Mendoza's Secret Fortune (The Fortunes of Texas: Cowboy Country)

by Marie Ferrarella

  But as with all good things, eventually that had faded into the shadows, leaving darkness in its place. Darkness and the specter of mind-numbing disappointment, the silent passenger who had ridden in during the night, ready to undermine every single thing that had happened the moment morning’s first light seeped into Rachel’s small, cozy bedroom.

  Matteo knew only one thing for certain. That he had never felt like this before—fearful—because he’d never experienced this sort of a surging high before, one that grasped hold of him and just made everything a hundredfold better.

  Lovemaking, when it occurred in his life, had always been, for the most part, an enjoyable activity. But it never bore any consequences, and the pleasure it brought would disappear into the past for him practically the moment it happened. Certainly within a few hours.

  But from the first moment he had taken Rachel into his arms, he knew that this was going to be different.

  And it was.

  Because she mattered.

  He’d thought he’d lost her before anything ever began because Cisco seemed so interested in her and because his brother had deliberately asked her out, moving quickly right in front of him. It was as if Cisco was rubbing Matteo’s nose in the fact that if he wanted someone, all he had to do was snap his fingers and she was his.

  Had Cisco asked her out like that because he was as taken with Rachel as he was? Or was it because Cisco saw how taken he was with Rachel and that was enough of a reason for his brother to try to steal her away?

  He had no answer for that.

  It was all so complicated.

  Making love with Rachel should have settled things for him. Instead, it just confused them even further. Matteo felt perplexed, vulnerable and at a total loss as to his next step—if one was to even be taken.

  He would have felt better about his course of action if he’d known for certain that Rachel would remain with him, that last night had not been a onetime thing but the beginning of a long relationship.

  Matteo knew that he was in it for the long haul, but what if she wasn’t? What if she had made love with him last night to get back at Cisco for taking her for granted?

  Or maybe she made love with him because she felt sorry for him. That would have hurt worst of all, he thought.

  All these thoughts and self-doubts had been assaulting him as he slipped out of her bed and gathered up his scattered clothing from the floor. Carrying them into the living room, Matteo quickly hurried into his jeans and shirt.

  Then, carrying his shoes, he tiptoed out of the apartment and pulled the door closed behind him.

  The click of the lock told him that he had taken an irreversible step. Even if he changed his mind about this and wanted to slip back into her bed, he couldn’t.

  The matter had been settled for him.

  He had to move on.

  * * *

  Rachel desperately wanted to call Matteo, to yell at him; to ask him calmly why he had left her apartment so abruptly, without a note or anything; to tell him that she never wanted to see him again.

  A hundred different conversations materialized in her head, each one with a different approach, each eventually being shot down.

  The only thing they had in common with each other was that the hundred different conversations all included the word why? in them.

  She desperately wanted to know why.

  By the time she had gotten ready and was driving to work, Rachel had managed to semi-convince herself that what had happened was really for the best. Not the night of lovemaking, but specifically her waking up to find him gone.

  If, as she was now beginning to suspect, Matteo had just been there to get what he could from her and, once that was accomplished, he was just intent on moving on, then at least she was spared the agonizing decision she might have been faced with down the line. Namely, having to tell Matteo about her father. If they had remained together, she would have to explain her past to him, a past she was trying to divorce herself from.

  She would have to tell him that she had left home because she had discovered her father had been living a lie, a lie he’d had his whole family believing in since the day she had been born. A lie he had perpetuated for her entire life.

  Most likely the entire lives of all her siblings. None of them had ever acted as if they had discovered this massive cover-up her father had engineered to erase his tracks.

  “This massive lie. Call a spade a spade, Rach,” she lectured herself.

  She felt that her father’s secret shouldn’t continue to be covered up any longer, but she didn’t want to hurt her siblings or her mother. Every day that went by without his confession was another day he spent living a lie.

  All those late nights her father had claimed to be at the office, working—they had been late nights, all right, but late nights spent perpetuating the legend of his life and indulging his appetites.

  She was willing to bet on it.

  It wasn’t something she intended to make public, but in all honesty, eventually she would have to tell the person she was seriously involved with about this.

  For now, of course, that was nobody, Rachel thought. Her heart felt heavy over the admission, especially when she tried to excise the very image of Matteo from her mind.

  So far, that was not working.

  She was relieved that at least for today, her workday began and ended in The Hollows Cantina. She sincerely doubted she would see any of the Mendoza men here. After all, Orlando lived in Horseback Hollow, so it was only to be expected that he would eat most of his meals at home. And now that his two sons were visiting him here, all three would undoubtedly eat at his house.

  She was safe, Rachel told herself. She repeated that to herself probably a dozen times in the space of a few hours.

  Even so, every time the front door opened, her heart would leap up to her throat and then take a while to settle down into place again.

  At this rate, Rachel was fairly convinced that she was going to be a wreck by the dinner shift, if not before.

  “So how is it going?”

  The question, catching her off guard, came from Wendy Fortune Mendoza, who circled around until she faced her. Wendy, along with her husband, Marcos, owned the Cantina. It was their first real business venture together, opened after their changes to the Mendoza family’s first restaurant in Red Rock, Red, proved to be such a huge success.

  Wendy was checking on the Cantina’s operations to make sure everything was running smoothly and no adjustments needed to be made. The Cantina was her and Marcos’s baby, and as it had only been open for a few months, it was still in its infancy. She wanted to do whatever it took to make this restaurant a success.

  Rachel looked at the woman, startled by her question. It sounded harmless on the surface, but was it? Wendy was a Fortune by birth. Did she suspect Rachel’s secret? Was that the reason for her question?

  Or was she asking about Matteo, about how it was going between them?

  That seemed the more likely question. Wendy was probably asking because of her husband, who was also a Mendoza.

  Rachel tried to be as vague as possible about what was—or wasn’t—happening between her and Matteo without being rude.

  “I really don’t know,” she told Wendy. “All right, I guess. It’s too soon to tell. I don’t know if there’s going to be another one,” she said, referring to a date, since that was what she assumed Wendy was asking about.

  Wendy looked at her. “Another one? I doubt it. At least, not so soon.”

  She was right. Rachel’s heart sank. “Then he’s talked to you?”

  “No, but he doesn’t have to,” Wendy replied. “Some things you just know. Maybe in a year or so, but not now.”

  “A year?” Rachel echoed, now thoroughly confused. “He expects me to wait a year?�
�� Talk about being overly confident—

  “Wait, what?” Wendy cried, staring at Rachel. “Who expects you to wait a year?”

  “Matteo,” Rachel said, more confused than ever. “Aren’t we talking about your husband’s cousin?”

  “I thought we were talking about my husband’s decisions about the restaurant.” Wendy began to laugh at the obvious error that almost seemed to have a life of its own for a few go-rounds. “Perhaps we should start from the beginning,” she suggested once she stopped laughing.

  Rachel blew out a breath. A wave of unexpected relief washed over her. She really hadn’t wanted to discuss—or even think about—Matteo right now. She smiled at Wendy. “Perhaps we should.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Wendy tried again, this time being more articulate and specific in her questioning.

  “What I was trying to ask you was how you think things are going here at the Cantina. In other words, do the customers appear to be satisfied? Do you think there’s something that can be improved upon, or brought in, or eliminated from the menu that would make dining here a much more pleasurable experience for the customers?” Wendy paused for half a second, allowing her question to sink in before continuing, “I also want to know if you have any personal complaints about the working conditions here.”

  “Personal complaints?” Rachel echoed. While she could understand why the woman was interested in keeping the customer happy, she was more than a little surprised by Wendy’s second question regarding her feelings about the state of the working conditions.

  “Yes. Personal complaints,” Wendy repeated with emphasis. “Do you find the work atmosphere here too stressful, too difficult to put up with on a regular basis?” She became even more specific by asking, “Is the assistant manager too demanding?”

  “Julia?” Rachel asked incredulously.

  Julia Tierney, the former grocery store manager, had lobbied strongly for Marcos and Wendy Mendoza to select Horseback Hollow as the site for their second restaurant. Her hard work had eventually paid off, changing many people’s minds as well as making the case for this location to Marcos and Wendy. Julia was at least half the reason that the restaurant was built in Horseback Hollow and not somewhere else.

  To show both their gratitude and their loyalty to someone who had been so instrumental in helping them, the couple had installed the former grocery store manager as their assistant manager at the Cantina.

  Julia loved running the restaurant. Everyone who worked for her knew that.

  “What can I say?” Rachel asked. “Julia’s a great boss. If one of the girls calls in sick, Julia pitches in and takes her place. I’ve never seen her try to lord it over anyone. And no, I definitely have no personal complaints.

  “As to your first question,” Rachel continued, “from everything I can see, the customers seem very happy with the service and the actual meals themselves.”

  When the Cantina had opened up in June last year, it had been regarded by some as too upscale for their taste—a real “rich folks” restaurant—but after a while, the detractors had come around. The atmosphere here was warm and friendly.

  “I’d say that the customers think the food was excellent, the prices reasonable and the service—” here she grinned broadly, lumping herself in with the rest of the group “—exceedingly friendly and outgoing.”

  Rachel knew that there were still going to be those few who would complain, but those were just hardened malcontents who were never really happy unless they could find fault with something. As far as she was concerned, those people were to be disregarded.

  “Thank you for being so honest with me and letting me pick your brain for a minute,” Wendy told her. The next moment, the co-owner drew a little closer to her so that she wouldn’t be accidentally overheard by any of the other servers. In a lower tone of voice, Wendy asked her, “Now, would you like to tell me what the problem is with Matteo?”

  The moment the man’s name was mentioned, Rachel’s nerves began jumping and doing somersaults inside her.

  “Problem?” Rachel repeated, trying her best to look puzzled. “What makes you think there’s a problem?”

  Wendy’s eyes met hers, as if to say Oh, puh-leazze. But she allowed the young woman her dignity and addressed the question seriously. “Because he was the first thing you thought of when I asked you how it was going. Has he done something to upset you?”

  Rachel pressed her lips together, uncomfortable with the topic. “I’d really rather not talk about it, Mrs. Mendoza.”

  “No need to be so formal, Rachel,” Wendy told her. “You can call me Wendy. And as for the rest of it, I understand totally.” She leaned her head a little closer before saying, “The Mendoza men can be utterly infuriating, and the worst part of it is that they don’t even realize it.

  “But they are worth the trouble if you have the patience to wait them out until they finally come around. I vividly remember what it was like, being your age and unsure of almost every move I made. Not only that, but my own family regarded me as a black sheep, never managing to see things through, bringing them only heartache and grief. It took a lot for me to turn things around. I just want you to know that nothing is beyond your reach if you want it badly enough.” Wendy closed the topic for now, adding only, “I am available if you find you need to vent.” With that, Wendy patted the hostess on her shoulder just before she began to walk away.

  And then she abruptly stopped. Swinging back around to look at Rachel, she announced, “Incoming. Ten o’clock sharp.”

  For a second, Rachel had no idea what the Cantina’s co-owner was saying to her. And then she realized Wendy was alerting her to the fact that someone was coming in, pushing open the front door.

  Not just someone but that someone.

  Matteo.

  Rachel instantly stiffened.

  Wendy’s protective, mothering instincts rose to the surface instantly. “Want me to stick around, be your wing lady?” she offered Rachel.

  Rachel shook her head. “No, I’m fine, but thank you for offering.”

  She had left the old Rachel behind five years ago, when she’d left home and forced herself to become independent of her family and their money. She was not about to hide behind anyone for any reason, especially not because she was facing an uncomfortable situation. Dealing with that sort of thing was all just part of being an adult, and Rachel was determined not to slide backward.

  Matteo hadn’t wanted to come here this morning. But he knew that the longer he put this off, the harder it was going to be and the larger the specter of what was between Rachel and him would grow.

  He needed to have this one-on-one with Rachel before his nerves became too great to handle.

  Walking in, Matteo looked around the Cantina to see if he could spot her.

  “Table for one?” the hostess at the front desk asked him cheerfully.

  “Two,” the deep male voice coming from behind him corrected the hostess. “Table for two.”

  Managing to hide the fact that he had been caught by surprise, Matteo swung around to look accusingly at his brother.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded. Cisco hadn’t been there a minute ago. Nor had he seen his brother’s car when he’d parked his own close to the restaurant a couple of minutes ago.

  Cisco’s grin was wide and charming—at least to everyone but Matteo. “I thought you might like some company.”

  Matteo narrowed his eyes. “You thought wrong.” He didn’t want to cause a scene, but neither did he want his brother here with him. He couldn’t say what he had come to say if Cisco was anywhere within hearing range.

  “Nobody comes to a restaurant to be alone, little brother,” Cisco told him. “That’s what drive-throughs are for. Tell you what,” Cisco proposed magnanimously, “my treat.”

  Matteo had n
o intentions of accepting his brother’s money or being bought off with a plate of enchiladas. “I don’t need you paying for me,” Matteo retorted.

  Cisco changed directions faster than a sidewinder making his way across the sand. “Okay, your treat. I promise not to order the most expensive thing on the menu.”

  While Matteo was trying to rid himself of his brother, the woman at the reception desk had beckoned over the closest waitress.

  “I’ll do that,” Rachel told the waitress. She wasn’t officially on duty yet and she wanted an excuse to see just what was going on between the brothers.

  “Sure,” the waitress said, stepping back.

  Taking in a breath, Rachel made her way over to the reception desk. She picked up two menus along her route.

  “Ah, we meet again,” Cisco declared, his broad grin never wavering. “It must be fate, don’t you think so, Matteo?” he asked glibly, turning toward his brother. When the latter made no reply, Cisco looked from him to the young woman, who then turned on her heel and began to lead them to their table. Stony silence accompanied them.

  “Is it just me,” Cisco asked, “or has the temperature suddenly drastically dropped? It’s like there’s an artic breeze blowing through here,” he noted, still being annoyingly cheerful.

  “It’s you,” Matteo bit off between clenched teeth.

  This was like a nightmare. He’d come here to try to explain himself to Rachel as best he could. He didn’t really expect her to believe him, but he wanted her to know that his leaving her bed before she was awake had nothing to do with her—at least not the way she probably thought it did.

  But he couldn’t say any of that if Cisco was right there, listening to every word he uttered.

  Turning to Cisco as Rachel brought them to their table, he told his older brother, “I want you to get lost.”

  “Can’t,” Cisco replied glibly. “I know my way around too well.”

  Matteo should have known that there would be no cooperation coming from Cisco. “Then go somewhere else,” he said.