Fortune's Just Desserts

by Marie Ferrarella

  The door met the jamb abruptly just as he said the word door.

  Abandoning the computer temporarily, Marcos leaned back in his chair and rocked for a moment.

  Or two.

  He didn’t know what to make of her, he thought, annoyed.

  Oh, he knew what he wanted to make of her. He wanted to continue regarding Wendy Fortune as a spoiled, self-centered little brat because the negative view helped him block out an utterly annoying growing attraction he was becoming increasingly aware of. An attraction to the woman that was completely undesired on his part. But he had to admit, however grudgingly, that spoiled, self-centered, selfish little brats didn’t give away their tips to their less fortunate coworkers without asking for something in return.

  They also didn’t eavesdrop because they wanted to make sure a coworker wasn’t “raked over the coals” because they’d had a slip of the tongue. Moreover, they didn’t wait around to offer comfort to said coworker.

  Wendy Fortune was a damn enigma, a confounding puzzle. Ordinarily, he’d just put her out of his mind, dismiss her as not worth the time nor the effort to try to solve that puzzle.

  But the fact was that she was his puzzle, assigned to him by an uncle and aunt who were much too softhearted for their own good—and his. And he wanted to tell them so, but it wasn’t his place.

  Putting up with the heiress was apparently part of his new job description.

  Marcos frowned to himself.

  He was spending way too much time and energy thinking about this woman and trying to figure her out. There was nothing to figure out. She was the devil, plain and simple, sent to torment him. She was here just to throw him off, lull him into complacency.

  Even the devil was capable of a good deed every century or so, Marcos reasoned. That didn’t mean he wasn’t the devil. And just because Wendy Fortune gave away her tips, something she undoubtedly viewed as small change, to someone who needed every penny didn’t change the fact that she still had enough faults to fill up the Grand Canyon. The sooner he was rid of her, the better.

  Chapter Four

  The black leather sofa creaked and sighed as Flint Fortune shifted his long frame.

  So here he was, back in Red Rock again. That made twice in the space of less than four months, Flint thought. Back in January he’d come to attend his uncle William’s wedding—otherwise known as the wedding that wasn’t, he thought wryly. Just be fore the ceremony, his uncle vanished. A search of the premises turned up nothing—except his car was gone.

  At first, everyone thought that the man had just gotten cold feet—everyone, that is, except for his in tended bride. Lily Cassidy Fortune, his uncle Ryan’s widow, never once wavered or gave in to the rumors that the widower who was supposed to pledge his heart and his honor to her that morning had surrendered to last-minute jitters and left her at the altar.

  When Uncle William’s smashed up vehicle was discovered, she held on just as fast to the belief that he was out there somewhere, alive and in need of help. Eventually, she got everyone else to see her way, too.

  Flint felt a touch of envy. Women like that were rare. He ought to know. The woman he’d briefly married belonged to the majority of the female population. Once the I dos were over, it had become clear to him that Myra had married him to change him and make him over into the man she’d thought he should be, rather than loving the man he was.

  Now, thankfully, she was in his past, as was the notion that marriage was something he aspired to. He was perfectly happy just the way he was. Single and determined to remain that way.

  Which made his return to Red Rock kind of ironic. He’d come back to take a paternity test. The little guy who was currently in Jeremy and Kirsten’s care was said to possibly be a Fortune. Which meant that one of them could be the baby’s father. Right now, nobody knew who that was and they were involved in a process of elimination.

  Although he had no desire for ties, it wasn’t right just to let that baby be sent off to an orphanage. If the little guy was a result of one of his own amorous encounters, then he was prepared to step up.

  Prepared—but not happy about it.

  Frustrated, Flint tossed aside the magazine he’d been thumbing through since he’d signed in at the lab’s front desk. He hadn’t seen a single word on any of the magazine’s pages.

  The door on the far end of the lab’s outer office opened and out came a young woman wearing a white lab coat over her dark skirt and white button-down blouse. Glancing around the room, she spotted him.

  “We’re ready for you now, Mr. Fortune,” the technician announced.

  Flint unfolded his five-foot-eleven frame from the sofa and stood up.

  He silently followed the young woman into one of the smaller rooms that lined the back wall, fervently hoping to be vindicated.

  “You what?”

  Marcos stared incredulously at his brother, Rafe Mendoza, who had just popped into his office unannounced.

  Older by two years, Rafe, a dynamic corporate lawyer, already had a successful law practice in Ann Arbor and was now working in San Antonio. His new practice was so successful that earlier this year he’d decided to open a second office right here in Red Rock. He’d only been back in his hometown a couple of months, but had just purchased the old Crockett building downtown, putting the wheels in motion for a new branch.

  “I said that I’d like to hold the wedding reception here at Red. Is that possible?”

  “A wedding reception,” Marcos echoed. “Your wedding reception.”

  Marcos found that his brain was stuck in first gear, not letting any of his thoughts move forward. In the last ten years, ever since his brother had broken up with his high-school sweetheart, he’d lived a life that every bachelor—and a lot of married men as well, probably—viewed with unabashed envy.

  “You’re getting married.”

  Rafe slid forward in his chair, peering more closely at Marcos. “You been dipping into the cooking sherry a little too much, little brother?” he wanted to know, amused. “Catch up, Marcos,” he urged. “Yes, in order to have a wedding reception, you have to get married first. And I’m getting married.”

  Marcos was having a great deal of trouble wrapping his head around the concept. “To Melina Lawrence?”

  Rafe and Melina had been the ideal couple in high school, the couple everyone else aspired to be: the jock and the cheerleader, the king and queen of the homecoming dance. There wasn’t a single person who hadn’t expected them to get married once they graduated college.

  But life had a way of intervening, of creating circumstances that divided Melina’s loyalties between pursuing her own dreams, which were tied to Rafe’s, and being there for the family that, as it turned out, desperately needed her.

  Melina chose the latter, which in turn led to some hard feelings between them. She and Rafe broke up. That was all that Rafe ever said on the subject, and his brothers knew better than to ask for any more details than Rafe was willing to volunteer.

  “So.” Rafe grew more serious. “Can you accommodate me?”

  Was he kidding? Marcos would move heaven and earth if he had to. “Hey, you’re my big brother, leave it to me.”

  “I haven’t told you the date yet,” Rafe pointed out.

  Marcos shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll have your reception. I know Aunt María and Uncle José would have my head if I didn’t close Red down for this private party. You know how Aunt María is about seeing us all married off.”

  Yes, he knew. It was his aunt’s life goal. Rafe laughed. “Now that I’m officially out of the picture, that’ll give her more time to work on you.”

  So far, Marcos had managed to escape his aunt’s attention. The woman probably knew a hopeless case when she saw one, he speculated. Besides, work was his primary focus. He didn’t have time to wine and dine a woman on an ongoing basis to win her heart. When he came right down to it, no woman’s heart was as important to him as his career.

  “She can wor
k all she wants,” Marcos told his brother, then fell back on the standard excuse rather than talk about his dedication to forging a career, even though the old Rafe would have understood. But the old Rafe didn’t have stars in his eyes the way this one did. “I’m having too good a time being free.”

  “I used to say the same thing,” Rafe acknowledged. He looked more closely at his younger brother. “I didn’t mean it, either.”

  Rafe’s so-called confession made Marcos feel un easy. “That’s what makes us different, brother. I do.” Marcos pulled over the old-fashioned desk calendar he kept, a gift from his aunt. “Okay, so do you have a date yet?”

  “I’ll have to get back to you about that.”

  “Fine.” He pushed the calendar back again. “You know where to find me.”

  About to leave, Rafe opened the office door and then paused in the doorway. “I thought I saw Wendy Fortune outside in the courtyard, waiting on tables,” he said, mentioning the more exclusive part of the restaurant. He’d heard around town that her parents were trying to instill a work ethic in her. He also knew that Marcos didn’t like playing babysitter. “How’s that working out for you?”

  Marcos’s expression instantly soured. “It’s not. Damn woman is like a burr under my saddle.”

  Rafe’s grin all but split his face. “Uh-oh.”

  Marcos looked at his brother sharply. Filial camaraderie was temporarily placed on hold. “What ‘uh-oh’?” he asked sharply.

  “Nothing,” Rafe answered innocently, a ruse that Marcos wasn’t buying. “Just, that’s the way it usually starts.” And then he stated the obvious. “She’s a really beautiful girl.”

  Marcos narrowed his gaze. “You’re getting married. You’re not supposed to notice things like that.”

  “I’m getting married, not blindfolded,” Rafe said with a laugh. He grinned as he walked out. “Keep me posted.”

  “Nothing to post you about,” Marcos called after his brother.

  “Congratulations. I hear you’re getting married. I hope you two are very happy.” The unmistakable Southern drawl coming from just outside his office had Marcos on his feet and making for the doorway in less than a heartbeat.

  He was in time to see his brother exchanging a few words with the woman they had just been talking about. He was also in time to catch Rafe’s knowing look as his brother glanced in his direction just before he finally made his way out of the restaurant.

  “Your brother is really nice,” Wendy commented, then turned around to face Marcos.

  “How is it you seem to have your ear pressed against my door every time it’s closed?” he wanted to know.

  “At no time was my ear pressed, and it’s not every time,” she corrected him cheerfully.

  “Then what were you doing, lurking outside my office?” he challenged.

  “I wasn’t lurking,” she protested, resenting his choice of words. She’d come to volunteer to do a good deed. “I came to tell you something.”

  He felt his stomach suddenly tighten. Now what? “And that is?”

  “Eva’s feeling really, really queasy this morning,” she said. “I told her to go home.” She saw the flash of surprise in his eyes, instantly followed by more than a little annoyance. “I just figured you wouldn’t want her getting sick in front of our customers. Was I wrong?”

  How could he argue with that? She was right, damn it. “No, I wouldn’t, but that decision is mine to make,” he told her tersely. “Not yours.”

  She dug in stubbornly. “But if Eva came to you and said she wasn’t feeling well, you’d make the decision to send her home, right?”

  The answer to that was yes, but he didn’t want to admit that to her. He just knew it would encourage Wendy to be even more impetuous than she already was.

  Yes, they had more patrons because of her. Men poured in every day until it was practically standing room only in the dining room. But that still didn’t give her the right to usurp his authority or take it upon herself to try to run things.

  “Do you lie awake at nights thinking up ways to annoy me, or does it just come naturally to you?” he asked.

  Rather than becoming contrite—or combative, which was more her speed—Wendy smiled. That sunny, radiant smile that cleared out all the clouds in the sky and made a man glad just to be alive.

  At this point, he had to admit to himself that, as annoying as it was, he was attracted to her.

  How the hell could he be attracted to someone who drove him crazy like this? Someone who inherently he didn’t even like?

  It just made no sense to him.

  But he was beginning to learn that things didn’t have to make sense, especially when they concerned Wendy.

  “I don’t know,” Wendy answered, then, in her impossibly lyrical voice, added, “I’m not trying to annoy you.”

  “Well, for someone who’s not trying, you’re doing a damn good job.”

  This wasn’t getting him anywhere. Struggling, he managed to get himself under control and focus on the bottom line in this case—what Eva’s absence meant to the restaurant today.

  “I’m going to have to get someone to cover for Eva this afternoon.”

  Marcos was only thinking out loud. He hadn’t meant to share the thought with Wendy. He especially hadn’t meant for her to think he was asking for her help.

  But in the next moment, she was volunteering. So much for being able to hold being lazy against her.

  “I can do it,” she told him. It was, actually, the second part of what she’d come to tell him, that she was going to be taking Eva’s tables for her, as well as waiting on her own.

  Marcos looked at her for a long moment. Had she forgotten about her own tables? In an effort to get her to throw in the towel and quit, he’d given her more than the usual number of tables to wait on.

  “You’re already on duty,” he pointed out.

  “I know. I can just add her tables to mine,” she told him.

  “Twice the work,” he repeated. Was she comprehending this? “You’re telling me that you’re willing to double your load?”

  Her slim shoulders rose and fell in a careless gesture. Her blouse slipped off her left shoulder, exposing a creamy expanse of flesh. She appeared to be completely unself-conscious about it.

  He wasn’t. Which was why he forced himself to focus on her face. Not that he didn’t find her face compelling as well, but at least it didn’t fire up his imagination the way her exposed expanse of shoulder seemed to.

  “You’re not that good a waitress,” he pointed out flatly.

  If his goal was to hurt her feelings, he’d succeeded, but she refused to let on. Never let them know you’re vulnerable—a lesson her father had instilled in her over and over again from a young age.

  She was beginning to realize that the man had had some wise insights.

  “Maybe this’ll make me a better one,” she answered with cheerful determination. Her wide, bright smile never dimmed. “You never know.”

  There was that grin again, he thought, annoyed. Intrigued despite himself. It was wider this time. When she continued looking at him like that, he felt compelled to find out more about her, to lose himself in her alluring gaze….

  But he refused to get sucked into another discussion with this woman. He knew when he was out-matched, and Wendy Fortune had a way of weaving her words around a man until he couldn’t tell his left hand from his right or up from down.

  And he had no desire to be disoriented.

  Marcos retreated to his office while he was still ahead. Or at least breaking even.

  “By the way,” she called after him. His shoulders stiffened as he paused without turning around, waiting. “Congratulations on your brother’s engagement.”

  “Yeah. Thanks,” was all he said before he closed the door behind him.

  Better him than me, he added silently as he went to his desk.

  Wendy walked back to the dining area, smiling to herself.

  She was wearing down M
arcos, she could feel it. He wasn’t nearly as terse as he had been when she’d first come to work here.

  Moreover, working at the restaurant had turned out to be more fun than she’d expected it to be. She liked the people, liked the energy she felt when they were busy.

  And when the doors were closed and the kitchen staff was getting ready for the evening shift, it was even better. She’d made a discovery the second week she was here that she’d been heretofore unaware of. She discovered that she liked to cook, something she’d never had a need to do before. Growing up, there’d been a cook, Elise, who’d made all their meals. Wendy hadn’t even been allowed to stay in the kitchen when the woman was working. Elise had claimed it threw her off.

  Enrique, the main chef at Red, had allowed her to dabble a little and had given her a few basic pointers, encouraging her to experiment and to trust her instincts.

  Trust her instincts.

  Now, there was something no one had ever said to her before. Probably because no one thought she had any instincts to speak of.

  That was part of the reason she liked being here. The people who worked at Red treated her like a regular person. They saw her as Wendy the waitress, not as Wendy the heiress, and they treated her accordingly.

  Except for Marcos Mendoza. Despite her enthusiasm on the job, he clearly thought she was spoiled and incapable of doing an honest day’s work.

  It would be her pleasure to prove him wrong.

  Chapter Five

  Every day Red closed its doors at two and opened them again at five. The hours between lunch and dinner afforded the staff time to clean up from the first service and prepare for the second. While it was not a time to kick back, the stress level was notably reduced and conversations of no particular consequence drifted through the air.

  Three-thirty would usually find Marcos making his way into the kitchen to check on the progress of the dinner preparations. As with any good restaurant, Red had several items on the menu that never changed, long-standing customers favorites. There were people who frequented Red specifically to order these items. Changing them would upset the clientele.