Texan Seeks Fortune

by Marie Ferrarella

  Connor debated whether or not to tell her. Quite honestly, he’d been feeling rather guilty about keeping Brianna in the dark this way—not that any of this would affect her. She certainly wasn’t in any danger the way some, if not all, of the people on that list were. The list, if he were to take a guess, contained the names of all the family members who were related to Gerald Robinson either directly or indirectly.

  And Charlotte, he knew, hated all of them. Not in principle, but in actual fact. In his estimation, the woman was a walking psycho. Gerald leaving Charlotte to be with his “first love” had obviously pushed the woman over the edge and now she was bent on getting her revenge on the whole lot of them.

  Brianna was still looking at him, waiting for an answer.

  Connor made up his mind.

  “To warn them,” he told her.

  “Warn them?” she repeated, no less confused than she had been a moment ago. “Warn them about what?” she wanted to know.

  That was just it. He didn’t know any of the actual particulars. Didn’t know what further mayhem Charlotte was capable of.

  Frustrated, he told Brianna, “That they could be in danger.”

  She felt as if they were taking baby steps here, trying to get to the truth. “From what?”

  “From Charlotte,” he said bluntly.

  Ordinarily, she’d just back away and let him keep whatever secret he was trying to preserve. But she’d come this far, she wasn’t about to stop until he gave her an answer that made some sense to her.

  “I don’t understand.”

  She was an outsider, not family, but in his opinion, Brianna had earned the right to know some things. “It’s my feeling that Charlotte wants to hurt as many of these people as she can.”

  “But why?” Brianna pressed. Why would anyone want to hurt people she didn’t even know or had never met?

  “It’s complicated,” he told her, thinking of all the stories he’d come across regarding Gerald Robinson.

  She knew what that meant, Brianna thought, frowning. “So you’re not going to tell me,” she guessed.

  He blew out a breath. The die had been cast. “No, I am. You just have to keep a very open mind,” he warned. When Brianna nodded, Connor began. “In a nutshell, some of the people on this list are her husband’s offspring and she’s determined to track them all down.”

  “His offspring?” Brianna repeated, stunned. “There’s got to be almost twenty-five people on that list. Maybe even more.”

  She wasn’t saying anything that he wasn’t aware of. “I know.”

  “And you’re telling me that they’re all his—his children?” she asked incredulously, still unable to wrap her mind around what Connor was saying.

  He laughed dryly. There was no humor in the sound. “The man got around. But this also includes his half brothers’ kids.”

  Brianna’s eyes widened as she looked at all the names on the list again. Names of people she’d searched for and found. Names of people she hadn’t gotten around to looking for. And names of people she’d looked for but hadn’t found. And all these people were most likely in the dark about their family tree.

  It was beginning to make a little sense to her now. “Is that why you’re trying to find them first?” she asked Connor. “So you can find a way to break it to them to minimize their getting hurt?”

  Connor shook his head. “If that was the only thing, I’d just let it all go and hope for the best. It’s really none of my business if they know or don’t know. But I honestly don’t know how far Charlotte will go in order to get her revenge.” He frowned, thinking of the havoc the woman had already caused. “She’s already done a lot of damage.”

  “What’s she done?” Brianna wanted to know.

  She looked so innocent, for a second, he had second thoughts about exposing her to all this ugliness. But he wanted her help, so he told her.

  “For openers, I’m ninety-nine point nine percent positive that she’s the one who burned down Gerald Robinson’s mansion.”

  Stunned, Brianna asked, “She’s an arsonist?”

  Connor nodded. “That’s what I think.” Since he’d opened the door on this, he continued. “And she’s also behind the creative sabotage that caused Fortunado Real Estate to lose so many clients, not to mention the cyberattack on Robinson Tech,” he added grimly.

  They were back to this not making any sense to her. “If this Charlotte woman is behind a cyberattack, what did she need me for?” Anyone capable of launching a cyberattack was able to find people using the internet.

  He’d already thought about that. “I think she approached you first. The cyberattack happened just in the last couple of months.” Charlotte was either upping her game, or finding people willing to do her bidding for a price without asking any questions.

  “Maybe I should be happy that she disappeared out of my life.” It was clear to Brianna that she had dodged a bullet.

  He put his hand over hers. “Unless you have the bad luck of being one of Gerald’s multitude of kids, I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

  A person who was so out for revenge didn’t always stay within the lines, she knew. “But you can’t be sure.”

  “You’re right, I can’t,” Connor agreed. “But I’d say Charlotte’s too focused on hurting her ex-husband’s progeny to waste her time and effort on hurting an outsider.”

  Brianna shook her head, still having trouble taking all this in. She hadn’t had an easy time of it in her life, but she couldn’t visualize the kind of anger that would make someone plot this sort of far-reaching revenge. Or any kind of revenge for that matter.

  “It’s hard to believe that someone can be this eaten up by hate,” she told him.

  Connor smiled at her as he tucked a bit of stray hair behind Brianna’s ear. “You really are a good person, Brianna,” he commented.

  She wasn’t so sure about that. Good people didn’t have these sorts of feelings rushing through them in response to someone just casually brushing against their skin.

  “Not all the time,” she finally told him quietly.

  Damn it, they were sitting here talking about Charlotte, the Dragon Lady. The very personification of evil. So why, in the middle of all this, was he suddenly wanting Brianna? And why, in the middle of all this, of discovering that there were more people he had to find, to warn, was he suddenly consumed with the desire to possess this woman?

  She was the single mother of two little kids, kids she was struggling every day to provide for. He had no right to disrupt her life because he wanted her.

  No right at all.

  It didn’t seem to matter.

  Logic was not getting in his way. It was not keeping him from leaning into her and rediscovering just how sweet her mouth was.

  And it was.

  It was very, very sweet, he thought, as what had begun as just a quick kiss flowered into something a great deal more. Something that shook him down to his very toes even as it begged him to go on, to lose himself in all that Brianna had to offer.

  Oh Lord, she had promised herself that this wasn’t going to happen again, that she wouldn’t get close enough to him physically to be tempted to relive that spectacular kiss that she had sampled the other day. And yet, here she was again, feeling her heart slamming against her chest so hard, she thought her ribs would crack. This kiss was stealing away her very breath even as it somehow managed to magically dim the very sunlight that had, until a second ago, been in the room.

  Struggling, she managed to gather what little strength she had left and somehow pulled her head back.

  “I can’t do this,” she told him, trying very hard not to sound as if she was breathless. “I can’t get involved with you.” Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. “It’s not that I don’t want to, but I have to think of the kids.”

  “Th
ey like me,” he reminded her, his voice surrounding her. Keeping her warm.

  “That’s just the problem. They like you,” she told him. “They’re used to you. And you’re not going to be staying.” She released a shaky breath, searching for words to make him understand why she was pushing him away. “You don’t even live in Houston,” she cried. “When we finish finding those people on that list—when we finish our business together—you’ll be gone and...they’ll be devastated.”

  She’d almost said that she would be devastated but stopped herself at the last moment. He didn’t need to know that.

  “I’ve got to remember that and not let them sense that there’s anything going on between us,” Brianna told him. “Because then they’d really think that you were going to stay.”

  “They won’t know,” he argued.

  Connor realized that he was pleading his case without actually saying the words—but he was pleading. Because that was how much he wanted her.

  She shook her head, dismissing his words. “They’re kids. Kids intuit things. They’ll know.” She willed herself to fight back tears. “I’m sorry, Connor, but I can’t.”

  “No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” he told her with emotion. “For a lot of reasons.” Connor raised his hands like someone who was backing off from something he desperately wanted to touch. “Don’t worry, I’ll back off,” he promised. “You don’t have anything to worry about from me, Brianna. I give you my word. Scout’s honor,” he added with a wink.

  She sincerely doubted that the man sitting at the desk right next to her had ever been a Boy Scout, but she pretended to take him at his word.

  After all, it wasn’t as if she had any other choice available to her.

  Any further discussion of this truce they had awkwardly struck was suddenly tabled as it became clear to them that they were not alone. And this time, it wasn’t one of the pets that had come wandering into the office.

  Instead, it was Ava.

  Brianna forced a smile to her face as she looked at her daughter. “What are you doing here, sugarplum? I thought you were playing with Axel.”

  “He’s in the bathroom,” Ava dutifully informed her mother with a shrug just before she dropped her bombshell. Turning toward Connor, she asked, “Were you kissing Mama?”

  Connor was very grateful that he hadn’t just taken a sip of the coffee he had brought into the room earlier. If he had, right now he’d either be choking or spraying it all over everything like a human geyser.

  It took a minute for him to clear his throat sufficiently to speak.

  “I’m sorry, what?” he asked. He was trying to stall as his mind raced around for the right way to answer Ava’s question without either feeding her young imagination or lying.

  “Were you kissing Mama?” she repeated, then told him guilelessly, “It looked like you were.”

  “How do you know about kissing?” Brianna asked her younger child.

  Ava gave her mother a look that all but said: You have to be kidding. She tossed her head. “I know about kissing, Mama.”

  “Your mother had something in her eye,” Connor spoke up out of the blue. “I had to get in close so I could get it out.”

  “Oh.” The answer seemed to satisfy the little girl. She bobbed her head up and down. “Okay.” And then she looked at Connor intently. “Are you finished in here with Mama yet?”

  “No, not yet,” Connor answered, hoping she was asking if he was finished working and not if he was finished kissing her mother.

  Again Ava nodded. “Okay. Come find me when you are,” she told him just before she made her way out of the room again. A small adult trapped in a child’s body.

  Brianna turned to look at him. There was no need for words. The expression on her face said it all. That what had just happened proved her point and backed up the reasons why she couldn’t afford to get involved with him no matter how tempting that was.

  He took his cue and got as comfortable as he could sitting at her desk. “I guess we’d better get back to work before Ava comes looking for me again.”

  She’d never seen her daughter like this, or her son for that matter. Both of her children had taken to Connor almost instantly. She’d be more than happy about that if she and Connor were serious about one another.

  But no matter what she might feel, she could tell that Connor was not the type to get serious about anyone, not in the true sense of the word. Not when serious meant everlasting commitment. Connor represented the exact opposite of that. He was the very definition of a carefree bachelor and she was certain that he intended to stay that way.

  And as long as he felt that way, she was not about to let her guard down and let him in.

  She couldn’t.

  Chapter Twelve

  Right after he fulfilled his babysitting obligation, he tried to stay away, he really did.

  Full of selfless, altruistic intentions, Connor’s resolution to keep his distance from Brianna lasted all of one day before finally crumbling.

  The so-called leads that he told himself he needed to run down turned out to be nothing more than paper trails that really led nowhere.

  Just as he suspected they would.

  Presently, the most useful information he had to work with was all coming out of Brianna’s past efforts on behalf of Charlotte, as well as the efforts she was putting into working with the list of names that Charlotte had forwarded to her.

  So, after spending what felt like a completely restless night tossing and turning in his bed and then coming up with every excuse he could think of not to turn up on her doorstep, Connor turned up on Brianna’s doorstep the following afternoon.

  Even so, standing before her door, he wrestled with his conscience, raising his hand and then dropping it to his side before he could ring her doorbell.

  Anyone watching him from the street would have assumed he was crazy, Connor thought.

  And maybe he was, he conceded as he finally made contact with her doorbell and pressed it.

  The chiming sound seemed to vibrate in his chest, mocking him.

  Time froze until he saw the door open.

  And then there she was, Brianna, standing in the doorway. He watched as a myriad of emotions passed over her face in the space of a few seconds.

  And then she recovered, clearing her throat. “Um, I was beginning to think that you had decided to pursue another route in tracking down your target.”

  “I was just looking into a few things that didn’t wind up panning out,” Connor said, telling her the first thing that came to his mind.

  Since Brianna was still standing, blocking the doorway, he nodded toward the inside of her house. “Can I come in?”

  “What?” Realizing that she was standing in his way like a statue, she snapped to life. “Oh sure. Of course.” Painfully aware of how awkward she had to sound to Connor, Brianna turned away from him and led the way back to her office. “I’ve been looking into some of the other names,” she told him.

  “Even though I wasn’t here?” he questioned. He found himself looking at her, puzzled. What kind of a woman was she? “I mean, I didn’t call you about not coming over yesterday. Given the so-called family record,” he said, thinking of Charlotte, “you would have been within your rights to think I was guilty of pulling a disappearing act.”

  Now that he’d raised the point, she wanted it clarified. “Why didn’t you call?” she wanted to know.

  There was no actual good reason he could give her. “I got caught up in something,” he answered evasively.

  It was the shakiest of lies, but telling a woman you were trying to keep your distance from her didn’t sound like the best way to go, either, especially now that he really wanted to put all that behind him.

  Brianna nodded, as if accepting the flimsy excuse. “Well, I didn’t have anything to work on at the mome
nt and no one called me yesterday to fill in, so I thought I might as well just continue hunting for any information on those missing family members,” she explained.

  He couldn’t see someone as busy as Brianna not having anything to do.

  “You mean the dynamic duo didn’t manage to run you ragged yesterday?” he asked. As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he glanced out to the hallway, expecting the children to appear. They didn’t. “Speaking of which, where is my welcoming committee?” he asked Brianna. “I haven’t seen or heard them since I walked in a whole five minutes ago.” He stepped out into the hall to look around, but he didn’t see either one of them. “They usually come charging out by now.”

  “Well, if they’re charging out, it’s at Joey and Debbie’s house, not mine.” She smiled to herself, thinking how both of her children had pleaded with her to let them go. It was starting. Her children were beginning to grow up. Before she knew it, they’d be getting married and leaving. The prospect of an empty nest was not all that far away, and she felt sad.

  “Joey and Debbie?” he repeated, unfamiliar with the names Brianna had just mentioned.

  “Friends from the park,” she explained. “Their poor, brave mother—my babysitter, Beth—and her husband are hosting a slumber party for them at their house tonight.”

  He didn’t care how brave the other woman was, he was concerned about Axel and Ava. “Aren’t they a little young to be going to a slumber party?” he asked. The second the words were out, he realized that he was making noises like a parent, but the truth of it was he didn’t think they were old enough to attend a slumber party. What had Brianna been thinking? “How many kids are going to be there?”

  “Counting my two and her two?” Brianna asked. When he nodded, she answered, “Four. Beth thought she’d start out small and see how it goes. I’ll probably have to wind up reciprocating.” She could hear her children pleading for a slumber party of their own already. “But not until I finish working on your project.”