by Tina Leonard
“Why don’t you join me, then? There’s more than enough here for both of us,” she told him, indicating the food that was on the table.
Finn glanced at the heaping basket of fried chicken that had been placed beside her plate. He knew Miss Joan and the way the woman thought. She had people and their appetites down to a science, and she wouldn’t have sent over that much food if she thought that Connie would be eating it by herself. What he was looking at was a deliberate double portion, generous, yes, but definitely a double portion.
Why Miss Joan had sent a double portion, he could only speculate, but he had a feeling that if Connie suspected this was what the older woman had in mind—that they share a meal together for the second time—it just might be the added pressure that would cause Connie’s undoing. The woman currently had more than enough on her mind without trying to fathom what was going on in Miss Joan’s head.
“Well, if you insist,” Finn allowed, crossing over to her table.
“I do.”
“Then how can I say no? You’re the boss lady,” he told her agreeably as he took a seat opposite her at the table.
Boss lady.
That sounded good, Connie couldn’t help thinking. She just hoped that this wouldn’t turn out to be an isolated incident.
She gazed at the food again and shook her head in amused disbelief. “Miss Joan must think that I have an absolutely huge appetite.”
“Miss Joan likes to think that when it comes to the food she serves at the diner, everyone has a big appetite,” Finn told her. “I think that woman feels it’s her mission in life to fatten everyone up.”
As he spoke, he reached into the basket for another piece of chicken—at the exact same time that Connie went to take one herself. They wound up both reaching for the same piece of fried chicken, which was why, just for a second, their fingers brushed against one another. Contact generated a spark that had no business being there, and no tangible explanation for being there, either.
They both pulled their hands back almost simultaneously.
“Sorry,” Connie murmured. She was really going to have to be careful, she warned herself. Everything, including her entire future, was riding on her success with this project.
“No, my mistake. Go ahead,” he urged, gesturing toward the basket. “After all, you’re the one Miss Joan sent this to. It’s her way of looking out for you,” he added.
“Why would she even concern herself with me?” Connie asked. “I mean, not that it’s not a nice feeling to know that someone cares whether I eat or not, but she really doesn’t know me from Adam.”
“Oh, I think she’s got that part pretty much figured out,” he told her with a grin. “There’s definitely no mistaking you for any guy named Adam. As for the rest of it, Miss Joan likes to think of herself as a great judge of character. To give the woman her due, I don’t think there was a single time that anyone can recall Miss Joan being wrong about anything.”
“Bet that must make her hard to live with,” Connie commented.
She knew firsthand what her father would be like under those circumstances. The man already felt he couldn’t be opposed, and he had been wrong at least several instances that she knew of. Most likely more that she didn’t know about, she was willing to bet.
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you?” Finn agreed, then went on to say, “But I don’t think there’s a nicer person in Forever than Miss Joan. Oh, she comes off all prickly and distant at times, you know, crusty on the outside. But she’s kind of like French bread in that way. Soft on the inside,” he told her with a wink. “Miss Joan’s got that famous heart of gold that so many people have benefited from. She thinks you’re going to be good for the town, so that’s why she’s behind you the way she is,” Finn told her.
Because her father had made her leery of being on the receiving end of praise, she’d never been one to take a compliment lightly or at face value.
“I don’t know about me being good for the town,” Connie said, “but the hotel’s bound to be. If there’s a hotel in town, people’ll be more inclined to stop here rather than somewhere else. That means they’ll eat their meals here, maybe spend a little money here—” And that was when an idea hit her. She looked at Finn hopefully when she asked, “Anything like an annual rodeo take place here?”
Now that had come out of left field, he thought. “Nope.”
The woman amused him, she really did, Finn thought. It was obvious from the way she conducted herself that she was a city girl—even if she hadn’t told him that her father’s company was domiciled in Houston, she had the word city written all over her. Yet here she was, acting like some kind of an activities director, coming up with ideas about what she thought would be best for a town she’d only set foot in yesterday.
It took a great deal of self-confidence to come across like that—yet when he looked into Connie’s eyes, he could see the slight element of fear lurking there. Fear of failure, he assumed. That kind of a thing might ultimately cause her to second-guess herself, which, in his experience, never amounted to anything positive in the long run.
“Maybe you should consider holding a rodeo here,” she encouraged. God knew she could picture Finn on a bucking bronco, every muscle tense as he focused on the longest eight seconds of his life.
A warm shiver went up and down her spine. It was an effort to get herself under control and act as if images of Finn hadn’t just taken over her brain.
“I’ll do that,” he told her with a wink, unable to put a lid on his amusement any longer. “I’ll consider holding an annual rodeo.”
“I’m serious,” she told him, leaning in closer over the table. “That would really bring in more people to Forever.”
“People who would have to stay at the hotel,” he said with a straight face.
“Yes.” And then she took a closer look at him. It wasn’t that he thought she was kidding; he thought she had a screw loose, she realized. “You’re laughing at me.”
He did his best to turn down the wattage of his grin—but she was so damn cute when she tried to be so serious. “Not at you, with you.”
Connie frowned. “You might not have noticed this, but I’m not laughing.”
“But you will be. Sooner or later, you will be,” he assured her. “One thing you should know about the people in Forever is that they kind of move at a slower pace than what you’re probably used to.”
Connie immediately interpreted the words to mean something that affected her. Instantly on the alert, she asked, “What are you telling me, that we’re not going to make the deadline?”
“Oh, no, you’ll make the deadline,” he told her quickly, wanting to make sure she didn’t misunderstand him. “That’s a real hardworking bunch of men you just hired today.”
Her eyebrows seemed to knit themselves over her narrowed eyes. Finn had lost her. “Then I don’t understand....”
“People in Forever are slow when it comes to making changes. They take their time embracing progress, if you will.”
“Everything has to embrace progress,” Connie doggedly insisted. “If something isn’t growing, then it’s dying.” It was one of the first lessons she’d ever learned—and it had come from Emerson, not her father.
“Or maybe it’s just being,” he suggested.
“Being?” she asked, not understanding what he was trying to tell her.
“Existing,” Finn said, putting it another way. “In general, people work hard to make a living, and they feel that they’re entitled to just sit back and enjoy that accomplishment. You know, sit back, take a look around and just be happy that they’ve managed to come this far and survived. It’s not always about reaching the next major goal, or getting the next big-screen TV. In other words, it’s not always about getting something bigger, or better, or faster. Sometimes, it’s just about enjoy
ing the prize that you have, the thing—however small—you succeeded in doing.”
He realized that Connie hadn’t said anything in a couple of minutes, hadn’t attempted to interrupt him. Not just that, but she was looking at him in a very odd way, like he was speaking another language.
He’d overstepped his bounds, Finn thought, upbraiding himself. The woman wasn’t ready to hear this countrified philosophy when all she was interested in was getting a good day’s work out of them.
He tried to backtrack as gracefully as he could. “Hey, but that’s just me,” he concluded, easing himself out of the conversation.
But Connie continued to watch him in what he could only describe as a thoughtful, strange way. It was obvious that if they were to move on, he had no recourse but to ask her, “What?”
As Finn had talked, she’d stopped embracing the credo that had governed most of her life, and instead listened to what the cowboy was telling her. It didn’t take a scholar to realize—rather quickly—that she was hearing the antithesis of her father’s number one philosophy.
Her father would probably have this man for lunch—or try to—saying that if everyone was like him, the country would have withered and died a long time ago.
But maybe it wouldn’t have, Connie now thought. Maybe the country would continue thriving because people were satisfied and that in turn made them happy. Was that so bad, just being happy?
She couldn’t recall the last time her father, with his countless mind-boggling triumphs and successes, had been happy for more than a fleeting moment or two.
For Calvin Carmichael, it was always about the next project, the next conquest. Bigger, better, more streamline, all that was her father’s primary focus. That was what had always kept him going even more so since her mother had died.
And, until just now, that was what kept her going, as well. But maybe not, Connie amended. “You sound like the exact opposite of my father,” she told him.
“I meant no disrespect,” he told her. “I just think that maybe there’s room for both those points of view. Think about it,” he urged. “Why should someone work so hard for something and not stop to at least enjoy it for a bit?” he asked.
Connie realized that he probably thought she was trying to find a nice way of saying that he was wrong. But the truth of it was, upon reflection, she didn’t believe that he was. What Finn had done was succeed in making her think a little—not to mention that he’d managed to generate a feeling of—for lack of a better word—relief within her.
There was room for more than just her father’s work ethic out there. That was a fact that was good to keep on the back burner, she decided.
“I didn’t say I thought you were wrong. I just said you and my father would be on opposite sides of the fence when it came to your idea of what life was all about.” She smiled, more to herself than at the man with whom she was sharing this impromptu dinner. “You might have guessed that my father is not the kind of man you could get to stop and smell the roses. He’s more inclined to stomp on the roses as he made his way to the next rosebush—just to reach it, not to try to savor it or appreciate it,” she confessed.
At this point, Connie decided that a change of subject might do them both some good. This was just the beginning of their working relationship. It wasn’t the time to get into philosophical discussions regarding—ultimately—the meaning of life. Or any other serious, possibly life-altering topic. Not if it didn’t directly relate to the job at hand.
So instead, Connie turned her attention to the meal they were sharing. “You were right.”
“About?” Finn asked.
“This has to be the best fried chicken I’ve ever had. Does Angel do something different when she makes this?”
“I’d say that would be a safe guess,” Finn answered her. “But if you wanted to know exactly what she does, that’s a discussion you’re going to have to have with Angel.”
She understood that chefs had their secret recipes, and she wasn’t trying to pry. Her eye was on a much larger prize at the moment.
“You know, Miss Joan might do well if she thought about looking into maybe having a chain of restaurants, or selling a franchise—including this recipe and a few others in the package—” She looked at Finn, her momentum growing. “I’m assuming fried chicken isn’t the only thing Angel does well.”
She said this as she finished yet another piece of the chicken. Rather than become full, Connie only seemed better able to savor each bite the more chicken she consumed.
“Everything Angel makes is pretty tasty,” Finn answered. “She has a whole bunch of regular customers who faithfully turn up at the diner since she came to work there.”
“I knew it,” she said with feeling. Plans and possibilities began to multiply in her head. “Angel and Miss Joan are missing a golden opportunity,” Connie told him.
“I’ll let them know you said so,” he told her. “But for right now, I think you’re missing a golden opportunity yourself.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
Finn smiled at her. It wasn’t a patronizing smile. Instead, it was indulgently patient. The kind of smile a parent had while waiting for their child to catch on to something all by themselves after all the clues had been carefully and discreetly laid out.
But, Finn quickly realized, they came from different worlds, he and this woman, and thus had been raised completely differently, with a different set of rules to guide them. She would need more than just a hint to catch on.
“You’re forgetting just to enjoy the moment. Just for a little while, why don’t you forget about the project, your father and everything else and just enjoy the meal and what’s around you without trying to see if you can maximize it or improve it or market it? Maybe I’m talking out of turn, but you’re going to wind up wearing yourself out before you get a chance to make that mark on the world you’re so keen on making.”
She pressed her lips together. She hated to admit it, but Finn was right.
At least about the last part.
Chapter Nine
The next moment, Connie pulled herself back mentally and rallied. Maybe if she’d lived here, in this tiny speck of a town all of her life, her view of life might match the handsome cowboy’s, but she wasn’t from Forever. She was from Houston, and things were a lot different there, not to mention that it moved a great deal faster in the city. Oh, she was certain there were people in Houston with the exact same approach to life as Finn had just emphasized, but they were the people who were content never to get anywhere. To be satisfied with their small lot in life and just leave it at that.
But she wasn’t. Her father had drummed it into her head over and over again: you were only as good as your next accomplishment.
Finn might not have a father he needed to prove himself to—once and for all—but she did, and until she accomplished that mission, those roses that needed smelling would just have to wait.
Finished with her dinner, Connie pushed herself away from the table and rose to her feet. “As tempting as just kicking back and savoring the moment sounds, I’ve got a full day tomorrow. We both do,” she reminded him pointedly. “And I’ve still got a fifty-mile trip ahead of me.”
It was that fifty-mile trip that was going to wear her out faster than the rest of it, he couldn’t help thinking.
“Why don’t you reconsider and just stay in town?” Finn suggested. “That way, you could give yourself a little while to take a well-deserved deep breath, relax and enjoy the rest of today before you go full steam ahead tomorrow.”
He made it sound so very simple—but she’d learned the hard way that nothing was ever simple.
“And just where do you suggest I spend the night?” Connie asked him. “My car’s a little cramped for sleepovers,” she added in case Finn was going to suggest that she sack out in her s
ports car.
“I wouldn’t have even thought about you sleeping in your car,” he told her. “That’s a sure-fire way to guarantee waking up with a stiff neck. Not exactly the way you’d want to start out,” he predicted. “Besides, plenty of people in town would be willing to put you up for the night,” he assured her.
And just how did he propose that she go about making that a reality? Connie wondered with a touch of cynicism. “I’m not about to go begging door to door—” she began.
Finn cut in. “No begging. A lot of people here have an extra bedroom.” Hell, until Brett and Alisha got married and moved into the ranch house he’d inherited, for all intents and purposes, he and his brothers didn’t just have an extra room, they had an extra house. “All you’d have to do was say that you needed a place to stay and—”
He didn’t get a chance to say that people would line up with offers to accommodate her because Connie cut him off. “Which is just another way of begging,” she pointed out, stopping him in his tracks.
But Finn, she quickly learned, was not the type to give up easily. “Miss Joan offered you a room at her place,” he reminded her. “That was without you saying anything about even needing a place.”
She was not about to impose on anyone, or approach them, hat in hand, like a supplicant. “I already told Miss Joan I had a room in the Pine Ridge Hotel. To arbitrarily just ask her if I could stay at her place after that wouldn’t seem right.” She wanted the workers to trust her, not think of her as some sort of a giant sponge.
“What it would seem,” Finn argued amicably, “is practical, and there’s nothing Miss Joan admires more than someone being practical.”
Judging by the look on Connie’s face, he hadn’t won that argument, Finn thought. He gave getting her to agree to remain in town overnight another try by offering her another option to consider.
“Or if you really can’t bring yourself to do that, my brothers and I have a house right here in town not far from this saloon,” he told her. “It’s plenty big.”