скачать книгу бесплатно
Prodigal Prince Charming
Christine Flynn
A TASTE FOR DANGERA simple mistake had cost caterer Madison O'Malley her livelihood–and the fault lay squarely with international playboy Cord Kendrick. Cord went out of his way to make things right…and Madison promised to keep the story out of the tabloids. But as sharing business strategies turned to sharing kisses, Madison knew she was playing with fire…and craved Cord nonetheless.Trouble had a way of finding Cord Kendrick. And as the second son of the revered Kendrick family, he'd do anything to avoid another scandal. But spending time with the lovely Madison was stirring up all kinds of extraordinary feelings. Cord was an adventurer at heart, but could this confirmed bachelor risk falling in love?
THE CAMELOT CRIER
ABOUT TOWN: Newport News, Virginia
Recipe for Romance?
Camelot’s most infamous playboy has developed a sweet tooth. Cord Kendrick, second son of the Kendricks of Camelot, has been seen in the company of caterer Madison O’Malley. The innocent beauty, best known for her heavenly muffins, is a departure from the models and starlets Cord is known for romancing, and Newport News is a far cry from the jet-setting bachelor’s favored haunts. Although the Kendrick family has offered no comment on the simmering romance, sources say Cord has been seen spending an awful lot of time not only with Madison, but with her family, as well—a sure sign that things are heating up in any relationship. But is this sweet-as-sin chef more than Cord’s latest indulgence?
Dear Reader,
We’re smack in the middle of summer, which can only mean long, lazy days at the beach. And do we have some fantastic books for you to bring along! We begin this month with a new continuity, only in Special Edition, called THE PARKS EMPIRE, a tale of secrets and lies, love and revenge. And Laurie Paige opens the series with Romancing the Enemy. A schoolteacher who wants to avenge herself against the man who ruined her family decides to move next door to the man’s son. But things don’t go exactly as planned, as she finds herself falling…for the enemy.
Stella Bagwell continues her MEN OF THE WEST miniseries with Her Texas Ranger, in which an officer who’s come home to investigate a murder fins complications in the form of the girl he loved in high school. Victoria Pade begins her NORTHBRIDGE NUPTIALS miniseries, revolving around a town famed for its weddings, with Babies in the Bargain. When a woman hoping to reunite with her estranged sister finds instead her widowed husband and her children, she winds up playing nanny to the whole crew. Can wife and mother be far behind? THE KENDRICKS OF CAMELOT by Christine Flynn concludes with Prodigal Prince Charming, in which a wealthy playboy tries to help a struggling caterer with her business and becomes much more than just her business partner in the process. Brand-new author Mary J. Forbes debuts with A Forever Family, featuring a single doctor dad and the woman he hires to work for him. And the men of the CHEROKEE ROSE miniseries by Janis Reams Hudson continues with The Other Brother, in which a woman who always contend her handsome neighbor as one of her best friends suddenly finds herself looking at him in a new light.
Happy reading! And come back next month for six new fabulous books, all from Silhouette Special Edition.
Gail Chasan
Senior Editor
Prodigal Prince Charming
Christine Flynn
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To Christine Rimmer, a wonderful writer and dear friend,
with thanks for the title of this book!
CHRISTINE FLYNN
admits to being interested in just about everything, which is why she considers herself fortunate to have turned her interest in writing into a career. She feels that a writer gets to explore it all and, to her, exploring relationships—especially the intense, bittersweet or even lighthearted relationships between men and women—is fascinating.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
Chapter One
“Madison O’Malley, this here’s the nicest thing anybody’s done for me all week.” Grinning like a young boy, the burly construction worker tipped back his hard hat and swiped a fingerful of frosting from the cupcake in his hand. The flame flickered and danced on the small candle stuck in the fluffy chocolate. “I can’t believe you remembered.”
“She remembers everybody’s birthday,” the rangy welder on his right informed him. “The cupcake she baked me for my birthday even had sprinkles on it.”
“Yeah? Did she put your name on it, like she did mine here?”
The shorter man nodded at the white icing loops that spelled out Tiny.
“She sure did. Didn’t you, Madison?”
“I sure did, Jake.” Madison’s smile came easily, her brown eyes sparkling with the pleasure it gave her to make one of her customer’s day just a little special. She baked birthday cupcakes for all the customers on her route, once she got to know them, and she always put their name and a candle on the little treat. “I just didn’t know if you liked chocolate or carrot cake better. If you’ll tell me, I’ll remember for next year.”
Tiny told her that what she’d given him was just fine, and walked off, still grinning.
The welder she knew only as Jake took a cellophane-wrapped muffin from the display on the side of the gleaming silver catering truck and handed her a dollar.
“Morning, Madison.” Another of the forty customers crowding toward her held out a five. “I’m taking two poppy seed and a banana.”
“I have coffee and a ham-and-cheese roll here,” a voice from behind him announced.
“Same here.” Another worker, this one unfamiliar, took Jake’s place. He handed her two five-dollar bills. “That’s for me and Sid back there.”
Madison glanced at the front of the newcomer’s white hard hat. Buzz was written in felt pen on the strip of masking tape centered above the brim.
“Thanks, Buzz.”
Having been acknowledged by name, the new guy smiled and stepped back to be swallowed by the forward surge of others wanting to make the most of their morning break.
“Hey, Madison! Do you have those carrot-cake muffins today?’
“She only does those on Tuesday and Friday,” someone replied for her. “Today is zucchini and poppy seed.” Another dirty hand bearing dollar bills appeared through the sea of worn denim and work shirts. “I took one of each.”
A machinist with a streak of grease on his cheek held out a ten. “Same. And orange juice.”
Taking the men’s money, she made change from the small black pack she wore around her waist. The carefully arranged rows of muffins and cheese rolls she had baked herself that morning were quickly disappearing, along with iced cartons of juice and milk and gallons of coffee from her catering truck’s built-in urn.
She didn’t mind the dirt on the men’s hands and clothes. Most of the welders, electricians, steelworkers and laborers at this construction site—like the stevedores and dock workers she would feed next on her route—were salt-of-the-earth, hardworking men who knew the value of even harder work. They were much like the people in the neighborhood where she’d been born, still lived and would probably die. Some were even from her neighborhood, the Ridge, as those who’d grown up in Bayridge, Virginia, called it. So were some of the guys on the dock. She was one of them. She knew the value of hard work, too. Day in and day out. She couldn’t imagine living her life any other way.
“Hey, Madison.” The deep, self-conscious voice came from beside her. “What are you doing this Friday night?”
Her smiled moved to the strapping steelworker who’d asked the same question three weeks running. Eddie Zwicki was tall, cute, built and probably only a year or two younger than her own twenty-eight years. “Going to bed early. I have to get up to shop and clean my truck on Saturday so I’m ready for you guys again next week.”
“Don’t you ever go out?”
“Not with my customers,” she replied, her tone kind as she repeated the rule she’d adopted to save face and feelings. She didn’t date anyone, actually. As hard as she was working to build her business, she simply didn’t have the time. “But, you know what?” she asked, because he really did seem like a nice guy and there seemed to be so few single ones like that around. “I think you and Tina Deluca would get along great. I told her about you. The kindergarten teacher? Do you want her number?”
“Can she cook?”
“Your favorite oatmeal cookies are her mother’s recipe.”
“Yeah, but can she bake them?”
The guy was quick. “She’s learning.”
Someone behind Eddie gave him a shove. But even as he turned to frown at the guy who’d just passed him, he became distracted from his consideration of Tina’s lack of culinary talent. As the rumble of quiet conversations around them suddenly tapered to near silence, it seemed the other men were distracted by something, too.
Madison stood near the door of her silver truck with its side popped up to serve as an awning. Moments ago she had seen nothing but the men lined four to six deep waiting to make their selections. Now, those men were shifting, booted feet shuffling in the dirt as they parted like a denim-clad Red Sea.
“Morning, Mr. Callaway,” said someone from the back of the group.
“Morning, sir.”
“Hey, Mr. Callaway.”
“Hi, guys,” came the deep and cordial reply. “How’s it going this morning?”
The men’s replies to the question were now accompanied by an undercurrent of murmurs. Workers who weren’t talking simply remained silent and stared.
Madison immediately recognized Matt Callaway. He was the tall, commanding-looking gentleman in the suit and hard hat the others greeted with a certain deference. He owned the construction company building the enormous York Port Mall that was currently nothing more than acres of concrete slabs, rebar and steel girders.
He wasn’t alone.
With a curious jolt, Madison realized she knew the man with him, too. Of him, anyway. Just as tall, even more imposing, the man earning the stares that ranged from curiosity to envy was Cord Kendrick.
She had never seen him in person before. But there was no doubt in her mind who he was. Like nearly everyone else in America, she’d seen pictures of him in People and Newsweek, on Entertainment Tonight and in the supermarket tabloids her grandma Nona Rossini devoured like candy. His reputation for fast women and faster living continually made the news. Even people who didn’t pay attention to the lives of the rich and infamous knew of him. The entire Kendrick family was practically considered royalty by the press. His beautiful mother actually was royalty, or so Madison had heard.
She just couldn’t quite remember if Cord’s last scandal had been a paternity suit or a car wreck as she watched both men approach her. Certain her grandma would know, she settled her attention on the men’s boss.
“Morning, Mr. Callaway,” she greeted with her easy smile. “Do you want your usual?”
He was a bit of a celebrity himself, she suddenly remembered. His marriage to the oldest Kendrick daughter last year had caught half the nation off guard, since no one had even known Ashley Kendrick was dating anyone in particular. What Madison recalled most, though, was her own surprise when her grandmother had read the woman’s new husband’s name and Madison had recognized Matt as the very man who had given her permission to enter his site to sell to some of his workers.
The birth of his and Ashley’s daughter a couple of months ago had made headlines, too. It had also resulted in paparazzi lining the chain link fence surrounding the vast construction site trying to get shots of him.
“My usual,” Matt repeated, rubbing his chin. “I didn’t realize I was getting that predictable.”
“So you want zucchini, then? Or banana nut?”
“Surprise me.”
She reached for a zucchini muffin and an empty cup for him to fill himself.
“And for you?” she asked, finally glancing toward the man she just realized would now be his brother-in-law. She had heard that the Kendrick family owned the mall project. That association alone could explain how the owner of the construction company had met Cord’s sister. It would also explain Cord Kendrick’s presence on the job site.
Grandma Nona was going to be terribly impressed that she’d seen them both today. But the only thing that truly impressed Madison herself was that Matt Callaway looked right at home in his silver hard hat, while the man with the admittedly gorgeous blue eyes looked more as if he were modeling his for GQ. The cut of his jacket was definitely designer. Italian, probably. The sweater under it looked too soft to be anything but cashmere.
His blue eyes crinkled appealingly at the corners. “I’ll have his usual.”
“One poppy seed. Coffee?” she asked, trying to ignore the jerk of her heart as his glance skimmed over her.
There was nothing the least bit subtle about that glance. He was checking her out, boldly, bluntly and quite thoroughly. He apparently liked what he saw, too, as his glance moved back up the length of her long, denim covered legs, over the maroon turtleneck tucked into them and up to where she’d pulled her dark hair up and back with a clip.
His beautifully sculpted mouth moved into a knee-weakening smile.
Photographs truly had not done the man justice. That expression packed enough charm to fascinate nearly anyone in a skirt.
“Cream. No sugar.”
“You’ll find cream down by the coffee.”
“What kind is it?”
“The kind from cows.”
“The coffee,” he said, hitting her with that smile again. “Jamaican? French roast?”
“Folgers,” she replied, politely. “That’ll be a dollar and a half.”
“I’ll get it,” Matt said.
“Already got it,” Cord replied. Pulling a money clip from his front pocket, he peeled off a five-dollar bill and nodded to the logo on her driver’s-side door. Mama O’Malley’s Catering was stenciled in a shamrock-green arc.
“So, who’s ‘Mama’?” he asked.
She darted a smile past his arm as another worker took a muffin and handed over his money. “That would be me.”
One appraising eyebrow shot up. “You?’
“That’s right.”
Cord watched the tall brunette with the long, lanky body and the face of an angel hand over a cheese roll that the man behind him couldn’t reach. She wasn’t being especially rude or cool to him. Her tone even held the same hints of kindness he’d heard when she addressed everyone else. She just wasn’t giving him the same bright smile she’d seemed to manage for every single one of the other guys.
