Mendoza's Secret Fortune

by Marie Ferrarella

  This way, there were no unnecessary complications for her to deal with. Just a nice date. End of story, she told herself.

  “Face it, Rach. This is not the time for you to get involved with anyone.” First, she had to get her life in gear and on track—find out where she was going with this Foundation internship she’d taken on. Once that was settled, then she could think about getting romantically involved with someone and falling in love, she thought, giving herself a mental pep talk since she had no one to turn to for any sort of support. “Don’t go putting the cart before the horse. Remember, you’ve got a plan and order is everything.”

  It made for a good argument, she thought, watching channels as they whizzed by.

  But deep down in her soul, she wasn’t completely convinced.

  * * *

  Just as she had anticipated, Rachel didn’t sleep all that well following her date. Every time she managed to doze off, her brain would conjure up fragments of dreams.

  For the most part, they had to do with her evening out. But oddly enough, instead of the charismatic and confident Cisco, she saw Matteo at her side.

  The dreams seemed so vivid that she felt they were actually happening—until she would wake up and find herself in her bed.

  Sweating profusely—and very much alone.

  After she’d gone through three such cycles, Rachel gave up all attempts at getting any sort of decent rest.

  Besides, she reasoned, it was actually already too late for that. Her alarm was set to go off at seven-thirty. That was in less than another hour. She was going to work at the Fortune Foundation this morning, and she wanted to get there early, before her workday actually started. She wanted to absorb everything she could about the company.

  Rachel already knew that the Foundation had been founded in the memory of Fortune patriarch Ryan Fortune, a man who had been a firm believer in paying it forward. He had lived his life that way, personally doing just that at every opportunity.

  She’d learned that from the people who had been chosen to run the Horseback Hollow branch of the Fortune Foundation: Christopher Fortune Jones and his new wife, Kinsley.

  The couple were returning from their honeymoon today, and Rachel wanted to be right there when they came in—not just to welcome them back, but to be able to listen to everything Christopher had to say.

  She sympathized with Christopher and the way he had initially felt about the Fortunes when he had discovered that he and his siblings were actually directly related to the wealthy family. He had learned about this unexpected connection not all that long ago, and it had turned his entire life upside down until he finally made peace with the information.

  That had taken a bit of doing on his part, as had adjusting to the fact that his mother, Jeanne Marie, was actually one third of a set of triplets. She and her sister had been given up for adoption. Her brother, James Michael, had grown up not knowing a thing about his two sisters, with only the vaguest memory that they existed.

  It was through his relentless efforts to find them that his two sisters were told of their true identities. Both women took it a lot better than their families did at first.

  Amazing how being part of that family created such drama for some people, Rachel couldn’t help thinking.

  The next moment, she pushed the thought aside.

  She couldn’t just sit around, contemplating life’s little tricks and secrets. She had a job waiting for her. A job that wouldn’t be waiting long if she started coming in late—or calling in sick.

  Now, where had that last thought come from? Rachel upbraided herself. It certainly hadn’t been on her mind a moment ago.

  This was what happened when she broke with her routine, she chided herself. Last night had been an aberration from her normal course of operations, and now she was paying the price by feeling just a little bit better than death warmed over.

  Or maybe just as bad.

  Knowing she needed a boost, Rachel stopped in the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. Her coffeemaker was ready for her, as she’d set the timer to brew at the ungodly hour of four-thirty in the morning.

  Closing her eyes as she took her first sips, Rachel gave herself a moment to allow the jet-black hot liquid to go slowly coursing through her veins, bringing everything in its path to attention.

  How did people live before coffee was invented? she idly wondered.

  “Better,” she pronounced after a few more moments had gone by. She felt almost human now.

  Fortified, Rachel set the cup down on the counter and hurried off to take a quick shower.

  It was only belatedly, several moments later, that she realized a face had flashed through her mind’s eye when she’d closed her eyes to savor her coffee.

  The face belonged to Matteo Mendoza.

  This time she didn’t bother trying to deny it or to talk herself out of her obvious attraction to the man. Instead, she just found herself wondering if she was going to see Matteo again.

  And if so, when.

  * * *

  Rachel made it to the Fortune Foundation office at ten to nine, approximately fifteen minutes before the newlyweds arrived.

  Their attempt to slip in quietly was quickly thwarted. Several of the other people who worked in the office saw them the moment they walked in and greeted them with hearty words of welcome.

  Rachel added her voice to theirs, genuinely delighted to see the happy couple.

  “Welcome back, you two,” Rachel cried, speaking up to be heard above the rest. “We missed you.”

  Christopher laughed as he looked in her direction and replied, “No offense, but we didn’t miss you.”

  Chris looked back at his wife, and Rachel knew exactly what he’d meant with his last remark. That Kinsley filled up his whole world and there was no space left over for anyone else, so no one else could possibly be missed.

  Rachel felt envy pricking her. The love Christopher and Kinsley had for one another was almost visible.

  She caught herself wondering if she was ever going to find someone who loved her like that—someone whom she could love like that, she silently added.

  If the way she’d felt yesterday evening after her date was any indication, the answer to that was a depressing but resounding no.

  Pushing that daunting thought aside—and knowing that the couple undoubtedly was on cloud nine and not quite ready to descend and start working just yet—Rachel came over to them.

  “So, how did the big family reunion go?” Rachel asked him. When Christopher looked at her, clearly puzzled, she clarified her question. “At the wedding. That was the first time you actually met some of the other members of the Fortune family—your family,” she corrected herself. “Right?”

  Christopher nodded, the look on his face telling her that he was partially reliving the scene in his mind. “Right.”

  “And?” Rachel prompted him eagerly.

  “And,” Christopher continued after taking in a deep breath, “it was kind of rocky at first. I wasn’t sure how they’d all react to all of us, or to me,” he said glibly. He spared no words criticizing his own behavior. “I mean, I hadn’t exactly welcomed the news with open arms initially myself. To tell you the truth, I was pretty surprised that they even showed up at the wedding.”

  “But your mother invited them,” Rachel pointed out.

  “That made no difference.” And then he smiled. The smile was equal parts humor and relief. “But just as when I first met most of them in Red Rock last year, they turned out to be a lot more understanding than I expected. I can truthfully say that they are a very nice bunch of people as a group and individually,” he added. “To be honest, if I had to pick my own family, I couldn’t have done a better job than picking the Fortunes. They’re charitable and decent, and they don’t behave as if they feel they’r
e privileged or something particularly special.”

  Christopher abruptly stopped talking. “You’ve got a strange look on your face, Rachel. Is there something on your mind you’d like to talk about?”

  Yes, there is. But you didn’t come back to work to be burdened by my problems.

  “No,” she said out loud. “I was just curious.”

  But maybe now wasn’t the time to satisfy her curiosity. After all, there was the matter of that little gold band on his left hand. That undoubtedly would take him a bit of time to get used to, too—even after the honeymoon.

  For now, Rachel decided, she was just going to keep a low profile and do her job—or jobs, she corrected herself, since, just for a moment, she had forgotten about her job at the Cantina.

  The second she thought of the Cantina, an image of Matteo flashed through her mind. Something else she couldn’t think about right now, she silently chided.

  With effort, she focused on what she had to do right this moment, at the Foundation—but it wasn’t easy. Thoughts of Matteo continued to tease her brain.

  Chapter Four

  It took a few more minutes before things settled back down and the office returned to its former rhythm, with everyone focusing on preparing for next month.

  Rachel hardly had a chance to sit at her desk again when there was a slight commotion at the outer door. Since the Foundation wasn’t scheduled to open until April 1, they were still closed to the general public.

  As far as she knew, everyone who was supposed to be here was here.

  So who were these two people, a man and a woman, walking into the second-floor office?

  Looking at them more closely, Rachel was struck that although the woman was a blue-eyed blonde and the man had dark hair and dark eyes, both bore a striking resemblance to Christopher. Were they part of his family? she wondered.

  The way he greeted the duo the next minute answered her question for her.

  “Hey, look what the cat dragged in.” Christopher laughed, crossing the room to them with his wife.

  “I told you we were ready to come do whatever it is that you’re doing here,” the man reminded him, looking around the room as if to get properly oriented.

  Christopher had an inch on the other man, and his dirty-blond hair was more like the woman’s. He looked genuinely pleased to see both of them.

  “You’re not fooling me,” Christopher told the man. “You just think you can hide out here, away from our crazy matchmaking relatives. I can tell you now, it won’t do either one of you any good. They’ll find you.”

  Having said that, Christopher glanced around at the other people in the office, all of whom were looking at the two latest arrivals, clearly wondering who they were. Their curiosity was short-lived, thanks to Christopher.

  “Hey, everybody, I’d like you all to meet my big brother, Galen, and my little sister, Delaney. Study them carefully. They’re the last of their kind,” he declared with no small amount of amusement.

  Delaney frowned. “You make us sound like we’re about to go extinct.”

  “Well, aren’t you?” Christopher asked with a straight face. “Hey, don’t blame me,” he pretended to protest. “You two started it by calling yourself ‘the last remaining singles.’”

  “Well, what would you call us?” Delaney wanted to know. “Now that you and our other three siblings have gone to the other side and joined the ranks of the happily married, everybody thinks Galen and I should follow suit and hurry up and get married—like, yesterday.” She tossed her head, sending her blond hair flying over her shoulder in one swift, graceful movement.

  “Neither one of us is in any hurry to tie the knot—certainly not just to please the rest of the family,” she informed Christopher—not for the first time. “I, for one, intend to enjoy my freedom for as long as I possibly can. I like being my own boss and coming and going as I please.”

  He’d been of a like mind once, Christopher thought. But that was before he’d fallen in love with the most beautiful woman in the world.

  “You make marriage sound like a prison sentence,” Christopher told her.

  Delaney looked across the room and saw her new sister-in-law talking to one of the workers. “No offense to your lovely wife, but...” Delaney deliberately allowed her voice to trail off.

  “How about you?” she asked, moving closer to Rachel. “Don’t you agree that it’s really great to be single?”

  There were times, especially when she saw how happy some couples were, that Rachel longed to be in a committed relationship. Before they had locked horns, vying for the same position—the one that she now currently held—she and Shannon Singleton had been friends. Shannon had been the very first friend she’d made in Horseback Hollow. Now her friend was engaged to one of the British Fortune relations, Oliver Fortune Hayes.

  Another thing she couldn’t help thinking was that she missed having a friend, missed the intimate camaraderie of having someone to share secrets with, or just to talk to for hours on end about nothing in particular.

  Oh, she was friendly when their paths crossed, but that was rare these days. Shannon was much too busy with her new relationship and her new life. For the most part, it didn’t bother her too much. But there were times, when she was home, that she would have given anything to have a real friend to talk to.

  Someone like Christopher’s baby sister, she thought suddenly.

  There was something about the young woman that made Rachel take an instant liking to her the moment Delaney had opened her mouth.

  There weren’t many people she felt an immediate and strong connection to, Rachel realized, but Delaney was someone who could definitely qualify if she was interested in reciprocating the feeling.

  “Being single has its moments,” Rachel finally said in response to Delaney’s question.

  “Not exactly a ringing endorsement,” Delaney allowed philosophically, “but I’ll take it.” The younger woman gave her a wide, infectious grin. “You obviously know my name—Chris’s voice is kind of hard to block out—but I don’t know yours,” she told Rachel as she raised one expressive eyebrow, waiting.

  “Rachel,” Rachel answered. Belatedly, she put out her hand. “Rachel Robinson.”

  “Well, Rachel Robinson, I’m very pleased to meet you,” Delaney said, warmly shaking her hand. “Maybe you can give me a clearer idea of what it is that we do here, other than look noble while we’re doing it,” she added with a somewhat bemused smile.

  “What we’re doing is getting ready. We’re not open yet,” Christopher informed his sister, cutting in before Rachel had a chance to make any sort of a reply. “Our official opening is set for next month. April,” he added for complete clarity. “So right now, we’re just running around, scrambling to get all systems up and running.”

  Delaney nodded, as if something had just clicked into place in her head. “Is that why you said you didn’t care how casual I dressed and that jeans and boots would even be a good idea?”

  “Did it take you that long to figure out?” Galen asked with a laugh. “I knew Chris was after cheap labor right from the get-go.”

  “What do you mean, ‘cheap’?” Christopher asked. “The word is free. At least for now,” he added before either one of his siblings could comment or pretend to protest. Turning toward Galen, Christopher deadpanned, “You still have that strong back?”

  Rather than instantly answer in the affirmative, Galen’s response was a guarded one. “That all depends on what you want done.”

  Fair enough, Christopher thought. “I’ve got some desks that are going to need moving.”

  Galen shook his head. “Then the answer is no. I threw my back out herding cattle,” he told his brother.

  Christopher’s eyes narrowed as he studied Galen’s face. He could always tell if his brother w
as bluffing. “You did not.”

  For a moment, the expression on Galen’s face made the immediate future unclear. And then the oldest of the Fortune Jones clan shrugged, surrendering. “It was worth a shot.”

  Before they discovered that they were all directly related to the Fortune family thanks to their mother, they had been the Jones family, ranchers who made a living but could never boast that they thought of themselves as being even remotely well-off. Their lives consisted of hard work. Unexpectedly finding out that they were Fortunes with the kind of inheritance that befit someone from that family changed nothing, other than the fact that they now knew they would never be in a hand-to-mouth situation again.

  The discovery certainly didn’t alter their work ethic, didn’t suddenly change them into a family of squanderers. But now, instead of working to keep body and soul together, they worked because ranching was what they enjoyed.

  Galen pretended to sigh and acted put-upon. “So when do you want me to get started breaking my back?”

  Christopher was about to answer when there was another commotion at the office door. His attention was instantly focused there.

  “Could be the furniture arriving now,” he told Galen cheerfully.

  He was just yanking his older brother’s chain. Christopher had no intentions of relying exclusively on his brother to shift around and arrange the furniture. It would be arriving with a crew of moving men in attendance. He just enjoyed giving Galen a hard time while he still could.

  But when the doors into the office opened, it wasn’t to admit a team of movers bringing the rest of the furniture for this office—or any of the other Foundation offices in the newly constructed two-story building.

  Instead of moving men, Orlando and Matteo Mendoza came walking in.

  Rachel felt her heart reacting the second she looked up and saw Matteo. It took her almost a full minute for her to regain her composure.

  What was he doing here?

  By the look on Delaney’s face, she’d noted the sudden change in Rachel. But mercifully, she made no comment, which only further cemented the budding friendship in Rachel’s mind. To her, friends knew things about friends without asking outright.