Fortune's Just Desserts

But there had been more to his dissatisfaction with her, so while she was at it Wendy decided to address that, as well.

“And as for what you said about having everything handed to me, yes, I was born a Fortune and, yes, my parents are rich. And yes, I don’t really know exactly what it is I want to do with my life right now,” she threw in, even though he hadn’t said anything about that. She assumed that one of her parents had probably complained about her lack of direction to the Mendozas, who in turn might have told Marcos.

“But I know that whatever I do decide I want out of life, I’m going to have to get it on my own, because otherwise it doesn’t really count. And I also realize that the only person I know I can count on is me,” she said with feeling.

Channing had taught her that one and she had learned her lesson the hard way. She’d put all her faith in him, expecting Channing to provide her happily-ever-after for her. When he’d pulled the rug out from under her and told her that he no longer loved her, that he was in love with someone else, she definitely hadn’t been prepared to land on her butt in full view of her so-called friends. None of whom offered her any real sympathy.

While the whole humiliating experience hadn’t turned her into a bitter person, it certainly had taught her not to be so trustingly naive.

It also taught her to keep her eyes open so that she didn’t run the risk of being mowed down like that ever again. One supremely humiliating experience in a lifetime was more than enough.

She straightened in the chair, giving every indication that she was ready to leave. “Now, if you don’t have anything else that you feel you have to chew me out about, I’d like to make a suggestion.”

Oh she did, did she? Did she think that working here for a couple of months qualified her to become his assistant? Or better yet, to take his place?

“Which is?” Marcos challenged.

“Since you’re putting Eva on the smaller tables, I’d like to volunteer to take over her station.”

Eva’s former station contained the party-size tables. Tables that accommodated office luncheons to celebrate a promotion or someone’s final day at the company. Stations like that were intended for more experienced waitresses who worked smoothly and efficiently. Waitresses who didn’t drop trays.

Granted that up until now Wendy hadn’t dropped a tray—if he didn’t count the one she accidentally knocked over just before she’d begun working here—but as far as he was concerned that was just a freakishly fortunate streak of luck. And there was just so much luck to go around.

“We’ll see,” he answered.

Wendy frowned. She was still sitting in the chair, her hands on the armrests as if she had abruptly changed her mind and was ready to propel herself up to her feet. She’d thought she’d made some headway with Marcos. Apparently not.

“That means no, doesn’t it?” It wasn’t really a question. Marcos’s tone had already given away his intention.

“No,” he contradicted, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked at her again, “that means we’ll see.” This just wasn’t going to work out, was it? He bit his tongue to keep from saying as much. Instead, he told her, “You know, we might get along better if you didn’t keep trying to get under my skin.”

Wendy looked at him for a long moment, as if debating saying something. Instead, she rose to her feet. “I’m not trying.”

For someone who wasn’t trying, he thought, she was having remarkable success.

“Still accomplishing the same thing,” he told her. The way to deal with this woman, he decided, at least for now, was to ignore her. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got some work to do.”

“I don’t mind at all,” she told him breezily. “Maybe we can talk later to clear the air some more,” Wendy said as she crossed the threshold.

Just what he needed. A threat.

“Maybe,” he murmured, having no intentions of doing any such thing unless he was forced to. “Don’t forget to close the—”

The door met the jamb abruptly just as he said the word door.

Abandoning the computer temporarily, Marcos leaned back in his chair and rocked for a moment.

Or two.

He didn’t know what to make of her, he thought, annoyed.

Oh, he knew what he wanted to make of her. He wanted to continue regarding Wendy Fortune as a spoiled, self-centered little brat because the negative view helped him block out an utterly annoying growing attraction he was becoming increasingly aware of. An attraction to the woman that was completely undesired on his part. But he had to admit, however grudgingly, that spoiled, self-centered, selfish little brats didn’t give away their tips to their less fortunate coworkers without asking for something in return.

They also didn’t eavesdrop because they wanted to make sure a coworker wasn’t “raked over the coals” because they’d had a slip of the tongue. Moreover, they didn’t wait around to offer comfort to said coworker.

Wendy Fortune was a damn enigma, a confounding puzzle. Ordinarily, he’d just put her out of his mind, dismiss her as not worth the time nor the effort to try to solve that puzzle.

But the fact was that she was his puzzle, assigned to him by an uncle and aunt who were much too softhearted for their own good—and his. And he wanted to tell them so, but it wasn’t his place.

Putting up with the heiress was apparently part of his new job description.

Marcos frowned to himself.

He was spending way too much time and energy thinking about this woman and trying to figure her out. There was nothing to figure out. She was the devil, plain and simple, sent to torment him. She was here just to throw him off, lull him into complacency.

Even the devil was capable of a good deed every century or so, Marcos reasoned. That didn’t mean he wasn’t the devil. And just because Wendy Fortune gave away her tips, something she undoubtedly viewed as small change, to someone who needed every penny didn’t change the fact that she still had enough faults to fill up the Grand Canyon. The sooner he was rid of her, the better.

Chapter Four

The black leather sofa creaked and sighed as Flint Fortune shifted his long frame.

So here he was, back in Red Rock again. That made twice in the space of less than four months, Flint thought. Back in January he’d come to attend his uncle William’s wedding—otherwise known as the wedding that wasn’t, he thought wryly. Just before the ceremony, his uncle vanished. A search of the premises turned up nothing—except his car was gone.

At first, everyone thought that the man had just gotten cold feet—everyone, that is, except for his intended bride. Lily Cassidy Fortune, his uncle Ryan’s widow, never once wavered or gave in to the rumors that the widower who was supposed to pledge his heart and his honor to her that morning had surrendered to last-minute jitters and left her at the altar.

When Uncle William’s smashed up vehicle was discovered, she held on just as fast to the belief that he was out there somewhere, alive and in need of help. Eventually, she got everyone else to see her way, too.

Flint felt a touch of envy. Women like that were rare. He ought to know. The woman he’d briefly married belonged to the majority of the female population. Once the I dos were over, it had become clear to him that Myra had married him to change him and make him over into the man she’d thought he should be, rather than loving the man he was.

Now, thankfully, she was in his past, as was the notion that marriage was something he aspired to. He was perfectly happy just the way he was. Single and determined to remain that way.

Which made his return to Red Rock kind of ironic. He’d come back to take a paternity test. The little guy who was currently in Jeremy and Kirsten’s care was said to possibly be a Fortune. Which meant that one of them could be the baby’s father. Right now, nobody knew who that was and they were involved in a process of elimination.

Although he had no desire for ties, it wasn’t right just to let that baby be sent off to an orphanage. If the little guy was a result of one of his own amorous encounters, then he was prepared to step up.

Prepared—but not happy about it.

Frustrated, Flint tossed aside the magazine he’d been thumbing through since he’d signed in at the lab’s front desk. He hadn’t seen a single word on any of the magazine’s pages.

The door on the far end of the lab’s outer office opened and out came a young woman wearing a white lab coat over her dark skirt and white button-down blouse. Glancing around the room, she spotted him.

“We’re ready for you now, Mr. Fortune,” the technician announced.

Flint unfolded his five-foot-eleven frame from the sofa and stood up.

He silently followed the young woman into one of the smaller rooms that lined the back wall, fervently hoping to be vindicated.

“You what?”

Marcos stared incredulously at his brother, Rafe Mendoza, who had just popped into his office unannounced.

Older by two years, Rafe, a dynamic corporate lawyer, already had a successful law practice in Ann Arbor and was now working in San Antonio. His new practice was so successful that earlier this year he’d decided to open a second office right here in Red Rock. He’d only been back in his hometown a couple of months, but had just purchased the old Crockett building downtown, putting the wheels in motion for a new branch.

“I said that I’d like to hold the wedding reception here at Red. Is that possible?”

“A wedding reception,” Marcos echoed. “Your wedding reception.”

Marcos found that his brain was stuck in first gear, not letting any of his thoughts move forward. In the last ten years, ever since his brother had broken up with his high-school sweetheart, he’d lived a life that every bachelor—and a lot of married men as well, probably—viewed with unabashed envy.

“You’re getting married.”

Rafe slid forward in his chair, peering more closely at Marcos. “You been dipping into the cooking sherry a little too much, little brother?” he wanted to know, amused. “Catch up, Marcos,” he urged. “Yes, in order to have a wedding reception, you have to get married first. And I’m getting married.”

Marcos was having a great deal of trouble wrapping his head around the concept. “To Melina Lawrence?”

Rafe and Melina had been the ideal couple in high school, the couple everyone else aspired to be: the jock and the cheerleader, the king and queen of the homecoming dance. There wasn’t a single person who hadn’t expected them to get married once they graduated college.

But life had a way of intervening, of creating circumstances that divided Melina’s loyalties between pursuing her own dreams, which were tied to Rafe’s, and being there for the family that, as it turned out, desperately needed her.

Melina chose the latter, which in turn led to some hard feelings between them. She and Rafe broke up. That was all that Rafe ever said on the subject, and his brothers knew better than to ask for any more details than Rafe was willing to volunteer.

“So.” Rafe grew more serious. “Can you accommodate me?”

Was he kidding? Marcos would move heaven and earth if he had to. “Hey, you’re my big brother, leave it to me.”

“I haven’t told you the date yet,” Rafe pointed out.

Marcos shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll have your reception. I know Aunt María and Uncle José would have my head if I didn’t close Red down for this private party. You know how Aunt María is about seeing us all married off.”

Yes, he knew. It was his aunt’s life goal. Rafe laughed. “Now that I’m officially out of the picture, that’ll give her more time to work on you.”

So far, Marcos had managed to escape his aunt’s attention. The woman probably knew a hopeless case when she saw one, he speculated. Besides, work was his primary focus. He didn’t have time to wine and dine a woman on an ongoing basis to win her heart. When he came right down to it, no woman’s heart was as important to him as his career.

“She can work all she wants,” Marcos told his brother, then fell back on the standard excuse rather than talk about his dedication to forging a career, even though the old Rafe would have understood. But the old Rafe didn’t have stars in his eyes the way this one did. “I’m having too good a time being free.”

“I used to say the same thing,” Rafe acknowledged. He looked more closely at his younger brother. “I didn’t mean it, either.”

Rafe’s so-called confession made Marcos feel uneasy. “That’s what makes us different, brother. I do.” Marcos pulled over the old-fashioned desk calendar he kept, a gift from his aunt. “Okay, so do you have a date yet?”

“I’ll have to get back to you about that.”

“Fine.” He pushed the calendar back again. “You know where to find me.”

About to leave, Rafe opened the office door and then paused in the doorway. “I thought I saw Wendy Fortune outside in the courtyard, waiting on tables,” he said, mentioning the more exclusive part of the restaurant. He’d heard around town that her parents were trying to instill a work ethic in her. He also knew that Marcos didn’t like playing babysitter. “How’s that working out for you?”

Marcos’s expression instantly soured. “It’s not. Damn woman is like a burr under my saddle.”

Rafe’s grin all but split his face. “Uh-oh.”

Marcos looked at his brother sharply. Filial camaraderie was temporarily placed on hold. “What ‘uh-oh’?” he asked sharply.

“Nothing,” Rafe answered innocently, a ruse that Marcos wasn’t buying. “Just, that’s the way it usually starts.” And then he stated the obvious. “She’s a really beautiful girl.”

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