A Small Fortune Read online

  A LITTLE FORTUNE IS A GOOD THING

  Marnie McCafferty has received her share of propositions over the years, but never one like this. Little Jace Fortune is determined to make his new nanny a permanent part of the family. The problem is he hasn’t bothered to okay his plan with his father, the amazingly hunky, comfortably rich and completely love-shy Asher Fortune.

  Normally, Asher would be amused by his son’s matchmaking efforts. But this time, Jace has struck a nerve. It would be all too easy for Asher to fall for the unaffected, straight-talking brunette who has become his son’s nanny; all too easy for Marnie to mean too much. But the millionaire from Atlanta will consider no further investments of the heart—no matter how sweet the payoff might be....

  “Jace didn’t have that bad of an idea,” Asher went on, groping his way through a conversation that he was basically winging from the very start.

  He wasn’t good at this, he couldn’t help thinking. He’d always been a man who was good with his hands, not with the words coming out of his mouth.

  “And which idea was that?” she asked, trying to coax a conversation out of the man. He was very much the strong, silent type, she thought. That had its place, too, but right now she craved a good conversation.

  “About you moving in.”

  He saw her eyes widen and realized his mistake.

  Quick, you’re scaring her off. Do something. Say something. Something smart for a change, he amended angrily.

  “As his nanny, I mean,” Asher blurted out.

  “As his nanny,” she repeated slowly.

  Was he making a point of that because he was afraid she might get other ideas—or was he the one getting other ideas?

  And if so, just what kind of ideas was he getting?

  Dear Reader,

  By now, you’ve already “ridden” through the first two Fortune books and know that the Atlanta Fortune boys, Shane, Asher, Wyatt and Sawyer, picked up and left, moved to Red Rock, Texas. The brothers bought a huge piece of property and had four sprawling homes built on it, far enough apart not to get on each other’s nerves, close enough to be there for each other if the need ever arose. The reason for the boys’ mass exodus was that their father handed over half the shares in the family business to a woman they had never heard of—and offered no explanation for his actions.

  In Asher’s specific case, he’d come out to get a fresh start for himself and his four-year-old son, Jace. Ever since the boy’s mother walked out on the two of them six months earlier, Jace has been acting out. So against his better judgment, Asher accepts the help of a part-time babysitter and very quickly finds himself full-time in love with her. But Asher has a few self-doubts when it comes to his ability to make judgment calls. There are some kinks to work out on the journey to happily-ever-after. But don’t doubt that they will eventually get there.

  As always, I thank you for reading my books and from the bottom of my heart, I wish you someone to love who loves you back.

  Best,

  Marie Ferrarella

  Marie Ferrarella

  A Small Fortune

  Selected books by Marie Ferrarella

  Harlequin Special Edition

  ¶A Match for the Doctor #2117

  ¶What the Single Dad Wants... #2122

  **The Baby Wore a Badge #2131

  ¶¶Fortune’s Valentine Bride #2167

  ¶Once Upon a Matchmaker #2192

  §§Real Vintage Maverick #2210

  ¶A Perfectly Imperfect Match #2240

  ~~A Small Fortune #2246

  Silhouette Special Edition

  ~Diamond in the Rough #1910

  ~The Bride with No Name #1917

  ~Mistletoe and Miracles #1941

  ††Plain Jane and the Playboy #1946

  ~Travis’s Appeal #1958

  Loving the Right Brother #1977

  The 39-Year-Old Virgin #1983

  ~A Lawman for Christmas #2006

  ¤¤Prescription for Romance #2017

  ¶Doctoring the Single Dad #2031

  ¶Fixed Up with Mr. Right? #2041

  ¶Finding Happily-Ever-After #2060

  ¶Unwrapping the Playboy #2084

  °Fortune’s Just Desserts #2107

  Harlequin Romantic Suspense

  Private Justice #1664

  †The Doctor’s Guardian #1675

  *A Cavanaugh Christmas #1683

  Special Agent’s Perfect Cover #1688

  *Cavanaugh’s Bodyguard #1699

  *Cavanaugh Rules #1715

  *Cavanaugh’s Surrender #1725

  Colton Showdown #1732

  A Widow’s Guilty Secret #1736

  Silhouette Romantic Suspense

  †A Doctor’s Secret #1503

  †Secret Agent Affair #1511

  *Protecting His Witness #1515

  Colton’s Secret Service #1528

  The Heiress’s 2-Week Affair #1556

  *Cavanaugh Pride #1571

  *Becoming a Cavanaugh #1575

  The Agent’s Secret Baby #1580

  *The Cavanaugh Code #1587

  *In Bed with the Badge #1596

  *Cavanaugh Judgment #1612

  Colton by Marriage #1616

  *Cavanaugh Reunion #1623

  †In His Protective Custody #1644

  Harlequin American Romance

  Pocketful of Rainbows #145

  °°The Sheriff’s Christmas Surprise #1329

  °°Ramona and the Renegade #1338

  °°The Doctor’s Forever Family #1346

  Montana Sheriff #1369

  Holiday in a Stetson #1378: “The Sheriff Who Found Christmas”

  °°Lassoing the Deputy #1402

  °°A Baby on the Ranch #1410

  °°Forever Christmas #1426

  *Cavanaugh Justice

  †The Doctors Pulaski

  ~Kate’s Boys

  ††The Fortunes of Texas: Return to Red Rock

  ¤¤The Baby Chase

  ¶Matchmaking Mamas

  °The Fortunes of Texas: Lost...and Found

  °°Forever, Texas

  **Montana Mavericks:

  The Texans Are Coming!

  ¶¶The Fortunes of Texas: Whirlwind Romance

  §§Montana Mavericks: Back in the Saddle

  ~~The Fortunes of Texas: Southern Invasion

  Other titles by this author available in ebook format.

  MARIE FERRARELLA

  This USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author has written more than two hundred books for Harlequin Books and Silhouette Books, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

  To

  Marcia Book Adirim

  for always thinking of me

  when you come up with these great sagas

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Marie Ferrarella for her contribution to

  The Fortunes of Texas: Southern Invasion continuity.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epil
ogue

  Excerpt

  Prologue

  “I’m sorry, Asher. I tried. I really tried, but I just can’t do this anymore.”

  Asher Fortune looked on in complete disbelief at the woman standing at the front door. The woman with one hand on the doorknob, the other hand holding a suitcase.

  The woman who, only four years ago, had promised to love him ’til death do them part.

  His brain felt as if it were dashing about in a hundred different directions, desperately looking for a way to make Lynn put her suitcase down and stay.

  “You need help with the house? I’ll get a housekeeper for you. You need help with Jace? I can hire a nanny. Lynn, please, we can work this out,” he insisted.

  But when he went to take the suitcase from her, he found that he couldn’t budge it. Lynn was holding on to it too tightly. Far more tightly than she was holding on to their marriage.

  “No, we can’t,” she fired back, her voice going up almost a complete octave.

  The extra volume woke their son, who had always been an incredibly light sleeper, even as a baby. Jace immediately began to cry, calling for her and adding to the cacophony of raised voices, ire and desperation that seemed to be swelling within the room.

  “Don’t you get it?” Lynn cried, visibly near the breaking point. “It’s too late for all that. Too late for a housekeeper or a nanny.” Lynn took a breath, trying to steady what was left of her disintegrating nerves. “Asher, I don’t want to hurt you. You’re a good man, and I don’t want to hurt Jace, but this is just all wrong.” She knew that now, maybe had even known it then, but he had been so persuasive, so sure they could make a go of this marriage, this family, that she had given in. “It was wrong from the start and it’s my fault. I should never have told you I was pregnant. I should have just—”

  “Don’t say it,” Asher said sharply, cutting her off. He didn’t want to hear Lynn wish away their son. Wish away his son.

  Her face was expressionless. “My not saying it doesn’t make it any less true,” she pointed out unhappily. “I should never have agreed to marry you, never had the baby. I’m not cut out for this.”

  “You haven’t given it enough of a chance,” Asher pleaded.

  “I have given it every chance.” Lynn’s voice almost cracked and she took a second to pull herself together. “This isn’t me, Asher. I’m suffocating. I have to leave,” she insisted, her voice quavering, sliced through with a sharp note of desperation.

  Their son was still crying. Still calling. For her, damn it!

  “What about Jace?” Asher wanted to know.

  She sighed deeply, shaking her head. “He’ll be all right.” A weak smile curved her lips. “He has you.”

  “Listen to him.” Asher gestured toward the stairs, toward their son’s cries. “He’s calling for you. He needs a mother,” he insisted.

  Lynn shook her head again. She tried to pull her wrist away, but he kept on holding it. “I can’t be that for him. It’s not who I am,” she said emphatically. “Find someone else, Asher. You deserve better—and so does Jace.” She looked down at the hand holding on to her wrist. “Please, let me go,” she whispered.

  Asher knew he could physically restrain her, but what good would that do? She was already gone.

  In his heart, if he was being honest with himself, he knew that she’d left a long time ago. This person who was standing before him had only been going through the motions of being a wife and, far more importantly, the motions of being a mother. Maybe he deserved better and maybe he didn’t, but one thing he was certain of. Jace, their three-and-a-half-year-old—the reason this marriage, this sham existed—he deserved better.

  He deserved not to feel that the discord that existed just beneath the surface and made itself known in a hundred different, small ways each day was his fault.

  The boy, exceptionally bright for his age, already looked as if he understood in some way that his mother was upset to actually be a mother.

  Keeping Lynn here by shaming her or bribing her would only make it worse, Asher told himself. And if Jace ever discovered the truth, it would eventually erode the little boy’s self-esteem.

  No, he had to think of Jace. He had to put the boy first, put the boy before his own pain because, despite everything, despite the shouting and the coldness, he still loved Lynn.

  But, unlike what all those songwriters and poets maintained, love did not conquer all and love wasn’t enough.

  It was a sad, painful fact of life.

  Without another word, Asher released his hold on his wife’s wrist and dropped his hand to his side.

  “Thank you,” Lynn said hoarsely. “You’ll be happier without me.”

  Lynn was gone before he could say no, he wouldn’t be.

  With a sigh, Asher turned away from the closed door and went to the foot of the stairs. Refusing to look over his shoulder toward the large bay window, he didn’t watch Lynn walk away from the house. Away from him.

  He couldn’t.

  He had a son who needed him.

  Chapter One

  “C’mon, Ash, it’ll be fun,” Wyatt Fortune cajoled.

  He was trying to coax his older brother out of the self-imposed shell he’d crawled into ever since his marriage had blown up on him. Six months had gone by since the divorce, and even a change of venue hadn’t gotten Asher to move on. It was as if Asher’s soul was locked up in a dark place. His brothers worried about him.

  “You’ve gotta meet the neighbors sometime. Why not on your own terms?” Wyatt pressed. “Besides, most of the family’s dropping by, including a boatload of cousins. You know you can’t hide from all of them. They’ll come looking for you,” Wyatt said with a grin.

  Asher was doing his best to be patient, but he’d never liked being badgered, even by the brothers he loved and had followed out of Atlanta to Red Rock, at the heart of Texas.

  The reason for the latter had come about as a result of an unfortunate schism with their father, the mighty James Marshall Fortune, over his secretly giving away half the shares to JMF to some woman nobody had ever heard of. When it was clear that their father wasn’t about to disclose any of the details, he, Wyatt, Sawyer and Shane had decided to join some of their relatives who were already living in Red Rock, Texas, and they just packed up and left.

  Asher had really thought that giving up his position as Vice President of JMF Financial and becoming a rancher would help him deal with things. It didn’t.

  The idea was that all four of them would try their hand at ranching. To that end, they’d purchased one huge piece of property where they could all live separately without tripping over one another. So four houses were commissioned and constructed on what all four of them considered to be the new family homestead. They’d dubbed it New Fortunes.

  And now, after months of building, the houses were all finally finished.

  Asher felt no different than before. He couldn’t shake the feeling of being swaddled in hopelessness.

  The party Wyatt was currently trying to get him to attend was being held at Wyatt’s house, and it was intended to be a housewarming party for all four of them, seeing as how all their homes had been completed at the same time. Having everyone in one place made it simpler.

  “You mean on your terms, don’t you?” Asher asked pointedly.

  “Don’t get picky on me, Ash,” Wyatt warned, then in the spirit of the party-to-be, relented. “All right, technically, yes, it’s on my terms and at my house, but that’s just because you’d never agree to having it at your place. Besides, we all know that I’m the outgoing one in the family.”

  “You mean the one with the biggest mouth on him,” Shane, the oldest of the four, corrected, managing to keep a perfectly straight face.

  Wyatt shot his brother a knowing look. T
hey were both seen as overachievers. Neither was acquainted with the word slacker. “I wouldn’t talk if I were you.”

  “That’s only because I can’t get in a word edgewise once you start flapping that yap of yours,” Shane countered.

  Asher looked on in silence. He knew what they were doing. His brothers were playing off each other for his benefit, trying to get him to come around and join in the banter, the way he used to.

  But nothing was as it used to be, not since Lynn had walked out on him and on Jace, terminating their marriage.

  Terminating her membership to the parenthood club, as well, by cutting off all of her ties to their son. It broke his heart to hear the boy ask for her, wondering why she wasn’t coming home. Since they’d moved here, though, Jace didn’t mention her as much. Didn’t ask where she was. It was as if this clean start out in the open air had muted the boy’s memory.

  Not so for him, Asher thought.

  Still, his brothers had, in effect, thrown him a lifeline when everything in his life seemed to be crumbling, both on the private front and on the work front. His ordinarily sensible, if somewhat aloof, father acting so irrationally had been almost like a final straw for Asher. It was as if the structure of his whole life had utterly collapsed.

  Who just up and decides one morning to give away half the shares to an empire before breakfast? Especially without discussing it, even in passing, with the family? Granted, their father was the man at the helm, but it wasn’t exactly as if the move he’d made didn’t affect the rest of them. It did, grievously. Especially their poor mother.

  With all this turmoil going on, his brothers were trying to unearth a bit of sunlight to shine on them. He couldn’t fault them. And he certainly didn’t want to be the wet blanket dampening their plans.

  “Okay, sure, why not?” Asher agreed with a careless shrug. “I’ll stick around for the party.”

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Wyatt asked, glancing toward Shane.

  But it was Sawyer, the charmer of the family, who answered him. “You mean that getting big brother over here to agree was just too damn easy?”