Cowboy for Hire

“Yeah, he’s a spare in case I wear the other one out.”

The woman looked around, taking in the people on either side of her. The bar had its share of patrons, but it was far from standing-room only. Still, there were enough customers currently present—mostly male—for her to make a judgment.

“Something tells me that the men around here don’t wear out easily.”

“You up for testing that theory of yours out, little lady?” Kyle Masterson proposed, giving her a very thorough once-over as he sidled up to her, deliberately blocking her access to the front door.

Chapter Three (#ulink_ba3fe9e3-1f8b-5f01-89ef-1a7acc53fb3c)

Although he remained behind the bar, Finn’s presence seemed to separate the talkative cowboy from the young woman who had wandered onto Brett’s ranch earlier. Finn was 85 percent certain that Kyle, a rugged, rather worn ranch hand, was harmless. But he was taking no chances in case Kyle was inspired by this woman and was tossing caution to the wind.

“Back to your corner, Masterson,” Finn told him without cracking a smile. “The lady’s not going to be testing out anything with you tonight.”

Kyle, apparently, had other ideas. “Why don’t you let her speak for herself, Murphy?” the other man proposed. “How about it, little lady?” he asked, completely ignoring Finn and moving in closer to the woman who had caught his fancy. “We could take us a stroll around the lake, maybe look up at the stars. See what happens.”

His leer told her exactly what the hulking man thought was going to happen. Amused, Connie played out the line a little further. “And if nothing happens?” she posed.

“Then I will be one deeply disappointed man,” Kyle told her, dramatically placing a paw of a hand over his chest. “C’mon, little lady. You don’t want to be breaking my heart now, do you?” He eyed her hopefully, rather confident in the outcome of this scenario he was playing out.

“Better that than me breaking your arm, Masterson,” Finn informed him, pushing his arm and hand between them as he deliberately wiped down the bar directly in the middle.

Kyle glanced from Finn to the very appealing woman with hair the color of a setting sun. It was obvious he was weighing his options. Women came and went, but there was only one saloon in the area. Being barred from Murphy’s was too high a price to pay for a fleeting flirtation.

“Oh, is it like that, now?” the cowboy guessed.

“Like what?” Connie looked at the man, not sure she understood his meaning.

Amazingly deep-set eyes darted from her to the bartender and then back again, like black marbles in a bowl.

Kyle grinned at the bartender. “Don’t think I really have to explain that,” he concluded. Raising his glass, he toasted Finn. “Nice work, laddie.” And with that, the bear of a man retreated into the crowd.

Brett approached from the far side of the bar. “Problem?” he asked, looking from his brother to the very attractive young woman at the bar. He’d taken note of the way some of his patrons were watching her, as if she were a tasty morsel, and they were coming off a seven-day fast in the desert. That spelled trouble—unless it was averted quickly.

“No, no problem,” Finn replied tersely. As grateful as he was to Brett and as much as he loved and respected him, he hated feeling that his older brother was looking over his shoulder. He wasn’t twelve anymore, and hadn’t been for quite some time. “Everything’s fine.”

“That all depends,” Connie said, contradicting Finn’s response. She had a different take on things, one that had nothing to do with the hulking cowboy and his unsuccessful advances.

Brett looked at her with interest. “On?”

“On how many men I can get to sign on with me,” Connie replied.

The sudden, almost syncopated shift of bodies, all in her direction, plainly testified that the exchange between the young woman and two of the saloon’s owners was far from private. Leers instantly materialized, and interweaving voices were volunteering to sign on with her no matter what the cause.

In Finn’s estimation, it was obvious what the men’s leers indicated that they believed they were signing up for—and tool belts had nothing to do with it.

To keep the crowd from getting rowdy and out of control, Finn quickly asked the question, “Sign on to what end?” before Brett could.

Crystal-blue eyes swept over the sea of faces, taking preliminary measure of the men in the saloon. “I need a crew of able-bodied men to help me build a hotel,” she answered.

“Build a hotel?” an older man in the back echoed incredulously. By the way he repeated the proposed endeavor, it was obvious that a hotel was the last structure he would have thought the town needed. He wasn’t alone. “Where you putting a hotel?”

Connie answered as if she was fielding legitimate questions at a business meeting. “The deed says it’s to be constructed on the east end of town, just beyond the general store.”

“Deed? What deed?” someone else within the swelling throng crowing around her asked.

Connie addressed that question, too, as if it had everything riding on it. She had learned how not to treat men by observing her father. He treated the men around him as if they were morons—until they proved otherwise. She did the exact opposite.

Employees—and potential employees—had her respect until they did something to lose it.

“The deed that my company purchased a little less than three weeks ago,” she replied, then waited for the next question.

“Deeds are for ranches,” Nathan McHale, Murphy’s’ most steadfast and longest-attending patron said into his beer, “not hunks of this town.”

Connie shifted her stool to get a better look at the man. “I’m afraid you’re wrong there, Mr—?” She left the name open, waiting for the man to fill it in for her.

Nathan paused to take a long sip from his glass, as if that would enable him to remember the answer to the newcomer’s question. Swallowing, he looked up, a somewhat silly smile on his wide, round face.

“McHale.”

“Don’t worry about him, missy. Ol’ Nathan’s used to being wrong. The second he steps into his house, his wife starts telling him he’s wrong,” Alan Dunn, one of the older men at the far end of the bar chuckled.

Nathan seemed to take no offense. Instead, what he did take was another longer, more fortifying drink from his glass, this time managing to drain it. Putting the glass down on the bar, he pushed it over toward the bartender—the younger of the two behind the bar.

Connie noticed that the latter eyed his customer for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to cut the man off yet. She knew that she definitely would—and was rather surprised when the bartender decided not to.

For all his girth and folds, McHale looked like a child at Christmas, his eyes lighting up and a wreath of smiles taking over his rounded face. He gave the bartender who had refilled his glass a little salute as well as widening his appreciative smile.

Using both hands, he drew the glass to him, careful not to spill a single drop. Then, just before he took his first sip of his new drink, McHale raised it ever so slightly in a symbolic toast to the newcomer. “You were saying?”

“I was saying—” Connie picked up the thread of her conversation where it had temporarily stopped “—that my construction company has purchased the deed for a section of the town’s land.”

“You here to see if the town wants to buy it back?” Brett asked, curious.

There’d been complaints from time to time that there was nowhere to stay if anyone was stranded in Forever overnight. But things always got sorted out for the best. The sheriff enjoyed telling people that was how he and his wife, Olivia, had first gotten together. On her way to track down her runaway sister, Olivia’d had no intentions of staying in Forever. Her car had had other ideas. She’d wound up relying on the hospitality of the town’s resident wise woman and diner owner, Miss Joan.

“No,” Connie replied patiently, “I’m here to build a hotel.”

“A hotel?” It was someone else’s turn to question the wisdom of that. Obviously, more than one person found this to be an odd undertaking. “What for?” the person asked.

“For people to stay in, you nitwit,” the man sitting on the next stool informed him, coupling the sentence with a jab in the ribs.

“What people?” a third man asked. “Everyone around here’s got a home.”

Connie was ready for that, as well. She’d read up on Forever before ever setting out to see it. She knew her father wouldn’t have given her an easy project. That had never been his way.

“Well, if there’s a hotel here,” she said, addressing her answer to the entire bar, “it might encourage people to come to Forever.”

“Why would we want people to come here?” the man who’d asked her the question queried again. “We got all the people we know what to do with now.”