Loe raamatut: «A Fortune's Texas Reunion»

Chapter One

The car was upside down, resting on its crumpled hood.

Sheriff Paxton Price was out of his departmental SUV and running down the steep embankment toward the site of the crash before he was even able to discern that particular fact.

The only indication there’d been an accident at all was the way the guardrail on the side of the road had been mangled.

“Ambulance needed, Connie,” he said into his shoulder mic, grabbing a spindly mesquite branch to keep it from slapping him in the face as his soles slid in the dirt. Twenty feet of prickly shrubs stood between him and the white car wedged against a gnarled snag.

If it wasn’t for the dying tree, the car would have kept on going.

“Not just Charlie’s wrecker. You got that, Connie? Send the ambulance, too.”

“Ambulance is over in Amber Falls.” Connie’s response crackled badly, but in the two years since he’d come back to Paseo, he was used to the crappy transmissions by now.

“Call ’em, anyway,” he barked. He wished to hell his brother Marshall didn’t have the day off. He was a paramedic with the Amber Falls Fire Department. The town was the closest of any size, which didn’t mean much when compared to tiny Paseo.

“On it...riff,” Connie said through the crackling and Pax grabbed another shrub as he continued skidding his way down the embankment. He needed to slow his momentum before he shot beyond the wedged car and into the ravine.

Dust clouded when he went down on his side like a kid sliding into home plate. Only this time, he wasn’t scoring a run for the Paseo High Panthers, but was avoiding slamming into the precariously perched sports car.

He succeeded, though barely. Adrenaline pumping, he tossed aside his cowboy hat and scrambled on his knees to the crumpled side of the car. The windshield was in the dirt and a dead tree branch bisected the back window. He’d seen too many vehicular fatalities back in Dallas, where there was emergency medical assistance available at the crook of a finger. Here in Paseo?

They had one ambulance covering an entire county. As Texas standards went, the county wasn’t large, but still...

“Come on, come on.” He ducked to look through the broken passenger-side window. It was the only one accessible. The driver’s side was squarely jammed against the trunk of the decaying oak.

His gut clenched. The driver was hanging upside down, held in her seat by the safety belt. Her light brown hair was long and tangled in the spent airbags, and glittered with shards of glass. She was young. And her eyes, her terrified and very much alive blue eyes, fastened on his. “Help.”

He read the word on her pallid lips more than heard it, and lifted a staying hand when she started to reach out one of hers. “Don’t move, honey. This big ol’ snag is sturdy, but I don’t want to take any chances. I’ll get you out. Just hang tight, okay?”

Tears were caught in her dark lashes, but her lips lifted ever so slightly. “Fine time for puns,” she whispered.

“Atta girl.” There was no way the door would open. He didn’t even bother trying. “Are you hurt?” Aside from the scrapes and scratches, he couldn’t see any blood. But the deflated airbags were blocking most of his view. “Can you move your legs?”

“I can wiggle my feet.”

“Excellent.” He knew she couldn’t have been hanging there for more than thirty minutes because he’d seen that guardrail perfectly intact when he’d cruised by it earlier. But thirty minutes or less was still thirty minutes or less too long.

And just because he couldn’t see serious bleeding didn’t mean there was none. She looked pale and limp and entirely helpless.

“Do you know how long you’ve been here like this?”

She made a sound that wasn’t much of an answer. Her eyelids fluttered and closed.

“Stay with me, honey.” With one sharp swipe of his Maglite, he cleared the rest of the window glass and tossed aside the jagged piece of dead tree branch that had shattered it. “Can you tell me what happened?”

She didn’t respond at first and he reached in, grasping one of her hands. “Come on, honey. Try to stay awake here. Talk to me.”

Her fingers moved. A slight squeeze. Enough to make him breathe a little easier. “I’m here.” The words sighed out of her. She had a drawl, but not a Texas one. It was more Deep South with a twist. “You have a nice...voice. I don’t know what happened.” She opened her eyes again, blinking as if to clear her vision. “One minute I was singing along with Lady Gaga and the next—” She broke off, then pulled her slender fingers free, lifted her hand and fluttered it along the gray shoulder strap pinning her against expensive white leather. “My seat belt’s stuck. I couldn’t get it loose.”

“Then it’s doing its job.” He pulled out of the window for a moment, grabbed his pocketknife and unbuckled his duty belt, letting it drop to the ground before he carefully reached through the window again with both arms and angled his shoulders so he could fit. “You from New Orleans?”

“Shows that much?”

The space wasn’t exactly built for a guy his size, but he’d been in tighter spots. “Louisiana license plate.” That and the distinct NOLA accent. “This your parents’ car?”

She seemed to rouse herself a little. “No, but Daddy’s gonna have a fit, anyway. He didn’t want me driving out here in the first place. Wanted to double-check every safety system this car has before I started out.”

There was a small R-Haz insignia on the dashboard. He hadn’t gotten a notice from the telematics company that her car was involved in an accident, so at least one of those safety systems had failed to do its job.

“Protective, is he?” He gained another inch.

“And then some. Ever since Savannah’s break-in he’s been worse than ever.”

“Who’s Savannah?”

“My little sister. One of them, anyway.”

“How many sisters do you have?” He’d managed to squeeze partially through the window but he still wasn’t far enough to reach her well.

“Uh, two. And a, uh, a bunch of brothers. I’m smack in the middle.”

“Middle-child syndrome?”

“Please.”

He smiled at the way she rolled her eyes. She was making good sense, and he hoped that meant she didn’t have a concussion. “I have three brothers myself,” he offered conversationally. “No sisters, though, to my mother’s everlasting disappointment.” He stretched his arm across the interior of the vehicle and snagged the tips of his fingers around the headrest of her seat, so he could use it for leverage to heave himself halfway into the vehicle. He managed not to swear a blue streak when he got up close and personal with the gearshift as a result.

“I’m gonna cut the belt and catch you, okay?” His voice was rougher than he wanted. He was a pickup-truck sort of guy over sports cars and the nauseating throbbing in his groin cemented the fact. He turned gingerly onto his side, earning another inch of leverage.

She visibly trembled. “Maybe we should wait for more help.”

“We could.” He exhaled again, blowing out his own pain as he concentrated on the alarm sharpening her dazed eyes. “It might be a while before help gets here, though, and I’d just as soon get you outta this little beast now. Not real comfortable for you hanging upside down, I’ll bet.”

She shook her head slightly. “No,” she whispered. “I was afraid nobody was coming.”

She looked like she was going to cry. “I’m here now,” he said steadily. “And I’ll stay right here with you until more help gets here. Can’t say I’m real comfortable with the position.”

Understatement of the year.

He looked into her eyes, willing her to keep her focus on him. “I’m Pax, by the way. I’m the sheriff around these parts.”

She gave him a barely perceptible smile. “Georgia,” she murmured.

Savannah and Georgia. He’d have teased her a little at that if not for the way her eyes had fluttered closed again. “Don’t pass out on me, Georgia.” He wrapped his fingers around her dangling arm, sliding down to her wrist where her pulse was fluttering.

“I’m not gonna pass out.” She managed to sound offended. “My head is pounding.”

“Expect you’ll have a lot of aches and pains. Considering everything, that’s not a bad thing right now.” It was awkward as hell, half inside the upside-down car and half out. At his angle, stretched the way he was against the headliner, the best he could do was let her land on him. The headrest of the passenger seat was digging into his ribs but at least it wasn’t endangering his prospects of siring kids one day. “So, unless you really insist on hanging there until backup arrives, I’m gonna cut the shoulder belt first, and then the lap. That all right with you?”

“I’ll fall.”

“I’ll catch you,” he promised. “Just tell me when you’re ready.”

Her lips compressed. She closed her eyes again and gave a faint nod.

Good enough for him.

He reached up and slid the sharp knife between her snug purple T-shirt and the shoulder belt, then sliced through the belt.

She gasped and her hands shot out, knocking against his head and shoulder. Several cubes of broken glass rained down on him. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry. You’re good, Georgia. There isn’t going to be anything graceful about this. I told you I’ll catch you. Just keep your hand on my shoulder if you can, and—” He reached again and wedged his hand against the leather seat, snapping through the lap belt. The second he did, her body started to fall and he pressed his free palm against her stomach long enough to fold the knife safely out of the way.

Then she rolled down in a ball onto him, all long hair and trembling limbs.

The second she made contact with him, she burst into sobs and buried her face against his throat.

“It’s okay, honey.” He gently patted her back. She really was no bigger than a minute. “You’re gonna be fine.” He’d feel better about that assurance once she was actually checked out, but for now, she was lucid and showing the kind of normal reaction he’d expect. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

Eventually, her sobs quieted. Her trembling settled. She finally lifted her head, and her eyes met his. “You saved me.”

Discomfort that had nothing to do with gearshifts and awkward positions chugged inside his gut. She was a looker. No amount of puffy, red eyes could disguise that fact. He hadn’t felt such a visceral attraction to a woman since Whitney.

Which was a good reminder to keep his mind where it belonged.

“German engineering and advanced safety systems saved you,” he said gruffly. “Think you can slide out the window?”

She angled her head, looking toward his legs still hanging outside from the knees on. She gave him a shaky smile. “In some places we’d need to be married before being this close. You’d better go first.”

She didn’t give him a chance to argue the matter, because she was busy wriggling to one side of him. Doing so meant pressing her hand against his chest to gain enough leverage and he hoped she blamed his thumping heartbeat on adrenaline.

He’d been a cop for eight years. A sheriff for nearly two. After what happened with Whitney in Dallas, he was too smart to let himself be derailed again by a pretty set of blue eyes.

Still, it was a relief when Georgia was finally curled alongside him rather than sprawled over him, and he worked his way back out the window. First his leather belt caught on something, and then his shirt tore as he awkwardly got one shoulder, then the other, through the bent window frame.

Finally, though, he was on his knees again in the dirt and he reached back in to her. “It might be easier for you if you come out headfirst.”

She nodded and, far more deftly than he could have done, pivoted on the rear of her white shorts, then shimmied out the window. She was narrow. Slender. He had no trouble whatsoever catching her shoulders the second they cleared the metal and he lifted her free of the wreckage, moving her to the patch of dirt that had been scraped raw by the car.

She exhaled, and slowly fell backward until she was sprawled flat on her back. She pressed her hand to her chest and stared up at the sky. Tears slid from her eyes down into her hair.

He crouched beside her. “I’m just gonna check your arms and legs, Georgia. That all right with you?”

She sniffed wetly and nodded.

“You tell me if anything hurts.”

“Everything hurts,” she mumbled. “I’ve never been in an accident before.”

“You started out with a doozy.” He carefully worked his hands along her arms. She had a nasty scrape on her left shoulder and a small cut on her right wrist, but other than that, her skin was smooth and cool. A little too cool for the hot day, but she’d had a nasty shock. He moved to her feet and started at her ankles. More scrapes. More scratches. But no bones sticking out where they didn’t belong. Nothing that was starting to swell.

He was doing his duty, but he’d have had to have been dead not to appreciate the way she felt. And because of that fact, he wondered if it was time he gave Mindy a call. She was a teacher in Amber Falls he’d seen off and on over the last six months. No more interested in anything serious than he was.

He realized he’d reached Georgia’s knees and quickly moved his hands away, sitting back on his heels.

“You were lucky that snag caught your car and you were wearing your seat belt. You have some ID in the car?”

“Of course.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

Her eyes followed his hand. “Three. I can see perfectly clearly,” she promised tiredly.

“Do you think you lost consciousness at any point?”

“I don’t think so. I wasn’t even driving that fast.”

“Wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that.” He’d be a wealthy man and his mom wouldn’t have had to rent out the north section of land to an infamous billionaire just to keep the bank from taking it back.

“I wasn’t,” she insisted.

“Okay, NOLA girl,” he soothed, because she was obviously going to get worked up. “Just rest there for a few minutes.”

She didn’t argue. Merely threaded her fingers through her hair and shook away pieces of glass still clinging there.

He left Georgia long enough to retrieve his duty belt and fastened it around his hips again. He fingered the tear in his uniform shirt as he attached his shoulder mic and called in their status to Connie. He had to provide his own uniforms and he didn’t think there’d be any way to fix this particular tear.

“Ambulance freed up,” Connie reported back. “Should be there soon.”

“Thanks, Con.” He looked away from Georgia, who was still lying on the ground. She’d spread her arms wide and was alternately lifting one leg, which looked just as perfect as it had felt, then the other, and flexing her bare feet around in circles.

Her toes were painted a brilliant purple that matched the T-shirt that had crept up her stomach to reveal the low-cut waistband of her white shorts. They were diminutive, those shorts. Revealing both the small, thin gold hoop piercing in her navel as well as the sleek muscles in her thighs as she worked her legs.

He scooped up his hat and slapped it against his thigh a few times to shake off the dirt, then slid it on his head as he walked around the vehicle, taking pictures with the small digital camera from his duty belt. The only angle he couldn’t get to was the north side of the car, because he’d have to climb into the ravine to get it.

He went back up the hill, taking pictures of the path the car had taken as it rolled down. He took pictures of the spot it had left the road—obvious only because of the safety guard along the curve that had been torn away. He took a few measurements and made note of them to add to his report later, then returned to Georgia and handed her the sandals he’d found tossed clear of the car about twenty feet away. If she hadn’t been wearing her seat belt, it could have been her body tossed aside, too.

“You were lucky all the way around,” he told her. “Two feet to the right or left of the tree and we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all.” He watched her slide on the shoes as she sat up. They were patterned flip-flops with thick foamy-looking rubber soles that added a good three inches to her height when she gingerly rolled to her feet. They also had a designer label that even a good ol’ boy like him could recognize.

The shoes didn’t mean she had money. But the expensive car that cost more than what he earned in a year sure did suggest it.

“Going to need to take a report of what happened, if you’re up to it.”

She brushed the dirt off the seat of her shorts and raked her fingers through her long hair, pushing it behind her shoulders. “Happy to cooperate, if I could even tell you what happened.” She looked up the embankment, where his SUV sat, red lights flashing, and he saw her sway.

He quickly caught her beneath her arm. “Steady there, ma’am.”

She pressed her hand to her head. “I preferred ‘NOLA girl,’” she murmured. “Doesn’t remind me how close I am to my thirtieth birthday.”

“And how close is that?”

She wrinkled her nose as she dropped her hand. “’Bout eighteen months.”

At least he knew she wasn’t a teenager.

He nodded toward the SUV. “Let’s get you up to the truck and you can sit down and get outta the heat.”

“Heat here is nothing compared to the hot soup we have back home.” She looked over her shoulder at the wrecked vehicle. “Nothing about that looks fixable to me.”

“No, ma’am.”

Her lips turned down. “I just got it, too. Picked it up yesterday morning before I left town. It drove perfectly all the way to Shreveport. I stayed the night there, then started out again this morning.” She sighed audibly, then turned toward the embankment, taking a first step. He let go of her, but hung behind to lend a hand the second she looked in need of it.

Unfortunately, that meant he had a close-up view of her hind end as they progressed up the steep hill.

Only a few sliding steps in those platform sandals, though, and Pax took her arm again. One rescue a day was enough.

Before they made it to the top, he saw Charlie Esparza pulling up in his wrecker. Pax waved at the skinny man when he nimbly hopped down from the truck. Without waiting, Charlie started skidding down the hill toward them. “Bad spot t’go off,” he said breathlessly. “No skidding, either.” He lifted his cap long enough to reveal his white hair, then took Georgia’s other arm. He was barely taller than her. “Any more vics?”

Pax shook his head and soon the three of them were safely back on the roadside. He settled Georgia in the back seat of his SUV with the AC running and a fresh bottle of water. He left the door open, though, not wanting her to feel like he’d taken her into custody.

For one, she hadn’t done anything wrong that he could determine. He’d smelled no alcohol on her. There was no evidence of drugs. In fact, there was no evidence of anything to explain why she’d careened off the highway without seeming to make any attempt at avoiding it.

As Charlie had observed, no skid. Meaning no braking.

While Charlie headed back down to the wreckage dragging his long winch cable with him, Pax checked in with Connie again. The ambulance was still en route. He pulled out his metal clipboard and flipped it open to fish a blank report from the contents inside, and leaned against the side of the SUV next to the opened door. He kept his focus on the form, even though the sight of Georgia’s bare legs beckoned. His fingers tingled and he clicked his pen a few times.

“You say you just picked up the car yesterday? Is it a rental?” If it was, it was a pretty specialized one.

“No, it’s mine.” Her fingers turned the water bottle this way and that. “First sports car I’ve ever owned. My purse is still in the car. My license. The registration. And my suitcase—”

“We’ll take care of that once Charlie pulls the car up. Where were you heading? Paseo’s not usually a person’s final destination. Too small. Not enough services. I can help you get to Amber Falls, though. Is there someone I can contact for you? Parents? Boyfriend?”

She bit her lip, looking in danger of crying again. “I was heading for Paseo, though. In fact, I was looking for the turnoff when—” She broke off, swallowing. She pressed her fingers to her forehead. “My, uh, my oldest brother, Austin, is the best one to contact. He’s here with Felicity. His girlfriend. She’s lovely and actually is lightening up my brother. He’s way too serious, and...” She trailed off as if realizing she’d been rambling.

To a person, Pax knew everyone in town. The only Austin he knew of didn’t have a girlfriend and definitely wasn’t too serious. In fact, just last month he’d celebrated his third birthday with a party at Rosa’s Mexican restaurant. Pax had stopped in to say hello because he’d been filling his gas tank at the pumps in front of the restaurant, which also doubled as a grocery store. “What’s your brother’s last name?”

Her blue eyes peered at him from behind her wrist. “Fortune.”

Pax exhaled, stifling a curse.

Naturally, it would be Fortune.

He’d grown up in Paseo. Aside from the years he’d spent in Dallas, he’d lived here his entire life. And until a week ago, the only Fortunes he’d personally known were Jayden, Nathan and Grayson. And their mom, Deborah. Good, normal folk who’d had no connection at all to the famous Fortunes that made their homes elsewhere in the state.

Or so he’d thought.

Now, since Deborah was getting hitched to that eccentric billionaire who was connected and also happened to be the father of Deborah’s three sons, the area was overrun with all manner of people bearing that particular name.

And his peaceful little town had been turned upside down as a result. They’d filled up the little motel. And when that wasn’t enough, they’d set up a camp on his mom’s piece of land.

People like his mom and Rosa Hernandez, who had her whole family helping her provide enough food to feed the crowd at the makeshift campground, were benefiting financially, but Pax found it all a headache.

He clicked his pen a few times. “I should’ve known when I saw the make of the car,” he muttered. In the last few days, there’d been more luxury vehicles traveling this small stretch of highway than in the last decade. Before that, it had been semis and buses transporting all manner of things to his little spot of paradise.

What was usually his haven had turned into the worst kind of circus. Paseo. The newest playground for the rich and famous.

Which now included the NOLA girl.

Steeling himself against her appeal, he tapped the business end of his pen noisily against the form and its metal-backed board. “All right, then. Let’s get to it. Full name and date of birth—”