Fortune's Valentine Bride Part 3

Wendy shook her head, completely disgusted with her brother's choice in women. "Personally, I don't understand why Blake would even want to be in the same room with her, much less take her back."

Wendy was missing one very obvious point, Katie thought. "Maybe because Brittany's pretty much drop-dead gorgeous."

Wendy raised her chin. "So are you," she insisted loyally.

It was Katie's turn to roll her eyes. "Oh, come on, Wendy. I do own a mirror, you know. I know exactly what I look like."

Wendy shook her head. Katie was missing the obvious. She'd been such a dedicated soul and hard worker for so long, she didn't even remember how to use her feminine wiles, but that was all right. Wendy was devious enough for both of them.

"The only difference between you and that woman my brother thinks he wants is that she knows how to apply makeup to her best advantage." Wendy's eyes narrowed as she looked at Katie. "Nothing you can't learn," she told her emphatically.

Maybe, Katie thought, but not easily. And not quickly enough. "And while I'm busy learning how to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, Blake and Brittany will be exchanging wedding vows," she concluded unhappily.

Wendy waved away the very notion. "Not in a million years, I guarantee it," she promised with deadly certainty. She knew the Brittanys of the world. They took up s.p.a.ce and looked attractive-as long as no one was looking closely. Because what they had was superficial. What Katie had ran deep. Clear down to the bone.

The next moment, Wendy lapsed into silence as she paused, thinking the situation over-and seeing the potential that had been staring them in the face all along. It might just work.

"You know..." Her voice trailed off as an idea began to take serious shape. And then Wendy smiled. Broadly.

Katie was on her guard instantly. "Uh-oh, I know that look." It was Wendy's crafty expression.

The woman was up to something.

Katie held her breath as she asked, "What are you thinking?"

Wendy beamed at her. "Just that my beloved big brother might have just given us the perfect opportunity to make him see just how desirable a woman you really are."

"Right!" Katie laughed, shrugging off the compliment. But Wendy was obviously not kidding, she realized. "All right, I'm listening. Just how does my helping Blake put together his campaign strategy to bag the elusive Brittany-bird make him suddenly see how supposedly desirable I am?"

"Not supposedly," Wendy insisted. "You have to start thinking positively, Katie, or this is never going to work."

"I can think downright unshakably, that still doesn't mean that I-"

Wendy dropped her bombsh.e.l.l. "He'll have to practice on you."

Katie blinked. Had she missed something here? "Excuse me?"

"All these moves he's going to make on Brittany, he has to practice on someone, polish them up on someone." To her it was a given. Rehearsals always helped attain the desired results. Wendy smiled at her. "That 'someone' is going to be you. Dinner-you, dancing-you, moonlight walks-you, seductive techniques-"

This time, it was Katie who halted the conversation, holding up not just a finger but a whole hand.

"I think I get it," she said, fighting a very real blush that was swiftly advancing up along her neck and splaying across her cheeks with the force of the evening high tide.

Wendy saw the blush and smiled with satisfaction. "Yes, I can see that you do. By the time we're finished-by the time you're finished," she amended with a smile, "my brother is going to forget that Brittany Everett ever existed."

Katie had her doubts about that, but she had to admit that she really liked the way it sounded. For now, she allowed herself to savor what to her was tantamount to an impossible dream. She figured it was the least she could do after Wendy had gone to all that trouble to come up with said plan.

Even if it wasn't going to work.

Chapter Four.

"You know, if you were really concerned about me, you'd find a way to get me the h.e.l.l out of here."

Javier Mendoza struggled to keep his voice from rising as he complained to his younger brother, Marcos. He'd finally been moved out of ICU into a single care unit, but the hospital walls were only so thick and his deep voice was the kind that carried.

There was a frustrated frown on his handsome face and he looked like a man who was just about to lose the last shred of what was left of his overtaxed patience.

Marcos sympathized with his brother. He knew how he'd feel in Javier's place, but there was just no way that his brother was leaving here, not yet.

"I am concerned about you, which is why I'm not going to help smuggle you out of here," Marcos informed him. There was an irrefutable note of finality in his voice that most people-except for his wife, Wendy-knew not to argue with.

But Javier wasn't listening to the sound of his brother's voice. He was too focused on his own exasperation. One minute, he was a virile, strong man in his very prime, the next, when he opened his eyes again, he'd lost a month of his life to a coma and had to train his body to do the very basic of life's functions. Things that most people took for granted-that he had taken for granted-were now challenges to him. His legs refused to obey him and that caused him no end of frustration-as well as scaring the h.e.l.l out of him. The fear was something he wasn't about to admit to a living soul, not even Marcos.

Although he had a sneaking suspicion when he looked into Marcos's eyes that his brother already knew that. However, Marcos had wisely refrained from saying anything about it.

Marcos put a comforting hand on his brother's shoulder, which, he noted, was utterly stiff with tension.

"Look, Javier, you have to give these doctors a chance," Marcos urged. "They know what they're doing and they're a great deal more familiar with these kinds of...problems," he finally said, for lack of a better word, "than you are."

Javier's dark eyes narrowed angrily. "It's my body and n.o.body's more familiar with it, or how it's supposed to work, than I am," he insisted hotly. "Don't get all hypocritical on me," he warned. "They wanted to keep Wendy here and she put her foot down, so they gave in and you took her home-just like she wanted," his brother pointed out.

Marcos shook his head. "No, that was different," he countered.

"How's that different?" Javier demanded. He realized that his voice had risen again. Biting back his temper, he made a concentrated effort to lower his tone. "Because Wendy's your wife and I'm not?"

Marcos laughed shortly. "No offense, Javier, but you'd make a pretty ugly wife," he cracked, hoping to get some kind of smile out of his brother. He failed. "And it's different because we don't know how long Wendy would have to stay here before the baby is strong enough to be born. Wendy's four walls might have changed, but she still has to stay in bed day and night. She still can't get up the way she wants to." Javier had averted his face, but Marcos pressed on. "Now that the doctors have brought you out of that medically induced coma, they have a timetable for you."

"I'm not interested in their timetable," Javier snapped.

In his place, Marcos knew he'd feel the same way. But he wasn't in his brother's place and it was up to him to calm Javier down and make him be reasonable.

"Well, you should be," he said firmly. "Trust me, those doctors don't want to see your ugly face here any more than you want to be here. But this is the place where they can help you, where they can work with you."

"There's nothing to work with," Javier retorted coldly, staring down at the two stiff limbs beneath the blanket. The limbs that refused to move. "Look, if I've got to stay here, okay, I'll stay here. Doesn't really matter anyway. But I want you to tell everyone to stop coming."

"Why?" Marcos asked, stunned at this new curve his brother had just thrown him.

"Because I don't want them to see me like this, that's why," he said through gritted teeth.

Ordinarily, because Javier was his big brother and Marcos had grown up looking up to Javier, Marcos would have backed away and not pressed the subject. But this situation didn't come anywhere near close to fitting the description of being "ordinary."

"Like what?" he wanted to know.

"Like half a man," Javier shouted. "There, I said it. You happy now? Like half a man."

"This is just temporary," Marcos insisted.

"How do you know that?" Javier challenged. "You saw some written guarantee? How do you know that?" he shouted again.

"Because I do, that's why," Marcos shouted back, then caught himself and lowered his voice. "Once the swelling on your spinal cord goes down, you'll fully regain the use of your legs-and even if you didn't," he insisted, "who you are isn't trapped in any of your limbs. You're not you because of your legs or your arms or any other d.a.m.n body part. You're Javier Mendoza because of what's inside of you. What's here," he said, jabbing his forefinger into the middle of Javier's chest. "You understand me? So stop your complaining and start focusing all that energy on getting better."

"You've got some mouth on you, you know that?" Javier retorted, but his voice was a little softer now. "Marriage do that to you?" It really wasn't a serious question, seeing as how, even though Wendy was expecting their first child at apparently any moment, Marcos and she had only been married for a little more than a month. A month that he had completely missed, Javier thought in rueful frustration.

"No, the tornado did," Marcos replied quite seriously. "Now, I mean it. Stop complaining and just be grateful that you're still alive and that you have the opportunity to mend. Not everyone was as lucky as you," he concluded more quietly, grimly recalling that several people he knew had lost their lives in the disaster.

Feeling just the slightest p.r.i.c.k of guilt, Javier shrugged defensively as he stared out the window. "Easy for you to say."

"Easy?" Marcos echoed in disbelief. It felt as if he hadn't slept more than five hours in the past five weeks. "Ever since that tornado hit and they dug you out, I've been trying to find a way to split myself in two, being there for Wendy and here for you," he elaborated.

"I was in a coma," Javier pointed out. "There was no need-"

"There was a need," Marcos interrupted with conviction. "We all took turns reading to you. And there was music playing constantly. Wendy thought it might help. Just because you were in a coma didn't mean you couldn't hear," Marcos insisted. "And besides running back and forth between home and San Antonio, I still had to put in time at the restaurant," he reminded his brother, referring to Red, the restaurant that he managed for his aunt and uncle.

It was also the place where he had first met Wendy. Although he and the youngest member of the Atlanta Fortune family hadn't exactly hit it off at first-and that, he now had to admit, had been entirely his fault-the restaurant still held a very special place in his heart. He wouldn't have felt right about neglecting his duties there and having the other members of the staff pick up the slack for him, even if this was an unusual crisis.

Javier continued to stare out the window. "Well, you don't have to feel obligated to come back here and give me annoying pep talks."

Marcos moved around the bed and directly into Javier's line of vision, getting between him and the window. He looked at him for a long moment. "You really want me to leave and not come back?"

Javier opened his mouth, about to say yes. But in all honesty, it wouldn't have been the truth. And he wasn't angry at Marcos and his "pep talk," he was angry at the circ.u.mstances that had put him here. So he sighed and looked down at his motionless limbs.

"No," he mumbled. "I don't really want you to leave and not come back. It's just that-"

"You're so d.a.m.n frustrated," Marcos filled in for his brother. He nodded. "Yeah, I know where you're coming from. It's hard being patient with things we have no control over. But the doctor said that the swelling is beginning to go down, so that means that you are getting better."

"Ha!" Javier jeered. So far, he didn't feel any different. "Not anywhere nearly as fast as I'd like."

Marcos laughed. He knew Javier. His brother would have wanted to be completely healed-yesterday. "I don't think that would be humanly possible, unless you had healing properties like Wolverine," he amended, thinking of the comic series he and his siblings used to read when they were children.

The mutant he was referring to was a favorite of his and Javier's. He'd never admitted that he had gravitated toward Wolverine because Javier liked the character as much as he did. Back then, he'd wanted to be exactly like his brother. Looking back now, he realized that what he'd had was a p.r.o.nounced case of hero worship.

Childhood heroes shouldn't have to be talked out of making dumb mistakes, he thought, looking at Javier now. His brother should have better instincts than that.

"Just try to take it easy," Marcos advised. "Listen to the doctors and try to make gains during the physical therapy session-no matter how small," he urged. "Before you know it, this'll be behind you. I promise," he added, crossing his heart the way they used to as kids.

Javier looked totally unconvinced. He looked like a man who was struggling to make peace with a life sentence. "Yeah, right."

"Unless you've found a way to make time stand still." The phrase, which he'd just plucked out of the air, made him smile. Wendy had done that for him, he realized. She'd made time stand still.

Not at first, of course. At first she'd made time sizzle because she'd been so maddeningly infuriating and he'd been saddled with her. He'd perceived her as a so-called poor little rich girl-slumming in the working world until she grew bored. Her parents had sent her off to Red Rock, and then to their friends, his uncle and aunt, in hopes that somewhere along the line their youngest born would develop a work ethic.

They'd had no idea that they were sending her out to meet her destiny.

And seal his.

Still frowning, but appearing just the slightest bit contrite now, Javier looked at him. "Yeah, I suppose you're right."

"Happens every once in a while," Marcos told him good-naturedly, with a laugh. He glanced at his watch. It was getting late and he was falling behind schedule. Again. "Look, I've got to get going." He put his hand on his brother's shoulder. "Promise me you're not going to do anything stupid."

"You mean like disguise myself as an orderly and sneak out of here?" Javier asked innocently. He saw Marcos's eyes grow wide. "Take it easy!" Javier laughed for the first time since before the tornado had hit. "I was only kidding. If I tried to sneak out as an orderly, I'd have to do it snaking my way out on my hands and knees, like a soldier trying to crawl through an open field under the enemy's radar. Remember? I'm the guy whose legs won't listen to him."

Marcos still wanted a.s.surances. "So you'll be here when I come back tomorrow?"

Javier preferred to leave it open-ended. "Unless the doctors change their minds about sending me home."

Well, there was absolutely no way that was going to happen in the next twenty-four hours, Marcos thought, but for the sake of his brother's abysmally low spirits, he merely nodded and repeated, "Unless they change their minds, right. I'll see you tomorrow," he promised, crossing to the door.

"Tell Wendy I was asking after her," Javier called to his brother.

Marcos turned in the doorway and smiled as he looked back at Javier. "I will," he told his brother. "She'll like that."

His wife, family rebel though she'd once been, was exceedingly family oriented these days, especially now that they were beginning a family of their own.

Once he was out of his brother's room, Marcos quickly made his way down the hall to the bank of elevators. He was a man in need of a miracle, he thought. Preferably one that caused all traffic to either disappear or conveniently part for him, so that he could get back to Red Rock and the restaurant at something akin to a reasonable hour.

He supposed that made him an unrealistic dreamer.

"It's a thirty-day plan," Blake told Wendy proudly the next morning. She'd arrived a few minutes before and he had brought her into the makeshift office he had put together in Scott's house.

He was still having some difficulty in thinking of his brother as a rancher and not a forward-moving business dynamo. After all, he'd spent all those years watching Scott and Michael, his oldest brother, constantly competing with one another over absolutely everything they laid eyes on, each always betting against the other that he would be the winner.

How did someone go from that to a laid-back man of the earth? It didn't seem possible to him without involving stiff doses of tranquilizers.

Yet this was Scott's new life, one that he was happily embracing-and all because of a woman. The very woman he had been trapped with when the tornado had all but buried them alive in debris.

Well, if Scott could do an about-face and turn his life completely around, Blake thought, he certainly could launch a thirty-day campaign to win back the woman of his dreams. The woman he knew in his bones destiny had chosen for him, to remain at his side until death parted them-and maybe even beyond.

"Then you really were serious about wanting to go after Brittany and wear her down, like any of our marketing customers," Katie said as she sat down at her side of the desk. She'd really hoped that once he'd slept on it-really slept on it-Blake would realize how nonsensical that sounded and just move on. After all, it wasn't as if he didn't have any real work to do.

But obviously he didn't see it as nonsensical and he wasn't about to move on. Which in turn made it a problem she was going to have to deal with.

There were times when she fervently wished she didn't love the man as much as she did. But then, she might as well have wished that the sun wasn't going to rise the next morning. It really wasn't something that was going to happen anytime soon.

Or ever.