A Small Fortune Read online

  “Yes, I do,” he agreed.

  Popping off the top of the bottle of dark ale, he poured the contents into a tall glass, tilting it in order to keep the head of foam at a minimum. He put the glass, as well as the half-empty bottle, on the counter in front of Asher.

  Studying him for a moment, Marcos asked, “How are you holding up?”

  Asher took a long sip of the dark liquid, let it wind its way down, then gave a slight shrug of one shoulder. “As well as can be expected.”

  That didn’t sound promising. Marcos decided that the well-trained staff could do without him for a few minutes and came around the bar to join Asher.

  “Well, remember you’ve got a lot on your plate. Being a single dad’s just as rough as being a single mom,” Marcos told him. “I feel for you, Asher.”

  Asher gave him a perfunctory smile, then asked, “Mind if I ask you something?”

  That was why he’d paused by Marcos in the first place. “Go ahead,” he coaxed.

  Asher shifted so that he could face the other man. “How do you do it?” he wanted to know. “Father, husband, successful businessman, you make it all look so effortless.”

  Marcos laughed and shook his head. It was far from effortless. He worked hard at all three. “Then you’re obviously not looking too closely.”

  “Seriously,” Asher prodded. “How do you make it work?”

  He thought for a minute before speaking. “First off, you take it one day at a time. It takes a hell of a lot of hard work, and the truth of the matter is, I don’t know where I’d be without Wendy. She’s my rock. Wendy handles the bulk of it all,” he confided. “But if you’re looking for some magic formula, you’re out of luck. There isn’t one.”

  Asher shrugged, as if he’d suspected as much. “But if there was a magic formula, you look like you’d be the guy who’d know about it.”

  Marcos knew Wendy’s cousin was just being kind, but he wanted to set him straight in case he did misunderstand.

  “Hey, I just got lucky and I’ll be the first one to admit it. If you want to know the truth, I never thought I’d get married and I sure didn’t expect that I’d like being married. But then,” he said with a smile as he spotted his wife across the room, talking to some of her relatives, “I never expected to have someone like Wendy walk into my life, either.”

  Asher saw the irony in that. Funny how things turned out sometimes. “No one in the family thought she would ever settle down—or that she’d actually stay married if she ever stood still long enough to say ‘I do’ to some guy who caught her fancy.”

  “Well,” Marcos confided, lowering his voice, “my family didn’t exactly hold out any hope for me settling down, either, but I guess we surprised everyone,” he said with a touch of amusement. “Wendy and I made it work—and having MaryAnne just brought the two of us closer together. Being a family is who we are.” He couldn’t begin to imagine his life any other way—nor did he want to.

  The smile Asher offered in response was purely automatic and a little brittle around the edges. All he could think of was that having Jace was what had finally torn Lynn and him apart.

  Rather than helping him to glean any lasting marital tips, talking to Marcos was only making him feel worse about his own failed marriage.

  Blowing out a breath, Asher stared into the dark liquid at the bottom of his glass. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for marriage,” he concluded. The thought made him less than happy.

  Rather than argue the point with him, Marcos surprised him by saying, “Not everyone is.” He looked up at Marcos sharply, roused from his mental funk. But before he could protest the verdict, Marcos went on to say, “My brother Miguel will probably never get married. He’s much too happy being a bachelor.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe that’s good enough for him, but I want to get married,” Asher insisted, then added with a touch of hopelessness, “Being a husband and a father is all I’ve ever wanted to be.”

  “Then it’ll happen,” Marcos assured him, patting his shoulder firmly. “And if you ask me, that little boy of yours is lucky to have you. Go easy on yourself,” he advised. “This kind of thing doesn’t just happen overnight.

  “But like I said, not everyone’s cut out for that kind of life. Me, I love it,” Marcos went on with feeling, “but I admit that it came as a surprise. And my brothers Rafe and Javier, they both love being married. But you say the word marriage around Miguel and he immediately runs for the hills. And,” he added, “Miguel doesn’t feel as if he’s missing anything.” A thought hit Marcos. “Maybe Miguel’s the one you should be talking to. He’s happy with his lot.”

  Marcos straightened. It was time to get back to work.

  Since Asher had asked, he left Wendy’s cousin with one final thought on the subject. “Being single in a family-oriented town like Red Rock is probably harder than it would be if you lived in, say, a more urban area. You might want to think about moving to someplace like New York City.”

  Asher had deliberately moved out here not just to get away from his memories and the scene of what he and his brothers all felt was their father’s betrayal, but for Jace, as well. He shook his head at Marcos’s suggestion. “New York City’s not the kind of place for me.”

  About to leave, Marcos paused and smiled. “You ask me, you just need a little help in settling in. The rest’ll happen when you least expect it.”

  Given his own situation, Marcos could afford to be philosophical, Asher thought. The man was talking from the other side of a good marriage. He suspected that everything looked rosier from that point of view.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Asher muttered to the departing Marcos’s back. But he sincerely had his doubts.

  * * *

  Going upstairs for his son a little later that evening, Asher tried to pay Marnie for watching the boy, but she refused to accept any money from him.

  “I was here anyway,” she protested softly, keeping her voice low in order not to wake the sleeping MaryAnne who was curled up on the queen-size bed. “And having Jace around actually helped me take care of MaryAnne.” She flashed a warm smile at the boy. Asher could have sworn that his droopy-eyed son puffed up his tiny chest at the praise. “They kept each other entertained. All I had to do was stay on the sidelines and make sure neither one of them got their hands on a sharp object,” she threw in with a wink.

  Jace responded to the wink—as did he, Asher realized. There was just something about the woman that got to him, that tightened his gut and curled his toes.

  Maybe he was just lonely, Asher reasoned. All that talk with Marcos about marriage and sharing your life with someone special had made him feel lonelier than ever, even if he was truly happy for Wendy. His cousin deserved to be happy, he thought.

  Don’t you? a little voice in his head insisted. For once, he managed not to feel hopeless about the situation.

  Thanking Marnie for her help, Asher picked up his son, who suddenly looked as if he was going to fall asleep standing up.

  Finally, he thought. Jace was finally still. But Asher supposed that even a twister eventually wound down and lost momentum.

  Asher carried his son down the stairs. He was definitely leaving early—from the looks of it, most of the cars were still parked outside—but he did have an excuse if any of his brothers turned up at the last moment to confront him about it.

  His excuse was that, aside from taking his son home to bed, he wanted to turn in early himself. He had a long day in front of him. Mainly because he had yet to unpack all the boxes and containers that were currently littering his brand-new house.

  He absolutely hated unpacking. But unless there was a squadron of elves looking to do a good deed, Asher knew he was going to be stuck with the job.

  He supposed it would all work out in the end. If he was going to know where things were in his new house
, he was going to have to be the one who ultimately put them away.

  * * *

  Getting an early start unpacking the next morning had been a good excuse last night when he needed to extract himself from the party, but now, confronted with boxes upon boxes of possessions, not to mention a four-year-old dynamo who had replenished his energy supply with an incredibly short nap, Asher had to admit he felt overwhelmed even before he tore the tape off the first box.

  In the absence of elves, maybe he should hire someone to do the unpacking for him, Asher thought, looking around the family room and feeling greatly outnumbered.

  Everywhere he looked, there were boxes piled on top of other boxes, creating cardboard towers.

  Given the way Jace was racing around the room, weaving in and out among the tall brown towers, the boy probably saw the boxes as forming some sort of a magic village.

  It was exceedingly difficult for Asher to focus with his son streaking in and out that way.

  “Jace,” he called out, “you have to settle down. You’re going to wind up knocking something over.” Maybe several somethings, Asher added silently, feeling his frayed nerves only becoming more so.

  “No, I’m not, Daddy,” Jace shouted as he continued weaving in and out. “I’m Super Jace. I can make myself real skinny so I can fit into teeny-tiny places.”

  Asher could feel his temper rapidly growing shorter by the second. He struggled to hold on to it. Exploding at Jace wouldn’t be fair to the boy. He wasn’t really mad at him; he was mad at Lynn for giving up so easy. For not wanting to fight to save their marriage. For making him fall in love with her in the first place if she’d had no intention of staying.

  None of that was in any way Jace’s fault.

  Right now his son just wanted to play as any four-year-old did. The fact that Jace had the energy of three four-year-olds put together was just something he was going to have to get used to, Asher reminded himself. The fact that Jace was so energetic was why they’d gone through so many nannies back in Atlanta.

  God, but he hoped the nannies in Red Rock were made of sterner stuff.

  He’d just opened a box of carefully wrapped wineglasses—a wedding gift from one of his friends, he recalled with a pang—when he heard the doorbell ring.

  Asher stopped for a second. He wasn’t expecting anyone, and it was too early for it to be one of his brothers. They all liked to sleep in on the weekend.

  So did he, once upon a time.

  Asher debated ignoring the visitor and hoping he or she would go away. He started to unwrap one glass, but whoever was on the other side of the door pressed the doorbell again, more insistently this time.

  The glasses were just going to have to wait, he thought with a resigned sigh.

  Setting the box to one side, he called out, “I’m coming. Hold your horses.” Playing a game of what appeared to be hide-and-seek with some imaginary friends, Jace ducked around another pile of boxes. “Settle down, Jace,” Asher instructed for what had to be the tenth time this morning.

  “Okay,” Jace agreed—just as he had the other nine times.

  Annoyed, struggling to remain calm, Asher yanked open the front door and bit off a terse “What?” at the person standing on the doorstep by way of an abrupt greeting.

  It took him less than half a second to realize who he’d just growled at.

  “Good morning to you, too,” Marnie responded, her cheerful voice a direct contrast to his.

  Embarrassed to be caught at being anything less than a good host, Asher immediately backtracked. The first words out of his mouth were not exactly redeeming. “What are you doing here?”

  She never missed a beat as she walked in past him. “Apparently, I’m being growled at.”

  Chagrined, he apologized. “Sorry, it’s just been kind of a really hectic morning.” He hadn’t gotten anything done yet, and he hated that, hated not being efficient, because that was all he had left. “But what are you doing here?” The second he repeated the question, what he thought was the obvious answer hit him. “Oh, God, I forgot about getting your car towed,” he realized. He began to turn on his heel in order to get to the first phone within his reach. “I’ll get right on it.”

  She caught his arm to stop him, then abruptly dropped her hand when she realized what she was doing. She was touching him, and she was better off not doing that after her involuntary horseback ride last night.

  “That’s okay, I took care of it already,” she told him. “The car checked out all right. But that’s not why I’m here,” she quickly added. “Marcos and Wendy said that you need a babysitter.”

  Asher looked at her, confused. He had never said that to either of them. “I’m afraid there’s been some mistake. Marcos talked about how he wouldn’t have been able to manage on his own without Wendy, and I might have said something about envying him that. But I never said anything about needing to hire a babysitter to—”

  Asher never got a chance to finish his protest because right in the middle of his sentence, there was a loud crash that sounded suspiciously like glass, followed by a bloodcurdling shriek.

  An image of Jace lying on a mound of broken glass, bleeding, instantly flashed through Asher’s head.

  “Oh, God, Jace,” was all Asher managed to say as he whipped around and raced back to the family room, where he’d left the boy.

  He should have taken Jace with him, not left him alone, he upbraided himself. Jace really couldn’t be left alone.

  Asher didn’t realize that Marnie was behind him until she managed to pass him at the family room’s threshold. She got to Jace ahead of him.

  The box of glasses he’d just opened was upended and the entire contents had fallen out onto the tiled floor. Every single glass appeared to be a casualty of the collision.

  Jace was just picking himself up off the floor, dazed but apparently unhurt. The shriek had been a result of surprise, not pain.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” Jace said, apologizing. “Super Jace crashed.”

  Asher’s knees suddenly felt weak when he thought of what could have happened but didn’t. Rather than yell at the boy, or say something about having just warned him not to run in the room, Asher sank down to the boy’s level and hugged him.

  “Are you all right?” he wanted to know.

  “Uh-huh.” Jace vigorously nodded. “But the glasses got hurt.”

  “I can get new glasses,” Asher told him. “I can’t get a new you.”

  Marnie was standing just off to the side, observing the interaction between father and son, and she felt her heart quicken in response to what she’d just heard Asher tell Jace. It didn’t occur to her then, but much later, when she reflected back to this scene, she realized that this was the moment she began to fall in love with Asher Fortune.

  Chapter Five

  “Do you want me to sweep or to occupy?” Marnie asked him after he’d released the boy from his embrace.

  Rising to his feet, Asher looked at her, unable to make any sense out of her question. “Excuse me?”

  “Do you want me to sweep up?” She gestured to the scattered shards of broken glass that seemed to be absolutely everywhere. “Or to occupy your son while you sweep?” She nodded at the little boy standing beside him. “I figure one of us can do one task while the other can do...the other,” Marnie finally concluded, unable to find a better way to word her offer.

  He definitely didn’t want Marnie doing anything that even vaguely smacked of housekeeping, but the latter part of her suggestion would really be helpful. Whenever Jace helped him with anything, it usually took him at least twice as long to get the thing done.

  “If you don’t mind keeping Jace busy, I’d really appreciate it. Otherwise, I know I’ll have another set of more-than-willing hands trying to help me pick up all the broken slivers of glass, a
nd I’ve got this really uneasy feeling that we could very well cap off our day with a trip to the emergency room.”

  Her thoughts exactly.

  About to guide the little boy gently but firmly into another room, Marnie took a good look around. Everything appeared to be a chaotic, jumbled-up mess. The boxes made it hard to get around. The broken glass didn’t exactly help. It looked to be too much for one man to deal with.

  “Sure you don’t want me handling cleanup?” she asked Asher one final time.

  He really did hate unpacking, but it was something he was going to have to face. There was no getting away from that.

  Reluctantly, he turned her down. “Not that I don’t appreciate the offer, but keeping Jace away from the scene of his crime is more than enough, thanks.”

  Marnie nodded. “Okay, whatever you say,” she agreed. “I’m here to help.”

  “About that,” Asher began as he started to pick up and deposit the largest shards of glass into the box that had held the glasses when they had been in their previous, far more solid state.

  She looked at him expectantly, waiting. “Yes?”

  He wanted her to know that this wasn’t his idea. He didn’t want to come off as some whining individual, complaining about not having anyone to palm his son off on.

  “I really didn’t say anything to Marcos about needing a babysitter.”

  “I believe you,” she said simply. “From my experience, Marcos is a pretty intuitive guy. Maybe he just read between the lines and assumed that since you were a single dad, you needed someone to take care of your son while you were working—or do you already have someone lined up for that?” she asked as the thought occurred to her. Maybe that was why he hadn’t actually said anything to Marcos about needing a babysitter or a nanny. He’d already taken care of that.

  “No, but I’m still working that out,” Asher said vaguely.

  It wasn’t a lie; it just wasn’t exactly the truth. The current situation was something that was in flux at the moment.