Wild West Fortune

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  “No doubt.” She gestured toward the barn. Her eyes were still burning, and if she didn’t get away soon, she was going to make a fool of herself in front of the mechanic. “He’s taking care of the horses if you want to go talk to him. I’m going to have to excuse myself.” She plucked at her jeans. “Managed to get myself all wet—”

  “Sure. Sure.” He tipped his grease-stained ball cap and took a step toward the barn. “See y’ later, now.”

  She couldn’t even manage a garbled response. Her throat was too raw with unshed tears and she just went straight into the house.

  Sugar hopped up from her bed in the kitchen and followed close on Ariana’s heels as she walked to the borrowed bedroom where she changed out of her wet things and back into Deborah Fortune’s denim dress. Then, moving fast and trying not to trip over the poor dog, Ariana stripped the bed and remade it with the fresh sheets kept in the hallway linen closet. She silently apologized for breaking her mother’s rules when it came to comingling laundry and shoved the sheets and the towels she’d used into the same washing-machine load and started it running.

  She fed Sugar a treat and gave her a kiss on her silky head.

  Then she went back into the bedroom and grabbed up the rest of her belongings and went outside to the car.

  She did not look at the barn.

  Did not look at the storm-cellar door.

  She just tossed everything in the passenger seat.

  And she drove away.

  * * *

  “Jayden, what’s this?”

  Jayden looked up from the ledger he was supposed to be updating to see his mom standing in the kitchen doorway. She’d been back a week now. It meant an improvement in the coffee situation again, though it also meant having to endure her speculative looks when she thought he wasn’t aware. “What’s what?”

  She set a small shipping box on top of his ledger book. She’d already opened it. “Came in the mail today.”

  Disinterested, he glanced inside the box, then felt his nerves pinch at the sight of the glossy magazine sitting inside.

  “Ariana sent it. Obviously.” His mother knew they’d had a “guest” while she’d been gone. He pushed the box aside and picked up his pencil again. But the row of numbers he was staring at were gibberish.

  “Not the magazine.” Deborah lifted out the latest copy of Weird Life and set it on the table. “This.” She plucked out a bank check and waved it in front of his face.

  He sat back, hiding his annoyance. It wasn’t his mother’s fault that he’d felt more like an angry bull than a human being since she’d been back.

  Actually, he’d been that way since Ariana had driven away without so much as a “thanks for nothing.”

  He took the check and tossed it on top of the magazine. “She’s just paying me back for expenses.” She’d been keeping a list, she’d said. He remembered how she’d smiled at him that day she’d picked out those ugly tie-dyed shirts. That day, he’d thought her smile could light the county.

  He stared harder at the gibberish.

  “A thousand dollars in expenses?”

  His mother’s voice penetrated. “What?” He looked at the bank check. Ariana’s scrawl was distinctively messy but the amount was plain. His fingers curled, crumpling the check like the garbage that it was.

  “She included a note.” Deborah pulled the next item out.

  Despite the fact that his mother had left the contents inside the box for him to see, she’d clearly been through it at least once.

  He pushed his chair back on two legs and folded his arms. “Why don’t you just tell me what you want to say? You’ve obviously read it already and drawn your own conclusions.” She’d been trying to pump him all week about Ariana. About his mood. About every damn little thing on the entire damn little planet.

  His mother’s lips thinned. “Watch your tone with me, Jayden Fortune. You’re not too old for me to box your ears.”

  God help him. “And I’m too damn old for this bull—”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “—hockey,” he amended through his teeth. Which was ironic as all hell, because his mother could swear a trucker into blushing if she so chose. He thumped his chair back onto its four legs and he took the small, folded sheet of paper from her and flipped it open between his fingers.

  “‘For lodging and incidentals,’” he read. He shook his head, actually seeing through a haze of red. “Incidentals!” He shoved away from the table, ripping the note into shreds. “Incidentals?” He tossed the paper up like confetti.

  His mother had leaned casually back against the table. Her long hair was still more brown than gray and hung in a long thick braid over her shoulder, and she toyed with the ends of it, like it was the most fascinating thing on the planet. “Quite a reaction for a girl you say was just an unintended houseguest.”

  His jaw was clenched. He was not going to discuss Ariana with his mother. Because if he did, he’d end up telling her what his beef was.

  And that was not going to happen. He was not going to question the decisions Deborah not-really-Fortune had made a long time ago.

  No way.

  No how.

  Deborah let go of her braid and sighed. “Honey, please.” She gestured. “If I weren’t already suspicious about what went on between you and this Ariana Lamonte—” she picked up the magazine and flipped it open to a page with a small photo of Ariana in the corner “—I would be now, just because of your behavior. I wouldn’t even have needed Nathan to tell me there was something personal going on between you. Clearly, she left an impression. You’ve been like a dog with a sore paw since I got back.” She set the opened magazine down, and the small photo of Ariana—looking unfamiliarly sleek and sophisticated with a brilliant smile—stared up at him.

  “She was only here for a couple weeks,” he gritted out. “Nothing important happened.”

  “And I am the Queen of England.” She straightened and brushed her hands together as if she were dusting away the entire matter. “Fine. I know you too well. If you don’t want to talk, you won’t talk. Who am I but just an old woman who wants to see her sons in happy relationships?”

  He snorted. “Right.”

  She raised her eyebrows again. “You think that’s so strange, Jayden? That I’d like nothing better than to see you and your brothers settled down with nice girls? Maybe give me a grandbaby or two I can bounce on my knee before I’m too old to bounce anything?”

  “Don’t act like you’ve got one foot in the grave. There’s plenty of time for...for stuff like that.” He’d never seen a more active woman than his mother. She had to be to keep up with Grayson’s tours. And when she wasn’t doing that, she was keeping up with the ranch. Considering neither Jayden nor Nathan had been around a lot once they’d joined the military, that was saying something. “And since when have you ever wanted babies around, anyway?”

  The very subject of babies was like an annoying itch between his shoulder blades. Because he knew damn well that he and Ariana hadn’t used any sort of protection when they’d made love. And what kind of man was he to not even think to ask if she’d been on the pill? Damn. He used to lecture the kids coming up in the army about safe sex, and he turns out to be no better?

  “Why wouldn’t I want a grandbaby around? It’s a normal enough desire. Traditional—”

  He snorted again. “Traditional? You, traditional?”

  Her lips tightened. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

  “Come on, Mom. You chose to have Nate and Grayson and me when you weren’t even married. I know it’s common enough now, but back then? You were totally on your own. If it weren’t for Earl and Cynthia—” He broke off and shook his head. He couldn’t let his thinking go down that road, because it kept leading to the very thing he refused to question.
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br />   What if Ariana had been right?

  He braked hard on the untenable thought.

  “Oh, Jayden.” Deborah pulled out a chair and sat in it. Her brows pulled together as she smoothed her tanned, lined hand over Ariana’s article about the Ybarras. “Of course I chose to have you. I loved all three of you before I even knew there were three of you. But I never wanted to do it on my own. Circumstances just turned out that way.”

  “It’s none of my business what the circumstances were.”

  Her steady gaze softened. “When you were little, you used to badger me all the time for details about your father.”

  His jaw tightened even more. He’d badgered. Until he’d made her cry.

  “And then one day you stopped.” She tilted her head slightly. “I always figured that eventually you and your brothers would be old enough for the truth. But none of you ever brought it up again.” And this time when she focused on the end of her braid, there was sadness in her face. “And so neither did I.” Her slender shoulders rose and fell. Then she let go of the braid again and lifted her chin slightly.

  It reminded him way too eerily of the way Ariana had tended to do the same thing.

  Like she was facing something she couldn’t change.

  Deborah looked at the magazine again. “She’s a beautiful girl,” she murmured. “I don’t know if she’s a nice girl as well or not. But she certainly wrote a wonderful article about Hector and Paloma. And she has certainly left an impression on you, good or bad.” She nudged the magazine closer to the edge of the table and stood. She touched his shoulder. “It doesn’t matter if it was only two weeks, son. I fell in love with your father after just two days. We met in New Orleans during what ought to have been the worst times of our lives. We’d both left behind unhappy family situations but once we met—” She broke off and lifted her hands. “Everything bad that had gone before just didn’t seem so important anymore. If Ariana matters to you, then do something about it.” She smiled slightly and started to leave the kitchen.

  Sugar got up from her bed, sending Jayden a reproachful look before following.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to quell the ache there.

  “Mom.”

  She hesitated in the doorway.

  He lowered his hand, meeting her eyes and wondering what the hell he was doing. “Where did the name Fortune really come from?”

  She didn’t look away. “From your father. It was the only thing of his I could give you. That I could keep.”

  The knot that had been in his stomach for too long now tightened even more. “So, you were married to him.”

  She shook her head. “In my heart? Yes. But not legally. I could have been. But I wasn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I was afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “It doesn’t even matter anymore. It all happened so fast. He proposed. When I hesitated, he believed it was because I didn’t love him enough.” She lifted her shoulder. “By the time I realized I was pregnant with you, it was too late. He was already gone. And even though I tried to find him—” She shook her head. “It was too late.”

  “Why?” The question came from somewhere deep and sore inside him.

  “Because he died.” She looked sad. “He was the only man I ever really loved and I realized it too late. Don’t be like me, Jayden. Whatever your issue is with that young writer, don’t let pride—or fear—keep you from having more than just this ranch in your life.”

  “His name was Jerome.” It wasn’t a question.

  Something flickered in her gaze. And even though he hadn’t asked for confirmation, she still nodded. “Yes. It was. Jerome Fortune.”

  Chapter Eleven

  He should have called her first.

  Why hadn’t he called her first?

  Jayden stared at the apartment building across the street and tried to shut off the thoughts inside his head.

  The only reason he had the address of Ariana’s apartment at all was because of that damn check she’d sent him.

  Incidentals.

  Even though he knew now just how right she’d been about Jerome Fortune, that comment of hers still pissed him off.

  He’d thought maybe he’d have cooled down a little about that fact during the long drive from Paseo to Austin.

  But he hadn’t.

  And now he was looking at the apartment building where she lived and second-guessing himself even more.

  Which also pissed him off.

  He didn’t like second-guessing himself. And it was her fault that he was doing so.

  He looked at the passenger seat next to him. He’d have brought Sugar with him, but he hadn’t wanted to subject her to a trip somewhere unfamiliar. Instead, the seat held only a yellowed, faded newspaper.

  The newspaper that had been in the storm cellar all along, if Jayden had ever bothered to actually look at it. The newspaper that his mother had collected herself, after he and his brothers had been born. The newspaper confirming, once and for all, that Jerome Fortune—heir apparent to some financial empire in New York who’d disappeared years earlier as a young man after a questionable suicide—had been declared officially dead.

  He was a lot less interested in the story of Jerome Fortune or Gerald Robinson or whatever the hell the man wanted to call himself. Despite finally knowing the truth, Jayden still thought of him as nothing more than a sperm donor. Everything Jayden was—everything his brothers were—they owed to one person.

  Their mother.

  He blew out a breath and studied the high-rise apartment building. Landscape lights were starting to come on in the lush, well-maintained grounds that surrounded it.

  You could’ve just called her.

  Except he’d never particularly thought of himself as a coward. If anything, he tended to rise to challenges too quickly, rush to judgment too quickly.

  He gritted his teeth and let out an impatient sound. Then he pushed open the door and got out. He waited for traffic to clear and jogged across the street. Even though it was closer to evening than afternoon, it was still hotter ’n hell, and he was sweating when he strode through the sleek, modern entrance to the building.

  Which only reminded him of their last afternoon together out by the pond, at the windmill.

  Before she’d run off.

  What kind of woman ran off during a fight? Particularly after just claiming that she supposedly loved you?

  He jabbed the elevator button and rode up to the sixth floor. When he found apartment number 629, he jabbed the doorbell even harder than he’d hit the elevator button.

  First thing he was going to do was tell her that the next time they argued about something, she needed to damn well stick around and keep up her side of the argument.

  None of this cut-and-run crap.

  Only she didn’t answer the door.

  Not when he jabbed the doorbell the first time. Nor the second. Nor when he kept his finger pressed on it for an entire minute the third time.

  He knew it was working. He could hear the strident buzz through the door.

  So could the dog living in the apartment next door. The thing had started barking at the second buzz and was still barking when Jayden finally turned and stomped back to the elevator.

  He should have called her first.

  He rode the elevator back down to the ground floor again and returned to his truck. It was Friday. Three weeks ago, he’d been convincing Ariana to come in out of the storm with him.

  How could so much have happened in such a short time?

  His mind was buzzing in so many directions he wanted to kick something. But of course he couldn’t. He was supposed to be a reasonable man. Maybe not the most patient, but still reasonable.

  The st
reet was congested with rush-hour traffic and he stood at the crosswalk. She’d told him when they first met that she loved the city. Considering the location of her apartment in what he was assuming was the downtown area, she obviously got plenty of city.

  Frankly, after two years of peace and quiet back in Paseo following his stint with army life, the busyness was enough to make him break out in a rash.

  He added that to his saddlebag of complaints.

  How could any sane woman ever prefer this to Paseo?

  He looked up at the sky. He’d bet once it was dark, there’d still be too much city light to see the stars.

  “Jayden?”

  He turned around and there she was.

  Walking toward him wearing one of the shortest skirts he’d ever seen with one of the ugliest shirts he’d ever seen.

  He dragged his attention up from those beautiful long legs, skimmed over the Paseo Is Paradise T-shirt and met her eyes as she stopped a couple of yards away.

  She’d pulled her hair back in a sleek ponytail. Her face was made up and her dark eyes looked even darker and more mysterious.

  And wary. Definitely wary.

  Once he got over the physical shock of seeing her, he realized everything about her—from the way she clutched her soft, oversized purse to the way she seemed poised on the balls of her flat-heeled sandals—looked like she was ready to run.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked him.

  “Looking for you.” Obvious, yeah. “What other reason would bring me to Austin? Incidentals, Ariana? That’s how you categorized what went on between us?”

  Her lashes—they were twice as long as he’d remembered—swept down. But not before he’d seen a spark of temper.

  At least that was something familiar.

  As was the tie-dyed T-shirt. Strangely enough, it looked pretty good with the short black skirt that showed off her legs.

  And it made him hope that maybe he hadn’t entirely blown things with her.