A Small Fortune Read online

  Marnie, on the other hand, always tended to find too many attributes—usually imagined and not real—in the man of the moment.

  But at least she’d been trying.

  Maybe trying too hard, she thought the next moment as her mother’s voice seemed to echo in her head, cautioning her about taking in “strays.”

  “So, tell me about Jace’s dad,” Nicole coaxed suddenly. She saw the surprise in Marnie’s face. “Hey, it’s a small town, Marn, remember? Word gets around. Fast.”

  “What kind of word?” Marnie asked suspiciously. Gossips thought nothing of fabricating a thing or two and adding it to an existing rumor, padding it just for effect.

  Marnie held her breath as her friend answered her question.

  “You know, that he’s handsome, kind and he’s a Fortune, which means he comes from good people and really nice money,” she added with a wide grin. “You ask me, he sounds perfect.”

  Actually, he was, Marnie thought. But it wouldn’t be right to carry on about Asher, not when Nicole was currently between candidates whom she would ultimately reject. So, to spare her friend’s feelings, Marnie said, “Maybe not so perfect. After all, his ex-wife walked out on him.”

  That certainly didn’t sound like a deterrent to Nicole. “So? Go comfort the poor man.” She grinned as she paused to take a sip of her drink. “C’mon, Marnie, what have you got to lose? Take a chance. He just might be the one.”

  That was her line, Marnie couldn’t help thinking. To her surprise, for some reason she found herself making noises like her mother in response. “Maybe, but he’s got to make the first move.”

  Now, that surprised Nicole. “You mean—he hasn’t done anything?”

  “Well, he did kiss me,” Marnie admitted, ready to place a disclaimer on the event that had heated up the very blood in her veins.

  But Nicole never gave her the chance to say anything, because as soon as Marnie told her that Asher had kissed her, Nicole triumphantly declared, “Aha!” And then she looked more closely at her friend. Marnie did not look thrilled to death. “Honey, if you don’t want him, just toss the man my way. I know just what to do to put a smile on his face.”

  To which Marnie cautioned, “Not so fast, Nic.”

  That only made Nicole grin broadly. “I thought you might change your mind. This kiss, when did it happen?”

  “Last night.”

  The admission startled Nicole.

  She stared at Marnie in disbelief. “Last night? Then what are you doing here with me? Why aren’t you over at his place, trying to appear casual when you’re really waiting for Act Two?”

  Now Marnie was really lost. “Act Two?”

  “Obviously you’re a newbie in these matters—either that or you just haven’t been paying attention,” Nicole teased. “All right, I’ll go over it for you. The hero breaks the ice in Act One. Act Two is when the real action takes place. Wait, you didn’t push him away and act all indignant, did you?”

  Pushing Asher away was just about the last thing in the world she would have wanted to do. “No, it was very sweet, really.”

  “And that’s all?” Nicole asked, disappointed.

  Marnie knew what her friend was waiting for. Details. “Also incredibly passionate and damn near bone-melting.”

  Nicole smiled, letting her imagination go. “That’s better. Okay, dinner and a movie are officially canceled,” she declared, putting her fork down and raising her hand to catch the waiter’s attention. “We’re leaving and you’re getting back on that horse, my friend.”

  Had Nicole always talked in riddles this way, or was that something that had occurred just recently? “Horse? What horse?”

  “The one that figuratively threw you Asher Fortune, for God’s sake. Do I have to spell out everything for you? I think your kissing him scared you—”

  “He kissed me,” Marnie corrected.

  Nicole was not about to be thrown off the track she was on. “And you kissed him back, right?”

  “Yes,” Marnie almost grudgingly admitted, knowing that Nicole would just run amok with the implications behind a mutual kiss. She hadn’t settled the matter to her satisfaction in her own head yet, and the last thing she wanted was to have Nicole start giving her this annoying, knowing look.

  But for once Nicole surprised her. “So get back there and do it again. Do it for me if not for yourself.”

  “For you,” Marnie repeated, amused and bemused at the same time.

  “Hey, I’m living vicariously here. Besides, if you decide that Asher Fortune really isn’t right for you, the guy’s gonna be twice as vulnerable as he supposedly is right now,” Nicole told her. “Don’t ask me how I know that he’s vulnerable. I know you. Those are the kinds of guys you’re attracted to—and I get to swoop in to the rescue.”

  Nicole smiled beatifically as the waiter approached. “Check please,” she told him. Turning to Marnie for a second, she interjected, “My treat—don’t argue,” in the form of an order. “And hurry.” This last instruction was meant for the young waiter with the trim hips. “My friend here has a man to catch.”

  Nicole seemed completely oblivious of the mortified but dirty look that Marnie was giving her.

  Chapter Eleven

  “When’s Marnie going to get here, Daddy?” Jace wanted to know. He shifted impatiently from foot to foot as he quizzed his father.

  The child had been alternating between moping and having occasional spurts of unfocused, disruptive energy. So far, the casualties—a drinking glass and an old vase Asher had never really cared for—had been minor. But he knew that he was by no means out of the woods as far as the matter of accidental breakage went until Jace was finally down for the night and sound asleep.

  Right now that, too, seemed pretty much like an unattainable dream to him.

  “She’s busy tonight, Jace,” he told his son, saying it as if it were new information and he hadn’t already said the very same thing to him possibly a dozen times during the long course of the day, except that the word today had been used instead of tonight at the time.

  “Busy?” Jace echoed in childish disbelief. “She’s still busy? Busy doing what?” he wanted to know, his impatience clearly escalating.

  Dinner had been pretty much a disaster, both the preparation and the subsequent consummation, neither of which had been satisfactorily achieved.

  Asher felt as if he was really beginning to run out of patience himself.

  Turning to his son, he placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders, holding him still as he addressed the question. Again.

  “Marnie does have a life outside of us, buddy. She was teaching her riding students this morning, and as for tonight, she called and said something about having dinner with a friend and then going to the movies.”

  If he were being truthful with himself, Asher had to admit he wasn’t overly thrilled with the excuse, either, except that in his case, he found himself wondering if this “friend,” whom Marnie hadn’t identified by name or gender, was actually some man who was taking her out on a date.

  Ever since she’d mentioned it to him over the phone today, he’d been dealing with conflicting emotions. There were definite strains of jealousy battling with his insistence that he had no right to be jealous, that he really wasn’t ready to undertake any sort of a relationship yet, especially since his last one had been nothing short of a raging failure.

  But that didn’t stop him from feeling like this, and Jace’s restlessness was not helping the matter.

  “When will that be over?” Jace wanted to know with a giant sigh.

  Asher knew where his son was going with this. He tried to nip it in the bud. “Too late for her to come over tonight.”

  The answer was not acceptable to the unhappy little boy. “But she has to come over. I can’t
go to sleep unless she reads me a story.”

  Jace made it sound as if it were a nightly ritual and Marnie was skipping out on it. The kid did have a flair for drama, Asher couldn’t help thinking.

  “Once,” he pointed out to the boy. “She did that once. You went to sleep all those other nights without her, remember? I was the one who read you the stories. Does she read stories so much better than I do?” he asked, trying to get the boy to see reason.

  He should have known better.

  “Yes,” Jace answered bluntly without any hesitation whatsoever.

  So much for the boy growing up to be in the diplomatic corps. “Good thing my feelings don’t get hurt easily,” Asher quipped.

  Jace seemed to be oblivious of the effect his comment had on his father. He was only focused on one thing. “I want Marnie. Please?” the boy added with a quivering lip. “Call her, Daddy. Call her for me,” he pleaded. “Tell her I want her to come over.”

  Asher supposed that he could put his foot down and flat-out say, “No,” but he knew damn well that Jace was not about to give up. This little back-and-forth thing had the markings of something that could go on all night.

  So he decided to try to strike a bargain with the boy instead.

  “Okay, I’ll call her,” he said to Jace, “but if I do, even if she says she can’t come, you have to go to bed.” He looked directly into his son’s eyes. “Deal?”

  The boy thought for a moment, then had a counteroffer to give him. Asher had expected nothing less. “Can I be the one to talk to her?”

  “All right, but just to say good night.” He knew that most parents would have said that he was surrendering, but he was fairly confident that the call would go straight to voice mail. He’d still get Jace to bed per their agreement, and this way, he wouldn’t be the bad guy.

  “Then deal,” the boy agreed. He cocked his head, waiting. “Are you gonna call her number now?”

  The sooner this was out of the way, the sooner he’d get Jace upstairs and to bed, he told himself. It had been a really long day.

  “Sure, why not? As long as you promise to honor our deal.”

  “I promise,” Jace said solemnly.

  “Okay, I’m taking you at your word,” Asher told his son.

  Taking out his cell phone, he tapped out Marnie’s number on his keypad. Halfway through the procedure, Asher realized that he didn’t have to look her number up. Apparently, it was etched into his brain.

  He told himself it was only because he’d called her so often, asking her to come over and watch Jace, not because she was preying on his mind, lingering there like a melody that refused to go away.

  The call, as he’d predicted, went straight to voice mail. As she told whoever was calling to please leave a message, Asher held the phone out to his son so he could hear Marnie’s voice.

  It wasn’t that he thought his son doubted him so much as he found Jace to be possibly the most cautious four-year-old on record.

  Taking hold of the cell phone with both hands, Jace made his plea. “Marnie, you gotta come over. I can’t go to sleep unless you read a story to me.” As he concluded his supplication, his head instantly shot up when he heard the doorbell. “That’s her!” he cried excitedly, his eyes growing as wide as proverbial saucers.

  Asher didn’t know who was at the door. The only thing he did know was that it couldn’t be Marnie. For the time being, he ignored it, more concerned with his son’s reaction and how to let him down gently. Four was an extremely vulnerable age.

  “Jace, I already told you, she went to the movies tonight. Her phone’s turned off. By the time she gets this message, you’ll be asleep a long time.”

  “No, I won’t,” the boy argued. “And that’s her at the door!”

  Asher didn’t know whether just to give in to the boy or try to get him to be reasonable. Neither option sounded all that promising at the moment.

  And who the hell was ringing his doorbell at this time of night? he thought impatiently as the chimes went through their refrain again.

  It was probably one of his brothers, Asher decided as he crossed to the front door. He was not in the friendliest of moods at the moment.

  “Yes?” he all but shouted as he yanked open the front door.

  It wasn’t one of his brothers.

  Marnie looked somewhat taken aback by the barked greeting.

  “I decided to come over and—and—and put Jace to bed,” she finally said, losing her nerve at the last moment. What Nicole had coached her to say was that she had come here to find out if he wanted to finish what he’d started last night.

  Confronted with the man and looking up into his face, Marnie felt suddenly unsure of herself. It was a completely novel reaction, one she had never experienced before because ordinarily she felt quite confident and self-assured.

  Just what kind of an effect was this man having on her?

  “You’re magical!” Jace joyously exclaimed, throwing his arms around her. Since he was so small, all he managed to do was wrap his arms partway around the lower part of her hips. “Daddy said you were at the movies, but all I had to do was ask you to come over and you did. You’re here!”

  There was no mistaking the awe in his voice. The kind of awe that she found really difficult to turn away from or ignore.

  “See, Daddy?” Jace craned his neck for a moment, looking at his father as he continued to hold on to Marnie. “I told you she’d come here for me.” He turned his attention back to Marnie and told her, “I’ve got the book all picked out already. I picked it out this morning so it would be ready for you.”

  Talk about being prepared. But then, Jace had never followed the normal rules that governed the behavior of the average four-year-old. He’d been unique from the moment he was born, Asher thought.

  “I do believe you have yourself a budding fan club here in my son,” he told Marnie.

  “I’m very flattered,” Marnie replied, draping her arm around the boy’s small shoulders. “Okay, now you scoot upstairs and get ready for bed. I’ll be up in a few minutes to tuck you in.”

  Rather than take her at her word, when she withdrew her arm, Jace was quick to lace his fingers through her hand.

  “Come with me, Marnie.” He was smart enough to add a heartfelt “Please?” to his entreaty.

  “How can I refuse such a charming young man?” she responded. It was clear that she wasn’t even going to try. “Okay, let’s go upstairs.”

  As he had the evening before, Asher followed his son and the object of Jace’s affection up the stairs to the boy’s room.

  Once inside, Jace began to hurry out of his regular play clothes and into his pajamas.

  It took him all of five minutes to change his clothes, brush his teeth, present Marnie with his selection for that evening’s story and then climb into bed, pulling his covers up around himself.

  His bright blue eyes were all but riveted to her.

  He was ready.

  Marnie wasn’t about to disappoint him. Picking up the storybook, she got started reading.

  To Asher’s utter amazement, it took exactly four pages for his son’s eyes to close. And two more pages for the boy’s breathing to sound even and measured. And peaceful.

  Marnie read two more pages after that—slowly—just to be sure the boy was really asleep. Easing the book closed, she watched Jace’s small face, all the while alert for any telltale movements to indicate that the boy wasn’t really asleep.

  But he was, and asleep, Jace looked just like any other four-year-old little boy.

  Angelic.

  Talk about looks being deceptive, she mused with a smile.

  Quietly getting off the rocking chair next to Jace’s bed, she placed the storybook on the cushion and tiptoed out of the room.

  Asher,
she’d noticed, was looking at her differently than he had been yesterday.

  Just what was behind that look?

  Was he having his doubts?

  In reviewing what had occurred last night, would he just rather she just quietly faded off into the sunset instead of being here?

  Sorry, she thought. No can do.

  She’d never been one to cut bait and run—and she’d never been more not inclined to do that than right now. She wanted to see this through to whatever conclusion it might lead to.

  No matter what.

  Unable to contain himself any longer, Asher turned to look at the woman his son adored, facing her at the bottom of the stairs to ask, “How did you do that?”

  She’d stopped abruptly when Asher asked his question. Consequently, she was left standing on the last step.

  Marnie wasn’t sure just what he was referring to. “How did I do what?”

  “Appear on our doorstep like that just as Jace finished begging you to come over on the phone? I thought you told me that you were having dinner and then going to see a movie. With a friend,” he added with an emphasis that Marnie thought sounded a little forced and stilted.

  “I was,” she told him, “but halfway through dinner, there was a sudden change of plans.”

  She was not about to tell him that Nicole had said she needed to find out if that kiss had been just a onetime thing or if they had some sort of a future—however short-lived—together.

  “I didn’t spoil any of your plans by showing up now, did I?” she asked, suddenly realizing that she’d taken a great deal for granted, coming over like this without giving him any sort of warning.

  “No, no plans,” he assured her. “But you did just make my evening a whole lot easier by reading to him. He insists that only you have the magic touch.” When she looked at him quizzically, he explained, “When I asked him if he thought you read stories better than I did, he gave me an emphatic ‘yes.’”

  She cringed inwardly for Asher, knowing how she would have felt if her son had told her he preferred having a relative stranger read to him over her.