Prodigal Prince Charming

She didn’t know why his thanks surprised her. Maybe it was because he seemed a little impatient this morning. Maybe it was because it seemed pretty clear that he expected his wishes to be met so thanks weren’t necessary.

Suspecting that not many people did deny him what he wanted, annoyed that she’d just done what everyone else probably did and caved in to his expectations herself, she finished boxing up the muffins and filled cups, closed the side of her truck and drove it at a crawl past girders rising from huge concrete slabs and the giant orange crane now swinging its boom toward a stack of steel beams.

Because she was always careful to park only in areas where she and her customers would be safe from traffic and heavy equipment, she was very conscious that she was going where she normally wouldn’t go. She was now close enough to the actual construction to see individual sparks fly from welders’ torches and feel the vibration of a back-up horn blaring as a churning cement truck edged toward massive wood forms. A forklift rolled past, carrying a large blue drum on a pallet.

Ahead of her, wooden barricades blocked vehicle access to the construction trailer. Assuming that the cars parked near the trailer had entered from the street on the other side, which she had originally thought to do herself, she looked around for the sign Cord had mentioned. She couldn’t see it, but the stack of trusses that would eventually be part of a roof was impossible to miss.

Parking across from them, she shook off the niggling feeling that she shouldn’t leave her truck there and slipped out, carefully balancing the box so she wouldn’t tip the coffees. She would only be gone for a minute. Two max, she thought, stepping around the barrier.

It was then that she noticed the sign. The wording on the barrier faced the trailer and its parking lot. From there, the words No Admittance Without Authorization and Hard Hat Area practically screamed at her to go back.

Turning, she picked up her pace, her athletic shoes leaving curvy little patterns in the dirt and the three wooden steps that led up to the long white trailer’s door.

She didn’t have to knock. The door bearing a plaque that indicated the trailer to be the construction office opened before she could even decide if she needed to.

Cord’s big body filled the doorway. Yesterday’s designer Italian had been replaced with designer American. Aware of the Ralph Lauren logo on the sweater pushed to his elbows, she glanced from the wall of his chest past the lean line of his jaw. She had no idea if his smile was for her or for what she carried, but he looked tired, handsome and definitely anxious to get his hands on caffeine. “Am I ever glad to see you,” he murmured, and relieved her of the box. “Come on in.”

He turned away, leaving her to stare at his broad back a moment before she stepped inside. As she did, Matt Callaway rose from a long blueprint-covered table where three other men gathered. All seemed to be talking at once. A middle-aged woman wearing the look of a harried den mother cradled a phone against one shoulder while she pulled incoming faxes from the machine behind her desk and fed them directly into a copy machine. The smile she gave Madison was quick and decidedly grateful.

While one of the other men retrieved the copies and passed them out, Matt reached for his wallet. “Thanks for bringing this,” he said to her. “It’s not a good morning for the coffee machine to be out of commission.” He nodded to where Cord and the others were lifting foam cups from the box. “We have a little problem this morning and none of us can leave right now.” A good-natured note entered his voice. “There are also some of us who had a late night last night and are a little more desperate for caffeine than the others.”

“Hey, I was here on time,” Cord defended, his tone as affable as his friend and business partner’s. Lifting a cup toward the secretary to let her know it was hers, he set it on her desk. “If I’d known you wouldn’t have coffee here, I’d have brought some myself.” He reached into his own pocket. “I’ve got this,” he insisted. “I owe her a tip, anyway.”

Stepping in front of Madison, Cord held out a hundred-dollar bill. “Keep the change,” he said.

Madison blinked at the face of Benjamin Franklin. Beside her Matt had already turned to pick up his coffee and was asking one of the men about some sort of design change. The others were peeling the lids from their cups as they looked over the pages coming from the copier and talking about variances and bearing loads. The numbers and phrases they threw around wouldn’t have made any sense to her even if she hadn’t been so distracted by the man watching her from an arm’s length away.

She caught hint of his soap, and of aftershave lotion laced with citrus and spice. Two relatively fresh nicks on the underside of his carved jaw indicated a close and hurried encounter with his razor.

“You said fifty,” she reminded him, not wanting to notice such personal things about him. It sounded as if he’d had a late date last night. Rushing to make his meeting on time could easily account for why he’d missed breakfast. “With the muffins and coffee that’s only seventy-one dollars.”

There were slivers of silver in his compelling blue eyes. She didn’t want to notice that, either.

Someone’s cell phone rang. Across the room the fax machine beeped. “Consider the difference a delivery fee.”

Her voice dropped. “That’s very generous.”

“I’m very grateful,” he said, echoing her phrasing as she took the bill and slipped it into her waist pack. “You have no idea how I’ve fantasized about those muffins.”

His smile was all the more dangerous for the hints of fatigue that might have tugged at any other woman’s sympathies. But his notorious charm was wasted on her. She’d heard too much about it. It also had nothing at all to do with the jolt that had her flattening her hand over her heart.

An echoing boom shook the trailer from ceiling to tires. Windows rattled. Conversation died. Surrounded by the vibrating cacophony of crunching metal and something heavy collapsing just beyond the trailer’s walls, Madison wondered for a frantic second if they were having an earthquake. But just as suddenly as the sound hit, it stopped.

The men began speaking at once. Two engineer types headed for windows. The rest headed for the door.

Cord reached the door first, throwing it open so hard that it bounced back on its hinges. Matt was right behind him, hard hat in hand and shoving Cord’s at him as soon as his feet hit the dirt.

Caught in the surge of bodies as everyone else now rushed out, Madison found herself hurrying down the steps then stepping aside so she wouldn’t be in the way or get knocked over in the ministampede of foremen and the secretary coming through the doorway. Everyone else seemed to realize that whatever disaster had caused the noise was man-made rather than natural, but Madison barely had a chance to hope that no one had been hurt before she looked to where the wall of men now blocked the No Admittance sign.

They couldn’t go any farther.

The crane that had been lifting long steel I-beams had lost its load. Right on her truck.

Chapter Two

Utter disbelief kept Madison rooted right where she stood. Mouth open, too stunned to speak, she stared at the pile of crisscrossed beams that had just annihilated her vehicle. Other than those twenty-foot-long, two-ton girders of tempered steel, she couldn’t see anything but part of the white cab’s cratered roof and a spray of glittering glass shards that had been its windows and headlights.

Her first thought as she screamed, “My truck!” and panic sent her into motion was to save what she could of her food. As she darted toward the men, her second was that she smelled gasoline.

Shoving her way past the barrier of bodies and the barricade, intent on saving what she could, it vaguely occurred to her that the gas tank had ruptured.

“Hey, lady! Stay back!”

“Somebody stop her!”

She had no idea who’d yelled at her. “That’s my truck!” she cried again, only to feel something hard clamp around her arm.

That iron grip stopped her cold.

Disbelieving, distraught, she whirled to see Cord holding her back as the other men slipped past the barricade.

“What are you doing?” she screamed, struggling to break his hold.

“I’m saving your neck!” The heat of his palm burned into her, his grip as unyielding as his tone. “That claw is still swinging up there, and the beams it dropped aren’t stable. If one lands on you, it’ll break half the bones in your body.”

Even as he spoke, a long, heavy girder slipped from the top of the pile. It slid to the dirt with the groan of metal and a resounding thud that had men jumping back as if they’d been jerked by strings. Someone yelled for someone else to put out his cigarette. Overhead, the huge black claw that had held the beams swung from its cables like the pendulum of a clock.

Madison’s glance fell back to what was left of her truck and the dark pool slowly seeping from under it. With a shiver, she realized a single spark could turn the pile of collapsed metal into a bonfire.

“You’re lucky you were bringing the coffee,” Cord muttered above her. “If you’d been inside there, you’d have been history.”

Shock turned to incredulity.

“You think my bringing you breakfast saved me from being hurt?” Adrenaline surged as her eyes collided with his. “Are you delusional? If I hadn’t delivered that order, I would have been halfway to my next stop by now. That’s clear over by the docks, miles away from that…that…thing,” she concluded, waving her free arm at the crane.

“Hey,” he soothed. “Take it easy.”

Easy? “How am I supposed to do that?” she demanded, offended that he would even suggest it. “Because I did deliver that order, I’m not going to make that stop or any of my other stops. My truck has been reduced to a manhole cover, and the food I got up at three o’clock to make is mush. That truck is my livelihood, Kendrick, and the people at my stops depend on me to be there on time.”

Her outstretched arm reminded her that he still had her other one shackled. Not caring at all for the patient look he had the nerve to give her, she jerked back. Hard.

Suspecting that she hadn’t freed herself so much as he had let her go, not liking the idea that he held power over her in any form, she spun away, only to spin right back. He actually thought he’d helped her?

“I never should have listened to you,” she insisted, her chin up, her voice quavering with anger and the anxiety that got a firmer grip with each passing second. “I should have stuck to my schedule and not paid any attention to anything you offered or anything you said. You’re the one who told me to park there. Right there. In that very spot,” she reminded him, poking her finger toward the pile. “You even told me to ignore the warning sign. So, don’t you dare act like you’ve done me any favors.”

She was furious. She was distraught. She clearly blamed him and him alone for what had happened.

She also looked as if she could go for his throat because she’d done what he had asked. Fearing she might do just that, anxious to avoid a scene, Cord ignored the lack-of-sleep headache brewing in the base of his skull and started to reach for her again.

She immediately stepped away. Since calming her down by touch didn’t appear to be an option, he made his manner as placating as he could.

“You’ll get another truck,” he assured her. “I’ll buy you a new one and you’ll be back in business in no time.”

Her eyes flashed at his attempt to appease. The bits of gold in their liquid brown depths reminded him of flame. “I need to be back in business now,” she informed him. Her hand darted toward the pile of rubble again “Throwing your money at this isn’t going to fix it. You can’t replace a catering truck the way you can a car. New ones have to be ordered.”

“So I’ll order one.”

“It took me three months to get that one! What am I supposed to do in the meantime?”

Cord opened his mouth to reply. Having no idea what to say that wouldn’t just add fuel to her fire, he shut it again. Jamming his hands into his pockets, he watched her walk off. Stalk, actually, though even angry, she moved with a feminine grace that held his focus on the slender line of her back, the gentle flare of her hips, her long, long legs. She did more for cotton knit and denim than most women did for cashmere and silk. Definitely more than many of the women he’d met over the years. Especially the models. There was a softness about her curves that told him she at least had some meat on her bones.

With her luminous brown eyes and her incredible mouth, Madison O’Malley looked like pure temptation. Or would have if she hadn’t gone off the deep end about who was responsible for the state of her truck.

Feeling another publicity nightmare coming on, willing to do anything to avoid it, he followed to where she’d made it past two engineers in hard hats scratching their heads over how best to move the beams. He wanted coffee. He wanted food. He wanted to finish his meetings here, get ready for the sailing race in Annapolis next week and forget he’d ever laid eyes on the spitfire now arguing with the site supervisor.

Unfortunately, what he wanted wasn’t possible at the moment.

Madison wasn’t arguing.

She was begging.

“Just let me see if I can get the storage door open. Please,” she asked the weathered-looking man in a chambray shirt blocking her way. “I just want to salvage whatever is left of my food.”

“I keep telling you, ma’am, it’s too dangerous.” He motioned to the driver of a forklift, far less concerned with her problems than his own. Progress had just come to a screeching halt at this section of the huge project. “You saw that beam slip a minute ago. That one there could go next,” he said, pointing to one hovering at eye level. “Let us get this cleared out, then you can do what you need to do. You shouldn’t be here without a hard hat, anyway.”

His glance moved past her shoulder. “I told her she shouldn’t be here, Mr. Kendrick,” he called. “She’s just not listening.”

“It’s okay,” Cord called back, walking toward them as if he owned the place—which, she supposed, he did. “I’ll take care of this.”

It was as obvious as the supervisor’s relief that no one was going to let her near her truck, much less inside any part she might be able to squeeze into. Realizing that, Madison looked from the crossed lengths of steel and frantically switched gears. If she couldn’t save some of her inventory, then she needed to focus on transportation. She needed some way to get to her other stops and tell her customers…

Tell them what? she wondered, deliberately turning from Cord’s approach. That she couldn’t feed them today? That she couldn’t feed them the rest of the week? The month?

Only once in her life had she failed an obligation. That had been years ago, yet she still lived with the consequences of that failure in one form or another every day of her life. She had diligently met every responsibility ever since. The thought of not meeting her commitments now added anxiety to pure distress.

She needed a vehicle. Something large. But her thoughts got no further than wondering whose vehicle she could borrow when she realized her mind was turning in aimless circles, too overwhelmed to think at all.

The staccato beep of a back-up horn joined the shouts of men and the clang of metal as she sank down on a stack of cement blocks. Not sure if she felt bewildered or simply numb, she propped her elbows on her knees and dropped her face into her hands.

She couldn’t phone ahead to her next stop. There was no one in particular to call. It was simply a spot where she parked on the pier between dock 23 and 24. As soon as she arrived, some of the men who unloaded the cargo ships or tended their repairs would start swarming toward her. There were other catering trucks that serviced the area. But each had its own spot and its own loyal customers. Her customers would be waiting for her even now.

The thought that she was letting them down put a knot the size of a muffin in her stomach.

A large hand settled cautiously on her shoulder.

“Hey,” Cord murmured. “Are you all right?”

Beneath his palm, he felt her slender muscles stiffen. He knew she wasn’t okay. Even as insensitive as he’d been accused of being, he could see that. He just hoped she wasn’t crying. He never knew what to do when a woman did that. If she was, though, he’d deal with it—simply because he couldn’t let her walk off without taking care of what had happened.

His hand slipped from her shoulder. He could argue that he was no more at fault for the present condition of her truck than she was. After all, she had made the decision to accept the order and deliver it. And she was the one who’d made the final decision about where to park her vehicle.

He could also point out that the true culprit here was the crane or its operator, both of which belonged to Callaway Construction. As upset as she seemed, he doubted that she’d care about that logic, though. As for himself, all he cared about was avoiding headlines. The last thing he needed was more bad publicity. He especially did not need another woman suing him. His father would disown him for sure.

“Here.” Tugging at the knees of his slacks, he crouched in front of her. Relief hit when she glanced up. Her golden-brown eyes were blessedly clear. Not a tear in sight. As he pulled off his hard hat and pushed his fingers through his hair, he thought she looked awfully pale, though. And more than a little upset. Not that he could blame her. Her truck was scrap metal. “You need to wear this.”

Lifting the silver metal hat, he sat it on her head, tipping it back so he could see her eyes. “It’s the only way Matt will let you stay in this area.”

“What about you now?”

He shrugged. Following rules had never been his strong suit.

“Look.” He clasped his hands between his spread knees. “We can work this out. I’m going to make sure everything is all right. Okay?”

She said nothing. She just stared at him as if he were speaking some language she didn’t comprehend, while someone shouted for the laborers who’d wandered over to get back to work.

The way her delicate brow finally pinched made him think she might ask how he was going make everything right again. She didn’t seem the type to accept a man’s word on blind faith. His word, anyway.

Instead she asked, “What kind of car do you have?”

“Car?”

“What do you drive?” she clarified.

He nodded toward the closest of the vehicles on the other side of the barricade. “That Lamborghini over there.”

Madison glanced at the squat silver car. As low and flat as it was, it looked as if something heavy had landed on it, too. “Of course,” she murmured.

Taking a deep breath, she shook her head as if willing it to clear. Her fingers trembled as she lifted her hand to her forehead and nudged back the hat’s hard plastic inner band. “I need something bigger.” Curling her fingers into her palm, she lowered her hand to hide the shaking. If she was going to fall apart, it wasn’t going to be where anyone could see it. “I have my lunch restock at the pub. If I can get a van or something of that size and some ice chests, I can get my customers their lunch today and let them know I won’t be there for them tomorrow.”

“A van,” he repeated.

“Your insurance should cover the cost of renting one. I can’t turn this in on my policy.” She’d already had two minor fender-benders. “My premiums are high enough as it is. Something like this will send them through the ceiling.”

Cord held out his hand to quiet her. He needed to keep her calm. He also wanted very much to keep settlement as simple as possible. “Your insurance won’t have to pay a cent,” he assured her, not bothering to add that he would be writing the checks himself to make sure of that.

He wanted to keep insurance companies out of this completely. Hers, Callaway Construction’s and especially Kendrick Investment’s. If insurance carriers were involved, that would mean they would need her statement. There was no reason for his name to appear on the incident report Matt would have to file to satisfy site and government safety regulations. But if she mentioned in a claim statement that he’d told her where to park—and to ignore the warning signs, to boot—that would be all it would take for his name to leak out somehow and for the press to start dragging it through the mud again.

He could see the headlines now.

Prodigal Prince of Camelot Destroys Working Girl’s Livelihood.

There were times when he couldn’t win for losing. All he’d wanted was breakfast.

“Just tell me what you need and I’ll see that you get it. How many ice chests?”

“Enough to hold two hundred sandwiches, a hundred cans of soda, and two hundred cartons of milk and juices.” Doing a quick mental inventory of her normal lunch run, Madison decided she’d have to forget coffee. She had no way to make it. “I can put desserts and fruit in boxes.”

“How soon do you need it?”

Ten minutes ago, she thought. “An hour and a half,” she replied, because that’s when she normally would start her lunch run.

She thought for certain that the man crouched in front of her would tell her there was no way that would happen. At the very least, she expected him to point out that the paperwork alone could take that long. Yet, he gave no indication at all that he expected her needs to be a problem.

Looking very much like a man who never expected needs of any sort to be a problem, he rose with an easy, athletic grace and offered her his hand.

She had no idea why the gentlemanly gesture caught her so off guard.

“Consider it done,” he replied, taking her hand when she didn’t move. He tugged her up, promptly let her go. “An hour and a half,” he agreed. “Where do you want the van delivered?”

She couldn’t believe he was being so cooperative. She didn’t believe, either, that he could pull off such a miracle. “Mike’s Pub on Lexington and Hancock in Bayridge,” she said, wondering if Mike Shannahan could be bribed into letting her borrow his pickup. Mike loved his truck. He polished and pampered it as if the thing had a soul. Maybe if she promised to cook him dinner every night for a month, he’d let her use it. “It’s about five miles southeast of here,” she added, on the outside chance that miracles actually did happen.

Reaching into the front pocket if his khakis, Cord pulled out his money clip and slipped out a twenty-dollar bill. “Have Suzanne in the construction office call you a cab,” he said, as she stared at the money.

“What about my truck?”

“I’ll take care of it. You just do what you need to do with the van. Hey, Matt,” he called, and left her staring at the hat dent in the back of his golden hair as he walked away.

It took nearly an hour for a cab to arrive. Madison spent most of that time pacing between the trailer and the barricade and trying to reach Mike on her cell phone. Mike had been four years ahead of her all through school, so she’d actually known his sisters better when they were all younger, but Mike had always been like a big brother to her. Since she rented the apartment above the pub from him and used the pub’s kitchen to prepare her food, he was also her landlord.

She couldn’t reach him, though. The pub didn’t open until noon and he wasn’t answering his home phone.

When the cab arrived, she was trying to think of who else had a truck and wouldn’t be at work that time of day. Twenty minutes later she had concluded that even if she did locate a truck, it would take forever to borrow the ice chests she needed. Still refusing to give up, because giving up simply wasn’t something she did, she decided to rent ice chests and was mentally calculating how long it would take her do that when the cab rolled to a stop.

Mike’s Pub, with its familiar green awnings, leaded-glass windows and angled, corner door, sat on a narrow street that reflected the very essence of the Ridge’s roots. There wasn’t a building or business in the Ridge that hadn’t been there for as long as Madison could remember. Corollis’ Deli sat next door to the pub. Next to the deli, the beauty shop still turned out women with perms and blue hair, but had recently updated to add weaves. Across the street, below two stories of apartments, Reilly Brothers’ Produce anchored one corner, the Bayridge Bookstore the other. In between were sandwiched the pharmacy and an Italian bakery that had been run by three generations of Balduccis.