The Wrangler's Bride. Justine Davis

at Grant; she was almost getting used to laughing again. “I can see why,” she said. “But is that really his name? You said you call him Joker.”

      “His registered name is Fortune’s Fire.”

      Mercy’s eyes widened. “Fortune? As in the Fortunes?”

      He nodded. “Kate left him to me.”

      “Kristina’s grandmother? Who died in that plane crash?”

      He nodded again. An odd expression came over his face as Mercy watched, one of bemusement, even bewilderment.

      “He’s worth…more than this whole place, probably, when it comes down to it,” Grant said. “And I have no idea why she did it.”

      That was the reason for that expression, she thought. He truly didn’t know why Kate Fortune had left him this beautiful animal. It wasn’t the animal himself that had him bemused, it was the fact that he owned it. She turned to look at him steadily.

      “Well, your mother married her son, right?” she said. “So you were her son Nate’s stepson. Her grandson, in a way.”

      “I suppose.” He sounded as puzzled as he looked. “But I wasn’t really anything to her. I’m not a Fortune. I never have been. Not that they haven’t been…nice enough, and I know Mom’s been married to Nate for twenty-five years, but…I just don’t fit in that family.”

      “Kate obviously thought you did, if she left you such a valuable animal.”

      He shook his head. “I still don’t get it. She left that ranch to my stepbrother Kyle, and Joker should have gone with it. If Kyle had known more about stock, I’m sure he would have fought it. He should have.”

      “Since he didn’t know, maybe he didn’t care.”

      “I tried to tell him how much the horse was worth, that there was no reason for Kate to leave him to me—”

      “You tried to give back what Kate wanted you to have, because you didn’t think you should have it?”

      Mercy felt an odd tightness in her chest as she remembered Grant at seventeen, lamenting rather than celebrating his victory in a high school swim meet, because the opposing team’s champion had been ill and unable to compete. It meant nothing, he said, if you didn’t do your best against the best. She’d thought him noble then; apparently he’d never lost that uncompromising honesty.

      “I’ve spent a year and a half trying to figure it out. If his offspring are half the horse he is, he could make this ranch rich. But why? I’ve seen a lot of Nate, but I’d only met Kate a few times.”

      “I’d say you made an impression.”

      He shifted his booted feet, as if he were uncomfortable. Then he shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. Jeans worn in a way city men paid a bundle for, Mercy thought, but for all that expense, they still didn’t manage to look the way Grant did in them. But then, few men would.

      “Maybe,” he said doubtfully.

      “You don’t sound happy about it.”

      “I’m not a Fortune,” he repeated, rather adamantly, Mercy thought. “My mother may have married one, but I don’t know how to deal with that kind of life. I don’t know how my mother puts up with it.”

      “Neither do I,” Mercy said frankly. “Sometimes I look at Kristina and envy her, with all that wealth and position, but most of the time I’m just grateful it’s not me.”

      Grant’s eyes widened slightly. Then he smiled, a wide, companionable smile that she remembered from the days when he’d actually unbent to talk to the twelve-year-old pest who had become his shadow. Even when he was exasperated with her, he’d never been mean or cruel. But she doubted Barbara Fortune would have tolerated such behavior in her son; Kristina’s and Grant’s mother was the warmest, kindest woman Mercy had ever met. She made Sheila, Nate’s first wife, look like exactly what she was, a grasping, manipulative woman who resented losing the status being a Fortune wife had given her.

      “So am I,” Grant agreed fervently. “The Fortunes may be as close to royalty as this country gets, but I wouldn’t want their problems. I always figured they were a living example of why the Minnesota state bird is the common loon.”

      Mercy blinked, then laughed. Grant’s wry commonsense outlook, which he’d had even as a teenager, was exactly what she needed, she thought.

      “That much money does strange things to people,” she said.

      “And the people around them.”

      Mercy remembered the night Kristina, devastated by the death of her grandmother, had poured out the long, convoluted and dramatic history of her family.

      “Yes,” she said, quietly now. “It must have hurt Kate Fortune terribly when her baby was kidnapped.”

      Grant’s expression turned solemn. “My mother told me Kate never believed the baby was dead. She never gave up, because they never found a body.”

      Mercy shivered. “How awful. But Kristina says her aunt Rebecca is just as stubborn. She’s convinced the crash that killed Kate was no accident, even after all this time.”

      Grant’s mouth twisted wryly. “That’s what I mean. When you’re part of that kind of family, that kind of thinking comes naturally.”

      “I suppose it has to. Things always seem to happen to the Fortunes. Look at the Monica Malone case—”

      Mercy broke off suddenly, realizing she’d been about to mention what might be a painful subject; Grant might say he wasn’t a Fortune, but still…

      “You mean Jake?” he asked, meeting her gaze levelly.

      “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

      “It’s all over the front pages. Why shouldn’t you?”

      “Because he’s related to you. Sort of.”

      Grant shrugged. “Jake may be my uncle by marriage, but that doesn’t mean I have any illusions about him. I’ve always thought he had a side he didn’t show much. He rules the Fortune clan, but sometimes I don’t think they really…see him.”

      “I find him rather intimidatingly aristocratic,” Mercy said honestly. “Maybe you see him more clearly because you’re a step removed.”

      He looked at her consideringly. “You’re a cop—what do you think?”

      “I don’t know enough about the case to form an opinion. And the lid is on this one, tight. Not even many rumors flying. Money can buy silence, it seems.”

      “That doesn’t surprise me.”

      “Did Jake being charged surprise you?”

      “Judging from the evidence they found? No. But even so, I find it hard to believe.”

      “That’s only natural. No one wants to believe that about someone you know, or are related to, no matter how distantly.”

      “I don’t know,” Grant said wryly. “Somehow it seems to be just the kind of thing to happen in the Fortune family. Those are troubled waters.”

      Mercy couldn’t argue with that. But she had to agree that it was hard to believe that handsome, well-bred, cool, calm Jake Fortune was guilty of the spectacular murder of a Hollywood icon.

      But she knew better than most that troubled waters could hide a multitude of sins.

      Three

      “Hey!”

      It came out as a yelp, and Grant couldn’t help laughing as Joker again tugged Mercy’s tidy ponytail into complete disarray. She backed away and gave the big Appy a disgusted look.

      “I’ve got to stop using