A Colorado Match. Deb Kastner

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СКАЧАТЬ him in his place.

      After all, it was Nate who’d irresponsibly ran off after high school, joined the Marines and left Vince alone to run the lodge by himself. He’d been left to cope with everything alone, and it was because of Nate.

      Nate visibly winced and smiled sheepishly, and then nodded, silently acknowledging his faults. At least he had the good grace to realize how ironic his statement had been. Even so, as much as Nate might be helping out around the lodge recently—now that he’d supposedly returned home for good—Vince didn’t think it would last. Not with Nate. He couldn’t trust his brother as far as he could throw him—although he could still throw him.

      “You won’t let Pop and me hire you a personal assistant,” Nate explained.

      “Because we can’t afford it,” Vince said, becoming weary of this whole conversation, and wishing Melanie wasn’t present to hear any of it. He wasn’t the kind of man to air his dirty laundry publicly, be it family or business; and he found it rather humiliating that Nate heedlessly seemed determined to do just that.

      “What would be the point? Why should I hire someone to do what I can do all by myself?”

      “Says you,” countered Nate. “How long do you think you can keep up this pace all by yourself?”

      Vince leveled a look on him. “As long as I have to.”

      “You’re running yourself ragged,” Nate insisted, adamantly shaking his head.

      “I have to agree with Nate,” Melanie chimed in.

      Of course she did. Everyone always agreed with Nate. But this was none of her business, and Vince wanted to keep it that way.

      “Look,” he said, making an awkward placating gesture that was cut short by his crutches, “No offense, Melanie, but your services really aren’t needed. I’m sorry you came all this way for nothing.”

      Melanie leaned as far over the counter as her short frame would allow.

      “I think Nate is right,” she repeated, as if Vince hadn’t heard her the first time around. “I really think I can help you.”

      What was with everyone? He was being none-too-gently coerced into a corner and he knew it. They had his arm behind his back, figuratively speaking, and now they were starting to twist it tight.

      Nate, Pop and now Melanie. He couldn’t argue with everyone.

      But he had to try. And he knew just how to do it.

      “We don’t have the money.” The lack of working capital was the basis for his original argument, and he decided he would stick with it.

      Melanie wasn’t going to work for free.

      “This is a ministry, not a multimillion-dollar corporation. The families of patients rehabilitating at the RMPR Hospital have enough to deal with without the burden of having to stay at an overpriced hotel.”

      He saw the corners of Melanie’s lips turn down just slightly, and only for a second, but he knew he’d said something she didn’t want to hear. Probably that she wasn’t going to get paid.

      “Good grief,” Melanie muttered under her breath. Or at least that was how it sounded to Vince.

      “Sorry, bro,” Nate said with a laugh. “We’ve already thought of that—the money part of it, I mean. That’s why you’re getting a business consultant and not a personal assistant. This is a one-time thing, and I’m footing the bill for it out of my own savings.”

      Vince wasn’t happy, and he wasn’t the least bit convinced about any of this, but with each passing second, it was becoming more difficult to find a way out of the predicament.

      He sighed. “One day? One week? What?”

      “One time,” Melanie corrected. “The entire process should take about six weeks, give or take.”

      “Don’t be so hardheaded,” Nate said. “Will you just for once take something that someone is giving you and not put up such a fuss about it?”

      Melanie gave a clipped little nod. Vince thought she might be agreeing with Nate.

      Again.

      “I don’t have the time,” he argued. “As you pointed out, my leg is in a cast. It’s going to take me longer to do things, even without having Melanie…here,” he finished lamely. He had been going to say underfoot, but that seemed a little too blunt, even for him.

      “Make time,” Nate countered.

      “And if I say no?” Vince knew it sounded like a taunt, and he was immediately convinced he shouldn’t have asked the question at all. Nate was gloating.

      “I’ll force you. I’ve already paid the bill up front. You wouldn’t stiff me like that, would you?” Nate offered up his most placating smile.

      Vince lifted an eyebrow and then shrugged. “You’re sure about that?”

      “Maybe not, if it was just me,” Nate replied with a wicked smile. “But Pop agrees with me on this one. Give it up, bro. You’d better get used to the idea because you are officially out of options.”

      Vince wanted to kick something, except that his leg was already in a cast and Melanie was still looking on. He could argue with Nate all day and night if he had to, but there was no way he would argue with his father.

      The man was still in a wheelchair from a recent stroke, which was why Vince was doing all the work in the first place. Pop’s condition seemed to be improving now that Nate was home and had presented him with a granddaughter, but Vince didn’t want to take any chances with his father’s health.

      Melanie cleared her throat and smiled, reminding the men of her presence.

      Vince wanted to cringe. She’d been standing there the entire time, absorbing all this personal information about the two brothers without saying a single thing. How completely and utterly mortifying.

      But she spoke now. “I promise I’ll make the process as painless as possible for you.”

      “It’s for your own good,” Nate prodded.

      Vince couldn’t stand Nate being the victor of this game, but neither could he see a way out of this predicament except by going through with it. And it was just like his brother to rub it in.

      Vince had the uncomfortable inkling, like a wisp of cool air creeping up the back of his neck, that working with Melanie was going to be anything but painless. He sighed and, leaning heavily on his left crutch, pushed his glasses up his nose and scrubbed his fingers through his hair with his right hand.

      His head hurt. His leg hurt.

      And he’d officially been had.

      Vince groaned and pulled up a three-legged stool, seating himself gingerly and leaning his elbows on the front counter at the main lodge. He wanted to cocoon himself in the back office, but there was no one at present to watch the desk. His leg was throbbing and itching and driving him crazy—but not as much as the woman СКАЧАТЬ