LITMIR.BIZ

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in this town by their decree?

      Wendy abruptly terminated her silent complaints when she saw the tall, dark and gorgeous man the Mendozas were talking to look in her direction and beckon for her to join them.

      She wasn’t exactly sure why, but for just a second, her breath caught in her throat. The next moment, she came into her own again. The little skip in her pulse was forgotten.

      About time they called her over, she thought.

      Wendy debated pretending that she hadn’t seen the younger Mendoza’s gesture in order to keep him waiting. She didn’t want the man thinking he could just snap his fingers and she would come running, no matter how incredibly sexy he looked.

      With an inward sigh, Wendy slowly made her way over to the three people. As she drew closer, she nodded politely at the older couple.

      “You want to see me?” Wendy asked the older pair brightly.

      María decided to impress Marcos’s position upon Wendy’s young soul. “Marcos has decided to start you out as a waitress, dear.”

      The idea terrified her. She hadn’t a clue how to wait tables. Were they pulling her leg?

      “A waitress,” Wendy repeated, looking from one face to the next and then back again.

      They had to be kidding, right? She wasn’t cut out for that kind of job. And it looked like Marcos Mendoza thought the same thing.

      Well, she’d be damned if she let herself prove him right.

      Unable to hold it in any longer, Marcos threw up his hands in complete exasperation. He leaned in closer to his aunt, whispering into her ear, “I told you this wasn’t going to work.”

      But rather than finally agree, as he’d fully expected, María Mendoza patted his arm reassuringly with a look brimming with complete trust.

      “And I told you, you just have to give it enough time, Marcos.”

      Marcos frowned and shook his head. “I doubt there’s that much time in the universe,” he informed his aunt.

      “Think of it as a challenge, then,” María coaxed softly. And firmly.

      The look in the older woman’s eyes told him that his aunt wasn’t about to change her mind. He was stuck with this. Stuck with Little Miss The-World-Owes-Me-a-Living and there was no getting out of it, short of quitting. And he wasn’t about to cut off his nose to spite his face.

      Marcos studied Wendy for a long moment. The young woman probably had no idea what it was like to be hungry, or to want something so badly you put aside every penny you earned in order to save up for it. Looking at her, he figured it was safe to say that she probably hadn’t known anything but instant gratification all her life.

      The word gratification shimmered in his mind’s eye, suggesting other things, things that had nothing to do with Red. Gratification of a completely different variety.

      Marcos shook off the thought and silently ordered himself to get back on track.

      When he was at Red, nothing existed beyond its doors. And there was nothing more important than keeping the place running well and its patrons happy.

      And if he had to bend Miss Rich-and-Doesn’t-Give-a-Damn into a pretzel to keep accomplishing that, then Marcos sincerely hoped for her sake that she was flexible because he intended to do just that.

      “Come with me,” Marcos said crisply. “I’ll show you where your locker is and then we’ll see about getting you a uniform.”

      Although, glancing at her up close and personal, he doubted whether a uniform that would fit the particular requirements of her figure was anywhere on the premises. He was going to have to put in a special order.

      It was starting already.

      Wendy fell into place beside him. “So I’m definitely going to be a waitress?”

      “Yes,” he answered tersely, “You’re still going to be a waitress.”

      But, with any luck, you won’t be one for long, he added silently, for once tapping into his rather limited supply of optimism.

       Chapter Two

       April

      “Hell of a mess, isn’t it?” Andrew Fortune commented to his older brother, Jeremy, who was throwing a travel bag with a few essentials into the back of the car they were taking on their rather abbreviated road trip. It was a trip born of necessity, not pleasure.

      Drew, Jeremy knew, was referring to the situation their entire family found themselves in. He laughed shortly, getting into the passenger seat.

      “Hey, just because our last name’s Fortune doesn’t necessarily mean that the kind of fortune we’re going to run into is always going to be good.”

      “I’d settle for half-good,” his newlywed brother said. “As a matter of fact, thinking back on things, I don’t know about you, but I’d settle for just some peace and quiet for a change.”

      Drew was anxious to get started—and even more anxious to get back. He was also afraid that this trip might not turn out the way they hoped that it would.

      “If that happened, you’d probably go stir crazy in a week,” Jeremy predicted with a short laugh. And then he grew serious. Their father was seventy-five. When last seen, he’d been in great shape. Maybe he still was. In any event, it wasn’t going to take two of them to bring him back. If that was their father the sheriff in Haggerty had found. “Listen, I can make this trip alone. You can stay behind and keep your blushing new bride company. You’ve only been married for a couple of months. These are the good times, or so they tell me. For all we know, this trip might just be a wild-goose chase. No need to drag you away.”

      Drew wasn’t about to be swayed. “Deanna understands,” he assured Jeremy, referring to his wife. “She wants to see the old man back where he belongs as much as I do. As much as we all do,” he amended.

      “You’ve got a good woman there,” Jeremy commended, then murmured under his breath, “And with any luck, so will I. Soon.”

      Drew knew that Jeremy was referring to Kirsten Allen, the woman who had managed to wedge herself into his physician brother’s heart. They had recently gotten engaged. “Maybe you should be the one to stay here,” he suggested.

      “You’re not getting rid of me that easily,” Jeremy told him. If this man they were going to check out turned out to be their missing father, they would most likely need a doctor, and that would be him.

      “You ready?” Drew asked, his hand poised to turn the key in the ignition.

      “Let’s go,” Jeremy gestured toward the open road.

      The sheriff had responded to the missing person bulletin they had posted and said that he might have found their father in town. They’d almost given up hope when they’d found their father’s sedan, abandoned and smashed, so this was definitely a turn for the better.

      “Think that homeless man really is Dad?” Jeremy did his best not to sound as nervous as he felt.

      Drew hated getting his hopes up, but at the same time, he needed to be optimistic. “Sure looked like it might be from that photo the sheriff emailed. A lot less dapper and pretty disheveled, but that definitely looked like Dad’s face to me. Anyway, Lily’s sure it’s him,” he added, referring to the woman his father was supposed to have married the day he disappeared, leaving a churchful of confused and concerned people in his wake.

      Formerly married to Ryan Fortune, their father’s cousin, the still exceedingly attractive Lily Cassidy Fortune had turned to William in her grief when her husband died of a brain tumor six years ago. Their friendship slowly blossomed into something more. But now the wedding was on hold—indefinitely.

      Drew

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