Fortune's Cinderella

by Templeton, Karen

  “A couple of the bones in my left foot are broken,” she finally got out, casually lifting a hand to tuck some of the hair that had worked out of the braid behind her ears, “and I’m banged up some. But otherwise, I guess I’m okay. Relatively.”

  “Do you need me to call anybody about looking in on Gumbo?”

  Her heart knocked in her chest. “No…I mean, thanks, but I had one of the techs call my landlady, so it’s all taken care of.”

  “Then he’s okay?”

  Christina nodded, momentarily unable to speak. “He’s fine. Enid—she’s my landlady—said a tree fell over, made a big mess in front of the office, some shingles got ripped off, but that was about it.” Her brow puckered. “You remembered my dog’s name?”

  Now the smile went a little crooked. This was not going well. “You only mentioned it, oh, a dozen times or so. It stuck.”

  “Sorry, I guess I’m a little…attached.”

  “It’s okay, I know the feeling.”

  “You have a dog, too?”

  “Had. A horse. When I was a kid. His name was Blackie.”

  Christina snorted. “Original.”

  “Cut me some slack, I was only eight. And anyway he had some fancy-ass registered name I could never remember. Man, I loved that horse.”

  “You rode?”

  “All of us took lessons, but I was the only one who stuck with it. When I left for college, though, Blackie went to live with a family with a little girl. I still miss him. Miss riding.” A shadow seemed to flicker across his face before he smiled for Christina again, which made his eyes go all crinkly in the corners. God help her. “Gumbo’s lucky to have you. How old is he?”

  “Not real sure. He was still a pup, though, when he showed up out of nowhere one night, about five years ago. We were having this terrible storm, and suddenly through all the thunder and thrashing outside I realized there was a dog whining and scratching at my door…so I opened it and he ran right inside like he’d been waiting on me to let him in. Shook water all over me,” she said with a little laugh, then sighed. “Funny thing, he happened into my life right when I needed…”

  Realizing she was about to say Someone to love me, Christina jerked herself back to the here and now. “Is it true? That you’re picking up my tab?”

  His eyes latched on to hers and would not let go. “Yes.”

  “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “Apparently I did, according to their rules.”

  “County General’s okay—”

  “I’m sure it is, but it’s also damn inconvenient.”

  Christina frowned. “For who?”

  “Me. Since it’s hard enough to keep an eye on everybody without your being in another hospital.”

  Flushing again, she looked down at her lap. “Why do you think you have to keep an eye on me?”

  When he hesitated, she lifted her eyes to his again, seeing in them a weird mix of confusion and determination. “I don’t have to. I want to.”

  Apprehension pricked her skin. “Scott—”

  “And you do not want to pull some pride number on me, okay? The only reason you were in that airport yesterday was because we were flying out of it.”

  “So you feel…responsible?” Her brow knotted again. “For something you couldn’t possibly have foretold, let alone controlled?”

  Their gazes locked again and she forgot to breathe. “For the tornado?” he said. “Of course not. For you?” His gaze softened. “Absolutely.”

  Oh, dear.

  His cell phone buzzed in his pocket at the same time a tech appeared from behind the curtain with a wheelchair.

  “All righty,” the jovial guy said as Scott got to his feet, “time for your field trip upstairs.”

  “Then can I go home?”

  “That, I couldn’t tell you—”

  “Javier’s family is here,” Scott said, “I need to go see them—”

  Now settled in the wheelchair, Christina looked up. “Javier?”

  Another shadow settled in Scott’s eyes, this one far darker, and more ominous, than before. “The guy who drove some of us to the airport. My sister’s brother-in-law, nicest guy you’d ever meet. He’s…he’s in critical condition.”

  “Oh, Scott…” Christina wrapped her hand around his. Words were useless, she knew. But sometimes it helped simply to know somebody cared. “I’m so sorry. Really.”

  Scott looked down at their joined hands, gave hers a gentle squeeze, then left.

  “You part of the family, too?” the tech asked as he wheeled Christina out to the elevators.

  “Not hardly. You might say fate…blew us in each other’s path.”

  The tech chuckled. “You ask me, dude doesn’t look like he’s exactly unhappy about that.”

  So not what she wanted to hear.

  Nearly as many Mendozas filled the waiting room as had been at the wedding, although obviously the mood was much more somber this time. Scott recognized Luis, Javier’s father, and Javier’s next youngest brother Rafe, an attorney who’d recently opened an office in Red Rock, as well as a slew of more distant relatives whose names he didn’t remember. Wendy threaded her way over, shooting him a Don’t say it look.

  “Marcos is worried sick. There’s no way I’m not going to be here with him. I saw the others—they went down to the cafeteria to get something to eat.” Wendy glanced back over her shoulder at her father-in-law, who was sitting very still with his hands clamped to the armrests, listening to Rafe, before she led Scott a little further away. “The E.R. doctor said they’ve taken Javier into surgery.”

  “For…?”

  “His legs. His head. To relieve the swelling. The doctor…he suggested the family contact their priest. Just in case.” Her eyes filled. “The head wound…they’re not giving any guarantees.”

  Muttering a curse, Scott patted Wendy’s arm, then returned to the family. Javier’s father stood and gave Scott a wan smile, although he looked ten years older and much grayer than he had barely a week before.

  “We’re very close friends with a top-notch neurologist in Atlanta,” Scott said quietly. “He’s the best in his field. I’m sure as a favor to the family he’d be more than willing to fly in for a consultation—”

  “Thank you, son,” Luis said, “but we wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble—”

  “It’s no trouble, I assure you.” He glanced at Wendy who’d come up beside him, her hand in her husband’s, then back at Luis and his two other sons. “Besides, we’re all family now, right?”

  Smiling sadly, Luis touched Scott’s arm. “You’re very kind. But if you don’t mind, I’d like to see what the doctors here say first.”

  “Of course.”

  At a staff member’s suggestion, the family then headed off to the surgical unit’s waiting room. A moment later the ambulatory Fortunes returned from the cafeteria, Emily hobbling along on crutches.

  “Here,” Blake said, handing Scott a white paper bag smelling of burgers and fries.

  “Not hungry. But thanks.”

  “Take the damn food. And eat it. Or you’re going to pass out. Speaking of which, we got a couple of hotel rooms nearby. The girls desperately want to get cleaned up, and honestly we’re all about to collapse. Mom and Dad are both asleep, there’s not much else we can do here. Mike and I had another couple of rental cars delivered so we don’t have to travel in a pack—”

  “You all go on ahead. I can’t leave yet.”

  “Scott.” At the sharp tone to Blake’s voice, Scott frowned at his brother. “The world will manage without you long enough to catch a shower. And eat. And buy some clean clothes.” He smirked. “Even you can deal with jeans and a T-shirt for a day.”

  S
cott had to admit his brother was right—while everything was in limbo no one would miss him for an hour or so. So, burger and fries in hand, he forced himself to walk out of the E.R. doors and across the parking lot to the Escalade…where he wolfed down his food so fast he barely remembered eating it.

  But instead of following the others to their hotel, or stopping to pick up clothes that didn’t smell like a swamp, he drove back to the airport. Why, he wasn’t sure. To convince himself it hadn’t all been a bad dream? To come to terms with what had happened? Maybe.

  But as he drove the fifteen miles or so along a gently rolling road that stretched out to forever, underneath a clear blue sky that stretched even farther than that, he realized what he had to come to terms with was whoever he was now. Because, for good or ill, he sure wasn’t the same person he’d been a week ago.

  Twenty-four hours ago.

  He’d ignored What-the-hell? twinges, confusing and crazy, that had plagued him for the past few days—the bizarre whisperings that this was home. The more they’d persisted, the more firmly he’d shoved them into that dank, musty storeroom where he kept all the other maybes and somedays and when the time is rights.

  Until a rogue tornado came along and ripped that storeroom all to hell and back, dumping all those somedays right smack in his face.

  And with them, a pretty little gal whose raspy, wispy voice belied her steel core, whose determination to make her own somedays actually happen had shaken Scott far more than the storm.

  Hell, up to that point he could have sworn he didn’t even believe in love, let alone love at first sight. And yet…

  And yet.

  Feeling like a car commercial stunt driver as the SUV navigated the choppy terrain, Scott noticed Tanner’s Jeep parked in front of the flight school building, then the man himself, walking the perimeter with his hands in his back pockets, scanning the damage. Which was more extensive than Scott had at first realized. In fact, in the almost surrealistic stillness the whole scene reminded him of a war zone photograph.

  At Scott’s approach, the other man offered him a nod and a grim smile befitting the bleak picture, the brim of his ball cap shadowing his eyes. “What’re you doing here?” he asked mildly.

  “Not sure. I think I simply needed…to see.”

  Tanner looked away. “I heard Sherri didn’t make it.”

  “The flight attendant?” Tanner nodded. “Did you know her well?”

  “Not really, no. I mean, we crossed paths maybe a couple times a month. Still. It’s hard to take in, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  Tanner toed a small pile of crumbled, waterlogged masonry. Overhead a buzzard circled, hopeful and eerily graceful, like something out of a bad horror film. “How’s your…family?”

  “Doing okay. Dad’s determined to leave tomorrow.”

  That got a short, dry laugh. “Yeah, your father struck me as the kind of man who wouldn’t let a little thing like a tornado disrupt his plans. No wonder Jordana—” He stopped, shaking his head.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. By the way, I spotted some luggage in the ruins.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. Figured you might want it. Couple of carry-ons, one larger bag. They’re in my car. Would’ve brought it back to the hospital, but now you’ve saved me the trouble. Might be more,” he said, leading Scott back to where he was parked, “but that’s what I could get to.” He helped Scott tote the bags back to the rental, then stuck out his hand to firmly shake Scott’s.

  “Y’all have a safe trip,” he said, then strode back to his own vehicle, and Scott took a deep breath, a breath full of clean, sweet Texas country air, and simply…let go, giving in to something far more powerful than his own will.

  Or even, he thought with a wry smile as he climbed back behind the wheel, his father’s.

  It always surprised Christina, on the rare occasions when she saw her mother, how disconnected they were. Like they weren’t related at all. And frankly she wasn’t even sure why she’d called Sandra, told her what had happened. She was even less sure why her mother’d come. Especially since Sandra had made it more than plain from the moment she walked into Christina’s room that not only was her boss at the restaurant where she worked as a hostess, a job she’d held on to, according to her, “for security,” even after her remarriage—not happy about her leaving early, but that she couldn’t stay because she needed to get back to Houston ASAP. Probably to fix Helpless Harry—Sandra’s husband, although not Christina’s stepfather by any stretch of the imagination—his supper.

  “But…I could use some help getting home,” Christina said. “Since you’re here and all.”

  “Oh.” Sandra checked her watch. Something flashy. Christina was guessing Harry had Money. Taste, no. Money, yes. Then blue eyes rimmed with far too much eyeliner met Christina’s. Her mother had been pretty, once upon a time, blond and cute and curvy. And she still was, on a good day, in the right light. Hospital fluorescents, however, were not kind to older women with penchants for fake tans and frosted lipstick. Her all-black outfit wasn’t helping, either. “But…if I hadn’t come, what would you have done?”

  After Christina’s father walked out—there’d been some talk of Christina’s being a “surprise,” that her father had only married Sandra out of guilt—Sandra hadn’t exactly embraced single motherhood with grace and fortitude. Oh, she’d done her best, Christina never doubted that. Unfortunately, her “best” hadn’t been very good.

  “Never mind,” Christina said, even though she had no earthly clue what to do. She didn’t have cab fare, if she could even find a driver willing to haul her all the way to Red Rock. And her seventy-eight-year-old landlady didn’t drive anymore. At least not that Christina knew about. She supposed she could call Jimmy, her boss, for a ride, but the very thought made her skin crawl. Recently divorced, Jimmy was a lonely man. A fact which he took great pains to impress upon Christina every chance he got.

  “Oh, now, I’m sure you’ll figure out something,” her mother said. “You always do. Here,” she said, upending a used Walmart bag onto the end of Christina’s bed. Out tumbled a pair of blindingly purple Spandex capris and a badly pilled, black and silver sweater, along with a pair of underpants—at least three sizes too large—and a stretched-out camisole top. “I brought you some clothes, like you asked. But I didn’t figure there was any point in bringing one of my bras—it would be way too big for you. Don’t bother returning them, it’s all stuff from the Goodwill pile, anyway.”

  Christina stared at the clothes, closer to tears now than when she’d thought she might die. Which at the moment seemed preferable to wearing these clothes. She never asked, or expected, anything from her mother, but just this once—since, you know, she had cheated death and all—would it have killed the woman to drop a few bucks for a pair of Hanes sweats or something? Some new underwear in Christina’s size—?

  “Oh, good—you’re still here! They said at the nurses’ station you were being discharged.”

  She looked up to see a grinning—and cleaned-up, she noticed—Scott, precariously hanging onto a potted plant, a ridiculously large stuffed hound dog, a box of candy and a helium-bloated “Get Well!” balloon in about a thousand eye-popping colors, bobbing up near the ceiling.

  And her heart stuttered.

  “And who is this?” her mother asked, her nostrils flaring like a bloodhound catching a scent.

  “Mama, this is Scott Fortune. He…he and his family were also in the airport when the tornado hit. Scott, this is my mother, Sandra.”

  Somehow he shifted all the offerings into his left arm to shake her mother’s hand. “Do you live in Red Rock?”

  “Oh, good Lord, no. Not anymore. Been in Houston for several years now.” Then her eyes narrowed. “Fortune? Related to the Red Ro
ck Fortunes?”

  “Distantly, yes.” Scott set the plant on Christina’s rolling food tray, handed her the dog. “I’m from the Atlanta branch of the family.”

  “I see,” Sandra said, her voice frosting, and Christina’s face warmed. Especially when her mother shot her an all-too-familiar look. “So your family will be returning to Atlanta, I suppose?”

  “Tomorrow, if all goes well,” he said, and Christina breathed a sigh of relief, that he was leaving, taking her inappropriate feelings with her. Because the last thing she needed was some rich dude who kissed like he invented it and brought her stuffed hound dogs. And dumb balloons.

  “Well, honey,” her mother said, “you take care of yourself,” and vanished, leaving Christina wondering exactly who else she thought was going to.

  Witnessing the obvious lack of affection between Christina and her mother, Scott realized he’d take his mother’s obsessive worrying about her children any day. At least she cared.

  But if her mother’s aloofness—she hadn’t even kissed her daughter goodbye, he realized—hurt Christina, she didn’t let on. That is, until she gave Scott a bright smile that was so fake it made his chest ache. “What’s this all about?”

  “I couldn’t decide what you’d like.”

  Blushing, she cuddled the stuffed dog to her hospital-gowned chest, her gaze fixed on the top of its head as she fingered the soft plush. “You know, you’re not obligated to bring me presents just because…we, um, kissed.”

  The barest hint of melancholy in her voice turned him inside out. As though people didn’t give her gifts very often. Or kissed her.

  “Actually,” Scott said as he eased himself onto the edge of her bed, “if I think a woman’s worth kissing, I think she’s worth at least flowers. Or a box of candy.”

  “Or a stuffed animal?”

  “She has to be really special to warrant one of those.”

  Suddenly, she met his gaze, mischief tangoing with the wistfulness in her blue, blue eyes. A very strange, and oddly appealing, combination. “The kiss was that good?”