Lone Star Rancher
Laurie Paige
Jessica Miller's life could be ripped from the headlines: Gorgeous New York Model Flees From Stalker. But as her twisted admirer becomes more fixated–and more dangerous–she has only one choice. To pack her bags and retreat to her only remaining refuge–Red Rock, Texas, and Clyde Fortune's ranch…the last place on earth she expects to find love.When Clyde opens the door to his home, the brooding loner must eventually admit he's opened up his heart for the first time in years. Still, he can't shake the feeling Jessica is hiding something more than her feelings for him. And if there's anything he's learned from the past, it's that secrets have the power to destroy any chance for a future built on hope.
Praise for Laurie Paige:
“Laurie Paige doesn’t miss…”
—New York Times bestselling author Catherine Coulter
“Fan-favorite Laurie Paige has created her strongest and most engaging work to date.”
—Affaire de Coeur on Father Found
“It is always a joy to savor the consistent excellence of this outstanding author.”
—Romantic Times
“A dazzling display of creativity. The variation on a standard plot is extremely fresh, with superb characterization to carry it off. Readers will hang on the edge wondering how the situation can be resolved, but Ms. Paige comes up trumps with a thoroughly satisfying resolution.”
—Romantic Times on Nothing Lost
“Laurie Paige weaves engaging characters and tender emotions into interesting situations and comes up with a good, solid love story every time. Enjoy the magic of Laurie Paige!”
—Kathleen Eagle, Romance Writers of America RITA
Award Winner
Lone Star Rancher
Laurie Paige
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Dear Reader,
Part of the fun of making up stories is imagining yourself in the environment. Having lived in Austin, it was easy to imagine the ranching country and sweeping vistas of Texas for the Flying Aces ranch. When Jessica hiked along the creek, I walked with her. When she checked the eggs for twin yolks, I remembered being six again and visiting my uncle’s egg barn. I also recall quite clearly being pecked by an irritated hen when I ruffled her feathers.
Writing Jessica and Clyde’s story took me back to Ryan Fortune and his family. I was delighted to find that his twin daughter, Vanessa, was happy in her marriage, and that all had worked out well with the missing baby. (Did I mention that I get really involved in my characters’ lives?) Sometimes readers ask what happened to so-and-so in one of our fictional families. I enjoy exploring the possibilities with them. Life is full of twists and turns, and that’s the joy of writing: one gets a chance to explore the “road less traveled.”
For Grandpa, Ryan and Kevin—
It was fun camping with you guys!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Bonus Features
One
Jessica Miller sighed in relief as she entered the dim coolness of the restaurant. Outside the temperature was in the nineties, not unusual for early August in New York City.
She was aware of the glances and outright stares when she followed the restaurant hostess to the table where her best friend waited for her. At five-ten and wearing sandals with two-inch heels, Jessica was tall enough to be a high-fashion model and, in fact, that was how she made her living.
With wide, bright blue eyes and light brown hair that needed little enhancement to make her look like a summer blonde, she had a face well known to the public.
“Jessica, I’m so glad you’re here,” her friend Violet Fortune said. “I was afraid the photo shoot wouldn’t be finished.”
“I told the director it had to be because I was leaving at noon.” She wrinkled her nose, then smiled at her old chum from long-ago summer vacations and college days.
Violet and her family were from New York but they had visited their Fortune cousins in Texas each summer at the Double Crown Ranch outside Red Rock, which was near San Antonio. Jessica’s father had managed the local hardware store in Red Rock, and Jessica had been born and raised in the small town. The girls had met as youngsters and formed a solid friendship.
They’d shared a room at college the first year, then Jessica had been discovered by the owner of a top New York modeling agency. The woman had attended a college function with her niece, spotted Jessica and demanded to represent her in a modeling career. Since the hardware store was going out of business and Jessica knew her parents and younger sister would need income, she’d taken the offer, given up her scholarship and moved to the city.
But only after the agency owner had promised Jessica’s father she would guard his daughter from the predatory worms in the Big Apple who would devour fresh-faced country girls for a snack.
For the first two years of her new life in the city Jessica had actually lived in Sondra’s home—with Sondra’s son, five-year-old Bertram, whose father was a diplomat stationed in France; Mutley, the dog who’d followed Bertie home from the park; and four assorted cats.
At twenty-one, she’d decided she was old enough to be on her own and had bought her first New York apartment, which was where she’d lived for the past twelve years.
The other condos she owned were rented, as were the parking spaces she’d bought on the second floor of the parking garage next to her place. All in all, the country gal had done well. She was one of the three top-paid models in the world, according to Forbes magazine.
“What are you snickering about?” Violet demanded as Jessica took a seat opposite her friend.
“Life,” Jessica said.
Violet gave an exaggerated shrug. “Oh, that.”
The two friends laughed merrily. However, there were undertones of sadness in Violet’s eyes.
Jessica refrained from questioning her friend, but she knew the sadness had to do with work. After Violet had finished medical school and residency requirements, she’d taken advanced training in neurology and settled in the city, too. She’d stayed with Jessica for a few months before finding her own place. Brilliant at diagnosing brain disorders, she was well known for her pioneering studies.
Recently Violet had been the chief physician or consulting expert on several very difficult cases. While Jessica hadn’t understood the intricacy of the diseases when they had discussed the problems, she’d recognized her friend’s sense of failure whenever a patient didn’t make it.
Jessica thought this was taking a serious toll on the skillful, sensitive doctor, but it did no good to tell Violet the tragedies weren’t her fault. She knew that, and that she had to find her own emotional balance—
“Uh, excuse me, Ms. Miller, but, uh, could I have your autograph?” a young, feminine voice interrupted.
Jessica held her smile in place. Although she wished people would leave her in peace when she was about her private business, her career precluded that possibility.
Sondra had explained all that before letting her sign a contract with the agency. Her agent was a stickler for being polite to the public, who, after all, contributed to the success of her career.
“Of course,” Jessica said. “What’s your name? Are you visiting the city or do you live here?”
The teenager was obviously delighted that the famous model was talking to her. Jessica wrote the girl’s name and a brief message and signed the spiral-bound notebook. Ten other people lined up at once.
The restaurant owner was adept at handling this sort of thing. He stopped others from joining the line and, after Jessica had autographed various pieces of paper, shooed the guests to their seats and reminded them that Ms. Miller also had to eat.
“Now I recall why I was reluctant to have my picture in the medical journal with that article on long-term diseases of the brain,” Violet said with a wry grimace when they were alone.
“Yes.” Jessica sighed as she looked over the menu.
After they’d ordered, Violet narrowed her eyes and studied her friend. “So,” she said, leaning in to the table, “are you going to tell me what’s happening?”
Jessica grimaced. “I have a slight problem.” She hesitated to mention it in view of the life-and-death struggles her friend dealt with every day.
“Yes?” Violet drew the word out.
“There’s a local politician, a semi-biggie, who’s, uh, sort of stalking me. I think.”
Violet’s manner became dead serious. “Who is it? Do you know? What’s he doing?”
“Roy Balter. I met him at a weekend party. I couldn’t take a step without falling over him. He asked for a date. I declined by saying my time was already spoken for. That usually discourages unwanted attention. But not with him. He repeatedly asked to see me.”
“What happened next?”
“When I returned to the city, it started out with flowers. Tons of them every day. After the first few, I refused to accept any others. Now it’s phone calls.”
“Demanding to see you?”
“No. Heavy breathing. When he first started calling my private line and wanting to meet for dinner or the theater, I changed the number. He got the new one, but now he doesn’t say anything when he calls.”
“Oh.” Her friend thought it over. “How do you know it’s him?”
“Feminine intuition and the fact that the telephone number is blocked from identification.”
Violet looked somewhat dubious. “I see.”
“I talked to the district judge, but without solid evidence, he can’t issue a restraining order. The police have informed me that without one they can’t do a thing, even if the man is in my building. He has to be in my condo.”
Jessica shuddered at the thought of him invading her private space. For the first time she admitted to herself that she was a tiny bit frightened by his persistence. It seemed obsessive…vindictive, even.
“You’re sure it’s him?”
“Positive. Sometimes he gives this little laugh just before he hangs up. I recognized it from the three days at the house party. It became quite annoying.”
“When he stayed glued to your side,” Violet concluded.
“Right.”
“Stalkers are dangerous. We need to do something.”
The nice thing about having a best friend like Violet was her willingness to take on another’s problems and plant herself in the middle of them. It had been Violet who had helped her fill out scholarship forms for college and prodded her when she’d felt discouraged.
“You’re too smart to settle down to a mediocre marriage and life in a small town. It’ll stifle you,” her mentor had told her with the confidence of being eighteen and an honor graduate of a prestigious prep school.
Jessica had held the second-highest grade point average in her graduating class, but that had been in Red Rock, and hadn’t counted for much, or so she had thought. Violet had disagreed and persuaded her to go for the gold, which in her case was a scholarship to study economics.
She really would have preferred classical guitar, but she didn’t think many people made a living at that. Her duty had been to her family.
However, because of the money she made from modeling, she had become interested in the investment world and had taken classes to qualify as a financial advisor for the day when her modeling career would be over. At thirty-three, she was lucky to still be on top.
Violet snapped her fingers, startling Jessica out of her introspection. “I know,” she said.
“Know what?”
“What you should do.”
“Oh, yeah?” Jessica asked. “Is this anything like your brainstorm when we were sixteen that we should go down to Galveston, collect sand fleas and sell them to fishermen in order to make a fortune, only we ended up with a bucket of rotten little critters that no one wanted?”
Violet gave her a mock stern frown. “Of course not. This is serious.” Her tone was light, but her eyes looked worried, making Jessica sorry she’d mentioned the problem. “I think you should go to Texas—”
“No way. That might put my parents in danger. And my sister and her family.”
“Let me finish. You should go to Texas and stay with my brothers at their ranch. No one will find you there. When your stalker realizes you’re gone, he’ll give up.”
Jessica wanted to believe that. “Why would he?”
“He gets his satisfaction from taunting you. If that stops, he’ll move on.”
“Right, to some other unlucky woman.”
Her friend nodded, her manner sympathetic. “That’s the way the world works, unfortunately.”
Their food came. Jessica murmured her thanks to the waitress, then gazed at Violet. “I can’t leave the city now. I have a full schedule until the end of the month. I had planned to take September and October off, though, before heading to Italy for a special swimsuit layout.”
“It’ll be cold in November,” Violet reminded her.
“Tell me about it. We’ll be filming in the Alps, if you can believe that.” She started on her chicken salad. “So how’s it going on the medical front? Any miracle cures I should know about?”
“I wish. I’m thinking of taking a cruise in the South Seas or something equally wild and extravagant.”
“Ha,” Jessica said, knowing her friend rarely took a day off, much less a whole week or more.
The conversation turned to general matters for the rest of the meal. When they were ready to leave, Violet laid a hand on her friend’s arm. “Think about the ranch. It would be a safe place. If nothing else, it would give you some peace of mind for a couple of months.”
“I’m sure your brothers would love for a stranger to crash on them for two months.”
“You’re not a stranger. Plus I’ve kept them up to date on your success. After all, how many people have a top model for a best friend? Promise me you’ll think about it.”
“I will. Maybe two weeks would be okay.”
“A month,” Violet promptly countered.
Jessica grinned and rolled her eyes. “A month, then. I’ll think about it.”
Outside they hugged and said farewell. Violet hurried off to the exciting world of brain cures and research studies. Jessica put on sunglasses and a denim tennis hat that pulled down snugly around her face, then strolled through Central Park for an hour before heading down Fifth Avenue to her home.
After nodding to a famous writer in the lobby, she walked up the steps to her floor. Although she was cordial to the man, she kept her distance. She’d learned that he’d voted against her purchasing the apartment when her approval had come before the condo association board. He didn’t like celebrities in the building. He thought it contributed to strangers hanging around, hoping to catch a glimpse of the well-known person, and making a nuisance of themselves.
She wondered what the heck he thought of his own celebrity, or maybe she should say, notoriety. He had three ex-wives and a bunch of illegitimate children.
Upon letting herself in her apartment, she made sure the door locked securely behind her, then noted the blinking light on the telephone-fax-answering machine.
With a feeling of dread, she hit the play button. One message was from her boss, telling her to report in an hour early for the photo session tomorrow and to be prepared for a long day. They wanted to continue into the evening if it rained so they could get shots of lights on the wet streets and her in the latest raincoat fashions.
“Oh, thrill,” she murmured.
The next four messages were silent, except for the faint hiss of breathing. On the last one, she heard the voice she recognized. “Heh…heh-heh,” he chuckled, a slight pause between the start and the end of the laughter.
A shiver stormed down her spine as if she stood in the cold rain. “I hate him,” she murmured as anger, resentment and fear formed a tight ball in her chest. “Hate him.”
“Yeah?” Clyde Fortune said into the phone, which had been ringing when he walked into the house.
“Is that any way to answer the phone?” his obnoxious kid sister demanded.
“Sure. It’s short and to the point.”
She snorted in disapproval, then spoiled it by laughing. “How are you, my dear favorite brother?”
He grinned. “As in one of your many dear favorite brothers, according to which one you’re going to ask a favor of, my sweet little sister?”
There were four boys in the family. Jack was four years older than his own thirty-six years. Since Clyde was the oldest of triplets, he had two brothers, Steven and Miles, who were the same age as he was. Violet was three years younger and the only girl among the siblings.
While the triplets had headed west when they grew up, Jack and Violet had remained in New York, where their parents lived. Their father, Patrick, was an affluent financier. Their mom, Lacey, was a feminist and an equal rights advocate. All her children had gone on marches for one cause or another during their growing years.
Clyde and his triplet brothers had loved Texas and had spent their summers on the ranch belonging to their Fortune cousins for nearly as long as they could remember. Once out of college, they’d pooled their resources and bought their own spread, the Flying Aces, two miles outside of Red Rock and not far from Ryan Fortune’s Double Crown Ranch.
The brothers ran a very successful beef and egg supply business. They contracted with a major distributor in San Antonio, which was only twenty miles from Red Rock, for everything they could produce.
“I do have a favor to ask,” Violet admitted.
“Uh-huh. I thought that was what you had on your little mind. Otherwise, why bother to call?”
“Don’t be so cynical. Besides, the phone line runs both ways. When was the last time you called me?” she demanded.
She had a point. “Okay, I give. You’re right. I haven’t called in weeks—”
“Months,” she corrected.
He sighed loudly. “How are our parents? Have you seen them lately?”
“I try to get out there for Sunday lunch,” she told him, becoming serious. “Mom is as active as ever, but Dad is having trouble with his knees. He’s slowing down.”
“Well, he is seventy,” Clyde said. “Tell the old man to get knee surgery. Can’t you docs replace everything in the body these days, even brains?”
“Very funny,” she snapped, but with humor in her tone. “I didn’t call to talk about our family.”
“Ah, so whose family do you want to talk about?”
“Not a whole family, just Jessica.”
An image came to his mind—a tall girl with skinny arms and legs and a narrow frame, a girl who’d been shy and awkward when Violet had first brought her out to the Double Crown. The two girls had become fast friends, which he’d found surprising. Jessica had looked and sounded exactly like what she was, a down-home Texan with a twang and few social graces. Violet and the girl had remained friends all these years, had even roomed together a couple of times.
Even more surprising was the fact that Jessica was now a top model in New York, according to his sister. Since the world of fashion didn’t come close to being on his list of priorities, he didn’t know about that.
“Do you remember her?” Violet asked.
“Sure. Tall, awkward girl who morphed into a fashion model or something. Is that her?”
“Yes. Uh, she has a problem.”
“Yeah?” He wondered what that had to do with him and the price of eggs in China or, closer to home, San Antonio.
“There’s this guy, a politician who’s sort of big in the city, respected family and all that.” She paused.
Clyde felt tension in the back of his neck. He rubbed it away. “So?” he prodded, growing impatient.
“He’s stalking Jessica.”
“Call the police.”
“She has. They won’t do anything. There’s no proof, just her word against his. Anyway, she’s been working hard and this creep keeps calling and breathing into the phone, then he gives this little smirky laugh and hangs up.”
Clyde muttered a curse. He didn’t like people, whether men or women, who preyed on others.
“She’d planned on taking September and October off, so I thought it would be good if she got out of town.”
He could sense what was coming.
“The ranch would be a perfect place for her to rest and to stay low while this jerk gets over his fixation.”
“Two months? I don’t—”
“She would probably only stay a month. You won’t have to do a thing. She can entertain herself. She just needs a quiet place where he can’t contact her.”
Put that way, it was hard to refuse. “I don’t know,” he hedged. “Let me talk to Steven and Miles first.”
“Steven doesn’t even live there anymore,” she protested. “He’s all wrapped up in his new ranch and remodeling the house for the love of his life. And Miles won’t care. He loves having a woman around to flirt with and practice his charm on. You know that.”
“Huh,” he said, trying to think of a good excuse not to have her friend there and knowing it was a losing battle. His protective instincts were already prodding him.
“The problem is you,” Violet stated.
“Maybe,” he conceded, wondering if the man was at fault. Maybe the model had led him on.
Once he’d been twenty-two and a gullible dreamer. He’d gone to Dallas for the annual ranchers’ association meeting and fallen headlong into love with a sweet-talking waitress who’d told him she was nineteen, pregnant and abandoned by both her lover and her family. He’d given her money and set up an account for the unborn child.
Claudia had used him and his trust in her to bilk him out of a couple of thousand dollars.
He’d even proposed, thinking to bring her to the ranch and share an idyllic life. The weekend they were to marry, he’d arrived at their meeting place in Dallas and waited…and waited…and waited.
As the hours passed, he’d been in agony, worrying that she’d been in an accident or something. Yeah, right. She’d taken his money and run out on him for parts unknown. He’d also found out there had never been a child, according to her friend at the restaurant where she’d worked. The older woman had looked at him with pity.
Man, he must have had “sucker” written in big, bold letters on his forehead. Since then he’d kept his distance from women.
Ignoring the urge to dash to the rescue, he tried once more to dissuade his sibling. “Look, little sis, Jessica would be bored out of her mind staying out here.”
“She wouldn’t. She was born in Red Rock. She grew up there and she loves the area.”
Clyde glanced heavenward. His sister was nothing if not determined once she’d set her mind on a course. “Why doesn’t she stay with her family? Doesn’t she have relatives somewhere around here?”
“She doesn’t want to put them in danger in case the stalker follows her and gets violent. Just last month one weirdo here in New York stabbed the actress he was obsessed with. Didn’t you see it in the paper?”
“I might have read something about it,” he conceded. “Don’t you think it’s a tad strange that she won’t put her family in danger but she thinks it’s okay to stay with near-strangers and put their lives at risk?”
There was a tense silence on the line. “Hello?” he finally said to remind his sibling he was still there.
She cleared her throat. “I haven’t exactly convinced her to head for your place. She’s as stubborn as you are.”
He had to laugh. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” he murmured.
Violet waited a second, then continued, “She doesn’t want to bother anyone. She thinks it’s her problem, and she has to solve it. But I’m getting worried. The guy—his name is Roy Balter—is calling more and more often. Jessica has already changed her phone number, but he got the new one.”
“Info is a snap to get nowadays,” Clyde said. “I’ve heard of this Balter guy. He was one of the talking heads on a television news program the other day. He’s on the city council and is heading up a commission on terrorism. He looked okay to me.”
“That’s the problem. Everyone thinks he’s perfectly sane, while they think Jessica is off her rocker. I was at her place last night and listened to his messages, the breathing, then this sinister little laugh. It gave me chills. Jessica is keeping the tapes from the answering machine. She says maybe the police will believe her when they find her dead body and a box of recordings from the creep.”
“Damn,” Clyde muttered. He closed his eyes and rubbed his neck, then gave up. “Okay, tell her she’s welcome to come here next month if she wants to. I’ll arrange transportation from the airport in San Antonio.”
“Oh, Clyde, thank you. I don’t care what other people say. I think you’re absolutely wonderful.” She laughed at this oft-repeated joke between them, then sobering, she said, “Would you mind picking her up? I’ll feel so much better knowing she’s with you. Miles is wonderful, too, of course, but he doesn’t take things as seriously as you do. This may be a matter of life and death. Really.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll pick her up. Let me know the flight, date and time, okay?”
“Yes. I’ll call as soon as I talk her into going. I’m sure she will. She’s tired and discouraged and frustrated trying to deal with this and her work and all.”
“Make sure she understands that we’ll be doing the roundup while she’s here. No one will have time to babysit or entertain her. You understand?”
“Perfectly. She just needs a break and some peace and quiet. You will keep an eye on her, won’t you? I mean, in case the stalker shows up?”
He exhaled heavily. “Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
With that, she said her farewells and hung up. He realized he’d forgotten to congratulate her on the article in the medical journal, which their mom had sent a couple of months ago. Not that there wouldn’t be other chances in the near future. If he knew his little sis, she would hound her friend into coming out, then she would hound him about looking after the visitor.
He grabbed a beer from the fridge, which held very little else, and went out on the patio to enjoy the twilight and the cool evening air. The cattle in the two thousand acres of pasture that comprised the ranch were grazing peacefully or bedded down while they chewed their cuds.
The quiet appealed to him. No cars were on the paved county road. The interstate highway, I-35, that ran up the middle of the state through San Antonio, Austin and points north was too far away to be heard.
He liked the distance to the horizon, as if one could ride into the sunset forever. He appreciated the vastness of these wide open spaces that were so different from New York where he’d grown up.
Years ago, his mother had declared the triplets to be cowboys at heart. She said she’d known it from the moment they’d been born. Instead of crying, they’d come into the world yelling, “Whoopie-ti-yi-yo.”
Or so she’d said many times with an almost perfectly straight face.
He smiled, then took a long draught of cold beer. Sometimes he missed his mom, he admitted. When she came to the ranch, she fretted about the house and its lack of a feminine touch and worried about the boys’ love lives as well as their eating habits. She was into tofu and soybeans and healthy stuff. Married men, she pointed out, lived longer, healthier lives than bachelors.
She especially worried about him. When he’d returned from Dallas, alone and still single, he’d told his family his fiancée had died in a car accident and had never mentioned it again. His mother probably thought his heart was still broken.
Little did she know, as the saying went. He’d locked that unreliable organ away for good. The Flying Aces was the love of his life. It was enough.
Clyde smiled again, then frowned as he remembered his promise to his sister. Steven wouldn’t care a whit if Jessica visited. Miles would flirt like mad with her when he was at the house, but most of the time he would be out on the back forty of the ranch, handling that part of the roundup.
That would leave him to watch after their guest.
He said a very bad word and was glad his mother wasn’t there to hear it. He would have to guard his tongue if and when the visitor arrived, too.
Taking a long, long drink of the crisp, cold microbrew, he realized something else and nearly choked.
“Damn,” he muttered, then gave a snort of laughter. “It figures,” he said to Smoky, a dog that had drifted by last year and decided to stay, and now, attracted by the laughter, ambled over for a pat on the head.
He wondered if his sister had noted the day of the month when she’d called. That would be so like her.
It was Friday the thirteenth.
Two
The wings of the airplane dipped first one way, then the other, as the flight approached San Antonio. Jessica closed her eyes and concentrated on keeping the soda and pretzels down. She wasn’t sure whether it was better to have a full stomach or an empty one when flying in bad weather.
Lightning crackled, and several people gasped. A little girl screamed. So did her mother.
St. Elmo’s fire danced along the front edge of the wing. Jessica thought the fuel tanks were located in the wings. Could they catch on fire?
Summoning up her courage, she reflected on the idea of leaving New York to keep from being killed by a stalker, only to go down in an airplane crash in Texas. There was a kind of rough poetic justice in the thought.
If the plane did crash, she wouldn’t have to impose on Violet’s brother, who didn’t want to fool with her in the first place. At least, that was the impression she’d gotten when her friend had carefully and thoroughly explained that the ranch was very busy at this time of the year.
Jessica would mostly have the house to herself and would have to find her own amusements.
Fine by her.
Clyde Fortune, the first-born of the triplets, was to pick her up. He was the least outgoing of the three. The brothers were identical triplets, all with dark hair and chocolate-brown eyes, around six feet tall, muscular bodies.
The last-born, Miles, had a dimple in one cheek, though, so maybe they weren’t identical. She didn’t know much about genetics, so she wasn’t sure. Anyway, they looked like the proverbial peas in the pod. As a teenager, she’d had a crush on Clyde, the quiet one of the Fortune triplets.
Not that he, an older man, had known she existed.
She’d gotten over her romantic feelings quick enough when one of them had remarked that “she was so skinny and talked with such a twang, you could use her for a guitar string” when one of their friend’s strings had broken.
Amusement eased the pain of that ancient insult. Her lean frame had earned her a fortune of her own—not in the form of a living dreamboat, but in cold cash.
At that instant, the plane touched down. Jessica thanked the heavens that they were safely on the ground. She collected her carry-on bag and all-purpose raincoat and headed for the baggage carousel.
She didn’t see anyone she recognized. Several men looked her over, but none came forward. Apparently no one was waiting for her.
Wonderful, she thought, feeling like unwanted baggage. She grabbed her suitcase when it came around the moving belt, then rolled it closer to the door, not sure if her ride expected her to go outside and wait at the curb. She should have asked Violet to be more specific about what she was supposed to do.
The oddest thing happened then. Her eyes filled with tears. Astonished, she blinked rapidly until they dried up.
Thirty minutes later, she was still standing by the sliding glass doors, watching as other passengers were met by their loved ones and hugged and kissed and made to feel wanted while she wondered what to do if Clyde didn’t show.
She could take a room in San Antonio under an assumed name and hide out there just as well as the Flying Aces—
“Jessica?”
She jerked around and stared into a worried face and dark eyes with a scowl in their depths. “Yes.”
“Sorry to be late. There was an accident on the highway. It took thirty minutes for the police to get it cleared and let the traffic through.”
“That’s okay. I was just thinking of getting a room in town. Actually I could stay here just as well as at your place. It’s been a long time since I’ve been to the Alamo.”
“Violet would never let me hear the end of it if I let you do that.” Clyde plucked her two cases from her. “This way.”
Although he did manage to crack a smile, Jessica wasn’t fooled. He was about as happy to see her as she was happy to be there. She silently said a word her mom had said she and her sister were never to use.
He led the way to his truck.
The rain hit them like bullets from the angry clouds that covered the city. She had her raincoat, which had a hood, but he wore only a light jacket. Water ran in a cascade from his gray felt cowboy hat.
His jeans were soon soaked along the entire front of the legs as the wind blew furiously against them as if trying to stop their progress. Her feet, clad in low sandals, got wet, and the cuffs of her summer slacks filled with water and wilted.
When they reached the parking space far out in the lot, he tossed her bags in the back of the crew cab pickup and her into the front. Not literally, but she had a feeling he would have liked to dispose of her as easily as the luggage.
It wasn’t an auspicious start to a month-long visit, she thought.
“I’m sorry to bring you out in such weather,” she said, giving him one of the brilliant smiles she was known for.
He shrugged and growled in a low tone, “We don’t usually have this kind of storm in September.”
Actually it was the second day of the month. A Friday. Two days ago, she’d finished the photo session and celebrated by hiding out at Violet’s place so she wouldn’t have to listen to the ringing of the phone every hour on the hour.
Worse—and this was what drove her into fleeing the city—was returning from her walk on Monday and finding a pale pink rose lying in the middle of her foyer. On Tuesday, a deep pink rose had been left on the sofa table. Then on Wednesday one had been placed on her pillow with all its bloodred petals torn off. Each petal had been cut in half. A police investigation had yielded no clues.
Shaken, she’d called Violet and told her friend she would love to visit the ranch for a month. They’d planned an elaborate strategy to get her packed and onto the San Antonio flight, via a separate ticket into Chicago for the first leg of the trip, with the help of a model friend.
Linda was close to Jessica in size, and had taken her place on the daily walk in the park, wearing sunglasses and a denim hat and Jessica’s favorite sports outfit, just in case the stalker was watching her condo.
Glancing at her host now, Jessica wondered if it might not be worse to be trapped for a month at a remote ranch—well, two miles from town wasn’t exactly remote—with a handsome but brooding Heathcliff type as her protector.
Was it better to face the evil she knew than to flee to another that she didn’t? Ah, that was the question, she intoned sardonically to herself.
“Something amusing you?” Clyde asked.
She strangled the facetious smile and gave him a solemn stare. “No. I was just feeling sorry for you, being stuck with an unwanted guest for a month.”
His frown could have stopped the eighteen-wheeler, coming toward them down the state highway at seventy miles an hour.
“Violet did explain that we’re in the middle of roundup, didn’t she?”
“Yes. You don’t have to worry about entertaining me,” she said graciously. The effort was wasted on him.
“Good,” he said in his serious manner. “No one will have time to do any entertaining. You’ll have the house to yourself during the day. I’ll be in late most nights. Miles will be out in the hills and will sleep in the RV we keep for times when we can’t get back to the house.”
“I see. Uh, do you have a cook or housekeeper?”
“No. A woman from Red Rock comes in every Monday, to clean. Miles and I fix our own meals. Mostly eggs and toast or sandwiches,” he added.
“I don’t eat a lot,” she quickly told him, making it clear she didn’t expect him to wait on her.
His gaze ran down her like the sluice of cold rain hitting the windshield. In that one glance she felt he’d seen everything there was to see about her, both physically and mentally. It was rather daunting.
She gazed out at the land she hadn’t seen in almost two years. Mmm… Yes, the last time she’d visited her folks, who lived in Austin now, had been two Christmases ago.
Her sister, brother-in-law and two nieces lived in Red Rock. They ran the hardware store Jessica had bought with her first year’s earnings so her dad wouldn’t lose his livelihood.
Since she figured Roy might somehow have her family watched, she was going to have to avoid them.
Also, she realized, she would have to hide in the barn or somewhere when the housekeeper arrived, in case the woman was someone who knew her or her family.
She sighed.
Her reluctant host glanced her way again.
“I’m not bored,” she said as if he’d asked. She realized he probably wouldn’t care if she was. “It’s just that hiding out is more difficult than I’d thought it would be. I’m grateful that you’re letting me stay at your place.”
He hesitated, then shrugged. “It’s no problem.”
There was an unexpected softening in his tone that caused the ridiculous tears to burn behind her eyelids again. “Well, I know Violet twisted your arm. She can be very persistent when she gets an idea. She doesn’t let go until she gets her way.”
His chuckle was as pleasant as it was surprising. “Tell me about it.”
“She’s a wonderful friend,” Jessica said. “She’s always been there for me. I can still remember the first time all of you came into the hardware store with some of your cousins. I’d never seen so many Fortunes in one place before. Although I was familiar with the Texas side of the family, you New Yorkers were like exotic foreigners to me.”
“I had to tell you three times what I wanted,” he said.
“Ah, you remember it, too.” She laughed. “I couldn’t understand a word any of you said. Except Violet. She interpreted for me and glared at you and your brothers when you laughed.”
“Now Steven, Miles and I speak Texan jes’ like you natives,” he drawled. He even smiled.
It did wonders for him, making him look younger than the thirty-six years she knew he was. His teeth were straight and very white against the tan of his face. She found herself wondering why he’d never married.
“Well,” she said in mock wonder, “you have a sense of humor. Violet assured me you did, but since I was never around you guys much, I didn’t believe her.”
The smile disappeared. “If you’re looking for charm, Miles is your man,” he suggested.
“I’m not.” She spoke as coolly as he had. “I’m trying to avoid one man. I’m certainly not looking to get involved with another.”
Silence prevailed as he turned off the state highway onto a paved county road that led to Red Rock. Two miles before they reached the town, he turned again, this time onto the road that went past the ranch.
The road had been newly topped with asphalt and wasn’t yet marked with white lines. In the darkness of the storm and the deep twilight, it seemed to disappear in the downpour. She couldn’t tell where the sides of the road were or what was ahead in the rain.
He slowed to a crawl, then made the final turn onto the ranch road, which was also paved. Her heart gave an odd lurch and beat very fast. She’d never been here.
The three brothers had purchased the place after she’d moved to New York. Except for infrequent calls, she and Violet had lost touch during those years when each was getting established in her chosen career. Then Violet had returned to the city, and they had picked up their old friendship. But Jessica had never called any of the Fortunes in Texas when she returned to visit her folks.
“Oh,” she said when the house came into view.
It was large and typical of the very popular Texas ranch style with a beige-painted wooden frame and shiny metal roof, a second story with a balcony over the front porch that went all the way across the front of the house and lots of shrubs and flowers in borders along the curving front walk and the dark brick foundation.
There was a four-car garage attached to the side of the house. Clyde hit the opener, then drove inside and closed the door behind them, shutting out the blowing rain.
A station wagon was the only other vehicle in the large space. There were no tools or lawn mowers. It was the neatest garage she’d ever seen.
“At our house, the one where I grew up,” she clarified, “the garage was always a disaster area. My mom threatened to throw everything out on a regular basis, including the three lawn mowers. One worked. The other two didn’t.”
Clyde retrieved her bags and motioned toward the door into the house. She went inside.
“We use a tractor to mow the grass when we cut the hay,” he said.
She followed him into a room that held a comfortable sofa and two leather recliners. A huge television was built into a bookcase-entertainment center beside a fireplace. The room led into a wide foyer that ran the length of the house.
On the other side of the foyer, she could see another room, a formal living room, although sparsely furnished.
The foyer had a graceful staircase of open oak steps and black wrought-iron railings. She could see a large dining table with six chairs beyond the steps and French doors opening onto a patio. The rain was too heavy to see what the view would be out the back of the house.
Clyde headed up the steps when she paused, not sure where to go. “This way,” he said.
The foyer was repeated upstairs in a gallery-type library with bookcases and twin groupings of two chairs, a table and a reading lamp to either side. Here, too, the view through wide windows would be to the backside of the house.
“These are your quarters,” he said, going into the first room on the right and flicking a light switch. A lamp on a table softly lit the room.
She glimpsed beige walls and dark furniture that was Spanish in style, plus some light oak pieces that were called Texas frontier by the local decorators.
“You have your own bath through there.” He nodded toward the side of the room. “That’s the closet next to it.”
She also had her own private sitting space beside tall windows on the north side of the house. A large bed occupied the opposite wall.
“It looks very comfortable,” she said politely.
He set her luggage on a chest at the end of the bed, then looked at her, his hands in his back pockets, his manner withdrawn. Against the dim light, his silhouette was framed against the backdrop of the bed.
A shiver ran over her while her mouth went dry. She’d learned early in New York not to mind dating men who were shorter than she was, but it was nice to go with someone she could dance with without looming over him.
Clyde Fortune fit the bill perfectly.
She saw his chest expand as he inhaled deeply. She was too tall for her head to rest against that broad expanse, but they could dance cheek to cheek.
If they ever danced.
Which she frankly doubted.
“The kitchen is downstairs,” he said, striding toward the door as if he suddenly remembered an extremely important appointment that he was about to miss because of having to take care of her. “You’ll find soup in the pantry, sandwich stuff in the fridge. Help yourself.”
With that, he was gone.
Jessica yawned, then swung out of bed. She loved the view from the windows of her room—rolling green pastures, a thick copse of trees outlining the meandering path of a creek and then, clear skies all the way to eternity. Opening a window, she breathed deeply of the clean morning air and caught the scent of new-mown hay on the breeze.
Oh, it had been so long since she’d experienced a Texas morning! Although the humidity was high, it wasn’t any worse than in the city, so that didn’t bother her. Being cooped up inside did.
She hurriedly dressed in blue shorts and a matching knit top. With sneakers on her feet, she went down the steps and into the kitchen, being quiet, although she could tell by the absolute silence that she had the house to herself.
After sipping a glass of orange juice and eating one slice of unbuttered toast, she headed outside. Through an open door off the kitchen, she spotted a big pantry, plus several wall hooks. On one was a straw hat that would provide shade from the sun.
She put it on and slid the fastener up the strings and under her chin to keep the hat from blowing away in the wind. Then she headed outside to explore.
In the back, she discovered a lovely swimming pool. A small pool house, in the same style as the main one, contained a kitchen with Coke and beer in the refrigerator and microwave popcorn in the cabinet.
Okay, so she was nosy, she admitted when her conscience prodded her for snooping.
A hot tub held pride of place in the large room and an etched-glass door opened into a cedar-lined sauna with benches on three sides. There was also a full-size bathroom and next to that, surprisingly, another bedroom, making the pool house into a guesthouse, too.
“Charming,” she remarked to herself, then closed the door and continued her journey of exploration.
Beyond the homestead were some barns, stables and sheds. From a velvety green field came the drone of a tractor. She spotted the huge machine but couldn’t discern who was in the enclosed cab. Clyde or whoever was operating the equipment was cutting alfalfa.
Again she inhaled deeply, letting the wonderful scent flow down inside her, all the way to her roots, which sprang from the rocky Texas soil. She couldn’t believe how nostalgic she’d been for home without even knowing it.
She exhaled loudly, enjoying the ambiance of the ranch. In New York, life could be so hectic…and usually was.
Here, ah, here, there was a sense of peace—
“Oof,” she said, pitching forward against a fence post, then the ground, as something hit her on the back.
Startled, the ever-present fear of the past few months raising its ugly head, she rolled over and got a good licking in the face. Fright dissolved into laughter.
“Who are you?” she asked, sitting up while a black-and-white dog, mostly border collie, frolicked all around her.
“Smoky,” a familiar voice answered.
Jessica smiled at Clyde, who’d entered the yard through a nearby gate, and leaned on her elbows while he stopped a couple of feet from her.
“Smoky, down,” he ordered when the dog jumped up and planted his paws on the man. “Sit.”
The dog obeyed at once.
Clyde leaned forward and offered Jessica a hand. When she clasped it, he pulled her to her feet. “Sorry about Smoky,” he said in his butter-smooth baritone. “He’s never met a person he didn’t like.”
“I like him, too.” She scratched the collie’s ears.
The dog rewarded her by closing his eyes and leaning into her hand in apparent ecstasy.
“You’ve made a slave for life,” Clyde remarked. “I’ve got to run into Red Rock to pick up a part for the baler. Do you want to go?”
She really would have liked to ride along, but she shook her head and thanked him for the offer. “I don’t think I should be seen in town. My sister and her family live in Red Rock. They don’t know I’m in the area.”
“Are you worried that they might be watched?”
“Yes.”
A frown nicked a line across his forehead. “Maybe you shouldn’t stay here alone.”
“It should be okay. Roy can’t possibly know where I am. Violet and I were careful to talk away from my condo and never on the phone.”
A sardonic expression flickered through his eyes. “A wise precaution, I’m sure,” he murmured.
Jessica realized he didn’t take the threat seriously. Another thought—almost as horrifying as that of being stalked by a madman—came to her. Surely he didn’t think she and Violet had planned her visit in order to…to…well, to catch his attention.
That idea had never entered her mind.
Anger bubbled in Jessica. Her friend had told her many times while they were growing up that the boys had to fight off females all the time. Huh. If he was conceited enough to think she was chasing him, he could think again!
“You seem to have lost your Texas twang,” he said, falling into step beside her as she continued her stroll around the grounds, heading for the stables to see if they kept horses at this ranch.
“Most of it,” she agreed. “I still say ‘y’all’ when I get excited.” She kept her smile polite but remote.
“I miss it,” he said suddenly.
She was certainly shocked to hear that. “I’m sure you get plenty of down-home dialect from the locals.”
He nodded and smiled. “I still don’t understand everything the owner at the tractor place says. His son clues me in when I look blank.”
She thought of long-ago days and laughed. “The way Violet did for me when we were kids.”
“Yeah.”
While his tone was somewhat amused, there was a seriousness about him that didn’t invite levity.
Violet had told her Clyde had been hurt by the death of his first love when he was fresh out of college and the triplets were trying to realize their dream of owning a ranch. The woman had died in an auto accident, apparently the day they were to be married.
Violet had also warned that Clyde never, ever spoke of it. For a time, Jessica had thought it was her job to ease his hurt. But she’d been young and romantic back then, she mused, excusing the impressionable girl she’d once been.
“He needs to listen to his heart again,” her friend had told her gravely.
Fine. Maybe he’d meet some woman who would bowl him over and bring out those devastating smiles more often. That woman wouldn’t be her, though.
“Here,” he said. He held out his hand.
When she extended hers, he dropped a set of keys onto her palm. She looked at him, a question in her eyes.
“There’s a station wagon in the garage. Feel free to use it. The other key is to the front door. We don’t lock it, but once in a while the cleaning lady does. I don’t want you to get locked out.”
“Thanks. That’s very thoughtful of you.”
He hesitated. “If you need something at the grocery, there’s one on down the road about five miles. You don’t have to go to the one in Red Rock.”
“That’s good. I’ll get cereal and nonfat milk, if you don’t mind my using the refrigerator.”
“Be my guest. My mom would love to see something in it besides beer, soda, orange juice and moldy lunch meat.”
He actually laughed. It was so enchanting Jessica could only gaze at him, spellbound, for a second. Then she smiled and stuck the keys in her pocket.
“See you later,” she said, then snapped her fingers at the dog. “Come on, Smoky. You can be my guide while we explore the ranch.” She paused and glanced at her host, who was looking at her with an unreadable expression in his eyes. “If that’s okay?”
Clyde nodded. With his long, easy stride, he headed for a pickup parked next to the stable, then paused. “My parents may drop by later. Tell ’em I’ll be back soon and that Miles will be here tonight. They’re staying at the Double Crown this week.”
“Right.”
After he drove away, Jessica strolled the grounds and admired the many flowers. She assumed his parents’ visit had something to do with the mysterious body found in Lake Mondo. The murder hadn’t made the national news, but it had caused a big flurry of gossip and speculation in their corner of Texas. She and Violet had discussed the story at length.
The deceased man had had a birthmark on his right side, one that looked like a double crown—the same birthmark that Ryan Fortune had and that his father had named his ranch for.
Only it didn’t come from the Fortune bloodline.
Ryan Fortune’s father, Kingston, had been an abandoned baby, left on the doorstep of Hobart and Dora Fortune, who’d lived in Iowa. The kind and loving couple had adopted the child and raised him as their own. Kingston had grown up and moved to Texas where he became very wealthy.
The birthmark on Ryan was assumed to come from the Fortune family line, but it came from his biological grandfather, Travis Jamison. Travis had gone into the army, leaving behind a young, pregnant woman. Eliza Wise had deserted her baby and left Iowa to make a new life.
Christopher Jamison, Travis’s descendent through his legitimate children and therefore cousin to Ryan Fortune, was the murdered man. He’d been a math teacher in Seattle, Washington. His fiancée seemed to think he’d come to Texas in search of his family.
Ah, well. It was none of her affair. Jessica threw her arms wide and raced down the sunny slope of the grassy lawn toward the line of trees, Smoky prancing at her heels.
There she discovered a creek running freely over a bed of sand and smooth stones. She kicked off her shoes and waded in it, feeling as buoyant as the happy child she’d once been. For the first time in weeks, she was free of worry, free of work…free, free, free!
Three
Jessica stopped at the back door. Inside she could hear the laughter of a woman, then the deeper chuckle of a man, also her host’s rich baritone. She listened but couldn’t detect any other voices in the house. The guests were most likely Clyde’s parents.
She opened the door and felt the cooler, drier effect of conditioned air on her face. The day had gotten much warmer that the previous one, and the humidity was high. As a result, she was rather bedraggled.
After she’d explored the home area of the ranch that morning and found a lovely little lake formed by an earthen dam on the creek, she’d returned to the house and had a solitary lunch. Actually Smoky had kept her company. She’d napped, then set off exploring again in midafternoon. It was now almost six.
She quickly glanced around the pleasant kitchen. Yes, there were three people present. All eyes turned to her.
“Hello,” she said, drawing on the poise learned during her years in New York. “I’m Jessica, Violet’s friend. I spent a lovely weekend at your home last summer.”
“And brought a lovely basket of flowers. I now use the basket on my desk to hold my mail,” Lacey Fortune said, coming forward to take Jessica’s arm and lead her into the room. “Patrick, you remember Jessica, don’t you?”
“Yes. She beat the socks off all of us at tennis.”
“It’s my height,” Jessica explained, shaking hands with Clyde’s father. “It makes serving easier.”
She’d learned to play the game as a teenager at the Double Crown Ranch when she’d gone there with Violet. She and her friend had played regularly until this year when the demands of their careers had intervened.
“I’ve brought food,” Lacey continued, motioning toward the counter next to the refrigerator. “The boys live on air and liquids, it appears. I hope you like steak and shrimp.”
“Yes.” Jessica glanced at Clyde. She noticed he and his father each had a glass of the iced tea she’d made at lunch. She was thirsty, too, but first she needed a bath. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to freshen up and change. Smoky and I have been exploring the ranch this afternoon.”
“She likes to wade barefoot in the creek,” Clyde said in a somewhat lazy, somewhat amused drawl that sent an unexpected tingle through her nerves.
“How could you know that?” she asked.
“The foreman at the egg barn heard Smoky barking and checked it out. When he spotted a strange woman romping in the creek with the dog, he called my cell number and wanted to know if I had a…”
Jessica found herself hanging on the words as Clyde paused, as if censoring the foreman’s term for her.
“…a guest at the house,” he finished.
Jessica frankly doubted that “guest” was the word used.
Lacey laughed and returned to putting the groceries into the proper storage bins. “Did Clinton think she was your, ahem, lady friend?” she teased with open delight, giving the younger two a speculative perusal.
Jessica felt Clyde’s dark gaze drift over her in an insouciant manner that almost felt intimate. It lingered at her legs for a second before returning to her face.
“Yes,” he said. He paused before asking her, “I told my parents why you’re here. Do you mind?”
If he’d already explained her presence, there was hardly any point in objecting. She refrained from mentioning this obvious fact and shook her head instead.
“You and Violet both work too hard,” Lacey scolded. “I’ve often told her to bring you out for Sunday lunch, but you rarely take a weekend off,” she said.
“I’m frequently out of town or out of the country, according to what season it is,” Jessica told the friendly older woman to excuse her lack of visits.
Actually she didn’t want to impose on their friendship or give the impression she was a stray who couldn’t make it on her own in the city. She was a big girl and she’d made her own way in the world for a long time.
“Yes, well, no wonder you needed to rest and get away from it all,” Lacey said.
Jessica glanced at Clyde in confusion. He gave her a brief nod as if to say this was all he’d told his parents. She gave him a brief frown to tell him she’d appreciate being clued in on what she was to say. His answering grin was sardonic.
“Violet nagged her until she gave up and came down here,” he informed his parents.
His father chuckled. “That’s our daughter. She takes after her mother when it comes to noble causes…and to bossing others around and telling them what’s good for them.” He gave his wife a friendly tug on her hair as he teased her.
For some reason the couple’s playfulness brought the stereotypical lump to Jessica’s throat. She excused herself and headed up to her room.
Years ago she’d suspected that Violet’s family had considered her a sort of charity case, an underdog that their daughter had taken under her cloak of compassion. The remarks confirmed this suspicion…and hurt in a way she couldn’t explain.
Pride brought her head up and her chin forward as she went into her room. That same pride had made her cautious in dealing with them and was one reason she’d usually declined going to their home when Violet had tried to get her to attend family functions. It was the mother, not the daughter, who had a propensity for “causes,” and Jessica had been determined not to be one.
After showering and drying her hair, she slipped into a pair of pink silk slacks with a white silk blouse printed with pink flowers. A pink stretchy band held her hair away from her face, leaving it free to flow down her back in a nearly straight, shimmering cascade that was part of her casual hometown-girl persona the photographers loved.
She brushed bronze highlights onto her cheeks and a coral pink color onto her lips. A couple of flicks with the mascara wand brought out the length of her eyelashes and the robin’s-egg-blue of her eyes. She pulled on the black ballerina slippers she liked to wear around the house and returned downstairs.
Clyde was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables.
“May I help?” she asked.
“You want to finish the salad?”
“Sure. Are all these to go in it?” She indicated the vegetables on the counter beside the sink.
“Yes. Mom’s a stickler for lots of veggies. Don’t chop them too fine. She likes to be able to identify what she’s eating, she says.”
“Right. Uh, about my being here,” she said, lowering her voice to a near whisper as she came close to him. “Was that all you told your parents—that I was here for a rest?”
“Yes.” His gaze was cool when he glanced at her. “She would worry if she thought one of her chicks was in danger. That includes you, I’m afraid.”
“Me? Why?”
He gave a sardonic snort. “How long have you and Violet been friends?”
“Since we were twelve.”
“That’s twenty-one years. With you both being in New York, that friendship has grown. Mom considers you one of hers now.”
“Oh.” She had to laugh.
“What?” He handed her the paring knife and observed while she sliced carrots into the huge salad bowl.
“When I was a kid I saw a cartoon about a city mouse that visited his mouse cousin who lived on a farm. I’ve always wondered if your family thought I was a country mouse that Violet befriended. I think you just answered that.”
“You’ve traveled far from your roots, Texas gal,” he said in a tone that was husky and, while not exactly harsh, held an undercurrent of accusation, as if she’d done something that personally offended him.
She was intensely aware of his gaze as it studied her face, swept down her body, then came back to her face and locked on her mouth before meeting her eyes.
“I was lucky,” she said. “A fortuitous lineup of the stars that led to success.”
“Not to mention a gorgeous face and the lean, taut body prized by the fashion industry.”
Now he sounded merely ironic, she noted, but still her nerves did their tingly thing. “Actually, I’m not gorgeous,” she corrected, her own voice low and soft, deliberately sexy. “Sondra says I’m ‘striking,’ which is better than mere beauty because it lasts forever.”
“Sondra being…?”
“My agent.”
“Ah, yes. I recall your father worrying when you first went to New York. He said you lived with an older woman, but the woman was divorced, so he and your mother weren’t sure she was a good example.”
Jessica gave him a surprised stare. “You talked to my parents about me?”
He shrugged. “Red Rock is a small town, and we did business at the hardware store. You were frequently the subject of conversation by the locals.”
She nodded and went back to chopping veggies. “People seem to have a proprietary interest when a hometown girl, or guy, makes good. It was nice to come home and know they were proud of me. However, it was Sondra who made most of the decisions early on in my career, and my dad who advised me on saving my earnings. They’re the ones who guided me.”
“But you’re the one who put in the hours of work,” he reminded her. “In the store your father displayed pictures of you at your first job. I have to admit I wouldn’t have recognized you. You looked very different from the long-legged teenager I remembered.”
Jessica felt heat skim her cheeks. She hoped he didn’t also remember that, at nineteen, she’d had a terrible crush on him. She’d wanted to make him notice her.
Looking into his eyes, she suddenly understood the dark moodiness in those depths. He, Clyde Fortune of the famous Fortune family, was attracted to her.
Instead of feeling elated, she was disappointed. He was attracted to the persona developed by her career—the casual, laughing and oh-so-sexy summer blonde who was poised, outdoorsy and cosmopolitan.
That was the way the fashion photographers saw her and what they picked up in the photo sessions. It was the persona she and Sondra had decided to cultivate long ago, but whether in New York, Paris or Milan, she knew, at heart, she was simply a Texas gal a long way from home.
She focused her attention on the task at hand and away from the banked embers of interest that resided in his gaze. It needed only a spark between them to set the flames to a fiery glow. She wouldn’t provide that spark.
He headed for the door. “I’d better get the grill started so we can eat. Miles should be in soon. The folks are staying at the Double Crown, so they won’t be spending the night.”
“Are they here for the funeral?”
He frowned. “What do you know about that?”
“Violet explained the connection to Ryan Fortune. It was also in the San Antonio paper. My sister read it and called me.”
“Did she also relate the local gossip?”
Jessica shook her head. She and her sister had speculated on the dead man’s relationship to the mighty Fortunes of Texas, but she wasn’t sure what gossip Clyde referred to.
“Some people think Ryan might have murdered Christopher Jamison to keep his father’s true origins a secret.”
Jessica was shocked at the idea. “No one knowing Ryan Fortune would believe that.”
“No?” Clyde questioned. “Then you don’t know your fellow Texans as well as I assumed you did.”
With that, he left. She continued preparing the salad. When she finished, she stored the stuff in the refrigerator, which was now filled with all kinds of healthful food, including nonfat milk and yogurt, two of her usual food staples.
After pouring a glass of iced tea, she went outside. She found Clyde on the other side of the pool/guesthouse at a built-in grill.
“Well, what have we here?” an appreciative male voice inquired. “Ah, yes, the fair Jessica.” Miles, the youngest of the triplets, looked her over. “Very fair indeed. The duckling has changed into the swan, brother. You didn’t mention that when you reported she’d arrived.”
“Hello, Miles,” she said, holding out her hand.
Instead of shaking it, Miles tucked her hand into the crook of his arm and led her to a table under an arbor covered with rose vines. He held a chair for her, then took the one beside it.
“So start at the beginning and tell me of your life in the big city,” he invited. He took a drink of beer and gazed at her in open admiration.
Jessica was used to this kind of attention, so it didn’t rattle her at all, unlike the black scowl she was getting from Clyde. She tried to figure out if she’d done something wrong. Nothing came to mind.
“Both Violet and I have been busy,” she began. “We try to meet for lunch at least once a week.”
From the side of the house came the tinkling laughter of his mother. Patrick and Lacey joined them on the patio. She held a posy of late summer blossoms in her hand.
“A centerpiece for the table,” she said. “Miles, come help me find a vase for them. Are we going to eat out here or in the house?” she asked Clyde.
“In the house. We’ve had a new hatch of mosquitoes since the storm.”
Lacey smiled at Jessica. “They leave terrible itchy bumps on me, but never seem to bite the men.”
“That hardly seems fair,” Jessica murmured, wishing a swarm would descend on Clyde. What the heck had she done to tick him off?
“The steaks will be ready in ten minutes,” he said. “Miles, if you’ll bring the shrimp when you come back out, I’ll put them on.”
When the other three went inside, Jessica surveyed the grounds and didn’t glance at Clyde, who now wore dark slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up on his arms.
“Miles, you might recall, is something of a tease,” Clyde said without preamble. He gave her a stern glance.
“Yes? Is there a message for me in that statement?”
“Don’t get your hopes up that it means anything when he flirts with you.”
She did a slow burn. “Actually,” she murmured wickedly, “I have my hopes centered on you.”
He choked on his beer.
Smiling, she took a long, cool drink of iced tea.
“I really don’t see why I have to come along,” Jessica said on Sunday afternoon.
“So I can keep an eye on you,” Clyde answered.
“No one knows where I am. Except your family,” she added. “Now everyone will.”
“The people in Hanson Park probably won’t recognize you,” he said calmly. “Keep your sunglasses on and the hat pulled low.”
She felt like a latter-day Mata Hari, on a mission and trying to keep up a pretense of disguise. Clyde had insisted she attend the funeral of Christopher Jamison rather than stay at the ranch alone all afternoon and evening. It would be very late before they returned home, he’d said.
His parents would be with Ryan Fortune and his wife, Lily. Miles was coming in his own truck. She and Clyde were in the station wagon, which was clean and more comfortable for the trip than the pickup, he’d told her.
She didn’t recall his being so bossy years ago.
After flicking a piece of lint off the navy blue pants suit, she sighed, settled into the seat and gazed at the landscape, a cloud of depression hovering over her. Funerals were hardly joyous occasions.
Unfortunately, where the rich and famous congregated, the press also made an appearance.
“I told you I shouldn’t have come,” she muttered.
“The police will keep the reporters at bay,” Clyde said, driving through an ornate wrought-iron gate to a private parking area after an officer had checked his identity and waved them through.
Two reporters pushed forward, but they were ordered back behind the police barriers that cordoned off the lane leading to the church and cemetery.
When she and Clyde got out of the station wagon, Jessica kept her wide-brimmed lacy hat on, effectively covering her hair, which she’d twisted up on the back of her head. Very dark sunglasses hid her trademark blue eyes.
The funeral chapel was filled to overflowing. The entire Fortune family was there, it seemed. Jessica recognized most of those from Texas. Ryan’s twin daughters, Vanessa and Victoria, were present with their husbands.
Jessica nodded to them, then to Lily, Ryan’s wife. His third wife, she recounted. Apparently they’d been in love long ago, but fate had intervened. Now they were together again and very happy in their marriage, according to Violet.
Clyde made sure she stayed close to him, as if he’d put a claim in on her. Whenever his suit sleeve brushed her arm, shimmering tingles flowed through her like champagne bubbles dancing through her blood. It was disconcerting to be so aware of another person.
The last time she’d felt so utterly alive, she’d been nineteen and in the throes of her first great love.
With him.
“Clyde, Jessica, this is Blake and Darcy Jamison,” Lacey introduced the parents of the deceased young man. “You’ve already met Clyde. Jessica is a longtime friend of our daughter, Violet.”
“How do you do?” she said politely. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”
She really was. She couldn’t imagine a worse pain than losing a child. Violet had told her of the death of a patient and the woman’s unborn child just before Jessica left New York. It had been a terrible case, and the family had blamed Violet and the neurosurgeon who’d performed the risky surgery for the tragedy.
The Jamisons’ son had been a handsome young man in his prime and a respected teacher. It was sad.
“This is our youngest son, Emmett,” Mr. Jamison said.
Emmett Jamison was around Clyde’s height and had the muscular build of someone who stayed in shape. He had short dark hair and attractive green eyes that seemed to take in everything going on around him without overtly noticing anything in particular. From the slump of his shoulders, he seemed overwhelmed by the death of his older brother.
During dinner the previous evening, Jessica had heard Lacey mention that Emmett was with some government agency now, but he’d once had a career as a legal advisor on Wall Street.
An interesting career change. She wondered what had prompted it.
There was also another Jamison brother, according to Lacey, one who was estranged from the family and hadn’t been seen in a long time. Jessica couldn’t imagine deliberately cutting herself off from her parents, sister, a very nice brother-in-law and two adorable nieces.
At least a dozen reporters stood at the fence to the Hanson Park cemetery and jotted down notes as the silent group gathered inside the lovely grounds for the last ritual of the service.
Jessica noticed eyes on her—it was impossible to disguise her height although she wore flats—and the photographers who snapped pictures of everyone who passed through the gate. She hid behind Clyde’s greater bulk as much as possible in an attempt to keep her identity unknown.
He took her arm at one point as they crossed the grass. From the glances of the Jamisons’ friends, she was sure they thought she was with the handsome rancher as more than a friend of the family.
As she observed the Fortune and Jamison families, she saw that Ryan, now patriarch of the Texas Fortunes, and Patrick, of the New York Fortunes, and Blake Jamison seemed to have formed a close friendship.
From their mingled heritage—with Ryan being kin to Blake by blood and to Patrick by adoption—the three men probably had a lot to discuss concerning their family connections. It was puzzling that Blake’s son, who was from Seattle, should have been found murdered and left in a lake near Ryan’s ranch in Texas.
After the funeral, those connected by family ties returned to the Jamison home. Jessica quietly positioned herself in a side chair almost hidden by a palm tree and wished they would soon leave for the ranch. It was getting dark and the trip was lengthy.
A buffet dinner was ready for the mourners, and the guests talked quietly of happier times. Darcy Jamison related some mischief her three sons had gotten into when they were very young boys.
Clyde’s mom had earlier told similar tales about her five children. Jessica especially liked the one about the triplets’ lemonade stand that had been so successful they’d caused a traffic jam and neighbors had called the police on them.
A while later, while Jessica sipped an iced tea, alone, she overheard Clyde’s smooth baritone. “I’m going to collect Jessica and head back to the ranch,” he said.
Jessica was relieved to hear this news.
“Good,” his mother replied. “Try to be pleasant to her.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” His voice was polite but carried a note of irritation.
“I mean,” said his mother, “that you ignore your guest to the point of rudeness. Your father and I noticed it last night at dinner. Then you glared at Miles when he talked to Jessica. You did the same thing when Emmett Jamison spoke to her earlier today. Jealousy isn’t a becoming trait.”
“I’m hardly jealous,” he scoffed in a cool tone.
Lacey wasn’t daunted. “Well, you act like it.”
“I’m keeping an eye on her—”
Jessica silently groaned as he stopped abruptly.
“Why?” his mom immediately asked.
His sigh was audible. “She had some problem with a guy in New York hounding her for a date. That’s why Violet talked her into hiding out at the ranch. No one is supposed to know where she is. I would appreciate it if you would keep this information to yourself, okay?”
“Of course,” Lacey said in a very interested manner. “So you’re protecting her?”
“At Violet’s insistence,” he admitted.
“Good,” she said. “I’m proud of you for helping out. But try to be a bit more cordial to Jessica, won’t you? Even if she is an unwanted burden you’ve taken on.”
Jessica’s ears burned at this last assessment, but she’d known it was true from the beginning. She’d never wanted others to know and feel sorry for her. That was why she was angry and embarrassed.
Slipping from the chair, she went the long way around the room and approached Clyde and Lacey from a different direction so they wouldn’t suspect she’d overheard their conversation. She smiled as cordially as she could.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
She nodded and bid his mother goodbye.
While Clyde went to say his farewells to his father and Mr. and Mrs. Jamison—Emmett had already gone—Lacey laid a hand on Jessica’s arm. “Clyde was engaged when he was twenty-two. Sadly she died. He’s slow to open up, but once he gives his loyalty to someone, he’s a friend forever.”
“How admirable,” Jessica murmured, keeping her tone neutral. “It was wonderful seeing you and your husband again. Give my regards to Violet when you see her.”
“Didn’t she tell you?” Lacey asked in surprise. “She went on a cruise and will be gone for a couple of weeks.”
“She’s mentioned getting away before, but I didn’t realize she’d already gone.”
“It was very sudden,” Lacey confided.
“There was a case…the mother and child died. It upset Violet very much,” Jessica told the other woman. “I was worried about her and tried to get her to come to the ranch with me. I think she needs some time alone.”
Lacey nodded, but worry still lurked in her eyes. “At least Steven is settled with someone he loves. They’re getting married soon. Did Clyde tell you?”
“No, but Violet did,” Jessica said. “I understand his fiancée has been helping the governor plan charity events. That puts Steven into some pretty lofty circles here in Texas.”
“As long as they love each other, I don’t care if Amy plans shows for prize pigs.”
Jessica laughed with the other woman. She liked Clyde’s parents. They had never been pretentious or uppity about their wealth and social position.
“Ready to go?” Clyde asked, returning to the two women.
His mother kissed his cheek, then did the same to Jessica. “Be careful on the road,” she cautioned in the manner of mothers everywhere.
“I’m always careful,” he said with a rather rakish grin, then he turned to Jessica. “Let’s hit the road before some other male makes a beeline for you.”
In the station wagon, she buckled up and waited until they were on the road. “It’s because I’m so sweet,” she said.
“What?” He gave her a puzzled glare.
She flashed him her sweetest smile. “That’s why I attract so many admirers. Because I’m so sweet.”
“Huh,” he snorted.
She smiled and slid deeper into the seat to enjoy the silent ride back to Red Rock and the Flying Aces spread. Not having grown up with brothers, she hadn’t realized how gratifying it was to annoy the heck out of an arrogant male.
Four
A drizzle began to fall on the return trip. Clyde glanced at Jessica, silhouetted by the blackness of the night and dimly illuminated by the dashboard lights. The rain wouldn’t do that silky outfit any good.
“Wait,” he said when they arrived at the ranch. “I think there’s an umbrella in the car.”
He fished the old umbrella out of the back of the station wagon and held it over Jessica’s head when he opened the door for her. He’d parked as close to the porch as possible so she wouldn’t get wet.
There, that ought to prove to his mom that he was considerate.
He frowned as he opened the front door and flicked on the lights inside, brightening up the length of the foyer with wall sconces and a lamp in the living room.
The air inside the house felt cold compared to the muggy ambiance outside. He saw Jessica shiver and wrap her arms across her middle.
“How about a cup of hot chocolate?” he asked, putting on a jovial air.
“You don’t have to be nice to me,” she told him, giving him one of those dead-level stares she was so good at.
Since she was nearly his height, it was effective. With other men, it must be damned intimidating to be so calmly and unemotionally looked down on by a beautiful woman.
Correction—a striking woman.
Either way, she attracted a man’s eye. It hadn’t even occurred to him that she would arouse all his primitive instincts when he’d okayed her visit. However, he’d been expecting his kid sister’s friend, not this…this…poised, silky smooth, graceful female.
“Yes, I do have to be nice to you, or else my mother will pin my ears back,” he said, tossing his suit jacket and tie on the nearest dining room chair and heading into the kitchen.
Jessica, he noted, had stopped by the stairs.
“Why don’t you change out of those damp clothes while I make the hot chocolate?” He managed to speak in a casual tone, but blood pumped hard through his lower regions at the images that sprang into his mind.
He could imagine those long slender legs tangled with his, wrapped around his hips, straddling his body….
“All right.” She disappeared up the stairs.
By concentrating on the task, he got the warm drink made without spilling milk and cocoa all over the counter, but it wasn’t easy. His hands were actually trembling.
He muttered a word he couldn’t use in polite company.
“I beg your pardon?” Jessica entered the kitchen and gave him a questioning look.
“Nothing.” He forced his eyes to stay on the cups he carried to the island counter. But part of his mind had already taken in the long blue nightgown that peeked out from the lacy blue robe with each step she took. The color was a knockout with those blue eyes of hers.
She slid onto one of the three stools and took a sip of the cocoa and declared it “delicious.”
He sat down, keeping one stool between them, and tried to think of something pleasant to say.
“The rain is getting heavier, and the wind seems to be picking up,” she remarked, her eyes on the windows. “It was raining Friday, too, when you picked me up.”
“It’s that time of year,” he said inanely.
“Yes, June to November. Thunderstorms and hurricanes. I remember.” She paused, then asked, “What’s wrong?”
He shrugged, irritated and frustrated with his barely controlled libido. “With the ranch? Nothing. With life? Who knows?”
“I think it’s something to do with the funeral, or rather, with the death of Christopher Jamison.”
“The murder of Christopher Jamison,” he corrected, hearing the harshness in his voice.
“Do you know something about it?”
He gazed into her eyes and saw only sympathy. So she wasn’t asking out of morbid curiosity. He frowned as some part of him softened fractionally. “I’ve got bad vibes about it. Nothing specific, but a feeling….”
He tried to find words to describe the vague uneasiness that wouldn’t let up. It was impossible.
“He was young and healthy,” he finally said. “He fought with his attacker, according to the rumor, but…I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right.”
“Maybe whoever it was took him by surprise.”
“Maybe. But what was he doing at the lake by himself?”
“Fishing?” she suggested. “Thinking about life? His fiancée said she thought he was looking for someone.”
Clyde heaved a frustrated sigh. “The police don’t seem to be doing much.”
“I’m sure there are things going on that we don’t know about. Ryan Fortune isn’t going to let the murder pass without trying to find out who, what, why and all that.”
“Yeah? I suppose you charmed information out of Ryan at the funeral?” He regretted the sarcasm immediately and opened his mouth to apologize.
She spoke first. “His wife Lily said their housekeeper saw a red ring around the moon a few months ago. That means trouble, usually death. I know how it feels to be bothered by something you can’t quite define, especially when it indicates danger or a tragedy you can’t quite grasp.”
Clyde noticed Jessica’s fingers trembled as she lifted the cup to her lips. She wore no lipstick now, but her lips were a pale pink, very soft-looking…very enticing.
He stared while she drank then licked the foam off her upper lip, the motion as delicate as a cat swiping cream off its whiskers. He licked his own lips and thought of things he could be doing to her, with her.
His blood hit fast boil. Sweat broke out on his brow. His body went rigid while his control shredded. He resorted to a sneer of amusement, knowing it was underhanded. It was the only thing he had left as a defense.
“Superstition, Texas gal,” he scoffed. “After your years in the city, you should be past your country upbringing, shouldn’t you?”
Her eyes flicked to him. There was intelligence as well as fury in those bright blue depths. “I don’t think so,” she drawled in a slow, provocative manner. “My country instincts have served me rather well in the city.”
“Yeah? Like how?”
“Like knowing when a man is interested because I’m a model and he thinks that means I sleep around. I don’t,” she said flatly, her eyes sweeping over him as if she could see every sizzling pulse point in his body.
Clyde felt the heat rush to his head. Okay, he’d asked for that one. An apology was definitely in order.
“I’m sorry,” he began.
“Oh, don’t bother,” she snapped, frowning as she took another drink and licked those delectable lips again.
He went into meltdown. Again. He cleared his throat. “You don’t cut a fellow much slack,” he said in a carefully amiable voice.
She gave him a glance that could have sliced bread without leaving a crumb. “I heard your mother.”
He tried to figure out if this was a trick. Women were good at turning the tables on a man and making him feel guilty for something he didn’t even think of doing.
“What about my mother?” he asked cautiously.
Again the laser glance, then a sarcastic half laugh. “She told you to be cordial to me. After all, I am a guest in your house, albeit an unwelcome one.”
She appeared cool, poised and aloof. Yet he sensed, in some way he didn’t comprehend, that he’d hurt her, and he was truly sorry for that.
“You’re not unwelcome,” he told her, peering straight into her eyes so she could see he meant what he said. “But you are a surprise. You left Texas shortly before I returned here to live. Sometime in those years between then and now, you changed from a cygnet into a swan, from a girl into a woman.” He managed a smile. “Be careful, or I’ll be tempted to show you how pleasant I can be to a guest.”
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