Nordic Heroes: In the Market and a Wholesale Arrangement by Day Leclaire

Author:Day Leclaire [Leclaire, Day]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Family Saga, Romantic Comedy, sagas, contemporary romance, sexy, steamy, Marriage, of, convenience, office, romance, Contemporary, Seattle
Amazon: B00YQPZKQO
Publisher: DLI Publishing
Published: 2015-06-28T16:00:00+00:00

B ills, bills, bills, and more bills. Andrea Constantine studied the listing stack of invoices piled on her desk and fought off an overwhelming sense of panic. Panicking wouldn’t do her any good. It might make her feel ten times better, but it wouldn’t help. Money would help. Lots of money would help even more. And several truckloads of some large-denominational green stuff would benefit her most of all.

The telephone at her elbow shrilled, and the trucks in her daydream pulled away from the loading dock without having deposited so much as a single penny. She glared at the phone. Thirty more seconds and she’d have been stinking rich. Life, she decided in disgust, had a warped sense of humor. She snatched up the receiver.

“Constantine’s,” she announced with professional briskness. “Andrea Constantine here.”

“Where’s my money?” the caller snarled, not wasting time on pleasantries.

There was that annoying, distasteful, repetitive money word again, used by an equally annoying, distasteful, repetitive nuisance. “Mr. Hartsworth, I presume,” she said, her lips turning down at the corners.

“Damn right! Now where’s my money? And no more excuses. I shipped you a truckload of corn and I expect to be paid for it!”

“You shipped me a truckload of worm-ridden mush,” she contradicted in a firm voice. “You neglected to ice the corn properly, and your driver took two full days to get it here.”

“How can that be? Yakima’s only 140 miles from you!”

“Which makes the trucker’s arrival in Seattle forty-eight hours after departing your farm an incredible feat. How’d he go, by way of Hawaii? The heat coming off the tail end of his trailer was unbelievable. It’s a wonder we didn’t have popcorn!”

“You watch your mouth, little girl.”

Little girl? Andrea couldn’t help smiling, despite the gravity of the situation. She and Mr. Hartsworth had never met face-to-face or he’d have chosen a different description. At five foot eight, she couldn’t be called anyone’s “little girl.”

“Mr. Hartsworth, the federal inspectors looked at your corn and they agree with me. It’s worthless.”

“Buffalo chips! Now you listen here. I was supplying your pop with cobs since before you were born. You’re lucky I’m willing to work with you at all. So don’t try and tell me my business. This isn’t some girlie tea party, you know.”

“I quite agree—”

He bulldozed on. “If you don’t pay up, you’ll regret it, inspection or no inspection. I’ll see to it that your name is blacker than tar at midnight in a coal mine.”

She sat up straighter. That sounded fairly black, all right. And having her name so abused wouldn’t help her financial situation any. Still . . .

The man had dumped bad produce on her, and no one did that. If her father were still living, Hartsworth wouldn’t have tried such a stunt. The knowledge brought a sharp pang of loss. The knowledge also brought home the painful truth. If her father had taught her the rules of this particular game, she wouldn’t be in her present predicament.

Her hand clenched into a fist.

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