Fortune's Valentine Bride
Marie Ferrarella
Neighbours and longtime friends, Katie Wallace and boss Blake Fortune made a great team.Katie dreamed they’d someday be more… Spurred on by last month’s life altering tornado, Blake had decided it was time for him to marry – somebody else! The spunky secretary had to find a way to change his mind fast…
“You know what’s wrong with you?
“You don’t know what you want. Love isn’t something you can form a stupid campaign around. You don’t ‘execute strategies’ to win someone—you watch them, you find out what they like, what makes them smile and then you try your damnedest to do the things that make them smile. You protect love, you nurture love, you don’t run a campaign for it.”
Katie closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry even though she could feel the angry tears starting to form. “You’re obtuse and blind and it’s my damn bad misfortune—pardon the pun—to be in love with you.”
Blake focused in on the only thing that was important to him. “You’re in—?”
“Yes!” she snapped. He might as well know. This way, maybe someday he’d realize just what he had allowed to slip away. “Love. L-O-V-E. Love. I’m in love with you. Or was,” she deliberately amended. “But I’m over you now. Oh, and by the way, I quit!”
About the Author
MARIE FERRARELLA, this USA TODAY bestselling and RITA
Award-winning author has written more than two hundred books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.
Dear Reader,
I have been fortunate enough (no pun intended) to periodically revisit the Fortune family ever since I first wrote about one of them in Forgotten Honeymoon. This time it’s a doubly nice experience for me because Wendy Fortune Mendoza was the heroine of my last book about the family. In this one, I get to watch her baby come into the world.
I also get to meet Wendy’s best friend, Katie Wallace. Wendy and Katie have been friends since childhood—which is about the time that Katie fell in love with Wendy’s brother, Blake. He has always been the center of her world, and with that in mind, Katie had gotten a business degree so that she could work with Blake at his father’s company. So, when Blake asks his incredibly competent assistant to help him win back his ex—the one who got away—Katie is torn. She’s never said no to Blake, but the request really makes her heart ache. Until Wendy comes up with a plan to make her brother fall in love with her best friend.
As ever, I thank you for reading, and from the bottom of my heart I wish you someone to love who loves you back.
Best,
Marie Ferrarella
Fortune’s
Valentine
Bride
Marie Ferrarella
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To
Helen with love,
despite the fact
that she has now moved
to a galaxy far, far
away
Chapter One
“Don’t take this the wrong way, Blake,” Wendy Mendoza said to her brother as she tried, and failed, to find a comfortable spot on her bed, “but with all this hovering about you’re doing, I’m beginning to feel like a watched pot.”
Blake Fortune dragged over the chair he’d brought into his younger sister’s bedroom earlier and straddled it. “Isn’t that actually a good thing?” he pointed out. “Watched pots aren’t supposed to boil, or, in your case, give birth prematurely.”
Which was, between the terbutaline injections to stop her contractions and the enforced bed rest, exactly what the doctor and she were trying to prevent.
But that didn’t mean that she had to be happy about this state of affairs, Blake knew. And the longer she lay there, inert, the more restless she grew.
“Isn’t there something you could be doing?” she pressed, more accustomed to his teasing than his concern. “I mean, I really do appreciate you deciding to drop everything and come running back to Red Rock to hold my hand, but having everyone practically walking on eggshells around me is really making me feel very tense and nervous.”
Which was, he knew, counterproductive to what they were all really trying to do—keep her pregnant until the baby was strong enough to survive on its own when she emerged.
“If this keeps up,” Wendy warned, “I’m going to wind up giving birth to a neurotic baby who’s going to go straight from the delivery room to some psychiatrist’s couch.”
Blake laughed, shaking his head. At least she hadn’t lost her offbeat sense of humor. The whole family had gone through one hell of a trauma when that tornado had hit. And then on top of that, when Wendy had suddenly gone into premature labor, it had put a scare into all of them.
Thank God for modern medicine, he thought. Now she was back to her feisty self—except for not being able to get out of bed, he amended.
“Well, obviously the tornado had no effect on your imagination,” he commented. But one look at her expression told him that she was being serious. She wanted him out of her bedroom. He supposed that if he were in her place, he might feel a bit crowded, too. “You’ve already kicked me out of your house to bunk with Scott at his place,” he reminded her. “You want me to go altogether?”
Reaching out, Wendy caught her brother’s hand and threaded her fingers through his. She loved all her siblings, but, as the baby of the family, Blake was the brother she was closest to. He was the second youngest. Together they were the bottom of the totem pole.
“No, I don’t want you to go altogether,” she told him with feeling, “but I don’t want you putting your life on hold because of me, either.” He’d been her constant companion for two days now. It was time he got back to his career, to his life. “With computers and teleconferencing, you could work anywhere. Why don’t you set up a temporary office at Scott’s and take care of business before Dad comes, breathing down your neck for dropping the ball, or whatever cliché he favors these days.”
John Michael Fortune, who she felt certain did love his family in his own, private way, was ultimately responsible for the turn her life had taken. If her father hadn’t insisted on sending her here, to Red Rock, Texas, in hopes of waking up her heretofore sleeping work ethic, she might have never discovered the two ultimate passions of her life: baking and Marcos—not necessarily in that order.
Her newfound passion for baking and creating desserts had come to light when she had gone to work at the restaurant that Marcos managed for his aunt and uncle, who were friends of her parents. At the time it was clear that Marcos felt he was being saddled with her and that he thought she was a spoiled little rich girl, totally incapable of doing anything right.
Marcos had been looking to fire her, while she in turn was looking for ways to prove herself. What neither one had been looking for was a life commitment, but they’d found it, in spades. Now she was married to Marcos and expecting his child any day.
A baby that had almost been born nearly a month ago, thanks to the tornado that had ripped through Red Rock just minutes before her family, who had flown out for her Christmas Eve wedding, were to take off for Atlanta.
It still left her breathless when she thought about it. One minute, she was saying her goodbyes, the next, they were being all but buried alive in debris as the tornado buzz sawed through the airport, collapsing it all around them.
The shock of it all, including having Marcos’s badly injured brother, Javier, lapse into a coma, was too much for her. She found herself going into labor way before she was anywhere near her due date. Luckily, her doctor was able to temporarily curtail her contractions with injections. The hope was that she could hold on long enough for the baby’s lungs to develop sufficiently to sustain the infant outside the womb.
Right now the process seemed as if it was taking forever. And having Blake constantly slanting wary glances in her direction really wasn’t helping anything, especially not her frame of mind.
The problem was Blake could see her side of it. If the tables were turned, he wouldn’t want people hovering around him, either, no matter how much he loved them. “I suppose you have a point.”
Wendy smiled broadly, relieved that Blake wasn’t offended by her strongly worded “suggestion.” But then, this was Blake and, most of the time, they really did think alike.
“Of course I do.”
Blake was already focusing on another project, one that had gone begging for his attention much too long. It was time to stop allowing it to take a backseat and get started on it in earnest.
“Actually, there has been something I’ve been meaning to do ever since we were practically buried alive in that airport,” he confessed to her.
Wendy wasn’t sure she was following him. “You were thinking of business at a time like that?” she asked incredulously. “God, Blake, you’re more like Dad than I thought.”
No, he highly doubted that any one of his father’s offspring would ever be placed in the same category as their dad. The man ate and slept business and, while he expected the same of his children, none of them, Blake thought, would ever measure up to the old man’s expectations. Blake sincerely doubted that anyone—besides a robot—could.
“Not business exactly,” he explained. For the moment, he moved his chair in even closer to Wendy’s bed, lowering his voice. This was something he wasn’t ready to share with the immediate world—at least not yet. “When it looked like we actually might not make it, I promised myself that if we did survive, I’d stop putting my life on hold and do what I should have done years ago.”
Intrigued, Wendy sat up a little straighter in her bed. She pushed another one of the pillows behind her, tucking it against her back. “Go on,” she encouraged, curious where this was going.
“I promised myself that, if I survived, I was going to go after the woman who I allowed to slip away all those years ago.” Smiling broadly at the plan that was, even now, evolving and taking on layers in his mind, Blake paused a second for dramatic effect, then shared the woman’s name. “Brittany Everett.”
“I changed my mind,” Wendy told him. “Don’t go on.” She blew out a breath, sincerely disappointed with Blake’s revelation. She’d hoped that the socialite Brittany Everett, would be a thing of the past in Blake’s life. Actually, she’d secretly been hoping that when her brother’s thoughts finally took a more serious turn toward things of a romantic nature, it would be images of Katie Wallace that ramped up his body temperature.
Everyone but Blake, apparently, knew that Brittany was just a spoiled Daddy’s girl. In addition, she was someone who gave all “Southern belles” a bad name.
Trying her best not to look annoyed, Wendy slumped back on her pillows.
“What do you see in that woman?” she demanded in frustration. Before Blake could answer, she held up her hand. She was in no mood to hear any accolades for a woman she had never liked. “I mean, other than the obvious—that she could tip over if she turned around too fast.” The woman under discussion had a pretty face, a large chest—and a completely empty head, not to mention no heart to speak of.
Wendy was pregnant and her hormones were undoubtedly all over the charts, Blake reasoned, so he let her last comment go and only said defensively, “You don’t know Brittany.”
Now, there he was wrong, Wendy thought. “Oh, but I do, Blake, I really do,” she countered. Fixing him with an exasperated look, she insisted, “Blake, she’s not good enough for you.”
He laughed. When Wendy was very young, she’d been very possessive of him and jealous of any time he spent with anyone besides her. He supposed that there was still a tiny bit of that little girl left, even though she was now a married woman.
“You’d say that about anybody.”
His protest made her think of Katie. Katie was extremely likable and had a great deal going for her. Katie’s family lived practically next door to hers in Atlanta, and they had all grown up together. She was kind, pretty and smart—and not even the least bit self-serving.
Brittany, on the other hand, was convinced that the world existed only for her own pleasure. Not only that, but it all revolved around her, as well.
Granted, Brittany and Blake had dated during his senior year, but from what Wendy had heard via the grapevine, she hadn’t changed a bit.
“No,” Wendy said firmly, “I wouldn’t.”
But Blake was convinced that he was right and that she was only acting like the overprotective little sister she’d once been. “Yeah, you would,” he insisted. “But that’s okay. My mind’s made up. I’m going to launch a campaign—”
Were they still talking about the same thing? “A campaign?” Wendy questioned, looking at her brother uncertainly.
“Uh-huh. A business campaign.” This was the very strategy he’d been missing, he told himself. He had to approach this goal of his by using his strengths and his skills if he hoped to ever win his “prize.” “That’s what I should have done in the first place, instead of just backing away,” he told Wendy. The more he talked about it, the more convinced he became that this was the right approach. “If I’d gone after Brittany the way I usually go after a new client, I would have won her over a long time ago.” He nodded at his sister’s swollen belly. “And then little MaryAnne would have another doting aunt when she’s born.”
God forbid, Wendy thought, all but biting her tongue to keep from voicing her thoughts out loud.
“You know,” Blake continued as his thoughts fell into place, “your idea about setting up an office in Scott’s house isn’t half bad. If I want to approach this problem professionally—”
Wendy fought the desire to tell her brother that she’d been too hasty and had made a mistake. That she really needed him to hang around here and help her stave off the boredom.
But then, if this really was Blake’s mind-set, she knew that he would continue talking about Brittany and how wonderful he thought she was. She also knew that she would come very close to strangling her beloved brother if he went on and on about Brittany and her so-called attributes. If nothing else, it would make her nauseous as hell.
Still, she had to find a way to at least try to throw a monkey wrench into this absurd “campaign” plan of his. Not that she actually thought that the heartless Brittany would wind up marrying her brother. She knew the woman well enough to know that Brittany was too accustomed to being fawned over by a host of men to ever give that up for just one man.
But if Blake went all out to win Brittany over, he would eventually have his heart cut out and handed to him—and not on a silver platter. Wendy was determined to do whatever it took to spare her brother that ultimate pain and humiliation.
But there was only so much she could physically do right now.
Wendy frowned, staring down at the bed that imprisoned her. Giving her word that she wouldn’t get out of bed was the only way she had managed to bargain her discharge from a San Antonio hospital room. Her doctor had fully intended for her to remain in the hospital until such time as her baby was physically developed enough to be born. Complete bed rest was the only compromise available.
Which meant that she was going to need an ally to act in her place. More specifically, she needed the one woman who just might be able to get her brother to give up this ridiculous notion of asking Brittany Everett to become Mrs. Blake Fortune.
“If you’re setting up your office,” Wendy said, cutting in, “you might as well send for Katie and have her come join you.”
Caught off guard by the suggestion, Blake stared at her. “Katie?” he echoed.
“Wallace,” Wendy prompted needlessly. Katie was as much a part of her brother’s life as anyone in the family. More, probably. “You know, your marketing assistant. Cute girl, twenty-four, stands about five foot five, has pretty brown hair and soft brown eyes—”
Blake snorted. “I know who Katie is.” And then, as he replayed his sister’s initial words in his head, he nodded. His frown faded. “You know, sending for Katie’s not a half-bad idea, either.”
Yes!
“Of course it’s not a half-bad idea,” Wendy informed him serenely, then couldn’t help adding, “It’s a completely wonderful idea.
“She can help you with your work,” she underscored pointedly, praying she could divert her brother’s focus away from the girl he was mooning about and get him back on his usual track. Blake really was a very hard worker and a real asset to FortuneSouth Enterprises. This nonsense about Brittany was hopefully just that—nonsense. “Katie has wonderful organizational skills,” Wendy reminded him.
Besides, Wendy added silently, if her brother interacted with Katie, maybe he’d forget about this stupid vow to win over Miss all wrong for him. Or at least feel too stupid saying it out loud in Katie’s presence, which meant he wouldn’t be putting whatever half-baked plan he was hatching into play.
Though they had never talked about it out loud, Wendy was certain that Katie had feelings for Blake. Maybe even loved him. It was all there, in her eyes.
Not that Blake ever looked, she thought, slanting a disparaging glance in his direction, which he seemed to miss totally.
“I’ll get right on it,” Blake was saying cheerfully. Rising from the chair, he stopped to brush a kiss against her cheek. “You’re the best,” he told Wendy with enthusiasm.
“Of course I am,” she agreed, as he headed for the doorway.
“Katie, I need you.”
Katie Wallace nearly dropped the receiver as Blake Fortune’s voice echoed in her ear, uttering the words she had waited to hear for what felt like her entire life. Words that she’d been fairly convinced she was never going to hear.
Katie, I need you. He’d said it. Blake had actually said it.
To her.
They weren’t in the middle of an incredibly long meeting, or stuck in an all-night work marathon, the way they’d been all too frequently. They weren’t even in the same room together. Blake was calling her from Red Rock, where he was on what she’d assumed was a vacation or some kind of family emergency.
Ever since the tornado had ripped through Red Rock she’d been watching the news reports religiously and reading everything she could get her hands on about the devastation that had befallen the idyllic Texas town where her childhood friend Wendy had taken up residence.
When the tornado had initially hit, a news bulletin had interrupted the program that was on TV. As she’d watched and listened, her whole world had ground to a halt. She’d wanted to attend Wendy’s wedding, but because of circumstances, she’d had to remain in the office, manning her post, so to speak.
Her heart had all but stopped as she’d listened to the bulletin. She knew that Blake and Wendy, as well as the rest of their family, were all out there, stranded and in the tornado’s path. The very thought unnerved her. She’d instantly started praying and searching for more information.
At one point, she had almost torn out of the office to try to get the first flight out to Red Rock, but no flights were going out to Red Rock, not directly or with layovers. Moreover, as reports began to come in, apparently there no longer was an airport for the flights to land in. The tornado had taken care of that.
That first day, she’d stayed up over twenty-four hours, scouring the channels and the internet, searching for any shred of information. Looking for the names of those who hadn’t made it—desperately praying she wouldn’t see any she recognized.
Especially not the name of the man she had loved with all her heart since she was a little girl.
Not that Blake Fortune actually ever noticed her. Oh, he’d seen her, but never as what she wanted him to see. To him she was just his sister’s friend, the annoying girl next door. Later on, he’d acknowledged her as a college graduate with a marketing degree and he’d been impressed enough with her skills to hire her. But he never saw her as what she was. A woman who could love him the way he desired to be loved.
Still, something was better than nothing, so, as a kid she’d settled for his teasing words, his pranks, pretending indignance and secretly loving the attention. Anything, she had long ago decided, that had Blake looking in her direction was fine with her.
After she grew up, of course, she’d wanted more. Couldn’t help wanting more. She’d wanted him to look at her as something other than Katie Wallace, the little girl next door.
That was why she’d gone to college to get that marketing degree in the first place. This was the key to getting closer to him, if not in his private life, then in his professional one. She’d nurtured the hope that if she worked really hard and proved to be indispensable to him, Blake would eventually wake up one morning to realize that he had feelings for her beyond his role as her boss.
That had been her plan, but even so, right now she still was having trouble believing that she wasn’t dreaming. Was Blake actually saying what she thought he was saying?
After all this time?
Her heart was hammering in her throat as she forced out the words, “Excuse me?” into the receiver, scarcely above a whisper. She cleared her voice and spoke up. “Could you repeat please that?” Then, in case he thought she was being coy instead of just shocked, she quickly explained, “There’s interference in the line, I didn’t really hear what you just said.”
“I said I need you,” Blake told her, raising his voice. “It looks as if I’m going to be here longer than I thought. At least a couple of weeks, maybe three. When can you get out here?”
Katie allowed herself to savor his words for exactly thirty seconds. Where were Dorothy’s magic ruby-red slippers when you needed them? she thought. Because then all it would take was clicking her heels together three times and she would be there at his side. Just the way she desperately wanted to be.
She knew that this had to be about work and that Blake needed her to get things done, but she viewed the phrase he’d uttered as her first step in the right direction. Someday, she promised herself, Blake was going to realize that he really did need her—and not just as his assistant.
“I can be on the first flight out there,” she promised. Even as she spoke, she began searching the internet, pulling up the various airlines and looking at departure times. “I’ll call you back the second I’m booked.”
“That’s my girl,” he said. “I knew I could count on you.”
That’s my girl.
The three words echoed in her head over and over again as she all but flew back to her apartment and set a new world record for packing quickly.
That’s my girl.
Definitely in the right direction, she thought happily.
Chapter Two
“You sure you don’t mind me setting up an office in your house?” Blake asked his older brother Scott for a second time.
Ordinarily, he would have opted to use one of the offices in the building housing the Fortune Foundation in town. However, it was currently off-limits since it had sustained major structural damage during the tornado.
Scott had only recently decided to transplant himself from Atlanta to Red Rock and had just purchased a ranch and the house that stood on it. As of yet, he and Christina, the woman who had won his heart, were redecorating the rooms and several were still in limbo. Blake was temporarily claiming one for an office—as long as Scott had no objections.
“I mean, I’m already in your hair, bunking here until Wendy’s baby is strong enough to finally make us uncles.” Blake thought for a moment, then decided to ask Scott, since he was now the Red Rock resident. “Maybe it’d be better if I rent a couple of rooms in town—”
Scott waved away what he anticipated was the rest of his brother’s thought.
“After the tornado, whatever’s available in Red Rock has most likely been commandeered for temporary living quarters for the folks who lost their homes, or whose homes are so damaged that they’re not safe to stay in right now. Besides,” Scott added as an afterthought, “turning part of my place into ‘FortuneSouth-West’ might just make points with the old man, though I doubt it.”
Their father, as everyone knew, had very high standards, which at times, Scott couldn’t help feeling, even God might have some trouble reaching. It didn’t help matters that, in the aftermath of the tornado, Scott had decided not to go back to Atlanta but to make a life for himself here, with a woman he firmly believed was his soul mate. A woman he had only known for a little over a month. The senior Fortune, Scott felt certain, undoubtedly believed that he had lost his mind—instead of finally finding his soul.
“And you’re sure I won’t be in your way?” Blake probed.
This new, improved and far more relaxed Scott was going to take some getting used to, Blake thought. Up until a month and a half ago, Scott had been as big a workaholic as their father and oldest brother, Michael. But he was definitely of a mind that this change in his brother was for the better.
“Not unless you plan on lying in the front doorway like a human obstacle course,” Scott answered. He grinned as he regarded his brother who, at twenty-seven, was five years younger than he was. “Might be kind of nice having you around for a while. Aside from that little buried-alive incident on New Year’s Eve-eve—and, of course, Wendy’s wedding—we don’t get to see each other all that much anymore,” he noted.
The observation amused Blake. “Said the workaholic,” he interjected.
“Not anymore,” Scott emphasized. “That tornado kind of made me reexamine my priorities.” Almost dying did that to a man, Scott thought. He felt as if he’d been given a second chance for a reason—and he didn’t intend to waste it by going back to “business as usual.” “There’s a lot more to life than finding different ways to continue building up a telecommunications empire.”
His brother really was sincere, Blake thought. This wasn’t just a passing phase. Scott was serious about putting his roots down in Red Rock because living here was so important to Christina, his future wife, and thus, important to him.
“Yeah, I know what you mean, about reexamining my priorities,” Blake explained when Scott raised a quizzical eyebrow. “I told Wendy that I feel like my life’s been on hold long enough and that it’s time I did something about it.”
“Anything you care to share with the class?” Scott asked, amused at the very serious expression on Blake’s face.
“I’m going after the one who got away,” Blake told him simply.
Scott nodded and smiled. He might have been a dedicated workaholic when they were all back in Atlanta, but that didn’t mean that he had been wearing blinders 24/7. He was quite aware of how his young brother’s assistant, Katie Wallace, looked at Blake when she thought no one was paying attention. At the time, he’d found it rather amusing. But now, finding himself on the other side of love, he understood how she must have felt—and continued to feel. But something wasn’t making sense, he realized.
“I wasn’t aware that she had exactly ‘gotten away,’” Scott commented.
Blake supposed that Scott was either too busy to have noticed, or maybe he’d just forgotten. “Yeah, she did,” he assured his brother.
Okay, maybe he’d missed a chapter or two of Blake’s life, Scott thought. “So you’re going after—”
“Brittany Everett, yes,” Blake said, filling in the name for Scott.
For a second, all Scott did was stare at him. And then he murmured, “Oh,” more to himself than to his brother.
“What do you mean, ‘oh’?”
There was no point in talking about Katie if his brother’s sights were set on a vapid prima donna like Brittany Everett. Like everyone else in the family, because of the circles they all moved in he was vaguely aware of the woman—and what he knew, he didn’t find very compelling.
Scott shrugged, dismissing his slip. “Nothing, just surprised that you seem so determined to get together with her.” For a moment, he thought back to his brother’s college days. “Didn’t Brittany dump you right after graduation?”
“No one dumped anyone,” Blake insisted. “We just drifted apart.”
“Right, after you caught her in a lip-lock with some other guy, if I remember correctly.”
“I should have fought for her.”
You should have cut her loose long before that, Scott thought. But Blake was a big boy now, able to make his own decisions. Besides, Scott had a feeling that the more he talked against Brittany—whose only attributes as far as he could see were strictly physical—the more, he was certain, Blake would dig in. They were alike that way, he and his brother.
So Scott dropped the matter, stepped back and hoped for the best. “If you say so. Look, I promised Christina I’d meet her for lunch, so I’d better get going. Good luck with whatever it is you’re planning to do.” And I hope you come to your senses real soon.
The reference to time had Blake looking at his own watch. “Hey, I’d better get going, too. I’ve got to drive over to San Antonio International Airport to pick up Katie,” he said, joining his brother in the hallway. “She’s flying in to help me with my strategy to win back Brittany.”
Scott stared at him, utterly stunned. “She is?” he asked. This couldn’t be right. “You actually told Katie that you were ‘launching’ this so-called campaign to get Brittany to become Mrs. Blake Fortune?”
“Well, not in so many words,” Blake admitted. The next moment, he saw a very wide smile curving his brother’s mouth. He was unaware of having said something funny. “What?”
“Nothing,” Scott answered, waving his hand and struggling to keep the laughter under wraps. “Just, good luck with that.” And then, he couldn’t resist asking, “By the way, how many pallbearers would you like at your funeral?”
Maybe the tornado had shaken Scott up more than anyone realized, Blake thought. His brother wasn’t making any sense. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
But Scott continued grinning mysteriously. And then he patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll figure it out, Blake,” he assured him, just before he hurried off down the hallway and out of the house.
Blake shook his head as he followed slowly in his brother’s path, heading for the car he’d left parked in the huge, circular driveway. He put the odd conversation with Scott out of his head.
Right now he had something more pressing to attend to.
The way he figured it, if the flight from Atlanta arrived on time, he was just going to make it to the airport by the skin of his teeth—barring the unforeseen. It was a footnote that he had gotten into the habit of adding ever since the tornado had turned his life and his family’s lives entirely upside down, tossing them on their collective ears.
Katie had deliberately brought only carry-on luggage with her. She had no desire to spend the extra time required to wait for luggage.
So, in the interests of speed and efficiency, Katie had stuffed into a single piece of luggage everything she felt she would need that couldn’t be purchased at some local shop between the airport and Red Rock. After engorging the suitcase to the point that it looked as if it would explode, she’d sat on the lid and fought with the zipper until she’d managed to bring the closure full circle.
She managed to secure the very last ticket for the next outgoing flight to San Antonio International Airport.
She didn’t relax the entire flight, her mind busily embracing the key phrase Blake had used when he’d called her.
I need you.
Part of her still didn’t believe she’d finally lived to see the day when everything she’d dreamed about for so long would actually start happening.
Don’t start sending out the wedding invitations yet, her mind warned. That was the part of her that was still waiting for the other shoe to drop.
She could warn herself all she wanted about not getting too excited—but she still was.
When the plane landed—reasonably on time for once, she noted, hoping that was a good omen—she was debating whether to just rent a car and drive to Red Rock or splurge and have a shuttle service do the driving for her.
The latter would prove to be the more expensive route, because of the distance that was involved, but she really wasn’t too keen on driving by herself all that way. She was tired and the prospect of falling asleep behind the wheel was unnerving.
Maybe if she had a really strong container of coffee—
As it turned out, there was no need to debate the pros and cons of driving versus being driven, because, as she was weighing her options, she realized that she was being paged over the P.A. system.
Heading over to the customer service desk, she didn’t actually see Blake, she saw his smile. But she knew that smile even at this distance. It belonged to Blake. Blake was here! And he was walking toward her.
Reviewing their phone conversation in her head, she couldn’t recall him saying anything about picking her up at the airport. She knew where he was staying, thanks to the directions he’d texted to her on her phone. Scott Fortune had bought a ranch here and Blake was staying with him. Since, according to Blake, the company would be paying for her flight, she’d just assumed that she would wind up charging either the car rental or the shuttle service to FortuneSouth Enterprises. Never one to wantonly spend money, even if it was someone else’s, she was just trying to make the best decision.
Was Blake this eager to see her that he had driven over himself?
The pounding of her heart went up another notch.
The exhaustion that had been slowly laying claim to her completely vanished as Katie picked up her pace, all but breaking into a run as the distance between them shortened noticeably. The heavy suitcase became nothing more than an unwieldy pull toy in her wake.
“You made it,” Blake called out to her, obviously pleased at how quickly she’d managed to get here after he’d called her.
Katie beamed at him. “Nothing could have kept me away.”
“Good,” he pronounced with approval. “Then we can get right down to work as soon as you’re ready. Here, let me take that for you,” he offered, putting his hand over hers on the suitcase handle.
The brief contact still managed to steal her breath away, as it usually did. But what he’d just said pushed reality in, front and center.
“Work?” Her heart fell. Blake was still making noises like a workaholic. The hope that he would be just a little more laidback, a little more … personal … died a quick, bitter death.
Katie had a strange expression on her face. He took it to mean that she was experiencing a little jet lag. Maybe she did need to rest awhile, although he’d known her to work tirelessly when the occasion called for it.
“Yes. Work,” he repeated. “That’s the reason I sent for you. It was Wendy’s idea, really. She thought you could help me get my campaign underway.”
“Your campaign,” she repeated numbly. Was this why he “needed” her? To work on some marketing campaign? Here? She felt confused. Even so, she sensed her slim grasp on happiness slipping away as her heart constricted within her chest.
“Yes. My campaign,” he asserted, then added the damning phrase: “To win back Brittany Everett.” Not seeing her face all but fall, he laughed a little self-consciously. “I know it’s not exactly what you’re used to doing, but I thought that if I went about winning Brittany back the way we go about landing an account for FortuneSouth Enterprises, then I’m almost guaranteed to be successful.”
So this was what shock felt like, Katie thought. Shock, mixed with acute disappointment. Her pounding heart now felt like utter lead in her chest.
“And Wendy suggested you send for me to help you procure this woman?” she asked in disbelief.
“Not procure,” he corrected, bristling at the word she’d used. “That makes it sound sordid.” He didn’t want Katie starting out with the wrong idea about this. Otherwise, she’d be no help at all and, he had to admit, he had come to rely on her shrewd instincts pretty heavily these past two years. “Brittany and I had a connection in college.”
“Yes, I remember,” she answered grimly as they made their way down the escalator to the first floor.
There was deep regret in his voice as he concluded, “And then I didn’t follow through. I want to win her back. I’ll be taking her to the Valentine’s Day fundraiser in Atlanta in a few weeks. That’s when I intend to make my move.”
Were they talking about the same woman? As she recalled, the woman was a little too Scarlett O’Hara for her taste.
“Kind of hard to get close to someone with that kind of a throng surrounding her,” she recalled.
That, Blake thought, disturbed by Katie’s comment, was an unwarranted, uncalled-for assessment. “It wasn’t a throng,” he protested.
“Okay, a swarm, then. Or maybe ‘mob’ might be a better word to use,” she suggested crisply.
How could he? her mind cried. How could he think about getting together with a girl like that again? She’d never understood what had compelled him to get together with Brittany in the first place. Yes, she had what amounted to an almost-perfect body, but it was coupled with a completely imperfect personality for him.
They were outside the terminal now and approaching the valet’s booth. Blake glanced in her direction as he gave the valet his ticket.
“I’m sensing a little hostility here,” he noted.
“Just a little?” Katie muttered under her breath.
Blake cocked his head, bringing his ear a little closer to her. The noise level outside the terminal was even louder than it was inside, making it hard to maintain a conversation without resorting to shouting. And Katie hadn’t shouted. Had he not seen her lips moving, he wouldn’t have even been aware that she’d said anything at all.
“What did you just say?” he asked.
Katie was quick to shake her head. There was no point in arguing. “Nothing.”
Besides, what did she expect? she silently upbraided herself. For the world to suddenly change? For Blake to suddenly wake up, come to his senses and see what was right in front of him? A woman who was willing to love him, flaws and all, for the rest of his life—for the rest of her life.
Leopards didn’t change their spots and Katie couldn’t believe that in the interim years a girl like Brittany Everett would become more compatible with Blake.
What was wrong with him? she silently fumed.
The next moment, she redirected the question toward herself. What the hell was wrong with her? Had Blake ever indicated that he had feelings for her that went beyond a boss appreciating his employee’s work? Did he even indicate that he felt she went above and beyond the call of duty each and every time?
Well, that was her mistake, wasn’t it? She did so in an effort not just to seem indispensable to him, but to have him suddenly look at her, really look at her and see her for the first time. See how good she was for him—not just for the company, but for him—and then maybe, just maybe, that could lead to something more.
The word more however had no meaning here—unless it was to indicate that she doubted if Blake could be more wrong in his choice of a future wife, which was where this whole stupid “campaign” was clearly going.
She couldn’t do this, she thought. She couldn’t go through with this. She couldn’t be his master strategist, his Cyrano, to help him land a woman who would ultimately stomp all over the heart he was planning on serving to her on a silver platter.
Katie began to voice her protest, but then, before even a single word managed to come out, she changed her mind.
Blake was going to go through with this with her or without her and if she protested, he might just view it as being a case of sour grapes. But if she was there, at his side, helping him with this awful campaign, maybe it would finally hit him that she had all the virtues and assets that he, in his delusion, thought that Brittany possessed.
And, she added silently, if this all blew up on him, she’d be right there to help him pick up the pieces.
She’d be privy to every detail of his plan and with it all laid out for her, she would know how best to ruin his plans. And by ruining them, she would be able to ultimately save the man from embarrassment and making the mistake of a lifetime—if not the century.
And if, at the same time, she could get him to see that it was her all along who he should have been with, well, so much the better.
“Look, if I’m asking too much,” Blake was saying, apparently having second thoughts about the wisdom of asking her to help, “then maybe you should—”
“It’s not that you’re asking too much,” she said, cutting him off. “It’s just that, well, I’m not sure if I’m exactly the right person for the job. This is a little different than the usual campaigns we work on.”
“Of course you’re the right person for the job. I mean, this is about what appeals to a woman. Brittany’s a woman and so are you, right?”
She looked at him, a little stunned. “Is that a question?” she wanted to know. “I mean, really?”
“No, no, of course you’re a woman. That’s what I’m counting on.”
He was either being exceedingly simpleminded—or insulting. She wasn’t sure which bothered her more. “That all women are alike?”
He couldn’t really explain why, but he had the feeling he was in over his head—and drowning. What was needed was a time-out so that he could gather his thoughts together and begin again.
Blake was more than certain that Katie was the right woman for the job. After all, someone as attractive as she was probably had guys making a play for her all the time. What sort of things made her reactions positively? That’s what he needed to find out. He just had to find the right way to phrase this so she wouldn’t think that, well, he was coming onto her. Because he wasn’t. Even if, sometimes when she looked at him, he’d find something stirring deep inside of him. That was just a basic, physical thing, nothing more.
Taking a breather, Blake pulled himself back and refocused.
“Tell you what,” he proposed. “Let’s get you over to Wendy’s. She’s dying to see you.”
At least someone was, Katie thought.
Chapter Three
“On my God, just look at you,” Katie cried as she walked into Wendy’s bedroom.
After everything she’d heard about Wendy going into premature labor, Katie had expected to find her friend pale and languishing in bed. Instead, Wendy looked just the way she always did: bright and animated, and very, very pretty.
Wendy’s eyes crinkled the moment she heard the sound of Katie’s voice. She shifted in bed, excited to finally see her old friend.
“I know, I know, I’m as big as a house,” she lamented, only half kidding.
“I was going to say glowing,” Katie corrected tactfully. Granted, Wendy looked a bit larger than she had the last time they’d seen one another, but nowhere near Wendy’s self-deprecating description.
“But you were thinking that I looked as big as a house,” Wendy prodded. There was no way anyone walking into the room could miss this “bump,” which was currently the biggest thing about her.
Katie knew better than to argue. No one won arguments with Wendy. “Not a house,” she insisted. “Maybe a little cottage.” She held up her thumb and forefinger, keeping them about an inch apart.
With a laugh, Wendy held out her arms to her friend. Katie had always had a way of making her feel instantly better. Now was no exception. “Come here and give me a hug,” she implored.
It was all the invitation that Katie needed. Bending over, she embraced Wendy, giving her a heartfelt squeeze and holding on tightly for a moment. She really was very happy to finally see her.
“God, I’ve missed you,” she said fiercely, then, as she stepped back, she added in a lower, embarrassed voice, “I’m sorry I couldn’t come to the wedding.”
Wendy waved away the apology. “Being best friends means never having to say you’re sorry,” she said as if that was a given between them. And then she gave Blake an accusing look. “I know my slave-driving brother left you to hold down the fort.”
“I take exception to the term slave driver,” Blake protested. “And what can I say?” he added with a careless shrug. “Katie happens to be very good at her job.” And because she was, he had been able to fly to Red Rock for an extended week to attend his baby sister’s wedding along with the rest of his family.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe you could have said, ‘Hey, Katie, since my sister’s your very oldest, dearest friend, forget about the fort.”
“It wasn’t the fort that needed holding down,” Katie told her. “We had a last minute problem with a customer demanding changes to a contract that was going out and someone in marketing was needed to handle it. I knew Blake didn’t want to miss your wedding, so I volunteered to stay behind and deal with the client,” Katie told her. “It was kind of my anonymous wedding present to you.”
“And in a way, it turned out for the best,” Blake pointed out. “If she’d come to the wedding, Katie would have been struck at the airport like the rest of us—and who knows? Maybe she would have even gotten hurt. The way I see it, maybe staying behind to deal with the client and smooth things out saved Katie’s life.”
Wendy rolled her eyes at his comment. “You’re really reaching there, Blake.”
Katie was nothing if not a born mediator and now was no exception. She sidelined any further discussion about something that couldn’t be changed by redirecting the conversation to the present. “Speaking of the tornado, is Javier doing any better now?”
“He’s finally conscious. It was touch and go for a while and I know Marcos was really worried that his brother might not come out of his coma.” She pressed her lips together. “We still don’t know how extensive the damage to his spine and legs really is. Right now, he can’t move them, but the doctor said this could just be due to some swelling along his spinal cord. Once that goes down, he should be able to walk again.” The key word here, she added silently, was should.
As if reading her unspoken thoughts, Katie said firmly, “Yes, he will.” Like Wendy, she believed in positive thought, taking it a step further. Positive thoughts yielded positive energy.
Wendy beamed. Though far from a negative person herself, there was something exceedingly uplifting about the upbeat tone in her friend’s voice. She caught Katie’s hand in hers for a moment and just held on.
“God, but it’s going to be good having you around,” she said with feeling.
“Speaking of which,” Katie said, looking at Blake, “you haven’t told me where I’m going to be staying. I’d like to drop off my things—”
“At Scott’s,” Blake surmised, mentioning where he was currently staying. At the same time, Wendy was saying something entirely different.
“Why, here, with me of course.” How could Blake even think she’d have her friend staying anywhere but with her? “Katie’s going to be staying at my house,” she said, reinforcing her initial words. “It’ll make visiting so much easier.”
He didn’t get it. Sure, she and Katie were friends, but he was family. He and Wendy shared the same blood. This wasn’t making any sense.
“She stays here but you just threw me out?” he protested.
“I didn’t ‘throw’ you out,” Wendy tactfully pointed out. “I ‘moved’ you out. There is a difference, and it’s because you were hovering over me all the time. Besides—” she looked at Katie again, so thrilled that she had actually made it out here “—Katie and I have a lot of catching up to do.”
Blake looked both hurt and insulted before he managed to hide it. “And you and I don’t?” he asked.
“There’s not all that much catching up to do, Blake,” she said tactfully, and then reminded him, “You’d only been gone from here a little more than a week before you came back, remember?”
Still, he was family and Katie wasn’t. “Not the point.”
Wendy sat up a little straighter and caught his hand. “You know I appreciate you coming back out here again to keep me company, Blake, I just don’t need to see you 24/7,” she told him. She tried to sound as kind as she could, then quickly added, “And I won’t be seeing Katie 24/7, either, because you’re going to be working the poor girl to death most of the time.” Switching gears, she looked at her friend and warned, “Don’t let him work you to death, you hear? I don’t care if he thinks he is your boss.”
“I don’t think I’m her boss,” Blake pointed out. “I am her boss.” What was that old saying? he tried to remember. Something about a prophet never being honored in his own town.
Caught in the middle, Katie thought it prudent to come to Blake’s defense. “He’s not a slave driver, Wendy. As far as bosses go, Blake’s pretty good.”
Blake inclined his head. “Thank you.” And then he looked at his sister. “At least someone around here appreciates me.”
Slanting a glance at Katie, Wendy smiled and shook her head, amused. Obtuse, that was the word for it, all right. “You, big brother, don’t even know the half of it.”
He had no idea what Wendy was referring to and chalked it up to the fact that pregnancy and the influx of all those extra hormones were making his little sister say some very strange things these days. Even more so than normally.
Maybe it was time to retreat for a little while. After all, it wasn’t as if he didn’t have things to do that would keep him busy.
“Yeah, well, I tell you what, I’ll let you two catch up a little, the way you want, and I’ll swing by Scott’s place to check into a couple of things.” He deliberately struck a courtly pose as he asked, “Will it be all right with you, your highness, if I come back here in, say two hours, and collect my marketing assistant?”
“That’s entirely up to Katie,” Wendy told him, raising her hands as if she had nothing to do with that sort of decision.
It took Katie a second to realize that the ball was now in her court and Blake was waiting for an answer from her. “Fine,” she told him with feeling, coming to. “Two hours will be fine. Sooner if you’d like,” she added as an afterthought.
“You heard the lady,” Wendy said, taking charge again. For emphasis, she waved her brother away from the bed and toward the doorway. She was dying for some alone time with her friend. There were things she just had to find out. “Come back in two hours.”
Blake almost reminded her that Katie had said “or sooner,” then changed his mind. He wasn’t about to argue with Wendy, not about anything if he could help it. Not in her present condition. Heaven only knew what might send her into premature labor again.
“Two hours it is,” he agreed. And with that, he left the room.
“Wendy, I—” Katie began, only to be abruptly stopped by the mother-to-be before she had a chance to say anything more.
Wendy was holding her finger up to halt any further flow of words. At the same time she cocked her head, listening to something other than the sound of Katie’s voice.
Her eyes shifted back to Katie. “Is he gone yet?” she wanted to know.
“Blake?”
Wendy seemed to indicate that she wanted her question answered before another word was said between them. Katie stepped into the hallway to make sure that the man who could raise her body temperature with just a single look in her direction was nowhere in the immediate vicinity.
“Yes,” she said, reporting back, “he’s gone.” Curious, she crossed back to Wendy’s bed and asked her, “Why?”
Because she planned to talk about her big brother and she didn’t want him knowing that, Wendy thought. Out loud, though, she merely said, “I just don’t want him eavesdropping on girl talk, that’s all.” She made a request. “You’re going to be doing me a huge favor, making sure Blake keeps busy while he’s here. Otherwise, he’ll find some excuse to be over here night and day, watching me as if he expects me to suddenly explode or something,” she complained. Being pregnant made her feel hugely vulnerable, not to mention grumpy. She just couldn’t wait to be mistress of her own fate again.
“Sure thing,” Katie readily agreed. That was what she’d initially thought was going to happen, anyway. It was just the car ride from the airport that had thrown a monkey wrench into everything. “I just wish that the campaign he wants me to help him with actually had something to do with work.”
Wendy looked at her, momentarily speechless. Blake hadn’t—He couldn’t have—Her brother could not have laid out his half-baked plan before Katie. Not seriously.
Could he have?
“Don’t tell me that Blake actually asked you to—” Wendy couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence, but the look on Katie’s face made that unnecessary. Wendy covered her face with her hands. “Oh, God, not even Blake could be that dense.” But even as she said it, she mentally crossed her fingers.
The smile on Katie’s lips was small and, when Wendy looked closer she saw that it was also rather sad.
“Oh, I wouldn’t be putting any bets on that if I were you,” Katie advised. “At least, not unless you’re bent on losing.”
Wendy just couldn’t believe it. It was one thing to talk about the idea to her, but she would have thought that someone as savvy as Blake would have come to his senses shortly after he had hatched this stupid, half-baked plan of his.
Closing her eyes for a moment as she searched for strength, Wendy sighed. “Oh, God, Katie, he actually asked you to help him win over that dreadful woman?”
“Well, I don’t know about dreadful,” she allowed loyally, although for the life of her, she was beginning to wonder how she could harbor these feelings for a man who seemed to so easily disregard the fact that she had any feelings at all. “But he did say he wanted me to help him with his ‘campaign’ to win back Brittany Everett.”
Wendy rolled her eyes in frustrated exasperation. “To win her back, my idiot brother would have had to have her in the first place.”
“Wait, I’m confused,” Katie protested. “Didn’t he and Brittany go together just before they graduated college?”
She remembered how upset she’d been when she’d found out that Blake was seeing the beautiful young socialite. Katie had felt as if her entire world was crumbling right beneath her feet. It had taken her a while to get over it and get her mind back on her studies.
“Blake may have been ‘going together,’” Wendy corrected. At least she remembered things clearly, even if Blake didn’t. “Brittany apparently forgot. Besides, there’s absolutely no comparison between the two of you. You have a heart. I think Brittany has a mirror where her heart is supposed to be. While my idiot brother was recruiting you for this impossibly ridiculous mission, did he happen to tell you how he and the Magnolia Queen came to ‘break up’?” Wendy wanted to know.
Katie shook her head. “He didn’t go into any details, no.”
“Then allow me to fill you in,” Wendy offered, warming up to her subject. “They were at a graduation party and became separated. At some point in the evening, he started looking for her. He walked around, searching the immediate party area, and found her making out with another guy.”
Oh, poor Blake, was all Katie could think. “He found Brittany actually kissing some other guy?” she asked incredulously. How could she have even looked at another guy if she knew that Blake was committed to her?
Wendy shook her head, completely disgusted with her brother’s choice in women. “Personally, I don’t understand why Blake would even want to be in the same room with her, much less take her back.”
Wendy was missing one very obvious point, Katie thought. “Maybe because Brittany’s pretty much drop-dead gorgeous.”
Wendy raised her chin. “So are you,” she insisted loyally.
It was Katie’s turn to roll her eyes. “Oh, come on, Wendy. I do own a mirror, you know. I know exactly what I look like.”
Wendy shook her head. Katie was missing the obvious. She’d been such a dedicated soul and hard worker for so long, she didn’t even remember how to use her feminine wiles, but that was all right. Wendy was devious enough for both of them.
“The only difference between you and that woman my brother thinks he wants is that she knows how to apply makeup to her best advantage.” Wendy’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Katie. “Nothing you can’t learn,” she told her emphatically.
Maybe, Katie thought, but not easily. And not quickly enough. “And while I’m busy learning how to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, Blake and Brittany will be exchanging wedding vows,” she concluded unhappily.
Wendy waved away the very notion. “Not in a million years, I guarantee it,” she promised with deadly certainty. She knew the Brittanys of the world. They took up space and looked attractive—as long as no one was looking closely. Because what they had was superficial. What Katie had ran deep. Clear down to the bone.
The next moment, Wendy lapsed into silence as she paused, thinking the situation over—and seeing the potential that had been staring them in the face all along. It might just work.
“You know …” Her voice trailed off as an idea began to take serious shape. And then Wendy smiled. Broadly.
Katie was on her guard instantly. “Uh-oh, I know that look.” It was Wendy’s crafty expression.
The woman was up to something.
Katie held her breath as she asked, “What are you thinking?”
Wendy beamed at her. “Just that my beloved big brother might have just given us the perfect opportunity to make him see just how desirable a woman you really are.”
“Right!” Katie laughed, shrugging off the compliment. But Wendy was obviously not kidding, she realized. “All right, I’m listening. Just how does my helping Blake put together his campaign strategy to bag the elusive Brittany-bird make him suddenly see how supposedly desirable I am?”
“Not supposedly,” Wendy insisted. “You have to start thinking positively, Katie, or this is never going to work.”
“I can think downright unshakably, that still doesn’t mean that I—”
Wendy dropped her bombshell. “He’ll have to practice on you.”
Katie blinked. Had she missed something here? “Excuse me?”
“All these moves he’s going to make on Brittany, he has to practice on someone, polish them up on someone.” To her it was a given. Rehearsals always helped attain the desired results. Wendy smiled at her. “That ‘someone’ is going to be you. Dinner—you, dancing—you, moonlight walks—you, seductive techniques—”
This time, it was Katie who halted the conversation, holding up not just a finger but a whole hand.
“I think I get it,” she said, fighting a very real blush that was swiftly advancing up along her neck and splaying across her cheeks with the force of the evening high tide.
Wendy saw the blush and smiled with satisfaction. “Yes, I can see that you do. By the time we’re finished—by the time you’re finished,” she amended with a smile, “my brother is going to forget that Brittany Everett ever existed.”
Katie had her doubts about that, but she had to admit that she really liked the way it sounded. For now, she allowed herself to savor what to her was tantamount to an impossible dream. She figured it was the least she could do after Wendy had gone to all that trouble to come up with said plan.
Even if it wasn’t going to work.
Chapter Four
“You know, if you were really concerned about me, you’d find a way to get me the hell out of here.”
Javier Mendoza struggled to keep his voice from rising as he complained to his younger brother, Marcos. He’d finally been moved out of ICU into a single care unit, but the hospital walls were only so thick and his deep voice was the kind that carried.
There was a frustrated frown on his handsome face and he looked like a man who was just about to lose the last shred of what was left of his overtaxed patience.
Marcos sympathized with his brother. He knew how he’d feel in Javier’s place, but there was just no way that his brother was leaving here, not yet.
“I am concerned about you, which is why I’m not going to help smuggle you out of here,” Marcos informed him. There was an irrefutable note of finality in his voice that most people—except for his wife, Wendy—knew not to argue with.
But Javier wasn’t listening to the sound of his brother’s voice. He was too focused on his own exasperation. One minute, he was a virile, strong man in his very prime, the next, when he opened his eyes again, he’d lost a month of his life to a coma and had to train his body to do the very basic of life’s functions. Things that most people took for granted—that he had taken for granted—were now challenges to him. His legs refused to obey him and that caused him no end of frustration—as well as scaring the hell out of him. The fear was something he wasn’t about to admit to a living soul, not even Marcos.
Although he had a sneaking suspicion when he looked into Marcos’s eyes that his brother already knew that. However, Marcos had wisely refrained from saying anything about it.
Marcos put a comforting hand on his brother’s shoulder, which, he noted, was utterly stiff with tension.
“Look, Javier, you have to give these doctors a chance,” Marcos urged. “They know what they’re doing and they’re a great deal more familiar with these kinds of … problems,” he finally said, for lack of a better word, “than you are.”
Javier’s dark eyes narrowed angrily. “It’s my body and nobody’s more familiar with it, or how it’s supposed to work, than I am,” he insisted hotly. “Don’t get all hypocritical on me,” he warned. “They wanted to keep Wendy here and she put her foot down, so they gave in and you took her home—just like she wanted,” his brother pointed out.
Marcos shook his head. “No, that was different,” he countered.
“How’s that different?” Javier demanded. He realized that his voice had risen again. Biting back his temper, he made a concentrated effort to lower his tone. “Because Wendy’s your wife and I’m not?”
Marcos laughed shortly. “No offense, Javier, but you’d make a pretty ugly wife,” he cracked, hoping to get some kind of smile out of his brother. He failed. “And it’s different because we don’t know how long Wendy would have to stay here before the baby is strong enough to be born. Wendy’s four walls might have changed, but she still has to stay in bed day and night. She still can’t get up the way she wants to.” Javier had averted his face, but Marcos pressed on. “Now that the doctors have brought you out of that medically induced coma, they have a timetable for you.”
“I’m not interested in their timetable,” Javier snapped.
In his place, Marcos knew he’d feel the same way. But he wasn’t in his brother’s place and it was up to him to calm Javier down and make him be reasonable.
“Well, you should be,” he said firmly. “Trust me, those doctors don’t want to see your ugly face here any more than you want to be here. But this is the place where they can help you, where they can work with you.”
“There’s nothing to work with,” Javier retorted coldly, staring down at the two stiff limbs beneath the blanket. The limbs that refused to move. “Look, if I’ve got to stay here, okay, I’ll stay here. Doesn’t really matter anyway. But I want you to tell everyone to stop coming.”
“Why?” Marcos asked, stunned at this new curve his brother had just thrown him.
“Because I don’t want them to see me like this, that’s why,” he said through gritted teeth.
Ordinarily, because Javier was his big brother and Marcos had grown up looking up to Javier, Marcos would have backed away and not pressed the subject. But this situation didn’t come anywhere near close to fitting the description of being “ordinary.”
“Like what?” he wanted to know.
“Like half a man,” Javier shouted. “There, I said it. You happy now? Like half a man.”
“This is just temporary,” Marcos insisted.
“How do you know that?” Javier challenged. “You saw some written guarantee? How do you know that?” he shouted again.
“Because I do, that’s why,” Marcos shouted back, then caught himself and lowered his voice. “Once the swelling on your spinal cord goes down, you’ll fully regain the use of your legs—and even if you didn’t,” he insisted, “who you are isn’t trapped in any of your limbs. You’re not you because of your legs or your arms or any other damn body part. You’re Javier Mendoza because of what’s inside of you. What’s here,” he said, jabbing his forefinger into the middle of Javier’s chest. “You understand me? So stop your complaining and start focusing all that energy on getting better.”
“You’ve got some mouth on you, you know that?” Javier retorted, but his voice was a little softer now. “Marriage do that to you?” It really wasn’t a serious question, seeing as how, even though Wendy was expecting their first child at apparently any moment, Marcos and she had only been married for a little more than a month. A month that he had completely missed, Javier thought in rueful frustration.
“No, the tornado did,” Marcos replied quite seriously. “Now, I mean it. Stop complaining and just be grateful that you’re still alive and that you have the opportunity to mend. Not everyone was as lucky as you,” he concluded more quietly, grimly recalling that several people he knew had lost their lives in the disaster.
Feeling just the slightest prick of guilt, Javier shrugged defensively as he stared out the window. “Easy for you to say.”
“Easy?” Marcos echoed in disbelief. It felt as if he hadn’t slept more than five hours in the past five weeks. “Ever since that tornado hit and they dug you out, I’ve been trying to find a way to split myself in two, being there for Wendy and here for you,” he elaborated.
“I was in a coma,” Javier pointed out. “There was no need—”
“There was a need,” Marcos interrupted with conviction. “We all took turns reading to you. And there was music playing constantly. Wendy thought it might help. Just because you were in a coma didn’t mean you couldn’t hear,” Marcos insisted. “And besides running back and forth between home and San Antonio, I still had to put in time at the restaurant,” he reminded his brother, referring to Red, the restaurant that he managed for his aunt and uncle.
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