Prodigal Prince Charming

With her luminous brown eyes and her incredible mouth, Madison O’Malley looked like pure temptation. Or would have if she hadn’t gone off the deep end about who was responsible for the state of her truck.

Feeling another publicity nightmare coming on, willing to do anything to avoid it, he followed to where she’d made it past two engineers in hard hats scratching their heads over how best to move the beams. He wanted coffee. He wanted food. He wanted to finish his meetings here, get ready for the sailing race in Annapolis next week and forget he’d ever laid eyes on the spitfire now arguing with the site supervisor.

Unfortunately, what he wanted wasn’t possible at the moment.

Madison wasn’t arguing.

She was begging.

“Just let me see if I can get the storage door open. Please,” she asked the weathered-looking man in a chambray shirt blocking her way. “I just want to salvage whatever is left of my food.”

“I keep telling you, ma’am, it’s too dangerous.” He motioned to the driver of a forklift, far less concerned with her problems than his own. Progress had just come to a screeching halt at this section of the huge project. “You saw that beam slip a minute ago. That one there could go next,” he said, pointing to one hovering at eye level. “Let us get this cleared out, then you can do what you need to do. You shouldn’t be here without a hard hat, anyway.”

His glance moved past her shoulder. “I told her she shouldn’t be here, Mr. Kendrick,” he called. “She’s just not listening.”

“It’s okay,” Cord called back, walking toward them as if he owned the place—which, she supposed, he did. “I’ll take care of this.”

It was as obvious as the supervisor’s relief that no one was going to let her near her truck, much less inside any part she might be able to squeeze into. Realizing that, Madison looked from the crossed lengths of steel and frantically switched gears. If she couldn’t save some of her inventory, then she needed to focus on transportation. She needed some way to get to her other stops and tell her customers…

Tell them what? she wondered, deliberately turning from Cord’s approach. That she couldn’t feed them today? That she couldn’t feed them the rest of the week? The month?

Only once in her life had she failed an obligation. That had been years ago, yet she still lived with the consequences of that failure in one form or another every day of her life. She had diligently met every responsibility ever since. The thought of not meeting her commitments now added anxiety to pure distress.

She needed a vehicle. Something large. But her thoughts got no further than wondering whose vehicle she could borrow when she realized her mind was turning in aimless circles, too overwhelmed to think at all.

The staccato beep of a back-up horn joined the shouts of men and the clang of metal as she sank down on a stack of cement blocks. Not sure if she felt bewildered or simply numb, she propped her elbows on her knees and dropped her face into her hands.

She couldn’t phone ahead to her next stop. There was no one in particular to call. It was simply a spot where she parked on the pier between dock 23 and 24. As soon as she arrived, some of the men who unloaded the cargo ships or tended their repairs would start swarming toward her. There were other catering trucks that serviced the area. But each had its own spot and its own loyal customers. Her customers would be waiting for her even now.

The thought that she was letting them down put a knot the size of a muffin in her stomach.

A large hand settled cautiously on her shoulder.

“Hey,” Cord murmured. “Are you all right?”

Beneath his palm, he felt her slender muscles stiffen. He knew she wasn’t okay. Even as insensitive as he’d been accused of being, he could see that. He just hoped she wasn’t crying. He never knew what to do when a woman did that. If she was, though, he’d deal with it—simply because he couldn’t let her walk off without taking care of what had happened.

His hand slipped from her shoulder. He could argue that he was no more at fault for the present condition of her truck than she was. After all, she had made the decision to accept the order and deliver it. And she was the one who’d made the final decision about where to park her vehicle.

He could also point out that the true culprit here was the crane or its operator, both of which belonged to Callaway Construction. As upset as she seemed, he doubted that she’d care about that logic, though. As for himself, all he cared about was avoiding headlines. The last thing he needed was more bad publicity. He especially did not need another woman suing him. His father would disown him for sure.

“Here.” Tugging at the knees of his slacks, he crouched in front of her. Relief hit when she glanced up. Her golden-brown eyes were blessedly clear. Not a tear in sight. As he pulled off his hard hat and pushed his fingers through his hair, he thought she looked awfully pale, though. And more than a little upset. Not that he could blame her. Her truck was scrap metal. “You need to wear this.”

Lifting the silver metal hat, he sat it on her head, tipping it back so he could see her eyes. “It’s the only way Matt will let you stay in this area.”

“What about you now?”

He shrugged. Following rules had never been his strong suit.

“Look.” He clasped his hands between his spread knees. “We can work this out. I’m going to make sure everything is all right. Okay?”

She said nothing. She just stared at him as if he were speaking some language she didn’t comprehend, while someone shouted for the laborers who’d wandered over to get back to work.

The way her delicate brow finally pinched made him think she might ask how he was going make everything right again. She didn’t seem the type to accept a man’s word on blind faith. His word, anyway.

Instead she asked, “What kind of car do you have?”

“Car?”

“What do you drive?” she clarified.

He nodded toward the closest of the vehicles on the other side of the barricade. “That Lamborghini over there.”

Madison glanced at the squat silver car. As low and flat as it was, it looked as if something heavy had landed on it, too. “Of course,” she murmured.

Taking a deep breath, she shook her head as if willing it to clear. Her fingers trembled as she lifted her hand to her forehead and nudged back the hat’s hard plastic inner band. “I need something bigger.” Curling her fingers into her palm, she lowered her hand to hide the shaking. If she was going to fall apart, it wasn’t going to be where anyone could see it. “I have my lunch restock at the pub. If I can get a van or something of that size and some ice chests, I can get my customers their lunch today and let them know I won’t be there for them tomorrow.”

“A van,” he repeated.

“Your insurance should cover the cost of renting one. I can’t turn this in on my policy.” She’d already had two minor fender-benders. “My premiums are high enough as it is. Something like this will send them through the ceiling.”

Cord held out his hand to quiet her. He needed to keep her calm. He also wanted very much to keep settlement as simple as possible. “Your insurance won’t have to pay a cent,” he assured her, not bothering to add that he would be writing the checks himself to make sure of that.

He wanted to keep insurance companies out of this completely. Hers, Callaway Construction’s and especially Kendrick Investment’s. If insurance carriers were involved, that would mean they would need her statement. There was no reason for his name to appear on the incident report Matt would have to file to satisfy site and government safety regulations. But if she mentioned in a claim statement that he’d told her where to park—and to ignore the warning signs, to boot—that would be all it would take for his name to leak out somehow and for the press to start dragging it through the mud again.

He could see the headlines now.

Prodigal Prince of Camelot Destroys Working Girl’s Livelihood.

There were times when he couldn’t win for losing. All he’d wanted was breakfast.

“Just tell me what you need and I’ll see that you get it. How many ice chests?”

“Enough to hold two hundred sandwiches, a hundred cans of soda, and two hundred cartons of milk and juices.” Doing a quick mental inventory of her normal lunch run, Madison decided she’d have to forget coffee. She had no way to make it. “I can put desserts and fruit in boxes.”

“How soon do you need it?”

Ten minutes ago, she thought. “An hour and a half,” she replied, because that’s when she normally would start her lunch run.

She thought for certain that the man crouched in front of her would tell her there was no way that would happen. At the very least, she expected him to point out that the paperwork alone could take that long. Yet, he gave no indication at all that he expected her needs to be a problem.

Looking very much like a man who never expected needs of any sort to be a problem, he rose with an easy, athletic grace and offered her his hand.

She had no idea why the gentlemanly gesture caught her so off guard.

“Consider it done,” he replied, taking her hand when she didn’t move. He tugged her up, promptly let her go. “An hour and a half,” he agreed. “Where do you want the van delivered?”

She couldn’t believe he was being so cooperative. She didn’t believe, either, that he could pull off such a miracle. “Mike’s Pub on Lexington and Hancock in Bayridge,” she said, wondering if Mike Shannahan could be bribed into letting her borrow his pickup. Mike loved his truck. He polished and pampered it as if the thing had a soul. Maybe if she promised to cook him dinner every night for a month, he’d let her use it. “It’s about five miles southeast of here,” she added, on the outside chance that miracles actually did happen.