LASSOED BY FORTUNE

by Marie Ferrarella

  “The town’s only got a handful of shops,” Riley pointed out, still not convinced that the good outweighed what he viewed as the bad in this case.

  Julia approached the subject from another angle. “Maybe this’ll encourage some of you to open up more stores. The way it is right now, we have to drive to other towns to get almost everything. For example, we could stand to have a full-size bakery right here in Horseback Hollow,” she suggested.

  Liam raised his voice above the voices of several other people, pointing out, “You’ve got a bakery in your store.”

  “What we’ve got are doughnuts and coffee,” Julia corrected him, smiling amicably. “I’m talking about a real bakery, one that has proper cakes, pies, fresh-baked bread straight out of the oven on the premises, to name just a few things.”

  She looked around to see if she was getting through and to her surprise, she began to make out faces rather than just a sea of blurred features and hair all running together.

  Some of those faces were smiling at her with encouragement. Julia took heart in that.

  “I’m talking about building up a place that I am proud to call home. It is not going to be easy and it is not going to happen overnight. But it all starts with that first step,” she said with sincerity because she really believed what she was telling the people at the meeting.

  Unconsciously holding her breath, she looked around the room to see if she had managed to make her neighbors understand.

  “Yeah, but that ‘step’ you’re talking about involves inviting those Fortunes into our town,” someone toward the back piped up. “Who knows, after they’re finished, it might not even be our town any longer.”

  Where did they get these ideas? Julia couldn’t help wondering. Even as she did, she caught herself slanting a look in Liam’s direction.

  Had he started that baseless rumor? She didn’t want to think that and he had come to her defense when Silas Marshall had tried to heckle her, but Liam wasn’t the kind of man who could be easily swayed with just a few well-placed words and a smile. The man was nothing if not frustratingly stubborn.

  “Now listen,” she said. “I’ve done some research on the subject of the Fortunes. I found out that this family always gives back to the community they’re in, usually far more than they ever received. Why, they even built a medical clinic in Red Rock and started the Fortune Foundation.”

  “What’s that?” Dinah Jackson queried.

  “That’s a nonprofit, charitable organization that helps take care of people in need,” Julia answered, addressing her words to the woman directly. “People who might have fallen on hard times through no fault of their own.”

  “Oh, handouts,” someone snorted contemptuously.

  At times, these people had more pride than sense, Julia couldn’t help thinking.

  “No, a hand up.” She put emphasis on the last word. There was a difference. “The foundation helps people stand up on their own two feet again. As far as I can see, there’s nothing wrong with that.”

  A smattering of murmurings rose around the room again as people made comments to their neighbors, rendering their own opinions on what seemed to be the Fortunes’ obviously selfless behavior.

  There were a few in the gathering who required more convincing—Liam among them—but for the most part, Julia could see that she had managed get the wavering and undecided thinking about the benefits of having this new restaurant here.

  The mayor scanned the room, took note of some of the expressions and made a judgment call.

  “All right, I think that we’ve had a fair amount of pro and con debating on this subject for tonight. It’s getting kind of late and we all have somewhere to be. If there are no objections, why don’t we put the matter to a preliminary vote, see where we all stand on this issue right now? Remember,” he warned, “no matter what the outcome of tonight’s vote is, nothing’s final. You all have time to think about this, do a little research before we take a final vote on the matter. As of right now, there’ve been no concrete bids made yet, no proposals about building this restaurant.

  “As far as I know, this could just be one great big rumor with legs,” Harlan told the people at the meeting, chuckling at the verbal image he had just created for them.

  “If the preliminary vote turns out to be yes, then I will personally go to Marcos and Wendy Mendoza and convince them to build their second restaurant right here in the heart of Horseback Hollow,” Julia promised.

  The “heart” of Horseback, at the moment, only involved a two-block radius since that was all that actually comprised the little town.

  “Mendoza?” Clyde Hanks echoed, confused. “I thought you said that the Fortunes were the ones who were behind this venture. Just who the heck are Marcos and Wendy Mendoza?” He, as did many others, wanted to know.

  “Her name’s Wendy Fortune Mendoza,” Liam told the man tersely.

  It felt as though everywhere he turned, he just couldn’t get away and avoid those damn people, Liam thought darkly. They were trying to worm their way into his family and now into his town. Maybe the first was happening because they wanted the latter, he realized.

  The Fortunes were like some biblical plague he couldn’t outrun.

  Chapter Five

  “Bet you’re pretty proud of yourself, aren’t you?” Liam remarked, his tone of voice completely unreadable.

  Coming out of the saloon at the end of the town meeting, Julia was utterly preoccupied, her mind rushing around here and there as she made plans to get in touch with the Mendozas first thing in the morning. Though nothing had been finalized between them, she was very hopeful that if and when the restaurant did come here, she could impress them enough with her skills to be hired as at least one of the chefs. To that end, she wanted to keep them abreast of what was happening as far as the town’s considering the possibility of voting to have the restaurant built in Horseback Hollow.

  The preliminary vote regarding the restaurant’s construction on Horseback soil had been close, very close, but it looked as if more people were for it than against it. That, in turn, made Julia very excited. She intended to try to bring everyone around by the time the final vote was taken.

  This was the beginning, she could feel it.

  Lost in thought, she didn’t see Liam standing adjacent to the saloon’s entrance, leaning against the side of the building. Busy making plans, she wasn’t aware of him at all until he spoke. She’d very nearly jumped out of her skin. She’d thought he’d be halfway home by now, especially since he’d walked out after the vote was tallied and it was obvious that the position he’d taken wasn’t going to win. At least, not tonight.

  To Liam, the fact that the vote had been so extremely close made the very real possibility of an ultimate loss all the more painful to him. It was one of those “so near and yet so far” moments.

  Regaining her composure and managing to cover up the flustered feeling that had corkscrewed through her without warning at the sound of Liam’s voice, Julia squared her shoulders as she resumed walking back to the Superette. The grocery store would be open for another half hour because of the meeting and she needed to get back. Tonight her mother was manning the register alone and she didn’t want her to be too taxed.

  “Yes, I am, actually,” she said, responding to the flippant assumption he had tossed at her. She’d said it in as cheerful a tone as she could.

  Because she had a natural tendency to want to see everyone happy, she decided to give raising Liam’s spirits a shot. “The new restaurant is going to be a good thing for the town, you’ll see,” she promised him.

  “Maybe you and I have a different definition of ‘good thing,’” he pointed out with a trace of barely suppressed sarcasm.

  “My definition involves prosperity,” she replied succinctly.

  They’d already gone all through this at the meeting. Hadn’t he been paying attention? Why was he refusing to give the whole venture a chance? What was he really afraid of? she couldn’t help
wondering.

  His eyes pinned her down, almost keeping her a prisoner as he stated his feelings about the fate of the town. “Mine has to do with the town keeping its individuality, in not turning its back on its roots just to put a few pieces of silver into a few people’s pockets.”

  He made it sound as if she was trying to get the people of Horseback Hollow to sell out for her own private gain and she deeply resented his implication. Selling out had absolutely nothing to do with this.

  “People don’t deal in silver anymore, Liam,” she informed him tersely. “It’s the twenty-first century, not the 1850s.”

  He regarded her for a long, poignant moment, his thoughts utterly masked behind an expressionless face. “Maybe that’s the problem,” he told her.

  She was not going to get sucked into playing any mind games. “Maybe the problem is that you’re a dream killer,” she accused angrily.

  Couldn’t he see past his own dislike of the Fortunes long enough to try to understand what the infusion of new blood, new places could do for the town, for its economy? How it could just lift up everyone’s lifestyle at least a notch or two?

  “The ‘dream’ is the simple life we have here and you’re the one killing it because you’re an opportunist,” he accused, his temper suddenly flaring higher—more than the situation warranted. “Look, aside from all my other objections, I just don’t think it’s really smart to invite more of these people into Horseback Hollow. Just look what happened with that pilot, Orlando. You going to tell me what happened to him in his plane was just an accident? Not to mention that there’ve been a bunch of anonymous flyers showing up at the post office here, saying Fortunes Go Home! Can’t be any clearer than that.”

  “Orlando’s not a Fortune. He’s a Mendoza,” Julia began, but got no further.

  “A Mendoza who was piloting a plane for Sawyer Fortune. He almost got killed when it malfunctioned. These people are bad news. I say pack it up and go back to where you came from, don’t give them another reason to set up camp.”

  He could see that he just wasn’t getting through to her and it exasperated him. They were standing all but toe-to-toe right now. “You think just because you kissed me the other day I’m going to wag my tail and meekly follow you no matter what?”

  Her eyes widened in utter shock. How could he say that?

  “Hold it, buster,” she ordered angrily. “I think you have your facts a little mixed up. I didn’t kiss you,” Julia reminded him flatly. “You were the one who kissed me.”

  Liam shrugged as if he hadn’t really expected her to say anything else about the matter. Her denial left him completely unfazed. “If it makes you feel better to believe that, go right ahead,” he told her in a disinterested voice.

  She hated how he twisted things. “It’s not a matter of ‘believing’ it, it’s what happened,” Julia insisted, her eyes narrowing as she silently dared him to actually deny it.

  There went that chin of hers again, he noted, watching as it stuck up pugnaciously. The single action gave him such a tempting target that he found himself having a really hard time resisting it.

  But a man never hit a lady—not unless he was fighting for his life and although that might be what was going on figuratively, in reality it was just a heated battle of words

  And even though in their own way those words could deliver even heavier blows to the heart and psyche than fists could, he was not about to give Julia the satisfaction of glimpsing that tender region that belonged to him and him alone.

  “Looks like we’re not going to agree on that, either,” he observed.

  Had there not been the very real possibility that one of the people who had attended the meeting could stumble over them right now, he would have swept Julia into his arms and showed her what being kissed by him actually meant and felt like.

  But, like his father, Liam had always been a very private man. He had absolutely no desire to become the focal point for local gossips. Since the possible construction of this outsider-backed restaurant had everyone stirred up, one way or another, this little drama currently unfolding between Julia and him would be like throwing kindling into a campfire that was already lit.

  They would be irresistible fodder for the tongue-waggers of this town and beyond. He wanted no part of that.

  So, throwing up his hands, Liam made an unintelligible sound and stormed away before he and Julia could get deeply embroiled in yet another argument.

  Unlike Julia and more than half the people in that damn saloon who voted with her, Liam thought as he kept walking, he could not see anything good coming of this venture Julia was so hot about. What it was going to do was change life in Horseback Hollow as they all knew it. He would bet money on it—and that wasn’t something he ever did lightly. He worked too hard for his money to ever waste it on anything other than what he felt was a sure thing.

  But the majority—a rather damn slim majority at that—had voted to give the project a chance to prove itself as they all gave it a closer inspection. It was up to him to find a way to sink this project before it could actively move forward and become a reality. He needed to do something to get the town to vote against it when the final vote was taken.

  At the moment, as he cast around, he was coming up empty.

  However, he wouldn’t have been his father’s son, he thought with a hint of a smile curving his mouth, if he just gave up altogether. He was going to have to think on it awhile, like a dog gnawing on a bone. There had to be another way to make Julia see reason about this—and he had to find that way before the restaurant opened up and eventually ruined the face of the town.

  Even if construction started—and no matter which way you sliced it, that was still a ways off—it could be stopped if enough people could be convinced that he was right and she was wrong.

  It had come down to that, he thought. Him against her.

  The best way for him to go about that, of course, was to convince her that she’d made a mistake. If he did that, the rest would fall neatly into place—and the town would be spared.

  But what the hell could he do to make her see that what she was proposing wasn’t just a restaurant, it was a whole new change of lifestyle for everyone who lived in and around Horseback Hollow?

  So caught up in the dilemma ahead of him, Liam didn’t see the tall, rangy rancher until he all but stumbled into him. Stopping short to keep from bodily colliding with the six-foot-tall man, there was an apology on his lips before his eyes and brain focused and engaged one another to identify just who it was that he’d almost walked straight into.

  “Hey, sorry, I wasn’t looking where I—” Oh, damn, he silently cursed. This was the last person he wanted to run into right now.

  Quinn Drummond had been at the meeting; he’d taken a seat all the way at the back so that he could observe everyone. Liam doubted the rancher had said two words during the meeting. And he had voted for the restaurant. Another reason to avoid the man until he came up with his strategy, Liam thought.

  Quinn’s solemn face gave way to a small smile. “Liam, just the guy I wanted to see. You got a minute?”

  He doubted it was going to be this easy to disengage himself but he gave it a try anyway. “Actually, no, I don’t. I was just on my way to see someone—”

  “Good, I’ll walk with you,” Quinn offered, falling into step with him.

  “I’m going to be driving to see this person. Driving out of town.” Liam built his lie a piece at a time.

  Quinn was nothing if not flexible and accommodating. “All right, I’ll just walk you to your truck, then. That’ll give me a chance to grab at least a couple of minutes of your time.”

  Liam was about to say that a couple of minutes wouldn’t produce any sort of viable results, but Quinn didn’t pause or stop talking long enough to allow him to get the legendary word in edgewise.

  “Did you get a chance to find out anything at all about what the inside story on Amelia really is?”

  Liam began to scowl
. Ordinarily most people would back off at that, but Liam could tell Quinn was desperate. Amelia was obviously haunting the man—he needed answers and obviously didn’t know where to get them.

  “I know you’re busy,” Quinn continued, “but hell, man, she is part of your family and I thought that maybe you could ask someone who knows her just what—”

  Liam abruptly stopped walking and sighed. He’d already tried to ignore the young rancher once before when he’d come at him with questions about the Fortunes. The British branch of the Fortune family, for God’s sake. What was he supposed to know about any of them? He was trying to avoid them, not lobby for a position as the family’s best friend.

  Specifically, Quinn had questions concerning Amelia Fortune Chesterfield, whose recent engagement to some guy named James Bannings had been the subject matter of endless headlines, magazine covers and an incredible amount of media coverage that Liam found infinitely boring. There were enough speculations bouncing around about the duo to boggle the average intelligent mind.

  In his opinion, the whole thing was just hogwash. Who gave a damn about two people getting married in England, anyway?

  “Look, man,” Liam began as evenly as he could manage, “I already told you. I don’t know anything more than you do. Less probably.”

  Quinn couldn’t bring himself to understand that. “But she’s your cousin. Your mother and her mother are sisters—more than sisters,” Quinn noted.

  He didn’t need to rehash what had already been all but rammed down his throat, thanks to the newspapers, not to mention his own family.

  “Something my mother and even this princess’s mother didn’t know about until like six months ago,” Liam pointed out, cutting Quinn off before he got up a full head of steam on the subject and rambled on endlessly.