From Bachelor Businessman…to Insta-Dad?

Connor Fortunado comes to Houston with only one agenda: tracking down a missing (and malicious) Fortune relative. His new assistant, Brianna Childress, is a huge help—even though the single mom has her hands full at home. His attraction to Brianna is instant—and inexplicable. The last thing the bachelor Fortune wants is a houseful of commitments. But could it be that Brianna and her brood are the family he’s been seeking all along?

USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author MARIE FERRARELLA has written more than two hundred and fifty books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, marieferrarella.com.

Also by Marie Ferrarella

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Diamond in the Ruff

Her Red-Carpet Romance

Coming Home for Christmas

Dr. Forget-Me-Not

Twice a Hero, Always Her Man

Meant to Be Mine

A Second Chance for the Single Dad

Christmastime Courtship Engagement

for Two

Adding Up to Family

Fortune’s Second-Chance Cowboy

The Maverick’s Return

The Fortune Most Likely To…

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Texan Seeks Fortune

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-09078-0

TEXAN SEEKS FORTUNE

© 2019 Harlequin Books S.A.

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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To

Elliana Melgar,

The Incredibly Precocious

And Intelligent

Three-Year-Old

Who Was My Inspiration

For Ava And Axel

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Extract

About the Publisher

Prologue

Connor Fortunado was torn.

He glanced out of the window of his first-class seat. The flight was just about over.

He was almost there.

Houston.

Home.

Connor half smiled to himself. Home, better known as “The House of the Incurable Romantics.” The whimsical title had recently occurred to him because every one of his five siblings was either married or going to be married.

Except for him.

And that little fact of life, he promised himself, wasn’t about to change anytime soon.

Or ever.

Connor was pretty happy with his life. He was thirty-one, single, carefree and able to take off at a moment’s notice without an explanation to anyone if he wanted to—the way he had just done. If he were married and had what was whimsically referred to in some circles as “a better half,” right about now that “better half” would most likely be giving him hell for the double life he was leading. She would have doubtlessly not looked favorably on his giving up an executive position with a prestigious corporate search firm just so that he could follow his passion.

Everyone in the family still thought he was that highly paid executive at his old firm. His former career had been a dependable, respectable position with an excellent, if somewhat boring, future laid out in front of it. None of his relatives knew that somewhere along the line he had discovered he had a real aptitude for detective work.

It had begun innocently enough. He’d helped his boss uncover an embezzling scheme within the company. But once he’d discovered the culprit, Connor found that he was hooked on the rush that came in the wake of untangling all the twisted skeins and getting to the bottom of the mystery. After a bit of soul-searching, he’d decided to put his newly honed skills to better use. So he had turned his back on the corporate world and became a highly paid private investigator.

Career changes like that wouldn’t have sat well with a wife and she would have undoubtedly had no qualms about making her displeasure known.

To everyone.

Connor frowned. The moment of reckoning was almost here. He was going to have to come clean to his family once he landed in Houston. Telling his siblings should go fine because for the most part, they were pretty open-minded. It was coming clean to his parents that was going to be the problem. His parents, especially his father, were not going to look favorably on this change in careers.

He was not looking forward to this. All things considered, he would have gone on keeping his secret for as long as possible.

However, fate had other plans for him and was forcing him to own up to this major change in his life. All in the name of the family good. He just hoped his parents would see it that way. Yes, he was an adult, but there was still a part of him that preferred parental approval.

But he really didn’t have the luxury of keeping this to himself any longer. His family needed him. There was no other conclusion to be reached.

Someone was out there, trying to get them.

It wasn’t merely a paranoid thought reserved for the rich but an honest assessment of the situation. How else could he view what had been happening to different members of his family in the last two months? Like to his father’s half brother. Gerald Robinson’s estate, palatial by any standards, had been the target of an arsonist, set on fire and almost burned down to the ground. The family-based technology firm, Robinson Tech, had been the victim of cybersabotage. And Fortunado Real Estate, a company his father founded and two of his sisters and one of his brothers-in-law now worked at, had been the target of sabotage, as well.

It was as if no one who was even remotely related to the Fortune family—no matter how they spelled their last name—was safe.

Connor had a gut feeling that it was only going to get worse unless whoever was responsible for wreaking all this havoc was found and captured. As a Fortunado, he had found that he and his family were related to the Fortunes. And that meant he couldn’t just sit on the sidelines and watch this little drama play out.

He had to do something. He had natural skills, he had connections and he had the money to fund the investigation, all of which would serve him well in his search for whoever was attempting to carry out this vendetta against the entire Fortune family.

His family.

In his mind, Connor was already getting started on the case even though he was still airborne.

All he had to do, he thought, was get past telling his parents.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we will be beginning our descent to Houston shortly. Please return your tray tables to the upright positions…”

The cheerful flight attendant continued with her instructions, her voice fading into the background for Connor.

Connor’s stomach felt just the slightest bit queasy. Not because of the airplane’s descent, but because of what lay ahead.

Zero hour was almost here.

Chapter One

They walked into the big, sprawling living room en masse: his sister Valene; his sister Maddie and her husband, Zach McCarter; and his parents, Kenneth and Barbara Fortunado.

Here goes nothin’, Connor thought, putting on his game face.

Kenneth Fortunado, a robust giant of a man, had never been known for beating around the bush. He got right to it.

“All right, Connor, what’s the big mystery?” Kenneth asked his son as he came in. “What suddenly brings you here?”

“My guess is it has to be something big to get Connor to leave that cushy, high-paying executive job of his back in Denver and bring his butt back home,” Maddie said, making herself comfortable on one of the oversize sofas in the room.

“It’s not bad news, is it, dear?” Barbara Fortunado asked, her brown eyes wide with worry as they searched her son’s face. “Please don’t let it be bad news. I couldn’t bear to hear about anything else bad happening after all that’s been going on.”

“Come to think of it, you do look rather unsettled, boy,” Kenneth said, looking more closely at his son’s face. “Out with it. What’s going on? Why are you suddenly here?”

Unable to remain quiet any longer, Connor’s sister Valene spoke up. “Everybody, let Connor breathe. We’re all getting way too jumpy.” Valene was referring to the fact that the place where they all worked, Fortunado Real Estate, had suddenly and inexplicably seen a turn for the worse in the last two months. They’d lost a good share of their best clients.

Taking Maddie’s hand in his, Zach McCarter gave Connor a sympathetic look, as if to say that he was glad he wasn’t the one in his brother-in-law’s shoes, although for now he wisely remained silent.

Connor looked around the room. There were members of his immediate family who were missing from the gathering although he had put the word out that he wanted to speak to all of them at the same time. He saw no sense in having to go through this little drama twice, but obviously his message hadn’t registered properly.

“I was hoping to say this when everyone was here,” Connor told his father.

“You’re going to have to settle for half the family,” Kenneth told him, his tone already growing impatient. “In case you haven’t noticed, trying to get everyone together in one place—apart from holding a wedding—is like herding cats—”

“More like herding chickens,” Valene said under her breath, then flashed a smile at her father when Kenneth shot her a look. It was obvious she hadn’t thought she was going to be overheard.

“Connor, please tell us,” Barbara entreated her son. “You’re getting me very nervous.”

Feeling guilty that he was adding to his mother’s concerns, Connor stopped stalling. Half a family was better than none.

Taking a deep breath, he launched into the reason for his unexpected return home.

Connor started slowly. “It’s nothing to make you nervous, Mother.”

“Spit it out, Connor,” Kenneth ordered. “If you beat around the bush like this at that corporate search firm of yours, it’s a wonder that they haven’t shown you the door yet.”

This was as good an opening as any, Connor thought. “Well, that’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about,” he began.

Kenneth cut him off. “They fired you?” he cried, astonished despite what he’d just said.

“No,” Connor replied firmly. “They didn’t fire me, but I’m not working for them anymore.”

His father’s complexion was turning a shade of unflattering red. “What do you mean you’re not working for them anymore?” Kenneth demanded.

“Kenneth, please, let him speak,” Barbara pleaded, putting her hand on her husband’s arm as if she was trying to gentle a wild stallion. “I’m sure he has a good explanation for all this.” She looked at her son hopefully. Waiting.

“Well?” Kenneth demanded, his eyes all but pinning Connor against the wall.

Connor took in another breath, as if that would somehow shield him from the explosion he sensed was coming. “I’m not with that firm anymore because I’m a private investigator now.”

“You’re a PI?” Maddie cried in awed disbelief. Suddenly, a smile bloomed on her lips. “You mean like Magnum?”

Valene looked at her sister, lost. “Who’s Magnum?” she wanted to know.

“Some guy on a classic TV show,” Zach volunteered. “I caught a few episodes on one of those channels that show nothing but programs from the seventies and eighties.”

“No, not like Magnum,” Connor corrected tolerantly. “Most of the work isn’t as glamorous as TV makes it out to be. It requires a lot of patience and a great deal of attention to detail,” he told his family, hoping that was enough.

Apparently, it wasn’t. Exasperated, Kenneth waved his hand for everyone else in the room to be quiet. He obviously intended to go toe to toe with his son.

“You’re a private eye?” Kenneth cried, completely stunned and grossly disappointed. There was no question of that. “What the hell were you thinking?”

“It’s ‘private investigator,’ Dad,” Connor told his father patiently. “And what I was thinking was that maybe I could help find out who’s responsible for everything that’s been going on around here lately.”

“There are professionals for that sort of thing, dear,” Barbara told her son, speaking up.

Connor turned to look at his mother. He hadn’t thought this was going to be easy, he reminded himself. “I am a professional, Mother.”

Kenneth let out an exasperated breath. “Since when?” he mocked.

Connor turned his attention to his father. He couldn’t back down now. If he did, it was all over. “Since a few months ago.”

Kenneth frowned, shaking his head, unable to accept the information or come to grips with it.

“I don’t believe you,” Kenneth countered. “You wouldn’t do something that was so life-altering without telling me.”

“I am telling you,” Connor pointed out. “Now. There was no reason to say anything earlier.”

It was plain to everyone that Kenneth found the explanation entirely unacceptable.

“How did this happen?” his father wanted to know. “Did you wake up one morning and just say, ‘Gee, I’m tired of my high-paying executive job. Let me throw it all away and do something totally mindless, like become a private eye.’ Is that what happened?” Kenneth demanded hotly.

“Private detective, dear,” Barbara corrected her husband.

“Private investigator,” Connor said calmly, correcting them both. “And no, I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide to become a private investigator,” he told his father. “My boss suspected that there was someone embezzling money from the firm, but he didn’t know how to go about finding out who was behind it. He shared his concern with me and I told him I’d do a little snooping around. I did and as it turns out, I discovered who was stealing the firm’s money in a little less than a week.”

Kenneth dourly dismissed the accounting. “You got lucky.”

“No, I didn’t,” Connor informed his father. “I was persistent. And I found that I had a natural aptitude for ferreting things out.”

Kenneth snorted. “My son the Ferret. I can’t wait to tell people your new job description.”

“Dad, you’re missing the point here,” Valene insisted, looking at her father with a touch of annoyance as she came to her brother’s aid. “Connor said he was here to help us get to the bottom of what’s been happening to the family lately.”

She looked at her father, waiting for her words to sink in.

“That’s for the police to do,” Barbara reminded her children. No doubt she didn’t like the idea of any of her children getting involved with something that could be dangerous.

“And how far have they gotten with their investigation?” Maddie challenged her mother.

Barbara raised her shoulders in a helpless shrug, then offered an excuse to Maddie. “It’s still early,” Barbara said.

“Do you really want to wait until someone’s killed before we do anything, Mother?” Connor asked his mother gently.

Barbara’s eyes widened, as if she hadn’t thought about that possibility. “Do you really think that could happen?” she asked Connor.

His inclination was to shelter his mother, but he had to be honest. “The way things are escalating, there’s no reason to believe that it couldn’t.”

Kenneth was still unconvinced. “Okay, hotshot, let’s hear it. What’s your big ‘theory’ about what’s been going on?” the senior Fortunado asked. “Do you even have one?”

Mindful that his father was judging every word out of his mouth, Connor began slowly, speaking distinctly. “I think that these aren’t just random acts the way the police initially thought.” He paused for a half beat, looking at each of them before delivering his bombshell. “I think there’s one person behind everything that’s been happening.”

Kenneth’s eyes squinted as he regarded his son. “You’re talking about the fire, the hacking and the sabotaging of the real estate dealings?” he wanted to know.

“Yes,” Connor replied stoically.

“One person is behind all this?” Zach asked, wanting to get his facts clear.

Relieved to hear a nonjudgmental voice, Connor glanced at Maddie’s husband. “Yes, that’s what I’m thinking.”

“That must be one very energetic person,” Kenneth commented. The sarcasm was hard to miss.

“People can be hired to carry out these things. But I believe there’s one person orchestrating all these things being executed against the family,” Connor told them.

As he looked around at their faces, Connor could see that his mother and sisters, as well as Zach, were more than willing to be convinced. His father, however, was still digging in his heels. Whether it was because the man didn’t agree with the theory or because he was angry over the fact that Connor had suddenly switched careers, Connor didn’t know.

He waited for his father to say something. He didn’t have long to wait.

“And just who is this vengeful person targeting the family?” Kenneth wanted to know. “Do you know, or is this all just one big theory you’re hoping to get us to buy into?”

Connor kept his eyes on his father as he answered. “I found evidence of rumormongering.”

“You’re going to have to explain that to me,” his mother said. “What does rumormongering mean?”

Kenneth began to open his mouth, undoubtedly to define the term for his wife, but Connor was already explaining it to his mother in what he felt would be simpler terms than his father was wont to use.

“Someone has been bad-mouthing Fortunado Real Estate’s dealings on the internet, Mother, causing business to drop. Because of the so-called rumors, people have withdrawn their business from the company and taken it elsewhere.”

“And does this ‘someone’ have a name?” Kenneth asked again, his impatient tone suggesting that he sincerely doubted his son had gotten that far in his so-called “investigation.”

Connor managed to surprise his father, as well as his mother, by answering, “Yes.”

“Well?” Kenneth asked, waiting to hear who this person was.

“From everything I’ve managed to learn, I believe the person who’s causing all this chaos is Charlotte Prendergast Robinson.”

“Gerald’s wife?” Barbara cried, astonished at the revelation.

“Uncle Gerald’s ex-wife,” Connor corrected his mother. It was being Gerald’s ex that had caused the woman to launch her vendetta in the first place, he believed.

Kenneth looked at his son skeptically, although in all truthfulness, the woman’s name had been mentioned in connection to all these acts once or twice before.

“I know that Charlotte’s angry,” his father began, rolling the idea over in his mind.

“She’s way more than that, Dad,” Valene interjected. “You know that line about a woman scorned,” she reminded her father.

“Val’s right,” Maddie said, adding her voice to her sister’s as well as Connor’s. “Aunt Charlotte wasn’t exactly a hundred percent stable before Uncle Gerald finally left her to go back with that woman he called his first love, Deborah. Think about it,” Maddie stressed. “I mean, who in their right mind puts together a whole big binder devoted to her husband’s illegitimate children?” She shook her head at the very thought.

“Maybe the woman just wanted to have a book devoted to her family’s genealogy,” Barbara said. Connor knew his mother was always ready to see the good in everyone.

“More like having a book she could use to blackmail everyone,” Maddie said. “Besides, I doubt she thinks of the people in that binder as ‘her’ family. It’s more like his family—not that Uncle Gerald even knew some of them existed until Charlotte got started collecting names.”

“I wouldn’t put anything past Aunt Charlotte,” Connor told the others.

“I think it was finding out that Deborah was the mother of his triplets that did it,” Maddie suggested. “It was the last straw, the thing that finally unhinged Charlotte.”

“Why would that do it any more than knowing about the other illegitimate ones?” Kenneth asked. He frowned. It was obvious that he didn’t like or welcome the fact that he was actually related to Gerald. “That man spread his seed more than anyone ever cited in the Bible,” he said with disgust.

“Kenneth,” Barbara chided, obviously surprised at her husband saying something like that.

“Well, it’s true,” Kenneth told his wife. “He didn’t care who he impregnated. The man should have been neutered.”

“Are you sure we’re actually related to Gerald Robinson?” Maddie asked. “Maybe there was some mistake made.”

Connor sympathized with his sister’s desire to sever ties, but it wasn’t that simple. “Dad and Gerald are both Grandpa Julius’s sons,” he pointed out.

“We’re half brothers,” Kenneth corrected tersely. “For what that’s worth.”

“That was when Gerald was still known as Jerome Fortune, before he decided to run off and assume another complete identity,” Barbara explained to her children, no doubt to keep things straight in case the fact had gotten lost among the preponderance of offspring who had been discovered.

Maddie squinted as if she was trying to reconcile a few facts with ones that already existed. “Wait, my head hurts,” she said as she dramatically put her hand to her forehead.

Valene laughed at her sister’s theatrics as she shook her own head. “One thing I have to say about this family. We are definitely not boring.”

“No, Gerald and his extended family aren’t boring,” Kenneth corrected with feeling. “We are just an average, run-of-the-mill family with some decent monetary holdings,” he insisted. “Or we were,” he said as he looked in Connor’s direction, “until one of my sons decided to completely turn his life inside out and become a—” his eyes met Connor’s “—PI,” Kenneth concluded.

Connor wanted to put this behind them once and for all. His father had to understand that his new career would only help the family in the long run, not embarrass it. “Dad, you’re getting off track here,” Connor respectfully pointed out.

“And your ‘track’ is that this was all done by Charlotte as her way of getting even, is that it?” Kenneth asked.

“Yes,” Connor answered simply.

“But why would she do all this?” Kenneth asked. “Wouldn’t her vengeance be focused directly on Gerald, not the rest of the family?” He rethought his words. “Or better yet, on Deborah? After all, in Charlotte’s warped mind wouldn’t she think Deborah is responsible for stealing her husband away from her?” Kenneth insisted.

There was no simple, hard-and-fast answer to that. “I think we can all agree that Aunt Charlotte is a complicated person. I wouldn’t begin to try to analyze exactly what’s on her mind. I would be lost in that maze for days,” Connor predicted.

“And yet you think she’s the one behind this?” Barbara asked her son.

The two were not mutually exclusive. “Yes, I do,” Connor answered.

“She might be a cold, vengeful person, but she is still family, Connor. I really don’t think she’d go to such great lengths to get back at Gerald or Jerome or whatever he wants to call himself,” Barbara argued.

“Well, Mother, I’m not as kindhearted as you. And according to the evidence I’ve found, she is definitely mixed up in this, if not the actual orchestrator—which I actually believe she is.”

Connor looked around at his family in silence, allowing his words to sink in. Hoping he had finally gotten them to see the situation the way he did.

He was convinced the only hope they had was to fight this as a united front.

Chapter Two

“One question.” Kenneth moved to the edge of the sofa he was sitting on, raising his hand as if he was a student in a classroom instead of the former CEO of Fortunado Real Estate.

“Only one?” Connor asked, unable to keep the amused expression off his face.

“One’s enough,” Kenneth responded sternly. “Charlotte Robinson seems to have done a disappearing act—”

“I know that,” Connor answered, anticipating his father’s question. “Which is why I’m planning on finding her.”

Kenneth waved a hand at his son’s declaration, for all intents and purposes dismissing it.

“And therein lies my question,” Kenneth replied. “There are countless people trying to track this woman down, from the local police to the FBI to even our illustrious matriarch herself, Kate Fortune, who you might remember, despite being in her nineties, is one exceptionally formidable woman. With the boundless resources that are at Kate’s disposal, if she can’t find Charlotte, what in hell makes you think that you’re going to be able to do anything different?” his father wanted to know.

“I’m not an egotist, Dad,” Connor replied mildly. “I don’t think that I’m the only one who can find Charlotte. It’s just that,” he continued despite the cynical look on his father’s face, “sometimes I wind up getting results by thinking outside the box. Besides, the more people putting their heads together and working on locating Charlotte Robinson, the greater the chances are of actually bringing her to justice.”

Kenneth blew out a breath. “I suppose I can’t argue with that.”

“Give him time,” Valene said to Connor with a wink. “He’ll find a way.”

She went on in a louder voice, clapping her hands together to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, now that we’ve all been told about Connor’s new career and all agreed that Connor should try to find that awful woman before she does anything else, possibly even more reprehensible, to the family, let’s get back to our favorite topic.”

Connor looked at his sister quizzically. “And that would be—?”

“An engagement party,” she answered him gleefully, her eyes dancing as a broad smile slipped over her lips, curving them.

Connor closed his eyes. Engagements and weddings. His least favorite topics of conversation in the world. “I think that’s my cue to exit, stage right.”

But before he could take a single step to make that happen, Maddie linked her arm through his.

“Not today, brother dear. Mother told me that you’re spending the night at the old homestead,” she said, gesturing around the area, which couldn’t by any stretch of the imagination be referred to as “the old homestead,” at least not if accuracy was a factor.

“Looks to me like you’re trapped,” Zach told his brother-in-law, traces of amused compassion in his voice.

“Trapped? No, no offense, Zach, but that’s one thing I’m never going to be.” Connor shook his head as he glanced at his sisters and thought about his missing siblings, all of whom were undoubtedly with their “significant other” at the moment. “You know, I really can’t get over how domesticated everyone’s gotten over this past year and a half.”

“Yeah, yeah, your time’ll come,” Valene predicted, letting Connor know that she wasn’t buying into this act of his.

However, Connor remained steadfast because he honestly believed that his status was never going to change. “Sorry, not going to happen. Not to me.”

“Just because you’re the last man standing, brother dear, doesn’t mean you’re going to stay that way,” Maddie told him.

“You’re right,” Connor answered his sister. “I am the last man standing. And I intend to keep on standing for a very long, long time.”

“What do you have against being happy?” Zach asked Connor as he slipped his arm around Maddie’s shoulders and drew her closer to him.

“But that’s just my point,” Connor told the other man. “I am happy. I like being free and not accountable to anyone except for myself. And you people on occasion,” he added as an afterthought, looking around at the others in the living room.

Barbara Fortunado merely smiled at her son as she reached over and patted his cheek affectionately. “Your time will come, dear,” was all she said before she turned her attention to her daughters.

A moment later, she became fully immersed in finalizing plans for the wedding—which at this point was only a month away.

Connor turned to look at his father, who from what he could determine was also standing on the outskirts of this conversation, the way he was.

Yes, he thought, romance was all well and good, but when that faded and the day-to-day business of living had to be addressed, that was where it all fell apart. He liked keeping things fresh, not facing the same old stale fare day in, day out. In his opinion, marriages were about routines and he liked to mix things up.

“You understand, right, Dad?” Connor asked the man sitting across from him.

“Do I understand how you feel right at this moment? Yes, I do,” Kenneth admitted freely.

Connor was glad to hear that he had his father’s support. “Well, at least you can see that—”

“I also understand,” Kenneth went on as if his son hadn’t said anything, “that all that’ll change the moment the right woman comes into your life.”

“Lots of women have come into my life, Dad,” Connor pointed out. That was part of the joy of being unattached. “And I’m still free.”

“I said the right woman,” Kenneth emphasized. “And it’s not something anyone can convince you of until it actually happens to you,” his father said knowingly. “Until then,” he counseled, “just enjoy thinking that you’re happy.”

Connor merely offered his father a smile. He knew he couldn’t change his father’s mind any more than his father could change his. But he was happy, Connor thought with conviction. He knew that. And he intended to remain that way no matter what anyone else might think to the contrary.

But because the upcoming wedding seemed to make his sister so happy, he remained in the room and pretended to listen to all the plans that were being made for the anticipated nuptials.

He even nodded and smiled in the right places while his thoughts were elsewhere.

* * *

“Do you need anything, Connor?” Barbara Fortunado asked her son much later that evening.

Talks regarding the wedding plans had gone on much longer than anyone had thought they would and time had just gotten away from them. To his credit, she thought, Connor had feigned interest and even contributed a word or two, which made his sisters happy. It was nice seeing her children getting along.

She paused now to look in on her son, who was spending the night in what had once been his bedroom.

“No, I’m good, Mom,” Connor told her. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he looked around the room. It had been a long time since he’d been here. “Although I have to admit that it feels a little strange to be back here after all this time,” he confessed.

Barbara nodded. Like all good mothers, she realized that her children had to make their own way in the world and she was proud of each and every one of them. But there were times when their very success at forging their paths out in the world made her feel just a little sad. There were times, fleeting moments actually, when she longed for the days that they had all been together, under one roof, and needed her.

She smiled at Connor now. “It’s nice to have you back, even if it is for just a little while and even if the reason you’re here is because this nasty business was what drew you back.” Her mouth quirked a little. “No matter what the reason, you’re here and that’s all I care about.”

Connor crossed the room to the doorway where his mother was standing. Slipping his arm around her shoulders, he pressed a kiss to her temple.

“You were—and are—the primary draw that brought me back, Mom. You always have been.”

Barbara laughed softly. “You always did have a way with words. Not always a truthful way, I grant you, but always sweet,” she concluded. And then she became his mother again as he crossed back to his bed. “Get some sleep, dear.”

Connor couldn’t help grinning at her. “I am thirty-one, you know.”

Barbara nodded, as if she had heard all this before and was prepared for it. “And you’ll always be my little boy no matter what age you are. Good night, Connor.”

Connor inclined his head obligingly. “Good night, Mom,” he replied.

He waited until his mother had closed his bedroom door behind her. Getting up off the bed, he crossed over to his desk and took out the folder he had slipped into the top drawer. Pulling out his chair, he sat down at the desk and began to go through the folder. It was filled with notes he’d made to himself regarding Charlotte Robinson’s dealings, as well as her possible current whereabouts.

He reviewed his notes slowly, rereading everything as if it was the first time he was seeing it. In his compilations, he’d come across the name of a freelance researcher, a Brianna Childress, who had handled some work for Charlotte Robinson over the course of the previous year.

He looked at the papers thoughtfully. Whatever this Brianna person had been doing for Charlotte had to have been sent to some address, even if that address turned out to be a PO box. That PO box in turn had to have been paid for, which meant that there’d been a check that could be traced to a bank account.

In addition, this freelancer had to be paid for her trouble. That brought him back to the bank account again, or at least a traceable credit card. All this meant that there was a possible paper trail. One he intended to follow.

It was a start, Connor told himself.

“You don’t know it yet, Brianna Childress, but you are about to be paid a visit tomorrow morning,” he said aloud. He closed the folder but went on holding it in his hands a little longer, as if the act connected him to the woman he was pursuing. “You just might be instrumental in helping me find the elusive Charlotte Prendergast Robinson before she can do any more damage.”

Connor doubted that it would be that easy, but at least it was a lead, and who knew—maybe he’d get lucky. At the very least, this Childress woman might be able to provide him with the name of someone else who could in turn give him some clue as to where Charlotte Robinson was currently hiding.

He’d had less to go on before, he thought as he rose from the desk and got ready for bed.

* * *

Connor was up early the following morning and got dressed quickly.

He looked at the address he’d left out on his desk. It was the address where he was going to find this Childress woman. Initially, for about a minute and a half, he considered calling her to tell her he was coming to see her today.

He decided against it.

A face-to-face meeting would be the better way to go. He needed all the help he could get and the element of surprise might very well be useful in this case. If this woman turned out to be as nefarious as Charlotte, calling her might cause her to flee. If this Childress woman was actually involved with Charlotte, the last thing he wanted to do was tip her off.

He knew nothing about Brianna Childress, which meant that there was no reason to suppose that she wouldn’t warn Charlotte that he was looking for her. That in turn would send Charlotte into even deeper hiding.

He wouldn’t put anything past Charlotte no matter how innocent his parents, especially his mother, thought she was.

Since it was rather early, Connor decided to just slip out of the house without waking anyone.

The sooner he was on the road, the closer he would be to possibly bringing all this to a satisfactory conclusion.

He had another reason to get out of the house without being noticed. He didn’t want to get involved in a possible discussion with his mother about Charlotte Robinson. Barbara Fortunado seemed reluctant to think badly of the other woman, but then, his mother had a tendency to view everyone in a good light.

However, there was no doubt in his mind that Charlotte was behind everything that had gone wrong in his family lately. She was a dangerous woman. The very fact that she had either tried to burn down Gerald Robinson’s estate or had hired an arsonist to do it for her said it all in his book.

The woman was evil and the sooner he found her, the sooner he would rest easy.

Connor made good his escape and got to his car without anyone seeing him. Loading the address he’d found for Brianna Childress—the location was unfamiliar to him—into his car’s GPS, he got started.

He turned on his radio but hardly heard any of the music coming out of it. He was completely focused on the encounter that was ahead of him.

* * *

Connor expected the address of the research company he was looking for to lead him to an office building somewhere in Houston. Instead, the address wound up leading him to what appeared to be a rather small, homey-looking cottage.

Puzzled, he stopped his car a few hundred feet away from the house, wondering if he had made some sort of a mistake copying the address down.

Still, he thought, he was here so he might as well check it out.

Who knew, maybe this Brianna Childress ran her business out of her house. She wouldn’t have been the first person to start out that way. The names of several computer companies and software firms came to mind.

Making up his mind, Connor started his car again. He brought it up closer to the cottage, then stopped a second time and parked.

Getting out, he made his way up the front walk. He noticed that there were some sort of bushes planted in the front yard. He wasn’t very good at recognizing plants, although to his credit he did know a rose from a lily, he thought with a disparaging smile.

He saw neither in the yard.

Walking up to the front door, he noted that it was in need of a fresh coat of paint. Shrugging, he rang the doorbell. In his mind, he rehearsed what he planned to say to Brianna Childress in order to get her to let him come inside her house.

His finger had no sooner pressed the doorbell than the front door flew open.

A rather frazzled young woman with reddish-brown hair and heart-melting brown eyes looked up at him as if he was her personal savior. She was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, both of which lovingly highlighted all of her curves and nearly made him permanently lose his train of thought.

He recognized the woman from her online photo. But to be honest, she could use a new head shot. That one didn’t do her justice.

“Oh thank goodness you’re here!” Brianna cried, a look of relief washing over her features. “It’s right in there!”

She pointed toward the back of the house where “it,” whatever that referred to, was.

Without waiting for a response from him, Brianna grabbed his hand and pulled him in her wake, quickly leading him toward the back of the house.

Given that she had rather a good grip for such a delicate person, Connor realized that at the moment, he had no choice but to follow her.

“I was at my wits’ end,” Brianna confided unabashedly. “Luckily, I saw your ad on TV the other day and remembered the phone number. Actually, I copied it down,” she confessed. “I had a feeling I was going to need you sooner rather than later and I was right. If you hadn’t come, I’d probably be underwater before noon.”

“Um—”

At a loss, Connor got no further. He had followed the woman into a bathroom. The “it” she was obviously referring to was a toilet. The water was rising precariously high within the bowl. It looked as if any second, the water was going to overflow and go all over the floor.

The sprightly redhead was standing in front of the toilet, her hands on her hips. “Kids,” she said to him by way of an explanation.

“Kids?” Connor echoed, unable to understand what she was telling him.

“Every time I turn around, one of them has decided that one of their stuffed animals or trucks or figurines is dirty and needs to be washed. I guess the toilet’s like a bathtub to them.” She sighed and looked at him plaintively. “So, can you fix it?” she asked, a hopeful look on her face.

It was a face, Connor realized, that he couldn’t bring himself to say no to.

Chapter Three

Connor forced himself to focus on something other than Brianna Childress’s very expressive eyes. He knew that he couldn’t very well lie to the woman, not if he needed her help and wanted her to be truthful with him. If he lied, or omitted telling her the truth, that wouldn’t exactly be starting off their relationship, however short it might turn out to be, on the right foot. Lies just begat lies.

“I’m afraid that you’ve made a mistake,” Connor began.

Dismay washed over Brianna’s face as she took in what he had just said. “You can’t fix it like the commercial said?” she asked.

“It’s not that, it’s—”

Connor got no further in his explanation than those first four words because right at that moment there was a bloodcurdling scream followed by a wail and then the sound of things either falling or being thrown.

The jarring noise went clear down to the bone.

“Oh dear lord, now what?” Brianna cried in exasperation.

Before Connor could venture a guess, she made an abrupt about-face and dashed out of the room, heading toward the scream. That left Connor standing alone in the bathroom with a toilet that looked as if it was about to blow at any moment.

“There’s obviously never a dull moment around here,” he commented under his breath.

Left to his own devices, Connor looked around the small, blue-and-white-tiled bathroom. From what he had gathered, this wasn’t the first time the toilet presented a problem. Judging from the tools that were scattered on the floor, Brianna had the right things to deal with the situation.

The fact that she hadn’t dealt with it told him that she’d never learned how to put any of these tools to use. She’d probably just seen the plumber using them and had thought ahead—or wanted to be prepared for the next time. Next time had obviously arrived.

He gave the woman an A for observation. Too bad her execution was sorely lacking.

Connor had no desire to follow the woman into the other room, given the high-pitched screaming that was coming from another part of the house, but on the other hand, he was never much for standing around gathering dust, either.

Looking around again, he took inventory of the tools in the room. There was a long, thin metallic tool expressly made for breaking through the debris that gathered in clogged pipes. Whimsically dubbed a “snake,” it was lying beside a standard plunger. There were a couple of other tools, as well, but in his opinion, they were just overkill.

Connor prided himself on being rather handy. He decided that he might as well do something while he waited for the woman to come back.

Assessing the problem one last time, he rolled up his sleeves and got to work.

* * *

The job turned out to be easier than he had expected. The reason for the clog was a miniature toy train that had been wedged in the bottom of the toilet’s evacuation pipe. The train had been covered in what appeared to be a massive wad of sopping wet toilet paper that had wound itself around the toy. It had been a little tricky getting the train free, but in the end, he managed to get it loose—all without breaking the toy.

He looked down at the item that was now safely nestled in his hand. Such a little thing, so much trouble, he thought.

It was only when he finally rose back to his feet again that he realized the knees of his pants had gotten quite wet. He looked around for a mop to at least dry the floor, but it appeared to be the one thing that the woman hadn’t brought out with the other equipment.

Shaking his head, Connor muttered under his breath. “It figures.”

“What figures?”

The voice startled him. Swinging around to face the doorway, he saw that Brianna had finally reappeared.

She was not alone. She was carrying a squirming, very vocal preschooler on her hip. A boy.

The slightly surprised look on her face gave way to a wide, relieved smile when she saw the toy train in Connor’s hand.

“You fixed it,” she cried, delighted.

The little boy on her hip saw the toy at the same time that his mother did.

“Mine!” he cried, eagerly putting his hands out as if that would somehow cause the toy to levitate out of the stranger’s hand and into his own.

“Then what’s it doing in the toilet?” Connor asked, pretending to be serious as he presented the train to the little boy after rinsing it off in the sink.

The kid had the same wide, sunny smile that his mother had. He flashed that smile now at Connor as he grabbed the toy train and pressed it to his chest.

“Mine,” he repeated.

“We’ve established that,” Connor replied as if he was talking to someone his own age. “But why did you—?”

Brianna anticipated his question. “You’re not going to get an answer,” she told him. “He knows he’s not supposed to throw anything down there but for some reason, the toilet just seems to really fascinate him.” She looked at her son with an indulgent smile. “Axel used to have a pet hamster until one day he decided that Howard was dirty and needed a bath.”

“Let me guess,” Connor said to her, “Howard drowned.”

She surprised him by saying, “No, actually, he didn’t. I managed to fish him out of the toilet bowl just in time.”

“So you saved Howard,” Connor concluded.

“No,” she said with a heartfelt sigh. “I didn’t.” When he raised a quizzical brow, she told him the rest of the story. “As near as I can figure it, Howard died of a heart attack. After I rescued him and dried him off, I put Howard in his cage. I found him the next morning, lying on the floor of the cage, as stiff as one of the kids’ figurines.”

The boy had stopped making noise and now sniffled a couple of times.

“We had a funeral,” Axel said solemnly.

“So he can talk in sentences,” Connor marveled, looking at the boy. The boy seemed pretty young to him and he had no idea just what kids were able to do at any given age.

“Only when he wants to,” Brianna answered. Shifting her son to her other hip, she looked contritely at the man whose pant legs she had just noticed were wet. “I’m sorry I’m going on and on here. I don’t get much of a chance to talk to adults,” she admitted. Setting Axel down, she looked around for her purse. “How much do I owe you?”

Smiling at the woman, Connor shook his head. “Nothing.”

Brianna looked at him, confused. “But you just fixed my toilet—and got your knees wet in the process,” she pointed out.

“That’s okay,” he told her, shrugging off her offer of payment. “This is on me. No charge.”

That only managed to confuse things even further for Brianna. “I don’t think your boss is going to appreciate you doing things for free.”

“On the contrary,” Connor said. He thought of his father, who he was, in essence, working for at the moment while he was conducting this investigation. “I think he’d approve.”

Judging by her expression, his answer made absolutely no sense to the woman. “But you’re a plumber. How are you supposed to make any money if you don’t accept payment for doing a job?” she asked, confused.

“Because,” Connor answered cavalierly, “I’m not a plumber.”

This was making less and less sense to her. She began at the beginning. “But the company I called, they said they were sending someone right out.”

“They probably meant what they said, but they didn’t send me,” he told her.

Things were finally falling into place. Brianna looked at the man standing and dripping in her bathroom. She was horrified at her mistake. He probably thought she was an idiot.

“I’m so embarrassed,” she confessed, “I don’t even know where to begin.”

Amused, Connor laughed off her attempt at an apology. “Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “It was just an honest mistake.”

The fact that she had let a perfect stranger into her house and that he was still standing here suddenly registered with her.

“But if you’re not the plumber,” she cried, backing away from him, “who are you?”

She was doing her best not to panic or appear nervous. After all, she had no idea who this man was or what he was doing in her house.

Brianna thought of her children and a chill went shooting up her spine.

She had to protect them!

Connor offered her an easy smile as he put his hand out to her. “Connor Fortunado, at your service.”

But who was Connor Fortunado and why had he come to her house? His answer just created more questions.

Before she could ask him, the doorbell rang. For a split second, she appeared torn between questioning the man in her bathroom further or going to answer the doorbell.

The doorbell won.

Making up her mind, she hurried to the front of the house.

“Does it ever let up?” Connor called after her, curious.

“Sometimes,” she answered. Just not today.

Brianna opened the door and found herself looking at a slightly overweight man in coveralls that had seen better days.

“Somebody called for a plumber?” he asked her.

“Yes, I did, but I don’t need you anymore,” Brianna began, ready to close the door again.

The man looked at her skeptically, then glanced down at what was apparently a work order in his hand. “The toilet fixed itself?” he asked with a touch of sarcasm.

“No, but—”

Connor was about to intervene for her but Brianna’s son beat him to it. Or, more accurately, her son and her daughter did. The duo had decided to resume whatever battle they had been deeply embroiled in a few minutes earlier.

Connor came forward, listening. The battle was apparently over whether or not the rather scrappy-looking mutt who had come running in with them should be wearing a dress. The vote was tied. The little girl—Ava, according to the name her brother had yelled—was saying yes while Axel was very loudly proclaiming, “No! He’s a boy dog!”

Their supposedly small voices were completely drowning out the plumber, who, judging by the disgruntled look on his face, was protesting being sent away without collecting a fee. The fact that he hadn’t done any work didn’t seem to matter.

Meanwhile Connor found himself fascinated by the dynamics of the household he had walked into. Besides the scrappy dog, by his count he had glimpsed two cats and some sort of creature—a sea turtle perhaps?—living in a tank in the far corner of the living room. All he could really make out were a pair of eyes looking in his direction.

Connor’s attention was drawn back to the squabbling children, who were growing progressively louder with each passing minute. Glancing in their mother’s direction, he thought that she definitely looked overwhelmed. Taking pity on the woman, Connor decided to distract the children so that she could at least clear things up with the plumber.

“Gimme that!” Axel shouted, grabbing a frayed dress from his sister.

Though small, Ava was every bit as strong as her brother.

“No!” she cried, pulling the dress back out of her brother’s hands.

Connor thought of physically pulling them apart but decided that he’d get more accomplished if he treated them as short adults, not discipline problems.

“You know,” he began, “my brothers and sisters and I once dressed up our horse for Halloween.” He had to raise his voice above theirs in order to actually be heard.

Axel stopped trying to pull the dress away from his sister. Meanwhile Ava’s eyes widened as she suddenly became aware that there was someone besides her brother in the room.

“You dressed up your horse?” the little girl questioned, looking up at the strange man in her living room. Though she appeared a year or so younger than her brother, she was more articulate than Axel was.

“We sure did,” Connor told her, subtly coaxing the brother and sister away from the front of the house and the plumber. The dog decided to trot along with them, as well. “My sisters wanted to put a ballerina costume on Lightning but my brothers and I said that the ballerina costume would just embarrass him.”

“Who won?” Axel wanted to know. He gave his sister a superior look. “Bet it was the boys.”

“Bet it wasn’t,” Ava countered, ready to get into yet another argument with him. “Everybody knows that boys are dumb.”

“No they’re not!” Axel yelled back.

“Actually,” Connor said, raising his voice as he took each of them by the hand and brought them toward the kitchen, “Lightning won.”

“The horse?” Axel questioned, scrunching up his forehead.

“How could the horse win?” Ava wanted to know. “Could he talk?” she asked in awe.

“No, he wasn’t a talking horse,” Connor managed to say with a straight face.

“Then how did he win?” Axel asked, crossing his arms before his small chest and waiting to be given an answer.

“Lightning won because he got to keep his dignity,” Connor told his small audience.

Ava and Axel exchanged perplexed looks. “What’s dig-nitee?” Axel asked.

“Being proud of yourself,” Connor explained.

Intrigued, Ava asked, “How did the horse get to keep that?”

“Well, Lightning was a boy horse,” Connor told them. “We put a pirate’s costume on him, using some of my mother’s scarves. We all agreed that he looked a lot better in that than he would have in a ballerina costume. Besides,” Connor confided, lowering his voice and winking at the children, “the tutu would have really been impossible to get on Lightning.”

The abbreviated reference to the ballerina costume seemed to tickle Axel and he started to laugh. He laughed so hard, he wound up rolling around on the floor. The sound was infectious and it set Ava off. In no time flat, both children were on the floor, holding their sides and laughing.

Which was how Brianna found them when she walked into the kitchen.

The sight astounded her. For once, her children were actually getting along and no longer at each other’s throats. Brianna stood for a moment, drinking in the sight.

Stunned, she looked at the man who was apparently responsible for her kids’ miraculous about-face. She was both amazed that this Connor Fortunado had somehow managed to calm her little hellions down and horrified that she had allowed a total stranger to come into her house.

Allowed? She’d literally dragged him in, Brianna thought, berating herself.

Okay, there’d been a mix-up, which caused her to make the mistake, but even so, she’d let a stranger into her house. The house where her children lived. The man could have been an ax murderer or a serial killer and she had just let him come waltzing in without so much as checking his credentials.

What kind of a mother did that make her?

“Did your mom yell at you for making the horse wear her scarves?” Axel asked the possible ax murderer.

Connor looked perfectly serious as he said, “No, she decided she didn’t like those scarves anymore. She said she was happy to give them to Lightning.”

They were lapping this up, Brianna realized. And this stranger was obviously very good with children.

She supposed she was overreacting, she thought. If this man was a possible ax murderer or a serial killer, chances were that he wouldn’t be sitting cross-legged on her floor with her children, telling them this exaggerated story.

And besides, he did fix her toilet, she told herself. She strongly doubted that ax murderers went around fixing toilets for their victims just before they did away with them.

Brianna had just decided to exonerate the man in her kitchen when he suddenly looked in her direction with the softest brown eyes she’d ever seen.

For the briefest of moments, she felt something inside of her tighten in response.

“Everything all settled?” he asked her.

It took her a minute to focus on his words. “With the plumber?” she finally asked. When he nodded, she said, “Yes, I convinced him that it was a false alarm and that the toilet was running fine now. He wasn’t happy, but he left.” Coming closer, she stood over Connor and extended her hand. “We never got a chance to finish with our introductions. I’m Brianna Childress,” she told him. “And those are my children, Axel and Ava.”

“I know,” he said. “At least, I know who you are. The kids I have to admit were a surprise.” In more ways than one, he thought.

Brianna’s suspicions returned. She shifted so that she stood directly in front of her children, as if to protect them. “Why do you know who I am?”

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