Christine Flynn - Prodigal Prince Charming

The way Cord stood at her approach spoke of manners that were more automatic than practiced.

It was a fair indication of how upset she was that something that might have impressed her barely registered. She was too busy thinking that Cord Kendrick looked as out of place in the working-class establishment as his car did out on the street—and wishing she had never laid eyes on his too-handsome face. She structured her entire life around the work that kept her running sixteen hours a day, six days a week. The thought of any part of that structure collapsing had her stomach in knots.

Assuming he wanted the van back, she held out the keys. “Thank you. Very much.”

Rather than taking the keys, he asked, “Did the van work out?”

“It got me where I needed to go.”

“Then, keep it until a new truck can be delivered. That’s what I want to talk to you about,” he said, motioning for her to sit down. “I have no idea what it is you’ll want, so we need to arrange for you to order it yourself.”

Preferring the isolation of the high-backed booth to being the day’s entertainment for the guys at the bar, she slid onto the green Naugahyde bench seat. Cord slid in across from her, his long legs bumping hers.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

As if hoping to coax a smile from her, he smiled himself. It was sort of a half smile really, an expression that held a hint of contrition and male appeal that would have had the hearts of most women melting.

In no frame of mind to be charmed, definitely in no mood to smile, she simply watched him push aside the beer he’d ordered and hadn’t touched.

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Tell me where you want to order the truck from.” Leaning forward, he clasped his hands on the dark and scarred wood, his voice low enough that the men gave up trying to listen and turned their attention back to ESPN. “I’ll get a letter of credit to the dealer. I also need to settle up with you for the food you lost this morning and your lost profits for the day. They took your truck to a salvage yard a few miles from here. I told the owner of the yard not to do anything to it until he heard from you. I don’t know what you had in there that might be of personal value to you, so you might want to check it out. All I was able to get were these.”

He pulled her sunglasses from the inside pocket of his beautifully styled leather jacket, along with his checkbook. The pen he also withdrew looked suspiciously like real gold.

“Thank you,” she murmured, taking the glasses. Considering how flat the cab of her truck had been, it amazed her that they were still intact. He amazed her a little, too. A few hours ago she hadn’t been inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt about much of anything. She had to admit now, that the man seemed to be doing whatever he could.

“I appreciate what you’re trying to do,” she said, voice calm, insides knotted. “And I appreciate the use of the van. But I’m going to lose more than just today’s profits. There are state laws regulating businesses like mine. I can’t meet the refrigeration and sanitation requirements with the van, and I’m not going to risk having my food preparation license pulled. All I’ll be able to sell now is baked goods, fruit and soda,” she told him. “I can’t even sell coffee because I don’t have enough thermoses, and I wouldn’t have any way of filling them on the road. That’s only a third of my business.”

“Coffee is?”

“Baked goods and sodas.”

His broad shoulders lifted in a dismissing shrug. “Then, I’ll pay you the other two-thirds for every day you’re without the right kind of truck.”

He clearly didn’t see a problem. He also seemed to think that all he had to do was open his checkbook and her little crisis would be solved.

Wondering if life was always that easy for him, and suspecting it must be, considering who he was, she forced patience upon her growing unease. “This isn’t just about money. Money isn’t going to feed my customers or get me my work back,” she explained, needing him to understand that dollars couldn’t begin to replace the structure of her carefully ordered life. “I get up at three o’clock in the morning to do my baking and make sandwiches. At eight-twenty I load my truck and leave for my first stop. I finish my breakfast-and-break run, come back for lunch restock and finish the lunch run by twelve-forty. After that, I gas up my truck, drop off leftovers at the seniors’ center, stop at the produce market and come back here so I can clean up the truck, refill the dispensers and get my dry ingredients mixed up for the next morning’s baking.

“All I’m going to be able to do now is a breakfast-and-break run,” she continued, only now allowing herself to consider what tomorrow would bring. With all she’d had to deal with that day, she had managed to avoid that prospect so far. With her sense of anxiety growing, she truly wished she could avoid it now. “That means I won’t have to bake nearly as many cookies and I won’t make sandwiches at all. And I won’t have my lunch run to make, or my truck to take care of when I get back, so that means I won’t have nearly as much to do when I get back in the afternoon.”

She shook her head, wondering how many hours that left unfilled. Not wanting to know, self-recrimination lowered her voice to a mutter. “If I hadn’t wanted the money for that stupid chafing dish, everything would be fine.”

Cord watched the pretty, sable-haired woman across the booth from him rub her forehead. Her short, neat nails were unpolished, her slender fingers ringless, her dark and shining hair pulled back and clipped casually at her nape. Her lush mouth was unadorned, free of the shiny sticky gloss worn by so many of the women he knew. There was a freshness about Madison O’Malley that wasn’t terribly familiar to him, a lack of studied polish that spoke of interests beyond the hours he knew some women—his own mother and sisters included—spent being manicured, pedicured, highlighted, waxed, masked and massaged. On the other hand, it didn’t sound as if she had time for such fussing. From what he’d just heard of her schedule, she barely had time to sleep.

That she also now seemed as upset with herself as she was with him wasn’t lost on him, either.

Overlooking the fact that anyone else would be grateful for the break, and hoping to cash in on the blame she seemed to be feeling toward herself, he focused on the chafing dish she’d just mentioned. He had no idea how it figured into what had happened, but he’d buy a gross of them for her if it would help fix this little mess.

“This chafing dish,” he said, ducking his head to see her eyes. “Is it something you need for your business?”

“It’s one of a lot of things.” Absently pulling a napkin from the holder, she lifted her head. “I’m trying to expand my catering business, but I don’t have the equipment and serving pieces I need for parties. If I’d had a couple of good double chafers I wouldn’t have had to turn down Suzie Donnatelli’s wedding last week. Not that she asked,” she admitted, sounding as if she were talking more to herself than to him as she rolled the napkin’s edges, “but I know she would have if I’d told her I could do it.

“That’s why I took the coffee and muffins to the trailer,” she hurried on, her racing thoughts leaving him in the conversational dust. “It wasn’t worth being off schedule for twenty dollars worth of coffee and food, but a fifty-dollar tip would make a serious contribution to my equipment fund. As it was, the tip you gave me would almost buy the blasted thing, but it wound up costing me my truck.”

For a moment Cord said nothing. He just sat there wanting very much to keep her away from her last thought.