Fortune's Secret Daughter

by Barbara Mccauley

  He’d wanted to wait until later to tell her, let her finish her meal and enjoy the evening. But he couldn’t. He knew he had to tell her now. “Holly, there’s—”

  Suddenly Keegan was standing there, beside the table. Guy felt the heat of his glare.

  “I’ll tell you who he is, Holly,” Keegan said tightly. “He’s a fraud.”

  Six

  “Keegan, what are you talking about?” Holly stared at the man, who was currently in a stare-down with Guy.

  “Ask him.” Keegan nodded at Guy. “Ask him what he’s really doing here in Twin Pines. Why he came here.”

  “He was delivering supplies.” She had no idea what was going on, but as she glanced from Keegan to Guy, saw the tight set of Guy’s jaw and the narrowing of his eyes, she had a bad feeling.

  A very bad feeling.

  “I just spoke with Andy, a pilot who works for Pelican in Seattle,” Keegan said evenly. “Turns out Andy was the pilot scheduled to make that run, but your friend here paid him to trade.”

  “Pilots trade runs all the time,” she said. “Why does that mean anything?”

  “By itself, it doesn’t.” Keegan’s voice still had an edge to it, but his face softened when he turned to her. “But Guy asked specifically about you, Holly, before he suggested the trade. About Holly Douglas. Told Andy that you were a friend of a friend.”

  “Holly.” Guy dragged his gaze from Keegan. “I can explain.”

  Holly turned stiffly toward Guy. “Go ahead.”

  Guy shot a vicious look at Keegan. “Alone.”

  And then she knew. She knew exactly why he was here, and she knew exactly who had sent him. There was only one person who would go to all this trouble.

  Ryan Fortune.

  The dinner she’d been enjoying only a moment before now felt like a lump of cement in her stomach.

  “Keegan.” Holly kept her voice even and controlled. “Would you mind? I need to speak to Mr. Blackwolf.”

  Keegan balked. “I’m not leaving you alone with this—”

  His hands clenched into fists, Guy started to rise.

  “Sit back down,” Holly hissed through her clenched teeth. Guy hesitated, kept his hot gaze on Keegan, then did as she asked. Holly placed a reassuring hand on Keegan’s arm. “I’ll be fine, Keegan. I know why he’s here. I’ll explain later.”

  A muscle worked in Keegan’s jaw as he glanced back at Guy, but then he nodded. “I’ll call you.”

  When he was gone, Holly drew in a slow breath and locked her gaze onto Guy. “How much did Ryan and Miranda Fortune pay you to come here?”

  He shook his head. “It’s not like that, Holly.” Guy kept his voice low as he leaned forward. “I was going to tell you tonight.”

  “Really?” Icy sarcasm edged her tone. “Before or after you got me into bed? That’s been the plan all along, hasn’t it? Let me think I could trust you, take me out for a little food and conversation, tell me how beautiful I am, how sexy, then whisk me back to my apartment for a quick roll in the—”

  “Dammit, stop that,” he said louder than he should. Several heads turned their way. He exhaled sharply, then sat back in his seat and said quietly, “I came to Twin Pines to talk to you, that’s all.”

  If this discussion escalated any further, Holly realized, it would be all over town tomorrow that they were sleeping together and had a lover’s spat right in the middle of the Twin Pines Lodge dining room. If they weren’t in a public place with all these people around, she’d rip his liver out right now and serve it to him on his plate.

  Instead she smiled, laughed casually for all the eyes that were on them.

  “Fine.” She snapped the word out from under her breath while she held her smile in place. “We’ll talk. But not here.”

  She stood as if nothing at all had happened, when inside her blood was boiling. Calmly, casually, smiling and saying hello to the people she knew, she walked out of the restaurant ahead of Guy while he paid the bill.

  She was nearly halfway back to her apartment by the time he caught up with her. She kept her strides long and quick and her gaze straight ahead. “I should have let you drown.”

  “Will you slow down and let me talk?”

  “No.” He took hold of her arm, but she yanked it away and kept walking. Her boots clomped on the wooden sidewalk. “You had no right to come here. No right at all. I came to Twin Pines to put as much distance between myself and the Fortune family as I possibly could. They have no place here. This is my place. My home.”

  Fists swinging at her sides, she stomped up the stairs to her apartment, then marched into her kitchen. He followed her inside and closed the front door. When he moved toward her, she put out a hand, palm up and he stopped.

  “They just want to meet you, Holly.”

  “No. N. O., no. I already told Ryan and Miranda Fortune I want no part of their family.”

  “Their brother, Cameron, was your father, Holly,” Guy said gently. “That makes the Fortunes your family, too.”

  “Just because the bastard jumped in every available bed in the state of Texas and got who knows how many women pregnant before he moved on to the next doesn’t make him a father any more than it makes his family mine.” She slammed one open window shut, then moved to the next, but it stuck. Frustrated, furious, she pulled harder.

  “Let me do that.”

  “Just keep away.” She struggled with the window. “Haven’t you done enough?”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you right away,” he said. “But after the crash, I just needed a little time. Not just to get my strength back, but to give you time to know me, to know that I didn’t come here to hurt you.”

  “Mister, I don’t know you at all.” She slammed her fist on the top of the window and pain radiated up her arm. It felt good, she thought, preferred it to the pain in her heart. But still the window refused to budge. “And lies always hurt, Blackwolf. Men like you, like my father, don’t quite get that concept.”

  He grabbed hold of her shoulders, turned her around and brought his face within inches of hers. “Don’t you compare me to Cameron Fortune,” he said in a low, dangerous tone. “I may not be proud of everything I’ve done in my life, but I would never, ever abandon a child.” He dropped his hands and stepped back. “You got that?”

  She wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of raw emotion that spilled from his body into hers, or for her reaction to it. Her arms burned where he’d touched her; her insides sizzled. The faint smell of smoke still hung in the air, but she wasn’t sure if it was from the earlier oven disaster, or from herself.

  But she did know that she believed him. If not about other things, then about this one thing. Her acceptance of that fact, that he would never abandon a child, somehow took the heat out of her anger.

  “I never met him once when he was alive.” She stepped back against the wall, rubbed at her arms where his touch had scorched her. “Why the hell should I care about him now that he’s dead?”

  “This isn’t about Cameron Fortune.” He turned away and to her annoyance, easily closed the window. “This is about you. You have half sisters, half brothers, aunts and uncles and cousins.”

  She shook her head. “I want nothing to do with Cameron Fortune’s family. That part of my life is closed. I have no intention of opening it up again.”

  “They’re your family, Holly.” He sighed, raked a hand through his hair. “They just want to meet you.”

  “Not interested. My store, my life, is here in Twin Pines now. I’m not interested in their money, their power or their prestige. There’s nothing they can give me, or I can give them. You wasted a trip here, Blackwolf, not to mention a perfectly good airplane. But then I suppose Ryan and Miranda Fortune have more than enough money to buy you a hundred planes in addition to your fee.” She brushed past him. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed. The couch is yours tonight, but I want you out of here tomorrow.”

  “Holly.”

  She paused, g
lanced over her shoulder at him.

  “Believe whatever you want, but the Fortunes didn’t pay me to come here. I came here as a favor to a friend. And what happened between us—” he leveled his gaze with hers “—had nothing to do with the Fortunes.”

  “Nothing happened between us, Guy,” she said, felt the emptiness of the truth in that statement. “Nothing.”

  When she closed the bedroom door behind her, she laid her cheek against the cool wood and blinked back the threatening tears.

  Absolutely nothing at all.

  Two a.m. came, but not sleep. Guy sat on the couch, stared into the darkness as he wrestled between pounding on Holly’s bedroom door or just simply leaving. He had no idea where he’d go if he left, or where he’d sleep, but what the hell, he wasn’t sleeping anyhow.

  He got up, reached for his bag, then swore and sat back down.

  He couldn’t leave. Not yet. He and Holly weren’t finished. Not by a long shot.

  Lord, but he’d made a mess of this. He had no idea how to make it right, but he knew he had to try. Not just for his sake, but for Holly’s. She’d saved his life and he repaid her by hurting her. And while an apology certainly wouldn’t make everything hunky-dory, it was the only place he knew where to start.

  He couldn’t even be angry at Keegan. He’d been watching out for Holly, protecting her, which was more than he could say for himself. He didn’t have to like the man to respect him.

  He got up again and this time headed for the bedroom. And stopped.

  Oh, hell.

  With a heavy sigh, he raked both hands through his hair, then went into the kitchen and flipped on the light over the stove. He’d already cleaned up the mess he’d made earlier, but the cold, hard lump of macaroni and cheese he’d attempted to make still sat in a bowl on the counter. He had no idea what to do with it, though he thought it might make a good anchor. No doubt Holly would love to cram the concoction, bowl and all, down his throat.

  He stared at the bowl, then suddenly went still.

  He felt her presence before he actually heard her. When he turned, she stood in the dim light of the kitchen doorway, her hands jammed deep into the pockets of a blue robe, watching him with her cool cat eyes. Her hair fell around her shoulders in a wild mass of chestnut curls. Hair a man could drag his hands through.

  His hands fisted at the thought; he pushed the image out of his mind. The last thing in the world she wanted was for him to touch her, let alone all the other things he’d fantasized since the first moment he’d opened his eyes and she’d been standing over him.

  So he stood still, waited, heard the sound of his own heartbeat in the quiet and the soft hoot of an owl in the woods behind her apartment.

  “What kind of pie did you say you made?” she said after a long moment that felt more like hours rather than seconds.

  He frowned. “What?”

  “You said earlier that you’d made a pie.” She moved a little closer, wary, but without the anger that she’d stormed out with earlier. “What kind?”

  “Chocolate.” He opened the refrigerator, pulled out the pie and held it up as an offering. It was lopsided, but didn’t look too bad. “With whipped cream. Do you want to eat it,” he asked carefully, “or throw it in my face?”

  One corner of her mouth turned up. “I’ll have to taste it first to decide which will give me more satisfaction.”

  A truce, he realized, felt a wave of relief pour through him. He’d been prepared to crawl if necessary—Lord knew she deserved a little groveling—but she was waving a white flag.

  Would she ever cease to amaze him?

  She pulled two plates from the cupboard, a pie cutter and spoons out of the drawer, then set them on the table. He gave up trying to slice the pie and spooned it onto the plates instead. Even in the dim light he could see the amusement in her eyes as she looked at the lumpy mound of chocolate pudding.

  Her first bite was as small as it was tentative. “Not bad. What’s this crust made out of?”

  “Vanilla wafers.” He took a bite himself and decided it was edible, after all. “My sister used to make it for me on special occasions.”

  “What kind of special occasions?”

  It was small talk. But the fact she was talking to him at all was a miracle. “Birthdays. If I’d make it through a week without cutting school or having the principal call. If my dad made it home from work in time for dinner. That was a real special occasion.”

  There was something about sitting at a kitchen table with a woman, in the semidark, in the middle of the night, eating chocolate cream pie, that felt…comfortable. A kind of comfortable he’d never felt before.

  “And your mother?”

  He shrugged. “She was Italian, with huge brown eyes and a smile that turned men to drooling idiots.” He scooped a bite of pudding onto his spoon. “I was eleven when she decided that life with a traveling rock band was more interesting than a half-breed bench press operator and two kids. My dad took it hard.”

  “And you?” Holly asked quietly. “Did you take it hard?”

  He shrugged. “I had my sister, Susan. She was four years older and ran the house like a drill sergeant.” He hadn’t thought about those days in a very long time, Guy realized. “After she graduated nursing school, she told everyone she was going to get married and have six children, two dogs and three cats.”

  “Did she?”

  “No.” He stared at the pie on his plate. Susan’s had always been perfect. He wished he’d paid closer attention when she’d tried to teach him how to cook. “She died when she was twenty-four. Breast cancer. Seems she took care of everyone but herself.”

  Holly drew in a slow breath, then let it out. “Oh, Guy, I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a long time ago.” Sometimes it felt like a hundred years, other times, like last week. “She went to school with Flynn Sinclair.”

  She glanced up. “The same Flynn Sinclair who sent me an invitation to the Fortune family get-together several months ago?”

  He nodded, watched her expression turn from sad to surprise. “He was there for Susan through everything,” Guy said evenly.

  “So he’s the friend you did a favor for.” She studied him thoughtfully in the dim light. “The reason you came here.”

  “Yes. Look, Holly—” he pushed his plate away and leaned toward her “—I talked to Flynn today. He told me that your uncle’s in the hospital. They don’t know what’s wrong with him, but they’re running tests. Your Aunt Miranda asked if you would at least call.”

  He saw the hesitation in her eyes, then she shook her head slowly. “Guy, I’m sorry the man is ill, but it doesn’t change anything for me. I’m also sorry you came all this way for nothing. The Fortune name means nothing more to me than memories of long, cold winters when my mother didn’t have enough money to heat the tiny trailer we lived in. Or the hand-me-downs I wore growing up that the other kids made fun of, the birthday parties I could never go to. The boys I never dated or brought home because my mother would most likely be passed out on the sofa because alcohol was the only thing that eased the ache in her heart for a man who never gave a damn about her.”

  “Cameron Fortune was a first class bastard and irresponsible fool.” Just for starters, Guy thought. “But maybe before you lump his family in the same category, you should at least give them a chance.”

  “Why should I give them a chance?” She stood, turned her back as she moved to the window and stared stiffly out into the night. “Because some of the Fortune blood runs in my veins? It takes a lot more than that to make a family.”

  He came behind her, shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from touching her. “You’re right. It takes people who care about you, who are there for you when you need them, who accept you exactly as you are. People you can argue with and get mad at, but you never walk away from.”

  She shook her head. “If you think I want that with the Fortunes, or that I need it, you’re wrong. I’ve done without them for
twenty-six years, Guy, and I’m doing just fine.”

  “Are you?”

  Eyes narrowed and lips pressed tight, she turned to face him. “You can’t just waltz into my life for a few days and think you know me. You don’t know what I want or what I think or what I feel.”

  “Maybe not,” he said calmly. “But tell me you haven’t ever wondered if maybe one of your cousins or an aunt has the same eyes as you do, or the same color hair. Maybe the same voice. If they all sit around a big table of food at Thanksgiving or Christmas and laugh and talk. Tell me that you’ve never wondered, even once, if just maybe there was a seat at that table for you.”

  “No.”

  He smiled. “There’s one thing you don’t do well, Holly, and that’s lie. Your eyes give you away every time.”

  “Maybe you could give me some lessons,” she said, lifting her chin.

  “I deserve that,” he said tightly. “But don’t let your feelings for me keep you from finding out the truth. It’s easier to regret having done something, than to regret not doing it and wishing you had.”

  “Is it?” she asked quietly.

  Her gaze held steady on his, then slowly slid to his mouth. His pulse leaped; heat raced through his veins.

  Just like that. A simple look and he felt the need, felt himself harden. He wanted.

  Thankful he had his hands in his pockets, he stepped away. If he touched her now, if he took her in his arms, there’d be no stopping. Emotions were too high, too raw, and he’d be taking advantage of that if they went to bed together. He knew that if they did make love, she’d only despise him in the morning.

  It took every ounce of willpower he possessed not to close the distance between them, not to drag his hands through that wild hair of hers and take what he knew she was offering.

  When he kept his distance, the desire he’d seen in her eyes faded. The hollow, empty look he now saw clawed at his insides.

  She turned from him, shoved her own hands into the pockets of her robe as she looked out the window. “So maybe I have wondered,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “On birthdays, or the swim meet when I took first place for high dive. My high school graduation. Christmas Eve. Those were the times it hurt the most. When I envied the other kids as much as I hated my own mother for not loving me as much as the man who’d abandoned us both.”