Change of Fortune

by RaeAnne Thayne

  “Look,” he said after another long, awkward moment. “I’m very attracted to you. I guess that’s pretty obvious by now and I’d be lying if I tried to pretend otherwise. But this is not a really good time for me to be…distracted.”

  She wasn’t sure she’d ever been called a distraction before and she didn’t quite know how to react. At least he had prefaced it by admitting he was attracted to her.

  “Right now my focus has to be my family,” he said. “Frannie, Josh. They need me and I can’t afford to let my attention be diverted by anything, especially not, well, something as complicated as a relationship.”

  Just because of his family? she wondered. Somehow she doubted it. While she was quite certain he wasn’t using his difficult situation as an excuse, she had a feeling even if his family wasn’t having such a hard time right now, Ross wouldn’t be quick to jump into any involvement with her.

  He struck her as a man who shied away from anything deeper or more meaningful than a quick fling.

  “I understand,” she murmured.

  “Do you?” His eyes were murky with regret in the moonlight. Because he had kissed her? she wondered. Or because he was determined not to repeat it?

  “You’ve been thrust into a tough role here with Josh, trying to do the right thing for him at the same time you’re deeply worried about your sister. I can see why you want to keep the rest of your life as uncomplicated as possible.”

  He frowned, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Tell me I haven’t jeopardized your willingness to help with Josh?”

  She certainly wouldn’t be able to quickly forget the magic and heat they had shared. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t move on from here.

  “It was just a kiss, Ross! Of course I’m still willing to help with Josh, if he’s interested in more sessions. That’s a completely separate issue. I would still want to help him any way I could, even if you and I had just gotten naked and rolled around on the living room carpet for the last two hours.”

  She wasn’t quite sure if it was her imagination but his eyes seemed to glaze slightly and he made a sound that might have been a groan. Julie regretted her flippancy. The last thing she needed right now was that particular image in her head, not with the unfulfilled desire still pulsing through her insides.

  Ross drew in a ragged breath. “I’m glad for that, at least. Josh responds to you. I don’t want to lose that because I overstepped.”

  She held a hand up. “Ross, stop. Let it go. It was just a kiss. Just a momentary impulse that doesn’t mean anything. You’re attracted to me, I’m attracted right back at you, obviously, but that’s all it is.”

  To her amazement, he opened his mouth as if he wanted to disagree—which she decided would make Ross Fortune just about the most contrary man she had ever met, if he intended to argue both sides of the issue.

  She decided not to put the matter to the test. “I’d better go,” she said. “It’s been a long day and I have paperwork to finish tonight.”

  He still looked as if he had more to say but he only nodded. “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry again that Josh ditched on you. I’ll have a talk with him about keeping the cell phone away from the dinner table.”

  “Excellent idea.”

  “Let me just go call him down to say goodbye to you.”

  “That’s really not necessary.”

  Right now she just wanted to leave so that she could try to put a little distance between them in an effort to regain both her dignity and a little perspective.

  “It is necessary,” he said. “Josh is the one who invited you to dinner with us and then he just abandoned you for a phone call, which I should never have let him get away with. The least he can do is come down to tell you goodbye.”

  She didn’t want to argue, she only wanted to leave, but she decided to give in with good grace. He was right, Josh needed to hold onto civility and manners, even if his life had been turned upside down.

  She waited in the ornate foyer of the Frederickses’ home while Ross hurried up the stairs to his nephew’s room. A moment later, he returned with Josh, who rubbed the back of his neck and looked embarrassed.

  “Sorry about leaving, Julie. It was way rude of me and I shouldn’t have done it. I wasn’t thinking about what bad manners it was, I was just…I needed to talk to my friend.”

  “I understand. Next time, maybe you could wait until we’ve all finished eating to take your phone call.”

  “I’ll try to remember to do that. Thanks for coming to dinner and for…everything else today.”

  “You’re welcome. I enjoyed it.” Some parts more than others, she added silently to herself, and she forced herself not to look at Ross even as she felt a blush steal over her cheeks.

  “We never did get to finish playing H-O-R-S-E.”

  “We’ll have to schedule a rematch next time we have a session. If you think you want another one, anyway.”

  He shrugged. “I guess. You’re pretty easy to talk to.”

  “Thanks.” She smiled. “How about Tuesday after school?”

  “That should work, I think.”

  “I’ll see you then. Be sure to bring your game for afterward. You wouldn’t want me to whip your butt on the court again.”

  He laughed. “I’ll see if I can find it,” he said. “See you later.”

  He headed up the stairs again, leaving her alone with Ross. He looked rough-edged and darkly handsome amid the pale, elegant furnishings of the house and she had a tough time not stepping forward and tasting that hard mouth one last time.

  “Thanks again for dinner, Ross,” she forced herself to say. “It was delicious.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  They exchanged one more awkward, tentative smile, then she opened the door and walked out into the Texas night.

  As she hurried to her car, she couldn’t help wondering how one kiss had managed to sear away seven years of restraint.

  * * *

  Ross stood on his sister’s veranda and watched Julie drive away in a sensible silver sedan.

  He still felt as if he’d been tied feetfirst to the back end of a mule and dragged through cactus for a few dozen miles.

  That kiss. Damn it, he didn’t need this right now. He had never known anything like it, that wild fire in his blood that still seemed to sizzle and burn.

  He had wanted to make love to her, right there on Frannie’s Italian tile patio table. Even now, he could remember the sweet, luscious taste of her, the smell of her, like juicy peaches ripened by the sun that he couldn’t wait to sink his teeth into.

  What was he supposed to do with a woman like Julie Osterman? She was far too sweet, far too centered for someone like him.

  She had lost a husband.

  Just thinking about it made his heart ache. He could picture her—younger, even more idealistic, certain she could fix everything wrong in the world. And then to come up against such a tough, thorny thing as mental illness in someone she loved. It would have broken a woman who wasn’t as strong as Julie.

  She was a lovely, courageous, compassionate woman.

  And not for him.

  Ross gazed out at the night. What the hell did a man like him have to offer someone like her? She needed softness, romance, tenderness, especially after the pain she had been forced to endure.

  He didn’t know if he was capable of any of those things. He was cynical and rough, more used to frozen pizza than candlelight dinners. He liked his life on his own and wasn’t sure he had room inside it for a woman like Julie.

  He couldn’t let himself kiss her again, especially not after he’d told her what a mistake it had been. As much as he might want to hold her in his arms, it wouldn’t be fair to her to give her any ideas that he might be open to starting something with her, not when he would only end up hurting and disillusioning her.

  Like he did everybody else.

  He let out a breath, wishing for a good, stiff drink. He needed something to push back the regret that he woul
dn’t have the chance to taste that delectable mouth again, to hear her soft little sigh of arousal, to feel her curves pressing against him. Frannie and Lloyd had a well-stocked liquor cabinet but he wasn’t sure it was a good idea for Josh to see him turning to alcohol to escape the weight of his obligations.

  He heard the creak of the door behind him and Ross turned to see his nephew standing in the lighted doorway, studying him with concern in his eyes.

  “Everything okay?” Josh asked.

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  His nephew shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ve just been standing out here without moving for at least half an hour. My bedroom window has a perfect view of the front door and I watched you while I was on the phone.”

  “Oh, right. Your study session.”

  Josh flashed him a quick, rueful grin but it faded quickly and those secrets took its place. He definitely needed to figure out what was going on with the kid.

  “So what’s up?” Josh asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “No. I was just…thinking.”

  “About my dad’s murder and the case against my mom?”

  That was exactly what he should have been thinking about out here. The boy’s words were a harsh reminder of yet another reason he needed to stay away from Julie—the most important one.

  She distracted him at a time when he could least afford the inattention. He had a job to do—clearing his sister. It was quite possibly the most important case of his career, the one he had the most stake in, and he needed to focus.

  “There are still a lot of inconsistencies,” Ross said instead of answering his nephew directly. “The whole thing is making me crazy, if you want to know the truth. If your mom would only try to defend herself, things would go much easier for her. We just need to hear her side of the story.”

  Josh leaned against the pillar, his arms crossed over his chest. “Why do you think she’s not talking?”

  The question was just a little too casual. He searched Josh’s features but his face was in shadows and Ross couldn’t quite read him.

  “It’s a good question,” he said. “One I sure wish I could answer. Why do you think she’s staying quiet?”

  Josh turned to look out at the quiet road in front of his house and Ross couldn’t help wondering if he was avoiding his gaze. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s blocked out what happened. Lyndsey said that can happen to people when they’ve been through a traumatic event or something.”

  What the hell did a sixteen-year-old girl know about disassociation? Ross frowned. “Maybe that’s what happened. I don’t know. But even if that’s the case, I would still like to hear her say so. At this point, I’d like to hear anything—that she can’t remember what happened or she’s not sure or aliens abducted her and sucked out her memory with their proton beams. Anything at all. I wish she could see that her silence is as good as a confession.”

  “She didn’t do it, though,” Josh muttered. “You and I both know she didn’t. I hate thinking of her in jail.”

  His voice broke a little on the last word but he quickly cleared his throat, embarrassed, and straightened from the pillar.

  Ross rested an awkward hand on Josh’s shoulder, wishing he was better at this whole parenting thing. “Your loyalty means the world to her, I know.”

  To his dismay, instead of taking his words as praise, as Ross intended, Josh seemed even more upset by them. He looked as if Ross had shoved a fist in his solar plexus.

  “I’m going to bed,” he said after a moment, his voice strangled and tight. “I’ll see you later.”

  “’Night,” Ross said and watched with concern as Josh went back inside the house.

  These sessions with Julie were a good idea, he decided. He just hoped she could get to the bottom of the kid’s odd behavior.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “I appreciate you coming out here, son. I know you’re busy and I hope it didn’t mess up your schedule too much.”

  As Ross shook his uncle William’s hand in the foyer of the Double Crown, he thought how much he respected him. His mother’s brother was as unlike Cindy as he imagined two people who came from the same womb could possibly be.

  William had always struck him as decent and honorable. Though Ross hadn’t known him well growing up because William and his wife and five sons lived in Los Angeles and their respective spheres rarely intersected, his uncle had invariably been kind to him and his brothers and sister when they did.

  His wife Molly had died a year ago, and William had temporarily moved from California to Texas and the family ranch just a few months earlier after a string of mysterious incidents threatened the family’s security.

  Ross thought of the word he had used the night of the dinner with Julie that had upset Josh so much—loyalty. William typified family loyalty. His uncle invariably thought first about the Fortunes and what was in the family’s best interest, and Ross had to respect him all the more for it.

  “Not a problem,” he said now. “I’m staying in Red Rock with Josh anyway so it wasn’t any trouble to come out here to the Double Crown.”

  Before William could answer him, Lily—William and Cindy’s cousin by marriage—walked down the stairs.

  At sixty-three, she was still exotically lovely from her Apache and Spanish heritage, with high cheekbones, tilt-tipped eyes framed by thick lashes and a wide, sultry mouth.

  She was also one of his favorite Fortunes. He would have loved having a mother as warm and caring and maternal as Lily Fortune.

  “Ross, my dear. You don’t come to the Double Crown enough,” she said, gripping his hands and squeezing them tightly.

  “Sorry about that. I’ve been pretty busy lately.”

  “You’ve got your hands full right now, don’t you? How is Frannie?”

  He frowned. He had seen Frannie that morning at the jail—just another frustrating visit. How had he never guessed that such obstinance lurked inside his delicate sister? He had asked, begged and finally pleaded with her to tell him what had happened the night of Lloyd’s death, but she remained stubbornly silent.

  “I can’t talk about it.”

  That was her only response, every single time he pushed her. Finally she had told him she would tell the guards she wouldn’t take any more visits from him if he didn’t stop haranguing her about it.

  “She doesn’t belong in prison. That’s for damn sure.”

  He heard his own language and winced. “Sorry, Lily. For darn sure, I meant.”

  She rolled her eyes. “If a little colorful language ever sent me into a swoon, I wouldn’t be much good on a working ranch, would I?”

  Ross grinned. “I suppose not.”

  “For what it’s worth, I completely agree with you. I can’t believe that pip-squeak Bruce Gibson was able to get his way and have her held without bail. It’s an outrage, that’s what it is.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” William put in. “Any word on appealing the judge’s decision on bail?”

  “The lawyers are working on it.” Like everything else, they were in wait-and-see mode.

  “Whatever you need, Ross,” William said, his expression solemn and sincere. “The family is behind you a hundred percent on this. We can hire different attorneys to argue for a change of venue if that would help.”

  “I don’t know what’s going to help at this point. I just need to figure out who really killed Lloyd so I can get her out of there.”

  “Whatever you need,” William repeated. “Just say the word and we’ll do anything it takes to help you.”

  “Thanks, Uncle William. I appreciate that.”

  He did, though it wasn’t an easy thing for him to admit. As much as he respected his Fortune relatives, they had all come to his immediate family’s rescue far more often than he could ever find comfortable. Cindy would have sucked the Fortune financial well dry if she could have found a way.

  “Come on back to the kitchen, why don’t you?” Lily said after a moment. “Rosit
a made cinnamon rolls this morning and I’m sure there are a few left.”

  His stomach rumbled, reminding him that breakfast had been coffee and a slice of burnt toast made from one of the last pieces of bread at the house. They were just about out of food. If he didn’t want his nephew to starve, he was going to have to schedule a trip to the grocery store soon, as much as he heartily disliked the task.

  He couldn’t help comparing the big, warm kitchen at the Double Crown with Frannie’s elegant, spare kitchen. This was the kitchen of his childhood dreams, something he didn’t think was a coincidence. On his few trips to the Double Crown as a kid, this place had seemed like heaven on earth, from the horses to the swimming hole to the big rope swing in the barn that sent anyone brave enough for it sailing through the air into soft, clean-smelling hay.

  Given a choice, he would much rather slide up to this table, with its scarred top and acres of mismatched chairs, than Frannie’s perfect designer set.

  Rosita, Lily’s longtime friend and housekeeper, bustled around in the kitchen in an old-fashioned ruffled apron. She beamed when she saw Ross and ordered him to sit.

  “You are too skinny. You need to come eat in my kitchen more often.”

  He raised an eyebrow. Only someone as comfortably round as Rosita could ever call him skinny. “If those cinnamon rolls taste as good as they smell, I might just have to kidnap you and take you back to Frannie’s mausoleum to cook for Josh and me. We’re getting a little tired of ordering pizza.”

  “You know you and Josh are welcome here anytime,” Lily said.

  “I wasn’t hinting for an invitation,” Ross said, embarrassed that his words might have been construed that way.

  Lily smiled and squeezed his arm. It took him a moment to realize why the gesture seemed familiar. Julie had the same kind of mannerisms, that almost unconscious way of reinforcing her words with a physical touch.

  He had come to crave those casual little brushes of her hands on him, though he would rather be hog-tied and left in a bull paddock than admit it.

  They spoke of family news for a few moments while he savored divine mouthfuls of the gooey, yeasty cinnamon rolls. William caught him up on the upcoming wedding of his son Darr to Bethany Burdett, a receptionist at the Fortune Foundation, then Lily shared news about her family.