Kathryn Jensen – Mail-Order Cinderella (страница 2)

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.”