Книга - Fortune’s Perfect Match

Fortune's Perfect Match
Allison Leigh


Emily Fortune had given up on finding Mr Right…when she met airport manager Max Allen. But after he’d lost baby Anthony, he was heartbroken. And now he’s fallen for a woman intent on having a baby. Is Max headed for another heartbreak? Or will Emily be the one to finally make him whole?












“If you have such a problem with my family’s money, why did you even ask me out tonight?”


“I told you I found you interesting,” Max said.

“The front page of the newspaper is interesting.”

“And because I can’t look at you without wanting you.”

Emily’s lips parted, but her suddenly addled brain couldn’t begin to frame a response.

“But that’s just about sex,” he added.

“Ah,” she said faintly. “Sex.”

“And the hitch isn’t just your money,” he went on, sounding dogged.

“My family’s money,” she corrected.

“You’re also my boss’s sister-in-law. So, like it or not, sleeping with you isn’t … smart.”

“Put that way, I suppose it probably isn’t.”

She froze when he slid those blunt-tipped, warm fingers over the back of her hand.

“Problem is—” his fingers slowly inched upward “—I usually make a habit of doing things that aren’t smart.”


Dear Reader,

Opposites attract. Everybody says so. But aside from that initial wham, when one thing instinctively draws close to another, what keeps them together?

Is it merely physical? Sometimes. But what happens if it’s not? When it’s something deeper? Something underneath the physical where two individuals sense they’re not opposites at all, but entirely similar, sharing the same needs, harboring the same desires, striving for the same goals?

That’s the question Max Allen and Emily Fortune are dealing with, and I thank you for joining them as they discover that what really matters to them isn’t their differences or their plans … it is each other.

Allison Leigh




About the Author


There is a saying that you can never be too rich or too thin. ALLISON LEIGH doesn’t believe that, but she does believe that you can never have enough books! When her stories find a way into the hearts—and bookshelves—of others, Allison says she feels she’s done something right. Making her home in Arizona with her husband, she enjoys hearing from her readers at Allison@allisonleigh.com or PO Box 40772, Mesa AZ 85274-0772, USA.




Fortune’s

Perfect Match

Allison Leigh











www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For my dad.

Still my favorite pilot.




Prologue


December

Jesus loves me, this I knoooow …

The verse of the lullaby that her mother used to sing circled around and around inside Emily Fortune’s head.

Tears squeezed out from her tightly closed eyes. She’d closed them because of the dust and debris, but she knew if she opened them again, she would still be there in the dark.

Alone.

Jesus loves me, this I know …

She inhaled on a sob that ended in a choking cough.

She didn’t know what had happened.

One minute they had all been walking through the airport. Her brothers up ahead while Emily tried to catch up to her mother—

She coughed through another choking sob. Where was her mother? Had the world collapsed on her, too? On all of them?

They’d been visiting Red Rock for Wendy’s wedding.

More tears burned from the corners of Emily’s eyes. Wendy. Her baby sister, who’d looked so beautiful and happy—finally, finally, happy and settled—as she’d exchanged vows with Marcos during their Christmas Eve wedding.

Had all of Red Rock collapsed? Were Marcos and Wendy and their baby that she was carrying lost, too?

Jesus loves me …

Emily covered her mouth, coughing again. Crying.

She wasn’t a crier. She was a planner. A doer. Even her father admitted that about her. He’d often said that’s what made her so valuable at her job at FortuneSouth.

But the only thought in her mind right then was that she was going to die.

Her feet were trapped. Numb. She could barely breathe. Couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face. All she could hear were the screams inside her head that she couldn’t even gather enough strength to let out.

What did it matter if she’d focused her whole life on becoming valuable to the family business?

She was going to die there, never knowing what had hit the family, never knowing if any of them were safe or not. She’d die, never feeling the joy that had been in her little sister’s face as she said “I do” to the man she loved. She would never know how it felt to have the proof of that love growing inside her.

She’d never hold her daughter in her arms, rocking her to sleep the same way that Emily’s mother had rocked her. She’d never calm a cranky, infant son with a lullaby. Never … never … never—

She coughed again as more dust suddenly collapsed onto her, sending off another round of shouting inside her head.

This was to be her only future, then. Ended beneath the rubble of a small, regional airport in southern Texas.

More dirt fell.

Even though there was no point, she curled her arms around her head. Light appeared beyond her eyelids. Beyond her arms. But there was no sense of peace coming over her. No sense of welcome.

Had she lived her life so wrongly that she wouldn’t even have that? Just this choking, oppressive aloneness? No future?

She curled her arms tighter around her face. She tried to find the comforting lullaby again … but even the childhood song that had been circling over and over inside her head had deserted her.

And then she heard another shout. Not inside her head at all. Hands clutched her arms, pulling them away from her head. She stared, squinting against the light and the dust still clouding the air, seeing only the shape of a fireman’s hat above her.

“What—” She broke off, coughing again.

He didn’t seem to notice. “Get me some help here,” he yelled, moving away from her.

She heard more voices. Realized that there were a lot of voices. Yelling. Some screams. She swiped her hands down her face. Squinted at her hands. All she could see was black. She tried to push herself up until she was sitting, but could only raise herself a few inches. There was a tangle of metal pressing against her entire right side.

“Hold on there.” Another voice found her. A different voice. Deeper. Gentler. Hands brushed against her, levering the metal off of her. A row of attached chairs from the airport’s waiting area, she realized.

She tried to focus on the rescuer’s face, but everything seemed blurry. Covered in gray. But his eyes … his eyes were blue. She latched desperately on to that blue gaze. “What happened?”

“There was a tornado.” His hands circled her arms. Pulling, she realized.

“My feet.” She couldn’t utter more than that. Her throat had closed again; tears came harder.

He immediately stopped pulling. Shifted away from her vision. She wanted to call him back. She managed to push herself up a few inches and saw the man, gesturing at the fireman. Her strength gave out and she fell back. She could feel sobs clawing at her chest.

“Come on now.” The voice was back. “You made it this far.” He closed his hand around hers, squeezing gently. “You’re pinned by something, but they’re gonna get you out.” The dust covering his face creased into lines around his mouth as he smiled. “You’ve got a future just waiting for you to live it.”




Chapter One


June

“I’m sorry, Dad. I’m not flying back to Atlanta tomorrow just to handle one meeting. It’s completely unnecessary.” Emily’s hand tightened around her cell phone and she gave Wendy a rueful grimace. “I’ll join in by conference call.”

Even through the phone line, she could feel her father’s irritation. John Michael Fortune had always expected his employees at FortuneSouth Enterprises to give him more than a hundred percent of their attention, and his children who worked for him were no exception. “There’s no reason for you to still be in Red Rock,” he stated. “It’s June, for God’s sake. Wendy had that baby months ago. I think even she might have learned how to heat a bottle and change a diaper by now.”

Emily winced. She held the phone closer to her ear and hoped to heaven that Wendy—who was sitting in a lovely white glider near the nursery’s window—couldn’t hear. And even though tiny MaryAnne had been born in February, she’d still been early.

Emily focused on the baby’s perfectly shaped head as Wendy slowly rocked and nursed.

That’s what mattered, she thought to herself. “There’s nothing on my plate that I can’t handle long-distance,” she said into the phone. And there wasn’t. She was the director of advertising for their telecommunications company, and whether John Michael gave her many accolades or not, she knew she was doing her job well.

Business was booming, after all.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” her father muttered, still clearly dissatisfied. “Ever since that tornado, nobody’s been the same. And you, with this baby nonsense—”

“People died in that tornado, Dad,” Emily cut him off, not wanting to hear the rest. They’d all been the lucky ones, but there were others who hadn’t been so fortunate. Emily had ended up with only a sprained ankle. Her mother, thankfully, only a broken wrist. “It’s sort of a life-changing experience, you know.”

She heard his enormously frustrated sigh. “Fine,” he snapped. “Conference into the meeting this time. But I’d better see your face on Friday at the first Connover meeting.”

For a fleeting moment, Emily was tempted to ask what the unspoken “or else” was, but she fought the urge. Yes, she was bristling at the iron hand of her father’s management, but that didn’t mean she didn’t still respect his position both as her father and as the head of FortuneSouth. “I’ve already got the charter flight scheduled to be there,” she promised. “Say hello to Mother for me.”

“Say hello yourself,” he returned bluntly. “She’s missing all of you a lot these days, since it seems half her family is deserting Atlanta for Red Rock.”

Emily’s grip tightened on the phone again. She talked to her mother regularly, and John Michael knew it. Like her father, her mother didn’t entirely understand Emily’s actions these days, but, typically, she’d been far less critical about it. “I love you, Dad.”

“Friday,” he returned.

She sighed and hit the end button on her phone. Even under the best of circumstances John Michael wasn’t an affectionate soul. She looked over at Wendy. “Do you ever wonder what on earth attracted our parents to each other enough in the first place to get married and have six children together?”

Wendy smiled a little impishly. “Frankly, Em, I don’t want to think too much about Mom and Dad getting busy making babies.” She leaned down to kiss her daughter’s perfectly pink forehead. “I prefer to think we were all immaculately conceived.”

Emily smiled, too, though it took some effort. Her gaze fell on the cheerful hand-painted flowers bordering the walls. “Maybe I should start looking into that method, myself.” She plucked a stuffed white rabbit off a gleaming white shelf and bent its long ears. “Considering how everything else I’ve tried so far to become a mother has been a bust.”

Wendy deftly adjusted her nightgown as she shifted the baby to her shoulder. “Honestly, Em. Only you would come out of a tornado with a spreadsheet in her head that lays out every possible way to become a mommy. Did you ever consider just trying to meet a man first?” She patted MaryAnne’s back and was quickly rewarded by a decidedly indelicate little burp. She grinned and stood up from the glider.

“You’re sounding surprisingly old-fashioned. These days, I hardly need a man in my life to become a mother.” Emily reached out for her niece. “Let me take her.”

Wendy surrendered the baby happily enough. “Far be it for me to suggest that you won’t handle being a single mother as admirably as you handle your career, but I am a mother now. And I’m here to tell you that I can’t imagine doing this without Marcos.”

Emily sighed a little. “I’m thirty years old. If there were a Marcos out there for me, I’d have found him by now.”

Wendy lifted her eyebrows. “Really? Where? In the offices of FortuneSouth? That’s pretty much where you’ve spent all of your time since … forever!”

“I’m not at FortuneSouth now, am I?” Emily reasoned. “And I’m not looking for romance, anyway. Romance has never led anywhere. But raising a child? That’s another story. I’m going to be a mother. Pure and simple.” Emily jiggled MaryAnne and smiled as her niece chortled happily. “Isn’t that right, sweetie peetie? Auntie Emily is going to get a baby.”

“Romance for you has never gone anywhere because you’ve never made room for it to go anywhere.”

“I’ve dated plenty of men!”

“Yeah. Maybe once. Twice if they were lucky. How many have you loved more than your job?”

Emily rolled her eyes. “None of them were anywhere near as interesting as my job. And most were more interested in what I could do for them, than in what we could be together.” She grinned good-naturedly. “Besides, I figure there are a finite number of good men out there and you and Jordana have already snapped up this family’s allotment of them.”

Wendy just shook her head and seemed to see the wisdom in changing the subject. “Speaking of Jordana. What time are you going over to Tanner’s office today?”

Tanner Redmond was the newest addition to the Fortune fold, having recently married their sister. “I said I’d be there by three. But I’m meeting with the adoption attorney again at eleven.”

“Then before you go, I’m gonna go grab a shower while the grabbin’s good.” Wendy strode out of the nursery, her scarlet nightgown flowing behind her.

Maybe Emily was the only one with spreadsheets in her head, but Wendy was the only one whose vivid personality was enough to eclipse even scarlet-colored silk. Emily held up MaryAnne until they were nose-to-nose. “Your mama sure found her place, didn’t she?” There’d been times when the entire family had wondered if their wild young Wendy would ever settle anywhere.

MaryAnne kicked her bare little feet, her cheeks rounding as she opened her mouth in a gummy grin, and Emily felt such a wistful longing inside her that she could hardly bear it. She cuddled the baby close, carrying her out of the nursery. “This time next year, you’ll have a new cousin,” she told her niece. “And you’ll be great friends and won’t ever argue over who gets to play with which doll like your Auntie Jordana and I did.” There was only a year separating Emily and Jordana. By the time their live-wire baby sister, Wendy, had come along several years later, they’d both been in elementary school.

Now, both Wendy and Jordana were well into making families of their own and Emily was the odd one out. “Not for long, though, right?” She jiggled MaryAnne as she walked through her sister and brother-in-law’s home.

She’d been up and showered for hours already; the early-to-rise habit sticking even though she’d been away from home base in Atlanta for nearly three months now. She’d already toyed some more with the mock website that she wanted to show Tanner, dealt with a few minor crises with her staff at FortuneSouth and saved a bunch of real estate listings she was interested in looking into on her cell. And as soon as Wendy was finished showering, Emily would meet with the adoption attorney she’d been working with for the past few months. If that meeting ended up as fruitless as all the others she’d already had, then she’d confirm her appointment next week with the gynecologist to go forward with a second insemination attempt. After that, she’d head out to Tanner’s office for the brief duty-meeting with Tanner and his marketing guy.

She didn’t particularly mind the meeting. It had sort of been her own fault, anyway, because she’d happened to mention that the website for his flight school was a little … dry. Fortunately, her new brother-in-law hadn’t been offended. Instead, he’d asked her to come in and discuss the matter, as well as kick around some marketing and advertising strategies for increasing the flight school’s business. Of course, she’d said she would. He was Jordana’s brand-new husband and the father of the baby they were soon expecting, so how could Emily refuse?

Besides, she liked Tanner.

And even though she’d come up with the mock site herself—something she had some fun doing, even though the technical end wasn’t particularly her area of expertise—it didn’t mean she was particularly interested in discussing business with anyone any more than she was interested in her own duties with FortuneSouth these days.

For the first time in her life, Emily’s eye was not only on business. She’d realized what mattered and one way or another, she was going to become a mother.

Not because she was trying to keep up with her sisters. But because it was the one thing she’d come out knowing, after that horrible day when the tornado had ripped through the Red Rock airport, seemingly bent on changing all of their lives.

She was thirty years old. She was alive. She wanted to be a mother. To give all the love inside her that she had to give to a child, the same way she’d always known her mother loved her.

And she wasn’t going to waste any more time.

Max Allen eyed the plain watch on his wrist and held back an oath while he picked up his pace, crossing the tarmac from the Red Rock Regional Airport’s terminal to the hangar that housed Redmond Flight School. Admittedly, he wasn’t looking forward to the meeting that his boss, Tanner Redmond, had set up with his sister-in-law. But that didn’t mean he wanted to be late for it.

After a month, he still had a hard time believing that he was even working for Tanner as his assistant. Which meant he also needed to swallow the obvious fact that his boss figured he needed some help and had asked him to meet with Emily Fortune.

Best thing Max could do was forget about all the reasons he wasn’t qualified to handle any sort of sales and marketing for the flight school, and learn anything and everything he could from the high-powered advertising executive.

He skirted a slow-moving fuel truck, absently giving the driver, Joe, a wave, and broke into a jog to cross the last fifty yards. Not a smart move, he realized, when he pushed through the door to the business office and cool air-conditioning wafted over him, reminding him that it was a hot June afternoon out there.

Not only was he running late, but he was going to look like he’d been running late, too.

Through the window of Tanner’s office, he could see the back of a blond head. The woman had already arrived. Naturally.

He shoved his hand through his hair and blew out a deep breath. Hell with it. The lady would just have to put up with him the way he was. Sweating, unqualified and all. Before long, Tanner would probably realize the error of his ways and Max would be out of the job, anyway.

At least he had the animals at the Double Crown where he still worked part-time as a ranch hand. They didn’t have to bother seeing beyond his checkered past; all they cared about was getting their feed and water when they needed. And he was pretty sure that Lily Fortune would let him go back to full-time, even though the woman had been one of the ones to encourage Max to take a chance with the flight school gig when Tanner had offered it.

He reached out and pushed open Tanner’s office door, his gaze focused on his boss’s face. “Sorry I’m late.” Might as well get the obvious out of the way first. “I got hung up talking to the maintenance supervisor.” Though the airport was up and running again, repairs were still going on from the damage caused by the December tornado.

Tanner didn’t look unduly worried. “No problem.” He gestured toward the woman sitting in front of his desk. “Emily Fortune,” he introduced. “This is—

“You,” the woman interrupted as she rose.

Max focused on her, then, and her obvious surprise. She was stepping away from the leather chair she’d been sitting in, her hand extended toward him. She was wearing a black jacket and matching pants that only accentuated her slender figure, and her pale blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked expensively professional and even though there was no dirt covering her face and no debris tangling in her hair, the green eyes staring back at him through narrow, black-framed glasses were definitely the same ones he remembered.

He must have stuck his own hand out automatically, because her smooth, warm palm met his, her long fingers clasping his in a no-nonsense way and jolting his attention away from that mossy green.

“It was you at the airport that day,” she was saying in a smooth voice that held a trace of a Southern drawl. “Wasn’t it?”

He nodded and managed to find his voice somewhere. Even though he’d figured out that day at the airport who she was, he’d been hoping that she wouldn’t remember him. “You look like you came through it pretty well.”

She smiled a little, then looked down and he realized he was still holding her hand. He quickly let go.

“I was lucky,” she said. “Just a sprained ankle.”

“So, I’m guessing you two have met.” Tanner sounded amused.

Emily looked away from Max to his boss. She’d tucked her hands in the pockets of her blazer, Max noticed, and that abrupt swell of pleasure he’d felt at first dimmed. Probably not used to touching the lower class unless she was being pulled from beneath a collapsed roof by one.

“He rescued me after the tornado,” she was telling his boss. Her gaze slid toward Max. “But we never did get around to introductions.” She smiled again, and tucked-away hands or not, Max felt another jolt.

“It was the rescue workers who pulled you out,” he reminded.

“Yours was the voice that kept me going,” she countered. “I’ll never forget it.”

He didn’t want her gratitude. He’d done what anyone would have done. There was no point in admitting that he hadn’t forgotten it, either. If she’d been just an average girl, maybe. But she’d turned out to be a Fortune. One of the FortuneSouth Fortunes.

They had money and class and first-class educations followed by first-class careers.

Way, way out of his league.

So he’d stuck the moments they’d shared while she’d clung desperately to his hand and stared into his eyes while a halfdozen rescue workers lifted what seemed half a building off of her in a box and tried not to think about it. Only now, as a favor to her new brother-in-law, she was supposed to teach Max how to do his job.

He looked at his watch. “We should get to it, I guess.”

Her confident smile seemed to falter a little. She looked back at Tanner. “He’s right. Time’s money and all that.” She pulled her hands from her pockets. “I know you didn’t ask me to,” she told Tanner, “but I toyed around with some website ideas. I can show you that, and then we’ll take a look at the marketing materials you’re using now and we can go from there.”

“Actually,” Tanner said, pushing back from his desk, “that all sounds great, including the website stuff, but I’m going to have to leave all that for you and Max to go over.” He rounded the desk. “I’m going with Jordana to her O.B. appointment.” He gestured at the small, round conference table in the corner of his room. “Make yourselves comfortable here, if you want. I know there’s more room there than in Max’s office.” He squeezed Emily’s shoulder as he passed by. “If you want a tour of the place, Max can give you one. He knows every nook and cranny around here by now. Right, Max?”

Max nodded, but as his boss left the office, he couldn’t help wondering what Tanner was thinking, leaving it all in Max’s lap.

“Why don’t we start with the tour, then? It would help if I can get a little bit of a feel for this place.” Emily was looking at him, her eyebrows lifted a little. If she had any suspicion that her expertise would be wasted on someone like Max, at least she didn’t show it.

“Sure.” He stepped out of her path so she could exit the office. “Do you know anything about flight schools?”

She laughed a little, and the sound seemed to send heat straight down his spine. “Not a single thing,” she admitted as she walked past him. “You’re the expert, here.”

He grimaced. Evidently, Tanner hadn’t told his sister-in-law much at all. Maybe she’d have refused to help if she knew how unqualified he was. “I’ve only been working for Tanner for a month,” he said. There was no point in putting any varnish on it. The truth was what it was. He’d started out—officially—on a part-time basis, but just a few weeks ago, Tanner had asked if he’d be willing to take on more.

Max still had a hard time believing it.

“I don’t know diddly-squat about marketing,” he told her.

She stopped in her tracks and looked at him. “Tanner said you are his marketing assistant.”

He hated titles. Mostly because they’d only ever pointed out that he was low-man on the totem pole, which he’d been perfectly aware of. “Assistant … whatever,” he said. “The marketing stuff is just a priority right now. A long time before he actually hired me, though, I was mopping floors and cleaning toilets around this place.” She might as well know that truth, too. “Did anything and everything, pretty much, in exchange for flying lessons.”

Her head tilted slightly. The silky end of her ponytail slipped over her shoulder. “How’d you learn about the flight school in the first place?”

He shrugged. “Everyone around Red Rock’s heard of the flight school.” He had, even before the day he’d actually walked through the front door.

“But how,” she pressed. “Radio spots? Signage?” A faint smile played around the corners of her lips, which only meant he was studying them too closely for politeness. “Good old word of mouth?”

“Word of mouth.” He dragged his attention away from her mouth.

“Never underestimate the power of good word of mouth. It can make or break the success of any number of things,” she said. “You’re lucky, actually. You’ve got a unique perspective, Max.”

Again, he felt heat slide down his spine. “How?”

“You’ve already been your own prospective customer.” She turned again and headed along the tiled hallway that led from the front door of the business office to the rear that opened out into the hangar. “You know what brought you to Redmond Flight School.”

He was pretty sure that “desperation” wasn’t the angle that Tanner wanted them to promote. Fortunately, Emily was unaware of his thoughts as she continued.

“So now what you need to think about is what would have brought you here even more quickly.” She glanced at him.

“Money.” It was an obvious answer. One that hadn’t exactly applied to him at the get-go but sure had ever since.

She sent him a smile over her shoulder again, obviously not shocked by his blunt tone. “Part of your job, then, is to convince the masses that money isn’t the object. Learning to fly is.”

“If everyone knew how it felt to be up there, we wouldn’t need to advertise.” He reached past her to push open the heavy metal door and got a whiff of something soft. Almost powdery.

Nothing around the hangar smelled like that, including him. Which just left her.

He would have been happy to stand there a long while breathing in that completely feminine fragrance, but she was already moving through the door, that long ponytail of hers swinging.

If he’d ever thought anything was particularly sexy about a woman’s hair, it was only when it looked messed up from his hands tangling in it. But there was definitely something sexy about Emily’s swinging length of sleek, corn-silk blond. He wondered what it would look like flowing over her bare shoulders …

“That’s even better,” she said, stopping again to turn on her heel and face him. Beyond her glasses, her eyes were animated. “You’re already honing in on your messaging,” she said, thankfully oblivious to his wayward mind. “Show your prospective customer what it feels like.”

The palms of his hands were suddenly itching. He shoved them in the pockets of his blue jeans. “What it feels like,” he repeated, feeling about as dumb as a rock.

“Up there.” She waved her hand. “You said it yourself. If everyone knew how it felt to be up there.” She pulled off her glasses, folded them and tucked the earpiece down the front of her jacket, giving him the briefest of glimpses of something black and lacy beneath, which did not help his distraction any.

“So … show me around,” she invited. “My only contact with airports has been as a passenger.”

A first-class passenger, he figured, but kept the thought to himself. Maybe if he concentrated enough on describing everything to do with the physical layout of the flight school, he’d get his thoughts off of her physical layout.

“This area, obviously, is the classroom.” He pushed on a hidden partition halfway down the main wall. “We can break it up into three smaller classrooms with partitions like these.” He nudged the partition wall and it smoothly disappeared again. “They’re all new additions since the tornado. Just had the desks delivered a few days ago, in fact.”

Emily wandered among the empty chairs that looked reminiscent of her high-school days, complete with an attached desktop, and wondered fleetingly what Max had been like in high school. Probably football team captain and hotly pursued by all the cheerleaders.

She had not been a cheerleader. Too ambitious with her eye already on making her place in her father’s company. Hoping that then, maybe, he’d see something worthwhile in her.

She abruptly pulled her thoughts back into the present. Ever since the tornado, she’d vowed to focus on the future. Period.

She glanced at Max and despite her good intentions, had to work hard to focus on her purpose there and not him.

Max had put another few chairs in between them. His eyes were still the same blue that they’d been that December day. But all of the gentleness in them that she’d clung to in those brief moments before he’d disappeared among the rescue workers crowding around her was nowhere in sight. Now, those eyes were completely unreadable.

She found him no less compelling, though.

Which was so not her purpose right now.

She mentally shook her head, trying to get her thoughts in order. It was more difficult than it should have been. “I, um, I know the terminal was badly damaged. But how much damage did Tanner’s building sustain?”

“It was still standing. Barely.”

She walked over to a white erase board that stood on wheels in front of the desks. “Really? I had no idea it had been that bad.” She picked up one of the markers from the tray at the bottom of the board and toyed with it, wishing that her heart would stop its frantic little cha-cha inside her chest.

“The roof was gone. Half the planes had some sort of damage. The offices needed to be completely gutted and built over.”

“That’s a lot of repairs accomplished in a short amount of time. I’m impressed.”

He shrugged. “That’s Tanner.”

“He is a force to be reckoned with.” She smiled wryly. “Or so my sister, Jordana, says.” She dropped the marker back in the tray. “Okay.” She eyed the classroom’s trappings. “So you have the ability for multiple classrooms. What happens in them?”

“Ground school.”

“Which is … what?” She couldn’t help looking at him again. He wore plain old blue jeans and a white button-down shirt incredibly—with a capital I—well. “You’re the knowledgeable one, remember?”

“There are rules in flying just like there are rules in driving. FAA regulations. Have to learn them as well as some basic aeronautics and be able to pass a test on them. You don’t learn everything in the cockpit. In fact, most of it seems like it’s done sitting at a desk whether in a classroom with other students or on a one-to-one basis with a private instructor.” He shrugged. “Classroom’s obviously more economical for the student pilot, but we offer a lot of different options.”

She propped her hip on one of the desks. “How many instructors does Tanner have?”

He looked away, but she could see the abruptly grim turn of his lips. “Eleven, now. Gary Tompkins died in the tornado. He was my first instructor.”

Regret pinched hard. She’d known Tanner had lost an employee and wished that she’d shown more tact. “I’m so sorry.”

“He was a good guy.” His gaze slanted back at her. “As patient as the day is long, which was a good thing when it came to teaching me.” She was glad to see his expression lightening as he shook his head, looking wry. “Probably telling the same old stories in heaven that he was always telling everyone down here,” he said.

She smiled. “Did you always want to know how to fly?”

He shook his head, that bit of lightness in his expression fading, and leaving her wanting it back again. “That’s more recent.”

But he didn’t elaborate, which only left her wondering about him even more.

He glanced at the sturdy leather watch strapped on his wrist and gestured toward the door opposite the one they’d come through. “Anyway, Tanner hasn’t replaced Gary yet. He’s interviewing now, though. But he’s also interviewing for commercial pilots since he’s set a July 4 launch date next month for his charter business expansion, and he wants to get another ATP on board.”

“ATP?”

“Airline Transport Pilot. Highest rating you can get. Tanner has it. He wants a backup.”

She wasn’t surprised about Tanner’s ambitious business plans. He’d received the “John Michael Fortune” seal of approval when it came to business, after all, and that wasn’t an easy thing to come by. She passed through the doorway when Max pulled it open for her and nearly lost her train of thought again when her shoulder brushed against his. “Any … any other employees besides the instructors?”

“Just me.” He touched the small of her back briefly, directing her toward the rear of the soaring building. Sunlight shined through the long, narrow windows set high in the rafters onto an assortment of small planes parked in precise order on the gleaming floor. The main door was open, too, and she could see the airport terminal some distance away. “Our simulator room is back here,” he said.

He ushered her into another room, this one considerably smaller than the classroom, which could have easily seated a few dozen students.

This one only seemed to have room for two.

He dropped his hand on top of the enclosure that surrounded what looked—eerily, to her—like an airplane’s cockpit. “One of three sim rooms,” he said. “Most places just have two. And these are state-of-the-art.” He kept moving, passing the doorways that obviously housed the other two flight simulators, before exiting out into the main hangar area again. “We have aircraft available for lessons as well as rentals.” He waved at the planes as he walked toward the closest one. “Slow day today, though. Half the fleet is in. Usually they’re all out this time of day.”

Surprised, she looked over the planes again. “Where do the rest of them go?”

His eyes glinted with amusement, and she felt that strange trip inside her chest again. “They all fit,” he assured. “Close as sardines, but they fit.”

“I wouldn’t want to have to park one,” she admitted, eyeing the wingspan of the plane.

“Just takes some muscle and some careful attention. We’ve also got some planes outside on tie-downs.” He finally stopped walking and leaned against the long tail of a white plane with a propeller on its nose. “Have you ever been up in a small plane?”

She eyed the airplane behind him. He was as tall as the top of the wing. “Depends on your definition of small.” There’d been plenty of times she’d flown on a private jet for business, but it had still been a jet. Multiple engines and all. “That thing there practically looks like a toy.”

“Pretty expensive toy.” He glanced at the plane and she couldn’t help but see the distinct fondness in his expression.

“You look at it like she’s a beautiful woman.”

“Well.” He ran his palm along the edge the wing. His gaze, though, didn’t move from her face. “She does give plenty of pleasure.”

Even though she was the one to bring it up, she felt her face turn warm. And there was no point in denying it. He could see her blush just as easily as she could feel it and a faint smile flirted around the corners of his lips.

It wasn’t a full-on smile, but just then it seemed wholly worth the price of her silly blush.

“All right, then.” She clapped her hands together. “Maybe it’s time we go to your office and we look at the marketing materials. If you want to see the mock-up I did, I can pull that up for you, as well.”

His head dipped slightly in agreement. He pushed away from the plane. “That’s what you’re here for.”

Yes. That was what she was there for. Help out with some advertising tips and get back to her own priorities. All she needed to do was keep herself as focused as she’d always been.

Then Max touched her arm, guiding her away from the plane.

She quickened her step toward the hangar door. But she couldn’t walk fast enough to outrun the shivers flitting down her spine.




Chapter Two


“I’m serious,” Emily insisted, several hours later. “There’s no earthly reason why you can’t learn this design program if you want to.”

They’d started out at the conference table in Tanner’s office, but had ended up in Max’s closet-size office where she was hunched on a little stool next to his chair beside his desk. Even though his office was cramped, the computer humming on the desk in front of them was state-of-the-art.

Max just shook his head, though. Despite what she’d found to be an incredibly creative mind as they’d brain-stormed various advertising themes and she’d plugged some of the ideas into the sample website, now he just seemed adamant that he couldn’t also learn the graphics program that she, herself, personally favored. “Tanner’s always had his brochures and stuff designed by a company that specializes in that sort of thing.”

Feeling frustrated, Emily pushed her fingers through her hair, getting caught in her ponytail. She absently tugged on the band until it slid free. “That doesn’t mean they have to be,” she countered. She was focused on the computer screen where she’d been able to pull up her own computer at FortuneSouth over the internet, so she could show him some examples of the projects her department worked on.

She leaned closer to tap the oversize monitor screen. “This is a full-color brochure that we did a few months ago for a special corporate promotion we offered to one of Atlanta’s larger construction firms. We wanted it specifically targeted to their employees. So we did a small print run that we easily handled in-house.” She reached for the computer mouse, unintentionally brushing her hand against his before he quickly moved it away.

Ignoring that, as well as the way her hand tingled, she clicked a few times. Opened a second project so both were displayed. “Same exact brochure layout used again last week with redesigned messaging for a corporate law firm in Boston. Small print run again, minimal time spent revising the variables.”

Max was leaning back in his chair. He’d folded his arms across his chest. “I get the advantage of it,” he said. His voice was flat. “I just don’t know if it’s something I’m going to be able to master. I’m taking care of other stuff around here, too, that I can’t ignore. And if Tanner goes for all those website ideas of yours, I’m gonna be updating that every time I turn around, too.”

“We can minimize the effort of updating,” she assured. “And I admit there are entire courses designed around learning this graphics software.” She scraped her hair back and pushed it through the band. “But I could teach you the basics.”

His lips twisted. “You got the next six months available?”

“Don’t be so negative,” she chided. “It’ll take a few afternoons. It doesn’t have to take you away, entirely, from your other duties. I’ve got the time if you do.”

“Tanner’s going to owe you big.”

She sat up, stretching her back. It felt like she’d been hunched over his desk, sitting on that little stool, for hours. But as fond as she had become of Tanner, she knew she hadn’t made the offer because of him.

That offer came because of Max, himself, and she wasn’t going to lie to herself by pretending otherwise.

“Advertising’s my business. I’m actually good at it,” she said. “I enjoy it. But I usually end up spending most of my time sitting in meetings, directing everyone else’s projects while they get to do the fun stuff.”

His eyebrows shot up. “This is fun?”

She couldn’t help but grin. She had enjoyed coming up with the website as a surprise for Tanner. But she focused on Max. “Don’t pretend you don’t have a creative bone in your body.” She waved at the notes covering his desk. They contained just as many scribbles as hers. “You’re able to focus on the essentials, but not get your thinking locked into a box. Not everyone can do that, you know.”

Instead of smiling himself, though, he compressed his lips. He shifted and his desk chair gave a soft squeak while his gaze focused again on the computer screen. “Are you hungry?”

She blinked. “What?”

“I should’ve closed up shop two hours ago. It’s supper time.”

“Oh.” Of course. Her gaze flew guiltily to the small window that was all his office possessed. The sky was nearly dark. “I’m sorry. I got caught up in what we were doing.” She quickly pushed off the stool and carried it from behind his desk. He’d gotten it from the break room just down the hallway. “Of course you want to be done.” How many times had her assistant, Samantha, back at FortuneSouth had to remind Emily that the employees had lives beyond the walls of the company?

“All I asked was if you were hungry,” he commented before she reached the doorway.

She hesitated. “Well, I guess I am,” she admitted. She hefted the stool a few inches. “I’ll put this back in the break room.”

“Emily—”

She stopped in her tracks again, realizing that it was the first time he’d actually spoken her name.

She liked it.

“I was thinking we could continue this over dinner.”

Surprise held her still. She liked that idea, too. Probably more than she ought to, since it wasn’t exactly a date. Not that she wanted a date.

He was interesting and attractive and smelled incredible, and if she was interested in having a date with anyone, Max’s name would be at the top of a very short list. But the only dates she had planned in her future were those designed to put a baby in her arms.

It was pretty much a foregone conclusion that mentioning that plan to him would put the kibosh on him wanting to spend anything other than a business dinner with her.

“Um, okay. Sure. Unless you’d rather I just come back another day?”

He was already pushing back from his chair and gathering up the papers strewn over his desk. “Nope.” He stuffed the pages into a folder and opened the top drawer of his desk to pull out a set of keys. “Just leave the stool,” he said.

Feeling a little slow in the face of his sudden motion, she quickly set the stool out of the path of the doorway and grabbed her purse from where she’d left it on top of the filing cabinet that stood beneath the little window.

“Wait here while I lock up the front,” he suggested. “I’ve got more doors to take care of out back.”

In minutes, he returned and led the way back to the classrooms, checking doors and light switches as he went, plunging the hallway into darkness. “Hold on.” His hand reached back when she bumped right into him.

“Sorry,” she murmured.

His hand unerringly found hers. “My fault. Nearly there. Two more doors and we’ll be out of here.”

She opened her mouth and let out a silent breath as she followed behind him. She felt as silly as a schoolgirl with her first crush from nothing more than the heat of his fingers against hers.

Too quickly, he’d finished his rounds and they reached the back door. He let go of her hand as he pushed it open. Light from the lampposts outside flooded over them and she waited while he set the security system and locked up. “Do you have a problem with break-ins?”

“No. But Tanner doesn’t take chances, either.” He pocketed his keys and they walked around the building until they reached the parking area near the front of the office.

Aside from the luxury rental car that she’d had since March, the only other vehicle in the lot was a dark pickup truck.

She stopped at her car. “Shall I drive, or follow you?”

His gaze seemed to hesitate on the Mercedes. “What kind of food do you like?”

“How about Red?” Wendy’s husband, Marcos, managed the popular restaurant.

He nodded and headed toward his truck. “See you there.”

Which answered that, she thought, feeling a little pinch that she knew she had no business feeling. She rummaged through her purse, hunting for her key fob. She finally found it and unlocked the car, aware that Max was already in his truck and waiting. She quickly started the car and drove out of the lot, ridiculously conscious of his headlights in her rearview mirror.

By the time they made it to the restaurant and she found a parking spot in the crowded lot, she had her emotions well in hand again. She could see him driving through the lot, and she went inside to get their names on the waiting list while he hunted for his own parking spot.

“Inside, or the courtyard?” the hostess asked.

Emily peered past the people waiting to be seated. The restaurant was located in a converted hacienda and possessed an open-air courtyard in the center of the building. “Courtyard, please.” The heat of the day had passed, leaving the evening temperature nearly perfect. And there were a few tables still available there.

The girl smiled and made a notation on her list before gathering a pile of menus in her hand and moving off with a well-dressed couple.

Emily went out in front again to wait for Max. He was just crossing the parking lot, his legs eating up the distance. “I requested the courtyard,” she told him when he reached her. “If that’s all right with you.”

“It’s fine.” He nodded toward one of the benches situated outside. “You want to sit?”

She made a face. “Feel like my rear end is still flat from sitting too much already.”

He pinched his earlobe. “Whatever I say to that is probably going to get me into trouble.”

She felt her face go warm again. “I wasn’t hunting for a compliment.”

“I wasn’t trying to look at your rear end all afternoon, either,” his voice was matter-of-fact. “Some things just happen when a woman looks like you.”

Her jaw loosened. She didn’t know what to say to that. So she said nothing, and the silence started to stretch awkwardly.

Max was wishing he could cut off his tongue when the hostess mercifully poked her head out the door and called their name, but the truth was already out there.

He followed Emily through the busy restaurant and couldn’t help but notice that she slipped into one of the chairs at the small table they were shown to in the courtyard so quickly that he didn’t even have an opportunity to pull it out for her. He took the other chair and waited until the hostess handed them their menus and departed again before opening his fool mouth again. “This is a business dinner,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

There was a candle burning in the center of the intimate table and her eyes looked huge and mysterious behind the glasses she wore. “Don’t worry about it.” She unfolded her menu. “Considering my brother-in-law is a manager here, you’d think I’d know the menu inside and out by now but I don’t.” Her voice had that too-bright pitch that told him she was bugged about something.

By his inappropriate comment in the first place, or the fact that he’d apologized for it?

“What do you like here?” she asked, her gaze on her menu.

Her. He liked her.

He held back a sigh and opened his own menu. “Everything’s good. You could close your eyes and point and you wouldn’t be disappointed.”

“Good evening.” A waiter stopped next to their table, and set condensing glasses of water in front of them. “Welcome to Red. Can I start you off with a cocktail?”

“I’d love a margarita,” Emily said. She pulled off her glasses and tucked them in her jacket again. “On the rocks.”

“Very good. Salt?”

“Is there a point to a margarita without salt?” she returned humorously.

“Not in my estimation,” the waiter allowed, grinning. He was young and good-looking and obviously didn’t have a problem waiting on Emily.

Max felt an urge to punch the kid.

“And for you, sir?”

“Lemonade. Lots of ice.”

The boy nodded. “I’ll get those right out to you.”

“Margaritas have no place in dinner meetings for you, I guess,” she commented after the waiter left.

“I don’t drink.”

Her lips parted. She hesitated. Then she shook her head a little. “I’m sorry. I’ve put my foot in it, again.”

He frowned and realized he’d sat forward, even though she’d leaned back in her chair. “What are you talking about?”

“I just thought maybe we could relax a little bit. I certainly don’t need to have a cocktail if you’re opposed to drinking for … whatever reason.”

“I don’t have a drinking problem,” he clarified bluntly. “Not since I quit. Is that what’s worrying you?”

Her head cocked. She slipped her glasses back on her nose. “I wasn’t worried. I just didn’t want to make you any more uncomfortable than you already seem.”

“I’m not uncomfortable.”

Emily eyed him, lifting an eyebrow. “Really? Smile much?”

For a beat, his handsome face looked surprised. Then his lips tilted. “Sorry. Better?”

She felt a definite dip inside her tummy at that crooked smile. “Much better.” Though her pride wasn’t too happy at the breathless way she sounded. She took a sip of her water, determined to follow the order of the evening. Which was business. “So, besides being tasked with the marketing materials, what else does Tanner have you doing around the school?”

Unfortunately, the question didn’t seem to relax him any. “Scheduling, billing, you name it. He handles all the stuff the FAA requires, but I’ve got the bulk of the rest of the paperwork.” He picked up his own water glass. “Lots of paperwork.”

“I can imagine. What’d you do before you started working for Tanner?”

“Worked as a ranch hand. Still do on the weekend if I’m not flying.”

If she hadn’t seen for herself his natural abilities inside the office, she would have figured that sort of outdoor work was much more his style. “What ranch?”

“The Double Crown.”

She sat back, surprised. “That’s Lily and William’s place.”

He nodded. “You’re related, right?”

“Distantly.” She smiled briefly at the waiter when he set their drinks on the table. “Thanks.” She touched the menu that she’d barely glanced at. “Can we have a few more minutes?”

The waiter nodded and disappeared again.

A waitress passed by carrying a heavy tray of food. Emily couldn’t help noticing the way the girl’s eyes fixed longingly on Max. She couldn’t blame her. Emily was having a difficult time not just sitting back to admire the view, herself. He was tall—easily six feet, she’d guess—and his short brown hair was a little shaggy, but thick and glossy-looking all the same. He had an extremely masculine appearance—not fussy at all, but all the more attractive as a result. And his eyes—his eyes were as pale blue as the Red Rock summer sky.

“All the Fortunes here are cousins something-something removed,” she said, hastily returning to the conversation at hand before he realized she was ogling. “But getting to know them all better has been really nice. So, you must like horses and cattle and all that?”

He shrugged. “As long as they’re getting what they need, they don’t care who is feeding and watering. Or shoveling.” His long, blunt fingers surrounded his sweating lemonade glass.

Her gaze slid from his fingers, up along his sinewy wrist. She swallowed and quickly reached for her margarita, looking away for a quick moment toward the glistening water flowing down the tiered fountain situated in the center of the courtyard to gather herself. “Too bad more people aren’t like that.”

His eyebrows pulled together for a quick second, as if she’d surprised him by the comment. But all he did was unfold his menu and look down at it.

She sipped her drink, feeling the warmth of the tequila hit her throat. She shouldn’t have ordered the drink. As he’d said, this was a business dinner. Add in the fact that she hadn’t eaten since that morning …

She set the heavy margarita glass down and stared at her own menu. But she didn’t really see the words. She was fairly certain that there’d been a board listing the chef’s specials at the front of the restaurant which would make choosing easy, since she couldn’t manage to concentrate on anything other than Max.

She closed her menu decisively. “Tell me a little more about how you got your pilot’s license. Are you able to fly often on the weekends? Where do you go? What do you do?” She couldn’t imagine when he had the time, considering he was holding down two jobs.

“I don’t necessarily have places in mind to go. It’s the flying itself that grabs me. And technically, it’s not called a license but a certificate,” he said, closing his own menu. “Right now I’m working on my instrument rating. I put a lot of time in on the simulator. Sunday afternoons roll around and I’m either in the sim room or up in the air.”

She shook her head slightly. “Frankly, I find it a little alarming that pilots learn how to fly sitting in front of a fancy computer.”

His expression lightened. She’d noticed that happened whenever he talked about flying. “We have to put in that air time, as well. Only some of our hours can come from the sim. The sim’s not only less expensive—no aircraft, no fuel—but sometimes it’s easier to get the time on it. Because … no aircraft. Tanner’s students are all jockeying for time in the planes. Scheduling is a bi—well, it’s a real task. Sometimes you gotta settle for what you can get.”

“I hadn’t even thought about the fuel.” She barely registered that she’d sat forward again, propping her chin on her hand. “Is it the same kind of gas we use in our cars?” She dipped her finger over the coarse salt lining her margarita glass and sucked it off her finger.

His gaze flicked away from her lips. He shook his head. “Avgas. Aviation gas and nowhere near as cheap.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess that proves everything is relative. I think the price of filling my car’s gas tank is ridiculous.”

“Wouldn’t think that would bother you.”

She felt a little pause. “Because I’m a Fortune, you mean?”

He held up his lemonade glass, tilting it a little toward her as if to say “bingo.”

“Just because my family has money doesn’t mean I’m unaware, or uncaring, about the cost of things.”

His lips twisted a little. “And the last time you didn’t do something you wanted to do because you couldn’t afford it?”

She let out a little sigh. All the financial advantages that she had at her disposal hadn’t put a baby in her arms, yet. Hadn’t gotten her even close. Her appointment with the adoption attorney that very day had simply underscored that point. There were no women around—none that they could find, anyway—who were interested in a private adoption even though Emily was offering to cover all of the mother’s medical costs. The few pregnant girls who’d responded to her attorney’s ad had all passed on the opportunity when they’d learned Emily was single, and planning to stay that way.

“Money doesn’t buy everything.” She dipped another speck of salt off the glass and touched it to her tongue. “And money or not, I think people are like your animals out at the Double Crown. Not caring how or why so much, just as long as we have what we need.”

He clearly didn’t believe her. “And what do you need?”

She opened her mouth, but no words came.

And fortunately, the waiter returned then. She ordered the first special he reeled off and she was a little surprised when Max did the same.

Somehow, she doubted his reason was the same as hers.

The waiter disappeared again and an awkward silence fell over the table. Emily couldn’t quite figure out why. She’d never felt particularly tongue-tied in any business situation before. She looked around the restaurant. The flickering candles on the tables. The gurgling fountain and the Latin-flavored music. Nothing there felt businesslike. Certainly not sitting at the small table with Max, her knees only inches from his.

She suddenly didn’t want a business situation. She wanted social. And that was an area in which she’d never felt particularly comfortable. Just like Wendy had accused.

The young waitress was clearing a table beside them, but her gaze kept turning to Max, and Emily leaned over the table toward him. “I think you have an admirer,” she said softly, sliding her gaze to the side.

He grimaced and, surprisingly, hunched forward, as well. “That’s just Ellie.”

She felt breathless with their noses only inches apart above the flickering candle. “So you do know her.”

“She’s a kid.”

“I think she looks pretty grown-up to me.” The girl filled out the frilly, white peasant-style blouse she was wearing in a way that Emily had given up on ever achieving when she’d hit twenty. “If looks could kill, I’d be wearing a toe tag. How do you know her?”

“She used to be a cocktail waitress at one of the bars I liked to frequent.”

“Why’d you quit drinking?” She knew it was none of her business, but the question popped out anyway.

“I needed to.”

Which she’d assumed, but the answer still told her nothing. She took the answer as the roadblock it had probably been meant to be and propped her chin on her hand again. Another fortifying sip of her margarita had warmth sliding down her throat.

He had the most compelling eyes. She wondered fancifully what he’d say if she told him she’d thought about his eyes more than once in the days since she’d been buried in airport rubble. “What were you doing at the airport that day?”

“When the tornado hit?” He pinched his earlobe, then dropped his hand on the table. His finger grazed her elbow. But he didn’t move it away and her heart gave a funny little lurch. “I’d been over at the hangar with Gary. We saw the storm rolling in.” His lips compressed for a moment. “Once we realized what was happening, he told me to head over for the terminal, do what I could do to make sure people were taking shelter, while he was gonna make sure the planes were secure in the hangar.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “When I got there, it was complete mayhem. I didn’t even know until later that the hangar had been hit, too. Gary was hit by a collapsing beam. Damned old man never came out of a coma.”

She could all-too-easily imagine sharing Gary’s tragedy. “Instead of helping me, you could have been helping him,” she said softly.

But he shook his head. “That’s not the way Gary would have thought.”

“Is it the way you think?”

His gaze met hers. “I think some things happen for a reason,” he finally said. “And I could make myself crazy trying to understand them, or I can just deal with the facts and move forward.” He made a face. “Something else that Gary taught me.”

She couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward, covering his hand with hers. “You were close, weren’t you?”

He didn’t answer immediately. And when he did, his brief “Yeah” managed to convey so much more. Then he turned his wrist, flipping his hand until their palms met.

Her heart lurched even harder.

“Two Red Flame specials,” the waiter announced as he balanced a tray next to the table. “Chicken breasts stuffed with asiago cheese, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes served over roasted chiles. And you know how seriously we take our chiles here. You order ‘em, you’re committed.”

Emily sat back again as the waiter set their plates in front of them. She wished he would have taken a little longer with the food.

Max didn’t seem to show any such disappointment, though, as he dropped his napkin onto his lap and jabbed his fork into the steaming entrée.

Emily spread her own napkin on her lap and more slowly picked up her fork. The well-known reputation that Red possessed wasn’t a fluke, and even though she was more interested in her dinner companion than she was in the dinner itself, the spicy aroma coming from her plate did its magic and she tucked into the meal, feeling more ravenous than she’d expected.

Two bites in though, she realized just how spicy the dish was. “Oh, my word.” She gasped, grabbing her water and downing half of it. “I’ve burnt off the top layer of my tongue,” she said when she finally set down her water.

Max was grinning. “Didn’t pay enough attention to Julio’s warning when he described the dish?”

“Evidently not.” She realized she was grinning, too. She couldn’t help it in the face of his.

“Here.” He pulled the wedge of lime off the rim of her margarita and held it up. “Suck on this.”

She didn’t know what possessed her.

Maybe it was the fact that her palm was still humming from the touch of his against it. Maybe it was the way his lips canted up a little higher on the right side than the left when he smiled. Or maybe it was just the balmy evening, the flickering candlelight and the tinkling sound of water from the fountain in the center of the patio.

Instead of taking the lime from him, she simply leaned forward and sank her teeth into the small wedge, closing her lips around it to suck at the tart fruit.

His pupils flared.

Time seemed to stand still.

Finally, he let go of the lime and sat back. “You want to dance?”

She slowly drew the lime from her mouth. “Okay.”

And despite the fact that their plates were still steaming hot from the kitchen, he abandoned his chair and walked around to hers, pulling it away from the table.

She stood, too, and felt a shiver trickle down her spine when it seemed as if she could feel his warm breath on her neck.

Then he held out his hand.

She dropped her glasses on the table next to her plate and set her palm against his.




Chapter Three


Max had made some gigantic mistakes in his life.

But as he worked his way through the restaurant’s dining room toward the intimate dance floor, he couldn’t decide if he’d just made one more, or not.

The only thing he knew for sure was that he wanted Emily Fortune up close and personal.

And, whether he could figure out why or not, she seemed to be interested in the same damn thing.

Fortunately, the music wasn’t anything complicated. Just a slow, Latin beat that didn’t necessitate anything more involved than shuffling around between the other couples, and he turned toward Emily. She didn’t hesitate, stepping closer than he’d figured she would, and linking her hands behind his neck.

It took every speck of willpower he didn’t even know he had to keep from dragging her even closer.

“This is the nicest thing that’s happened to me in a long time,” she said.

“I find that hard to believe.”

She tilted back her head and the silky ends of her ponytail tickled his hand where it rested on her back. “Why?”

“I doubt I’m your usual taste.” He stepped closer, turning her slightly to avoid the older couple dancing next to them. “I’ll bet you dessert that your last date was either a lawyer or a doctor.” He thought for a moment. “Or maybe some Southern trust-fund son.”

For a second, he thought she would be offended. At least enough to stop dancing with him and end the spectacular torture it had become the second he’d touched her. But then she lifted her mouth, reaching up to whisper near his ear. “You owe me dessert, then, Max Allen. And I like sinfully … rich … chocolate.”

His fingers curled into the expensive-feeling jacket covering her back. The only thing in his blood right now was sin. And that was a helluva problem, considering Emily was not only out of his class, but she was his boss’s sister-in-law. “Who was he, then?”

“Terrance Green. A stockbroker.”

He gave her a look. “Same thing.”

She smiled a little tauntingly. “You didn’t specify. And I am going to collect.”

“How long did you keep old Terry dancing on your string?”

She rolled her eyes and he figured it was his imagination that she looked embarrassed. “We only went out once,” she said. “I accompanied him to a charity auction.”

He wondered what she’d say if he told her there’d been days during his childhood when he’d pretty much been a charity. “Sleep with him?”

Her jaw dropped. But then she laughed. “You truly don’t bother mincing words, do you?”

“So?”

“No!” She was still smiling, as if she couldn’t believe he’d ask. “Do you really think I sleep with men after only one date?”

“How many does it take, then?”

She waited a beat. “Are you just gathering information, or do you have a more personal interest?”

He tightened his arm around her back, his thigh sliding between hers as they slowly revolved around the floor. “What do you think?”

Her smile had finally died, only to be replaced by an uncertain look that didn’t do a thing to alleviate the heat literally growing between them. “I think,” she finally said huskily, “it bears some investigation.”

“Max?” The feminine voice broke through the thick fog that seemed to enclose them in their own seductive world. “I thought that was you.”

Max wanted to swear when Emily blinked and her expression cleared. He didn’t stop swaying her in his arms, though, as he looked over at his sister, who was eyeing him with no small amount of surprise.

“Kirsten.” His gaze took in her husband, also. “Jeremy. Didn’t know you two would be here.”

His sister smiled, though her eyes were plainly curious. “We could say the same. I haven’t seen you out since—”

“Jeremy,” Max said abruptly, not really wanting to have his sister announce in front of Emily just how long it had been since he’d been seen in public with any woman in his arms. He hadn’t dated in over a year. Back when he was thinking he was heading down the “family man” path, and his life was finally on the right track.

Until it derailed.

He let go of Emily so that she could see the other couple. “I guess you two don’t really need any introduction.”

“I guess we don’t,” Emily agreed. “Jeremy, how nice to see you.” Her gaze went from her cousin something-something-removed, to his wife, and she smiled wryly. “I should have connected the names.” She stuck out her hand toward Kirsten. “It’s good to see you again. I didn’t realize Max was your brother.”

Max suddenly felt like the odd man out. His sister was married to a Fortune and Emily was born a Fortune. While he was a guy just trying to make a place for himself in the world. “Our meal is probably getting cold,” he said.

“Why don’t you join us,” Emily suggested to his sister and her husband. “I’d love to get caught up, and we already have a table out in the courtyard.”

A table that only sat two people, and closely at that.

Max managed a smile, anyway. He and his sister had had their moments in the past, but she was his only family. He knew he could count on her, and more times than he wanted to admit, he’d had that point proven to him. She’d been the terminally responsible Allen, and for the past few years, he’d been working damn hard to prove to her—as well as himself—that he wasn’t the terminally irresponsible Allen. He loved her. And he respected Jeremy a hell of a lot. Both he and Kirsten had been there for him when he’d been at his lowest point.

He just didn’t want to share Emily with them at that particular moment.

“We’d love to,” Kirsten assured. Her hand was tucked around Jeremy’s arm.

And that was the end of that.

They headed back to their table, Emily chattering away easily with her something-removed cousin as they caught up with the family members they had in common, and the waiter managed to squeeze in two more chairs and place settings at their minuscule table.

She didn’t seem to show any remorse at all that she’d invited an interruption to their privacy. Which left Max figuring that she’d wanted an interruption.

Certainly wouldn’t be the first time he’d misread a woman, but usually—when it came to the physical matters—he wasn’t so far off the mark. It was just when it came to their emotions and honesty that he’d had a problem.

He ate his food, not really tasting any of it anymore. He guessed he smiled when he was meant to smile, and responded when he needed to smile, because by the time they’d finished eating and Jeremy slid his bank card to the waiter before Max could even get his hands on the check, not even Max’s sister was giving him any more curious looks.

“Here.” He pulled several twenties out of his wallet and tossed them on the table next to his brother-in-law’s elbow.

He saw Jeremy start to wave away the money, but Max gave him a hard stare. Jeremy was an orthopedic surgeon and a Fortune. He could buy and sell Max dozens of times over. But Max paid his own way now.

Fortunately, his brother-in-law seemed to take the unspoken hint and pocketed the cash along with his credit card when the waiter returned it.

There wasn’t even any need for him to hang around. Emily had her own car. And she and his sister were talking a mile a minute as if they were long-lost friends. Max caught snippets of their conversation. Talking and laughing about college and graduate degrees.

“Think I’ll call it a night,” he said abruptly.

The colored lights hanging around the courtyard reflected softly in Emily’s glasses when she turned toward him. It was only his own wishful thinking that she seemed to show some disappointment. “Do you want to set up a time now for me to meet with you again at the office, or should I call you in the morning? The only thing I have on my schedule is a conference call, but I’ll be finished with that by ten.”

“Call.” He realized how terse he sounded. “I don’t know what’s on my schedule from Tanner for tomorrow yet,” he added.

Her soft lips pressed together a little, but she smiled and nodded. “Okay. Thanks for dinner.”

“Sure.” Before she could say anything else, he leaned over and gave his sister a kiss on the cheek. He didn’t even consider a kiss for Emily—on her cheek or elsewhere. Not in front of his sister. Not when he’d already overstepped the lines of “business.”

He just gave a general wave meant to cover the whole table. “See y’all later.” And then he headed out of the restaurant.

Emily chewed the inside of her cheek, watching Max stride out of the courtyard. She suddenly dropped her napkin on the table. “Would you excuse me, too?” she said quickly to her cousin and his pretty wife. “I forgot to mention something to Max.”

“We’ll see each other again soon,” Jeremy said easily. Kirsten was nodding.

Emily smiled hurriedly and grabbed her purse before quickly following the path that Max had taken. When she reached the parking lot, she spotted him already at his truck and she broke into a trot to catch up to him. “Max,” she called as he unlocked his door. “Would you wait a minute?”

He turned to wait.

She felt breathless when she reached him and knew it wasn’t owed entirely from her sprint across the parking lot. But now that she’d caught up to him, she felt completely tongue-tied. “Thanks for dinner.”

“You already thanked me.”

“I know, but … I—” She broke off, shaking her head a little. “I just really enjoyed myself.”

“Catching up with your cousin?”

“No.” Seemingly of its own accord, her fingers touched his arm. Which was strange, because she wasn’t generally a touchy sort of person. “Well, yes, I mean it was good to see Jeremy. Of course. And your sister. She and Jeremy seem so perfect for each other. I meant I really enjoyed dinner with you.”

His right eyebrow lifted slightly. “You were pretty quick to add more company.”

Her lips parted. “She’s your sister. How could we not invite them to sit with us? Would you rather have had me be rude?”

“I’d rather have had you to myself,” he said bluntly.

That dark and sensual something that had wakened while they’d danced reared again, clenching hard inside her belly. “I’d have liked that, too,” she admitted and gave a little blessing to that margarita or she’d never have had the guts to say the words aloud. “Maybe we could do this again,” she added boldly. “Have dinner. Just … just the two of us.”

The parking lot was too dark for her to see the expression in his eyes. “Maybe.”

Maybe was just another word for no.

She swallowed hard and while she still had some nerve, leaned up and pressed her lips to his cheek. “That’s for being there after the tornado that day,” she said when she went back down on her heels.

He watched her for a moment that was so tight she felt almost sure that he was going to kiss her back.

Really kiss her.

But he didn’t. He just nodded and pulled open his truck door. “You know your way back to your sister’s from here?”

“Yes.”

“Drive carefully.”

“You do the same.” Her voice was faint.

He started up the truck engine and she backed away several feet and watched him drive away.

She wasn’t sure what had just happened.

All she knew was that she felt shaky.

And ridiculously disappointed.

“You were out late last night.”

Emily looked up from the coffee she was pouring into a mug when Wendy padded silently into the kitchen the next morning. “Not terribly.”

“It was practically ten.” Wendy reached around her for a coffee mug of her own. “What were you doing?”

Mildly amused, Emily filled her sister’s mug and replaced the pot on the coffeemaker’s burner. “Maybe I was going wild and crazy like my little sister used to do.”

Wendy made a face. “Ha-ha. Your idea of wild and crazy is leaving the house without a bra on under your tailored shirt.” She twisted her hair up in a deft twist and stuck a clip in it that she pulled out of the pocket of her silky red robe. Then she poured some cream into her coffee and carried it over to the kitchen table that sat in a sunny little alcove. She sank down onto a chair and stretched out her long, shapely legs before sipping her coffee with catlike pleasure.

Emily just shook her head. Her sister could roll out of bed and look like a magazine spread for lingerie. She, though, would have to fuss with her hair for two hours just to get some semblance of style into the stubbornly straight strands and she’d have had to have some serious surgery to gain some of the curves that Wendy came by naturally.

And sad to say, Wendy had her pegged when it came to the whole “wild and crazy” thing.

“You’re the kind of woman who makes women like me feel like dish rags,” she muttered.

Wendy rolled her eyes. “So says the epitome of strikingly beautiful Nordic blondes,” she returned. “I know why I’m feeling sleepy this morning. Because my beautiful daughter woke up twice last night. But what’s got you so cranky this lovely morning? Anything to do with whatever mischief you were getting up to last night?”

“I’m not cranky. And there was no mischief. I had dinner with Max Allen.” Emily sat down across from her sister and sank her nose into her coffee mug. “This decaf stuff is for the birds.” She got back up and added a hefty dose of cream to it.

“Not cranky my hind end,” Wendy observed. “Open up that plastic container there next to the stove. Maybe you’ll find something in there that’ll help.”

Emily opened the container and stared almost lasciviously at the pastries inside. “Did you make these?”

“I did.”

She plucked one flaky croissant-shaped item out of the container and set it on a paper napkin. “I still can’t believe you can cook.”

Wendy laughed. “Baking isn’t cooking,” she said.

“It’s harder,” Marcos said, entering the kitchen just then. He leaned over his wife, planting a kiss on her lips that seemed to raise the temperature in the room by a good five degrees.

Emily just focused on her flaky pastry that tasted a little like almonds and a lot like something sinful. She couldn’t very well tell her brother-in-law and sister to “get a room” when they were right in their very own home.

Emily was the interloper here.

She took another huge bite of the pastry and added a spoon of sugar to her coffee. Maybe if she went into a sugar coma, she’d be able to forget about the way she’d practically thrown herself at Max the evening before. “I’m going to take a shower,” she said to nobody in particular, before leaving the room with her creamy, sweet coffee and a second pastry.

“What’s eating her?” she heard Marcos ask.

She reached the guestroom she’d commandeered before she heard her sister’s reply. But if she’d thought she’d avoid her sister’s curiosity entirely, she was wrong, which she learned when Wendy boldly walked into the bathroom a while later while hot water poured down on Emily’s head.

“So …” Wendy flipped down the lid on the commode, blithely ignoring the glare that Emily gave her from around the shower curtain, “Max Allen?”

“It was business,” Emily said shortly, yanking the shower curtain back in place and sticking her face into the spray of water.

“Until ten o’clock business?”

Emily turned her back to the water and rinsed the shampoo out of her hair. “You knew I was meeting with him for Tanner.”

“And again … until ten o’clock?” Wendy’s voice was full of laughter.

Emily yanked the curtain back enough to eye her sister. “It was just business.”

“Methinks you sound a little defensive, sister dear.”

Emily shut off the water and stuck her hand out. “Make yourself useful and hand me a towel.”

Wendy dutifully pressed a fluffy white towel into her hand. Emily swiped it over herself and wrapped it around her torso before fully pulling back the shower curtain and stepping out. “We had a lot to go over,” she said. She found a comb in her toiletry bag and began dragging it through the tangles in her hair. “So we worked through dinner at Red.”

“My favorite restaurant,” Wendy inserted, grinning. “For obvious reasons.” Not only did Marcos manage the place, but Wendy was the pastry chef there. “And very romantic.”

Emily ignored that. “Excellent food was the goal. But we did run into Jeremy and Max’s sister, Kirsten, there.” She slid a glance toward her sister. “Why didn’t you remind me that Max was her brother?”

Wendy shrugged. “I didn’t think about it, to be perfectly honest. Why is it a big deal?” Her gaze was still sharp. “I mean, since your interest in Max is just business, anyway?”

Emily slapped her comb down on the vanity before she tore out her hair by the roots and picked up a tube of face cream instead. “I just felt sort of like an idiot.” She squeezed out a few drops of cream and worked it in. “He’s practically a relation.”

Wendy picked up the tube that Emily had set down and took the top off, smelling it. “Hardly. Jeremy Fortune is a distant cousin which means his brother-in-law is perfectly free game for an interested woman.”

Emily exhaled noisily. “Wendy, I am not interested that way.”

“Lies’ll give you wrinkles,” Wendy advised. She held up the expensive cream. “Better use a little more of this.”

Emily snatched the tube out of her sister’s hand and capped it again. Then all of her irritation seemed to fizzle out of her. She stared at herself in the mirror but was only seeing Max in her mind’s eye. “Do you know much about him?”

“Some.” Wendy picked up the comb and stood behind Emily. “Don’t you have conditioner or something to keep your hair from tangling like this?”

“I’m out. Please don’t tell me you dated him, too.” Until she’d fallen for Marcos, Wendy had been quite the social butterfly.

Wendy tsked and started working gently at the snarls. “I never dated Max Allen,” she assured. “I do know that he’s sown some of his own wild oats, though. But then, after all that mess with little Anthony—” She broke off, shaking her head.

Emily studied her sister’s reflection in the mirror over the sink. “Who’s Anthony?”

Wendy’s gaze met hers in the mirror. “He was Max’s baby. At least that’s what everyone thought for a while.”

Wendy couldn’t have shocked her more if she’d tried. “Max has a child?”

Wendy shook her head. “No. It’s a long story. But you remember when William and Lily were supposed to have gotten married last year?”

Emily nodded. She’d heard the story more than once about how William had gone missing on his and Lily’s wedding day. All of William’s sons—Jeremy being one of them—had been frantic to find him. But it had been months before he’d been found, recovering from an automobile accident, and a while after that before his memories of Lily and his family had fully returned to him.

“Well, while everyone was worrying over why William hadn’t shown up at the church that day, an old girlfriend of Max’s had basically dumped a baby on him, telling him it was his. He was living with Kirsten at the time and she helped him take care of the baby for a while. But the baby wasn’t Max’s. It was Cooper Fortune’s—did you ever meet Cindy Fortune?” Wendy shook her head before Emily could answer. “Coop’s mother. Anyway, it turned out that the baby had actually been left at the church the day of the wedding.”

Emily turned around, staring at her sister. “Someone abandoned a baby at the church?”

“The baby’s real mother. Presumably she’d done it to get the baby to his father, but that got all messed up. Obviously. And Max’s old girlfriend Courtney somehow ended up with the baby, claiming it was hers and Max’s. All lies, of course, and Max ended up turning the baby over to the authorities, and eventually they were able to determine that Cooper was the baby’s natural father.”





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