“Of course, I want to be your friend,” he said. “Since you brought up friendship, friends should be frank with each other. In that spirit, I owe you an apology.”
“An apology? For what?”
“For kissing you.”
She flinched. “Was it that bad?”
“No. It was fabulous, but it can’t happen again.”
Her face fell for a moment, but she recovered quickly.
Held out her hand. “Okay. Friends, then?”
He nodded and shook her hand. “Friends. But I can’t do the interview right now. We have to make some headway on this website and then I’m in meetings all day. Tomorrow, too.”
“Then meet me for a drink at Señor Iguana’s tonight,” she said.
He shook his head. “No. Zoe, that is not a good idea.”
“Joaquin, friends meet for drinks all the time. Besides, we will have chaperones. Plenty of them. My brothers and sisters and I are having dinner there tonight. It’s that family meeting I told you about.”
“At Señor Iguana’s? That doesn’t seem very private.”
Señor Iguana’s had a cantina in the front where people could meet and order bar food, and a full-service Tex-Mex restaurant in the back. The casual atmosphere and good food made it a popular place, and it was busy seven days a week.
“There’s a private dining room in the back. Ben reserved it. He thought it might be nice to meet on neutral territory for a change.”
She shook her head.
“I am not looking forward to this. I don’t know how many times my father will have to tell them he is not a Fortune before they stop this nonsense.”
“Why do you go to these meetings?” Joaquin asked.
“Because I seem to be the only one who brings a voice of reason to this circus. It’s not fun. So, will you please be a friend and meet me there? If nothing else it will give me a reason to escape the nonsense if they get long-winded. I can tell them I have to go because I’m meeting a friend.”
She was right. Friends did meet for drinks, but he’d already seen what happened when he was alone with her. That line between friendship and more had gotten so blurry he’d lost his way. Even though his brain warned him against doing so with Zoe again, pure, primal need shoved him toward the outer edges of that boundary. And there didn’t seem to be a thing his brain could do to stop the momentum.
Chapter Seven
“Zoe, Rachel tells me you had dinner with Josephine Fortune Chesterfield this weekend?” Ben Fortune Robinson set down his fork and looked at Zoe expectantly.
The private dining room at Señor Iguana’s suddenly became so quiet she could almost hear the questions swirling around in Ben’s mind as her siblings, Wes, Graham, Kieran, Olivia and Sophie, gazed at her eagerly.
The only one whose attention wasn’t trained on Zoe was Rachel. Her head was down and she was focusing on her enchiladas as though they were the most fascinating special in the world.
Yeah, thanks, Rach. That’s the last time I share anything like this with you.
She tried to catch Rachel’s eye, but her sister wasn’t looking.
“I did,” Zoe said. “But that’s not why you called us together, Ben. Why don’t you tell us what’s on your mind? I need to leave in a few minutes. So can we please get started?”
Ben pushed away his plate and leaned forward. “I’ll get to my thing in a minute. How did it go with Josephine?”
Zoe frowned and tried to dam a wave of irritation that was cresting and threatening to break.
“It went fine, Ben. How else would it go? It was strictly a chance meeting because Joaquin Mendoza and his father, Orlando, were gracious enough to take me in after I missed the bus in Horseback Hollow. I certainly wasn’t going to barge in on their dinner and dominate the conversation by quizzing her about her family tree. Classless, Ben. Even the thought is classless.”
Ben didn’t seem to hear her or maybe he simply didn’t care because he clamped down on the topic like a bulldog with a meaty bone.
All this talk about her father having a secret identity and being part of the Fortune family had become boring. Their dad denied it and Zoe chose not to believe it because it was yet another example of secrets harming relationships. Only these secrets belonged to her siblings, who kept on digging into their father’s past behind his back and against his wishes.
Her words rolled right off her brother.
“You all are aware that Josephine Fortune Chesterfield was adopted and only found out a few years ago that she was a Fortune, right? I believe the same could be true for Dad.”
Zoe sighed loud enough that everyone turned to look at her. Even Rachel, who was the one who’d started this whole mess last year when she’d discovered evidence that she thought suggested their dad’s real name might be Jerome Fortune. That’s all it had taken to get Ben started on this “Fortune hunt.” Never mind the way their father had denied the allegations, and the fact that the rest of the Fortune family claimed it was impossible. Ben was determined to uncover this so-called truth.
Zoe wished he’d put as much effort into his job as chief operating officer at Robinson Tech. The way he’d been going against their dad’s wishes, bird-dogging this issue, she was surprised their father didn’t fire him, or at least demote him.
Each new lead seemed to turn into a stone wall at a dead end. Most recently, after much wasted time and energy, Ben had located a woman named Jacqueline Fortune, who was this Jerome’s mother and, as Ben insisted, their grandmother.
Never mind that the poor woman, who was in her nineties and living in a memory-care unit of a nursing home, suffered from dementia. Ben just kept pushing.
He almost took this one too far because when he brought up Jerome’s name, poor Jacqueline had completely freaked out and started yelling that Jerome Fortune was dead.
Wouldn’t he think that would be a sign that it was time to close this ridiculous case? Nooo. Ben still wouldn’t let it go. He had to keep raking up the muck.
His latest allegation was that their father might have illegitimate offspring scattered all over the world. This stemmed from a British guy named Keaton Whitfield whom Ben had come across on this odyssey to drag their father through the mud.
The wave of anger that Zoe had tried to contain finally crested and crashed.
Until this point she had tried to stay out of the fray and do what she could to be the peacemaker. She attended these monthly meetings Ben insisted on holding to be the voice of reason. As a general rule, she preferred to take the kind approach and focus on the positive things in life. But now Ben had gone too far.
Zoe stood, her chair scraping loudly across the wooden floorboards. “Okay, Ben, if we’re just going to rehash false starts we already know have led to dead ends, then I’m going to say good-night.”
She grabbed her purse and fished out her phone, looking at the time...and to see if Joaquin had texted her to say that he was there.
He hadn’t. Probably because he wasn’t due to meet her for another half hour. But she had to get out of there. She couldn’t stand one more minute of hearing her brother’s desperate attempt to turn their father into a liar and rehash the rumors of his infidelity.
Even on the far-flung chance that their dad was this Jerome Fortune in another life, what difference did it make? He had always been a good parent. He had provided for his family, making it possible for his kids to not only have every material possession a person could ask for but also careers for each and every one of them if they wanted to be a part of the family business. He also gave them the freedom to not be part of it—with no prejudice—if they so chose. Rachel was a good case in point.
“Sit down, Zoe. That’s not why I’ve asked everyone to be here tonight. I have a new lead, and it just might be the breakthrough we’ve been looking f
or.”
Zoe rolled her eyes.
Here we go again.
The only reason she sat again was that she wanted to know what inane tree Ben was barking up now. Since he had gone so far as to produce someone who claimed to be a half brother—and was making noises that there might be more—she needed to stay to make sure her siblings hadn’t done something stupid like invite him to move into the Robinson estate. At this point, nothing would surprise her.
“I have found an old friend of Jacqueline Fortune’s. Her name is Marian Brandt. She was Jacqueline’s neighbor. She and I talked at length.”
Zoe glanced at Ben. He was holding up a small photograph. Zoe squinted, but she couldn’t tell what the image was since he was at the head of the table and she was toward the other end.
If he went to the trouble of bringing props, he would certainly show and tell. Zoe took one last look in her compact mirror, snapped it shut and put away her cosmetics.
“Her late son, Eddie, and Jerome Fortune used to play when they were very young. She even shared this photo.”
Ben gave it to Olivia, who sat to his right.
“Jacqueline and Marian have a lot in common. Both of them were widowed at a fairly young age and both lost their only sons. It’s no wonder that they bonded over their tragic losses.”
The picture had made its way around the table to Zoe. Of course, it was hard to tell if one of the boys was their father because they were so young in the picture. Zoe realized she couldn’t recall ever seeing a picture of her father as a child. But that didn’t mean anything.
As she passed it to Wes, she considered asking him if he’d ever seen pictures of their father as a kid, but quickly decided not to because if he hadn’t, it might give Ben more fuel for his fire.
“Even now that Jacqueline is bedridden, Marian is still a good friend and goes to visit her several times a week. When she heard that I had been to visit Jacqueline, she got my number from the nurses and called me and agreed to meet me for lunch.”
“Did she give you this picture?” Kieran asked.
“She brought the original and allowed me to snap a shot of it with my phone. I had it printed out.”
Of course, he would. Zoe wondered if Ben had a big evidence board similar to ones the FBI used when they were trying to solve a crime. Because he certainly was trying his best to turn their father into a criminal.
“Was she able to tell you anything new?” Sophie asked.
Ben grimaced and gave a palms-up shrug. “Technically, no. She said Jerome mailed his mom a suicide note and that the boat that had washed ashore without him in it was registered to the Fortune family. But, remember, even though he was presumed dead, Jerome Fortune’s body was never found.”
“Really, Ben?” Zoe groaned. “The neighbor woman confirmed what the police have already told you—that Jerome Fortune took out his family’s boat and committed suicide—and that’s still not enough to convince you it’s time to end this ludicrous obsession?”
He ignored her.
“I’m going to see if the police have a copy of the suicide note in the evidence file. I’ll get a graphologist to compare it with a sample of dad’s handwriting.”
“Jerome Fortune has been dead for more than thirty years,” Sophie challenged. “Do you really think they’ll still have his file?”
Again, Ben shrugged. “I’ll never know unless I check into it. My gut still believes Jerome Fortune is very much alive and that he is our father. I will keep looking until I find irrefutable evidence to prove it—one way or the other.”
That’s enough.
Zoe slid her purse onto her arm and stood. “I think you’re ridiculous and you need to stop this nonsense right now. It’s your business if you want to waste your time chasing the ghost of Jerome Fortune, but until you have that irrefutable evidence, this is the last meeting I will attend. You all should be ashamed of yourselves for dragging our father through the mud when he has been nothing but generous to each and every one of you.”
This time she ignored her siblings’ attempted justifications and explanations and walked out of the meeting. They each had their own reasons for doing this to their father, but she didn’t want to hear it. It was hurtful and disrespectful.
Sure, some might have considered Gerald Robinson a tyrant, and, yes, she knew she had always been his favorite, but they were a family. Even though she was aware of her father’s indiscretions, she didn’t want to know the gory details. That was between him and her mother. She knew their parents’ relationship was strained enough. If Ben kept it up, they would eventually hit the breaking point. If her brothers and sisters would stop looking for trouble, it would go a long way toward strengthening family relations. Families stuck together; they didn’t try to tear each other apart, because when one went down, they all went down.
Zoe wasn’t going to sit there and watch them destroy the people who had given them life.
She made her way to Señor Iguana’s crowded cantina area. It buzzed with the noisy music and energy of a beloved night spot. She squinted as she scanned the dimly lit room, past its neon signs and perennial Christmas-tree lights strung in draping swags, to see if Joaquin was waiting, but it was still a little early. She was tempted to leave and come back, but a quick glance at her phone revealed they were due to meet in fifteen minutes. She couldn’t go anywhere and get back in that short amount of time. So she might as well stay.
She needed to change gears so that the irritation her siblings had stoked up in her was not rolling off her in waves when Joaquin arrived. Normally she didn’t drink much, but right now nothing sounded better than a great big frozen-lime margarita. It would surely take the edge off.
She marched up to the bar and ordered, “One Iguana-rita, please.”
In less than a minute the bartender set something the size of a fishbowl in front of her.
“Oh! This is enough for four people,” she said as she handed him the cash to pay for it. “I didn’t realize it was so large.”
The bartender, a good-looking guy despite his man-bun and tattoo sleeves, said, “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”
Or maybe his bohemian look was what made him attractive.
“I have. I love this place.”
“I thought I’d seen you around.” He lingered, leaning his elbows on the bar. The tat on his right forearm was a skull with a clock face in one of its eyes. The more she looked at it, the more she saw how the individual images played into the bigger picture. It was a mesmerizing in a freaky Where’s Waldo sort of way.
She’d never dated a guy with a tattoo. She wondered if Joaquin had any hidden pictures on his gorgeous body. Mmm. She’d like to find out. It would be like a treasure hunt.
“Have you never ordered the Thirsty Iguana?” Man-Bun asked.
She shook her head. “I’ve never ordered one. I asked for an iguana-rita. I think that’s the much smaller version of this fish tank.”
“My mistake,” said Man-Bun. “It’s on the house since I screwed up your order.”
“No, that’s okay. I can pay for it.” She took her first sip. It was cold and delicious, and went down way too easy. Probably way stronger than it tasted. She’d have to be careful or she might be picking herself up off the floor.
While she was no stranger to the club scene and she certainly enjoyed partying on the weekends, she was not a big drinker and never did drugs. Some might say she didn’t like to be out of control. She liked to think of it as being high on life.
Someone at the other end of the bar flagged down the bartender. “Enjoy it—what did you say your name was?”
“I didn’t,” she said.
“We’ll enjoy it, I Didn’t. May I call you I for short?”
Zoe laughed and sipped her drink. “Suit yourself.”
“After things
slow down, maybe I can help you finish that iguana?” he said.
“She won’t need your help,” Joaquin said as he slid onto the vacant stool next to her. “But thanks.”
* * *
Joaquin didn’t like the looks of that guy, with his tattoo sleeves and his long hair piled on top of his head. What kind of a guy wore his hair like that? He had player written all over him. He’d probably helped a lot of women finish their drinks. Probably a different one every night.
“He won’t bother you anymore,” Joaquin said. “But, hey, how are you doing? How was the meeting?”
Zoe frowned at him. “What makes you think he was bothering me?”
Her words and sharp tone made Joaquin do a double-take. “He was hitting on you.”
She pursed her lips and her right brow shot up. That expression was starting to become a familiar challenge, even though her tone was a lot more intense than the Zoe he knew.
“And it bothers you that he was hitting on me?” she asked.
“What? You like him?”
“Don’t answer my question with a question.” She took a long sip of her margarita.
“He doesn’t seem like your type.”
She put her hands on her hips. “What is my type, Joaquin?”
Their gazes locked and for a moment something electric passed between them. It was all he could do to keep from saying, “I am. I’m your type.” But that was such a bad idea.
When he didn’t answer, she said. “It seems like you’re the one who is bothered by his flirting with me.”
True. It did bother him. He knew he had no right because he had made it perfectly clear where they stood. He was probably worse for her than the tattooed bartender.
He glanced down the bar. The dude was talking and laughing with another woman. Zoe deserved better than that.
Better than the flirting bartender or better than a guy who kissed her and backed the hell up?
Better than both of them.
That guy was a player. But Joaquin was nine years her senior. She needed someone young, someone who was not preoccupied with his own issues.
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