by Meier, Susan
“You have to be realistic.”
She spun to face Ashley. “Why? Nothing in my life makes any sense right now. My dad is mentally here one minute and gone the next. After only a few years of working for Great Expectations, out of the blue, I got a lead position and a bonus.”
Ashley’s eyebrows rose, but she said nothing.
“And the guy who was a pain in my ass all through school is suddenly acting like a nice guy.”
“Because he wants something.”
Ellie sniffed a laugh. “True.” And she needed to remember that the next time he started her hormones bubbling. “But my point is the same. Nothing in my life is normal anymore.”
“So you deal with the abnormal. You accept what you can get out of your dad. That might mean that you have to visit every day, hoping you get there when he’s lucid.”
She nodded.
“And force Great Expectations to let you work from Harmony Hills. I mean, with e-mail and Skype, it’d be almost like you were down the hall.”
“Makes sense.” Having Ashley remind her of how easily she could do this filled her with confidence as she brushed away her tears. Ashley playfully punched her arm. “Running an ad campaign sounds like it would be tons of fun, and a great distraction while you deal with your dad.”
“I guess.” She bumped her shoulder into Ashley’s. “When did you get so smart?”
“I’m a mom. I have to be smart. It’s like a rule or something.”
Ellie laughed and started the car. She dropped Ashley off at her house with a promise to call that night, and drove back to McDermott’s.
When the business phone rang three hours later, she was scrubbing the toilet in the apartment above the funeral home. If she would be living here, the place would be clean.
Pulling off her yellow gloves, she raced to the wall phone in the kitchen and lifted the receiver, fighting the wish that it was a customer because, though she might need the money, she refused to start hoping for people to die.
“McDermott’s Funeral Home.”
“I have the new offer. I can be in your office in ten minutes.”
She sank to one of the chairs around the old glass kitchen table. It didn’t seem right to just say no thanks over the phone. She might not trust Finn, but she did have her own reputation to maintain. She was an honest person who did business face-to-face. Surely she could survive the ten minutes it would take to tell him no.
“Okay.”
…
Finn drove the Range Rover over to McDermott’s, the offer in a manila envelope on the passenger’s-side seat. After he parked in front of the funeral home, he grabbed the envelope and shoved open the door.
Walking up the steps and across the wide front porch of the beautiful yellow Victorian, he had to admit McDermott’s was a homier establishment than his new, polished, somewhat sleek building. But he’d done that deliberately. He knew sooner or later he’d get McDermott’s and, once he moved his establishment over, he could rent out the modern building and create a second cash flow stream, one not dependent on people dying. Running a funeral home was a fulfilling service to the community, but a businessman couldn’t be totally selfless. He had to make a living. A second stream of income gave him breathing room.
Confident and totally in control of his hormones, he opened the front door and stepped inside. As warm and friendly as the outside, the plush sofas, Oriental rugs, and hardwood floors greeted him.
“Ellie?”
“In the office.”
He took the four or five steps toward her voice but paused just before he reached the door, twisting to the left and right, unlocking his spine. Loose, comfortable, he entered.
“I heard you visited your dad today.” He smiled.
Dressed in the same jeans and tank top she’d worn that morning, Ellie looked more like a California girl ready to zip off to a coffee shop than a business proprietor. Leaning back in her dad’s big chair, with her legs crossed and her tank top riding the curve of her waist and hugging the swell of her breasts, she instantly transported him back nine years, to that night in the backseat of his old Buick, when her usually sleek red hair was as sexily disheveled as it was right now and her jeans had been tossed to the front seat. He could almost feel the velvet of her thighs—
Crap. Two seconds in her company and he was already thinking about “that night.”
Shoving the thought out of his brain, he asked, “How was he?”
She caught his gaze. “Lucid. We had a very nice, important talk.”
He lowered himself to the chair. “That’s good.”
“Yes. Especially since we both recognize there might not be many more good talks.”
His heart tugged a bit for her. If anything ever happened to his mom, he’d be devastated. “Even though this benefits me, I truly am sorry about your dad. Sorry for how hard it’s going to be for you.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded, but she also squirmed a little in the chair.
He hadn’t made it this far in life by being oblivious to signs of stress and discomfort. Like a good poker player uses tells to win a pot or fold before he has too many chips committed, he could work discomfort to his favor.
His conscience tweaked. Doing that suddenly felt all wrong. She was upset about her dad. It almost seemed sinful to be pushing her into a deal.
Still, she needed the money, and he’d come up with a fairly sweet sum.
He slid the manila folder across her desk. “Here it is.”
She hesitated. Blew her breath out on a long sigh. Stared at the envelope for a few seconds. And finally caught his gaze.
“I can’t sell.”
He struggled not to react but couldn’t stop a “What?” from escaping.
“My dad wants me to stay around so we can see each other every day.”
That’s all? Geez. She’d about stopped his heart over nothing. “You can stay in town without having to run the funeral home. Hell, I’ll even let you live here for as long as you need to. That way if you bring your dad home for holidays, you’d be here. You could let him think you still owned the place.”
She peered over at him with a long, cool look that totally perplexed him. “You want me to lie?”
“It wouldn’t be a lie. It would be more like a charade.”
“A charade is a lie.”
“What difference does it make? You’re trying to get some cash and keep your dad happy. My deal gives you the chance to do both.”
“You might think lying is an acceptable way to get what you want, but my father and I have never lied to each other. If I sell this place, it will be with his knowledge. Maybe not his consent, since he’s not always mentally here, but he made his wishes known today, and I won’t lie to him.”
He sucked in a breath, closed his eyes, then popped them open again. “So what you’re saying is that your dad wouldn’t give you consent when you visited him today?”
“This isn’t just about consent. It’s about him being comfortable.”
“So what do we have to do to make him comfortable?”
“You don’t have to do anything. I have to keep the place running and visit him.”
He rubbed his hand across his chin. “Okay, let’s go at this one more time. This is all about your needing to be in town. I’ve offered you the apartment upstairs for as long as you want. This morning I all but told you that you won’t get even half the town’s business. You’re going to fail.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Of course I know that.” Those damned hormones started to hum again. “I’m a businessman. I’ve been here for six months. I’ve been working a strategy to get the locals to come to me for funeral services.” She caught his gaze with brown eyes that had filled with fire, and heat saturated his blood. “I’ve already got half. The other half are coming around. How do you expect to compete with someone who’s already got a six-month jump on you?”
“I’ll think of something.”
&
nbsp; “Really?” Anger replaced a desire to negotiate. Why was it the more she argued, the hotter she looked? “And how do you propose to do that?”
“I don’t know.” She passed her tongue along her lips. “But I’m not dumb and I’ve got a team.”
“A team that’s going to cost you at least half the money you’ll make! Don’t you see what a losing proposition this is for you?”
“Are you calling me stupid?”
He pulled back, stopped his anger. He wasn’t mad at her as much as he was furious with his hormones—their hormones. She was sending off as many signals that she was fighting an attraction as he was. So how much of this argument was about business and how much of it was about denial? He couldn’t answer that, but it might be wise to step away from the negotiations until they both cooled down.
He counted to ten, relaxed his muscles, and smiled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get excited.” He smiled again. “All I’m doing here is sharing facts.” He rose and pointed at the envelope on her desk. “That’s my offer. You do whatever you want to do. Set up shop again for your dad. Visit your dad. Whatever.”
He started for the door but stopped abruptly. It might sound good to give her time, but he didn’t have six weeks to wait for her to make up her mind. He needed her company and he needed it now. She might have a dad to consider, but he had a mother to care for. He couldn’t let wayward hormones dictate how he negotiated.
Or could he?
Like it or not, sex was part of who they were now. Once a couple had “gone there” they couldn’t just pretend it hadn’t happened.
And they were hot for each other.
Always had been.
Maybe it was time to stop ignoring the elephant in the room, forget about the deal for a few hours, and let nature take its course and work this attraction out of their systems, so they could both get their wits back?
He turned and faced her again. “What do you say we go out for a drink? No business talk. No pressure from me. Just a nice beer between friends.”
“I’m not dressed to go out.”
He smiled the devastating smile he knew had melted a few female hearts in the past. “Are you kidding? This is Harmony Hills. In a tank top and jeans, you’ll fit in at any bar.”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t say you’re tired. You went to bed before eight o’clock last night.”
“I’m not tired, but—”
“What? You don’t want a beer?” He ambled back to her desk. “I can get you a glass of wine, if you’ve gotten snooty in the big city.”
She laughed and toyed with a pencil.
“Come on. You look like a woman who could use a drink.” And both of them needed to put an end to this tension. If all they had was drinks that would be fine, but if they ended up in bed that would probably be better. For both of them.
“C’mon. It’ll be fun.”
Chapter Five
Finn opened the door to the American Legion—the only bar open on Sunday—and stepped aside to let a pretty blond girl enter before him. She gave him a look that could only be interpreted as a come-on, but he barely noticed.
Ellie had turned him down. Not just for the funeral home, but for a drink.
Man, he couldn’t believe it.
Strolling up to the bar, he went over everything he’d said and done in their little meeting, and came up empty. He got it that she’d already made up her mind not to sell before he’d arrived. But she’d made that decision based on bad intel. And both of their hormones were raging. So how could either one of them function properly? He’d come up with the perfect solution. Yet he’d struck out royally. She wouldn’t even have a drink with him.
He must be losing his touch.
Brent Tulowitski ambled over. A year or so older than Finn, with thinning dark hair that he craftily disguised by keeping it cut close to the scalp, he ran a cloth over the strip of bar in front of Finn and set down a paper coaster.
“What’ll it be?”
“Draft.”
“Coming right up. We don’t keep our war heroes waiting around here.”
And that was another thing. Everybody in town knew he’d served in Afghanistan, and everybody respected him. Not just because he was a former football hero, but because he’d grown up. He’d served his country. He was taking care of his mother.
Sheesh…what the hell did Ellie want from him?
Brent set the beer on the coaster just as Devon slid onto the stool beside his. “So, when exactly were you coming home to play poker and save me from General Hospital?”
He winced. “Sorry. I got a bit involved with the McDermott deal.”
“She’s busting your balls again, isn’t she?” Devon asked, then ordered a draft from Brent.
Brent poured Devon’s beer and set it on the bar. “She who?”
“Ellie McDermott.”
Brent’s eyes brightened. “She’s home?”
Something flickered in Finn’s gut. He did not like the look in Brent’s eyes.
“Yeah, and she thinks she needs to run the funeral home to make enough money to support her dad.”
Brent walked away to ring up the tab, but Devon laughed. “So the competition begins again.”
“Not really. I’ve been siphoning business from her dad for six months. With Mark in the hospital, people are going to think she’s closed.”
Devon took a swig of his beer. “That’s tough for her.”
“I tried to do the decent thing and buy her out. She turned me down.”
Devon laughed.
“This is not funny.”
“Sure it is. Especially since I know you don’t get turned down a lot.”
“This is business, not personal.” Even as the words spilled from his lips, he thought of Ellie and her puritanical need to split hairs about things like lying and charades, and his blood supercharged again. Okay, so there was a personal aspect to this business. But he didn’t have to admit that to Devon.
Devon cast a long, cool look at him before he said, “If this really is just business between you two, then make it business. If you think she’s going to fail, let her. I know you probably feel sorry about her dad, but if this is really just business, let it go.”
Devon rose from his seat and tossed a ten-dollar bill on the bar. “I should stay here and force you to go home and watch the last two hours of soaps, but you need to think this through.” He patted Finn’s back. “You’ll owe me. Big-time.”
Finn grunted. Devon only laughed and left the bar.
Finn took a swallow of beer. The pretty blonde he’d held the door for strolled over. “Hey, Finn.”
“Hey…” Shoot. He’d met her. He knew he’d met her. But he couldn’t remember her name. Unlike Ellie, whose every move seemed to be seared in his brain. He remembered her cute and toothless in first grade. Beating him in the geography bee in fifth grade. Goading him when she took first place in the science fair. Smiling cockily when she snatched the number one class ranking away from him in tenth grade because she was just a little bit better in history…
“You got plans for tonight?”
He pulled himself out of his reverie. Though any other day of the week he’d happily join in on a pretty girl’s plans, he’d expected to be with Ellie tonight, and for some reason or another he couldn’t switch gears.
The woman was going to be the death of him.
He smiled ruefully at the blonde. “Actually, I’m trying to think through a little bit of a work problem.”
Her eyelashes fluttered. “Maybe I can help?”
He took a quick glance at her very short denim shorts and very tight top and sighed, annoyed with himself. This could qualify as the best offer he’d had all year, and he was turning her down. Why? Because he wanted to hook up with a redhead he’d had sex with once? Nine years ago?
He was insane.
He finished his beer. “Thanks, but I do my best thinking alone, in front of my computer.”
As he tu
rned to go, she caught his arm. “Are you sure?”
He expected to feel a tingle of excitement, the rush of pure male need. None came.
Damn Ellie. “No thanks.”
In the Range Rover, he forced his thoughts off sleeping with Ellie, and put them on their business. Or maybe he should say fighting over business. Their competition might be old news, but this time they weren’t evenly matched. He felt like a Rottweiler fighting a poodle. He was going to destroy her, and she couldn’t see it. Wouldn’t even consider it.
He frowned.
Maybe Devon was right. With the way things were going lately, he wouldn’t have to lift a finger to beat her. But he wasn’t going to win. She was going to lose. And maybe he should just let her. He’d offered her a very good deal, and she’d refused it. Maybe it was simply time to let the chips fall where they may.
After all, this was business.
…
Monday morning, Ellie called Nicole as she dressed to visit her dad.
“I can’t come into the office today.”
“Oh?”
“Nic, I’m going to have to run the funeral home. My dad wants me to. He needs me here so we can have all the time possible together before he totally loses it.”
Nicole’s next “Oh” was sympathetic. “So you’re bugging out on Tidy Whitiez?”
“That’s just it. I need that money too. I’d like to be able to work on it from Harmony Hills.”
“As project leader, that might be hard.”
“I’ll figure something out.”
Nicole sighed. “And I could help you, since I mentored you through the campaign’s development.”
“I appreciate that, but…”
“No. Stop. This isn’t you wanting to go to Harmony Hills for a party. Your dad is sick. And you’re my friend. When friends are in trouble they help each other out.”
Warmth tightened her chest. Maybe there wasn’t as much professional distance between her and Nic as she always believed. “Thanks. But, seriously, I can do the bulk of the supervising. I can even be in the office a few days a week. I’ll make this work.”