Cowboy at Midnight (15 page)

“Everybody counts, darlin'.”

“Not me,” she whispered, staring at the dark shape of his cowboy hat on the bedpost as his mouth moved to her other nipple and he began to suck. “Counting must be a man thing. All I know is that I'm satiated.”

“Ditto,” he murmured.

“For the moment,” she teased. Wrapped in Steve's arms in the big bed in his hotel room, Amy sighed blissfully as he kissed her breast.

“You know I want you to marry me,” he said.

“I was driving the boat the night Lexie died.”

He sat up a little and smoothed her hair. “It was an accident.”

“I hit that log. We were both thrown out of the boat. She wasn't wearing a life vest, and I was. The horrible part was we searched for her for days.”

“Life isn't fair sometimes. I'm sorry. Sorry for Lexie but maybe sorrier for you.”

“Her father forgave me. Mother called and told me.”

“It's time you let go, too,” he murmured.

She climbed on top of him and hugged him fiercely. “I want to. I'll try to.”

“Marry me,” he said.

“I have no right to be this happy,” she answered, her fingers skimming over his furred chest and down his belly.

“Yes, you do.”

“I can't believe it…. That I met you. That I feel this much better.”

“Believe it,” he whispered. “It's way past time. You deserve to be happy. You're a wonderful, caring person, and I love you very very much. You're going to feel better and better.”

“I do feel better.”

He covered her breasts with his hands, gently cupping them in his palms. “Sometimes pain teaches us more than happiness ever can.”

“I was just so afraid to love again. So fearful I'd repeat all my past mistakes and errors of judgment.”

“Me, too,” he said. “Me, too.”

“Until I found you,” she said. “Then I lost all control.”

“That's what happens when you fall in love,” he murmured against her ear as he slid his arms around her.

“It's not that simple.”

“You keep saying that. Maybe it is.” He kissed her on the mouth. “What do you say we go for number five?”

“Four.”

“You said you weren't counting.”

“I didn't have to count. I
know.
”

“You're not very logical.”

“I've got lots of other faults. I don't believe in happy endings,” she whispered.

“I don't see this ending any other way, do you? I love you and you love me and I intend to fight damned hard to hold on to you.”

“You already have. You made me chase all the demons away.”

“It's about time, darlin'.” His mouth sank onto hers
with a hungry passion that made wild, joyous music sing in her veins.

For the first time since forever, she realized she might be able to believe that all her girlish dreams of happiness could come true.

Suddenly, in his arms, the world held infinite possibilities. She could even see herself married to him, even see herself as a mother.

Love was like that. It made your life bigger. It filled you with courage to tackle new challenges.

There would be darkness again because life was a journey that carried everybody to dark places. But most of all there would be love.

“Yes, I'll marry you,” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

But he heard her and chuckled, gleefully.

“I won.” There was a triumphant note in his voice.

“You won. Love won. And I'm glad,” she said.

“Are you game to try for five?”

She kissed him instead of arguing about his count.

“I
love your family,” Amy said. “You've got handsome brothers. And a beautiful sister. Not to mention really nice parents.”

Steve's triplet brothers and his older brother, Jack, along with Jack's wife, Gloria, were standing near the windows of the great room of the Double Crown Ranch ranch house, talking and laughing as they looked out onto the lush courtyard and grounds. Steve could hear his parents and sister telling family jokes in the kitchen.

“Of course they're handsome,” Steve said. “Two of them are my triplet clones.”

“Not clones. That sounds horrible!”

“Well, the lucky devils look just like me, don't they? Except they're way fatter.”

“They are not!”

“Clyde and Miles have double chins.”

“They do not!”

“Just testing.” Steve winked as he lifted her slim, left hand to his lips, causing the large diamond engagement ring he'd given her to flash. “One thing's for sure. They're not as smart as I am.”

“Says who?”

“I found you, didn't I?”

“You are more a bookworm than they are. All those books on the Greeks.”

“The clones are illiterate.”

“Surely you exaggerate.”

“Like all Texans…except when I say I love you. And I do love you, darlin',” he said. “My love's as big as all of Texas.”

Rosita Perez came up to them with a round silver tray that held sparkling champagne flutes. Steve lifted two and handed one to Amy. “Thank you, Rosita,” he murmured, feeling slightly disturbed when she frowned at him and didn't even seem to hear his greeting.

The vivid white streak in Rosita's hair made her unusually striking. Clearly, she was stewing over something. A palm she'd read maybe? Rosita had the gift of seeing the future. Steve frowned. He certainly hoped she didn't see anything dark in his.

“It was sweet of Ryan and Lily to throw our engagement party,” Amy said, unaware of his thoughts about Rosita. “Mother loves being here. She'll tell everybody she knows for days.”

If her mother had been overjoyed about the engagement, she'd been even more thrilled when Amy had told
her that Ryan Fortune himself was going to give them a small, intimate party to celebrate the event.

“Your mother has talked to Ryan and Lily and the governor nonstop ever since she got here,” Steve said.

“Do you think Ryan looks a little tired?” Amy asked, concern in her gentle voice.

He studied Ryan without comment, and as he did he saw Rosita's troubled gaze on her boss, as well.

“Do you think Mother's wearing him out with all her questions?”

“No.” Steve didn't mention the fact that every time he saw Ryan he felt more concerned about him.

“It's just that she's so excited about being here. Ryan's so famous, you know. What can I say? She's a lawyer. He's high profile. She's impressed that he's a billionaire.”

Ryan's face looked awfully gray, Steve thought. The corners of his mouth were pinched and unsmiling as he pointed to a rather large portrait of Kingston Fortune, who'd founded the ranch. Was worry over the body that had washed up and Gabe Thunderhawk's insinuations making him ill? Or was it something else?

Amy clutched Steve's arm with trembling fingers. “Are you okay?”

Steve took her hand and pressed it reassuringly. The last thing he wanted to mention was the body or his worries about Ryan. This was supposed to be Amy's and his special celebration. Still, he couldn't help noticing that Lily's face was white, and her smile was strained as she watched her husband telling Amy's parents all about the ranch. Ryan's hands shook a little as he pointed to the
portrait, stressing the positive elements of its history rather than the negative. He'd definitely lost that robust look he'd had right after he'd married Lily. Was he hiding something?

Hopefully, the body with the Fortune crown birthmark would soon be identified, his shooter jailed and Ryan cleared of all suspicion. Steve didn't like the way the ongoing investigation into that murder was beginning to loom larger in everybody's mind than the Hensley-Robinson Awards Banquet in honor of Ryan.

Suddenly Ryan turned to face the honorees. Slowly he lifted his champagne flute and tapped a silver spoon against it.

“To the happy couple,” he said.

“Darlin',” Steve murmured, forgetting his concerns as he held his flute so she could sip out of it while she shared hers with him.

She smiled at him, her blue eyes aglow with the promise of unending love. With her golden hair, pretty face and slim figure, she was so beautiful he felt as if his bursting heart could not be contained inside his chest. He was so proud of her for finding the courage to trust in their love.

Suddenly his joy was so great, he was consumed by his love for her. She was everything.

Carefully he took their flutes and set them down on a low table, so he could take her in his arms.

Then his lips were on hers, and he felt the same swift, hot bolt of recognition and passion he'd felt that first moment when he'd seen her in black spandex in his bar and grill.

Had he loved her even then? He didn't know. Who knew when love started? He only knew that he would always love her.

Always….

Everything you love about romance…
and more!

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Bonus Features.

Bonus Features:

Family Tree

The Fortune Family

The Jamison Family

A History of the Fortunes

Sneak Peek

A Baby Changes Everything
by Marie Ferrarella

BONUS FEATURES

 

Cowboy at Midnight

THE FORTUNE FAMILY

 

A Family Tree

THE JAMISON FAMILY

 

A Family Tree

The Fortunes of Texas have a glorious legacy—from the prosperous lands of Red Rock to the urban glitz of San Antonio. Starting with Kingston Fortune's mysterious birth, the Fortunes of Texas have turned all their efforts to gold.

 

W
hen billionaire rancher Ryan Fortune looked out over his massive Texas spread, he saw a legacy left by his father and a dynasty he himself helped to build. Nestled in the hill country of Red Rock, southeast of San Antonio, the Double Crown Ranch was one of the biggest in the state, and Ryan's corporation, Fortune TX, Ltd., one of the most successful in the country. Ryan Fortune counted himself a lucky man. But as he, and every preceding generation of the Fortune family, would attest, no gain ever came without loss….

It all started on a crisp October morning in 1918 when Dora and Hobart Fortune discovered a baby on the doorstep of their Iowa farmhouse. Dora knew
there was something special about the boy the moment she saw his distinctive birthmark in the shape of a three-pointed crown. Appropriately they named the boy Kingston and raised him as their own son.

Kingston's road to fortune was circuitous. When he was eighteen he left the family hog farm and apprenticed to a mason and builder, Josiah Talbot. Talbot was a religious zealot and cruel taskmaster with but one saving grace—his daughter, Patience. Though pure as the driven snow, she heated Kingston's blood with mere stolen glances, and in only a few months, the couple eloped. Escaping her father's wrath, they fled to St. Louis where they had a son, Teddy. Kingston felt he had everything he'd ever dreamed of—a wife, a home, a healthy child.

Then the draft called him, and while serving overseas during World War II, Kingston lost his wife to viral pneumonia and his son to Josiah Talbot, who took the child and disappeared, sending Kingston into a tailspin of depression.

Limping home, he fulfilled a dying army buddy's last wish and delivered a locket to the man's wife on a cattle ranch in the Texas hill country. Selena Hobbs's inner strength impressed Kingston and they soon married. With his know-how, Kingston increased the size of Selena's ranch tenfold, and soon the Double Crown, as he redubbed it, was an impressive spread. He had the good sense to diversify their holdings and invest their growing wealth in various industries.

All his life Kingston never wondered about his biological parents, secure in the love of Dora and Hobart Fortune. Though over the years there had been many who claimed to have information about his true origins, he never followed any of the leads. One person who repeatedly contacted him was Farley Jamison, an Iowan who claimed to be his half brother—the son of the woman who'd supposedly given birth to Kingston and then abandoned him and Travis Jamison, his purported birth father. But Kingston had used his contacts to investigate Farley and knew of his illegal and immoral dealings in the Midwest. Kingston ignored the man and focused instead on his only true family.

Kingston's wife, Selena, gave him three children. While daughter Miranda ran off to seek her own fame and fortune in Hollywood, sons Cameron and Ryan engaged in a sometimes caustic sibling rivalry to gain their father's affections and the run of the ranch. Ryan was a straight arrow and he loved the land, while his brother used charm and wiles to get what he wanted—both with the ranch and with women.

After getting Mary Ellen Lockhart, the daughter of their neighboring rancher, pregnant, Cameron married her. But not until he maliciously pursued—and bedded—his brother's secret love, Lily Redgrove.

From the moment she came to work as a domestic at the Double Crown Ranch, Lily had Ryan Fortune thinking of little else but her; in time they
privately planned to wed. But the chaste woman carried the baggage of her poor, drunkard father and reasoned that the Fortunes would never accept her as an equal. Cameron played upon her fears, eventually breaking up the lovers and then stepping in to woo Lily.

When she discovered she was carrying Cameron's child, an ashamed Lily fled the Double Crown and Ryan. Unable to cope, he joined the army and did a tour in Vietnam. While he was there, Mary Ellen's sister Janine wrote to him religiously, and four years later she was there to celebrate his safe return home. They wed shortly thereafter.

Though his two sisters married Fortune brothers, Clint Lockhart still seethed with a secret hatred for Kingston Fortune and all his descendants. Years earlier, the Lockhart ranch had seen hard times, and to stave off bankruptcy the Lockharts had sold out to Kingston, their ranch being taken up into his vast and growing empire. Revenge boiled up like bile in Clint's mouth. He'd bide his time, but ultimately he vowed revenge on the Fortunes.

With both his sons settled, Kingston divided his holdings between them. Ryan took over the ranching while Cameron looked after the outside interests. But Cameron's drinking and womanizing eventually began to erode their investments as well as his marriage. Mary Ellen and their children— Holden, Logan and Eden—stood by him, silent and faithful.

Though Ryan's insides roiled at his brother's behavior, it was nothing compared to the complete turmoil his life was about to endure. Shortly after their fortieth wedding anniversary, first his mother died, then his father, and within a year, his wife, Janine, leaving Ryan with five children to raise— Matthew, Zane, Dallas, and twins Vanessa and Victoria.

Upon the death of her private patient, nurse Sophia Barnes, quickly went from a sympathetic caregiver to a conniving gold-digger. She set her sights on Janine's widower, the bereaved billionaire, and by the following year she became the second Mrs. Ryan Fortune. But Sophia didn't stop at bedding Ryan; she also took up with Cameron Fortune and the bitter Clint Lockhart. For Clint, still consumed by the grudge he'd nursed for almost thirty years, Sophia represented a crucial piece in his game of revenge.

More grief befell the Fortune clan when, shortly thereafter, an inebriated Cameron was killed when he drove his car into a truck. Unbeknownst to his family, he had added a codicil to his will, designed to keep his oldest son, Holden, from living the same philandering lifestyle as his father. In order to receive his inheritance, Holden had to be married to a woman of good repute. Lucinda Brightwater, a committed doctor and Holden's high-school flame, stepped into a marriage of convenience that quickly
turned into a love match, saving the former bachelor's inheritance.

After Cameron's death, Ryan was left with sole responsibility for the ranch, the corporation—Fortune TX, Ltd.—and the entire family. Though his children were a comfort, he found himself thinking often of the woman he'd lost so long ago—Lily. When a chance encounter at a charity luncheon brought them together again, showing that their blazing attraction had never dimmed over the years, Ryan mustered the courage to file for divorce from Sophia. But Sophia had grown accustomed to the high life and vowed she wouldn't go down without a fight.

The road to happiness wasn't smooth for Ryan and Lily. She still carried the secret of her son Cole's birth and let Ryan believe Cole was the first of three children she'd borne with her late husband, Chester Cassidy, along with daughters Hannah and Maria.

While Hannah, a wedding planner, was thrilled for her mother, Maria Cassidy didn't share Lily's happiness. Fearing that Ryan was merely back for a second fling with Lily, the young woman hatched an evil plan of her own to make the Fortunes pay. Through devious, complicated measures she succeeded in getting secretly impregnated by Matthew Fortune—via the sperm he'd sold years ago to a California sperm bank while he was in medical school.

Maria surreptitiously descended upon the Double Crown Ranch at the same time that Sophia and
Clint put into motion their plan to bilk the Fortune wealth by kidnapping the son of Ryan's eldest child, Matthew, and his wife, Claudia. Bryan Fortune was to be abducted from the ranch on his christening day. But instead of stealing Bryan, the bungling kidnapper took Maria's infant son, James. Instead of anguish, Maria felt no emotion except elation over what she perceived as a serendipitous opportunity. She merely walked away with Bryan Fortune and replaced into the crib the kidnapper's ransom note demanding $50 million.

Working with Vanessa Fortune, a psychologist, FBI agent Devin Kincaid retrieved the infant and the ransom, but not the kidnappers. Any happiness at finding the baby and each other was short-lived, as the parents claimed that the boy, while definitely a Fortune—due to the crown birthmark—was not Bryan. Through DNA samples, Red Rock's sheriff, Wyatt Greyhawk, determined that Matthew Fortune was indeed the mystery baby's father, throwing his marriage into chaos despite Matthew's assurances of fidelity. He and Claudia took in the child while the investigation continued, temporarily naming him Taylor.

Stress took a toll on everyone. Ryan and Lily once again put their future together on hold, thanks to Sophia's increasingly outrageous settlement demands. And Maria Cassidy spiraled downward into insanity, becoming a crazed recluse in her trailer home in the nearby town of Leather Bucket. A year
after the original kidnapping, she sent a ransom note for Bryan Fortune's return, but unstable and paranoid, she was too afraid to collect the millions.

Clint Lockhart, who by now had waited more than three decades for his revenge on the Fortunes, tired of waiting for his cut of Sophia's ever-increasing divorce settlement. His anger erupted in a volcanic display of violence, resulting in Sophia's death. But the conniving miscreant refused to be undone, carefully planting evidence to frame Lily Redgrove Cassidy as the killer.

For Lily, there was only one lawyer to represent her—her son, Cole. With the help of an outstanding private investigator, Annie Jones, Cole set out to find the evidence that would prove his mother's innocence, and in so doing, he found love.

Everyone in Red Rock supported Lily—even Rosita Perez, the Fortunes' longtime housekeeper whose Mexican ancestors blessed her with the gift of second sight. The woman had visions of Sophia's murder but was unable to clearly identify her killer. Nothing could allay Rosita's fears—not even the marriages of her children. Her son Cruz was now settled down with a pregnant wife after Savannah had run away, unsure whether the horse trainer was ready for a family. And Rosita's daughter Maggie helped forge even tighter bonds between the Perezes and their employers by marrying Dallas Fortune.

While bolstering Lily's hope, Ryan had his own troubles. His daughter Victoria was trapped in a coup in the South American country where she worked as a nurse, causing him tense weeks until Quinn McCoy, a fearless soldier of fortune, was able to rescue her. Their engagement lifted Ryan's spirits for a while, as did the arrival of the child of Kingston Fortune's long-lost daughter, Miranda. When she arrived in Red Rock with amnesia, Sheriff Wyatt Greyhawk uncovered Gabrielle Carter's true identity as a Fortune. Through her, Ryan was put in touch with his sister Miranda, whom he hadn't seen since she was a teenager.

Cole and Annie's hard work eventually paid off and he fingered Clint Lockhart. Clint not only confessed to Sophia's murder but to his role in the kidnapping of Bryan Fortune. Shortly after Lily was freed, Cole followed up on a hunch that led him to his sister Maria's remote trailer. There he found the lost Bryan and reunited him with his parents, Matthew and Claudia, who realized their enduring love and took Bryan home to meet his new half brother, Taylor. Maria Cassidy, with Cole's legal representation, pled guilty to all counts and was ordered to serve her time in a mental rehabilitation center.

Happy to be free of the false charges, Lily decided to tell the truth about Cole's parentage. When he heard that Cole was Cameron's illegitimate son, Ryan found it in his heart to forgive Lily; after all,
she was the woman he'd loved his entire adult life. They went ahead with their long-awaited wedding on the Double Crown, with the help of Lily's daughter Hannah, who not only designed a perfect affair for the couple but a perfect future for herself with Ryan's lawyer, Parker Malone.

Ryan took his place next to all the happily settled Fortunes, including all his children, even Zane, the confirmed bachelor whom his sisters had endlessly tried to matchmake. Thanks to Vanessa and Victoria's meddling, he found true love with single mother Gwen Hutton, the woman he'd hired to pose as his steady girlfriend.

Cameron's children, too, were all married. Not only were Holden and Lucy and their child celebrating at the wedding, but so were Holden's siblings, Logan and Eden. Logan, the executive VP of Fortune TX, Ltd., hadn't been quite the philanderer his father was, but he'd sowed some wild oats as a young man, one of which resulted in him being the father of a toddler girl. When her mother died and surprisingly left the child to him, Logan was ill equipped to handle her care. As he searched for a nanny, his secretary, Emily Applegate, finally got her chance to show how much she loved Logan from afar by caring for them both. Eden Fortune, too, had been reunited with Ben Ramir, the sheikh with whom she had a son years ago.