For Love of Charley Read Online Free PDF Page B

years. Now, you suddenly waltz back into
town and act as though nothing happened. You want to know why I seem
uncomfortable? Think about it!”
    He dropped the briefcase onto a chair and
leaned back against the table, watching her. “Sometimes, Charley, circumstances
are out of our control. One of these days, maybe we’ll talk about it.” He
turned and pulled out a set of blueprints. “Unfortunately for you, you’re stuck
with me. There are only so many things I can delegate before I have to step in
and do the work myself.”
    Was it her imagination, or had his voice
softened for a moment? And what circumstances was he talking about? Could it be
that he hadn’t wanted to leave her? An unidentified emotion began to slowly
unfurl inside her, but she squashed it like a bug. Whatever excuse he came up
with would be a lie. She knew Cole well enough to realize that nothing could
have made him leave if he hadn’t wanted to. Steeling herself to a calm dignity,
she moved to the table. “What’s that?”
    Cole glanced at her. “Blueprints for the
Red Dog.” Anchoring one end of the roll with his briefcase, he spread the plans
on the table. “See? This is the building as it exists now. When Duncan Mills is
fully operational, there are going to be some things that are desperately
needed. A restaurant is one of them. What I’d like to do is add one on to this
side of the saloon.”
    Charley leaned over the table, scanning the
plans rapidly. “Are these to scale?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then we have a problem. As much as I’d
love to see it happen, this restaurant would take up most of our parking space
and quite a bit of the land bordering our property. Even if I had the money to
build it, which I don’t, I doubt the owner of that lot would approve of us
building on it.”
    “I own the land. As a matter of fact, I own
all the land between here and Duncan Mills. Another one of my projects is going
to be a hotel. It will be built halfway between Duncan Mills and the
restaurant. Money will be no problem. I’m paying for the restaurant.”
    “No.” Charley stepped back. “That wouldn’t
be fair. I own half of the Red Dog, I should be able to pay half the cost of
improvements.”
    “Can you?” he asked bluntly.
    Charley wilted. “No. My house is mortgaged
to the hilt and there’s no way the bank will loan me any more.”
    Cole ran a hand though his hair, glanced
down at the plans and then looked back at her. “If we don’t move on this now,
someone else will. How about if I loan you the money? You start paying it back
after all the work is done and the tourists start to arrive. Say, one year from
now.”
    “If you own all that land, why don’t you
just build it there? You don’t need it to be part of the Red Dog.”
    “Yes, I do. I’ve had feasibility studies
done, public opinion studies done, marketing studies, and two dozen more that I
won’t go into. They all agree that the best place for it is right here.”
    “How long have you been planning this?”
Charley asked, surprise running through her.
    “Two years. It took that long to buy the
land and get the preliminary work out of the way.”
    “So when you bought half of the Red Dog,
you already knew?”
    “Yes.”
    Charley chewed on her bottom lip, thinking.
“I want a contract of repayment, and I want the payments to reflect the current
interest rate. Also, I expect an accounting of every cent spent on the construction,
and I want a clause that doesn’t penalize me for early payoff of the loan.”
    Smiling, Cole stuck out his hand. “Deal.”
    She stared at his hand for a second, every
nerve in her body screaming. Hesitantly, she raised her own and felt it
enfolded in his warm grip. Instead of shaking it, he held it, his gaze meeting
hers again.
    “Your lawyers or mine?” The tone of his
voice seemed huskier than it had been and Charley felt heat curl in the center
of her body.
    “What?” She couldn’t seem to take her eyes
from his.
    “Who do you