Her New Year's Fortune

by ALLISON LEIGH,

  It was all he could do not to pull over right then and there on the side of the road. He studied her for a moment. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” She slid him a look. “Aren’t you? I mean, you’re the one who was left, um—”

  “—hanging?” he provided wryly.

  She pressed her lips together and the pink in her cheeks went even brighter.

  He grinned and ran his thumb over her knuckles. “Your place it is. I just need to make a quick stop first. Don’t I?” He watched her. Her claims of experience aside, he was still painfully aware that she was a babe in the woods compared to him. Even taking into account what had already occurred between them. If he saw one hint of uncertainty, he intended to back off. It might be his undoing, but it would be the right thing to do.

  The look she gave him was shy. And so eager that he went hard all over again. “Yes, please,” she said.

  He couldn’t help but smile. “Ah, Sarah-Jane,” he murmured. She was the most genuine person he’d ever known. “Don’t ever change.”

  She blinked. Looked surprised. “I—”

  Whatever she would have said went unspoken when his phone rang again. Insistently. He wanted to roll down his window and pitch it out on to the road. But Sarah-Jane had picked it up and was peering at the phone’s screen. “It says ‘Mom.’” She held it up so he could easily see the display. “If she’s anywhere near as persistent as my mother, it’s probably easier just to take it.”

  His mother could be as subtle as a breath of air when she wanted. But she’d also raised four stubborn sons and a daughter who was even more headstrong. The word persistent didn’t even come close. He reluctantly took the phone and answered the call.

  “Wyatt, what’s this I hear about you wanting to buy property out there?”

  Wyatt grimaced. “I guess you’ve spoken with Victoria.” His sister had found him the perfect property, which they’d looked at the previous day. The only hitch was that it wasn’t exactly for sale. Not yet, anyway. But Wyatt figured he could talk the owner—a widowed woman who lived in Arizona—around to it. Putting enough money on the table often had that effect.

  “Actually, Jace was telling me about it.” His mother’s voice was tart. “Once Asher got on the line, he confirmed it. Wyatt, darling, you have got to get over this bug you’ve got about your father!”

  “Bug?” He bit off the word, too aware that Sarah-Jane was sitting there beside him. “He’s betrayed all of us. I think it’s a helluva lot more than a bug.”

  “You haven’t even talked to him,” she said. “James told me you two haven’t spoken since before you left for Emily’s wedding.”

  He realized his speed had crept up and lightened his foot on the gas pedal. “He had his chance to explain, more than once, and he didn’t. End of story.”

  “But—”

  “I’m driving, Mom. I’ve got to go.”

  Her sigh was noisy, even through the phone. “Nothing’s going to be resolved like this, Wyatt.”

  “Tell that to him,” he said flatly. “Goodbye, Mom.” He ended the call and wished he could just as easily end the regret swamping him. His mother hadn’t done anything to deserve the situation, either.

  He shoved the phone back down on the console and saw the concern in Sarah-Jane’s face. “Don’t even ask.”

  She winced a little. “Right. None of my business.”

  Dammit. He raked his fingers through his hair. “That’s not what I meant.” This is what thinking about his father and Atlanta did. Turned him into a knot of anger that seemed only to loosen whenever he was with Sarah-Jane. Only he was with her right now, still turned on by everything about her from the silky eyelashes curling around her liquid brown eyes to the sweet curves of her ankles hidden underneath the boots he’d bought for her, and that knot was tighter and angrier than ever.

  He loosened his death grip on the steering wheel and eased up again on his lead foot. “Just before Christmas, my father—” his jaw clenched over the word “—announced out of the clear blue sky that he intended to sell off JMF.”

  She absorbed that. “Can he?”

  “We’re a private company. Family owned. Family controlled.” His lips twisted. “And he controls the majority interest. Yeah. He can do it. He is doing it.”

  “Why?”

  “Who the hell knows?” He didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t want to think about it. But now that he was, he couldn’t seem to make himself stop. “If he’d wanted to retire, all he’d have had to do was say so. Shane’s already COO. We all knew it’s only a matter of time before he steps completely into our father’s shoes. But the old man makes his unilateral announcement and seemed to think we’d just sit around giving him our heartfelt thumbs-up.”

  “I felt a lot better after I finally told my mother what I thought.”

  “My father knows exactly what I think,” Wyatt said grimly. “Exactly what we all think. It hasn’t made a difference.”

  “Do you know who he’s selling to?”

  He shook his head.

  “When he plans to complete the sale?”

  Again, he shook his head and he could feel her studying him. He much preferred her looking at him with passion glazing her eyes. “Won’t you miss your job there, Wyatt? You’ve worked for JMF for how long? Since you were in college?”

  He’d worked there even before that. The JMF offices had been as much home to him as their real home. “I miss the work,” he allowed. “There’s no reason why I have to do it with JMF. Why stay and prolong the end?”

  “But he hasn’t sold anything yet. If all of you stayed, maybe he’d change his mind.”

  “Once James Marshall Fortune makes up his mind about something, there is no changing it.”

  She pressed her lips together for a moment. “Sounds familiar,” she finally murmured.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d heard himself compared to his father. Hearing it from Sarah-Jane, who knew nothing about it except for what he’d just admitted, stung more than he liked. “I know right from wrong,” he said flatly. “We’re all supposed to be part of JMF. But that obviously doesn’t matter to him or else he wouldn’t be doing what he’s doing.”

  “Says he intends to do. You just said he hasn’t actually done it yet.”

  His hands tightened around the steering wheel again. “Believe me, Sarah-Jane. The man means what he says.”

  “And so do you. You told me that yourself.”

  He didn’t want to argue with her. Didn’t want that knot inside him touching anything to do with her.

  “What if you found out he has a good reason?” she asked after a moment. “How would you feel then? Would you want to go back home to Atlanta?”

  “Dammit, Sarah-Jane, I don’t want to talk about it.” He wanted to chew off his tongue as soon as the words escaped and her face turned pale and pinched. He exhaled roughly. “Atlanta is done and over,” he said a little more calmly. “Red Rock is a new start. Completely, totally different from everything there.”

  “Including me?” She twisted his plaid shirt between her hands. “I know I’m not anything like the women you typically see.” He gave her a look and even though she flushed, her chin slanted upward, obviously determined. “Felicity looked you up on the internet,” she muttered.

  “Felicity.”

  “Fine. I did, too. There were hundreds of mentions of you. You date tall skinny blondes.”

  For some reason, he suddenly felt immeasurably better. She was jealous. It was as plain as the pert nose on her face. “There were a few brunettes as I recall.”

  “Right. Skinny ones who looked like they belonged on magazine covers.” Her lips thinned. “So why take up with me? I have no illusions about myself, Wyatt. I’ll never be skinny.”

  “God, I sincerely hope not,” he returned. “Nothing but sharp, poking angles.” They were still beyond the outskirts of Red Rock and he pulled off the side of the road, shoving the truck into park before angling his body to fac
e her.

  Her eyes had gone wide and in the rhythmic swishing of the windshield wipers, he imagined he could hear the hard beating of her heart. Or maybe that was just his. “I thought I’d made myself clear, Sarah-Jane. I want you. Just the way you are. I want to bury myself inside you, and feel a woman in my arms instead of a stick I have to worry about breaking in half. I want to fill my hands with your rear end and feel flesh and muscle, not jutting bones. When I kiss your breasts, I want to feel the weight of them, the softness of them, and know every centimeter is you. Only you.”

  She was staring at him, her lips parted.

  Something inside his chest tightened again. “But even more than that, I want in up here.” He tapped her forehead with his finger. “I want in there until you can see the same thing that I see. It doesn’t matter if you’re in cashmere—” he ran his finger down the V on the front of her damp sweater until his finger briefly delved into the warm valley between her breasts “—or in one of those god-awful baggy shirts you wear at the knitting shop.” He took his hand away from her before he forgot where they were altogether. “I could lock you in a room with me and make love to you five times a day or just walk you through town where every guy we pass is ogling you. But none of it would matter if you don’t start accepting the simple truth. That you are a beautiful...desirable...woman.”

  “Five times a day?”

  He gave a strangled laugh. “That’s all you got out of that?”

  “No.” Her gaze shied away from his. “Wyatt, nobody’s ever looked at me the way you do.”

  “I seriously doubt that.” He eyed her. “You just haven’t been noticing. One of my own brothers described you as stacked.” He briefly considered that. “I may have to throw him off a cliff.”

  She rolled her eyes, but laughed softly. He liked hearing her laugh. Liked watching her laugh. The way her nose wrinkled just so and her eyes sparkled. The laugh could come out of absolutely nowhere and it was always the same. A little wrinkle that made him want to kiss it, and that incredible sparkle that made it so easy to forget the rest of the world around them.

  “He doesn’t know what I know, though.” He leaned across the console and caught her gently pointed chin between his thumb and forefinger. “That as distracting as the exterior is, the interior is even more fascinating.”

  Her pupils dilated. “I want to believe you,” she finally whispered. “It’s just...I’ve never—” She broke off. Swallowed and tried again. “Wyatt, you’re an exceptionally nice man.”

  He made a face. “Do I sense a kiss-off coming? Nice is a death knell, isn’t it?”

  She ignored that. “You make it so easy to forget that you’re completely out of my league.”

  “Bull,” he countered bluntly.

  She blinked a little, looking bemused. But then she scrubbed her hands over her face before twisting them together in her lap. She didn’t look at him. “If I’m not careful, I’m going to fall head over heels—” the hitch in her voice was almost too quick to catch “—for you, and then where will I be when this whole situation with your father and JMF is resolved?”

  “God save me from the convolutions of a woman’s mind,” he muttered. “There’s nothing to be resolved.”

  “Of course there is!” Now she looked at him, full on. “Until you understand why he says he’s going to sell—”

  “He will sell—”

  “—how can you ever make your peace with a life here in Red Rock?”

  “Damn it all, Sarah-Jane, I’ve made my peace!” His shout filled the cab of the truck.

  She watched him, wide-eyed and unmoving except for the quick swallow that worked down her lovely throat.

  He should have never answered that damn phone.

  He wouldn’t have blurted out anything about his father. They’d likely already be back at her apartment, finally making love—completely—the way he wanted. He would have nothing consuming his thoughts except for her.

  His breath felt harsh in his chest as he checked the mirrors, put the truck into gear and pulled back onto the rain-slick road.

  Sarah-Jane didn’t speak until they arrived at the apartment. Wyatt hadn’t made any stops along the way. She didn’t need any more confirmation that he’d changed his mind about finishing what they’d started out by the creek than that. If she were to believe him, he wanted her. Her. He really didn’t think she was plain Sarah-Jane.

  But she’d obviously stuck her nose somewhere it didn’t belong. Namely, his life.

  And that obviously overruled something as simple as sex. Casual or otherwise.

  When he pulled into an empty parking spot, she hurriedly reached for the door handle. “You don’t have to walk me up,” she said quickly. “You’ll get rained on.” She felt his gaze, but couldn’t bear to look at him. If she did, she was going to start crying.

  It was a fine time to realize that she didn’t want him only to want her.

  She wanted the whole thing.

  Body, heart and soul.

  Because she was in love with him.

  The silence between them pulsed. Outside, the rain poured, streaming down over the windows.

  “I’ll call you later,” he finally said quietly.

  A vise seemed to close around her throat. He never said what he didn’t mean. She held on to the thought like a lifeline and nodded before shoving open the door and sliding out.

  It was only after she’d made it inside the sanctuary of her apartment that she realized she was still clutching his blue-and-white plaid shirt in her fist, and she slowly slid her back down the door until she was sitting on the floor.

  Then, holding the shirt to her face, she finally let the tears come.

  He’ll call. He said he’ll call.

  * * *

  He didn’t call.

  Not later that day. Or the next day.

  Or the next.

  Sarah-Jane didn’t have the luxury of curling up and hiding, though she wished that she could. Instead, she made herself get up each morning the same way she had been for years. She put on her running gear and went running. The same way she had been for months. She went to work every day. She taught beginners how to cast on and cast off stitches and the difference between knit and purl. She even finished designing the River Walk sweater pattern and posted it to the shop’s website where people would be able to download it for free.

  But she couldn’t bring herself to go back to the park for lunch. Instead, she spent her lunch hours holed up in the office at the back of the store, poking disinterestedly at her salad and compiling internet orders.

  Life, after all, went on. Even when you knew that the man you were crazy to fall for in the first place didn’t return your feelings, life still went on.

  Knowing didn’t make it easy, though.

  She received proof enough of that when, nearly a week later, he was sitting on the front step of her apartment after she’d finished teaching her Thursday night class.

  Her heart wanted to jump right out of her chest and she knew there’d never be enough time left in the world to get him out of her skin.

  Her hand curled tightly around the umbrella she was holding over her head. It seemed painfully fitting that it had started raining again just that afternoon when the skies had been dry as a bone since the last time she’d seen him.

  “Wyatt.” Just saying his name made her ache inside. She walked closer. “What are you doing here?” He didn’t have an umbrella. He was just sitting there, letting the rain pour down on him.

  “I don’t know,” he finally said.

  It didn’t matter that he was breaking her heart.

  He looked dreadful.

  She angled her umbrella over him, too, not that it would make any difference. He was already soaked. “What’s wrong?” She unlocked the door and pushed it open before turning back to him. “Come inside.” He stood slowly and she had to adjust the umbrella so he wouldn’t knock his head into it. Water beaded off his leather coat. She pushed at him until
he went inside and she quickly closed the umbrella, leaving it outside under the small overhang on the porch and followed him. “Hold on while I’ll get you a towel.” She didn’t wait to see if he agreed or not, but raced into the kitchen where she discarded her wet shoes and slicker, and came back with a clean dish towel.

  He was standing right where she’d left him, his attention focused on the floor. Water slowly dripped down from his head.

  Concern turned to outright alarm, and instead of handing him the towel, she simply spread it over his head and rubbed briskly, as if he were a little boy and not a full grown man who’d tied her heart in knots. Then she dashed it over his shoulders trying to get the worst of the water off his jacket before tugging it off. “Come,” she pulled him toward the couch. “Sit down.” The front of his collarless linen shirt was wet and so were his faded blue jeans, but she couldn’t do anything about them. Not unless she wanted to get him out of his clothes altogether, and she wasn’t foolish enough to think that was a good idea. Not after the way they’d left things.

  He sat. “I need a drink.”

  “Of course. Something hot? Coffee?” She felt a hysterical jolt. She was in love with him and she didn’t even know if he drank coffee.

  He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Drink, Sarah-Jane. As in liquor.”

  She gave him an uneasy look. “I think we have a bottle of whiskey that Felicity received for Christmas.”

  “That’ll do,” he muttered.

  “Wyatt, you’re obviously upset.” Deeply upset if she were any judge at all. “Are you sure drinking is the solution?”

  He started to stand. “I’ll go find a bar, then.”

  That would be an even worse solution. “No. Sit.” She nudged at him until he subsided. “I’ll get you the drink.” She practically ran back into the kitchen and rummaged through the cupboards until she found the bottle. It was still sealed. Still had a festive red ribbon tied around the neck. She tore off the ribbon and quickly opened the bottle, found a short glass and filled it part way. She had no judgment whatsoever whether it was a lot or a little, but she dropped a few ice cubes in it anyway and carried it back to him. “Here.”