LASSOED BY FORTUNE

by Marie Ferrarella

  Nevertheless, Quinn didn’t give up easily. “But still—”

  “There is no ‘still,’” Liam informed him. “Look, I don’t know how to say this any clearer so that you can understand, but those people—all of them, British or otherwise—are not my family. They’ve never been my family and they’re never going to be my family. Do I make myself clear?” he demanded.

  Although he was looking into the face of anger, Quinn refused to be put off like that. “But your mother—”

  “Is free to do whatever she wants and if she wants to acknowledge these people and pick up so-called ‘family’ ties, fine. So be it. But I don’t and that’s my choice. Sharing a name doesn’t mean a damn thing to me,” Liam insisted heatedly.

  Who the hell did the Fortunes think they were, he wanted to know, barging into his life like that and thinking he and his siblings would just turn their backs on what they believed were their roots, to happily pick up the Fortune mantle? Well, not him, by God. Not him.

  “It’s more than a name,” Quinn stubbornly insisted. “It’s blood.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t believe it.” Maybe there was some underhanded reason that these people came crawling out of their fancy woodwork at this time. He hadn’t figured that part out yet. All he knew was that he wanted to be left alone and not hounded about these damn people every which way he turned around.

  “Look, Quinn, the bottom line is that I don’t know anything about these people and I don’t want to know anything about these people, so you’re going to have to ask someone else about them.” Normally not a curious person, curiosity got the better of him this time, thanks to Quinn’s relentless persistence. “Considering that this princess you’re asking about has her picture plastered all over the front pages, what are you trying to find out about her that hasn’t already been covered a hundred times over in every means of communication available?”

  Quinn sighed, running his hand through his rather longish brown hair. “I guess I’m just trying to find out if it’s true.”

  Well, that didn’t clear anything up. “If what’s true?” Liam asked.

  It pained Quinn to even frame the question. “If she’s actually engaged to this guy Bannings.”

  He’d seen the headlines himself—and he hadn’t particularly wanted to know anything at all about these people. “Well, if it’s not true, there’re going to be an awful lot of reporters and newshounds with egg on their collective faces.”

  The second the words were out of his mouth, Liam saw the look of absolute misery cross the other rancher’s face. What the hell was that all about?

  “You got a thing for this Princess Amelia or whatever she’s calling herself?” Liam ventured.

  Rather than answer the question, Quinn said, “She doesn’t use any kind of a title.

  “Calling her a princess might be something the tabloids enjoy doing, but when Amelia was out here for Sawyer’s wedding at New Year’s, she told me that she hated being related to the royal family. It meant that she was never alone, always in the public eye, always having her every movement—her every mistake—photographed and forever documented.”

  Liam shrugged even as an inkling of sympathy stirred within him. He knew that he would have lost his mind if he had these relentless reporters and photographers following him around like that, night and day.

  “Yeah, well, the papers aren’t paying attention to what she likes or doesn’t like. They’re doing what sells, which means they’re going to go on calling her a princess.”

  In his heart, Quinn had thought of her as his princess, but that just showed him how naïve he could be. It irked him when he thought that she and that mealy-mouth James Bannings were together, maybe even having a good laugh over all this, over him, the hick rancher who’d been dumb enough to fall for her.

  “I can’t help you, Drummond,” Liam was saying. “In fact, I don’t think anyone can help you but yourself.”

  “Yeah, sorry to have bothered you,” Quinn mumbled darkly, retreating.

  The sight of the ordinarily easygoing rancher looking so dispirited as he began to walk away caused Liam to have some second thoughts on the matter. He didn’t care to be related to those people, true, but his mother had embraced it. Maybe she knew more than he did. She sure couldn’t know any less.

  “Hey, Drummond.”

  Quinn stopped walking as Liam called his name.

  “Yes?” The single word vibrated with unspoken hope.

  “Why don’t you go talk to my mother?” Liam suggested. “Chances are she probably doesn’t know anything helpful, either,” Liam warned the other man, not wanting him to get his hopes up too high. “But then, on the other hand, you never know.”

  He’d heard one of his brothers saying something about his mother staying in touch with this new sister she had suddenly become aware of. If that was true, then maybe she knew something about this Amelia person, who apparently had Drummond tied up in knots.

  Quinn appeared to visibly brighten at the suggestion, flashing a wide, grateful smile. “Thanks, Liam,” he called back.

  “Yeah, well, good luck to you,” he responded, turning away.

  As for him and his own problem, Liam thought, he was going to need a lot more than just plain luck. He was going to need a miracle or two—or eight—because that snobbish Julia Tierney gave him the impression that when she latched on to something, it would take a stick of dynamite—if not more—to get her to let go and step back.

  It was up to him, he thought, to find that so-called dynamite stick so he could separate her from this “cause” she had taken up and get her to clear away the cobwebs from her eyes.

  None so blind as those who refuse to see, he couldn’t help thinking. He just needed to find a way to make her see.

  Good luck to me with that, he thought as he got into his truck. He’d see what could be done tomorrow, he promised himself. As for now, what he needed was a good night’s sleep, something that had been eluding him of late. He hoped he’d finally get it tonight.

  Although he really had his doubts about that.

  Chapter Six

  The idea came to Liam the following morning.

  He wasn’t exactly sure when or how it had actually occurred to him, but out of the blue, the adage about a picture being worth a thousand words seemed to burst on his brain as he was having his first cup of eye-opening coffee before heading out to begin his morning chores on the ranch.

  In this case, the so-called “picture” that rather nicely took the place of long-winded rhetoric was a restaurant in Vicker’s Corners, a town that was located some twenty miles from Horseback Hollow.

  Liam had had occasion to drive over to Vicker’s Corners a month ago and he remembered thinking to himself as he passed it that the restaurant seemed just too fancy for him—he preferred The Grill. The Grill right here in town. It was more down-to-earth.

  But the Vicker’s Corners’ restaurant seemed like just the kind of pretentious eatery that it looked like Julia was aiming for. The establishment was supposedly a good place for couples looking for a romantic atmosphere. To him that was just downright lazy. You created your own romantic atmosphere. You didn’t expect someone else to do it for you. He sure hadn’t had any trouble doing that back in high school, when things like that had been a priority for him.

  He had become more serious and down-to-earth these days, but that kind of restaurant had to be what Julia had in mind, he thought. And seeing as how Vicker’s Corners was a lot more crowded and noisy than his own Horseback Hollow was, Liam thought if she saw it, it might just prove his point to Julia: that building something like that was going to spoil life as everyone in Horseback knew it.

  Making up his mind about the matter, Liam hurried through all the immediate chores he needed to do, left instructions with the part-time ranch hand he had working for him to take care of the rest and headed into town. The sooner he could put this fool notion of Julia’s to bed, the better he’d feel.

  It had bec
ome his personal crusade.

  Liam felt certain that if Julia took away her support for the new restaurant, the whole project would just fall apart. She was acting as the Mendozas’ go-between. He was fairly certain he had enough sway to get a majority of the town to agree with him if Julia wasn’t there to gum up the works.

  Now all he had to do, he thought, was to convince Julia to come see the place.

  *

  “Have you been to Vicker’s Corners lately?” Liam asked her the second he came up behind Julia in the Superette.

  She had her back to him—and the front door—as she was busy stocking the refrigerated section with the fresh milk that had come in earlier this morning. Liam’s question, uttered in his low, baritone voice and coming from behind her had nearly made her drop the bottle she was holding. Regaining her composure, Julia turned around to look at him.

  “And good morning to you, too, Liam,” she said, forcing an obviously strained smile to her lips.

  “Yeah, good morning,” he muttered, brushing the greeting aside. “Well, have you?” he asked again, impatience marking his every syllable.

  “Have I what?” she asked, not really sure what he was asking her.

  Liam sighed. “You know, for the manager of a place like this, you sure don’t act like you pay attention to people when they talk to you.”

  “People, yes,” she corrected him. “You, not so much. Now, either say what you came to say outright or just go about your business, whatever that is, because I’m busy right now.” She gestured around the store for emphasis. She had a lot of shelves to restock.

  Liam could almost feel his temper rising. He was pretty much of an easygoing guy but there was something about this woman that had him seeing red almost instantly.

  For that matter, there always had been, he admitted to himself silently. But that wasn’t something that he cared to advertise. It might give Julia the wrong idea about the kind of power she had over him.

  “I asked you if you had been to Vicker’s Corners lately.”

  “No,” Julia told him. “No need to, really,” she explained, reaching for another bottle of milk from the delivery crate her regular supplier had brought in for her.

  She’d seen the restaurant that Wendy and her husband owned and ran. That had stolen her heart and she wanted to be in charge of the kitchen at a place just like that so that maybe someday she’d be able to own her own restaurant.

  “So you haven’t checked out that restaurant they’ve got there,” Liam concluded.

  Liam had piqued her interest. Why was he pushing this place on her, asking all these questions? “No, I haven’t. Have you?”

  “I’ve seen what it’s done and is doing to the town,” Liam said pointedly.

  Julia noticed that he hadn’t actually answered her question directly. From his tone, Julia had a feeling that any second now, the former big man on the high school campus was going to start going on and on about the evils of having anything in town but a down-to-earth, bare-bones eatery whose idea of a “selection” was having two things to choose from on the menu.

  Instead he surprised her.

  “Why don’t I drive you down there so you can see what having a place like that in town is like firsthand?” He came around the side of the counter and took out the last two bottles of milk for her, putting them into the display refrigerator.

  Julia looked around. There was the usual number of people in the store, so it wasn’t particularly busy. But she did have shelves to restock. Her mother had seemed somewhat preoccupied this morning so she didn’t want to ask her. That would only leave the part-time clerk who was helping out this morning if she took off.

  Julia made up her mind. She was needed here, not running off to a neighboring town with Liam. “I’m afraid that I can’t get away,” she began.

  “Sure you can,” her mother insisted, coming up behind her. “Elliot and I can handle the customers,” she assured her daughter, nodding toward the clerk. “It’s not like we’re having a run on the place. Go, take some time off. Enjoy yourselves,” she encouraged. “Shoo,” she added for good measure, gesturing both of them toward the door.

  You’d think her mother would know better than to all but throw her into Liam’s arms. “This is a scouting trip, Mother, not a getaway,” Julia told her mother in all seriousness.

  Annie patted her daughter’s cheek. “Then think of it as a getaway, dear,” she encouraged before looking pointedly at Liam. “See what you can do to loosen her up a little, Liam. She is just much too serious for a girl her age.”

  He smiled at the older woman, his expression softening his features and making him look every bit as roguishly attractive as he had looked in high school, when he was every girl’s idea of the classic exciting bad boy.

  “I’ll do my best, ma’am,” he promised.

  Annie returned his wide smile. “That’s all I can ask.”

  “I think I should warn you that I carry Mace in my purse,” Julia told him as she walked by, lowering her voice so that only he could hear.

  “Duly noted,” he murmured without changing his expression or letting it betray him.

  As Julia went to the back office to get her purse and shrug out of the oversize apron she always wore in the store, Liam turned toward her mother and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll have Julia back in the Superette in a couple of hours.”

  “That hardly seems like enough time, dear,” Annie replied, shaking her head and obviously shooting down his initial agenda. “There’s no rush to get back— really,” Julia’s mother insisted. “Julia doesn’t take nearly enough time for herself. She’s the most selfless girl I have ever known,” Annie lamented. The older woman moved closer to him, straining to look up since Liam was a foot taller than she was. “Force her to have fun if you have to. Take the long way home. Enjoy the day, the evening,” she elaborated, expanding on her initial instruction. “I was serious when I told you to loosen her up a little. Julia’s going to be old someday without ever giving herself permission to be young.”

  “We’re just checking out the restaurant there, Mother,” Julia reminded her as she came back. Her purse strap was slung over her shoulder. “Not going for a hayride.”

  Annie heard what she wanted to hear. Her face brightened at the mention of a hayride. “Now, there’s an idea,” she declared.

  “An idea that is going to lie exactly where it is, Mom.” Julia brushed a kiss against her mother’s cheek. “I’ll be back soon.” She put emphasis on the last word. “Hold down the fort until then.”

  “I was holding down the fort before you were born, my girl,” her mother reminded her. “I won’t have any trouble doing it again. And you, mind what I told you,” Annie told her daughter.

  Julia knew that her soft-spoken mother was every bit as stubborn as she was in her own way. This wasn’t an argument that she was destined to win even if she stood here for the remainder of the day, so she appeared to silently surrender.

  Not that she had any intentions of thinking that this excursion was anything except what it was: an exploratory excursion to check out what would eventually become her competition—if she ever got that restaurant built in Horseback.

  Julia was aware that she was counting her chickens before the hen had even laid her eggs, but she was really excited about the prospect of this restaurant and what it would mean for her future, for the town’s economy.

  Julia realized that this was the most alive she’d felt in a long, long time.

  Since even before her marriage to Neal.

  “Okay, if we’re going to go, then let’s go,” she told Liam.

  Liam grinned, waved goodbye to her mother and fell into step beside Julia.

  “I thought we’d take my truck, since I suggested the trip. Any objections?” he asked because, knowing Julia, there were always objections of some sort to anything he suggested.

  “Not yet,” she said glibly and then added, “You’ll know when I have any.”

  “I have no
doubts about that, Julia,” he told her. “I have no doubts at all.”

  A retort rose to her lips, but she forced herself to swallow it. For now it just might be safer to let things like that just slide off her back. There was nothing to be gained but a headache from any kind of confrontation at the beginning of this trip.

  She had no doubt that there’d be plenty of time for that on the way back.

  *

  The trip to Vicker’s Corners went relatively quickly. The twenty miles between Horseback Hollow and the other town was rather desolate and the only traveling companions they encountered were close to the ground and seemed unfazed by their passage.

  It wasn’t until he got closer to Vicker’s Corners that other trucks as well as a few cars could be seen in the vicinity of the town. Rather than the simple two streets with their quaint, weathered shops that were at the center of Horseback Hollow, Vicker’s Corners had stores that he’d heard one of his sisters refer to as “charming.” More than a couple of these “charming” stores lined Main Street, attracting a significant amount of vehicular traffic.

  And just outside the town proper there was a tall, colorful sign that Liam made a point of calling her attention to.

  “See there?” he asked, indicating the sign as if there was any way she could have missed seeing it. “It says they’re going to be building condominiums outside of town. Condominiums and ‘luxury estates,’” he quoted in disgust, whatever “luxury estates” was supposed to mean. “They’re completely wiping out the honest, friendly country life folks around here grew up with, all so that someone can make an almighty dollar profit.”

  It was going to be an awful lot more than a dollar, she couldn’t help thinking. But the idea didn’t appall her the way it obviously did him.

  “You’ve got something against earning a living?” she asked, really curious as to what his answer might be.

  “I’ve got something against destroying a living,” he countered. “And from what I hear, this all started with that fancy restaurant right there,” he told her, gesturing toward the establishment they had come to view.