Fortune's Cinderella. Karen Templeton
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taken for granted … until witnessing Wendy and Marcos together.
As far as he could tell, the relationship his sister and new brother-in-law had seemed to be based on mutual regard and respect for each other’s opinions and intelligence. God knew, he thought with a smile, his strong-willed sister was not easy to live with, but Marcos seemed to actually thrive on the challenge. The stimulation. And while Wendy would never be “tamed” by any stretch of the imagination, being with Marcos had obviously forced her to focus on something other than herself. And that could only be a good thing.
Which made Scott wonder—not for the first time, as it happened—what, exactly, had kept his parents married for more than thirty-five years. Loyalty? Habit? After all, it was no secret—at least to their children—that the relationship was strained. Strike that: it might be a secret to his father. Because as Virginia Alice’s role as mother became more and more attenuated, Scott more and more often caught the haunted “Now what?” look in her eyes.
And yet, Scott had no doubt their bond was indissoluble, if for no other reason than appearances meant too much to both of them. Lousy reason to stay together, if you asked him. And why, in all likelihood, their older progeny sucked at personal relationships. Business savvy? The drive to succeed? Sure. Those, they all had in spades. But the ability to form a lasting attachment to another human being?
Not so much.
Scott exhaled, thinking of his own track record in that department. Granted, his lack of commitment was by choice. He enjoyed the company of women, certainly, but falling in love had never been on his agenda. Or in his nature, most likely.
Which was why seeing Wendy so … blissful was … unsettling. As though she hailed from a different gene pool altogether. Cripes, she was so young. So fearless, falling in love with the same reckless abandon as she did everything else—
His phone rang, rescuing him from pointless musings.
“Scott Fortune here—”
“Mr. Fortune, glad I caught you. It’s Jack Sullivan. Your pilot?”
“Oh, yes … What can I do for you?”
He heard a dry, humorless laugh on the other end of the line. “Not a whole lot, I don’t imagine. Afraid I’ve got some bad news—all this rain’s flooded out the route I normally take to the airport.” At Scott’s muttered curse, the pilot said, “Oh, I’ll be there, don’t you worry. Just gonna take a bit longer than I’d figured.”
“How much longer are we talking?”
“Hard to say. Might be a half hour or so, maybe a little more. But until this weather straightens out I’m not taking that bird up, anyway. So y’all just go on ahead and sit tight, have a cup of coffee, and hopefully this will have all blown over by the time I get there. Good news is, hundred miles east of here, it’s completely clear!”
“Problem?” Mike asked quietly behind him. His brother’s thinly veiled criticism made Scott bristle, as it always had. Not that he’d take the bait.
“Pilot’s going to be late,” he said mildly, slipping the phone back into his pocket. “Roads are flooded.” At Mike’s soft snort, he added, “Hard as this might be to believe, there are some things even we can’t control.”
As if on cue, they hit a squall that was like going through a car wash, making Javier slow the car to a crawl and Scott’s mother suck in a worried breath.
“Man,” Javier said. “I sure wouldn’t want to fly in this weather. I’m beginning to think your sister had the right idea, staying put.”
Probably, but despite what he’d said to his brother, Scott was chafing, too, at their plans being derailed, at being in a situation over which he was powerless.
Because first, last and foremost, he was a Fortune, and Fortunes did not like being told “no.”
Ever.
From behind the snack bar counter, Christina Hastings watched the well-heeled group trickle through the front door and across the tiled lobby of the chichi private airport and reminded herself of two things: one, that being envious was a waste of time and energy; and two, that being grateful for what you already had went a long way toward receiving more.
And besides, she had goals. Because a girl had to have goals, or she might as well shrivel up and die.
Sighing, she tossed her long braid over her shoulder, then checked the coffeepot to make sure it was still full, casting a baleful glance toward the two-story window running the full length of the lobby’s back wall. It was dumb, letting the gloomy weather get to her. Dumber still that she’d agreed to come in on her day off, in case somebody had a sudden hankering for a premade Caesar salad with three bites of chicken or an overpriced bottle of water. By rights, she should be home, wrapped up in a throw on her sofa with her dog, Gumbo, smooshed up beside her, watching Buffy DVDs and enjoying the next-to-last day with her little fake Christmas tree before she took it down for another year.
Instead, she was amusing herself—although she used the term loosely—by watching the goings-on in front of her. Living in Red Rock—as opposed to under one—it had been impossible not to hear about the Fortune/Mendoza wedding at Red, the local family restaurant in town she’d only ever seen from the outside. Or that the small jet still in its hangar on the other side of the flight school building had been chartered to take the bride’s family back to Atlanta. Not that it apparently mattered whether the men—all tall, all dark, all handsome, sheesh—were here, there or in Iceland, given their preoccupation with their spiffy, and probably five-minutes-old, electronic toys. As opposed to her ancient flip phone with half the numbers rubbed off. Made texting a mite tricky.
Not that she had anybody to text. She was just saying.
“Hey, there. What’s good today?”
She smiled for the improbably red-headed flight attendant she’d seen once or twice before, dressed in a nondescript uniform of black pants and vest over a long-sleeved white shirt. “Same as always. Although the turkey sandwiches don’t look half bad.”
“Let me have one of those, then. And a Diet Coke.”
“You flying out with this group?”
“Yep. The Atlanta branch of the Fortunes. Older guy’s the father, the younger men his sons.” As the flight attendant waited for her order, she nodded at the women now gathering in the posh lounge tucked underneath the second-floor offices on the other side of the lobby. “Not sure about the women, though. Although the little blonde looks exactly like the older one near to having a conniption, so I’m gonna guess she’s a daughter.” She pulled the tab on her soda. “Wonder what’s got Mrs. Fortune so bent out of shape?”
She was, too. Elegant, reed-thin, the still-beautiful, silver-haired woman periodically pressed a tissue to her mouth, while the conservatively dressed blonde tried—with little success, it seemed to Christina—to comfort her distraught mama. A third woman—younger than the others, very pretty, oblivious to what was going on around her—flounced past them to plop down on one of the sofas. She leaned over to tug an e-reader out of her giant designer purse, her long, dark curls spilling over the shoulder of her cropped suede jacket, which matched her killer boots.
As the attendant droned on about the weather, Christina watched the Fortune brothers—one dressed like he was about to meet the president, another in a sportcoat and jeans, the third decked out in a wicked cool leather jacket and black pants—milling about, each in his own little world. Close in age, looked like. Lord, no wonder the older woman was distraught—she was awfully skinny to have pushed out that many kids that close together. A thought that evinced a brief pang Christina had no intention of indulging.
She handed the attendant her change; the redhead thanked her, then left to go talk with Mrs. Fortune. The brunette, apparently too fidgety to stay seated, got up to wander aimlessly into the lobby to look at a glassed-in display of model planes in the middle of the floor. A second later some guy in a cowboy hat strode past, carrying