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.
Surrounding them all was the neighborhood, with its tree-lined streets, tidy houses, cracked sidewalks and bicycles lying on neat lawns.
All Madison noticed after she paid her driver was the white van parked near the corner mailbox.
A young man in a blue mechanic’s uniform met her as she stepped from the cab. After confirming that she was Madison O’Malley, he handed her the van’s keys, told her there were ice chests and ice inside it, and left in a beige SUV that had been waiting nearby to give him a lift back to wherever it was he’d come from.
As she stared at the keys in her hand, it took her a moment to realize she could stop worrying about how she was going to make her lunch stops. Cord had actually done what he’d said he’d do. And with time to spare.
Madison had even more time to spare a few hours later. And spare time wasn’t something she usually had.
She usually finished her lunch route by 12:40 and returned to the pub near 4:00 p.m. With her normal routine seriously shot, she found herself back an hour early because she had no truck to gas up and clean, no leftovers to drop off at the seniors’ center and no idea how she was going to salvage her business.
As she pulled up behind the silver Lamborghini parked at the curb, she also had no idea why the fates had seen fit to throw Cord Kendrick into her path.
Three animated preteen boys hung around the racy car in front of her. Only one seemed able to tear his glance from all that horsepower when she walked over to see what they were up to. Sean Bower’s focus, however, had already turned back to the wide black tires when he spoke.
“Isn’t this way cool, Madison? It must go a hundred miles an hour!”
“Way
