working—or staying with Brett at the ranch. The clinic was still open, which meant that the room would be empty.
But Finn didn’t feel comfortable just commandeering it—besides, Brett would undoubtedly have his head if he found out.
The next moment, Finn felt he had come up with a viable alternative. “Have you had dinner yet?” he asked the woman.
“No.” She had been so worked up about this project, so eager to get it going, that she had completely forgotten about eating.
“Then I know just the place we can talk. Brett,” Finn called, turning toward his brother. “I’m taking my break now.”
Motivated by his interest in anything that had an effect on the town, Brett had discreetly listened in on the conversation between Finn and this woman. He appeared mildly amused at his brother’s choice of words. “You planning on being back in fifteen minutes?”
“A couple of breaks, then—plus my dinner break,” Finn added for good measure.
“You already took that, don’t you remember?” Brett deadpanned.
“Then my breakfast break,” Finn shot back, exasperated.
Brett inclined his head. “That should work,” he told Finn. “Just don’t forget to come back,” he called after his brother as Finn made his way around the bar.
Escorting the woman through the throng of patrons, most of whom were now keenly interested in what this newcomer to their town had to offer, Finn waved a hand over his head. This signified to Brett that he had heard him and was going to comply—eventually.
“Where are we going?” Connie asked once they made it through the front door.
“To dinner,” Finn repeated.
“And that would be—?”
Finn grinned. “At Miss Joan’s,” he answered.
“Miss Joan’s?” she repeated. The name meant nothing to her.
“The diner,” Finn prompted. “It’s the only restaurant in town.”
For now, Connie corrected silently. Plans for the hotel included a restaurant on the premises.
But for the time being, she thought it best to keep that to herself.
Since she had already ascertained that it was the only so-called restaurant in town, Connie had initially intended on checking the diner out after she left Murphy’s. But seeing the cowboy who had, she admitted—although strictly to herself—taken her breath away—both because of his craftsmanship and his physique—she’d temporarily lost sight of the plan she’d laid out for herself to round out her first day in Forever.
The bartending cowboy opened the door for her and she stepped into the diner. Connie scanned the area, only to discover that everyone in the diner was looking right back at her.
Before taking another step, she unconsciously squared her shoulders.
Inside the brash, confident young woman who faced down all sorts of obstacles, beat the heart of a shy, young girl, the one whose father had always made her feel, through his words and through his actions, that she wasn’t good enough. That she couldn’t seem to measure up to the standards he