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by Tina Leonard

  Her reaction just wasn’t sinking in. He was still waiting for an explosion. “You’re not angry?” Finn asked, still more than a little uncertain as he studied her demeanor.

  “No, why would you think that I was angry?” She sat up for the first time. “Do I look angry?” Connie asked, glancing around to see if there was some sort of a reflecting surface available to her. She wanted to see herself so she could ascertain whether or not she thought she looked angry.

  “No, you don’t,” he told her, treading very lightly. “But I thought...well...I thought that you’d feel I took advantage of you, and also you’re my boss.”

  So that was it, Connie thought. At that moment, Finn went up another notch in her estimation. He really was a good guy.

  “I had one drink,” Connie admitted. “Not so much that I can’t remember that I was the one who made the first moves—” she pointed out. “I kissed you first, not the other way around.”

  “So you’re not angry,” he concluded, wanting to be absolutely sure.

  “Right now I’m still too tingly to be angry,” Connie freely admitted—another first for her, she thought. She’d made love before, but each time all her feelings, all her reactions, were neatly compartmentalized. This deliriously happy feeling was definitely something new—and it thrilled her. Probably more than it should, she realized. But she just couldn’t get herself to put a lid on it. So, just for tonight, she allowed herself to enjoy it.

  Connie glanced down on the floor at the flurry of papers scattered there. “I will, however, be upset in the morning when I try to put all those schedules into some kind of order again.”

  That had been his fault. He’d swept her schedules to the floor. “I can help with that,” Finn quickly volunteered.

  “How?” Connie asked with a laugh. “By sweeping them out of the trailer?” she asked, amusement playing on her lips.

  “By organizing them for you on my own time,” he told her, sitting up beside her and looking at the mess below their feet. He was acutely aware of her sitting like that beside him. “But right now, if you’re sure you’re not angry...”

  She turned her face to his and softly whispered, “Yes?”

  He’d just had her and here he was wanting her again. Wanting her so badly, he felt himself literally aching for her. “I’d like to make love to you properly.”

  She pretended to look at him with wide-eyed confusion. “Oh, then what we just did, that was improper?”

  He was fairly certain there were several states where what they’d just done would have been banned. “Highly.”

  “I see,” she murmured thoughtfully. “And now you’d like to show me how it should have actually been done, is that it?”

  His smile reached out to all parts of him, shining in his eyes as well as on his lips and in his demeanor. “Yes, I would.”

  Connie slid off the drawing board, her bare feet touching the scattered papers on the floor. She nodded her head slowly, as if she was thinking it over. “Never let it be said that I refused to leave myself open to a learning experience.”

  Finn followed suit, standing up beside her. It was all she needed. Connie wound her arms around his neck, vividly aware of the fact that they were both still very nude.

  She smiled up into his eyes. “You do realize that I’m still just a little dazed.”

  His arms went around her, bringing her even closer to him than a sigh. “I’m counting on it.” When he saw her raise an eyebrow at his statement, Finn was quick to explain, “You’re a lot less inhibited—and a great deal more trusting.”

  She saw no reason to argue that. He was right. “I’ll have to work on that. Tomorrow,” she decided. “I’ll work on it tomorrow.”

  Because tonight, she knew she would be otherwise occupied.

  And thrilled because of it.

  * * *

  FINN APPROACHED HER carefully a little after eight the next morning, not quite sure what to expect or how to behave. He’d slipped out quietly from her trailer an hour before dawn. He’d wanted to give Connie her privacy, and he wasn’t sure just how she would deal with the sight of him in her bed now that they had to go back to work.

  If there was shame and discomfort on her part, since he was the cause of it, he wanted to spare her the sight of him for as long as possible.

  At the same time, he knew he didn’t have the luxury of simply going into hiding. He was her foreman, her second in command and as such, he had to be there, available for her to command.

  Approaching her trailer, he knocked lightly, gave himself to the count of three, braced his shoulders and then walked in, every part of him prepared for some form of rejection, denouncement or whatever it was that would make Connie feel vindicated.

  Finn was far too much of a realist to believe that fairy tales went on forever. He was just hoping that she didn’t ultimately hate him for last night because for him, last night would live on in the annals of his mind for a very, very long time.

  When she heard the door opening, Connie glanced over her shoulder. “Morning. I was beginning to think you were going to sleep in today.”

  Connie waved her hand, indicating the tall, covered white container on the side of her drawing board. An opened, partially empty container was standing right next to it.

  “Got you some black coffee at Miss Joan’s,” she went on, turning back to her work. “The woman is selling India ink as coffee, but she swears that it gets your motor running, so drink up. We’ve got a really full day ahead of us if we’ve got a prayer of keeping this puppy on schedule.”

  Though he’d always thought of himself as being able to roll with punches, Finn was having trouble processing what was going on. Not because he was hungover, but because Connie seemed so different, so much—looser for lack of a better word—than she had been before. And definitely more upbeat and cheerful. She still looked like the same woman, the same beautiful blue eyes, the same killer figure, but it was as if she was a newer, more improved version of heresf. If she’d been a software program, he would have thought of her as Connie 2.0. He stared at the covered, oversize paper container she’d pointed to on the drawing board. “You got me coffee?” That alone was enough to throw him for a loop.

  She nodded again. “Just in case you were having trouble getting in gear this morning.”

  “You have any of this?” he asked.

  “I don’t drink India ink,” she informed him matter-of-factly. “I did get myself a cup of regular coffee, though. Just enough coffee to give the creamer something to work with and lighten,” she told Finn. Now that he looked into her container, he could see that the contents appeared to be exceedingly light, close to the color of milk itself. “Now drink up, Finn,” she was saying, “we’re wasting daylight.”

  That was an exaggeration. “It isn’t even eight yet,” he pointed out.

  But Connie absently nodded, as if he’d just agreed with her. “Like I said, we’re wasting daylight.”

  Shaking his head even as humor crept in and curved the corners of his mouth, Finn took the lid off his container and took a very long, savory drag of his very black coffee.

  As hoped for, the caffeine hit him with the kick of a disgruntled mule.

  * * *

  FROM THAT DAY FORWARD, work continued at an almost effortless pace. There were a few hitches, and one on-site near accident with a girder, but overall, they kept on track, and the hotel took on its desired shape.

  As it transformed from a hole in the ground to an edifice of impressive lines and structure, the citizens of Forever began to redesign their paths so that it took them by the excavation site. They came to note the progress or simply to watch some of their own operate the sophisticated machinery with precision.

  They came to watch girders, posts, bolts and nails become something greater than the sum of their init
ial parts.

  And a number of them, mostly the younger females, came to observe bare-chested men sweat and strain as they diligently created something they would all be proud of.

  As Connie oversaw each and everyone’s progress as they approached the end goal, occasionally issuing orders, or changing directives, her project, the bet she had with her father, turned into something far more meaningful to her. It no longer represented just winning an impulsive bet.

  She was no longer the girl who was trying everything she could to get just a drop of her father’s praise. There was far more going on here now.

  The hotel became not only her project, but the crew working on its completion also became her men. And, she was delighted to discover, she was proud of them—proud of each and every one of them because of what they contributed to the whole.

  And she fervently hoped that they returned the feeling, at least to some degree.

  Somewhere along the line, shortly after Brett’s engagement party—and her awakening as a woman—Connie began to document the crew’s progress with the hotel. She would aim her smartphone at anything she felt should be preserved. This was her very first solo project and as such, like a first-born, each tiny milestone deserved to be forever frozen in time.

  What she felt were the best shots she passed on, not to her father, but to Emerson, trusting him to choose which photo her father should see and which he might have found some minor, underlying fault with. It was a given fact that Calvin Carmichael was not known for his tact or restraint, especially where the company logo was involved. Emerson knew her father the way no other living soul did, and she trusted him to make the proper judgment calls on her behalf.

  She could also trust him to be on her side. True to his nature, Emerson would send back an encouraging text that praised not just her efforts, but also her progress and the way the hotel was obviously shaping up. He was her own personal cheering section, and Connie loved him for it the way she knew she could never hope to love her father. On the home front, her life was also progressing equally well.

  What could have become a very awkward situation between her and Finn—with neither of them knowing how to behave or react to one another—became, in fact, a very comfortable existence that they found themselves falling into without any actual discussion on their parts. Certainly no attempts to lay down any groundwork for themselves.

  Connie was a woman who had, from a very young age, lived by her schedules. She always had to have her days mapped out from moment one to way beyond the final time frame. It made her feel as if she had control. And yet this sort of spontaneous forward movement worked for her. Not knowing worked for her. As did the delicious warmth of anticipation. And holding her breath when Finn walked up behind her, waiting for the first moment that his hand would brush against her shoulder, or touch her face.

  Or the first moment that he would make her insane with desire.

  They made love every night, the perfect ending to a perfect day. She had never been happier—as long as she didn’t allow herself to dwell even fleetingly on the specter looming in the background: the completion of her project.

  For now, she just took heart in the fact that the project was progressing well ahead of schedule and she, well, she was progressing in directions she had never dreamed she would.

  As the days and weeks went by, Connie began to think of Forever as her special magical place, except that she knew Forever was real, too.

  Still, because it had become so very special, she fervently hoped that Forever—and Finn—wouldn’t disappear.

  “What’s that you’re humming?” Finn asked her as they stood off to the side one day, observing the day’s progress.

  “I didn’t realize I was humming,” she confessed. “Just some nameless tune to keep my spirits up.”

  She didn’t want to admit that what was actually keeping her spirits up was the fact that he was at her side from morning to night—and thereafter.

  Work-wise, there had been a problem with the design when it came to the plumbing on the ground floor, but she had managed to resolve it with a few key strokes of her pen on the blueprints, then conveyed what needed to be done by way of integral changes to the men installing the pipes.

  All of which had left Finn in complete awe of her—and also drove home the stark realization—again—that she didn’t belong here. It was further proof to him that once this hotel, which was so very important to her, was finally finished, Connie would go back to her upscale world and be permanently gone from his life.

  Which, had this been any one of a number of other times in his life—involving other women—would have been fine with him.

  But it wasn’t fine this time.

  Because this wasn’t like any of those other times. This time, he admitted to himself, was different because she was different.

  And he was different because of that.

  Different because he was in love with her.

  It had hit him one night as they were making love in her bed. Hit him with all the subtlety of a rampaging mustang trying to divest itself of a newly cinched saddle. He felt a tenderness toward her, a sensation he hadn’t experienced before, a desire to protect her not just for a little while, but for all the years to come.

  That part had become clear to him when he discovered his desire to shield Connie from her father’s harsh behavior. Something had been bothering her for the past few hours. He was aware of it even as they were making love.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked her as they lay there together, the sounds of heavy breathing mingling and fading.

  “Nothing.”

  “I know you. That’s not nothing. Now out with it—or do I have to torture you to get it out of you?” As if to make good on his threat, he wiggled his fingers before her as if he was about to tickle her. The second he brushed his fingers against her, Connie quickly surrendered.

  “It’s nothing, really. I sent my father a text update, complete with photos and the fact that we were way ahead of schedule.”

  “Did he respond?”

  “Oh, he responded all right. He texted back ‘Stop bragging. It’s not finished yet. You could still fail.’” Connie shrugged. “I suppose it’s just the way he is, and I shouldn’t have expected any other response from him. It’s just that every once in a while, I keep hoping he’d change. That this one time, he’d tell me he was satisfied.”

  “And that he was proud of you?” Finn guessed.

  “Yeah, there’s that, too,” Connie admitted with a shrug.

  Finn could feel anger building up. Anger aimed at a man who had no idea how lucky he was to have a daughter like Connie. “Leopards don’t change their spots,” he told her gently.

  A smile played on her lips. She knew he was trying his best to cheer her up, to make her focus on what she had and not feel inadequate because of what she’d failed to achieve.

  “Very profound.”

  “Also very true,” he pointed out.

  She sighed and nodded. Finn was doing his best, and she was grateful to him for it. “My father doesn’t matter.”

  “Damn straight he doesn’t matter,” he’d told her, surprising her with the fierceness in his voice because up until now, Finn hadn’t really commented on her father at all. “He’s never going to be satisfied and even if he thinks you’ve done better than fantastic, he’s not about to tell you because somehow, he feels that would be cutting down his image.” His eyes held hers as he tried to make her understand what seemed so obvious to him. “Connie, you could do the best damn job in the whole world, and that man isn’t going to tell you. He’s just going to look for something, anything, to point to and find it lacking.” He raised her chin with the crook of his finger when she tried to look away. “But you and I know the truth.”

  “And what’s the truth?” she asked with a glimmer of a
smile forming on her lips.

  “That no one holds a candle to you. That you’ve got a crew that’ll follow any order you give them not because it’s an order but because you were the one who gave it. They’re not just a crew, Connie, they’re your crew. I know these guys. Trust me when I tell you that really has to count for something,” he told her.

  The smile that rose to her lips told him that, at least for tonight, he’d gotten his point across.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When her cell phone rang the following morning, Connie was busy finalizing the next week’s schedule, which was, happily, far ahead of her original schedule. Things were moving right along, and she was exceedingly pleased with herself and with life in general.

  She couldn’t remember a time when she was happier—or even just as happy—than she was right now.

  Pulling the phone out of her pocket, she pressed Accept without looking at the caller ID. Emerson called her almost daily to find out how things were going, and it was his voice she expected to hear on the other end when she said, “Hello.”

  But it wasn’t Emerson.

  It was her father.

  Carmichael began without exchanging any pleasantries or even offering a perfunctory greeting. As always, he was all business. “I went over your latest report last night.”

  When he paused, she knew better than to press him for his opinion. It would come soon enough.

  She was right. “I must say, you didn’t mess up as badly as I expected you to.”

  Could she have expected anything more? Connie asked herself wearily. “Heady praise, Dad.”

  “I’m not in the business of heady praise,” he told her curtly. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m in the construction business. Which leads me to my next point. I’ve got a new project for you to supervise—it’s a museum. Right up your alley. It’s on the east coast so I’m pulling you off the hotel.”

  She felt as if she’d just walked across a land mine and it had gone off. “But the hotel’s not finished,” she protested.