Mail-Order Cinderella. Kathryn Jensen
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And that flick of soft pink tongue every now and then…lordy, what that did to his lower regions.
Maybe he should run the tape again. Just for the heck of it.
“Well, good luck, Romeo,” Jason said cheerfully. “Personally, I think if you stuck with one girlfriend for more than three months, you might find one with long-term potential.”
“It’s not their staying power I worry about.”
Man to man—the universal question. Will one woman ever be enough for me…for the rest of my life?
“Yeah, well.” Jason shrugged. “You never know until the right one comes along. When she’s meant for you, everything falls into place. Look at how Adele has changed my view of marriage.” He broke out in a boyish grin that Tyler envied. What he wouldn’t give to feel that carefree in the middle of all they had been going through in recent weeks.
Tyler changed the subject. “So, what brought you down here this late in the day?” His brother was VP in charge of marketing, and had relatively little to do with the construction end of the business.
Jason’s smile slid away as he moved farther inside his brother’s office and closed the door behind him. “Something you ought to know about before the press catches wind. Link Templeton thinks he’s found evidence that Mike Dodd was…well, that elevator he was on might not have crashed fifteen floors without a little help.”
Only a few weeks ago, a fatal accident at the building site of the Fortune Memorial Children’s Hospital had taken the life of their foreman. When the police didn’t immediately declare Dodd’s death accidental, the Fortunes called in a private investigator to help get to the bottom of the incident quickly and reassure investors.
Tyler dropped his boot heels from the desktop with a thud and shot to his feet. “Are you sure? Is he sure?”
“Link’s a pretty cautious guy. He wouldn’t come out with some outrageous theory unless he had proof. He believes the elevator was sabotaged, which means Mike might have been intentionally killed.”
“You mean murdered.” Now that it had been said out loud, Tyler felt it must be true.
Dodd had been a crucial cog in the hospital project, which was a labor of love for the Fortunes. Everyone in the family was taking part—raising money, putting in unpaid hours of labor, donating materials, gathering regional and state political support and local sympathy for a medical facility that would serve the young, ethnically diverse population around Pueblo.
Once the hospital was complete, injured and sick children wouldn’t need to be rushed off to Tucson, twenty-five miles to the north, for medical care. Papago families would receive care for their children without requiring proof of insurance or demands that they pay astronomical medical costs they couldn’t afford. This had been his family’s dream for as long as Tyler had been in the business, and that was as far back as he could remember.
If someone wanted to hurt the Fortunes, sabotaging the hospital was a perfect way to do it.
“This is terrible. Have you told Dad yet?”
Jason lifted a hand in a helpless gesture. “I’m on my way to the ranch right now.”
Tyler nodded grimly. A family didn’t acquire the wealth of the Fortunes without making enemies along the way. But he hadn’t wanted to believe envy and greed could push anyone in Pueblo to murder.
“You want to come with me when I give Dad the news?” Jason asked.
Tyler found himself staring at the dark TV screen. “No. You go ahead, I’ll get the details later. Too much to do here.”
Jason shook his head as if he understood the flow of his brother’s thoughts. “You can’t order a wife as if she were a pizza.”
Tyler flicked a piece of lint off his denim shirt. “Marriages used to be arranged on a lot less than a videotape.”
“You’re crazy, you know that?” Jason threw his strong arms around Tyler and thumped him fondly on the back.
Minutes later, Tyler found himself standing in the middle of his office, still staring at the dark TV screen. Was he crazy for wanting to take command of his own future? Women made demands on their men. Children required unlimited love and constant attention to their physical needs. All of that time spent relating to family members ate up precious work hours and changed a man. Whether he wanted to be changed or not.
The cold, black expanse of screen challenged Tyler. Alternatives. He desperately needed alternatives. Tyler reached for the remote again. Julie Parker’s smooth, pale countenance materialized before him.
He was partial to flaming redheads. Miss Parker’s hair was paper-bag brown. He melted in the presence of blue eyes. Hers were a subtle mossy hue. Tall, leggy women instantly attracted him. He glanced down at the stats accompanying her tape. She was barely five-foot-two. He’d tower over her.
She was all wrong for him physically. But he could tell by her shy manner, frequent blushes, and the way she repeatedly averted her eyes from the camera that she wasn’t the type to assert herself. This might actually work to your advantage, a persistent voice whispered to him. And all she asked from him was a baby.
She needed a husband; he needed a wife. A simple trade-off.
She had just about given up hope. In less than ten days, the six-month membership Julie had purchased in the upscale matchmaking service would expire. She couldn’t afford to sign up for another. She could barely afford next month’s rent.
That same night, the telephone rang. “We’ve received a request for a personal contact,” the woman on the other end cheerfully informed her. “I can overnight a copy of the gentleman’s tape to you. Let us know if you’d like to meet him. He looks like an excellent match for you, Miss Parker.”
Julie was skeptical. Her first thought was: This is the bait to make me sign up for another six months.
But when the tape arrived along with a brief biographical sketch, she wondered if this might actually be the moment she’d been waiting for. Someone was interested in meeting her! And he knew from the start what she looked like, how awkwardly she behaved around strangers and what she expected of him.
Last fall, it had taken every ounce of her precious store of courage to contact Soulmate Search after rejecting every other dating service in the phone book because they’d seemed embarrassingly tacky if not outright perilous. Imagine divulging your private hopes and dreams to hundreds of absolute strangers! And they could just forget about her climbing into a car with a stranger.
But this company guaranteed confidentiality and a thorough screening of applicants to weed out undesirables. She would receive names and video interviews of men from all across the country who were serious about marriage and potentially interested in her. Soulmate’s clients were men and women with stable incomes who wouldn’t mind flying to the opposite coast to meet a potential mate. No lounge lizards, prison inmates or out-of-work loafers here!
The next day Julie had blown her entire savings on one last-ditch effort to find a man who could give her what she so desperately needed.
Now her heart beat frantically in her chest and her fingertips felt moist as she slipped the tape cartridge into the used video player she’d purchased for ten dollars at the thrift shop. Julie poured herself a glass of the generic Chablis she kept handy as a cooking ingredient. The love she would have lavished on a child she put into creating exotic dishes, even though she had no one to share them with in her tiny apartment. She took three fast sips to steady her nerves, then pushed a button and stood back from the screen, her grocery-store wineglass cupped between trembling hands.
The man on the screen was drop-dead gorgeous. This had to be a mistake.
Julie ejected the film, inspected the label, reread the accompanying letter.
No, everything appeared to be in order. His name was Tyler Fortune, just as the woman on the phone had said. He lived in Pueblo, Arizona,