Falling For Fortune

“You may be right.” Jensen found himself leaning back in his chair and grinning, as carefree as a child with no responsibilities in the world. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out to dinner with me tonight.”

“You already paid off your wager.”

“I was talking about a date—a real one.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes. And if you have something other than blue jeans, you might want to dress up a bit.”

“Like a saloon girl?”

Jensen laughed. “As much as I’d love to see you in that sexy red dress again—in a barn setting or in the privacy of my bedroom—you’d better leave the costume at home.”

“All right. Just tell me what time and where to meet, and I’ll be there.”

They agreed upon seven o’clock at The Garden in Vicker’s Corners, and then Jensen set about making plans for the evening.

He was leery of being caught with Amber for more reasons than one. The paparazzi would have a field day with it—The Prince and the Cowgirl... Or, heavens! What if they’d gotten wind of her in that sexy saloon-girl outfit?

Still, Amber was worth the risk of a little notoriety, especially if that meant spending some quality time with her.

* * *

That evening, as Jensen prepared to leave for his date with Amber, his mother was seated on the divan at the Drummonds’ ranch, her mobile in hand, her head bowed.

“What are you doing, Mum?”

Lady Josephine glanced up, her cheeks flushed. “Sending a text.”

Where in the world had she ever learned how to send texts? One of Toby’s kids must have taught her. The oldest boy loved anything electronic.

His mother was one of the most technologically challenged people he knew, although it was high time she joined the rest of the world.

She slipped her mobile into the pocket of her tailored slacks, assessed him with a mother’s eye and smiled. “My, don’t you look handsome. Where are you going?”

“Out for the evening.”

“Where? And with whom?”

“I thought I’d take Amber to dinner in Vicker’s Corners.”

“That sounds lovely.” His mum stood and walked over to fix the collar of his Western shirt.

And yes, Jensen was cautiously dipping into Horseback Hollow fashion in an effort to blend in with the locals and draw less attention.

Mum cocked her head to the side. “Are the two of you...?”

“No, not at all.” The last thing he needed was for his mother to worry that she’d lost another one of her children, especially the one who’d taken the helm of the family finances and assumed a patriarchal role, to the Texas countryside. “We’re really just friends.”

“Oh.”

“No need to give the tabloids any more fodder for their silly stories,” Jensen added, as he took in the quiet cleanliness of the living room. Little Clemmie was sleeping in the bassinet, and his mum had prepared a quiet, romantic dinner for Quinn and Amelia in the kitchen.

Then he noted that she’d combed her hair and freshened her makeup. “So what are you up to this evening? Are you going back to Aunt Jeanne Marie’s house?”

“Yes, but Gabriella is hosting a small dinner party for her brothers, Cisco and Matteo, at Jude’s ranch this evening, and I’ve been invited. So I’ll be going there first.”

Gabriella, Orlando Mendoza’s daughter, was engaged to marry Jude Fortune Jones, Jeanne Marie and Deke’s son. They were just one of the couples who would be married in the big wedding ceremony that would take place on Valentine’s Day.

“Gabriella wanted me to bring you along, and I thought that you could take me. But if you have plans...” His mum trailed off, as though she hadn’t expected Jensen to have anything else to do in such a small town.

“I’d be more than happy to drop you off,” he said. “It’s on the way. And since you’ve been staying with Jeanne Marie and Deke, you can ride home with them.”

“Splendid.” She brightened. “Let me just grab my pocketbook.”

Fifteen minutes later, Jensen was helping his mother up into Quinn’s pickup. Was it his imagination or had she sprayed on some extra perfume?

Not that he noticed those things usually, but she had seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to grab her purse. She must really be missing the London social scene if she was primping this much for a simple dinner party in Horseback Hollow.

“You look lovely,” he told her as he started the engine.

She smiled. “Well, I want to make a good impression on the Mendoza family.” Her mobile buzzed and she pulled it out, checked the screen, then giggled.

Had his reserved mother actually erupted in childish pleasure? What were Toby’s kids up to?

He could ask, he supposed, but he wasn’t the type to pry into other people’s text conversations. So he continued to drive, thinking about his date with Amber. While he was looking forward to wining and dining her—in a way she deserved—he needed to keep in mind that the two of them were little more than friends, no matter how entertaining he found her.

Or how amazing he’d found their lovemaking.

The sooner he steered his mind in a different direction, the better. He had family obligations, responsibilities, and his life was a world away from Texas.

“Are you getting eager to return to England soon?” he asked his mum.

He knew she liked being close to her daughter, her new grandbaby and her newfound sister’s family. But Lady Josephine Fortune Chesterfield was more British than the parliament building.

“I miss being home on the Chesterfield estate, but this funny little town is starting to feel like a second home. In fact, I was thinking of possibly speaking with a real estate agent about purchasing property here.”

“Truly?” he asked, completely gobsmacked.

“Not to live full-time, of course. But I plan to visit Amelia and that sweet little Clemmie often. I don’t want to be a thorn in their side, always staying at their house. Besides, if I do purchase a home here, it will give you, Lucie and your brothers a place to stay when you come to visit.”

“I can’t imagine either Oliver or Brodie spending much time in this tiny Texas town.”

“Perhaps not. But I would have said the same thing about you a few weeks ago, and you seem to be getting along splendidly here.”

Jensen had to admit that he’d enjoyed his time here. But he also had a business and clients to get back to. He couldn’t stay out here playing cowboy indefinitely.

But when he thought about saying good-bye to Amber and not seeing her until his next visit to the States, something tightened in his chest.

They had certainly developed some type of connection, but not one that could withstand half a continent and an entire ocean.

Their worlds were too far apart—and not just physically.

He was a noble, a gentleman, not a ranch hand. And she was a rodeo queen, not a lady of the realm. There was no way they could forge a lasting relationship. They were simply too different.

It was better for them to just enjoy each other’s company for the time being and not think about what the future most certainly did not hold for them.

“You know, Orlando’s sons are single,” his mom said as they pulled into the driveway at Jude’s ranch.

“Hmm,” Jensen murmured, not quite processing his mother’s line of conversation.

“It must be so nice for him to have his family now living nearby. Perhaps his sons will find wives soon and settle down in Horseback Hollow permanently.”

“It seems to be the common thing to do lately.”

“You know, Amber Rogers is single and lives locally. Perhaps you should mention the Mendoza boys to her. Perhaps, we can introduce them.”

“Amber? My Amber?”

“Oh, I didn’t understand her to be your Amber.” Lady Josephine smiled, that knowing smirk she often displayed when she’d caught her husband sneaking biscuits or scones to one of the children before dinner time.

“I didn’t mean she belonged to me,” Jensen said. “Quite the contrary, in fact. But she has quite a bit going on in her life right now. Running her family ranch keeps her busy. So I’m sure she isn’t in the market for a new beau.”

Or was she? She’d seemed eager enough to consider romance when Jensen had taken her in his arms.

He’d like to think that was because he had instilled that passion in her. But what if it wasn’t him? What if she was lonely, and he just happened to come along at the right time?

Still, she wasn’t some young woman making her first appearance at a debutante ball in order to snag a husband. And he should know. He’d been to plenty of them—and he knew the look of a woman on the prowl for a husband. Amber Rogers definitely did not fit the bill.

Yet, long after he dropped his mother off at Jude’s ranch, her suggestion lodged itself into his mind and he couldn’t dislodge it. He’d even been tempted to go inside and meet these Mendoza boys just to confirm that they weren’t possibly Amber’s type.

But he was already running late. So he’d only walked Lady Josephine to the door. And before he could be invited inside, he’d dashed off.

It wasn’t jealousy that had made him leave so suddenly. He was in a hurry to get to the restaurant and reassure himself that his date couldn’t possibly be interested in dating anyone else.

He’d never been the possessive type, but he was determined that as long as he remained in town, he would be the only man with whom Amber would spend her time. After that, he wouldn’t allow himself to think of her marriage options.

Maybe it was selfish, but he wanted her all to himself. Which was why, when he arrived at the restaurant before her, he again asked the hostess to seat them in a quiet, out-of-the-way corner.

* * *

The Garden in Vicker’s Corner was a trendy bistro with stained-glass windows, copper ceiling tiles and a vintage art-nouveau crystal French chandelier in the entryway. Despite Amber’s travels to some of the bigger cities throughout the great state of Texas during her short-lived rodeo days, she’d never been inside a restaurant this fancy.

“I’ve heard how great this place is,” she said. “People need reservations weeks in advance to get in. How long have you been planning for us to have dinner here?”

Jensen chuckled, then lowered his mouth to her ear. “Not long at all. Despite the need to be on the lookout for constant media hounds and social climbers, wealth and notoriety also comes with some advantages.”

Amber stopped soaking in the decor long enough to lift a brow at him. The way “social climbers” had rolled out of his mouth had put a sudden bad taste in hers.

She suspected that gold diggers and people wanting to move up in class and status often tried to take advantage of him, so he’d had to put up an emotional barrier to keep them from getting too close. But now that he was becoming firmly entrenched in their sweet little Texas town, who would he suspect was attempting to climb his social ladder?

Certainly not her. But ever since that night in the hayloft, she felt a little uncertain about where things stood between them. So she found herself reading into everything he said. She’d have to stop doing that.

“I can see where having financial and social advantages would come in handy for you in London Town, but how does that work for you here in Vicker’s Corners?”

“You’d be surprised what you can do with some of those green advantages you Americans have—the kind with pictures of your old presidents and patriots on them. I’ve found them to be quite helpful in making my stay here in Texas a bit more pleasant.”

The maître d’ himself, a middle-aged man who’d introduced himself as Roland, led them back to a white linen–draped table for two, which was once again in a secluded corner. A single red rose in a bud vase, as well as a flickering candle in a votive, provided a romantic ambiance.

After Roland handed them menus and made sure they had ice water with lemon slices and a basket of fresh bread, he left them alone.

Still, Amber lowered her voice. “So you bribed someone to get us reservations?”

“I wouldn’t call it a bribe. It was more like a sizable contribution to ensure our privacy and to enhance our dining experience.”

She liked having him to herself. It also gave her an opportunity to get to know him better. So she reached for a slice of pumpernickel and asked, “What was it like to grow up in England? Did you have a happy childhood?”

“Brodie and Oliver, my older half brothers, may have had it a bit differently before my mum married my father. But I’ve never heard them complain. So I think they’d agree that we all had the very best of childhoods. We grew up on the Chesterfield estate in England.”

“I can’t imagine what that might have been like. I suppose you had tons of servants.”

“It wasn’t like that.” Jensen took a sip of water. “Mum wasn’t a traditional mother by aristocratic standards.”

“What do you mean?”

“She didn’t hire nannies to raise her children. She did have help, but she was in complete charge of the nursery, as well as the household. Our family may have been titled and privileged, but she was determined that we wouldn’t take our money or royal station for granted.”

Amber leaned her arms on the table, eager to hear more, yet not wanting to break the spell Jensen cast upon her when he finally began to open up about himself. So she sat quietly, but attentively, waiting for him to continue.

That is, until the sommelier interrupted him. “May I interest you in one of our wines, sir?”

Once Jensen placed their order for a bottle of zinfandel from California’s Napa Valley, Amber steered him back toward the conversation she meant to have.

“So you didn’t grow up with a house full of servants?”

“Quite the contrary. We had plenty of them, but they were under strict orders to ensure we weren’t spoiled rotten.”

The sommelier returned with the red wine, removed the cork and let Jensen have a sample. “It’s fine. Thank you.”

After filling their glasses half-full, he left them alone again.

“I was an only child,” she said. “So I find this fascinating.”

Actually, she found Jensen fascinating—and not just the way the candlelight glistened in his hair, the way he held his wine goblet, turning it just so and studying the deep, burgundy-red color. And she was thrilled that he’d finally begun to open up to her.

“After Brodie and Oliver went off to school,” he said, “my mother was busy with Charles and the girls, so my father would take me to the stables with him. We spent a great deal of time together, he and I. And as soon as I learned basic arithmetic, he had me adding up his ledger books. He told me never to trust anyone else with the family business or finances. I guess I took it all a little too much to heart.”

“How so?” she asked, taking the first sip of her California wine.

“I was always a stickler for the rules. Charles used to tease me and try to get me to lighten up, but the sense of family responsibility had been engrained early on.”

He sounded as though he’d been the perfect son, the perfect child.

“I’ll bet your teachers loved you,” she said.

“They did. I was the one they would send on special errands. In fact, I was a prefect my second year at Eton.”

“A prefect?”

“It’s a student who’s put in charge of the others.”

“Like an associated student body president?”

Jensen furrowed his brow. “I’m not sure.”

Maybe she shouldn’t make too many comparisons to their school systems. She didn’t want him losing focus.

“So you went to Eton? Even I’ve heard of that. Where did you go for college?”

“For university you mean? I went to St. Andrews in Scotland, naturally.”

Naturally. “Did you always do what your family expected of you?”

He picked up his goblet and swirled the wine in the candlelight, his expression growing wistful. “Father used to say that he could count on me for anything. I mean, he was close to all of his children and loved us all equally. But even Mum will tell you that Father and I shared a special bond. We enjoyed the same things like polo, managing finances, being with our families—even watching old cowboy movies.”

“I would have liked to have met him.”

Jensen reached into his pocket for a moment, then withdrew his hand. “My father and I even shared a love of airplanes, although he was a pilot and I wasn’t.”

“Did you ever think of taking flying lessons?”

“Occasionally. But now that he’s gone, I think about it even more. What I’d really like to do is purchase a jet. That way, I could visit my family in Texas whenever the fancy struck.”

“Seriously?”

Again, he reached into his pocket. “Well, I’ll probably take those flying lessons. And I might even buy a jet. But I’d hire the pilots.”

She lifted her linen napkin, trying to hide the smile that touched her lips. If he flew here regularly, she’d get to see him more often. But she didn’t want to corner him into making promises out of an offhand comment, so instead she said, “You keep reaching into your pocket. Why is that?”

“Oh.” He pulled out an antique gold watch. “This was my father’s, and his father’s before him. It’s silly really, but whenever I think about him, I have a habit of toying with it.”

“That’s sweet. How did he pass?”

His expression dimmed, and for a moment, she thought he might change the subject, but he looked up from the treasured heirloom and continued. “He died of a massive coronary while playing polo four years ago—almost to the day. The family was devastated.”

Amber thought of Pop’s death, what his loss had meant to her and how she’d given up her rodeo career in order to return to the ranch to be with Gram and to help her through it.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“So am I. It wasn’t easy to step in and take over the helm of the family holdings and investments—but not because I couldn’t handle it. My father had trained me well, and I was already doing much of that when he died. The difficult part was that I suffered more than just the loss of my father and the family patriarch. I lost my best friend and confidant.”

The grief he still carried after four years was etched deeply in his face, and her heart went out to him.

“I suspect that you handled it all with grace—and that you did your best to take care of everyone else.”

“My father would have expected it. And my mother needed me to be strong.”

“Did you have anyone to lean on at the time?”

What she was really asking was if he had a girlfriend or a significant other in his life. But even though it had come out innocently and seemed like a natural question to ask, she knew better and winced at her inappropriate curiosity, especially at a time when he was sharing his heart.

It was just that she’d like to have a small part of his heart—if he’d only give it to her.

“I started to talk to my mum about it one day,” he admitted, “but she was so heartbroken herself, I couldn’t burden her with my grief.”

“What about friends or...someone else?” There she went again, probably sounding like an insecure teenager, prying about the other women in his life when she ought to wait for a more opportune time.

But Amber would have given anything to be the one who’d comforted him back then, the one he could have opened up to.

“I realize the tabloids all seem to say that I’m one of England’s most eligible bachelors. And while I do attend plenty of social events and usually have a lady on my arm, that’s merely an image I project.”

“I can’t believe women aren’t clamoring to date you,” she said, a green twinge of jealousy rising up inside.

“Perhaps they are. But my life isn’t as glamorous as it seems.”

The life he lived didn’t seem the least bit glamorous to her—not if he didn’t love her back and she couldn’t be a part of it.

“Every time I appear in public with a woman, the gossip columns predict a wedding. And if I go on my own, without a date, they wax poetic about why I won’t commit.”

“That must be aggravating.”

“It is. I’m very careful about what I do and the image I project—just as my father was. I wouldn’t do anything to soil the family name. But I’ve learned to take those tabloid headlines in stride. I’m stronger than my sister Amelia in that respect. She went through terrible turmoil last spring when they falsely announced her engagement to Lord James Banning. So don’t believe everything you read.”

She leaned back in her chair, somewhat comforted. “So no ladies back home are spitting nails because you showed up in the tabloids kissing a Texas cowgirl?”

“Absolutely not. I wouldn’t have done what we did the other night if I was involved with anyone that way.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Amber would expect nothing less of the prim and proper Jensen, but it still felt good to hear him say it out loud.

“So what about you?” he asked, changing the subject. “Did it hurt to give up the rodeo?”

“I told my grandmother that I’d grown tired of the traveling and being away from home. But Gram is my only family. And I didn’t want her to think I’d sacrificed my dreams to be with her while she grieved.”

The maître d’ came by to take their orders—the prime rib for him and the herb chicken and red potatoes for her.

She assumed the topic of their conversation would change, but after he left, Jensen asked, “Why the rodeo?”

“Because I’m good at it, for one thing. But I also did it for Pop. My dad used to compete, which tickled him to no end. But when he married my mom, she thought bronc riding was too dangerous. So he gave it up, moved to Houston and got an office job. After my dad died, she couldn’t support me on her own. So she moved home to the Broken R.”

“Then you took up barrel racing?”

She smiled. “I couldn’t ride broncs, but it was a way to compete in the rodeo—and to make my pop proud.”

“From what I heard, you were a natural.”

“That’s what Pop said.”

“So you just gave it up? Just like that?”

She bit down on her bottom lip. She could probably let it slip now—at least some of it. “Yes, I gave it up, but I have an opportunity to ride again. Not in the rodeo, but as part of the Cowboy Country USA Wild West Show.”

He stiffened, and she wished she had kept it to herself. Heck, she’d implied that the whole thing was still under consideration. What would he say or do if he knew she was already committed?

The maître d’ came by with their salads, and the conversation stalled for a while.

She’d been prepared for a gradual change of subject, but not for the silence that followed. But maybe Jensen was just being introspective.

“Does that bother you that I might ride in the Wild West Show?” she asked.

“Of course not. It sounds like a reasonable compromise.”

Did it?

Maybe she should give him some time to chew on it before she told him that she was not only committed, but legally bound.

When their dinner was served, they made small talk while they ate. But the sooner it came time for the bill to be paid and for them to go their own ways, the more Amber’s stomach rebelled at the roasted red potatoes and the herb chicken.

She’d give anything to take Jensen home with her or to drive off to a place where they could be alone, but it looked as though they’d be getting into separate vehicles again tonight.

Even after what they’d shared in the loft.

Her stomach knotted, and she pushed her plate aside even though it was still laden with enough leftover to take home for lunch tomorrow.

Finally, she lifted her goblet and took a sip of wine, preparing to bolster her courage.

“It’s a shame nothing can come of a relationship between the two of us,” she said, hoping and praying he’d tell her she was wrong.

Jensen reached out and placed his hand over hers, enveloping her with warmth. “As much as I’d like to argue, I can’t see how it could.”

In spite of the fact that she’d known all along that they’d never have a life together, Jensen’s words drove a spike in Amber’s heart dead center, creating a crack that threatened to break it in two.