Mail-Order Cinderella (Fortune's Children: The Grooms Book 2)

by Kathryn Jensen

  “I didn’t know you were such a wonderful dancer! That was amazing.”

  “I took just enough lessons to learn a few basic steps, as a means of surviving Kate’s twice-yearly formal parties,” he explained.

  “But you’re so good!” she exclaimed. “You even made me look good.”

  “That’s the gentleman’s job,” he said gallantly, taking a long swallow of the golden bubbles. “In some cases, however, the lady herself makes the job very easy.” He put an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him. “Have I told you that you make an astonishingly beautiful bride?”

  She looked down into her champagne. “I’m not beautiful, it’s the dress.”

  “Foolish woman,” he murmured.

  She looked up at him, afraid that he might be angry with her, but his expression was soft and thoughtful as he drained his glass and set it on a nearby tray.

  “You really don’t know, do you?” he asked, grazing the underside of her chin with the crook of one finger. “There aren’t many women who look even vaguely attractive without makeup. You are one who does. Add a touch of lipstick and that knock-’em-dead hairstyle of yours, and you’re stunning.”

  She suspected he was just being nice, trying to make her feel special on her wedding day. She’d always remember how kind he’d been to her, how considerate. His acceptance of her as she was, without the polish or sophistication of those women he was accustomed to…that was a gift she’d treasure always.

  The party continued. At last, when Julie felt she couldn’t eat another bite or dance another step, Tyler leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Time to go, Mrs. Fortune.”

  Mrs. Fortune. Mrs. Julie Ann Parker Fortune. How elegant that sounded!

  Tyler took her hand and led her toward the corner of the room where his parents stood. Jasmine kissed her on the cheek and whispered, “You’ve made us so happy.” Devlin shook his son’s hand and looked so proud he might burst.

  Rice was thrown. Shouts of best wishes followed them out the door. But Tyler stopped suddenly at the top of the steps and stared down at the circular drive. “Dear lord.”

  Julie followed his shocked gaze. There in front of the house was Tyler’s pickup, bedecked in long strips of blue paper. Shredded blueprints, Julie thought, giggling. And replicas of tools clipped from tin sheeting dangled from the rear bumper.

  “Looks as if your brother has been busy,” she commented dryly.

  He laughed out loud and long, until she thought he couldn’t possibly still be breathing. “With help from Shane and Riley, no doubt,” he managed at last. “Come on, let’s get out of here before they have a chance to pull any other stunts.”

  Julie stuffed herself and her gown into the passenger seat, with help from Tyler. He leapt into the driver’s seat and took off down the long tree-lined drive, spraying dust and gravel behind them. But as soon as they were out of sight of the house, he pulled the truck to a stop.

  “What are you doing?” Julie asked.

  He flung open his door and got out. “Putting my vehicle back in order.” Tyler pulled off strips of paper and clanking pieces of metal. He opened the lock box in the truck bed, pulled out a rag, and wiped the soapy Just Married off the rear window.

  Something inside Julie cringed and whimpered. Maybe that’s what he thought he was doing, but Julie sensed his behavior meant more. The show was over. He had the wife who would guarantee his share of the Fortune estate. There was no reason to pretend for guests any longer.

  “It was a lovely party,” Julie murmured as he climbed back into the cab.

  He glanced at her sideways and grunted something she couldn’t quite make out. Her heart felt smaller, colder, wiser.

  They drove toward town for several miles before Tyler spoke again. “Look, I left a lot of loose ends over at the site. I guess since we planned not to bother with a honeymoon, it doesn’t matter what we do with the rest of the day.”

  The final remnants of her dream melted away. “I—I guess not,” Julie whispered, then remembered what Kate had said about standing up to her headstrong grandson. If she didn’t let him know how she felt and what she needed from him, she’d be miserable. She tried to think of words that would make Tyler understand how disappointed she was that they wouldn’t be together on their wedding night.

  “Listen,” he said hesitantly, “I hadn’t planned to leave you this soon. Don’t get upset. It’s just that so much has to be done in so little time.” Tyler pulled the truck to a stop in front of the condo but didn’t get out. “I won’t stay more than a few hours.”

  “I understand,” she said woodenly, gathering up her full satin skirt like an armload of laundry. Damn him, he wasn’t even going inside with her. She’d have to cross the threshold by herself on her wedding day!

  Tyler seized her arm before she could push herself out the door. “You don’t understand how important this is, Julie.”

  “Oh, yes, I do.”

  “No!” he said fiercely, dragging her back across the seat and into his arms so suddenly she lost her grip on her dress and the fabric tumbled around her into a white pool of satin. He kissed her possessively on the mouth. “I promise. I’ll prove to you tonight where I really want to be.”

  Her heart jumped into her throat. Her mouth felt suddenly parched with anticipation, hot from his kiss. She looked up at him and was shocked to see smoldering desire in his eyes. An emotion that had nothing to do with accidents, construction or investigators.

  “Really?” she breathed.

  “Really. And don’t bother preparing anything for dinner. I’ll bring something we can share…in bed.”

  The news wasn’t good. Link Templeton paced Tyler’s office at Fortune headquarters, shaking his head of sandy-brown hair as he glowered at the parquet floor passing beneath his feet. “I’m sorry as hell to spoil your wedding day like this—but I thought you and Jason should know what I’ve found, right away.” He drew a deep breath. “Without going into details, I’ve discovered evidence of tampering with the braking mechanism of the elevator. And because of the close timing between when your crew left for the day, the watchman’s rounds, and the hour when Dodd must have returned to the site…I’d say it had to have been an inside job.”

  Tyler stared incredulously at Jason, then at the private investigator the family had hired in hopes of quickly proving the foreman’s death was no more than an unfortunate accident. “What are you saying? That one of my crew killed Mike?” Tyler ground out.

  “It means we’re not talking about some hopped-up pranksters who just happened along one night and decided to see if they could make an elevator fail,” Link said. “This was planned. My guess is, they knew Dodd and knew their way around the site. It wasn’t a first-time visit.”

  “But you can’t be sure of this,” Jason stated.

  Link shrugged. “If you’re asking me for absolute proof, I can’t give it to you yet. And I can’t eliminate anyone from suspicion at this point. Not even your family.”

  “My family?” Tyler couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Forget it,” he snapped. “That’s impossible.”

  “Is it?”

  “No Fortune had reason to kill Dodd,” Jason said.

  “He was our employee,” Tyler pointed out. “And a damn good one. He kept the project moving on schedule. Besides that, he got along well with nearly everyone.”

  “Someone didn’t much like him.” Link grimaced. “And until we figure out why that elevator was tampered with, and what brought Dodd down to the site in the middle of the night, I’m not eliminating anyone from suspicion.”

  Tyler replayed Link’s words in his mind as he drove toward home and Julie that night. They rattled around in his brain like pebbles in a tin can. They still irked him when he stopped at the Chinese restaurant at Four Corner Crossing and selected an array of delicacies.

  By the time he let himself in through the condo’s front door, his insides were churning at possibilities. He trusted every one of the men
and women working for him, and he’d never believe anyone in his family could calculatedly murder a man. Blind to everything around him, he strode across the living room, into the kitchen, and started pulling open the takeout containers.

  “Is something wrong?”

  It took a moment for him to focus on the words and the sweet voice that carried them. Julie’s voice. “No, nothing.”

  “You look…angry.”

  “I said, it’s nothing,” he growled. “Nothing I can’t handle. Let’s eat before this stuff gets cold.”

  He snatched plates out of the cupboard, silverware from a drawer, spun around and deposited them with a clatter on the kitchen table. Only then did he become aware that Julie hadn’t moved from where she stood watching him in the doorway. He looked at her for the first time that evening…and frowned, puzzled by the white negligee and peignoir she wore. Silk and lace, trailing to the floor.

  Why wasn’t she wearing her usual comfy sleep shirt? Her hair was brushed until it shone, and the only makeup she wore was a trace of pale lipstick. She looked beautiful, dammit.

  Then he remembered…this was her wedding night. His, too.

  “Well?” he grumbled. “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “We’re not eating until you calm down and tell me what’s wrong,” she said with a firmness that surprised him.

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Bull.” There was the faintest catch in her voice, but she wasn’t letting him get away with his gruff silence. “You’re obviously upset about something. Shutting me out won’t make the problem go away. Don’t you think talking about it might help?”

  He groaned. “You don’t understand.”

  She moved around the table, layers of silk shifting around her body, allowing him tempting peeks at flesh, an intimate shadow, a rosy nipple. Stopping at his side, she stroked his beard-stubbled cheek with the back of her hand, then laid her cool fingertips against his temple as if he were a child and she was testing for a fever. “Give me a chance. Please.”

  If another woman had tried that with him, he’d have told her to mind her own damn business. But she was a Fortune now, too. And something in Julie’s eyes made him realize she wasn’t being nosy or trying to control him. She just wanted to help.

  He leaned back against the kitchen counter and looked down at his folded hands in front of him. “Link has a new theory about the elevator accident. He believes that someone involved with the hospital’s construction is behind what happened.”

  “Oh, Tyler, no.” She touched his arm. The muscle beneath his shirt was rock-hard with tension.

  He nodded solemnly. “Link even suggested someone in the family might have had a hand in it. But, I can’t believe…still, it seems likely that it was someone who knew the site and had the technical know-how to sabotage an elevator.”

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “This is terrible.”

  “It sounds to me as if someone asked Mike to meet him there. There was no other reason for him to be at the site so late at night. It had to have been someone he trusted, someone he’d be willing to give up his evening for.”

  “Or maybe he asked them to meet him,” she suggested.

  “I honestly can’t see why.” He caught her soothing fingertips and lifted them to his lips. “I must have barged in here sounding like a lunatic.”

  “No, just an especially grumpy bear,” Julie said softly.

  Tyler chuckled under his breath. “I’m not very pleasant to be around when things go wrong. I don’t like mistakes, carelessness, sloppy work, ignorance or stealing on the job. This just…just goes beyond the worst problem I could imagine.”

  Her heart went out to him. Such a big, practical, capable man. He saw a problem and set out to solve it—the quicker the better. But now he was helpless, and it was killing him.

  “Is there anything to be done right now? Anything you can do to help get to the truth sooner?” Julie already knew the answer. She just wanted him to say it himself.

  Tyler drew a long breath then slowly let it out between tight lips. “I suppose not. Link is a capable investigator, according to Shane. He’s found out more in just a few weeks than any of us ever suspected—even if it’s not what we want to hear.”

  “When you hire a man to dig a foundation or plaster a wall, do you worry about him doing the job right?”

  He looked at her warily. “No. I hire experienced workers and let them do their jobs.”

  “And you’ve said Link is good at what he does.”

  He nodded. “I get your point.”

  “If you don’t like the truth when it comes out, there’s nothing you can do to change it anyway,” she said so softly that he felt comforted by the mere sound of her words, even though they represented a harsh reality.

  Tyler pulled Julie close and pressed her head to his chest. “You’re right. Link has to do his job, and I have to do mine, which hasn’t changed. I need to put up that hospital.” He sighed into the wisps of hair falling across her forehead as she gazed up at him, watching his expression. “It’s just hard, you know, not being able to control something like this.”

  And he was, he fully realized, a controller. He’d had to stop himself from coming down hard on foremen in the past when they disagreed with him. He had learned to trust Mike Dodd. That was one reason he felt he owed Mike something—at least justice, at least finding his killer.

  He became aware of Julie’s hands, moving in warm patterns across his shoulder blades and lower back, easing away tension even as he held her. Muscles and worries loosened and broke free, like small boats leaving their moorings to drift across a peaceful lake. He closed his eyes and let her calm him. Her lips brushed along his jaw, down his throat. He glided, floated. Being with her like this required no effort at all.

  “That feels nice,” he murmured. Nice, it occurred to him, was an understatement. Nice didn’t begin to describe the pleasantly erotic tingles traveling through his body. Tyler felt himself shift beneath the zipper of his work jeans.

  “Let’s see what yummy things you have in here,” she whispered.

  His eyes popped open in shock, only to realize she was staring hungrily at the takeout containers. His mind wasn’t on food, but maybe if he faked interest in a meal, later…. He reached for a plate.

  “We won’t need those.” The subtle hint of authority in her voice surprised him. Julie scooped up the containers and two forks. “But you might pour us a couple of glasses of wine,” she suggested, whisking herself and their feast off toward the bedroom.

  Tyler watched her peignoir flow out behind her in a delicate white wave. Was this the same woman he’d met only a short time ago? The meek, nervous, virgin librarian? Can’t be, he thought, shaking his head.

  By the time he’d brought two glasses of a ruby-red Australian merlot into their bedroom, Julie had spread an extra sheet over the bed as a tablecloth and opened the food. The aroma was delectable—ginger, herbs, savory spices. He’d ordered sweet, sticky orange chicken, shrimp in lobster sauce and Szechuan vegetables. When he picked up a morsel of chicken in its honeyed sauce, it was still warm.

  “Sit,” she said, patting the bed.

  “Yes, ma’am.” He wasn’t absolutely sure he trusted this new Julie. It occurred to him that if she was testing her powers as a new wife, he’d be wise to set things straight and let her know he was still boss. But there was something so disarming, so sweet about the way she gave orders that he simply complied and felt amused.

  Julie picked up a long, fat green bean and lifted it to his lips. He took it between his teeth, and, watching her smile, he chewed and leaned back on one elbow to savor the exotic, peppery flavors. As his mood mellowed another notch, his lust matched it. He wanted to seize her and make fierce love to her, but he reminded himself that she was still very inexperienced. He didn’t want to frighten her and ruin this unexpectedly good thing.

  Julie licked the sticky glaze from her fingertips, lowered her eyelashes and gazed up at him throu
gh them, sending him a clear message.

  “I thought you wanted to eat,” he said huskily.

  “Eat and relax.”

  “I see.” He fed her a plump, pink shrimp, dripping with sweet lobster sauce, and she drew one finger beneath his bottom lip, catching an errant speck of breading from his chicken. “Any specific means of relaxing come to your clever little mind?”

  “Well,” she said playfully, “as you can see, I’m already in the appropriate garb.”

  He looked down at his work clothes. As soon as he’d hit his office, he’d changed out of the tux. “I’d hate to spill something on my best jeans.”

  “Just what I was thinking.” She sounded so exaggeratedly prim he couldn’t help laughing.

  “I’m not sure what you’re up to, lady. But staying in this room with you…well, it’s beginning to feel a little dangerous.”

  “Good thing we’re married,” she countered with the faintest wicked smile.

  Maybe he was wrong. Maybe aliens hadn’t stolen his meek bride and replaced her with this adorable temptress. Perhaps the way she was behaving now was part of what Julie had been all along, only her sensuality had been bottled up inside a frightened shell for so long she herself had never realized it existed.

  He removed his shirt and tossed it onto the chair by the window, then stepped out of shoes and pants. On second thought he kept on his T-shirt and briefs. But when he sat on the bed beside Julie and reached in front of her for another crisp, fiery bean, she lifted the edge of his shirt to run her fingers beneath it and through the coarse hair on his chest.

  Her fingertips were trembling. He smiled. It was comforting to know she wasn’t as sure of herself as she pretended. Tyler met her eyes. They were dazzling. The colors in them changed so quickly he couldn’t name one before it became another—hazel, green, fawn, topaz…

  “Lovely,” he murmured. Tender movements of her hands across his chest intensified as heat mounted low in his body. He moved her away from him just enough to tug his T-shirt off over his head. “I must have been mad to leave my bride on our wedding day.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her with a passion that rocked him.