THE COMEBACK OF CON MACNEILL Page 2

  She needed money.

  She pushed impatiently at her hair, curling around her face in the humidity. Like it or not, Monday morning she would have to present herself at the bank to learn the new terms the bank president was setting on his approval.

  So much, she thought wryly, for financial independence.

  * * *

  Everything in Edward Cutler's office—the kilim carpet, the original oil paintings, even the vault-like temperature—advertised wealth. Evidently, the banker wanted everyone to know that he could buy the best.

  And the best, it seemed, included Con.

  Sold, one hotshot Yankee venture capitalist, for three weeks' salary and a decent business recommendation.

  Sudden anger scooped Con's gut, leaving an aching hollow.

  He sucked in a careful breath, filling the void with oxygen. Anger was unproductive. Define the problem. Solve the problem. That was all this stopgap job was about.

  He leaned back in his chair, deliberately matching Cutler's casual pose. "Look, I can do what you want. But my time will cost almost as much as the actual loan. Don't you think before committing to this project I should meet with your daughter to define her objectives?"

  Edward Cutler laid his manicured fingers together tip to tip. "No. My daughter isn't hiring you. I am."

  The heck you say, Con thought, narrowing his eyes at the tanned and tailored executive. No matter how much Con needed Edward Cutler's business, no matter how eager he was to be out of Boston for the next month, he didn't relish dealing with a matched set of some uppercrust family's baggage.

  "So, from your perspective, what is the problem?"

  "Look, MacNeill, I'll be blunt. My daughter is not a competent businesswoman. She turned down the chance at college. She spent four years at some cooking school in New York and then worked at various restaurants for a while after that. As a waitress, I believe, and a hostess and something called a sous chef? Have I got that right?"

  Con nodded, working to match the banker's description with the tawny-haired girl from Saturday's street fair. Too bad it fit. The last thing he needed complicating this job was some inconvenient attraction to the goddess of sprouts and tofu.

  "And what do you want from me?"

  "I want you to take over," Edward said frankly. "I want you to make her restaurant a success. Now that she's come to her senses and come home, I'm not having my daughter called a failure in my town."

  What be wanted was impossible to guarantee. Con was good. He'd had to be, and no damn dismissal could be allowed to shake his confidence. But there were factors here outside his control.

  He chose his words carefully, forced to choose between honesty and antagonizing an important client. "I'll do my best. But you have to realize going in that the failure rate for restaurants in the first three years is close to ninety percent."

  Edward's face frosted. "I'm taking a chance on you, MacNeill, because I like you. Not everyone would have pulled a small bank like mine in on that development in Raleigh last year, or on the Atlanta merger. But our former relationship doesn't blind me to the fact that your recent business judgment has been called into question."

  From frosty, the atmosphere turned crystalline cold and cracked like ice on a pond. Con felt his footing shift, felt the treacherous waters seep through. Cutler knew. And plainly the banker was prepared to use what he knew to leverage their deal.

  Con swallowed his anger. "Whatever you've heard, I stand by my decisions. And my record."

  "And I appreciate that," Cutler assured him with false geniality. "But I won't appreciate it if you fail me on this."

  Through his teeth, Con said, "I'm not in the habit of failure."

  There was a tap on the door, and Cutler's secretary stuck her styled silver head inside. "Miss Cutler is here."

  "Of course, of course. Send her in." The banker leveled a look at Con. "Just as long as we understand each other."

  Con understood him only too well. But before he could say so, before he could say anything, Edward Cutler's daughter stalked into the room in heavy dark shoes, wearing something short and green that fluttered at the tops of her long, pale thighs.

  It was the stall proprietor, all right, looking like the Lady of the Lake after a night on the street. Her extravagant hair flowed halfway down her back. Silver studded her ears and dangled to her shoulders.

  Beside him, Cutler stiffened with annoyance at the girl's unconventional business attire. Con tried to summon a matching disapproval, but his body had other ideas.

  Oh, yeah.

  His body approved.

  "Con MacNeill." The banker introduced them. "My daughter, Valerian Darcy Cutler."

  Con narrowed his eyes, striving for his customary professional detachment. "We've met."

  * * *

  Chapter 2

  «^»

  Well, shoot. What was the torso doing in her father's office?

  Val's nerves already simmered. MacNeill's solid, unexpected presence just turned up the heat. She hated coming to the bank. She hated asking her father for money even more. In a frivolous attempt to bolster her spirits, she'd chosen the most defiantly un-Junior League dress in her closet. Judging from Edward Cutler's spasm of distaste, she'd only managed to annoy him.

  Val suppressed a sigh. She'd always been good at that.

  She offered MacNeill her hand. As they shook, his assessing gaze flicked over the gauzy green dress before returning politely to her face. Was that amusement at the back of those cool blue eyes? He raised one eyebrow, ever so slightly, and her cheeks heated.

  She retrieved her hand. "Nice to see you again," she lied. "Why is he here?" she asked her father.

  Edward frowned at her directness. "Mr. MacNeill is MacNeill Business Solutions from Boston. I thought his presence this morning would be helpful."

  Val surveyed the two executives sandwiching the desk. Matching slices of white bread she thought, in pinstriped suits and power ties. She was outnumbered and outgunned, and the meeting hadn't even started.

  "Helpful," she repeated. "You bet."

  She was almost certain this time that the blue eyes laughed at her as they all sat down. In appreciation? Or ridicule?

  She smoothed her short skirt over her thighs and then looked squarely at her father. Since she had to be here, they might as well get this over with. Edward Cutler would, as always, hear just what he wanted to hear and say precisely what he wanted to say. Bashful refinement would get her nowhere.

  "I thought we were discussing my loan application today," she said bluntly.

  "We will. But these things take time, punkin. I was just telling MacNeill here that—"

  She could just imagine what he'd told MacNeill. It was galling enough to approach her father for money without having her familial and professional shortcomings trotted out for this cool, shrewd stranger.

  "Yes or no?" she interrupted.

  "Now, Val, I told you, you want money, you don't have to go through all this rigmarole with the bank. I can make you a loan."

  "Maybe I like the bank's terms better."

  Edward Cutler's thin smile flickered. "Maybe you haven't heard the bank's terms yet."

  Val folded her hands to keep them steady. "I'm listening."

  "A restaurant isn't a good financial risk. There are reasons you've been turned down by every other bank in a radius of three counties. Now, I didn't say anything when you decided to open—"

  Val grinned. "As I remember, you said plenty."

  Con found it hard not to like the grin. He bet this one had been a handful growing up. Heck, she'd be a nice handful now.

  Edward waved away his daughter's remark. "But since you've seen reason and come home—"

  "I came back because Aunt Naomi left me the house."

  The bank president stiffened. "To live in. Not to turn into some ill-conceived eatery destined to fail."

  "To live in," the girl agreed quietly, her hands tightening in her lap. "And to turn into whatever I chose."
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  "You haven't succeeded yet," Edward retorted.

  She smiled and quoted the old man's words back at him. "These things take time, Daddy. I will."

  "Not without my money, you won't."

  "I don't want your money. I'm applying for a bank loan, same as anybody else."

  "Then you'll accept my conditions," Edward declared triumphantly. "Same as anybody else."

  Set and match, Con thought. But the girl wasn't ready to concede defeat yet.

  She lifted smooth, dark eyebrows, a compelling contrast to her brown-and-gold hair. "So, what are your conditions?"

  Edward nodded across the desk. "MacNeill, here. He's the biggest condition."

  "Pardon me?" the girl said.

  "You take him on as your financial adviser. He approves all expenditures, makes all the business decisions for the restaurant. Or you don't get your loan."

  She actually gaped before she got control of her jaw and closed her pretty mouth. She looked like she'd been sucker punched, Con thought, not unsympathetically. Edward's blunt delivery left Con a little winded himself.

  But Cutler's daughter bounced back like a fighter off the ropes.

  "You must be joking," she said flatly.

  "No. I'm not throwing good money after bad. If you want the bank loan, you'll take him with it."

  Her scornful glance swept from Con's suit to his highly polished shoes. "And just what does he know about running a restaurant?"

  Con's sympathy faded. He didn't have to sit by while another person took swings at his professional competence.

  "What do you know about running a business?" he returned evenly. "It could be an education for both of us."

  "No."

  Edward shrugged. "Your choice. The bank's money under his control, or—" he watched his daughter carefully "—my money under mine."

  This pair didn't need a business consultant, Con thought in near disgust. They needed a lawyer. Hell, they needed a family therapist. But he needed them, needed this job. He had bills to pay, and he wanted Edward Cutler's recommendation even more than cash.

  He leaned forward out of the deep leather chair. "Look, Miss Cutler… I've got a Harvard degree and ten years' experience. I advise small businesses, I put together plans for them, I help them secure funding and ensure they're on solid-enough financial footing to succeed. If you've got a cash flow problem, odds are I can help you."

  He honestly thought she might be—not grateful, exactly, but—impressed. But the restaurant owner was made of stronger stuff than Con had given her credit for. "How nice," she murmured. "Do you wash dishes, too?"

  "Only if you need me to," he replied.

  Startled, she looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time since they'd sat down. Slowly, those clear gray depths warned and filled with amusement Her pale pink mouth curved in a wry smile. Con's breath rushed to his throat and lodged there.

  Edward drummed his fingers on his desk. "My other offer still stands, punkin."

  The girl didn't blink at the repeated use of the demeaning pet name. Maybe she was used to it. It set Con's teeth on edge.

  She stood, surprisingly dignified in her flirty skirt and clunky heels. Con did the same, keeping his hands quiet at his sides, although the tension in the room had him balancing on the balls of his feet like a boxer.

  Val Cutler tugged thoughtfully on one of her long silver earrings. "So, my real choice is between the devil I do know, or the qualified devil I don't, is that it?"

  "Unless there's a door number three nobody's told me about," Con agreed, straight-faced.

  Edward stiffened.

  His daughter laughed, and the sound loosed something warm in the center of Con's chest.

  "We open for lunch at eleven," she told him. "Why don't you stop by around ten tomorrow and I'll give you the tour?"

  "Ten o'clock," Con confirmed.

  "You call your mother," Edward said. "She's waiting to hear from you."

  "Yes, Daddy."

  Con watched her exit with small, firm steps, her short skirt riding those curvy hips and flirting with the tops of her thighs. She looked even better in the Lady of the Lake getup than she had in jeans.

  He was out of his head to even notice such a thing. His interest in her was business, he reminded himself. Strictly business.

  In the back of his mind, he could hear his brothers laughing.

  * * *

  Oil sizzled. The range fan whirred. Dishes clattered as George, the latest of a long line of dishwashers, unloaded the big machine. Val was knee-deep in worry and up to her elbows in flour. Straightening from the marble board, she pressed the back of her wrists to her temples as if she could squeeze her headache away.

  Ann hadn't returned any calls in two days. The produce truck was due in—Val glanced at the big kitchen wall clock—less than forty minutes, and her purveyor wanted to be paid. William Foster of Foster's Goods and Teas had already informed her he wouldn't make another delivery on account. Payroll checks were supposed to be cut on Thursday, and Val didn't have the money for that, either.

  She had the bank loan, she reminded herself, drawing in a deep breath of humid air. She just didn't have authorization to use it.

  She flattened a circle of pizza dough and slapped it on a baking tray. No, the man with the means was that broad-shouldered, narrow-minded, meat-and-potatoes Irishman from Boston. And as long as he was paying the piper, he could insist that she dance to his tune.

  Val punched another lump of dough. For most of her turbulent childhood and stormy adolescence, she'd struggled with the peculiar restrictions of growing up female and Cutler in the Cutlers' town. Aunt Naomi's legacy had seemed the perfect opportunity to return to Cutler on her own adult terms. Wild Thymes was the creative expression of Val's best self—quirky, sociable, accepting of all comers … everything her family was not. And yet here she was facing the same old issues of money and control, of what her father could do for her, what he could buy for her, what he demanded from her in return.

  She drew another centering breath and bent over the board, folding and kneading the bread between her hands, seeking comfort and release in the satiny-smooth dough and the smell of yeast.

  "I take it the tour starts here?"

  She recognized the dark voice, the cool tone. Her pulse pounded in her temples. She turned, already fighting a sense of disadvantage. "Mr. MacNeill."

  "Con," he corrected her. The word rang between them like the kiss of swords.

  She was struck all over again by his sheer size. He loomed in the narrow work alley, one shoulder canted to avoid the saucepans hanging into the aisle, a slim black briefcase in his hand. A patterned navy tie hung straight from his collar, but she noted with reluctant approval that today at least he'd left the suit at home. He wore khaki pants and a crisp blue oxford-cloth shirt that intensified his eyes and skimmed the solid length of his abdomen. She bet he did crunches. By the stove, her chief cook, blond, bearded Steven, straightened jealously.

  "You've got flour on your nose," MacNeill added.

  She swiped at it. "How did you get in?"

  He raised his eyebrows and set down the briefcase. "I did knock. Your front door was open."

  Val flushed and brushed again at her face. Her fingers were sticky with dough. "Sorry. It's just that the entrance is supposed to be locked before eleven o'clock."

  "Here," MacNeill said suddenly.

  Stepping forward, he withdrew an immaculate handkerchief from his hip pocket. With brisk efficiency, he tipped her chin and cleaned her face. His touch was dispassionate, his fingertips unexpectedly callused. The folded square was warm from his body and smelled of cedar. Val, trapped between the counter and his body, felt her heartbeat quicken.

  The blue eyes narrowed. "Better."

  He was too close. Too large. And way, way too attractive.

  She jerked her head away from his thumb steadying her chin. "You could have handed it to me," she said crossly. "I'm perfectly capable of wiping my own fac
e."

  "Sure. When you can see it."

  His easy confidence ruffled her. But the man—annoying as it was to admit it—was right.

  "This hasn't started quite the way I was hoping. I planned on meeting you in my office."

  He propped a shoulder against the steel storage shelves, angling to get a better view of the countertop. "Fine by me. Today I'd rather get a general feel for how you work, anyway. What are you making?"

  "Pizza crusts." He was making her nervous. She shaped another round with quick, neat pats, settling herself with the familiar routine. "It's a popular item. We serve nearly twenty a day."

  "Smells good."

  "That's the cinnamon rolls, actually." She glanced over her shoulder to the square oven at the end of the work aisle. "They'll be out in a minute."

  Just for a moment, the sharp, assured consultant looked like a big, hungry boy who'd wandered into his mother's kitchen.

  On impulse, she asked, "Would you like one?"

  Surprise crossed his face before he nodded. "Thanks."

  Val rubbed her hands together over the floured board. Maneuvering around him, she grabbed an oven mitt. The pans were heavy. She set them on top of the oven and cranked the temperature up to five hundred degrees to cook the pizzas. With practiced movements, she turned out the sticky rolls onto racks. MacNeill stayed out of her way. To reward him, she selected the two largest cinnamon buns and dropped them on a plate.

  "Anything else?" She smiled at him.

  Con's sexual response was instant and unwelcome. Holy saints. Val Cutler stood before him in jeans and a soiled cook's apron, and he reacted as if she were naked. Above the line of the bib, he could make out the name of her restaurant, stenciled over her breast. She was flushed and messy, her braided hair springing loose around her face, a faint sheen of sweat above that full upper lip.

  He wanted her mouth.

  Dammit, the woman wasn't even his type. He preferred them sleek and smooth and elegant. And right now, he'd prefer no distractions at all. He needed Edward Cutler's recommendation more than he wanted his daughter.