Brenda Harlen - Claiming The Cowboy's Heart

“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.