Chicken Kiev, glazed asparagus, and some kind of chocolate confection that smelled
as good as it looked, stared up at her. She picked up one of the containers, turning
it until she saw the name of the restaurant blazoned on the side. “Lombardi’s? You
brought me takeout from the best restaurant in town?”
He shrugged. “You didn’t eat much at the party last night, and this morning you skipped
out without any breakfast.”
“And how do you know I didn’t stop at a fast-food joint on the way?”
He shook his head. “Fast food is unhealthy. Besides, you were in too much of a hurry
to check up on that preemie. How is she, by the way?”
“Past the crisis point. Healthwise, at least. Looks like she’s going to be okay.”
Holden smiled. “I peeked in at her on the way up. Looks like a fighter to me.”
Lucy felt her brows draw together, and she tipped her head to one side. She never
would have suspected Holden to have cared one way or the other about that baby. In
fact, she would have thought he’d have forgotten all about it by now. But he’d actually
gone by the nursery to peek in at the child?
Who the hell was this guy? He sure wasn’t the Holden Fortune she’d known. Or the one
she’d
thought
she’d known.
She dug into the food, which was heavenly. “This is great, Holden. It was really sweet
of you.”
“I had another reason for being here.”
“Oh?”
“I promised to get your stuff moved in today, remember?”
She blinked, gave her head a shake. “I thought that meant you’d be sending some movers
to take care of it.”
“I did. They’re meeting me at your place in—” he glanced at his watch “—thirty minutes.”
He shrugged. “I just didn’t think you’d want strangers going through your stuff, unsupervised.
Besides, I want to personally pick up the beast you call a cat. So I’m…”
“Supervising?”
He grinned. “Guess that would be the word for it.”
“Well, don’t be surprised if you find a couple in the apartment when you get there.”
Holden frowned. “You sublet it already?”
“No. I loaned it out. To that little preemie’s parents. They needed a place to stay…ah,
it’s a long story. At any rate, I told them they could use the place until the baby’s
released.”
Holden stared at her for a long moment.
“You don’t approve?” she asked.
“I… You’re so
good.
You know that? You amaze me.”
She felt her face heat, and looked away. “I just wanted to help.”
He was still looking at her when she faced him again. But he sighed, gave his head
a shake, and finished his meal. She really didn’t know what to make of Holden Fortune
anymore. She’d thought of him in the same way for so very long, and now it seemed
every day brought a new and unexpected revelation.
“So, did you like your lunch?” he asked when nothing remained but the empty containers
he was even now tossing into the wastebasket.
“It was the best lunch I’ve ever eaten at this hospital. I’m not used to so much pampering,
Holden. You’re going to spoil me.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the plan.” He offered her a small, oddly shy smile. “You’re a
Fortune now, Doc. Might as well get used to a little pampering.”
He got to his feet, and she walked with him to the door. But he hesitated there, shifting
his weight from one foot to the other, and not quite meeting her eyes.
“Hell,” he said, and then he leaned down and brushed a kiss across her lips, turned
and hurried away.
Lucy stared after him in abject confusion. What the hell was that all about?
An RN passed by, sent Lucy a wink. “New boyfriend?” she asked.
“New husband,” Lucy replied. “Totally new.”
J
ust as Lucy had said he might, Holden found Miguel Gonzales at her apartment. What
he did not find was the moving men he’d hired.
Miguel offered his assistance, as well as his pickup, and the two of them spent the
afternoon packing and loading Lucy’s belongings, and her cat, trucking them out to
the house, and then unloading them again.
Miguel turned out to be a strong son of a gun with ambition to spare, and it made
Holden think. The guy wasn’t lazy. He wasn’t stupid, either. But he had been born
into poverty, and raised in it as well, and it seemed to have had its claws into him
before he ever had a chance. One bad break after another. But he was a fighter, same
as Holden had pegged his little daughter to be. And he was determined to get past
it.
“It’s hard,” Miguel said as he packed knickknacks from the living room into boxes,
wrapping each one in newspaper first. “I took the first job I could find, but it was
only part-time, so, no insurance. Then I find a second part-time job, and then a third,
but again, part-time, no insurance. The bosses, they work me all the hours they can,
but refuse to put me on as full-time help. Because then they would have to pay more
in benefits for me.”
“It ought to be criminal,” Holden commented. He
was in the next room, Lucy’s bedroom, folding her clothes into boxes. It was a bit
tough to concentrate on what Miguel was saying every now and then, when he’d find
himself holding some scrap of an underthing in his hands, feeling its silk, thinking
of Lucy.
“Meanwhile, I work so many hours there is no time to go out looking for a better job.
And if I take time off to do so, I don’t get paid. I cannot afford to miss a single
day’s work. I was lucky to be able to get away for the birth of my daughter and to
visit her today in the hospital.” He sighed loudly.
Holden tugged another item out of Lucy’s dresser, and began to fold. Then he noticed
the photo on the dresser. Lucy, probably about eleven years old or so. Standing in
between her father and her mother. Looking happy, carefree.
“Your wife…she is a good woman, Señor Fortune,” Miguel said slowly. “It would have
hurt my Gina deeply not to be able to see our baby every day. But the doctor, she
knew that.”
“I know she’s a good woman.” Holden stared at the photograph, thinking not long after
it had been taken, she must have lost her mother. And how painful that had been for
her. How painful it still was.
And her father was out of her life too, for all intents and purposes.
She was good, and kind and caring. She didn’t deserve all the unhappiness she’d seen
in her life.
“You know she’s going to set up a clinic out near where you live,” he said, just to
make conversation.
“She is?”
“Yeah. One people can afford to use. Pregnant women, babies, all that stuff.”
Miguel came to stand in the doorway, and when Holden looked up, it was to see his
eyes were filled with admiration. “Do you know what that will mean to our women, Señor
Fortune?” He shook his head slowly. “I think this wife of yours, she is some kind
of angel.”
Holden smiled widely, and his chest literally felt as if it were swelling with pride.
“She is, isn’t she?” Amazingly, she was so good that she made him want to be better.
For her.
Two days later Lucy was running late at the hospital again, and feeling especially
guilty since she’d promised to go to the Double Crown for dinner with her husband
and his family tonight. Holden didn’t deserve this. He’d been so sweet since he’d
brought her home. On the couch, every night. Not a complaint about her sudden loss
of interest in—
“Running late again?” he asked.
“I’m so sorry, Holden,” Lucy said into the receiver. “I didn’t intend to be here this
late, it just—”
“Don’t apologize. You’re a doctor. That’s what you do, and doctors have strange hours.
It’s fine.”
He was being so damned nice. It was one thing to go ahead with her plan to get pregnant
when she thought he was a jerk, but when he was this sweet all the time… Hell, she
didn’t know which was the real Holden Fortune. The thoughtful, caring man she’d married,
or the rogue who’d stolen her virginity all those years ago?
“I really wanted to go over to the Double Crown with you tonight.”
“You will. I’ll wait for you.”
“Oh, but I don’t want to hold you up.”
“But you don’t want to walk in there alone, either.”
She smiled at his perceptiveness. He had a way of knowing almost exactly what she
was thinking so often it was getting uncanny.
“Meet you in an hour, then?”
“I’ll be here. And, Lucy?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t go driving fast or anything stupid like that, okay? If you’re late, you’re
late.”
“Thank you, Holden.”
She heard the click as he hung up the phone. She replaced the one on her desk, sat
there a moment, and just shook her head. What if he really was this sweet man he seemed
to be? What if…
She closed her eyes, licked her lips. She wanted to make love to him again. And not
just to get pregnant. What the hell was wrong with her?
A tap on her office door brought her out of her thoughts, and when she went to answer
it, she found Gina Gonzales standing there, smiling at her.
“I don’t know how I will ever repay you,” the woman said, and she wrapped her arms
around Lucy and hugged her tight. “But I promise you I will find some way.”
Lucy accepted the hug. “Gina, really. It’s no big deal. The apartment was just sitting
empty anyway and—”
“Oh, but I am not talking about just the apartment!” Gina backed off, and looked up
at her, smiling. Then her smile faded. “You mean, you do not know what your husband
has done?”
“My…husband?”
“
¡Sí!
That man of yours, he has given my Miguel a job at his company!”
Lucy blinked. “He…did?”
Gina nodded hard. “With good pay. And insurance, and he even fixed things so the hospital
bill will be paid.” She shook her head slowly. “I thought he would have told you all
of this.”
“No,” Lucy said. “No, he didn’t say a word.”
“You thank him for me,” Gina said, smiling. “You tell him my Miguel will be the best
worker he has ever had.”
“I’m sure he will.”
Gina turned to hurry back to the nursery, leaving Lucy standing there dumbstruck.
Damn. Okay, then. That sealed it. Holden Fortune may have been a total jerk once.
But he wasn’t that anymore.
And it would be wrong of her to trick him into getting her pregnant. Dead wrong. So
she couldn’t very well go back to sleeping with him….
Oh, but what if he still wanted to?
Stupid question. What she really meant was, what if
she
still wanted to. And it wasn’t even a question, really. She
did
want to. And it was a mistake, and she knew it, and she wanted to anyway. Hell, why
did he have to be this way? She would have been perfectly safe if he’d only been the
bastard she’d believed him to be. Perfectly safe.
But she wasn’t safe. Her heart wasn’t safe, and her body had already surrendered to
the other side.
With a sigh, she gave up. She wanted him again. She also wanted a baby, but that was
going to have to wait now. She’d just have to take her chances. It
wasn’t fair to use a decent man the way she’d planned to use Holden.
She grabbed her purse, locked her office door, and headed out of the hospital. She’d
figure all this out later.
Somehow.
Holden was waiting for her on the front porch when she got home that night. Looking
too good to be legal. Relaxed, sitting in the porch swing, and wearing a pair of snug-fitting
jeans, a Western shirt with pearl snaps, a belt with a big fat buckle, and even boots.
Lucy felt herself smile when she saw him sitting there, waiting for her, his eyes
warm and attentive. It felt good having something to come home to besides an empty
apartment and a fistful of impossible dreams.
Holden rose slowly, reaching out a hand to take hers. “You look beat,” he told her.
“Sit down for a minute.”
She eyed the porch swing longingly, but shook her head. “I should shower and change.
We’re already late—”
“So we’ll be a little later. No one’s gonna be upset. Come on.” He tugged her, until
she sat in the swing. Then he went to the wicker stand and poured iced tea from a
dewy pitcher into a tall glass. He brought it back, pressed it into her hand, and
sat down beside her. “Tough day?”
She took a long pull from the glass, and it seemed to cool and refresh her inside.
Leaning her head back, finding his arm behind her for a pillow, she closed her eyes.
“I had to tell a fifteen-year-old girl that she was
pregnant this morning.” She shook her head slowly. “Things didn’t get any better from
there.”
“I’m sorry.” He sighed slowly. “What’s she going to do?”
Lifting her head, opening her eyes, Lucy found herself surprised he would ask. But
less surprised than she would have been the day before. “I don’t know. I had a long
talk with her and her mother, tried to explain all the options to them. But…well,
they’ll need some time to think it through.”
Holden nodded. “And you’ll lose sleep over it until they decide.” She frowned at him,
but he just shook his head. “Don’t bother denying it. You care about these people.
Maybe a little more than is healthy for you, Doc.”
“You should talk,” she said quickly.
It was Holden’s turn to frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She took another drink, and set the glass down, turning toward him in the swing. “I
had a visit from Gina today. She told me what you did for Miguel.”
“Oh.” Holden shrugged, averting his eyes. “It wasn’t that big a deal, Lucy.”
“Oh, no? It changed their lives, you know. I’d call that a big deal.”
He sighed. “I like the guy. We met and got to talking when I moved your things from
your apartment. Thought he deserved a break, and hell, if I can’t give a decent man
like Miguel a leg up, then what’s the point in running Fortune TX at all?”
She stared at him for a long moment. “You are a decent man, Holden Fortune.”
“You say that like it’s a surprise.”
“It is. All this time you’ve had me thoroughly convinced that you were as shallow
and self-centered as…as those bimbos you date—”
“Used to date,” he corrected her gently. Then he looked away, drawing a deep breath,
lifting his chin. “And you were right to believe that. Because it was true. If I’ve
changed then it’s your fault.”
“My fault?” She tipped her head to one side, watching his face. His jaw was tight,
and she sensed he wasn’t just making conversation here, but speaking from somewhere
deep.
He nodded, meeting her eyes. “You are so good. You make me want to be a better man.”
Inexplicably, her eyes grew damp, and she averted them to hide the fact. “That’s…a
really sweet thing to say.”
“It’s the truth. Since you’ve been around I’ve…I don’t know, been seeing things a
whole lot differently.” He shrugged. “I’ve even started thinking maybe I’m not so
much like my old man, after all.”
His gaze was practically searing her skin, and her mind was jumping all over the place
trying to interpret those words. She didn’t want to read him wrong. It scared the
hell out of her, and she got to her feet, not knowing how to reply or even how to
feel. “I should go get ready.”
“Okay. Make it casual, Lucy. I thought maybe we could go riding after dinner.”
She paused in the doorway. Horseback riding, around the sprawling Double Crown. It
would be romantic, and they would be all alone. And she wanted him. So how was she
supposed to deal with that?
Lucy looked like a million dollars, and Holden tried for a second to imagine walking
into the big, rustic dining room at the Double Crown with any other woman on his arm
and feeling the way he felt right now. But he couldn’t. Lucy was one of a kind. She
wore her hair loose, and it gleamed, as black as midnight, and moved with her. Even
in her jeans and white silk blouse, and a pair of ankle-high suede boots, she looked
like royalty. She wore blue jeans the way Audrey Hepburn or Jackie O would wear them.
You couldn’t hide that inborn grace beneath clothes. It would shine through if she
wore a feedbag, he thought.
It was an intimate dinner, not the whole clan tonight, and that was good. Uncle Ryan
and Lily were there, along with Matthew and Claudia, and Dallas, Ryan’s youngest son,
and Vanessa, one half of the Fortune twins.
“I’m so sorry we’re late,” Lucy said the second they entered the room. “It was my
fault. I got tied up at the hospital.”
“Don’t apologize, Lucy,” Lily said quickly. “We’re all aware how important your work
is. And while dinners can wait, babies can’t.”
“That’s true enough.” Lucy smiled, and the others, who’d been milling around snacking
on hors d’oeuvres, took their seats. Holden pulled out Lucy’s chair for her, and then
took the one beside her.
The first thing Lucy did was reach across the table to cover Claudia’s hand with her
own. “How are you holding up?”
Claudia lowered her eyes. “Just getting through one hour at a time, though they seem
endless.”
“I know.”
“Any new developments since I spoke to you last?” Holden asked his cousin.
Matthew shrugged. “No, nothing.”
“Actually,” his father said, clearing his throat, “there is one bit of news to report.
I had a call from the FBI today.” Everyone looked toward Ryan, and Holden could almost
feel Matthew and Claudia holding their breath. “They’re sending in a top-notch special
agent to take over the investigation. Fellow by the name of Devin Kincaid.”
“And that’s
good
news?” Vanessa asked, her voice as soft as always.
Ryan looked at her, frowning. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Shrugging, Vanessa sighed. “I just think we’re going about this all wrong. Everyone’s
looking for clues and evidence, looking at dollars and cents, waiting for the kidnappers
to make a move.” She shook her head. “What we ought to be doing is getting inside
the kidnappers’ heads, figuring out why they took Bryan away, what’s motivating them.”