His Convenient Royal Bride. Cara Colter

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ They’re here for breakfast, not to exchange life stories. And they’re not Americans. They won’t appreciate your friendliness.”

      Sophie pursed her lips together, miffed at the reprimand, as Maddie had known she would be.

      “Or apparently your scones,” she said, pronouncing it as gone rather than cone as Maddie always had. Then she flounced through the swinging doors into the kitchen and gave Kettle the order.

      “We ain’t open yet.” This declaration was followed by a string of cusswords used creatively and representing a long military history. “I don’t make exceptions. And that includes the apron. And tie your hair back. We have standards.” He put enough curse words between have and standards to impress a sailor.

      Sure enough, Kettle himself stomped through the kitchen door. Despite the scowl on his grizzled face, Maddie felt a rush of affection.

      Kettle had been her father’s best friend, there for her and her mother when her father had been killed in a logging accident. He’d been there for her again as her mother, heartbroken, had followed on her father’s heels way too quickly, leaving Maddie an orphan at eighteen.

      Maddie’s fiancé, Derek, had not gotten it when she had felt compelled to return to Mountain Bend after Kettle’s accident, to manage the café. This was the code she had been raised with: you did right by the people who had done right by you.

      So Kettle’s stomp was a good thing. He was nearly back to his normal self after he had fallen off the restaurant roof while shoveling snow in the winter and had a complicated break to his hip that had required several surgeries.

      Kettle had spent a military career he would not talk about with Delta Force before returning to Mountain Bend. Now he skidded to a halt, surveyed the two men with a certain bemused expression, and then turned back to the kitchen in time to intercept Sophie, who was coming out behind him.

      “Maddie,” he said gruffly, “you handle them customers. Sophie, you can help me in the kitchen for now.”

      Sophie looked as if she planned to protest, but she knew better than to argue with her uncle, especially her first day of working for him. She cast one last longing look at the table before reluctantly obeying and going back into the kitchen.

      “I trust you to be sensible,” Kettle told Maddie in an undertone. In other words, he trusted she’d outgrown the kind of shenanigans that got small-town girls, like her and Sophie, in all kinds of trouble.

      Yes, she thought with a sigh, she was the sensible one now.

      “I’m sure you won’t be imagining anyone in kilts, or any other romantic nonsense, either.”

      So, he had heard something of that. She hoped she wasn’t blushing, again, but Kettle wasn’t looking at her, but watching their first guests of the day with narrowed eyes.

      “What did they say they’re doing here?” he asked quietly.

      “The Ritz concert.”

      “The big one’s security. Written all over him. Maybe doing an assessment before the band arrives.”

      “What about the other one?” Maddie asked, keeping her tone casual.

      “Well, that’s the odd part.”

      “In what way?”

      “He looks like the principal, to me.”

      “The what?”

      “Never mind. My old life creeps up on me, sometimes. I’m sure they are exactly what they say they are.”

      But he didn’t sound sure at all.

      “Like a school principal?” Maddie asked, unwilling, for some reason, to let it go.

      Kettle snorted. “Does he look like a school principal to you?”

      Maddie looked at him one more time, that subtle aura of power and confidence. “No,” she admitted.

      “Exactly. Someone who travels with a close protection specialist. Interesting.”

      Interesting enough to make Kettle stop from tossing them out before regular opening hours. He had definitely recognized something that had automatically given them his respect—generally hard earned—but that had also made him cautious about exposing his man-crazy niece to them.

      “A close protection specialist?”

      “A bodyguard in civilian terms. Never mind. I’m being silly.” Kettle shook his head and went back to the kitchen muttering, “Ah, once a warrior.”

      The ancient coffeemaker let out a loud hiss, announcing the coffee was ready, and Maddie went and grabbed the pot.

      She popped her head in the kitchen door. “Sophie, can you hand me some mugs from the dishwasher?”

      Sophie brought over the mugs. “I know what their car looks like,” she said in a hushed tone as she handed Maddie two thick crockery-style coffee mugs. “I’ll bet they’re staying at the Cottages. I’m going to go look as soon as I’m done with work.”

      She already was planning to thwart Kettle’s plan to protect her!

      “You will not,” Maddie said.

      Feeling uncomfortably in the middle of something, Maddie started to take the mugs and the pot over to the window table. Then she paused and picked up two scones from the display and set them on a plate.

      “Coffee?” she asked. She set down the scones. “Complimentary. The grill isn’t quite heated yet. Breakfast will be a few minutes.”

      While Lancaster eyed the scones with deep suspicion, and even prodded one with his finger, it was Ward who answered, and again she had a sense of him being in a leadership position.

      Did he do something that warranted a bodyguard? It seemed a little far-fetched for Mountain Bend. Poor Kettle just hadn’t been himself since he fell off that roof.

      “Thank you. I’m Ward and this is Lancaster. And you are?”

      She actually blushed, but kept her tone deliberately cool. “It’s Sophie’s first day. I hope she didn’t give you the impression it’s some kind of American tradition for staff at restaurants to introduce themselves to customers.”

      “It isn’t? Lancaster, didn’t we have that happen before? In Los Angeles? That fellow. Franklin! He definitely introduced himself. Hi, I’m Franklin, and I’ll be your server tonight.”

      “You’re right,” she conceded. “It is protocol at some of the big chains. But here in Mountain Bend, not so much.”

      “Thank you for clarifying that,” Ward said. “I find learning another country’s customs a bit like learning a new language. There’s lots of room for innocent error. But now you have us at a disadvantage. You know our names, but we are none the wiser.”

      She frowned. She was aware of needing to keep distance between her and this powerfully attractive sample of manliness. СКАЧАТЬ