A CHANGE OF FORTUNE

by Crystal Green

  “So do you ever take a day off?” he asked, continuing the discussion as if it’d never stopped.

  “About once a week.” She inspected a vintage Space Invaders game, then smiled, almost as if to herself. “Sometimes not at all.”

  Something had definitely changed with her from first contact to now, and it was confusing the tar out of him. Miguel had said she was fiercely independent and not one to be messed with, but it was becoming clear that Laurel Redmond was mainly confident and self-assured. Just because she’d wanted some privacy at the bar didn’t make her antisocial.

  Especially now, as she gave him a long look, then moved away from Space Invaders.

  That look fired Sawyer up, scratching heat against the lining of his belly.

  As she wandered off to a Galaga game, he watched how she moved—easily, comfortable in her lean body, holding her drink in one hand, dragging the other over the joystick on the console.

  He got his mind off joysticks for his own good.

  “You seem young to be so accomplished,” he said. “A pilot in the Air Force, now a civilian flyer.”

  “Again, you studied up.” She sipped from her soda, her throat working as she swallowed, thoroughly surveying him now.

  Was she flirting with him as hard as he’d been flirting with her? Giving as good as she’d gotten after a warm-up period?

  She leaned back against the video game. “Long story short, I was in the military, I got out, then Tanner got married. Jordana was also pregnant, and I wanted to be around to see their baby grow up.”

  “Jack,” he said, thinking of the nearly nine-month-old child. “I’ve met him. Cute little bugger.”

  When a sweet smile lit over her mouth, he knew he’d hit a button in her. But she turned away from him before he could keep talking about her baby nephew.

  “Anyway,” she said, as she sauntered by the wall of skee-ball lanes, “I suppose you’re right. I’ve done more than most people at this point in life.”

  He wouldn’t ask how old she was—women generally didn’t take too kindly to that—but he guessed she was around his age.

  “You must’ve gone in the military right out of high school,” he said.

  “No, but I knew what I wanted and applied myself so I could join right after I graduated from college.” She shrugged, as if it was no big deal. “Luckily, I skipped a couple grades in grammar school, then graduated from high school early and made quick work of my university time.”

  “You never doubted what you wanted to do?”

  “Nope. I wanted to be a pilot just like my brother Tanner.” Her voice had gotten sort of dreamy. “So I made note of everything he did to get into the AF, and I tried to do it better and faster. I went for a degree in physics in college, joined the ROTC and went to flight school on the weekends, working nights so I could afford the lessons.”

  “You got a private pilot’s license.”

  “Exactly.”

  She tilted her head, considering him, her long hair shimmering as the neon from a few games caught it. In her white T-shirt and jeans, she looked like a model for a beer ad, a male fantasy of a “cool girl” and “womanly woman” that rarely existed.

  Sawyer was fascinated. And impressed. She really wasn’t just another pretty face.

  “What do you know about a private pilot’s license?” she asked.

  “Just that I have one.” He wasn’t going to tell her about his Gulfstream jet that he’d left in a hangar in Atlanta, just waiting for him to use it. Then again, he had a lot of toys he’d put aside after he’d lost interest in his old life.

  A woman who’d stuck to her dreams and did everything in her power to make them come true wouldn’t be impressed.

  And rightly so.

  But he didn’t dwell on his shortcomings. He never did. It was the only way he’d survived years of his father’s expectations.

  Laurel was watching him closely again, as if she was assessing him, like she was doing to each video game she passed.

  Time to put the attention elsewhere so she wouldn’t look too hard.

  “You must’ve done a lot of traveling in the Air Force,” he said. “Do you miss it?”

  She meandered over to one of those old-fashioned fortune-tellers in a box, where the name Madame Luna was painted on the glass just above the black-haired, green-scarf-clad gypsy mannequin holding a crystal ball.

  “I do,” Laurel said. “You know, I got out of the reserves pretty recently, so it’s weird to hear you refer to my time in the AF in the past tense. It’s been a part of me for so long, even when I was just aiming to join up.”

  “Where did you travel?”

  Her face darkened. “Listen, if I told you about my missions, I’d have to kill you.”

  But when she slid him an impish smile, he realized she was toying with him.

  A sense of humor, smart, driven, capable... He felt like a huge slacker next to her. The most trouble he’d ever had to face was in the Fortune boardroom.

  She was reaching into her front jeans pocket, pulling out some change.

  “Get over here,” she said. “We’ve talked enough about the past. It’s time for the future. Yours first.”

  He kind of liked being ordered around by a sexy airman. “Right away.”

  She smiled, then put the money into the fortune-teller’s coin slot. After Sawyer ambled over, he took one more drink of his beer, then set it down where she’d put her beverage, on a nearby table.

  Madame Luna started to wave her stiff hand over her crystal ball. Not long afterward, a slip of paper rolled out of the contraption, and she went still again.

  Laurel read his fortune to herself, her face stoic.

  “Should I prepare for a good future or bad?” Sawyer asked.

  With a suspicious look—as if he’d sneaked in here and planted the paper beforehand—she gave it to him.

  “‘You will meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger,’” he read, smiling at her, giving the slip back. “I think that’s yours, not mine, and it looks like it already came true.”

  “Well, at least you’re tall,” she said.

  Zing. She’d gotten him.

  She was smiling a little, obviously at her joke, as she crumbled up the paper in her hand and peered at the fortune-teller. “Madame Luna should know that I’m not in the market for any cheap lines, anyway.”

  She followed up with a glance to Sawyer that clearly said, And for your information, just because I’m hanging around with you right now, that doesn’t mean I’m up for an easy hookup, either.

  Message received.

  This time he put money into the machine, and Madame Luna came up with his future.

  “‘Your lucky number,’” he read, “‘is thirteen.’”

  “Lucky number!” Laurel started laughing, tickled by the comment.

  “What’s so funny about that?”

  “Because,” she said, already wandering away from him, “I had your number right away, Fortune. You didn’t need Madame Luna to give one to you.”

  He chuckled. “You think you know me that well.”

  She turned around, walking backward, as if she had eyes in the rear of her head. Come to think of it, from the way she’d barely looked at all the men who’d approached her earlier before shooting them down, she probably did.

  “Let me see,” she said in a voice a fortune-teller might use. “The man I see before me has never had to work for anything his entire life. Yes?”

  Another zing.

  “And,” she continued, “it all comes so easily for you.”

  Another zing.

  “Okay, I get it,” he said. “You’ve had to work ten times as hard as I ever did to get what you want. In comparison, my life is a cakewalk. Anything else?”

  She stopped, just before her back made contact with a Pac-Man game. Her voice sobered. “I wouldn’t exactly say it’s a cakewalk. I know you’ve had a rough time lately and I shouldn’t give you hell about anything. I’ve heard about your l
atest family drama. There’s gossip all over the place about how you’ve suddenly found a long-lost aunt. It’s all anyone in Red Rock can talk about these days.”

  “So it is.”

  “But you don’t seem overly upset about it.”

  Sawyer shrugged. She’d no doubt gotten straight As in science and every other subject she’d attempted, but he’d always aced the courses in how to hide what he really felt.

  “To tell you the truth, I’m not upset. I think it’s pretty great that there’re more Fortunes out there.”

  And now that he’d said it, he knew he actually meant it. When he’d first met Jeanne Marie, he’d been as suspicious about her motives as he would be with anyone who stood to gain from those majority JMF shares James had given to her. But Sawyer had quickly warmed up to her after learning that she was his father’s twin.

  It was his father he was having some issues with.

  Laurel was smiling at his answer, but then she got thoughtful. “I can’t imagine what it’d be like to have a big family. For as long as I can recall, it’s just been me, my two brothers and Mom. No aunts or uncles, cousins or grandparents.”

  For the first time, he felt sorry for this overachiever. But then she said something that made him nearly balk.

  “Someday, I’d like to have a really big family.”

  The words knocked against him. And here he’d thought she was different. Didn’t every woman he’d ever met want kids and a mansion to go with them?

  Game over. Sawyer didn’t want to get involved with a woman whose biological clock was ticking and whose inner calculator was clacking.

  She was laughing, and she was doing it hard, holding her belly. When she spoke, she could barely get the words out.

  “You...should see...your face...”

  What?

  After he paused and took stock of the überfrown he’d been wearing, he laughed, too.

  He just wished he knew if she’d been truly joking about having a big family or not.

  When their mirth faded, Laurel leaned against the Pac-Man machine. The considering look she gave him was different. Not assessing, exactly. It was as if he’d passed some kind of test for her.

  The thing was, he had no idea what subject they were on right now. Come Home With Me Tonight 101? Introduction to My Bed?

  No way. Not after she’d dropped that bomb about populating the world with her kids—a goal that definitely was not in a confirmed bachelor’s future.

  “Did you think I was sizing you up for daddy material or something?” she asked. “Is that why you suddenly looked like you wanted to sprint out of here?”

  “It crossed my mind.”

  “Women probably have those thoughts about you all the time, right, Fortune? You’re probably the most eligible bachelor in the South.”

  Were they about to transition into “What can you give me, Sawyer Fortune? I can give you whatever you want tonight if you’ll give me what I ask for...”

  But Laurel just rolled her eyes. “Believe me, when I have kids, it’ll be on my own terms.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Adoption. A sperm bank. I don’t see myself ever getting married, and I know I’d be a good single parent. A happy one.”

  He didn’t know what to say. Was she for real?

  She added, “Don’t look so shocked. I love being single. I’ve got no interest in catching the Red Rock wedding bug. Ever.”

  Word by word, her meaning saturated him. She could’ve been his mental twin.

  “You mean the Plague,” he said. “That’s what I’ve been calling it. It’s like there’s something in the water in this town.”

  “Or there’s some kind of nefarious social experiment going on that no one can figure out. Except for us, of course.”

  She walked back to Madame Luna’s box, fetching their drinks, giving his beer to him and toasting him with her beverage.

  “So about the Red Rock Plague...” she said. “Promise that you’ll put me out of my misery if it gets me, okay?”

  “Ditto.”

  He drank to that, thinking that this just might be the start of a beautiful friendship.

  * * *

  Early the next morning, after Sawyer had doused himself under one of the rain showers he’d had installed in his two-story adobe-style ranch house, he went downstairs to find his older brother, Shane, at the small table in the breakfast nook.

  He was going over the plans for his own house, which was being constructed. Meanwhile, he was Sawyer’s houseguest, along with his pregnant fiancée, Lia, who was no doubt still sleeping.

  Sawyer went to the coffeemaker, pouring himself a strong, black cup. Carmen, the cook, must’ve put it on at the crack of dawn.

  “What’s the grin about?” Shane asked.

  “I had an interesting night.”

  “At Mendoza’s. Yeah, you single guys have all the fun.”

  But Shane’s smile told Sawyer that he hadn’t missed the grand opening at all. He’d probably been snuggling with Lia the whole time.

  “So,” Shane said, sliding the house plans aside. “Can I expect to run into your interesting night as she sneaks out of the house this morning?”

  “Very funny. What I meant is that I met a woman who’s...different.”

  Shane perked up at that. “Now there’s a description. Different. It gives me hope for you yet.”

  “Don’t get excited—I haven’t caught the love bug. I’m immune.”

  “That’s what we all said.”

  “But I’ll never stop saying it.” He thought of Laurel’s matching philosophy. “I met someone who’s a lot like me—a person who isn’t into marriage. Someone who enjoys her freedom. And when I left Mendoza’s last night, she gave me her number. I told her that I wanted to brush up on my flying lessons and—”

  “Okay, first off, is that what you’re calling it nowadays? Flying lessons? Second, it sounds like she isn’t that different from all the other women you’ve flown with over the years. Third, there’s only one woman who gives actual flying lessons in the area.”

  “Right. Laurel Redmond.”

  Shane leaned back in his chair, letting out a low whistle.

  “Say it,” Sawyer muttered.

  “I remember her from Jordana’s wedding, but I’ve heard about her since. She is different, not your type at all.”

  Very much my type, Sawyer thought. The same bachelor/bachelorette brain, the same allergies to having strings attached.

  “She doesn’t want anything serious,” Sawyer said. “That’s why we got along so well last night.”

  “Well, best of luck to her. She has no idea what’s about to hit.”

  He went back to his house plans, and Sawyer ignored Shane’s pessimism as he went about putting together a plate from the small buffet of eggs, croissants and fruit Carmen had set out. By the time he sat at the table, Shane had knocked off the brotherly ribbing altogether.

  “I’ve got some news about Dad,” he said.

  Sawyer felt the worry coming back full force. So much for last night’s fun and games blocking it all out.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “I found out that he’s been on an overseas trip with Mom. She called Victoria last night, totally unaware that we didn’t know where they’d gone. She said she left an itinerary with Dad’s assistant.”

  “He probably instructed her not to give it to us. You know how he’s been keeping us in the dark about everything.”

  “I think you’re right. And there we were, taking such pains to see that Mom didn’t have a clue about Jeanne Marie. But it turns out she knows everything.”

  “Huh. Well, maybe Dad told Mom not to say a word to us until he has all his ducks in a row, knowing how upset we’ve been with him.”

  “That’s what Mom told Victoria.” Shane gave Sawyer an appreciative glance. “You’ve kept your cool about this way more than anyone else, though.”

  “Dad still has a lot of explaining to do next week,
so I’m waiting to see if he’s as forthcoming as he needs to be. I wonder if he’s told Mom about giving Jeanne Marie half of the JMF Financial majority shares.”

  “He did.”

  “And that doesn’t bother her?”

  “Victoria said that Mom’s very Zen about all this, but we’ll be able to see her true reaction when she gets here with Dad next Monday.”

  Monday. Sawyer had a birthday just before that, but he wasn’t surprised his father had scheduled a trip out of the country at that time. He knew Mom would make up for it, though. She always sent birthday gifts to him during his travels.

  The hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the clock over the sink marked the seconds until Shane spoke in a tight voice.

  “I swear, Sawyer. I’m not sure I’ll ever forgive Dad for what he’s done to this family. Wyatt and Asher are still fuming, too. They don’t even want him at our triple wedding.”

  “Dad wouldn’t dare miss three of his sons getting hitched, much less one. He’ll somehow get into your good graces.”

  Sawyer tried not to sound bitter about that. James Marshall Fortune had his favorites.

  “Whatever Dad does,” Shane said, getting out of his seat, “I’m fully expecting you to make it a quadruple wedding, Sawyer. You just wait and see.”

  With the mood lightened, they both laughed at the very idea of Sawyer getting married.

  Didn’t everybody?

  * * *

  Laurel was in the flight school office, which had been remodeled after the tornado that’d hit Red Rock last year.

  It was bright and early, perfect for going over paperwork. But it was hard to concentrate on all that when thoughts of Sawyer Fortune kept intruding.

  Those blue eyes, that smile...and, much to her shock, she’d had a great time with him last night. So great that, when he’d mentioned taking flying lessons, she’d told him to contact her.

  It’d been an impulsive response, to be sure, and that was something Laurel certainly was not. Impulsive. She normally planned everything. She had backup plans, and even backup plans to her backup plans.

  Mostly because things didn’t come as easily to her as they had to Sawyer.