The Fortunes of Texas: Whirlwind Romance

Max was wishing he could cut off his tongue when the hostess mercifully poked her head out the door and called their name, but the truth was already out there.

He followed Emily through the busy restaurant and couldn’t help but notice that she slipped into one of the chairs at the small table they were shown to in the courtyard so quickly that he didn’t even have an opportunity to pull it out for her. He took the other chair and waited until the hostess handed them their menus and departed again before opening his fool mouth again. “This is a business dinner,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

There was a candle burning in the center of the intimate table and her eyes looked huge and mysterious behind the glasses she wore. “Don’t worry about it.” She unfolded her menu. “Considering my brother-in-law is a manager here, you’d think I’d know the menu inside and out by now but I don’t.” Her voice had that too-bright pitch that told him she was bugged about something.

By his inappropriate comment in the first place, or the fact that he’d apologized for it?

“What do you like here?” she asked, her gaze on her menu.

Her. He liked her.

He held back a sigh and opened his own menu. “Everything’s good. You could close your eyes and point and you wouldn’t be disappointed.”

“Good evening.” A waiter stopped next to their table, and set condensing glasses of water in front of them. “Welcome to Red. Can I start you off with a cocktail?”

“I’d love a margarita,” Emily said. She pulled off her glasses and tucked them in her jacket again. “On the rocks.”

“Very good. Salt?”

“Is there a point to a margarita without salt?” she returned humorously.

“Not in my estimation,” the waiter allowed, grinning. He was young and good-looking and obviously didn’t have a problem waiting on Emily.

Max felt an urge to punch the kid.

“And for you, sir?”

“Lemonade. Lots of ice.”

The boy nodded. “I’ll get those right out to you.”

“Margaritas have no place in dinner meetings for you, I guess,” she commented after the waiter left.

“I don’t drink.”

Her lips parted. She hesitated. Then she shook her head a little. “I’m sorry. I’ve put my foot in it, again.”

He frowned and realized he’d sat forward, even though she’d leaned back in her chair. “What are you talking about?”

“I just thought maybe we could relax a little bit. I certainly don’t need to have a cocktail if you’re opposed to drinking for … whatever reason.”

“I don’t have a drinking problem,” he clarified bluntly. “Not since I quit. Is that what’s worrying you?”

Her head cocked. She slipped her glasses back on her nose. “I wasn’t worried. I just didn’t want to make you any more uncomfortable than you already seem.”

“I’m not uncomfortable.”

Emily eyed him, lifting an eyebrow. “Really? Smile much?”

For a beat, his handsome face looked surprised. Then his lips tilted. “Sorry. Better?”

She felt a definite dip inside her tummy at that crooked smile. “Much better.” Though her pride wasn’t too happy at the breathless way she sounded. She took a sip of her water, determined to follow the order of the evening. Which was business. “So, besides being tasked with the marketing materials, what else does Tanner have you doing around the school?”

Unfortunately, the question didn’t seem to relax him any. “Scheduling, billing, you name it. He handles all the stuff the FAA requires, but I’ve got the bulk of the rest of the paperwork.” He picked up his own water glass. “Lots of paperwork.”

“I can imagine. What’d you do before you started working for Tanner?”

“Worked as a ranch hand. Still do on the weekend if I’m not flying.”

If she hadn’t seen for herself his natural abilities inside the office, she would have figured that sort of outdoor work was much more his style. “What ranch?”

“The Double Crown.”

She sat back, surprised. “That’s Lily and William’s place.”

He nodded. “You’re related, right?”

“Distantly.” She smiled briefly at the waiter when he set their drinks on the table. “Thanks.” She touched the menu that she’d barely glanced at. “Can we have a few more minutes?”

The waiter nodded and disappeared again.

A waitress passed by carrying a heavy tray of food. Emily couldn’t help noticing the way the girl’s eyes fixed longingly on Max. She couldn’t blame her. Emily was having a difficult time not just sitting back to admire the view, herself. He was tall—easily six feet, she’d guess—and his short brown hair was a little shaggy, but thick and glossy-looking all the same. He had an extremely masculine appearance—not fussy at all, but all the more attractive as a result. And his eyes—his eyes were as pale blue as the Red Rock summer sky.

“All the Fortunes here are cousins something-something removed,” she said, hastily returning to the conversation at hand before he realized she was ogling. “But getting to know them all better has been really nice. So, you must like horses and cattle and all that?”

He shrugged. “As long as they’re getting what they need, they don’t care who is feeding and watering. Or shoveling.” His long, blunt fingers surrounded his sweating lemonade glass.

Her gaze slid from his fingers, up along his sinewy wrist. She swallowed and quickly reached for her margarita, looking away for a quick moment toward the glistening water flowing down the tiered fountain situated in the center of the courtyard to gather herself. “Too bad more people aren’t like that.”

His eyebrows pulled together for a quick second, as if she’d surprised him by the comment. But all he did was unfold his menu and look down at it.

She sipped her drink, feeling the warmth of the tequila hit her throat. She shouldn’t have ordered the drink. As he’d said, this was a business dinner. Add in the fact that she hadn’t eaten since that morning …

She set the heavy margarita glass down and stared at her own menu. But she didn’t really see the words. She was fairly certain that there’d been a board listing the chef’s specials at the front of the restaurant which would make choosing easy, since she couldn’t manage to concentrate on anything other than Max.

She closed her menu decisively. “Tell me a little more about how you got your pilot’s license. Are you able to fly often on the weekends? Where do you go? What do you do?” She couldn’t imagine when he had the time, considering he was holding down two jobs.

“I don’t necessarily have places in mind to go. It’s the flying itself that grabs me. And technically, it’s not called a license but a certificate,” he said, closing his own menu. “Right now I’m working on my instrument rating. I put a lot of time in on the simulator. Sunday afternoons roll around and I’m either in the sim room or up in the air.”

She shook her head slightly. “Frankly, I find it a little alarming that pilots learn how to fly sitting in front of a fancy computer.”

His expression lightened. She’d noticed that happened whenever he talked about flying. “We have to put in that air time, as well. Only some of our hours can come from the sim. The sim’s not only less expensive—no aircraft, no fuel—but sometimes it’s easier to get the time on it. Because … no aircraft. Tanner’s students are all jockeying for time in the planes. Scheduling is a bi—well, it’s a real task. Sometimes you gotta settle for what you can get.”

“I hadn’t even thought about the fuel.” She barely registered that she’d sat forward again, propping her chin on her hand. “Is it the same kind of gas we use in our cars?” She dipped her finger over the coarse salt lining her margarita glass and sucked it off her finger.

His gaze flicked away from her lips. He shook his head. “Avgas. Aviation gas and nowhere near as cheap.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “I guess that proves everything is relative. I think the price of filling my car’s gas tank is ridiculous.”

“Wouldn’t think that would bother you.”

She felt a little pause. “Because I’m a Fortune, you mean?”

He held up his lemonade glass, tilting it a little toward her as if to say “bingo.”

“Just because my family has money doesn’t mean I’m unaware, or uncaring, about the cost of things.”

His lips twisted a little. “And the last time you didn’t do something you wanted to do because you couldn’t afford it?”

She let out a little sigh. All the financial advantages that she had at her disposal hadn’t put a baby in her arms, yet. Hadn’t gotten her even close. Her appointment with the adoption attorney that very day had simply underscored that point. There were no women around—none that they could find, anyway—who were interested in a private adoption even though Emily was offering to cover all of the mother’s medical costs. The few pregnant girls who’d responded to her attorney’s ad had all passed on the opportunity when they’d learned Emily was single, and planning to stay that way.

“Money doesn’t buy everything.” She dipped another speck of salt off the glass and touched it to her tongue. “And money or not, I think people are like your animals out at the Double Crown. Not caring how or why so much, just as long as we have what we need.”

He clearly didn’t believe her. “And what do you need?”

She opened her mouth, but no words came.

And fortunately, the waiter returned then. She ordered the first special he reeled off and she was a little surprised when Max did the same.

Somehow, she doubted his reason was the same as hers.

The waiter disappeared again and an awkward silence fell over the table. Emily couldn’t quite figure out why. She’d never felt particularly tongue-tied in any business situation before. She looked around the restaurant. The flickering candles on the tables. The gurgling fountain and the Latin-flavored music. Nothing there felt businesslike. Certainly not sitting at the small table with Max, her knees only inches from his.

She suddenly didn’t want a business situation. She wanted social. And that was an area in which she’d never felt particularly comfortable. Just like Wendy had accused.

The young waitress was clearing a table beside them, but her gaze kept turning to Max, and Emily leaned over the table toward him. “I think you have an admirer,” she said softly, sliding her gaze to the side.

He grimaced and, surprisingly, hunched forward, as well. “That’s just Ellie.”

She felt breathless with their noses only inches apart above the flickering candle. “So you do know her.”

“She’s a kid.”

“I think she looks pretty grown-up to me.” The girl filled out the frilly, white peasant-style blouse she was wearing in a way that Emily had given up on ever achieving when she’d hit twenty. “If looks could kill, I’d be wearing a toe tag. How do you know her?”

“She used to be a cocktail waitress at one of the bars I liked to frequent.”

“Why’d you quit drinking?” She knew it was none of her business, but the question popped out anyway.

“I needed to.”

Which she’d assumed, but the answer still told her nothing. She took the answer as the roadblock it had probably been meant to be and propped her chin on her hand again. Another fortifying sip of her margarita had warmth sliding down her throat.

He had the most compelling eyes. She wondered fancifully what he’d say if she told him she’d thought about his eyes more than once in the days since she’d been buried in airport rubble. “What were you doing at the airport that day?”

“When the tornado hit?” He pinched his earlobe, then dropped his hand on the table. His finger grazed her elbow. But he didn’t move it away and her heart gave a funny little lurch. “I’d been over at the hangar with Gary. We saw the storm rolling in.” His lips compressed for a moment. “Once we realized what was happening, he told me to head over for the terminal, do what I could do to make sure people were taking shelter, while he was gonna make sure the planes were secure in the hangar.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “When I got there, it was complete mayhem. I didn’t even know until later that the hangar had been hit, too. Gary was hit by a collapsing beam. Damned old man never came out of a coma.”

She could all-too-easily imagine sharing Gary’s tragedy. “Instead of helping me, you could have been helping him,” she said softly.

But he shook his head. “That’s not the way Gary would have thought.”

“Is it the way you think?”

His gaze met hers. “I think some things happen for a reason,” he finally said. “And I could make myself crazy trying to understand them, or I can just deal with the facts and move forward.” He made a face. “Something else that Gary taught me.”

She couldn’t help herself. She leaned forward, covering his hand with hers. “You were close, weren’t you?”

He didn’t answer immediately. And when he did, his brief “Yeah” managed to convey so much more. Then he turned his wrist, flipping his hand until their palms met.

Her heart lurched even harder.

“Two Red Flame specials,” the waiter announced as he balanced a tray next to the table. “Chicken breasts stuffed with asiago cheese, spinach and sun-dried tomatoes served over roasted chiles. And you know how seriously we take our chiles here. You order ‘em, you’re committed.”

Emily sat back again as the waiter set their plates in front of them. She wished he would have taken a little longer with the food.

Max didn’t seem to show any such disappointment, though, as he dropped his napkin onto his lap and jabbed his fork into the steaming entrée.

Emily spread her own napkin on her lap and more slowly picked up her fork. The well-known reputation that Red possessed wasn’t a fluke, and even though she was more interested in her dinner companion than she was in the dinner itself, the spicy aroma coming from her plate did its magic and she tucked into the meal, feeling more ravenous than she’d expected.

Two bites in though, she realized just how spicy the dish was. “Oh, my word.” She gasped, grabbing her water and downing half of it. “I’ve burnt off the top layer of my tongue,” she said when she finally set down her water.

Max was grinning. “Didn’t pay enough attention to Julio’s warning when he described the dish?”

“Evidently not.” She realized she was grinning, too. She couldn’t help it in the face of his.

“Here.” He pulled the wedge of lime off the rim of her margarita and held it up. “Suck on this.”

She didn’t know what possessed her.

Maybe it was the fact that her palm was still humming from the touch of his against it. Maybe it was the way his lips canted up a little higher on the right side than the left when he smiled. Or maybe it was just the balmy evening, the flickering candlelight and the tinkling sound of water from the fountain in the center of the patio.

Instead of taking the lime from him, she simply leaned forward and sank her teeth into the small wedge, closing her lips around it to suck at the tart fruit.

His pupils flared.

Time seemed to stand still.

Finally, he let go of the lime and sat back. “You want to dance?”

She slowly drew the lime from her mouth. “Okay.”

And despite the fact that their plates were still steaming hot from the kitchen, he abandoned his chair and walked around to hers, pulling it away from the table.

She stood, too, and felt a shiver trickle down her spine when it seemed as if she could feel his warm breath on her neck.

Then he held out his hand.

She dropped her glasses on the table next to her plate and set her palm against his.

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