Fortune's Cinderella (10 page)

He hadn’t planned on telling his father about Christina—especially not before he had it sorted out in his own head—but there was nothing to be gained from not being honest. To a point.

“The young woman I was trapped with—Christina. Her foot’s broken, meaning she’s going to be laid up for some time. I don’t feel…it’s right to leave before I make sure she’s taken care of.”

His father frowned. “She doesn’t have family? Friends?”

“Her support system is apparently pretty meager. Nor can she afford nursing care.”

“And she knows you’re a Fortune.”

“Well, yes, obviously she does. Although she hasn’t asked for anything, I assure you,” he said to his father’s Watch out frown.

“But the least we can do is make sure she’s okay. And since I’m hanging around for Javier, anyway…”

“One week, Scott,” his father said, jabbing his index finger in Scott’s direction. “You make sure this…Christina has whatever she needs, then you get your butt back where it belongs. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly,” Scott said, knowing, as he left his father’s room, that he wasn’t going to feel any differently in a week than he did right now…that there was something here he needed. Something he’d risk everything he’d ever known, ever been, to get.

He doubted his father would ever understand. But for the first time in his life, Scott thought as he climbed behind the steering wheel, right now he didn’t much care.

At the purr of Scott’s rental car pulling up in front of her apartment, Gumbo bounded off Christina’s lap and boing-boinged across the floor to the front door to sniff and whine and wag until Scott let himself in. Two days, two years, whatever, it made no difference to a dog—they were now friends for life.

“Hey, guy—no, this isn’t for you, so back off.” Gumbo now in retreat—for the moment—Scott grinned over at Christina, holding his prize aloft, and her heart boing-boinged worse than the dog. Which was getting to be a habit. A very, very bad one.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Better,” she lied. The doctor had been dead-on about how sore she’d be. Her foot didn’t even hurt that much anymore, but man, every muscle in her body ached. Since she didn’t want to get too cozy with the big-gun pain meds, however, she’d been popping Tylenol like there was no tomorrow. Not that it helped much.

“Have you been moving, as the doctor suggested?”

She glared at Scott. “You bet. What’s in the bag?”

“Dinner. From Red. Some new chicken dish Enrique came up with. You hungry?” he said, heading into the tiny kitchen for plates and flatware while holding a nonstop, one-sided conversation with the dog. This person who’d been waiting on her hand and foot since his family’s return to Atlanta was definitely not the same uptight dude who’d flinched at the idea of drinking plain coffee…a metamorphosis she’d been observing with a combination of amusement and sheer terror.

Because let’s be real here, boys and girls—she could like this new, improved Scott Fortune a whole lot. Yes, even more than she’d liked the old one. Not good. Especially since she figured he probably saw her as some sort of, well, charity project.

“Sure,” she said, even though she rarely felt like eating much, what with her only exercise these days being getting up to pee every few hours or point the remote. Whoopee.

Humming, he carted in their food, setting hers on the TV tray that had become a permanent fixture beside the sofa, and the light from the lamp played across his handsome face, provoking all sorts of prickles of a sexual nature. Which only went to prove that God did indeed have a very strange sense of humor.

“I hate this,” she muttered.

Scott frowned. “You haven’t even tasted it yet.”

“No, I mean this.” She waved her hand toward her foot, stretched out in front of her underneath one of her long summer skirts, which were easier to deal with than jeans. “I’m not incapacitated, I can walk with the crutches—”

“After a fashion. And you also know if you don’t keep the foot elevated it will take longer to heal.”

“Are you always this irritatingly logical?”

“Yes. Are you always this argumentative?”

“Only around irritatingly logical people,” she grumbled, hefting her fork to begin her nightly ordeal of picking at her food. Except when she finally put a bite into her mouth, she practically swooned. “Ohmigosh, this is good.”

“Told ya,” Scott said, his crisp, upscale khakis, deep blue dress shirt and la-di-da sweater—part of the haul overnighted from various online clothing companies to replace his lost luggage—so at odds with the poor old recliner it almost hurt to look at him.

Them. “I called a medical supply company, by the way. Said they’d have a shower chair delivered in the next couple of days.”

“I’ll make sure I’m here, then,” she said drily, only to then notice half her food was already gone. Wow.

“So,” Scott said, looking all relaxed and whatnot in the chair. As opposed to Gumbo, who was about to quiver his fur right off at the prospect of something, anything, falling off Scott’s plate and into his mouth. “You up for taking down the tree tonight?”

Christina’s gaze swerved to her little tree, still valiantly twinkling away in the corner. “Or I could simply let it stay up until next year, save the trouble of doing it all over again.”

“I did that one year. When I was, I don’t know…eight or nine, maybe? We were all allowed to have a tree in our rooms, if we wanted. And that year I decided to decorate mine with action figures. GI Joes and He-Man stuff, mostly. Coolest tree ever,” he said, chewing. “Couldn’t bear to take it down. So I didn’t.”

“Ever?”

“Might still be there, for all I know,” he said, and she laughed. Then she sighed.

“It is tempting, to leave it up. But if I do, what’ve I got to look forward to next year?”

Setting his plate on the floor—to Gumbo’s unbridled joy—Scott propped his elbow on the arm of the chair to rest the side of his face in his hand. “You really see yourself in the same place next year? In your life, I mean?”

His question caught her up short. “I…don’t know. I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Then maybe you should,” he said softly, rising to take her plate, as well as his dog-slimed one, to the kitchen.

“No,” she said to his back, making him turn. “No, you’re right…of course I don’t see myself in the same place.”

His smile warmed her heart. And scared the heck out of her. Nobody ever paid this much attention to her, ever. Or cared two hoots about her plans. Her dreams. To be treated like a grown-up, and an intelligent one at that…

“Good girl,” he said, then pointed to the tree, one eyebrow raised.

Christina nodded, sighing as Scott began to dismantle it, handling the cheap ornaments like they were precious heirlooms.

Just like he’s handling you, she thought, stifling a sudden urge to throw something at the man.

Scott had meant what he’d said—to his father, about feeling a responsibility to help Christina; to Christina, about genuinely liking her. Nor could he deny the immediate whoosh of attraction, off-the-wall though that had been. However, if he were being honest, another thought had niggled, that those feelings would pass. That the mist of infatuation would clear and he’d see Christina as simply a sweet, very pretty young woman who could use a helping hand. Period.

Four days on, he was pretty sure he could put that worry to rest.

Especially since he’d seen Christina at her worst, during those four days—frustrated and cranky and given to periodic bouts of pure muleheadedness just for the heck of it, as far as he could tell. Once or twice she’d even snarled at him. But was he put off?

Nope.

And how could he be, when she’d also laugh at herself for being such a pain in the butt. Or compliment his cooking skills, such as they were, with a sparkle in her eyes that turned him inside out. Or ask him what courses he thought she should take to help her reach her goals. And with every laugh, every tease, every sparkle, the mist cleared a little more, leaving Scott even more convinced that while adrenaline and testosterone might have fueled that initial, kick-to-the-head reaction, neither accounted for what he was feeling now.

What the next step was, however, was anybody’s guess.

He’d spent most of the day putting out metaphorical fires Mike couldn’t, or didn’t want to, handle back in Atlanta. Now he pulled up in front of Christina’s apartment, making a mental note to research an outfit that could fix that pool. Enid’s insurance would take care of the tornado damage, but he was guessing the pool had fallen victim to insufficient cash flow. That, he could handle…

He saw Christina’s curtains twitch as he got out of the car, a bouquet of flowers in hand. A moment later the landlady came out onto the porch, silently shutting the door behind her and huddling inside a heavy cardigan against the night’s chill. They’d only chatted a couple of times since Scott brought Christina home, but now the old woman’s protective, suspicious expression, even in the jaundiced light from the caged bulb over the door, put him on alert.

“I’m just leaving, I think my hanging around was making her twitchy,” Enid said with an eyeroll behind the glasses. “But she’s already had supper, dog’s been fed, too.”

“Thank you—”

“So what’s your deal with her, anyway?”

“Pardon?”

The old woman snagged his arm—with a far stronger grip than he’d expected—and tugged him out into the parking lot, where she crossed her arms over her bony chest and somehow managed to back him against his own car.

“Mr. Fortune, not that I’m not appreciative of everything you’ve done for Chrissie, but you need to know…that gal’s been through the mill. Been screwed over too many times by too many people. That she’s as sweet as she is, is nothing short of a damn miracle. So you feel sorry for her, or what?”

“As in, pity her? No. Do I think she deserves better than life’s given her so far? Absolutely.” He palmed the car’s fender. “I take it you don’t have a problem with that?”

“Depends.”

Scott suppressed a grin. Barely. A lesser man—or a smarter one, perhaps—would be halfway to the hills by now. “Mrs. Jackson

—I promise you I only want to help. And I can give her whatever she needs—”

“Oh, I imagine you can buy her plenty. But before you go bandying around the word give, you might want to think about what that really means.”

Okay, that gave him pause. Because…did he? Know how to give in the way she meant it?

“Are you saying she’s fragile?”

“Oh, hell, no. Gal’s as tough as they come. She’s had to be, you know? That don’t mean she might not mistake your…kindness for something more. That she can’t still be hurt. That she’s not still hurting. And I’m not talking about her foot.”

“I didn’t think you were—”

“I love that little gal like she’s my own, and that’s the Lord’s truth. More’n her own mama ever has, from everything I can tell. So the last thing I want is for some fancy man to come along and break her heart all over again. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly. Are we done here?”

“No.” Enid backed up, barely, her eyes pinched nearly closed. “I ain’t never been rich, Mr. Fortune. But I cleaned houses for enough wealthy families over the years to come to a conclusion or two about ’em. Either they pretend the poor don’t exist, or they’re curious about us, like we’re a different species. Christina don’t need you being fascinated with her, that’s all I’m saying.”

Scott pulled in a deep, steadying breath through his nose. Even though her sentiments weren’t far off from the very thoughts he’d been wrestling with, they still rankled. “Mrs. Jackson,” he said quietly, “my mother drilled it into all our heads from the time we were babies that people are people, that who they are isn’t defined by what they have. Or don’t have. I’ll admit, I am fascinated, because I’ve never known anyone like her. But when I say that, I’m talking about her character. Who she is. Not what she is. Do I make my point clear?”

Several seconds passed before a soft cackle fell from Enid’s shapeless, wrinkled mouth. “I guess you do at that. Don’t mean I’m still not keeping my eye on you.”

And he thought the dog was bad. “Wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said with a little salute, then walked back to Christina’s door, realizing he’d been gripping the flowers hard enough to practically bend the stems.

Over Gumbo’s excited barking, Christina yelled, “Door’s open, come on in! Dog! For crying out loud, hush!”

Scott’s entrance sent Gumbo into his happy-happy-joy-joy dance, his long tail wagging so hard it was a wonder it stayed on.

“Sit,” Scott commanded, and after some effort the poor animal managed to lower his wriggling butt so it hovered right above the carpet, eyes glued to Scott in rapturous adoration. To complete the look, one ear, then the other, slowly flopped out.

“That’s as close as it gets,” Christina said fondly. “Something about the way he’s put together, he can’t get his backside all the way to the ground.”

Then she noticed Scott had turned his frown on her and a chill snaked through her whole body, and that was the sorry truth. Good Lord, he was big. Bigger than she remembered, frankly. Or maybe it was only that her apartment seemed smaller.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?” he said. Still frowning.

She sighed. “Like your little chat with Enid isn’t sitting so well.” The dog looked from Scott to her, figured nobody was paying attention to him—which would never do—so he sashayed over to the sofa and hopped up beside her. Wedging his sturdy little body between her hip and the cushioned back, he laid his head on her lap with a contented groan. “Those flowers for me or the dog?”

“You can share,” he said, handing her the bouquet. “You heard us?”

“Your voices, yes. Not what y’all were saying.” She buried her nose in the delicate lavender mums, the scent fresh and sweet, then lifted them to Scott again. “I don’t even own a real vase, but you might find a jar under the sink that’ll work. I take it she was doing her Rottweiler number on you?” she said as he crossed to the kitchen.

“I was thinking more along the lines of rabid Chihuahua, but yes.”

“She means well,” she said over the water’s thrashing into a big olive jar. “And it is nice to have somebody on my side.”