Fortune's Greatest Risk (The Fortunes 0f Texas: Rambling Rose Book 4)

by Marie Ferrarella

  Dillon knew where she was going with this, but he also knew that Hailey wasn’t totally aware of the whole situation.

  “He does,” Dillon answered. “But from what I gather from the things she did tell me, her husband has no spine. That means that he does everything Maura wants in order to keep her happy and maintain peace.”

  The woman sounded like some sort of dragon lady, and in Hailey’s opinion, Dillon had definitely dodged a bullet when Maura had turned down his proposal almost thirteen years ago.

  Not wanting to sound critical, she kept that to herself. But she did say something that occurred to her just now. “If she keeps refusing to let you even meet Julie and you’re worried that they might just vanish if you so much as push Maura to let you see the girl, then why are you still considering moving to Florida?”

  He knew she probably thought he was hitting his head against a wall and maybe he was. But he shrugged helplessly, saying, “On the outside chance that I could wear her down eventually.”

  Because it was her habit, Hailey tried to see the situation in the best possible light. This time, that best light was about Dillon’s attitude.

  “I guess there is a bit of an optimist in you, after all,” she said, smiling at him.

  “Maybe so, but that optimist is fading pretty fast,” he told her.

  Even so, Hailey was determined to fan that flame and keep it alive until it could burn on its own. She felt it was also the only chance for them to have any future together.

  “If you give up now, you’ll never get to see your daughter and that’s that,” she told him. “But if you keep on trying to get through to Maura, to get her to change her mind, you still have a chance.”

  Dillon shook his head, amazed. “You really believe that?”

  “With my whole heart and soul,” she answered with feeling. She put her hand on his shoulder. “You have nothing to lose if you keep trying and everything to lose if you don’t.”

  He laughed, but it wasn’t at her. He was reacting to the warmth her words generated. “Do you get these sayings off bumper stickers, or from fortune cookies?”

  “From life,” she answered, then smiled. “Like I said when I first met you, you could stand to take part in one of my spa sessions.”

  He slipped his arm around her, pulling her in closer so he could kiss her. Heaven help him, she did make him feel better, even though he didn’t quite share her overall outlook, or her peppy sayings. It was the way Hailey said them—and the fact that he needed to have something to hold on to—that gave him a lifeline.

  Despite everything he had done to try to discourage Hailey, she continued to maintain her optimism—and to give him hope. He was lucky to have her in his life. “Want to see her picture?” he asked.

  “I’d love to.”

  Dillon took out his wallet and took out a small snapshot. “I made a print of it in case I ever lose my phone.”

  She loved hearing the pride in his voice. “She’s adorable,” Hailey told him.

  “Yeah,” he paused to look at it a moment longer, “I think so, too.”

  * * *

  Dillon had just finished going over the final layout for his construction company’s next joint project: Provisions, the restaurant that was going to be a joint venture run by his triplet sisters, Ashley, Nicole and Megan, when his cell phone rang. Involved in the review, he didn’t hear it at first. When he did, he put down his pencil next to the notes he’d been making.

  He had made plans to see Hailey this evening—a rare midweek treat because they were both so busy the last few days—and he thought it was Hailey calling with a possible last-minute change in plans.

  “Hi, honey,” Dillon said, mechanically swiping open his phone while still looking over the restaurant’s layout.

  The sharp voice on the other end of the call took him completely by surprise. Hearing it, Dillon nearly dropped his phone.

  “Don’t you honey me, damn it!” the woman shouted.

  “Maura?” It wasn’t really a question. Her voice, filled with anger, drilled itself into his head.

  Why was she calling him out of the blue like this? And what on earth could he have possibly done to upset her so much?

  “Of course it’s me!” Maura snapped, her voice shrill. “Don’t act like you didn’t expect to hear from me.”

  “I didn’t,” he told her honestly. “Why are you calling?” he asked, a little frustrated by her tone.

  “Like you don’t know,” she accused.

  Dillon sighed. She couldn’t have picked a worse time to call. “Maura, I don’t have time for games today. I’ve got a lot on my plate.”

  “Oh, you do, do you?” she asked in a mocking voice. “Does one of those things on your plate include picking up Julie from the airport?” Maura’s voice rose as she shouted at him.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked when he was able to get a word in edgewise.

  “Don’t play dumb, Dillon. You know exactly what I’m talking about!” Practically beside herself, Maura was almost screeching at this point.

  They were going around in circles, Dillon thought wearily. It was something he had learned that Maura had quite an aptitude for.

  “Why don’t you pretend I don’t,” he told her.

  She didn’t seem to hear him. “You’re responsible for this!” she accused. “Filling Julie’s head with a bunch of nonsense, turning her against Bill!” she cried, referring to her husband, Julie’s stepfather.

  Dillon was struggling to piece things together from the bits of information he was able to glean from her ranting. Why would Maura even think that? “You know I wouldn’t do that.”

  “Right, because you’re such an honorable man,” the woman on the other end mocked.

  Dillon thought that she sounded as if she was growing more and more angry. But beneath the anger, he detected a ripple of fear. Had something happened to Julie?

  He needed to cut through all this angry rhetoric so he could find out just why Maura was calling and hurling these accusations at him.

  “Maura, you’re not making any sense. Now you start telling me what this is all about,” he told her.

  And then, to Dillon’s surprise, the woman on the other end broke down and started to cry. “Julie. It’s about Julie,” she sobbed.

  Fear was suddenly twisting a knife in his gut, carving him up. Maura sounded as if she was falling apart. Maura never fell apart. She prided herself on that. Something awful had to have happened to their daughter.

  He struggled to remain calm. To sound calm. “What about Julie?” he asked, even as his breath was backing up in his throat.

  “She’s run away from home!”

  “Run away?” he repeated. That didn’t make any sense to him. Julie was far too stable to do something like that. “Are you sure? Maybe she’s just at one of her friends’ houses.”

  “Of course I’m sure!” Maura shouted at him. “Don’t you think I’ve already called all of her friends? She’s not there. She’s not anywhere,” Maura sobbed helplessly. “She’s run away, I tell you! To see you,” she accused.

  Maura’s mind was conjuring things up now, he thought. He did his best to reason with her and calm her down. “Maura, you’re in Florida. I’m halfway across the country in Texas. I really don’t think that—”

  “She left me a note,” Maura cried, cutting in. “She said that since I wouldn’t let you come to see her, she was going to go to see you and that I couldn’t do anything to stop her!” She was sobbing again. “This is all your fault!” she accused again.

  Stunned, Dillon’s mind dragged up half a dozen scenarios all involving runaways, none of them good. He needed to find her, he thought, trying not to panic. “Did you call the police?”

  “I didn’t,” she bit off. “I called you. But if you don’t bring Julie back the second you find h
er, I will call them and tell them that you kidnapped my daughter! See if you can talk your way out of that!”

  “Maura, calm down!” Dillon said loudly, hoping to get some order into the discussion. “I didn’t kidnap Julie. I don’t have her,” he said emphatically. “But I will find her,” he promised. Taking a breath, he tried to think. “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “This morning—no, last night,” she realized. “I had an early meeting with my boss this morning, so I left before she went to school. I didn’t see her.”

  “You left her alone?” he asked incredulously.

  “No, of course not. Bill was still home—and don’t try to turn things around to blame me! You’re the guilty one here!” she cried.

  Trying to make Maura see things from his side was frustrating, but she was right—he needed to find Julie before something happened to her. So Dillon continued asking Maura questions, hoping he could get to the bottom of this and figure out if Julie really had run away from home to see him. And somehow, at least for old times sake, he needed to find a way to help Maura calm down.

  Chapter Seventeen

  He was late, Hailey thought.

  She had taken part of the day off because Dillon had told her he wanted to see her. But he was already over an hour late and she was getting antsy. There was no sign of him.

  Where was he?

  She had reached for her phone several times now, wanting to call him, but she’d refrained each time. She really didn’t want Dillon to feel as if she was crowding him. The man didn’t need that right now.

  She knew that Dillon was worried about his daughter who had been missing since yesterday, and more than anything, she wished she knew what to do in order to help him find her—that is if the girl really had run away the way her mother said she had.

  There was the very real possibility that Maura was blowing all this way out of proportion. Secretly Hailey was still holding out hope that the girl had decided to just go to one of her friends’ houses to either teach her mother a lesson or just get some time away from her mother who seemed like she could be somewhat overbearing.

  Piecing things together from just one side of the conversation as she listened to Dillon attempt to talk to Maura, Julie’s mother was apparently bent on making father and daughter pay in their separate ways for daring to forge a relationship behind her back. To Hailey, the woman came off sounding extremely insecure.

  Just as Hailey was about to start pacing the floor, she heard the doorbell ring. She instantly snapped to attention and ran out of the kitchen.

  Throwing the door open, she cried, “I was beginning to really get worried that you—”

  The rest of her sentence died, unspoken, on her lips when she saw who was on the other side.

  It wasn’t Dillon standing in her doorway, it was a young girl with straight dirty blond hair and bright blue eyes. Caught completely by surprise, Hailey blinked, and then looked at the girl again, this time a little more closely.

  Even if she hadn’t seen a picture, she would have known her, anyway. “Julie?”

  It was more of a greeting than a question. The moment she said the girl’s name, she knew she was right. The angry-looking girl on her doorstep looked like a young female version of Dillon.

  Julie raised her chin as if she was expecting some sort of challenge from the woman who had opened the door. In a voice that sounded entirely too grown up, the girl asked, “Is Dillon Fortune here? I can’t find him.”

  Hailey couldn’t help wondering how Julie had gotten her address—had Dillon given it to her, thinking that another woman might make the girl somehow feel safe if she ever decided to come here?

  That had to be it, she decided. Either that or he had mentioned her by name as a friend and the resourceful little girl had looked her up when she didn’t find her father at his place. There was time enough to delve into that later. Right now, there were more pressing things to address. Like how she had gotten here.

  “No,” Hailey answered the girl, “but I’m expecting him any minute now. C’mon in,” she invited, opening the door as wide as she could. When Julie made no effort to budge, Hailey added, “Please.”

  “Okay,” Julie finally grudgingly agreed, walking in with some reluctance. “But you are expecting him here, right?”

  “Actually, he should already be here,” Hailey told Dillon’s daughter.

  She looked over the girl’s shoulder, expecting to see whoever had accompanied Julie here from Fort Lauderdale. But there was no one with the girl nor did she look as if she was waiting for someone to catch up to her, like a person who was still parking a car perhaps.

  This was really unusual, Hailey thought.

  She had to ask. “Did you come all this way by yourself?” Hailey wanted to know, finally closing the door behind her.

  Julie straightened her shoulders. “I used my mother’s credit card. What of it?” Her tone sounded as if she was ready for a fight.

  “Nothing,” Hailey told the girl mildly. “You’re just a little young to be traveling all that way by yourself,” she observed.

  Julie’s eyes narrowed into small lethal laser beams. Hailey could have sworn the girl’s nostrils flared, as well.

  “I’m twelve,” Julie declared as if that totally negated any question of her being too young to make the trip. “I just said my mother was sending me to stay with my father. Nobody asked any questions,” she said proudly.

  It wasn’t her place to say anything about lying, Hailey thought. She didn’t want to antagonize Dillon’s daughter. Instead, she asked, “Does your mother know you’re here?” she asked, even though she knew the answer to that was a resounding no. She wanted to see what the girl had to say in response.

  The answer was typical of a preteen. “She took away my phone, so it’s her own fault she can’t find me. Besides, my mother doesn’t care about anyone but herself,” Julie declared dismissively.

  Hailey caught herself feeling sorry for both mother and daughter trapped in this dance with no music. “I happen to know that’s not true, Julie. Your mother is very worried about you.”

  Julie sniffed and tossed her head, sending her hair flying over her shoulder. “How would you know? Did she tell you?”

  “No, but she told your father,” Hailey said. “Your mother called yesterday looking for you and she was frantic.”

  Restless, Julie began roaming around the living room and kitchen. Her eyes darted back and forth as she took in every single detail. When it came to Hailey’s assessment of her mother’s reaction, Julie shrugged dismissively. Instead, she looked at Hailey more closely, as if she was passing judgment on her.

  Growing wary, Hailey observed Julie frowning at her. There was an edge in the girl’s voice as she asked, “Are you my father’s girlfriend?”

  She hoped that was what he thought. But she knew better than to reach that conclusion before anything had been said. And she definitely didn’t want to risk alienating Julie.

  “You’re going to have to ask your father that. What I can tell you is that your dad’s been beside himself ever since your mother called to tell him that you ran away. He’s been calling everyone he knows back in Fort Lauderdale, asking them to try to find you.”

  Suddenly, the belligerent preteen vanished, replaced by a hopeful little girl who looked at her with wide eyes. “He has?”

  Hailey nodded. There wasn’t so much as a hint of a smile on her lips. “The last I heard, he was trying to hire a reputable private detective to look for you.”

  “But I’m here,” Julie protested, spreading her hands wide.

  Hailey took her cell phone out. “And that’s what I’m going to tell him the second I reach your father,” she said, beginning to input Dillon’s phone number. She paused a second to smile at Julie, relieved that the girl had turned up unharmed. “He’s going to really be thrilled to see yo
u.”

  For a moment, Julie looked undecided and torn, as if she really wanted to believe what Hailey was telling her, but at the same time, she didn’t know if she could.

  “If that’s true, then why didn’t he come to see me? I must have asked him to more than a dozen times,” Julie told her.

  From the tone she used, Hailey could tell that the girl had a giant chip on her shoulder. She knew that if she sounded as if she was lecturing Julie, that would just exacerbate the situation, not alleviate it. She chose her words carefully, watching Julie’s face.

  “Because your mother told him she didn’t want your dad coming to see you. She was afraid that would wind up disrupting your life.”

  Julie shook her head, looking as if she didn’t understand. “But he’s my dad,” she cried. “He should have come anyway, no matter what my mother said. Didn’t he want to see me?”

  Hailey looked into the girl’s eyes. Empathy ran all through her. Julie was hurting and she did what she could to reassure her.

  “You know the answer to that,” she told Julie. “More than anything. But sometimes, it’s better to go slowly than just barge straight in. Trust me,” she assured the girl.

  “But—”

  After dialing and redialing several times, just to have her calls go to voice mail, Hailey finally heard the phone being picked up on the other end.

  Dillon started talking immediately without giving her a chance to say a word.

  “Look, Hailey, I know I said I’d be over, but I can’t right now. Something’s come up and—”

  “Dillon,” Hailey blurted, cutting him off. “She’s here. Julie’s here.”

  “What?” Dillon asked. What was she telling him? It was as if the words weren’t registering in his brain. All he knew was that he was waiting for a call he had placed to a detective agency to come through.

  “Julie’s here,” Hailey told him again, not bothering to curb her excitement. After having him go through hell, worried sick about his daughter, she was thrilled to be able to give him some good news. The best news, really, she thought.