Читать книгу Mendoza's Secret Fortune - Marie Ferrarella, Marie Ferrarella - Страница 10

Chapter Four

It took a few more minutes before things settled back down and the office returned to its former rhythm, with everyone focusing on preparing for next month.

Rachel hardly had a chance to sit at her desk again when there was a slight commotion at the outer door. Since the Foundation wasn’t scheduled to open until April 1, they were still closed to the general public.

As far as she knew, everyone who was supposed to be here was here.

So who were these two people, a man and a woman, walking into the second-floor office?

Looking at them more closely, Rachel was struck that although the woman was a blue-eyed blonde and the man had dark hair and dark eyes, both bore a striking resemblance to Christopher. Were they part of his family? she wondered.

The way he greeted the duo the next minute answered her question for her.

“Hey, look what the cat dragged in.” Christopher laughed, crossing the room to them with his wife.

“I told you we were ready to come do whatever it is that you’re doing here,” the man reminded him, looking around the room as if to get properly oriented.

Christopher had an inch on the other man, and his dirty-blond hair was more like the woman’s. He looked genuinely pleased to see both of them.

“You’re not fooling me,” Christopher told the man. “You just think you can hide out here, away from our crazy matchmaking relatives. I can tell you now, it won’t do either one of you any good. They’ll find you.”

Having said that, Christopher glanced around at the other people in the office, all of whom were looking at the two latest arrivals, clearly wondering who they were. Their curiosity was short-lived, thanks to Christopher.

“Hey, everybody, I’d like you all to meet my big brother, Galen, and my little sister, Delaney. Study them carefully. They’re the last of their kind,” he declared with no small amount of amusement.

Delaney frowned. “You make us sound like we’re about to go extinct.”

“Well, aren’t you?” Christopher asked with a straight face. “Hey, don’t blame me,” he pretended to protest. “You two started it by calling yourself ‘the last remaining singles.’”

“Well, what would you call us?” Delaney wanted to know. “Now that you and our other three siblings have gone to the other side and joined the ranks of the happily married, everybody thinks Galen and I should follow suit and hurry up and get married—like, yesterday.” She tossed her head, sending her blond hair flying over her shoulder in one swift, graceful movement.

“Neither one of us is in any hurry to tie the knot—certainly not just to please the rest of the family,” she informed Christopher—not for the first time. “I, for one, intend to enjoy my freedom for as long as I possibly can. I like being my own boss and coming and going as I please.”

He’d been of a like mind once, Christopher thought. But that was before he’d fallen in love with the most beautiful woman in the world.

“You make marriage sound like a prison sentence,” Christopher told her.

Delaney looked across the room and saw her new sister-in-law talking to one of the workers. “No offense to your lovely wife, but...” Delaney deliberately allowed her voice to trail off.

“How about you?” she asked, moving closer to Rachel. “Don’t you agree that it’s really great to be single?”

There were times, especially when she saw how happy some couples were, that Rachel longed to be in a committed relationship. Before they had locked horns, vying for the same position—the one that she now currently held—she and Shannon Singleton had been friends. Shannon had been the very first friend she’d made in Horseback Hollow. Now her friend was engaged to one of the British Fortune relations, Oliver Fortune Hayes.

Another thing she couldn’t help thinking was that she missed having a friend, missed the intimate camaraderie of having someone to share secrets with, or just to talk to for hours on end about nothing in particular.

Oh, she was friendly when their paths crossed, but that was rare these days. Shannon was much too busy with her new relationship and her new life. For the most part, it didn’t bother her too much. But there were times, when she was home, that she would have given anything to have a real friend to talk to.

Someone like Christopher’s baby sister, she thought suddenly.

There was something about the young woman that made Rachel take an instant liking to her the moment Delaney had opened her mouth.

There weren’t many people she felt an immediate and strong connection to, Rachel realized, but Delaney was someone who could definitely qualify if she was interested in reciprocating the feeling.

“Being single has its moments,” Rachel finally said in response to Delaney’s question.

“Not exactly a ringing endorsement,” Delaney allowed philosophically, “but I’ll take it.” The younger woman gave her a wide, infectious grin. “You obviously know my name—Chris’s voice is kind of hard to block out—but I don’t know yours,” she told Rachel as she raised one expressive eyebrow, waiting.

“Rachel,” Rachel answered. Belatedly, she put out her hand. “Rachel Robinson.”

“Well, Rachel Robinson, I’m very pleased to meet you,” Delaney said, warmly shaking her hand. “Maybe you can give me a clearer idea of what it is that we do here, other than look noble while we’re doing it,” she added with a somewhat bemused smile.

“What we’re doing is getting ready. We’re not open yet,” Christopher informed his sister, cutting in before Rachel had a chance to make any sort of a reply. “Our official opening is set for next month. April,” he added for complete clarity. “So right now, we’re just running around, scrambling to get all systems up and running.”

Delaney nodded, as if something had just clicked into place in her head. “Is that why you said you didn’t care how casual I dressed and that jeans and boots would even be a good idea?”

“Did it take you that long to figure out?” Galen asked with a laugh. “I knew Chris was after cheap labor right from the get-go.”

“What do you mean, ‘cheap’?” Christopher asked. “The word is free. At least for now,” he added before either one of his siblings could comment or pretend to protest. Turning toward Galen, Christopher deadpanned, “You still have that strong back?”

Rather than instantly answer in the affirmative, Galen’s response was a guarded one. “That all depends on what you want done.”

Fair enough, Christopher thought. “I’ve got some desks that are going to need moving.”

Galen shook his head. “Then the answer is no. I threw my back out herding cattle,” he told his brother.

Christopher’s eyes narrowed as he studied Galen’s face. He could always tell if his brother was bluffing. “You did not.”

For a moment, the expression on Galen’s face made the immediate future unclear. And then the oldest of the Fortune Jones clan shrugged, surrendering. “It was worth a shot.”

Before they discovered that they were all directly related to the Fortune family thanks to their mother, they had been the Jones family, ranchers who made a living but could never boast that they thought of themselves as being even remotely well-off. Their lives consisted of hard work. Unexpectedly finding out that they were Fortunes with the kind of inheritance that befit someone from that family changed nothing, other than the fact that they now knew they would never be in a hand-to-mouth situation again.

The discovery certainly didn’t alter their work ethic, didn’t suddenly change them into a family of squanderers. But now, instead of working to keep body and soul together, they worked because ranching was what they enjoyed.

Galen pretended to sigh and acted put-upon. “So when do you want me to get started breaking my back?”

Christopher was about to answer when there was another commotion at the office door. His attention was instantly focused there.

“Could be the furniture arriving now,” he told Galen cheerfully.

He was just yanking his older brother’s chain. Christopher had no intentions of relying exclusively on his brother to shift around and arrange the furniture. It would be arriving with a crew of moving men in attendance. He just enjoyed giving Galen a hard time while he still could.

But when the doors into the office opened, it wasn’t to admit a team of movers bringing the rest of the furniture for this office—or any of the other Foundation offices in the newly constructed two-story building.

Instead of moving men, Orlando and Matteo Mendoza came walking in.

Rachel felt her heart reacting the second she looked up and saw Matteo. It took her almost a full minute for her to regain her composure.

What was he doing here?

By the look on Delaney’s face, she’d noted the sudden change in Rachel. But mercifully, she made no comment, which only further cemented the budding friendship in Rachel’s mind. To her, friends knew things about friends without asking outright.

Almost automatically, Rachel rose to her feet and found herself slowly moving closer to the front door and the two men who had entered.

If she was surprised to see Matteo, he looked twice as surprised to see her.

Perhaps, Rachel thought, he looked a little too surprised.

Had he somehow known she’d be here today?

She tried to remember if she had said anything to Cisco last night about having to work here at the Foundation’s office today.

But even if she had, the little voice in her head that came equipped with a large dose of common sense maintained, why would Cisco have shared that information with his younger brother? From the interaction she had witnessed yesterday, the two had an ongoing rivalry, competing with one another over just about everything.

But if that was the case, then what was Matteo doing here?

It didn’t make any sense to her.

“What can I do for you?” Christopher was asking the two men as he crossed the office to get to them.

“It’s what we’re here to do for you,” Orlando corrected him. The older man nodded his head toward Matteo. “My stubborn mule of a son and I are here to deliver a shipment of supplies for your office from your Red Rock headquarters.”

Not willing to be mischaracterized, Matteo chimed in, “My more stubborn father suffered a bad injury last year and really should still be taking it easy instead of making these cargo flights,” Matteo explained. “I came along in order to ensure that he wasn’t taking on too much too soon. I’m also a pilot,” he added, wanting Rachel to know that he wasn’t just ineptly tagging along after his father but had a true purpose as well as a true vocation.

Orlando snorted like a parent who was trying patiently to endure the know-it-all attitude of his well-meaning children. “This one thinks I’ll have a heart attack and he’ll have to grab the controls and heroically land the plane.” Orlando puffed up his chest ever so slightly and added, “Apparently he doesn’t realize his father is as strong as an ox.”

“Yeah and just as stubborn as one,” Matteo interjected. He turned toward Christopher. “If you just tell me where you keep your dolly, I’ll load it up and bring the supplies up for you.”

“I’d appreciate that,” he said to Matteo. Turning toward Rachel, he recruited her help. “Rachel, would you show Orlando where we keep the dolly? Then bring him back to the storeroom when he’s ready so he can stack the supplies there.” He glanced at Orlando. He had forgotten just how much he had ordered. “Is it a large shipment?”

Orlando nodded. “I would say so, yes.”

The smile on Christopher’s lips was spontaneous as well as wide.

“It’s all coming together,” he announced, partly to the people in the office, partly to himself.

While ranching had initially been a way of life for him, running a branch of his newly discovered family’s charitable foundation seemed like a very noble endeavor to him. And the more involved he became, the more committed to the cause he felt.

“We keep the dolly in the storeroom,” Rachel told Matteo. “Come on, follow me. I’ll show you where it is.”

Matteo fell into step with her as she walked quickly to the end of the floor and the storeroom.

“So, you work here, too?” he asked her, sounding somewhat puzzled.

That Matteo asked the question disappointed her a little. It meant that this meeting really was just an accident rather than something he had deliberately orchestrated.

What was she thinking, assuming that Matteo had gone through complex machinations just to get a glimpse of her again? Sometimes a chance meeting was a chance meeting and nothing more, she told herself.

But the fact that it was obviously true in this case stung her a little. The scenario she had put together in her head had been far more romantic.

Grow up, she chided herself.

Looking at Matteo, she realized that he was waiting for some sort of an answer.

“I just started working here,” she replied. “The Foundation doesn’t officially open to the public until next month.”

Matteo was still trying to piece things together. He knew so little about the woman who had captivated him with no effort whatsoever. He had deliberately been avoiding Cisco this morning because he didn’t want to take a chance on hearing his brother brag about what had gone on last night.

“So, yesterday was your last day at the Cantina?” he asked.

That was a shame, he thought. He’d given serious consideration to dropping in there tomorrow, supposedly for lunch but actually just to see her again. Now it looked as if that plan wasn’t destined to make it off the ground.

Opening the door to the storeroom, Rachel gestured toward the dolly—located right in front—and stepped out of Matteo’s way.

“No, actually, it wasn’t. My job at the Cantina is really part-time, and I’m keeping both jobs, at least for a while,” she told him. Just saying it made her feel tired. But this wasn’t about getting her beauty rest. It was about her future and getting ahead. “I want to see where this is going before I make any major decisions about my life.”

Pushing the dolly out of the room, he followed Rachel toward the elevator. “Have you always been this ambitious?” he asked her.

She had to admit that this was an entirely new direction for her. When she’d moved out here, she hadn’t a clue on how to start rebuilding herself—or even how to earn a living. All she knew was that she wasn’t running toward something—at least, not at first—but from something.

“No, I wasn’t,” she told him, pressing the down arrow beside the elevator. “You should have seen me five years ago.” She recalled all the empty partying, the meaningless kisses and even more meaningless words that had been exchanged. “I was a slug,” she confessed with a self-deprecating laugh.

Matteo didn’t believe it for a moment. He considered himself a fair to middling judge of character, and Rachel Robinson was a woman with a purpose. He would lay odds that she always had been.

“I sincerely doubt that,” he told her, dismissing her words. “But I would have liked to have seen you five years ago,” he admitted.

Rachel couldn’t think of a reason why he would have wanted to do that. “To compare then and now?” she guessed.

“No. If I had seen you five years ago, that means I would have known you for five years.” And he would have been able to get her attention before Cisco had a chance to move in on her. “But I guess since you live here and I grew up in Miami, that wouldn’t have exactly been possible,” he concluded.

“No,” she agreed, “it wouldn’t have.” But that didn’t mean that she wouldn’t have wanted it to be possible, she added silently.

As Matteo stepped into the elevator, pushing the dolly before him, he was surprised to see Rachel get on with him. He’d just assumed that she would wait for him to return to the storeroom with the supplies. “You’re coming with me?”