A Small Fortune Read online

  “Exactly,” Wyatt confirmed. He pinned Asher with a look. “You’re not planning a disappearing act on me at the last minute, are you?”

  The thought had crossed his mind, but he wasn’t about to say so out loud, so instead Asher replied, “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “Good,” Wyatt agreed with a nod. “Because you wouldn’t want that precocious son of yours to be permanently traumatized by seeing his father being hog-tied and then dragged to the middle of the house warming party right in front of him, now, would you?”

  “You’re an evil, evil man, Wyatt Fortune,” Asher declared with a shake of his head.

  “That’s an honorary title I promise not to take for granted,” Wyatt replied solemnly, even as the corners of his mouth fought to curve. “Party starts in less than an hour. You can either hang around here until it starts or go home and get yourself back here in sixty minutes.”

  “You’re having the party today?” Asher asked in surprise. This was fast, even for Wyatt.

  “It’s today.” Wyatt sighed. “I already told you that two days ago. But don’t worry, you have nothing on your calendar,” he informed his brother. “I checked. That means you have no last-minute excuse, no being called away for a ‘family emergency.’ All the family that can have any so-called emergencies will be at my house tonight. As will you and my nephew.” Wyatt leveled what amounted to a steely look at his older brother. “Right?”

  “Right,” Asher replied wearily and without any enthusiasm.

  He opted to go home and change. Gone a total of forty-seven minutes, he received two calls from Wyatt, reminding him that he was due back.

  The moment Asher crossed the threshold to the now noisy house, his son went flying to greet two of his uncles, Shane and Sawyer, as if he hadn’t seen them in a year rather than earlier today.

  Asher made his way to Wyatt instead.

  Stopping before his brother, he spread his hands wide and announced, “I’m here, as promised.” Although, for how long, I don’t know, he added silently.

  “Great,” Wyatt declared, clapping his brother on the back as if to congratulate him for a monumental achievement. “Tell you what, why don’t you pitch in and help Wendy set up?” he suggested, gesturing toward Wendy Fortune Mendoza, their cousin, who had just walked in behind Asher and his son, carrying a huge serving tray before her.

  A full serving tray, Asher judged, if body language was any indication.

  Wendy was closely followed by her husband, Marcos, who managed the local restaurant, Red, for his aunt and uncle and was responsible, in no small part, for its phenomenal success. People came to the restaurant in droves, lured by the excellent food and the heavenly desserts that Wendy created.

  Red was the restaurant where Wendy had prepared the food that she and Marcos brought to Wyatt’s party.

  Between the two, scurrying in and out on her shaky, chubby little legs, was their daughter, MaryAnne. The toddler had a huge smile on her face and looked as if she didn’t know what to get into first.

  He could remember Jace at that age—except that back then, the boy had actually been tame, at least in comparison to now. At the age of just four, Jace had already managed to wear out five nannies in the six months since his mother had walked out on them. The boy went through the women as if they were so many single-ply tissues.

  Nodding at a few people he recognized, Asher made his way over to his cousin, her husband and their little girl, who had just grabbed the edge of a tablecloth.

  Horrified, Wendy carefully extracted the little fingers from the cloth before the union proved to be fatal for both the tablecloth and whatever dishes currently had the misfortune of being placed on it.

  It was the little girl Asher focused on. “Your waitresses seem to be getting shorter and shorter these days,” he commented. “Did you decide to do away with the height requirement?” he asked with a laugh, brushing a quick kiss to Wendy’s cheek.

  “Not quite.” Wendy laughed. “MaryAnne is supposed to be off center stage,” she confided. “But it seems that her babysitter is late.” Still holding on to her daughter’s hand to keep the child from grabbing something else, she bent over slightly so that her daughter knew she was speaking to her and said, “Look who’s here, MaryAnne. Say hi to your cousin Asher.”

  The little girl flashed a wide smile of incredible wattage at him and then greeted him with an enthusiastic “Hi!”

  “Hi,” Asher echoed back. And then, straightening up again, he looked at Wendy as he nodded a greeting to Marcos. “Need any help?” he offered.

  “Nope, I’ve got everything under control,” she told him. She was gritting her teeth ever so slightly at the time as she carefully deposited the heavy tray she was carrying onto the table.

  And she did, Asher observed. Wendy always had everything under control.

  The realization only served to make him feel twice as bad about his own situation. Here was his cousin Wendy, formerly regarded by all branches of the family as the official family screwup, and she not only was no longer screwing up, but had settled down, gotten married, started a career for herself and had an adorable child to boot.

  A child who had both parents coming home to her.

  It was all so perfect that it made him feel as if he were living inside a disaster.

  He knew he had no one to blame but himself. When he found out that Lynn was pregnant, he’d pressured her into marrying him, convincing her that everything was going to be all right.

  Except that now it wasn’t.

  Looking back, he knew now that there could have been so many different ways to play this, to support Lynn in whatever decision she would have come to on her own. But he’d been so certain that he could somehow be all things to her, to make her happy.

  To make her be glad to be a mother.

  He’d been too naive at the time to know that he couldn’t make a person be happy just because he wanted her to be.

  He had no control over things like that.

  Hell, he couldn’t even find it in his soul to be happy himself. Here he was, standing on the edge of an exciting new future, with a wonderful son and a family who supported him—for the most part. He wasn’t about to let his mind stray to thoughts of his father. The next move belonged to James Marshall, not to him or the brothers who had moved out here with him.

  Though he tried to rein them in, his thoughts insisted on straying again and again to memories of Lynn. He’d tried his damnedest to convince her that things were going to be fine. That they were going to be perfect.

  But Lynn hadn’t wanted just “fine” or even perfect. She’d wanted bells and banjos and the earth moving beneath her feet, not having those feet stuck to the ground because Jace had left a huge lollipop there, just lying in wait for her.

  He had to face it once and for all. Motherhood had made her feel trapped.

  He had made her feel trapped.

  He needed to get some air, Asher thought. Needed to clear his head before it exploded.

  Asher looked around for a way to make a quiet exit and found his path blocked by Wyatt. Again. His brother was frowning, as if he was about to say something he didn’t want to.

  “I didn’t want it to come to this, Ash, but you leave me no choice. You’ve got to get on with your life, bro. Because Lynn has.”

  Asher looked at Wyatt sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he wanted to know. There was an edginess to his voice, an edginess that had completely obliterated his once oh-so-laid-back manner.

  “Just what I said. She’s moved on. Lynn’s engaged to someone else, man,” Wyatt told him, and it was obvious that having to be the one who brought the news to Asher cost him.

  Asher felt as if his throat was closing up. “She’s engaged?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Yeah,” Wyatt said quietly.
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br />   Asher felt as if someone had taken a razor blade to his heart and sliced it all to ribbons. “I guess it wasn’t marriage that Lynn hated. It was marriage to me.”

  “Well, her loss,” Shane said with feeling, joining them. “Remember, the best revenge is living life well,” he reminded his brother, draping an arm around Asher’s shoulders, as if to make sure he wasn’t about to leave. “C’mon, you can be my wingman and I’ll be yours,” he coaxed.

  “Hey, what am I, chopped liver?” Sawyer called out, overhearing.

  “Nope, ’fraid you’re not nearly as good-looking as pâté,” Shane quipped.

  “Man, we’ve gotta get you a pair of glasses, Shane,” Sawyer fired back, shaking his head. “You’re pretty much legally blind.”

  “Ha, you should talk. Did you actually get a good look at that last woman you had hanging off your arm?” Shane wanted to know. “I’ve seen grilled-cheese sandwiches that were sexier.”

  “Stop,” Sawyer pleaded, his hand to his stomach. “You’re making me hungry.”

  Asher slipped away while his brothers were shooting quips back and forth, trying to top one another.

  Lynn, engaged.

  Now he definitely needed to get out and clear his head, Asher thought.

  This seemed like the perfect evening for it. The air was crisp, clear and surprisingly not too cold, considering that it was March.

  He glanced over toward his son. Wyatt’s fiancée, Sarah-Jane, was holding Jace’s hand, and the boy looked smitten.

  He was in good hands, Asher thought. There was no reason to worry about the boy wandering off and getting into trouble. Sarah-Jane was as responsible as they came and he knew she’d look after the boy until he got back, as would his brothers.

  But first, he thought, quietly weaving his way out the back, he needed to sort things out, to get his head on straight again. He could only do that in one place—atop his horse.

  He was well aware that he would have been cited by the etiquette police for just leaving the scene of a party he was technically supposed to be throwing along with his brothers, but he didn’t intend to be gone all evening. Just long enough to feel less mentally stagnant.

  Half an hour, tops, start to finish, he promised himself as he made his way silently out of Wyatt’s newly built house.

  Ten minutes later, out beneath the velvet blanket of stars, he took a deep breath of evening air.

  Texas had its detractors, but he didn’t number himself among them. After two months, he felt more at home here than he had back in Atlanta. He could be himself here.

  Ever since he’d been a young boy, riding had always relaxed him, centered him. It had also become, of late, his favorite form of escape. He found if he rode hard, he had a fighting chance to outrace his thoughts, at least those that were weighing heavily on him.

  This time was no different.

  As Asher rode, not particularly looking at anything, a single thought kept drumming over and over again through his brain: How did everything that seemed so perfect go so wrong?

  He hadn’t a clue.

  But that didn’t stop him from pondering the question.

  Fairly lost in thought, trying to reconstruct the bits and pieces of his life that had led to this supremely sad moment, Asher didn’t even realize that he wasn’t alone on the path anymore. There was a lone car, traveling at a fairly good clip, just outside his line of vision.

  He wasn’t even aware of the vehicle until he all but ran it off the road.

  The sudden screech of tires as the driver fought to control his vehicle abruptly chased away the detached euphoria he’d been so urgently seeking.

  Reality grabbed him by the shoulders and all but shook him into consciousness. He’d almost been the cause of a horrific accident.

  Turning his horse around, Asher quickly made his way back to where he’d seen the car swerve, its less than stable pattern temporarily preserved in the dirt. Concerned, his heart began to pound rapidly.

  The second his horse brought him back to the dark blue sports car that had spun around several times and was now facing the wrong way, tilted unstably to one side, Asher leaped off and began to run the rest of the way.

  The car had one of its rear wheels over the side of the embankment, but the other three tires were still making contact with the dirt road.

  Battling a queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach at thoughts of what might have been, he crouched to be level with the door. Looking inside, there appeared to be only one person in the car.

  “Are you okay in there?” he asked, peering into the dimness.

  And then he saw her. The driver of the car was an absolutely gorgeous woman with long, light brown hair and brown eyes. Currently, they were flashing daggers in his direction. Somehow, that only made her look more beautiful.

  And then she opened her mouth and anger came spilling out.

  “What the hell is wrong with you? How could you not see me?” Marnie McCafferty demanded. “You shouldn’t be on a horse, you should be walking—with a guide dog. Lucky for you I have a weakness for dumb animals.”

  Like a true Texan, he took offense for his horse. “My horse isn’t dumb,” he protested.

  She fixed him with a withering look. “I wasn’t talking about the horse,” she snapped as she struggled to get her seat belt off and dig herself out of her seat. Swinging open her car door, she pushed him away and got out of the vehicle on her own power.

  Just her luck. The tall, muscular rider with the dark brown hair was the best-looking man she’d encountered in ages, bar none, though he was clearly not the brightest bulb in the box. How else could he not have seen her?

  “Where’d you learn how to ride, playing some stupid video game?” she wanted to know. The next moment, she realized she was much too close to him. He was crowding her, but she wasn’t about to back up. The wind picked up and whipped her long brown hair about her face, but the woman stood her ground. “If you don’t know how to handle a horse, stay out of the stable. If I hadn’t swerved just then, one or both of us would be on a stretcher right now.”

  “I’m really sorry about that,” he said, knowing he deserved the tongue-lashing. “I guess I was just preoccupied and didn’t see you.”

  Her eyes narrowed into chocolate-brown slits. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “Okay,” he said gamely, “I can take you to wherever you were going.” Better yet, he thought, he could take her to Wyatt’s. There had to be someone back at Wyatt’s housewarming who could help this woman and make sure her car was safe enough to travel.

  Still angry, she looked less than taken with the offer. “Won’t that interfere with wherever you were going so hell-for-leather when you ran me off the road?” she asked sarcastically.

  He wasn’t about to tell her that he wasn’t going toward anything, but away from it. In this case, away from his thoughts.

  Instead, he said, “That can wait. Besides,” he went on, “I always pay my debts.” He assumed, if the car didn’t turn out to be in working order, that this woman would want to go to whoever her mechanic was to get her car towed and worked on. “And I’ll need to know what the damages are.”

  Marnie shrugged carelessly, not exactly eager to have this so-called preoccupied stranger take her anywhere on the back of his horse. She didn’t know the man from Adam, and she figured she was safer if she kept it that way—even if he was, on closer inspection, pretty damn good-looking.

  A good-looking fool, she thought, still angry.

  “Oh, you’ll pay all right,” she assured him. “Just give me your cell number and I’ll contact you about the bill the second I know what it is.”

  “Sounds fair,” he agreed. “But meanwhile, how are you going to get anywhere? The car seems to be stuck and it sounded like you stripped the gears.”

/>   She knew that. That was just the problem. She also knew that her cell phone didn’t get any sort of reception to speak of out here in the middle of nowhere. What that meant was that she couldn’t call anyone for help.

  Served her right, she thought, her anger mounting. She should never have agreed to go where the baby was, she thought now. This whole incident could have been avoided if she’d only had Wendy drop MaryAnne off at her place before she and Marcos went to cater that party they were doing tonight.

  She shot another scathing look at the cowboy. Damn it, she was either stuck out here or stuck with him. “I guess I’ve got no choice.” She was less than thrilled.

  “You could always walk,” he replied, getting back up on his horse.

  “Very funny,” she grumbled, coming up to his right side. “I was sideswiped by a vision-challenged comedian.” Expectantly, she put up her hand. “Well, don’t just sit there, give me a hand up,” she instructed.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, sounding deliberately contrite.

  She wasn’t fooled by his contrite act for a moment.

  Mounting, she got as comfortable as she could, which was, at this point, not at all. She felt completely unsteady.

  “You’ll have less of a chance of falling off if you put your arms around me,” he told her.

  She didn’t want to, but he was right. Reluctantly, Marnie slipped her arms around his chest. It was, she discovered, like holding on to a rock.

  “See? That wasn’t so hard.”

  “Shut up and go,” she ordered.

  He kicked the horse’s flanks and did just that.

  Chapter Two

  “Hey, wait a minute, this isn’t the way to Red Rock,” Marnie protested several minutes later.

  Up until this point, she’d been busy trying not to notice things. Trying not to notice how hard this man’s upper torso and abs felt beneath her arms as she held on as loosely as physically possible. And trying her best not to notice how unnervingly stimulating it felt holding on to him like this as his palomino rhythmically galloped along with them on his back.