“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