by Unknown
“You’d rather be a bum than take what I’m offering you,” Hale Kincaid had repeated, just as he’d done over and over during the nearly twenty-five years since he’d married Hunter’s mother. “You can’t be serious about living in that run-down fishing camp your grandfather called a resort.”
“I am,” Hunter said, “and I will. Grandfather left the camp to me, and I intend to reopen it. That’s all I want.”
Words had been spoken in anger, but Hunter had to make Hale understand that he meant them. He wasn’t a real Kincaid. He was the adopted son, the outsider, the reminder of his mother’s past, with a background that his adoptive father wanted desperately to obliterate.
But the fishing camp, nestled on the bank of the Flint River, was falling down. The wonderful screened-in shed where he remembered his grandmother cooking fresh fish was a dirt-floored building with half a roof and the screen hanging in tatters.
Registering for the scavenger hunt had seemed a good idea. Winning the prize was the quickest way to finance his plan now that bike racing was off-limits. But his plan to claim the entire prize was being threatened by a smart-mouthed half-pint with kissable lips and peach-colored freckles—the worst possible partner.
“Better listen, cowboy,” his teammate said. “I think these instructions apply to you too.”
“You’ll be furnished with camping gear, vouchers for gas, and five thousand dollars in cash to be used any way you choose, except to pay for outside assistance. Your mode of travel will be limited to your Panther. Your partner is the only person allowed to view your map or study your clues.”
“Can we stop along the way? What about the Burger Doodle? Is that a no-no?” somebody called out from the rear.
“Because the point of this scavenger hunt is to introduce a tough new machine that will take you to the outback of Australia, you are being provided with camping equipment and food. But the Panther is a city machine as well. Therefore, commercial comforts are not against the rules,” the director announced with a quirky smile. “Provided you stay within your monetary allotment.”
The second official picked up when the first one stopped. “You may not make use of any personal effects, monies, or credit cards. Please pick up your supplies, choose your machine, and mark it with the proper team number. You will assemble at nine A.M. to draw your clues. Use your imagination and ingenuity. And good luck.”
“Well, wild woman, I hope you have an imagination and that you’re not going to fold on me.”
“The imagination is fine,” Fortune said with the beginnings of a guilty conscience. Now that she’d been chosen, she was starting to have a nagging attack of self-doubt. “It’s the other … mechanical skills I have to brush up on.”
“That you don’t have to worry about. If there’s anything I’m an expert at, it’s keeping a bike operational.”
“It isn’t the mechanics I’m worried about,” Fortune confessed, “it’s the motorcycle. Could I see one—up close?”
“You mean you’ve never even seen the new Panther? It’s one mean machine. I can’t wait to try it out.”
Fortune only swallowed hard. She tried hard not to look as if she were sorry she’d been chosen. She had the feeling that the woman she was replacing was a real motorcycle buff.
“Neither can I,” she said as she followed the cowboy across the platform. But her bravado died when she saw what she was expected to ride. It was big and black and looked like one of those robo-monsters from the cartoons. She expected it to lean back and roar.
“What do you think?” Hunter walked over and ran his long fingers lovingly across the handlebar.
The look on Hunter’s face was one of passion, of desire. Fortune shivered. For one quick second she wondered how it would feel to have him react like that to her. She’d been wrong; Hunter wasn’t the powder keg, she was—and she wasn’t certain that the fuse hadn’t already been lit.
“Well?” Hunter invited her to move closer.
She looked at the motorcycle. She couldn’t move. Her feet were glued to the wooden platform floor. She’d have to spend the night there, standing up, waiting for her secret to be discovered. She closed her eyes and prayed for help. She didn’t know who the saint of motorcycles was, but she settled on Saint Christopher, begging for intervention, for divine inspiration.
What she got was reality.
“Fortune Dagosta. That’s really your name?”
“Yes. I’m named for my Spanish great-great-great-great-great-grandmother. She stowed away in a ship and sailed to Mexico, where she met my Italian treasure-hunting grandfather.”
Hunter shook his head. “I don’t know why I asked. I don’t know why I expected your answer to make any sense.”
“I don’t even know if the story is true. Somebody probably made it up. The Dagostas have always been known for their imagination and their need to travel.”
“Like you, I suppose,” Hunter said. His observation of his partner so far confirmed those characteristics. The woman certainly had an imagination. “You’re about to spend nine days traveling around with a stranger.”
“Yeah, it won’t be the first time.” Her father had spent most of his life traveling with strangers, from one tenant farm to another. As a young child, Fortune had often been left to fend for herself.
A kid had to grow up fast when her parents were migrant workers who never stayed in one place longer than a month. When her mother had died, her father had dumped her with Granny Dagosta. Fortune’s life hadn’t changed much, it had just expanded. Later, when she’d lit out on her own, she’d been prepared to survive.
Catching the odd expression on Hunter’s face, Fortune quickly added, “I’ve done a lot of moving around.” She knew that she hadn’t answered his question about strangers, but he didn’t press the issue. Taking a chance on someone she didn’t know had become a way of life for Fortune. Trusting Hunter Kincaid was a small risk to take for the prize. Besides, she was quick, and she did have a good imagination. Fortune Dagosta could look after herself. She always had.
“So be it,” Hunter finally said, resigned to spending the next nine days with a woman with multicolor hair and a blistered foot. “You want to pick up the supplies, or choose our bike?”
“The supplies,” Fortune said quickly. “The bike is your department.” That statement was more true than Hunter Kincaid could possibly know.
Twenty minutes later Fortune had two bedrolls, an instant camera, film, a first-aid kit, and two packages of goods that she was told would fit into the storage compartments that lay like a saddle across the back of the bike. She carried the supplies to the spot beneath the steps where she’d met Hunter, and waited.
Another half hour went by before the sun god in the Stetson walked stiffly back down the steps to where she was waiting.
“Since you’re going to have to drive our machine, you need to check it out.”
“Drive it?” This time Fortune couldn’t keep the sheer terror from her voice.
“Tell me I’m not hearing what I think I am, partner.”
“What do you think you’re hearing?”
“Fear. I think I’m hearing fear. You do ride a bike, don’t you?”
“Yes, that was probably a requirement, wasn’t it?”
“It was. What kind of bike do you usually ride?”
“I—I—well.” she stumbled around, trying to figure out how to confess her deception. “Of course I ride a bike. It’s parked up by the trees. You can see it from here.”
Hunter swung around and scanned the stand of pines. All he saw was the pink two-wheeler with the wicker basket on the handlebars, the bike powered by two silver pedals. Then he knew. Mary Poppins.
“Ahh no! Tell me that wasn’t you riding that pink bicycle. He hadn’t recognized her. She’d been too far away, a silhouette against the sun. “I don’t believe it. Surely, you knew when you entered what kind of bike the Panther is. You couldn’t mistake a motorcycle dealership with a bicycle shop. Why would you
do that to me?”
“I told you, I didn’t enter the contest myself.” There was no point in telling him that Joe, who was only sixteen and probably ineligible, had planned to be her partner. “Someone else—a friend did it for me. I’m really sorry. Nobody told me that I’d have to drive it. I don’t think I can. Those things scare me to death.”
He was staring at her with eyes like steel marbles, totally demolishing her normal self-confidence. And she was rattling on like an idiot—just as she always did when she was uncertain.
“Ah, hellfire,” she swore. “There was a woman from Cordele, who possibly screwed up the deal. She said she could ride, but the truth is she lied. Boy does she feel like a heel.”
Hunter Kincaid couldn’t decide whether he felt more like hitting her or kissing her. But both possibilities were cut off when a sudden spasm of pain zipped up his spinal cord and pinched off his breathing for a second. He waited until it passed, then realized that she was staring at him. From the look on her face he couldn’t tell whether she was afraid of his anger or ashamed of her lie. Either way it was too late to do anything about it. The crowd had dispersed, and if he went to the officials about the mistake now, he’d be dropped from the competition.
Besides, she was getting to him. For a man who traveled alone, he didn’t understand his protective feelings for this wild woman. He rationalized that it was because she was his only hope of winning the money. He couldn’t blame her. If she hadn’t been around, he’d have been out of the competition.
“Poetry? Bad poetry? In the middle of a crisis. Why not? It fits.”
“Sorry, it’s a habit. I make up rhymes when I’m nervous.”
Hunter simply shook his head and repeated Fortune’s earlier oath as he knelt down on the ground in front of where she was sitting. “Give me your foot?”
“Why, is this something kinky?”
“I’m going to put medication on those burns.”
Fortune stared in amazement as he opened the first-aid kit, pulled out a gauze pad, and wiped off the bottom of her foot. Next he applied antiseptic ointment and a Band-Aid.
“You’d better clean that up when you get home,” he said, and reached over to pick up the boxes at her feet. Reaching down was all he could do; he couldn’t begin to lift them. “Ahh!”
“What’s wrong, Kincaid?”
Hunter gritted his teeth and forced himself to ignore the pain as he stood. “Looks like you’re going to have to carry the supplies, wild woman. I seem to be having a little lifting problem.”
“You are in pain, aren’t you? I thought so.”
“Just a minor problem with my spinal cord. It will pass, but I’m not supposed to lift anything for a few more days.” A lot more, actually. Actually, he wasn’t even supposed to be riding a bike yet.
“Not lift?” She eyed him seriously. The man was in more than a little pain, yet he’d stopped to treat hers. She couldn’t figure him out. She already knew that he would never have admitted he couldn’t lift unless it was a real problem. She was beginning to understand his slow walk and the stiff way he stood. “You’re hurt, aren’t you?”
“Not anymore.”
“I don’t think I believe that. How did you get here?”
“I drove my truck.”
“But I thought you were a bike rider.”
“I am, but mine has been in the shop.”
She took two steps forward until she was standing directly in front of him. Standing as tall as she could, she said, “From an accident, no doubt.”
When he didn’t speak, she knew she had her answer. “Great! I can’t drive a motorcycle, and you’re hurt. Hellfire, what a team we’re going to be. And I need that money! Didn’t the entry form ask if you were in good physical condition?”
“It did. It also asked if the person entering was an experienced biker. What did your helpful friend say to that?”
“He said yes, and I am. For twenty of my twenty-six years I’ve been riding a bike. Nobody asked what kind.”
“So what do we do now, wild woman?”
“What else?” she said forcefully. “We win! I need that money.”
“What for?” he asked, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, not when he’d intended from the beginning to claim it all.
“I need that money to fix the castle roof.”
“Castle? Of course. Sure, that makes sense. You’re Cinderella, and I’m Huck Finn.”
Fortune started to protest. But the picture she’d conjured up of the two of them turned her protest into an impish smile. “Somehow you look about as much like Huck Finn as I do a princess. You don’t even have a fishing pole.”
Hunter watched her smile turn into laughter and change from an expression of relief to the real thing, genuine and contagious. “Where’re your glass slippers?” He heard himself responding, and for a moment they simply laughed at the absurdity of the situation, until his sore back forced him to stop.
Finally, Fortune realized that he’d grown quiet. She took a deep breath and raised her eyes. “Looks like we’re stuck with each other, cowboy. Two people out of a bad joke. I’m sorry, but as you may already have guessed, I’m no Cinderella. I don’t do sculleries.”
“Well, if you’re looking for a prince, you’re out of luck. What you got is a frog, warts and all.”
And then she knew. Everything was going to be all right. They were a pair of misfits—very different from each other, but both out of step somehow with the rest of the world. They had been matched and they’d win.
“Maybe,” she said with a growing confidence in her voice. “But you remember that the frog turned into a prince. If I hand you a couple of these boxes, can you carry them?”
Hunter couldn’t think of a snappy reply. He remembered the fairy tale. It took a kiss from the princess to do the job, and at the moment that was all he could think about. He was going squirrelly. He was nodding his head.
Hunter found himself striding across the parking lot with the last person on earth he would have picked as a partner. He had no idea that he was still smiling until he reached the truck and caught a glimpse of his expression in the window. Quickly, he erased the grin, slid the boxes beneath the covered body of his pickup truck, took the bedrolls she was carrying, and shoved them inside. “Now, wild woman,” he said more sharply than he intended, “get your bike.”
“Why?”
“Listen, you barely got to the drawing in time to qualify. I already lost one partner, and I don’t intend to take a chance on your being late and disqualifying us in the morning. Where do you live?”
“Why do you care where I live?”
“Because I’m spending the night with you.”
Fortune swallowed her surprise. It was starting already. From the time she’d stepped on the cowboy’s hot ashes, she’d known that something major was about to happen. She couldn’t imagine why she was supposed to be there, but a long time ago she’d learned to roll with the punches. She’d made it through some pretty tough times alone. Her partner thought he needed to look after her. But it was probably the other way around, she thought.
He wanted to spend the night. Great! She’d let him. What better way for him to understand why she had to have the prize money. Yep, Fortune looked at the sky. A heat storm was building in the distance. Perfect!
By the time they turned down the gravel road to the house where Fortune lived, big wet drops were making dusty splotches on the windshield. By the time they dashed up on the porch, the rain was falling in torrents.
Hunter slung rainwater from the brim of his hat and took a good look at Fortune’s house. She was right, she did need a new roof, and when she got that done, she needed to install a new house beneath it. The castle was falling down around its frame, the sad burned-out remains of what was once a grand old southern mansion. About the only solid part left of the structure was the porch they were standing on, and a swing jerking eerily back and forth in the storm.
“Now you see why I need the pri
ze money.”
Hunter shook his head. “I don’t think twenty-five thousand dollars will be quite enough, Ms. Dagosta. I don’t think that the whole prize would do it.”
“I know,” she admitted, staring at the structure with regret. “But I have to start somewhere. I have six kids depending on me.”
“Six kids?” There was no way he could keep the disbelief from his voice. “You’re kidding.”
“At the moment. Who knows what the future will bring? There’s probably another one due any time.”
He stared at her for a long, disbelieving moment. The sky opened up and sent another torrent of rain down on the roof.
“Damn!” Not only was his partner a black-eyed fantasy who threatened every ounce of self-control he could muster, she was pregnant too.
Two
“I’m not having a baby, cowboy. I’m not even married.”
He fought back the acknowledgment of relief that welled up inside him. “The last time I checked, that wasn’t exactly a prerequisite.”
“For me it is. These children aren’t mine, not biologically. But they’re my responsibility, just the same. Don’t you like children?”
“I don’t know,” Hunter said wearily. He was tired. His back ached, and his mind was spinning. He felt as if he’d just stepped off the Tilt-a-Whirl at the amusement park.
“Relax, Mr. Kincaid. Come with me. I’ll introduce you to my kids. I think you’ll understand.” Fortune started off the porch and around the back of the house.
The rain was falling steadily, but the thick leaves of the umbrella-shaped chinaberry trees overhead sheltered them. Then they emerged from the trees and cut through a rose garden, where the bushes were hanging heavy with roses as large as cereal bowls.
The woman he was following was trouble. Hunter had known that the moment he’d seen her dancing barefoot across the concrete at the dealership. He was thirty-four years old, and the one thing he’d learned in his life was that a man who traveled alone had fewer complications. Children were complications for which he’d never give up his solitary life.