Mail-Order Cinderella

You don’t get to be my age without recognizing when the wool is being pulled over someone’s eyes! And I suspect my dear Tyler is holding something back from the Fortune family. Now, I know Tyler’s parents gave him a silly marriage ultimatum and I’ve never met any of his women friends before, but something tells me that he barely knows his bride-to-be. As the family matriarch, I could put an end to this marriage nonsense. But Julie Parker is the best thing to happen to Tyler.

And some well-intentioned meddling by a harmless old woman may be just what the doctor ordered. I’m going to plan their wedding, help Julie find a wedding gown and take her for a makeover…. And when I’m done, Julie, Tyler is going to be dazzled speechless!

Dear Reader,

As we celebrate Silhouette’s 20th anniversary year as a romance publisher, we invite you to welcome in the fall season with our latest six powerful, passionate, provocative love stories from Silhouette Desire!

In September’s MAN OF THE MONTH, fabulous Peggy Moreland offers a Slow Waltz Across Texas. In order to win his wife back, a rugged Texas cowboy must learn to let love into his heart. Popular author Jennifer Greene delivers a special treat for you with Rock Solid, which is part of the highly sensual Desire promotion, BODY & SOUL.

Maureen Child’s exciting miniseries, BACHELOR BATTALION, continues with The Next Santini Bride, a responsible single mom who cuts loose with a handsome Marine. The next installment of the provocative Desire miniseries FORTUNE’S CHILDREN: THE GROOMS is Mail-Order Cinderella by Kathryn Jensen, in which a plain-Jane librarian seeks a husband through a matchmaking service and winds up with a Fortune! Ryanne Corey returns to Desire with a Lady with a Past, whose true love woos her with a chocolate picnic. And a nurse loses her virginity to a doctor in a night of passion, only to find out the next day that her lover is her new boss, in Doctor for Keeps by Kristi Gold.

Be sure to indulge yourself this autumn by reading all six of these tantalizing titles from Silhouette Desire!

Enjoy!

Joan Marlow Golan

Senior Editor, Silhouette Desire

Mail-Order Cinderella

Kathryn Jensen

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Janet Tanke, the editor I’m so sadly losing, for overseeing the

creation of this novel, lovingly and with professional dedication from

beginning to finish. And to Ann Leslie Tuttle, the editor I’m happily

gaining, who has already taken on the mantles of muse, cheerleader and

creative partner. Without such enthusiasm and loyalty, an author’s

world would be a much bleaker place. K.J.

KATHRYN JENSEN

has written many novels for young readers as well as for adults. She speed walks, works out with weights and enjoys ballroom dancing for exercise, stress reduction and pleasure. Her children are now grown. She lives in Maryland with her writing companion—Sunny, a lovable terrier-mix adopted from a shelter.

Having worked as a hospital switchboard operator, department store sales associate, bank clerk and elementary school teacher, she now splits her days between writing her own books and teaching fiction writing at two local colleges and through a correspondence course. She enjoys helping new writers get a start and speaks “at the drop of a hat” at writers’ conferences, libraries and schools across the country.

Meet the Arizona Fortunes—a family with a legacy of wealth, influence and power. As they gather for a host of weddings, a shocking plot against the family is revealed…and passionate new romances are ignited.

TYLER FORTUNE: This sexy man-about-town knew how to drive a rivet with the best of his construction crew and kiss a woman senseless, but he didn’t think he knew anything about marriage. Until plain-Jane Julie became his bride….

JULIE PARKER: All this shy librarian had wanted was a quiet, undemanding man who’d give her a baby—instead, she got a stunningly sexy, self-possessed man whose kisses gave her an unexpected glimpse of heaven.

JASON FORTUNE: Maybe if his younger brother, Tyler, had stuck with one girlfriend for more than three months, he’d know that finding a bride wasn’t like ordering a pizza!

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

One

Tyler Fortune hated losing a fight, and today he’d lost big time. Now he was going to pay for it, and the price was…marriage.

His sole consolation was that he’d relinquish his freedom on his own terms. He’d be damned if he let his parents corral him into marrying a snooty Tucson debutante or one of their wealthy friends’ daughters.

Impatiently, he shoved another videotape into the VCR. The custom-made entertainment center was built into one mahogany-paneled wall of his office on the fifth floor of the Fortune Building. Hitting the play button on the remote, he sat down again and leaned back in his chair to view the screen over the wide knuckles of his interlocked fingers.

A woman wearing more makeup than most cosmetic counters stocked beamed into the camera and introduced herself in an irritating falsetto. He groaned aloud. This wife-hunting business was hard, nerve-racking work, and probably a waste of time.

Tyler deeply resented lost minutes that were turning into hours. Hours he desperately needed to put into his family’s business. Why couldn’t his father, of all people, see that? Hell, by now he might have made that trip to Dallas they’d discussed, and secured another multi-million-dollar contract.

Although there was the occasional exception, Tyler rarely took time off from the work he loved. A short, intense workout at the Saguaro Springs Health Club. Dinner with a beautiful woman at Tucson’s magnificent Janos—followed by a night’s companionship, because he was, after all, a healthy male. Once in a while, his former college roommate, Dave Johnson, talked him into an extreme-sports adventure—skydiving over the Grand Canyon, white-water rafting in Montana, rock climbing in Colorado.

Dangerous sports duplicated the risk and thrill of balancing atop a steel girder three hundred feet above the merciless ground, or closing a hard-fought deal. Tyler’s life was the company. That was how he liked it. And, dammit, if he had his way…that was how it would remain!

But his parents’ persistent attempts at matchmaking had drastically increased in recent months. And Grandmother Kate had arrived from Minneapolis—the equivalent of bringing in the heavy artillery. Jasmine and Devlin’s plots to marry him off would have seemed old-fashioned and ludicrous had they not been so seriously aimed at him. Earlier that day, his father had delivered an ultimatum, “You are going to marry and settle into family life by the time you turn thirty, or you won’t inherit your share of the company. It’s for your own good, Tyler. And for the good of this family.”

Tensing again at the thought of complications a wife and family would inflict upon his well-ordered bachelor life, Tyler viciously jammed his thumb down on the eject button. Out popped the fifth videotape. He shoved in a new one, returned to his seat. Lifted rangy blue-jeaned legs to prop his boot heels on the edge of the blueprint-cluttered desk and slouched in his chair, muttering to himself. A sprinkle of dry red clay sifted over the tooled-leather desk blotter. He ignored it and tried to focus on the task at hand, protecting his position as heir to the vice presidency of Fortune Construction Company.

Tyler aimed steel-gray eyes at the woman being interviewed. There was a too-eager sparkle in her eyes. Carmine-red lipstick slashed across her full lips. A wave of blond hair swept seductively over one eye. Okay—this one was pretty. Stretching it, maybe even beautiful. She was young, energetic, quick with her answers and claimed she was willing to “have children after a while.”

An alarm sounded in his subconscious. After a while. Female code words for I don’t want to ruin my figure until I’m too old to care. He chuckled. Dear Kate would have a serious problem with this one. His sprightly octogenarian grandmother made no secret of the fact she wanted great-grandkids by the truckload, ASAP! Smiling and shaking his head, he hit the eject button.

“Last one of the batch. You’d better be a winner, sweetheart,” Tyler muttered as he slid in the final cartridge and hit play.

“I really hope this isn’t what I think it is,” a low voice stated from the open doorway.

Tyler looked around with a laconic smile at his brother Jason. “I don’t waste my time on those kinds of flicks. The real thing is so much more satisfying.”

Wearing an amused grin, Jason leaned against the doorjamb, just as tall, sinewy and muscled as his younger brother, but with a touch more red in his dark hair, and amber instead of gray eyes. Nevertheless, they shared the proud heritage of their father’s mother, Natasha Lightfoot, a full-blooded Papago Indian. Both brothers’ features bore the brand of their Native American ancestry—sharply angled cheek bones, strong aquiline noses, jaws that might have been carved from the hard red sandstone of the sacred plateau north of town.

Jason observed the image flickering on the screen with mock solemnity. “Doesn’t seem to have much of a plot.”

“Not s’posed to,” Tyler drawled, turning back to find a pale oval face on the TV screen. He stared, surprised by what he saw. This one was…different.

The young woman spoke quietly, almost as if afraid someone might hear her. She wasn’t trying to sell herself or flirt with the camera as the others had before her. She appeared not to have worn any makeup at all, but the harsh studio lights might have washed out a light application. No jewelry of any kind was evident at her throat, earlobes, or wrists. If one word described her, it was plain.

Nevertheless, something about the woman pulled at Tyler, held his gaze, captured his attention just as strongly as the others hadn’t.

Jason scowled. “Is this a new technique for interviewing receptionists?”

“Brides.”

His brother’s sudden laughter rocked the room. “Yeah, right.” Jason gasped to catch his breath and wiped at his eyes. “Brides.”

“I’m serious. If I have to marry in less than a year, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let anyone pick out a wife for me.”

“Do you really think Dad’s serious about this?” Jason asked.

“He made clear just how serious over lunch today. Luckily, I had a backup plan ready.”

Jason shook his head. “This isn’t a backup plan—it’s a disaster. You can’t find a wife this way, Ty!”

“Why not?” Tyler demanded stubbornly. He resented anyone telling him how he should live his life, and he made no exception for his brother or cousins, all of whom helped in the family business. “Who makes the rules for wife-choosing? Hell, they wanted you to marry Cara when you got her pregnant, back when you were only twenty years old! I don’t want to end up like—”

Too late, he stopped himself. The final word, you, hung as a silent rebuke in the air between them. He wished he’d kept his mouth shut. He hadn’t meant to sound so critical, or remind Jason of his ill-fated first marriage.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

Jason waved off his apology.

“Look, I tried to tell Dad I’m not cut out for marriage, but he won’t listen. And I just don’t have time to do this any other way.”

There were many things Tyler felt capable of handling well. He knew how to set a half-ton I-beam ten floors above the desert, how to pour a foundation that wouldn’t crack even in the unforgiving Arizona heat, how to drive a rivet with the best of his crew and how to kiss a woman crazy. But marriage?

Jason seemed less interested in his sibling’s explanations than he was in the petite, nervous creature on the widescreen TV. “Look at her. You’d think the interviewer was a lion about to devour her.”

“She does look about to jump out of her skin,” Tyler admitted. Her eyes were huge and blinked, blinked, blinked…like those of a wild animal startled by headlights. She repeatedly moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. For once the gesture didn’t look contrived or seductive. Nevertheless, Tyler found it appealing, innocently tantalizing. He’d have settled for seeing her jump out of her clothes.

Jason sighed. “I don’t understand why people put themselves through this sort of meat-market inspection. It’s as bad as hanging out in a singles bar.”

“Who knows. Loneliness? A desire to be part of something? A couple…a family.”

But Tyler already had a family—all he’d ever wanted anyway. His brother, niece, parents, grandmother and cousins formed one rowdy, hardworking, competitive, proud clan. He loved them all fiercely. He wasn’t interested in bringing an intruder into their midst, and he didn’t see why his parents had become so insistent that he should.

Amazingly, he still couldn’t take his eyes from the timid woman’s face. “Julie,” he heard the off-screen interviewer ask her, “why did you apply to Soulmate Search?”

She straightened her spine, hitched back her narrow shoulders and lifted her chin to look directly into the camera for the first time. Tyler was certain the effort to make the simple postural adjustments was enormous.

“I want a baby,” she said crisply.

“Oh boy, kiss of death,” Jason muttered.

Tyler slowly shook his head. Someone ought to tell her honesty wouldn’t get her very far in the dating world. She was just making herself sound needy. Needy didn’t turn guys on.

“You mean,” the interviewer suggested, trying to steer her toward a more appealing reply, “you’d like to find your soul mate, someone to share your interests like gourmet cooking and love of children?”

“No,” Julie said slowly, emphasizing each subsequent word as if it contained a message of its own, “all…I…want…is…a…child. Children actually. Three, four…more if my husband wants them. I adore children.”

Tyler wondered if therein lay a hidden meaning. Children were great, but she wasn’t too crazy about grown men?

“I see,” mumbled the interviewer. In the background, pages were being noisily shuffled. She’d put him off his rhythm.

Julie…what was her last name? Tyler glanced at the letter that had accompanied the tapes. Parker. Yes, Julie Ann Parker was just too earnest for this sophisticated matchmaking service with its nationwide offices.

Tyler felt embarrassed for her. He pushed the eject button on the remote. The tape smoothly slid out of the VCR.

“Nice girl,” Jason commented. “Doesn’t have a clue, does she?”

“Huh? Oh, no…” Tyler was still thinking about Julie Parker’s eyes. He couldn’t remember their color—hazel, he thought. A subtle hue not terribly distinctive or memorable. But they displayed a nebulous quality he would very much like to explore in person. And that flick of soft pink tongue every now and then…lordy, what that did to his lower regions.

Maybe he should run the tape again. Just for the heck of it.

“Well, good luck, Romeo,” Jason said cheerfully. “Personally, I think if you stuck with one girlfriend for more than three months, you might find one with long-term potential.”

“It’s not their staying power I worry about.”

Man to man—the universal question. Will one woman ever be enough for me…for the rest of my life?

“Yeah, well.” Jason shrugged. “You never know until the right one comes along. When she’s meant for you, everything falls into place. Look at how Adele has changed my view of marriage.” He broke out in a boyish grin that Tyler envied. What he wouldn’t give to feel that carefree in the middle of all they had been going through in recent weeks.

Tyler changed the subject. “So, what brought you down here this late in the day?” His brother was VP in charge of marketing, and had relatively little to do with the construction end of the business.

Jason’s smile slid away as he moved farther inside his brother’s office and closed the door behind him. “Something you ought to know about before the press catches wind. Link Templeton thinks he’s found evidence that Mike Dodd was…well, that elevator he was on might not have crashed fifteen floors without a little help.”

Only a few weeks ago, a fatal accident at the building site of the Fortune Memorial Children’s Hospital had taken the life of their foreman. When the police didn’t immediately declare Dodd’s death accidental, the Fortunes called in a private investigator to help get to the bottom of the incident quickly and reassure investors.

Tyler dropped his boot heels from the desktop with a thud and shot to his feet. “Are you sure? Is he sure?”

“Link’s a pretty cautious guy. He wouldn’t come out with some outrageous theory unless he had proof. He believes the elevator was sabotaged, which means Mike might have been intentionally killed.”

“You mean murdered.” Now that it had been said out loud, Tyler felt it must be true.

Dodd had been a crucial cog in the hospital project, which was a labor of love for the Fortunes. Everyone in the family was taking part—raising money, putting in unpaid hours of labor, donating materials, gathering regional and state political support and local sympathy for a medical facility that would serve the young, ethnically diverse population around Pueblo.

Once the hospital was complete, injured and sick children wouldn’t need to be rushed off to Tucson, twenty-five miles to the north, for medical care. Papago families would receive care for their children without requiring proof of insurance or demands that they pay astronomical medical costs they couldn’t afford. This had been his family’s dream for as long as Tyler had been in the business, and that was as far back as he could remember.

If someone wanted to hurt the Fortunes, sabotaging the hospital was a perfect way to do it.

“This is terrible. Have you told Dad yet?”

Jason lifted a hand in a helpless gesture. “I’m on my way to the ranch right now.”

Tyler nodded grimly. A family didn’t acquire the wealth of the Fortunes without making enemies along the way. But he hadn’t wanted to believe envy and greed could push anyone in Pueblo to murder.

“You want to come with me when I give Dad the news?” Jason asked.

Tyler found himself staring at the dark TV screen. “No. You go ahead, I’ll get the details later. Too much to do here.”

Jason shook his head as if he understood the flow of his brother’s thoughts. “You can’t order a wife as if she were a pizza.”

Tyler flicked a piece of lint off his denim shirt. “Marriages used to be arranged on a lot less than a videotape.”

“You’re crazy, you know that?” Jason threw his strong arms around Tyler and thumped him fondly on the back.

Minutes later, Tyler found himself standing in the middle of his office, still staring at the dark TV screen. Was he crazy for wanting to take command of his own future? Women made demands on their men. Children required unlimited love and constant attention to their physical needs. All of that time spent relating to family members ate up precious work hours and changed a man. Whether he wanted to be changed or not.

The cold, black expanse of screen challenged Tyler. Alternatives. He desperately needed alternatives. Tyler reached for the remote again. Julie Parker’s smooth, pale countenance materialized before him.

He was partial to flaming redheads. Miss Parker’s hair was paper-bag brown. He melted in the presence of blue eyes. Hers were a subtle mossy hue. Tall, leggy women instantly attracted him. He glanced down at the stats accompanying her tape. She was barely five-foot-two. He’d tower over her.

She was all wrong for him physically. But he could tell by her shy manner, frequent blushes, and the way she repeatedly averted her eyes from the camera that she wasn’t the type to assert herself. This might actually work to your advantage, a persistent voice whispered to him. And all she asked from him was a baby.

She needed a husband; he needed a wife. A simple trade-off.

She had just about given up hope. In less than ten days, the six-month membership Julie had purchased in the upscale matchmaking service would expire. She couldn’t afford to sign up for another. She could barely afford next month’s rent.

That same night, the telephone rang. “We’ve received a request for a personal contact,” the woman on the other end cheerfully informed her. “I can overnight a copy of the gentleman’s tape to you. Let us know if you’d like to meet him. He looks like an excellent match for you, Miss Parker.”

Julie was skeptical. Her first thought was: This is the bait to make me sign up for another six months.

But when the tape arrived along with a brief biographical sketch, she wondered if this might actually be the moment she’d been waiting for. Someone was interested in meeting her! And he knew from the start what she looked like, how awkwardly she behaved around strangers and what she expected of him.

Last fall, it had taken every ounce of her precious store of courage to contact Soulmate Search after rejecting every other dating service in the phone book because they’d seemed embarrassingly tacky if not outright perilous. Imagine divulging your private hopes and dreams to hundreds of absolute strangers! And they could just forget about her climbing into a car with a stranger.

But this company guaranteed confidentiality and a thorough screening of applicants to weed out undesirables. She would receive names and video interviews of men from all across the country who were serious about marriage and potentially interested in her. Soulmate’s clients were men and women with stable incomes who wouldn’t mind flying to the opposite coast to meet a potential mate. No lounge lizards, prison inmates or out-of-work loafers here!

The next day Julie had blown her entire savings on one last-ditch effort to find a man who could give her what she so desperately needed.

Now her heart beat frantically in her chest and her fingertips felt moist as she slipped the tape cartridge into the used video player she’d purchased for ten dollars at the thrift shop. Julie poured herself a glass of the generic Chablis she kept handy as a cooking ingredient. The love she would have lavished on a child she put into creating exotic dishes, even though she had no one to share them with in her tiny apartment. She took three fast sips to steady her nerves, then pushed a button and stood back from the screen, her grocery-store wineglass cupped between trembling hands.

The man on the screen was drop-dead gorgeous. This had to be a mistake.

Julie ejected the film, inspected the label, reread the accompanying letter.

No, everything appeared to be in order. His name was Tyler Fortune, just as the woman on the phone had said. He lived in Pueblo, Arizona, almost due west of Houston, where she lived. This was good. She felt better knowing they both resided in the Southwest.

Julie started the tape again.

She sat down without looking to see if a chair was nearby, and her bottom made serendipitous contact with a sofa cushion. Hugging her knees to her chest, she held her breath while the amazing man on the screen answered a list of questions posed by a female interviewer.