Wedding at King's Convenience / Bedding the Secret Heiress: Wedding at King's Convenience

The other man’s voice was sharp and filled with both static and disgust. “The problem is, nothing’s going right over here. It’s a nightmare.”

“What? What happened?”

“What hasn’t?” Harry countered. “That inn you told me about? Suddenly it has no vacancies. The local caterer’s prices have gone up three times in the last week and the coffee’s always cold. The guy at the pub even insists he’s run out of beer whenever we walk in.”

Jefferson turned around and stared blankly out at the city view again. His own reflection stared back at him from the sun-drenched glass. He looked just as confused as he felt. “Run out of beer? How is it possible for a pub to run out of beer?”

“Tell me about it.”

That mild swell of irritation he’d felt earlier began to bubble and churn inside him. “That doesn’t sound like Craic to me.”

“Yeah, well, it doesn’t exactly match the description you gave me of the place, either.” In an aside to someone else, Harry said, “Well, move the trough out of the shot. No? Fine. I’ll be there in a minute.” Then he refocused. “That’s an example of what we’re dealing with. There’s a feed trough I want to move and Ms. Donohue refuses to cooperate.”

Jefferson tugged at the tie that felt as if it was strangling him. “Go on.”

“Yesterday,” Harry told him, “the owner of the market told us he wouldn’t be selling to us at all and we could just go into the city for whatever we needed.”

“He can’t do that.”

“Seems he can. I don’t have to tell you that West-port’s a much longer drive and it’s eating up time we don’t have.”

“I know.” What the hell was going on?

“Oh, and the market guy said that if I spoke to you I should tell you, and I quote, ‘There’ll be no peace for you here until someone does his duty,’ end quote. Do you have any idea what he was talking about?”

“No.” Duty? What someone? What duty? What the hell had happened in Ireland to turn an entire village against his film crew? The citizens of Craic had been nothing but excited about the prospect a few months ago. What could possibly have changed?

“What about Maura?” he asked suddenly. “Hasn’t she been able to help with any of this?”

“Help?” Harry laughed. “That woman would as soon as shoot us as look at us.”

“Maura?” Jefferson was stunned now and even more in the dark than he had been before. All right, she hadn’t been as thrilled with the prospect of a film crew being on her land as her friends and neighbors had been. But she’d signed the contract in good faith and he knew she had been prepared for all of the confusion and disruption. Her own sister was in the movie, so if nothing else, that should have garnered her cooperation. So what had changed?

“Yes, Maura,” Harry snapped. “She lets her sheep run wild through shots, her dog chews everything it can get its paws on—”

“She’s got a dog?” When did she get a dog?

“She says it’s a dog. I say it’s part pony. The thing’s huge and clumsy. Always knocking things over. Then as if that wasn’t enough, one of the cameramen was chased by Ms. Donohue’s damn bull.”

All right, something was definitely wrong. Whatever else he could say or think about Maura, she was nothing if not meticulous about caring for her animals and the farm itself. She’d shown him the bull, and had warned him away even though the animal was an old one. “How’d the bull get out?”

“Damned if I know. One minute we’re shooting the scene, the next minute, Davy Simpson’s nearly flattened under the damn bull. Good thing Davy’s fast on his feet.”

“What is going on over there?” Frustration spiked with temper and twisted into an ugly knot inside him.

His mind raced with possibilities and none of them were flattering to the woman who’d signed his contract. Was she after more money? Was she trying to back out of the whole deal?

Too damn bad to either of those scenarios, he told himself. He had her signature on a legal document and he wasn’t about to let her off any hook, nor was he going to be extorted for more money. Whatever she was up to, it seemed she’d gotten the whole village to back her play. What other reason would they have for acting as they were?

Well, it wasn’t going to work.

Jefferson King didn’t bow to pressure and he sure as hell didn’t walk away from trouble.

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Harry muttered and the words were almost lost in the static of a bad connection. “The way you talked about this place, I thought it would be an easy shoot.”

“It should’ve been,” Jefferson insisted. “Everything was agreed on and besides, we’ve got a signed contract allowing you access to Maura’s farm.”

“Yeah, the production assistant tried to remind her of that the other day. Got the door slammed in his face.”

“She can’t do that,” Jefferson told him.

“Uh-huh. I know that. You know that. I don’t think she does. Or if she does, she doesn’t care.”

A hard punch of irritation shot through him again and this time it was brighter, fiercer. “She damn well should. She signed the contract willingly enough. And cashed the check. Nobody forced her to.”

Harry huffed out a breath. “I’m telling you, Jefferson, unless things get straightened out around here soon, this shoot is going to go way over budget. Hell, even the weather’s giving us a hard time. I’ve never seen so much rain.”

This didn’t make any sense. None of it. He’d thought everything was settled. Clearly, he’d been wrong. Looked like he was going to be heading back to County Mayo whether he had planned to or not. Time to have a little talk with a certain sheep farmer. Time to remind her that he had the law on his side and he wasn’t leery about using it.

“All right,” he said. “The rain I can’t do anything about. But I’ll take care of the rest of it.”

“Yeah?” the director asked. “How?”

“I’ll fly over there myself and get to the bottom of it.” Something inside him stirred into life at the thought of seeing Maura again, though he wouldn’t admit that, even to himself. This wasn’t about his fling with Maura Donohue. This was about business. And she’d better have a damned good reason for being so uncooperative.

“Fine. Hurry.”

Jefferson hung up, shouted for his assistant and grabbed his suit jacket out of the closet. He’d already scheduled a trip to Austria to meet with the owner of an ancient castle to talk about filming rights. He’d just work Ireland into the trip.

Shouldn’t take long to fix whatever had gone wrong in Craic. He’d stay in the village, talk to everyone, then remind Maura that they had a damn deal. If she was playing games, they were going to stop.

Women were notoriously inconsistent, he reminded himself. God knew the actresses and agents he worked with could drive a man insane. Their moods could change with a whim and any man in the vicinity was liable to be flattened.

Besides, seeing Maura would probably be a good thing in the long run. Give him a chance to look at her without the haze of great sex as a filter. He’d see her for what she was. Just a woman he was doing business with. They could meet, talk, then part again and maybe then he’d stop being hounded by his own memories.

His assistant, Joan, an older woman with no-nonsense green eyes and a detail-oriented personality, hustled into the office.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“I’m going to need you to contact the airport. Tell the pilot we’re making a pit stop in Ireland before we head to Austria.”

“Sure, Ireland, Austria. Practically neighbors.”

“Funny. Something’s come up.” He was already headed for the door. “I’m going by my house to pack. Tell the pilot I’ll be there in two hours. Have the plane prepped and ready to go.”

One of the perks of being a member of the King family was having King Jets at one’s disposal. His cousin Jackson ran the company, renting out luxury planes to those who willingly paid outrageous amounts of money for comfort while traveling. But the King family always had the pick of the jets whenever they needed them. Which made all the travel Jefferson did for work a lot easier to take.

Because of that, he could be in the air before dinnertime and in Ireland for breakfast.