Fortune's Legacy (6 page)

But all those years under Leonard Fortune's thumb had forged steel in his children. God knew, he hadn't meant to do them any favors. If anything, he'd done his best to break them all.

Except for her.

Guilt pinged around inside her like an old familiar ache. She'd never had to suffer the same kind of abuse her siblings had, because Vincent, her oldest brother, had protected her from it. He'd given up a lot to keep her safe. To keep her from buckling beneath their father's self-hatred.

She owed Vincent more than she could ever repay.

So, if she had to live in an impersonal little condo, she would. If she had to work twenty hour days, she would.

And if she had to travel to Colorado with the devil himself, she damn well
would
.

Carrying her tea back to the bedroom, she set it down on the pine bedside table and turned back to her packing.

When the phone rang a few minutes later, Kyra snatched it up, tucked it between her chin and shoulder and kept packing. “Hello?”

“Hi, Kyra, it's me.”

Smiling, she dropped her royal-blue sweater on top of the packed clothes in her suitcase, then turned and plopped down onto the side of her bed. “Hi, Susan,” she said, picturing her sister sitting at her cozy kitchen table with a cup of steaming herbal tea in front of her. “What's up?”

There was a long pause, and a flash of worry darted through Kyra. “What is it? What's wrong? Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.”

“Ethan?” Kyra prodded, instinctively responding to the heaviness in her sister's voice.

“He's fine, too,” Susan assured her, and Kyra relaxed a little when she heard the smile in her sister's voice. It happened every time the woman spoke about her new husband.

Pulling her legs up, Kyra folded them beneath her, cross-legged and stared across the room at the open window and the trees beyond. As always, the sight of the wind sighing through the new green leaves calmed her.

“Tell me,” she said softly.

“It's Ryan,” Susan said. “He doesn't have much longer.”

“Oh, God.” Kyra squeezed her eyes shut and took the blow. She'd known for a month or more that Ryan Fortune was dying, but somehow, Kyra had convinced herself that he would find a way to beat the death sentence handed him. If anyone could have, it would have been him. “How long?”

“No one knows for sure,” Susan said with a sigh. “But my guess is a few days at most.”

“I'm so sorry,” she said softly, knowing it wasn't enough. Could never be enough.

“I know. Me, too. It's just so sad at the ranch right now, Kyra.” She paused, then continued. “Ryan's kids are coming in, gathering. There are telegrams and flowers arriving every minute, it seems. And just yesterday,
two ambassadors and a prince showed up at the Double Crown just to say goodbye to him.”

In spite of the sorrow welling within, Kyra smiled. “Not surprising, is it? Ryan's touched more people's lives than anyone I've ever known. He's always seemed larger than life. Hard to believe he's going to die.”

“Lily's not having much luck accepting that.” Tears clogged Susan's voice, but she choked them back. “I swear, she's holding on by the skin of her teeth.”

“This must be killing her.”

“By inches.”

Kyra rubbed her temples, massaging a small headache trying to settle in. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Honestly? No.” Susan blew out a breath and said, “I just wanted you to know. To be prepared.”

How did you prepare for something like this? Ryan Fortune, an admirable man to the rest of the world, had always seemed like the kingpin of the Fortune family to Kyra. He was a presence. Not only to the family, but to Texas. The whole world was going to seem just a little bit smaller without him. And when he was really gone, she wondered, without his kindness, his leadership to lean on, what would the rest of them do?

“Hey,” her sister asked, “you okay?”

“Not especially,” Kyra answered, then squared her shoulders, as she knew Ryan would expect them all to do. “But I will be.”

“It's not going to be easy on any of us, Kyra. But we'll all get through it.”

“I know. Look, do you need anything? I mean, I'm
guessing you're staying close to the Double Crown, helping out.”

Susan sighed into the phone. “Yeah, I've pretty much been camping out in the cottage I used to rent. Ethan's been a sweetheart about this, too.”

“He's a good guy, Susan. He understands what family means.”

“Yeah. Guess he does at that. And God knows Ryan means as much to him as to any of us.”

Kyra reached for the dark blue sweater, dragged it across her lap and idly started folding it again as she said, “I'm supposed to fly out to Colorado this afternoon. Some business meeting for Voltage. I can try to get out of it.”

“Don't. Go to your meeting. And don't feel bad about leaving town, honey. There's nothing anyone can do, and to be honest, there're so many people here now, I wish I could get rid of some of them. But Lily says that Ryan is enjoying seeing everyone.”

“Okay, then. I'll only be gone a couple of days, though. So I'll come right over as soon as I get home.” It didn't seem right, leaving just when her family was suffering a crisis. “How's Lily holding up?”

“About how you'd expect.” Speaking to someone else, Susan said, “Yes, I'll be right there. Hey, Kyra, gotta go. I'll keep you posted.”

Kyra held on to the phone long after her sister had hung up, as if needing even that tenuous connection with her family. She should be staying here, in Red Rock. She should be out at the ranch with the rest of the family. Helping. Praying. Doing
something.

But maybe, she thought, as she set the phone down and scooted off the four-poster bed, going on this trip was exactly what Ryan would expect. He'd always kept his promises. He'd managed to have both a family and a career. And what better way could she show her appreciation for all he'd been than to carry on just as he'd always done?

Grimly, she shoved the rest of her things into the black leather bag and zipped it closed. Then she dragged it off the bed and wheeled it to the front door.

Grabbing up her purse, she headed out to keep her appointment with Garrett Wolff.

Because Fortunes never quit.

“I
f you have to fly, this is really the only way to do it.” Kyra sat back in the plush cream-colored leather seat, planted the toe of one stylish pump against the thick carpet and gave her chair a little swivel.

Garrett stared at her from across the plane. “You don't like flying, I take it?”

“Not particularly,” she admitted, and silently called herself a whopping great liar. She
hated
flying. Absolutely loathed it, with a bone-deep fear that started as she boarded a jet, and didn't let loose until she'd landed again and was in a taxi headed away from the airport.

It just wasn't natural, she always told herself. Something as heavy as a jet should
not
be able to stay up in
the air. Gravity, after all, was a pretty convincing fact of science. What went up always came down. And not necessarily when planned.

But she'd never been one to give in to her fears. So she stepped onto planes regularly and then held her breath until she was safely back on the ground where she belonged.

One corner of Garrett's mouth lifted. “Didn't notice any loud praying or chanting.”

She smiled briefly. “Hey, I'm no hypocrite. I figure since I don't spend much time praying ordinarily, God wouldn't like it much if I jumped down his throat just because I'm on a plane.”

“You think the Almighty is paying that close attention?”

“If he is, I sure don't want to be in a plane when I offend him.”

“Good point,” Garrett acknowledged. Then he asked, “So why don't you like flying? It's safer than—”

“Driving on the highways,” she finished for him in a rote, singsong voice. “Yes, I've heard those statistics. But the thing is, if you fall out of a car, it's a much shorter drop.”

“So it's the altitude that bothers you.”

“A big part of it, sure,” she acknowledged, and resolutely kept her gaze from straying to one of the windows. On a commercial flight she always reserved an aisle seat. She claimed, to anyone who asked, that she liked the extra room for her long legs and that she didn't want to have to climb over anyone if she needed to
make a restroom run. But the simple truth was she didn't want to be able to look out a window.

Bad enough to know you're thirty thousand feet up. No reason to have to look down, too.

Garrett was still gazing at her, waiting for her to finish, so she added, “I don't like the idea of not being in control.”

“There's a surprise.”

One blond eyebrow winged up and Kyra tilted her head to examine him more closely. “Was that humor?”

He took a sip of coffee and looked from her to the file opened across his lap and back again. “Probably not.”

“No,” she said, feeling a little of the airborne tension draining away. “I suppose not.”

Interesting. A flash of warmth in a man she'd always thought to be stone cold. But then, she'd sensed plenty of warmth that night at Rio's, hadn't she? Warmth and interest and—

Kyra shifted uneasily in her seat, then tensed slightly as the plane hit a patch of turbulence. A lesser plane would have shuddered and groaned through the pocket of rough air. But not this elegant piece of machinery. It only shivered daintily, whispered of “Oops, was that trouble?” then flew on, undisturbed.

Kyra, though, felt every quiver. Her fingers curled over the end of the armrests and her stomach did a sharp dive that left her mouth dry and her nerves tingling. Her gaze shot up and down the plane, as if waiting to see chairs toppled or pillows suddenly tossed to the floor.

“It's nothing,” he said.

Kyra shot him a quick glance and swallowed hard. She really hated having him see her go all weenie. “Yeah. I know that. I just don't
know
that, you know?”

A short, sharp laugh shot from his throat. “Oh, perfectly clear.”

Her heartbeat thundered wildly in her chest and her throat remained as dry as East Texas while she waited for the turbulence to pass. Her grip on the armrests had her knuckles whitening even as the muscles in her arms strained and complained.

Finally, everything seemed to smooth out again, and she fought her fears until they were nothing but a tiny ball of dread in the bottom of her stomach.

“So,” Kyra said, keeping her voice as light as she could manage in an attempt to reclaim her reputation as a cool customer, “since you know now that I hate flying, how about some conversation?”

Anything to keep her mind off being this high in the air without so much as a parachute. And besides, if left to her own devices, her brain would only slide evilly between terror and the misery of knowing that even as she sat here, Ryan Fortune was dying.

Garrett lifted his gaze from the file that had been absorbing most of his attention since they'd left Red Rock more than an hour ago. “Sure you don't want to rethink your stance on prayer?”

“There's that surprising little show of humor again. Seriously, Mr. Wolff, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were almost human.” As soon as the words were out, she groaned and winced. For heaven's sake, the man
was not only her boss, but he already didn't like her. Was there any reason to antagonize him even further? “Sorry. Flying makes me nervous. Nervous makes me talk. Not always a good combination.”

Closing the file, Garrett laid it across his lap and looked at her. “If being out of control bothers you so much, why not take flying lessons?”

“Good idea in theory,” she said, then waved one hand to encompass the plane and the open sky. “Only problem with that is, to take flying lessons, I'd have to actually, you know, fly.”

“Ah.” His mouth curved briefly.

“I thought about it once,” she said, grabbing hold of the conversation and giving it a hard shake. “But then the pilot wanted to take me up in one of those little rubber-band planes.”

“A Cessna?”

“Whatever.” She shook her head at the memory. The thing had looked like a toy. And its propeller had not been big enough to convince Kyra it would be able to stay in the air. What if it stopped? What if it broke? “The guy said it was a great little plane. He'd been flying it for thirty years with no problem. You know what that told me?”

“I'm fascinated,” Garrett said with a shake of his own head. “What did that tell you? That the man was experienced? The plane dependable?”

“Nope. It told me the plane was old and so was the pilot.”

He laughed, and despite her nerves, Kyra felt the
hard jolt of surprise and interest poke at her insides. The man was gorgeous when he smiled. A grin did amazing things for his eyes. And that laugh reverberated throughout her body, acting on her nerves like a tuning fork. Plus, he looked…really
hot.

“Experience doesn't count for anything with you?” he asked, still chuckling.

Kyra went with it, determined now to see that full-wattage smile again. “Hey, I like old doctors. That kind of experience is handy. But old pilots? No, thanks. Do I really want to be alone in the plane with him if his heart stops?” She paused, thought about that and asked, “How old is our pilot, by the way?”

“Forties.”

“Oh. That's probably okay, then.”

“I'm sure he'll be happy to hear that,” Garrett said. “So the old saying about how you're safe unless it's your time to go doesn't mean anything to you?”

Kyra released her stranglehold on the armrests and leaned forward in her seat. “That's fine and dandy, unless it's your
pilot's
time to go.”

Garrett looked at her in stunned surprise for a long minute, then grinned again. “You're a fascinating woman, Kyra Fortune.”

Oh boy, that grin of his was really powerful. It punched at her unexpectedly and rocked her right down to her toes. But maybe it wasn't as sexually charged as she thought. Maybe it was due to her stark terror at being in the air, for heaven's sake, combined with her long bout of celibacy and solitude.

If so, she'd better get a grip on her nerves and make a date the minute they got back home.

Oh yeah. Fantasizing about the boss? Not a good career move in anybody's book.

“Thanks,” she said finally. “I try.” Then, because she was still nervous and her mouth was pretty much running wild here anyway, she added, “And that smile of yours is a heck of a weapon.”

He blinked at her.

“Right. Never mind. Shouldn't have said that,” she muttered, and gave in to a sudden, restless urge to move around. Actually, to run away from what she'd just said. Unfortunately, that was another downside to plane travel. There was nowhere to run when you needed to. “Sorry. It's just… You smiled and I thought, wow. It surprised me. I shouldn't have said it out loud, though, but to be fair, I warned you about the whole nerves thing.”

“Yes, you did.”

He watched her as she unsnapped her seat belt and pushed herself to her feet. She felt his gaze on her, hot and steady, and her stomach swirled.

Oh, boy.

The same nerves that had prompted her mouth to charge ahead at full steam were now pushing her to move. Sitting still only seemed to make her more nervous, which would mean more talking, which could hardly be considered a good thing.

Especially now.

She walked up and down the wide aisle, with long, sure steps. More like a forced march than a stroll. She
trailed her fingertips across the high backs of the leather seats she passed, hoping for a nonchalant sort of feel. It didn't work, since she could still detect Garrett's gaze boring into her back with every step. She wished she knew what he was thinking, but at the same time, she thought maybe it was just as well she didn't know.

She couldn't believe she'd told him he was gorgeous. Or that he had a killer smile. Heck, she couldn't believe she was here, trapped in a plane with a man who only the week before she'd considered public enemy number one. And now…she didn't.

At the rear of the plane, she knew, there was a completely outfitted bedroom, for those long, uncomfortable flights when one of the Voltage execs would need to catch up on his sleep. She'd peeked in before, and though it wasn't as plush as the bedroom on the Fortune family private jet, it was pretty nice.

Of course, at the moment, with just her and Garrett Wolff as passengers, Kyra turned her mind away from all thoughts of that bedroom. It was safer that way. Instead, she did an about-face and walked back toward him, still talking.

“It's a nice jet.” Not as nice as Ryan Fortune's, she added silently, but still pretty impressive. At the thought of Ryan, regret whispered through her again. She should be at home with the family. She should have told Garrett she couldn't make the trip.

But she couldn't really afford to make anyone at Voltage mad at the moment, either, could she?

“Why don't you sit down?” Garrett asked suddenly.

“Nerves,” she muttered helplessly.

“I thought you said nerves made you talk too much.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “but walking, talking, they sort of go together and—”

The plane dipped unexpectedly, shifting to the left, and Kyra felt her balance dissolve in a heartbeat. With a whoop, she tumbled over onto Garrett's lap. Instantly, his arms came around her, holding tight as the plane plummeted a few thousand feet in what seemed like seconds.

“I knew it! I knew planes were bad!” She clutched at his shoulders and whipped her head from side to side as if she would actually be able to see danger and react to it.

She didn't care that she was on his lap, crushing the file folder beneath her. Didn't care that it probably wasn't appropriate to be grabbing hold of her boss, or to have his arms wrapped around her. She only wanted something, someone, to hold on to.

As quickly as it had started, the turbulence ended and the plane straightened out and stopped descending. A fact for which Kyra was immeasurably grateful.

“It's probably nothing,” Garrett said, but he didn't release her. With his right arm wrapped firmly around her middle, he held her on his lap while he reached for the intercom button with his left hand.

“Captain Harris?”

“Yes. Sorry about that, Mr. Wolff.”

The pilot's voice sounded tinny, but calm. “Hit a wall of rough there, but we're okay now. ETA in Colorado, forty-five minutes. Weather services claim a storm's
blowing in, though. Should hit the Denver area sometime tonight.”

“Thanks.” Garrett leaned back in his seat and looked up at Kyra. “You okay?”

“A storm? What kind of storm? Rain. Probably rain.”

“Probably. So are you all right?”

“Yeah.” She pulled in a deep breath and forced a smile that felt as though it would crack her face. “I'm fine, just—”

“Nervous,” he finished for her.

His arm was still wrapped around her, and Kyra felt the warm, solid strength of him surrounding her. The nerves clawing at her stomach eased—only to be replaced by a whole new set of nerves.

And these had nothing to do with flying.

Nope. These were connected to the fact that she was sitting on Garrett Wolff's lap and, if she wasn't mistaken, he was enjoying the situation.

A curl of something warm and wicked spun through her, and Kyra tried to focus on breathing. But it wasn't easy. Not with his face so close, his eyes locked onto hers and his mouth just a kiss away.

Seconds ticked past lazily. The drone of the engines became more of a purr. Heat poured from Garrett into Kyra, and she felt herself slowly, slowly dissolving.

His gorgeous eyes glittered with a hunger that matched what she felt roaring within her. Her hands tightened on his shoulders. His arm around her waist tugged her in closer.

She felt his breath on her face.

Her stomach did a slow slide to her toes, while her heartbeat jumped.

She leaned closer.

Closer.

“Mr. Wolff?”