Czytaj książkę: «Claiming The Cowboy's Heart»

Chapter One

“Oh, no,” Liam Gilmore said, shaking his head for emphasis when he saw his sister Katelyn walk through the front doors of the inn with her briefcase in one hand and a rectangular object that he knew to be her daughter’s portable playpen in the other. The baby was strapped against Katelyn’s body and an overstuffed diaper bag was draped over one of her shoulders. Loaded down with the kid’s stuff, she looked like a Sherpa ready to embark on a mountain trek.

“I’ve got an emergency hearing at the courthouse in half an hour,” she explained, as she dropped the diaper bag next to his makeshift desk and set her briefcase beside it.

“And I’ve got interviews scheduled for this afternoon,” he told her.

“You’ve got a manager, a weekend housekeeper and a breakfast chef—what more does a boutique hotel need?” she asked, as she unzipped the carrying case of the playpen.

Because he couldn’t sit there and watch his sister struggle, he took the portable enclosure from her and opened it up, then clicked to lock each of the sides, pushed down the center support and slid the mattress pad into place. “Andrew decided to take a job in Los Angeles, so I no longer have a manager,” Liam admitted.

“I’m sorry,” Kate said sincerely, as she unbuckled the baby carrier and carefully extracted the sleeping baby.

He shrugged. “Not your problem,” he said. “Just as your requirement for a last-minute babysitter—again—isn’t my problem.”

“And yet I’m willing to help you out, because that’s what siblings do,” she told him.

“Tell me how you’re going to help me,” he suggested.

She pressed her lips to Tessa’s forehead, then carefully laid the sleeping baby down in the playpen.

And maybe his heart did soften a bit as he watched his sister with her little girl, and maybe that same heart had been known to turn to mush when his adorable niece smiled at him, but he had no intention of admitting any of that to Kate, who already took advantage of him at every opportunity.

“By giving you the name of your new manager,” she said.

“Please do. Then I can cancel the interviews I’ve scheduled.”

“Your sarcasm is unnecessary and unappreciated, and if I didn’t have to be in court in—” Kate glanced at the slim silver bangle on her wrist “—sixteen minutes, I’d make you not just apologize but grovel. Since I do have to be in court, I’ll just say Macy Clayton.”

Liam recognized the name. In fact, Macy was scheduled for an interview at two thirty, but he didn’t share that information with his sister, either. “And why should I hire her?” he prompted.

“Because she’s perfect for the job,” Kate said. “She’s been working in the hotel industry in Las Vegas for the past eight years, including several as a desk clerk and concierge before she was promoted to assistant to the manager at the Courtland Hotel & Casino.”

“If she had such a great career in Las Vegas, what is she doing in Haven?” he wondered aloud.

“That’s something you’ll have to ask her,” she told him.

* * *

He hated when his sister was right.

And as he looked through the applications on his desk after Kate had gone, Liam couldn’t deny that she was right about the woman she’d recommended for the managerial position.

Macy Clayton was, at least on paper, perfect for the job. Then again, he’d thought Andrew would be perfect, too—and so had the Beverly Hills Vista. Not surprisingly, Andrew had chosen the possibility of celebrity sighting on the West Coast over the probability of boredom in northern Nevada.

Most of the locals had expressed skepticism about his plan; opening a boutique hotel in a sleepy town off the beaten path was a risky venture. David Gilmore had been less kind in his assessment, referring to his oldest son as both a disappointment and a fool.

“Gilmores are ranchers” had been his refrain every time Liam tried to talk to him about the inn. And while it was true that the family had been raising cattle on the Circle G for more than a hundred and fifty years, Liam had been chafing to get away from the ranch for more than fifteen years.

Not that he’d had any specific plans. Not until he’d seen JJ Green affixing a New Price sticker to the faded For Sale sign stuck in the untended front yard of the Stagecoach Inn.

The old, abandoned hotel had been falling apart when Hershel Livingston bought it for a song nearly a decade earlier. The Nevada native had made his fortune in casinos and brothels, but he’d planned to make his home in Haven, one of only a few places in the state where those vices were illegal.

Hershel had spent millions of dollars on the rehab, then abandoned the project just as it was nearing completion. No one knew why, although the rumors were plenty. One of the more credible stories was that his wife had visited Haven during the renovation process and immediately hated the small town. A different version of the story suggested that his wife had caught the billionaire dallying with a local girl.

There were as many variations of this claim as there were single women in town. The only indisputable truth was that Hershel had abruptly ordered his construction crew to vacate the premises, and then he called Jack Green to put a For Sale sign on the narrow patch of grass in front of the wide porch.

The real estate agent got a lot of calls about the property in the first few weeks, but they were mostly local people who wanted to walk through and take a gander at the work that had been done. None of them was seriously interested in buying the inn, because they didn’t believe a fancy hotel could survive in Haven. As a result, interest had faded more quickly than the paint on the sign.

Then, nearly two years ago, JJ Green—now working in the real estate business with his father—slapped that New Price sticker across the weathered sign. More out of curiosity than anything else, Liam had called the agent to inquire and learned that the price had been drastically reduced.

Without any prompting, JJ confided that the elusive Mrs. Livingston had filed for divorce from her cheating husband and was going after half of everything. To retaliate, Hershel was selling off his assets at a loss to decrease the amount of the settlement he would have to pay to her.

Kate had pointed out that the wife could argue fraud and claim half of the fair market value rather than half of the sale price. On the other hand, the property was only worth what someone was willing to pay, and the fact that the old hotel had been on the market for years without anyone making an offer might support Hershel’s decision to slash the price. Either way, Liam wasn’t going to protest the lower number. In fact, after securing the necessary financing, he managed to negotiate an even further reduction before he signed on the dotted line.

Now he was only weeks away from opening, still waiting on deliveries and attempting to schedule the final inspections—and trying to fill unexpected vacancies in his staff.

If Macy Clayton had responded to the original posting, he might have hired her rather than Andrew and not been feeling so panicked right now. Of course, he was making this assumption on the basis of her résumé and his sister’s recommendation without even having met the woman. So while he agreed that she seemed to have all the necessary qualifications for the job, he was going to reserve judgment.

Then she walked in—and his body stirred with a purely sexual awareness he hadn’t experienced in a long while. And in that first moment, even before the introductions, he knew there was no way he could hire her. He also knew that he had to at least go through the motions of the interview.

When she accepted his proffered hand, he felt a jolt straight through his middle as their palms joined. Her skin was soft but her grasp was firm, and he caught a flicker of something that might have been a mixture of surprise and awareness in her espresso-colored eyes when they met his. Her hair was also dark, with highlights of gold and copper, and tied away from her face in the messy-bun style made famous by the Duchess of Sussex before she was royalty.

He guessed Macy’s height at around five feet five inches, though her heeled boots added a couple of inches to that number, and her build was on the slender side, but with distinctly feminine curves. The long coat she wore in deference to the season had been unbuttoned to reveal a slim-fitting black skirt that fell just below her knees and a matching single-breasted jacket over a bright blue shell.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Clayton.” He resisted the temptation to brush his thumb over the pulse point at her wrist to see if it was racing; instead, he let his hand drop away.

“Likewise,” she said.

“Can I take your coat for you?”

“No need.” She shrugged it off her shoulders and draped it over the back of the chair before perching on the edge of the seat. “I have to tell you, I was skeptical when I’d heard that the old Stagecoach Hotel was being renovated and reopened, but based on what I’ve seen so far, you’ve really done a wonderful job with this place.”

“Most of the major renovations were done by the previous owner—I just hired the right people to pick up where he left off,” Liam admitted.

“Well, the actual coach at the back of the lobby is a nice touch,” she noted.

“I thought so, too,” he said. A simple idea that had been a lot more complicated to execute, as the antique carriage had to be taken apart to get it through the doorway and then reassembled inside.

“You’re planning to open in three weeks?” she prompted.

He nodded. “Valentine’s Day.”

Her smile was warm and natural. Friendly. He imagined she’d make the guests feel welcome—which was, of course, what he wanted, but didn’t alleviate his other concerns.

Sexual harassment in the workplace was a serious issue, and Liam had been raised to be respectful of all women. Still, he suspected it would be a mistake to hire a woman who, upon their first meeting, made him think all kinds of inappropriately tempting thoughts.

“Your résumé shows that you spent the last four years working at the Courtland Hotel in Las Vegas,” he noted, forcing himself to refocus on the matter at hand.

“That’s correct.”

“So why did you leave Las Vegas and move to Haven?”

“I moved back to Haven,” she clarified. “I grew up in this town and my parents still live here and—” Her words stopped abruptly, as if she’d caught herself saying more than she wanted to.

“And?” he prompted.

She offered another easy smile and a quick shrug. “And I was ready to come home.”

It seemed like a reasonable response, but he doubted it was what she’d initially intended to say.

He looked at her résumé again, skimming through the pages that attested to a wealth and breadth of experience. She’d worked a lot of different jobs on her way up to her most recent position as assistant to the manager of the Courtland Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas: she’d served drinks in a hotel casino, worked as a hostess in the restaurant and even done a stint cleaning rooms.

“Your experience is impressive,” he told her.

“Thank you.”

“But why do you want to work here?”

“Because there are no openings at the Dusty Boots Motel.”

His brows lifted. “Is that a joke?”

The corners of her mouth tipped up at the corners. “Yes, Mr. Gilmore.”

“Liam,” he said.

“I’m not sure it’s appropriate to call my boss by his given name.”

“I’m not your boss,” he pointed out.

“Yet,” she clarified, and smiled again.

Before he could reply to that, he heard a rustling sound in the playpen behind him, followed by a tiny, plaintive voice asking for, “Ma-ma?”

Macy leaned forward in her seat, looking past him to the little girl who’d pulled herself up into a standing position, holding onto the top rail.

“Mama’s going to be back soon,” Liam promised. Hoped.

“You have a beautiful daughter,” Macy said.

“What? No,” he responded quickly. Firmly. “She’s not my daughter—she’s my niece.”

“Then you have a beautiful niece,” she amended.

He looked at the child in question and felt a familiar tug in the vicinity of his heart. “Yeah, she is kinda cute.”

Tessa lifted her arms, a wordless request.

Liam glanced at his watch and tried to remember if Kate had told him when she expected to be finished in court. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Tessa’s arms drop back down and her lower lip thrust forward in a pout.

He sighed and reached for her. “I’m conducting an interview here,” he said, as he settled his niece on his hip. “So let’s try to keep things professional, okay?”

She responded by leaning forward and pressing her puckered lips to his cheek.

“Not really a good start,” he noted dryly.

But his potential innkeeper smiled, clearly charmed by the little girl.

“And if your diaper needs changing, that’s going to have to wait until your mom gets back,” he warned his niece.

“You don’t do diapers?” Macy guessed.

“Not if I can help it. And Kate promised she’d be back from court before Tessa woke up so that I wouldn’t have to.”

“Either Kate was delayed or Tessa woke up early—maybe because she was wet,” she suggested. “Did your sister leave a diaper bag?”

“If you can call something that would likely be tagged ‘oversized’ by an airport luggage handler a bag,” he remarked, gesturing to the multipocketed behemoth.

Macy reached for the bag and, after rifling through its contents, pulled out a change pad, clean diaper and package of wipes, which she set on the table in front of him.

Still, Liam hesitated. “I’m sure she can wait until we’ve finished our interview.”

“Maybe she can, but she shouldn’t have to be uncomfortable,” Macy said. “I can step out of the room, if you want privacy.”

“Do you have much experience with babies and diapers?”

The corners of her mouth tipped up again. “Some.”

He unfolded the changing pad and laid his niece on top of it. “Then you should probably stay, because I might need some pointers—or an extra set of hands,” he said, as Tessa started to roll away from him.

While Macy seemed willing and able to help, he managed to unsnap his niece’s corduroy overalls with one hand and hold her in place with the other.

“Give me some specific examples of guest complaints you’ve heard and tell me how you dealt with them,” he suggested, as he pulled a wipe from the dispenser.

Macy shared anecdotes from her work experience while also jiggling a plastic ring of colorful keys she’d found in the diaper bag to hold the little girl’s attention while he focused on changing the diaper.

Her stories proved that she was creative and clever, and by the time he’d slid the clean diaper under his niece’s bottom, he didn’t doubt that the Courtland Hotel had been sorry to lose her when she left Las Vegas.

“Usually I fasten the diaper tabs before I do up the pants,” she remarked, as he began to pinch the snaps that lined the inseam of Tessa’s overalls together.

“What?”

“You didn’t secure the diaper.”

“Of course I did.” He finished his task and let Tessa roll over. She immediately pushed herself to her feet and clapped her hands. Since she’d learned to stand and, more recently, walk, she’d become accustomed to her every effort being applauded.

His own efforts were hardly cause for celebration, because the awkward bulging in her pants confirmed that Macy was right. He sighed. “Apparently I didn’t.”

So he scooped up Tessa again. “Uncle Liam messed up,” he said. “And now we need to fix it.”

But Tessa didn’t want to be reasoned with—she wanted to be free. And she kicked and screamed in protest.

“What’s this?” Macy said, offering the little girl a sippy cup filled with juice that she’d found in the bag.

Tessa stopped kicking and reached out with both hands. “Joosh!”

“Do you want your juice?”

The little girl nodded.

Macy gave her the cup and Liam unsnapped her overalls again—only to realize that the diaper tabs were stuck to her pants. He tried to peel them away from the fabric, determined to salvage the diaper—but his fingers felt too big and clumsy for the task.

“I think I need some help,” he admitted.

Macy didn’t hesitate to brush his hands aside, unstick the tabs from the little girl’s pants, reposition the diaper and deftly fasten it in place. Though the woman kept her gaze focused on the child, she spoke to Liam as she completed the task. “I trust you know that a good employee is one who steps up to do a job that needs doing, even if it falls outside of her job description.”

“You can’t expect me to hire you just because you helped change my niece’s diaper,” he remarked—after the task was completed.

“Of course not,” she agreed, passing the clean and happy little girl to him. “I expect you to hire me because I’m the best person for the job.”