Mail-Order Cinderella (Fortune's Children: The Grooms Book 2)

by Kathryn Jensen

  She lifted a hand and rested it gently at the back of his neck, touching the short hairs at the nape, soaking up the last sensations of his body in, over, around her. He’d done his duty, even before the wedding. If she became pregnant as a result of this night, he need never touch her again. As flattering as he’d been, she had no doubt that most of his comments were intended to relax and reassure her. Men like Tyler Fortune who dated models, heiresses, the daughters of powerful politicians—they didn’t fall all over themselves for an assistant branch librarian.

  Nevertheless, he had seemed to enjoy himself, and, if she correctly read his present inert posture, he was fully satisfied. A small, proud part of her congratulated herself. It might never happen again, but she sure as heck hadn’t disappointed the man this time. Julie grinned.

  “What’s so funny?” Tyler mumbled thickly against her throat.

  “How did you know I was smiling?”

  “I could feel the muscles in your face move.”

  “Maybe I was making a face because you’re crushing me,” she countered.

  “Am I?” He started to lift away from her.

  “No. I’m just teasing.”

  “I was afraid of that.”

  “What?” she asked, concerned by his tone.

  “Already I’ve changed you. Before we made love, you weren’t capable of teasing…no sense of humor whatsoever.”

  “I beg your pardon!” She gasped and pushed him away, but as he fell backward, rolling to one side, he was laughing.

  “See? Another change. Your inherent violent nature is showing itself now.”

  She shook her head at him, laughing joyfully. “I may be a lot of things, but violent isn’t one of them.”

  He seemed to drift away from her then, for just a moment as he pulled up his jeans and tucked in his shirt, which he’d never taken off. She dressed, then sat down again, waiting for him to say something. But he was standing in the middle of the cave looking around at the walls as if searching for a personal message among the rusty red, black, and ochre petroglyphs.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “No.” He shrugged. “It’s just that I should have explained something about my history before we did this.”

  A tiny ache in her heart shattered the moment. The passion and delightfully intimate humor suddenly seemed miles away. Now was the moment he’d break her heart. “You’ve been with other women,” she murmured. “It’s all right.”

  “It’s not all right,” he said tightly. “I don’t want you to worry about certain things.”

  What was he trying to say? “I don’t understand.”

  “Like I’ve said, I’ve cultivated the playboy image. It was convenient. Until recently, that image kept marriage at bay.” He paused. “I just want to reassure you that it’s been over six months since my last…encounter.” He smiled diplomatically at her. “And when I decided to register with Soulmate, I asked my doctor to run the appropriate tests because I wanted to be able to assure my future wife that I was perfectly healthy, even though I’d always practiced safe sex and knew what the results would be.”

  She nodded, grateful that he was being so forthright and considerate. “I wouldn’t have even thought of being tested.”

  “No need in your case.” He smiled as if this pleased him.

  Julie sat on the cave floor, tucking her toes into her shoes and observing him. She wanted to ask him if she had lived up to his expectations in other ways, but didn’t know how. “You would tell me, wouldn’t you, Tyler? I mean if I wasn’t any good at…you know…”

  He laughed with gusto that warmed her insides. “My darling woman, you don’t have a clue how marvelous you are, do you?” He hauled her to her feet and enclosed her in a crushing bear hug. And when she was about to turn blue from lack of oxygen, he moved her away from him to study her face as if absorbing and placing in memory every eyelash, each tiny line and soft contour. “We’d better get back now. Don’t want to be late for your own bridal dinner.”

  Eight

  Julie woke on the morning of her wedding to the sound of a telephone ringing. Tyler moved on the bed beside her to answer it.

  “No, don’t come here. I agree we have to talk, but—” His voice sounded tense and sharp as he raked splayed fingers through sleep-mussed hair.

  Julie rolled out of bed and pulled on her robe. Wanting to give him some privacy during what sounded like an important conversation, she went into the kitchen to make coffee. She sliced wedges of a maple-walnut coffeecake she’d baked the day before, then set two places at the cozy kitchen table.

  “Well, sure, it’s important.” She could hear Tyler’s raised voice from the bedroom. “That’s why I was about to suggest you meet me at the site. I can be there in twenty minutes.”

  Julie sighed as she sat down and took a sip of coffee. He was planning to work on their wedding day?

  The phone slammed down loudly. A moment later, Tyler appeared in the kitchen doorway in his boxers. Despite his obviously less than romantic mood, she felt a curl of warmth within her at the sight of his broad chest and flat, muscled stomach. Memories of the night before returned. They’d made love again after the rehearsal dinner.

  “Something’s wrong,” she said, not bothering to put it as a question.

  Tyler nodded, rubbing the bridge of his nose with one knuckle. “That was Link Templeton. It seems he has come up with additional evidence that Mike Dodd’s death wasn’t an accident.”

  “Then there’s no doubt someone intentionally killed the man?” she asked, putting down her cup.

  “Yes, but so far there seems to be no logical motive. Mike was a hardworking guy. Everyone liked him.”

  “Well, you must go then,” she said regretfully, looking down at the intimate pair of coffee cups on the table. It was so nice to put food on a table for two, instead of just one.

  “I had hoped we’d spend the morning together,” he said as if reading her thoughts. The glimmer in his dark eyes thrilled her. “Alone. Here.”

  She felt herself blush. The mere thought of making love with Tyler yet again drove up her blood pressure. “Maybe,” she suggested shyly, “there will be time later.”

  “Kate has this shindig scheduled for one o’clock,” he reminded her.

  Julie stood up and walked around the table to lace her fingers around Tyler’s neck. “Maybe you’ll be able to come back in an hour or so?” She felt positively wicked, and she loved this new addition to her previously limited stock of emotions.

  “I hope so.” Looping his strong arms around her waist, he pulled her to him. “Will you be here?”

  Julie smiled. “You can bet on it.”

  He kissed her then returned to the bedroom to dress. On his way out the door fifteen minutes later, he kissed her again but she could see that his mind was already in another place. She stood at the bay window and watched the man she would soon marry drive away, and a sense of deep, irreparable loss enveloped her. Before she knew she loved Tyler Fortune, she had been able to look on their relationship so simply.

  But he’d made love to her. They hadn’t just had sex. Hadn’t just performed the required physical act to produce a baby. They’d made love—at least she had. And no amount of reasoning could banish the feelings she cherished for him now. He had filled a void in her life. He made it easier to smile, to hope, to dream and even, it sometimes seemed, to breathe. Tyler Fortune possessed her. She was no longer her own person. And that terrified her.

  If he ever walked out of her life because he fell in love, really in love with another woman…she would still love him. If he grew tired of her and stopped touching her in his magical ways, she would still want him. If he lost himself in his work for months on end, forgetting she existed, it would make no difference to the way she felt. He was a part of her, inside her body and her mind, wrapped around her soul.

  Another thought, just as threatening, occurred to her: What if something terrible happened to Tyler? Something that t
ook him from her even if he wanted to stay? If it was true that someone did murder his foreman, then what was to stop that person from killing again? Tyler had said it himself—no one knew why the person had done it. And he’d also told her there had been opposition to the hospital. If someone was insane enough to kill one person, hoping to stop construction, was there any reason why the killer would stop at one victim? And who might be a better target than Tyler, the muscle behind the project?

  An icy hand gripped her—squeezing until all the lovely memories of his body, his laugh, his touch were gone. If anything happened to him, the brief glimpse of happiness she’d known would never be repeated.

  Julie stared out the window, steadying herself against the wooden frame. So very easily…it could all be gone. Yet, why should that bother her, when she’d already made up her mind to leave before Tyler or fate could deal her a blow from which she’d never recover?

  The string quartet played a sensuous adagio by Bach as Julie stepped out into the garden. Adele spread Julie’s train behind her in a fan to follow her up the band of white silk stretching along the ground from the patio doorway to the makeshift altar in front of a stone fountain. Lisa led the procession, scattering rose petals before her.

  As guests turned in their seats to catch a glimpse of the bride, Julie drew a sharp breath at their number. They were all strangers except for the members of Tyler’s family she’d already met and a few friends from Houston. Her East Coast cousins hadn’t been able to make the trip. Julie silently thanked Kate for doing away with the traditional seating arrangement—one side of the aisle for the bride’s family and friends, the other for the groom’s. Instead, guests were clustered throughout the garden, like colorful flowers opening to the sun on a warm spring day.

  Julie’s heart beat faster as she looked up the aisle toward the minister, half expecting Tyler not to be there. She wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d gotten cold feet and not shown. After all, who was she to deserve this royal treatment?

  But Tyler was there. He was there and he was perfect. Her heart stopped for a ten-count when their eyes met. She felt as if every joint in her body turned liquid in that moment. He was beautiful. He was smiling at her. And, at least for this day, he was hers.

  Tyler wore an elegant black tuxedo that she was sure must have been tailored for him. The jacket’s shoulders molded his own. Lapels followed the swell of his chest and tapered to nothing at his tight, hard waist. The trouser legs were slim cut, and she knew little space came between him and the fabric, for she remembered vividly the powerful muscles of his thighs. His smile widened when he saw her, and she melted.

  Devlin Fortune took her arm just in time to steady her. “Ready?” her new father-in-law whispered in her ear. His eyes were laughing at her as if he knew how nervous she was.

  What in heaven’s name was she doing here? How had she ever dared to think she could go through with this ruse? Maybe if it had been a matter of just her and Tyler eloping then living in a town where no one knew them. But she wasn’t only marrying him. She was marrying this magnificent family with its history, traditions and expectations that she’d fit in.

  She couldn’t do it! She just couldn’t—

  “You’re far better than he deserves…and everything he deserves,” Devlin said into the whirl of her emotions as the violins segued into a stately march. “You’re the best that’s happened to that boy.”

  She stared at Devlin in astonishment, but the idea of arguing with him didn’t even occur to her. His words held a ring of authority. If he believed in them as a couple, maybe they actually had a chance. Maybe.

  “Thank you,” she whispered. Dropping her eyes to the river of silk at her toes, Julie murmured a silent prayer then moved a step forward on Devlin Fortune’s arm. Closer and closer to Tyler, as the regal strains of two violins, a viola and cello lifted her hopes and her chin.

  There was something she couldn’t define in Tyler’s gaze as he watched her approach him. She wondered if he was remembering the cave, thinking about the firelight shadowing off their bodies as they lay together in the timeless melding of two bodies into a single spirit. No matter what happened to them in the months to come—she would never forget the look in his eyes the moment he’d made her his. Nothing, she vowed, would rob her of that beautiful memory.

  Nothing.

  Julie became aware that they’d stopped moving. They had reached the makeshift altar. Before leaving her side, Devlin squeezed her hand once. Tyler reached out, enfolded her cold fingers in his and drew her to his side.

  Suddenly everything seemed to happen so fast she was unable to absorb details. The music stopped; the minister was speaking. People stood, then sat. More music, more talking. All the while, Tyler’s reassuring gaze held and comforted her. She heard the minister’s voice but couldn’t make sense of individual words. It was as if she was listening to someone speak a beautiful foreign language; only sounds and tones conveyed his meaning. When he at last paused and looked at her expectantly, she blinked up at Tyler. He smiled and nodded at her.

  “Oh, I do!” she murmured.

  “And do you, Tyler Benjamin Fortune, take Julie Ann Parker to be your—”

  “I do,” Tyler said quickly.

  The minister smiled at his eagerness, and when they’d exchanged rings and been pronounced man and wife, Tyler took Julie in his arms and kissed her long and thoroughly on the mouth until she was dizzy and gasping for breath. A cheer went up, notably from the Fortune cousins, and the guests all stood and clapped as Julie and Tyler retreated through the garden onto the shady patio at the back of the house.

  “Well, Mrs. Fortune, I warned you my grandmother would make a grand affair of this,” Tyler said with mock grimness. His eyes sparkled, not so much gray as a smoky blue. She could have sworn he was enjoying himself.

  “I never dreamed there would be so many people!” she gasped.

  “Did you notice the governor and his wife sitting beside the rose arbor?”

  Julie thumped him on the chest with her fist and laughed. “Stop that.”

  “It’s true! They were sitting beside Senator Davies and his wife. I won’t list the other dignitaries if it bothers you.”

  She was having difficulty breathing. Her heart was racing—but not from fear. She was excited, delirious with joy! Everything seemed too good to be true, but it was real.

  The ceremony had been a perfect and thrilling moment in her otherwise ordinary life. The flowers, fountains, guests and beautiful music…it was a fantasy come true. Even more amazingly, she’d lived through the experience without tripping, running into anything, stammering through her vows, or saying anything so foolish the guests would roll their eyes and say of Tyler, “Poor boy. How will he ever live with a woman like that!”

  Julie swelled with pride. She was just about to tell Tyler how happy she was when Kate rushed through the patio doors, quickly followed by Devlin and Jasmine. “Oh, you two looked so gorgeous up there, I could have cried!” Kate exclaimed.

  “You did cry,” Devlin teased her.

  “Oh, stop it, I did not. Why would I blubber on such a happy occasion as this?” She turned back to Julie and Tyler, her face glowing like a teenage girl’s at her first dance. “Now, the two of you, into the parlor for photographs. Your guests will be waiting for you in the living room. If I’d known the weather would be this nice, I would have planned on having everyone stay outside. But—” she looked at her grandson knowingly “—I don’t suppose it matters to you one way or another, as long as you can escape with your bride as soon as possible.”

  Tyler grinned, threw an arm around his grandmother’s narrow shoulders and gave her a bone-crushing hug. “You know me too well, Kate darling.”

  Julie felt herself blushing and tried to avoid Tyler’s roguish gaze.

  The musicians moved inside and began a selection of Chopin, while the formal bridal portraits were taken. By the time Julie and Tyler joined their guests again, the caterer’s servers were cir
cling the room with trays of hot and cold, hearty and light delicacies. Julie selected one of everything, and it was all delicious—crab puffs, lobster crisps, spectacular little cheese whirls and luscious black caviar on tiny circles of toast.

  Tyler was at her side every moment as they greeted guests. Suddenly, the musicians struck up a waltz and the floor cleared. Everyone looked around for Tyler and his new bride.

  “Oh, no,” Julie whispered under her breath, “I don’t know how to—”

  “No time like the present to learn,” Tyler said with a devilish grin.

  “Oh—but no, I—”

  It was no use, he hauled her into his arms, placed his right hand along the curve of her spine and lifted her right hand in his left. “If you can count to three, you can waltz.”

  “Yeah, right,” she muttered.

  “Trust me. Just follow my lead.”

  Julie had never danced, she soon realized, with a man who actually knew how to dance. At some time in his life, Tyler Fortune had mastered the waltz with the same thorough attention to detail he gave to erecting a building. He supported her securely, her feet barely touching the floor, and when he took a long step forward, she automatically took a corresponding step backward. He moved with athletic grace. For him, dancing wasn’t a matter of prissy manners. It was great sport, and he tackled it with just that attitude—chin forward, eyes directed toward the far end of the room as if the goal line waited for him there, his partner tucked firmly in his arms. He moved with aggressive ease across the room then circled back, and Julie hardly needed to think about what her feet were doing to match his long, sweeping strides.

  By the time the music stopped and the faces of guests ceased swirling around her, she was breathing hard but laughing delightedly as the company clapped and whistled their approval of the newlyweds’ waltz. Then it was time for everyone to join in, and the floor grew crowded.

  Tyler drew her aside and picked up two crystal champagne flutes. He offered one to her, touching his lightly to her rim. “Here’s to the bride, light on her feet and a good sport to boot.”