Fortune's Valentine Bride. Marie Ferrarella

in town—”

      Scott waved away what he anticipated was the rest of his brother’s thought.

      “After the tornado, whatever’s available in Red Rock has most likely been commandeered for temporary living quarters for the folks who lost their homes, or whose homes are so damaged that they’re not safe to stay in right now. Besides,” Scott added as an afterthought, “turning part of my place into ‘FortuneSouth-West’ might just make points with the old man, though I doubt it.”

      Their father, as everyone knew, had very high standards, which at times, Scott couldn’t help feeling, even God might have some trouble reaching. It didn’t help matters that, in the aftermath of the tornado, Scott had decided not to go back to Atlanta but to make a life for himself here, with a woman he firmly believed was his soul mate. A woman he had only known for a little over a month. The senior Fortune, Scott felt certain, undoubtedly believed that he had lost his mind—instead of finally finding his soul.

      “And you’re sure I won’t be in your way?” Blake probed.

      This new, improved and far more relaxed Scott was going to take some getting used to, Blake thought. Up until a month and a half ago, Scott had been as big a workaholic as their father and oldest brother, Michael. But he was definitely of a mind that this change in his brother was for the better.

      “Not unless you plan on lying in the front doorway like a human obstacle course,” Scott answered. He grinned as he regarded his brother who, at twenty-seven, was five years younger than he was. “Might be kind of nice having you around for a while. Aside from that little buried-alive incident on New Year’s Eve-eve—and, of course, Wendy’s wedding—we don’t get to see each other all that much anymore,” he noted.

      The observation amused Blake. “Said the workaholic,” he interjected.

      “Not anymore,” Scott emphasized. “That tornado kind of made me reexamine my priorities.” Almost dying did that to a man, Scott thought. He felt as if he’d been given a second chance for a reason—and he didn’t intend to waste it by going back to “business as usual.” “There’s a lot more to life than finding different ways to continue building up a telecommunications empire.”

      His brother really was sincere, Blake thought. This wasn’t just a passing phase. Scott was serious about putting his roots down in Red Rock because living here was so important to Christina, his future wife, and thus, important to him.

      “Yeah, I know what you mean, about reexamining my priorities,” Blake explained when Scott raised a quizzical eyebrow. “I told Wendy that I feel like my life’s been on hold long enough and that it’s time I did something about it.”

      “Anything you care to share with the class?” Scott asked, amused at the very serious expression on Blake’s face.

      “I’m going after the one who got away,” Blake told him simply.

      Scott nodded and smiled. He might have been a dedicated workaholic when they were all back in Atlanta, but that didn’t mean that he had been wearing blinders 24/7. He was quite aware of how his young brother’s assistant, Katie Wallace, looked at Blake when she thought no one was paying attention. At the time, he’d found it rather amusing. But now, finding himself on the other side of love, he understood how she must have felt—and continued to feel. But something wasn’t making sense, he realized.

      “I wasn’t aware that she had exactly ‘gotten away,’” Scott commented.

      Blake supposed that Scott was either too busy to have noticed, or maybe he’d just forgotten. “Yeah, she did,” he assured his brother.

      Okay, maybe he’d missed a chapter or two of Blake’s life, Scott thought. “So you’re going after—”

      “Brittany Everett, yes,” Blake said, filling in the name for Scott.

      For a second, all Scott did was stare at him. And then he murmured, “Oh,” more to himself than to his brother.

      “What do you mean, ‘oh’?”

      There was no point in talking about Katie if his brother’s sights were set on a vapid prima donna like Brittany Everett. Like everyone else in the family, because of the circles they all moved in he was vaguely aware of the woman—and what he knew, he didn’t find very compelling.

      Scott shrugged, dismissing his slip. “Nothing, just surprised that you seem so determined to get together with her.” For a moment, he thought back to his brother’s college days. “Didn’t Brittany dump you right after graduation?”

      “No one dumped anyone,” Blake insisted. “We just drifted apart.”

      “Right, after you caught her in a lip-lock with some other guy, if I remember correctly.”

      “I should have fought for her.”

      You should have cut her loose long before that, Scott thought. But Blake was a big boy now, able to make his own decisions. Besides, Scott had a feeling that the more he talked against Brittany—whose only attributes as far as he could see were strictly physical—the more, he was certain, Blake would dig in. They were alike that way, he and his brother.

      So Scott dropped the matter, stepped back and hoped for the best. “If you say so. Look, I promised Christina I’d meet her for lunch, so I’d better get going. Good luck with whatever it is you’re planning to do.” And I hope you come to your senses real soon.

      The reference to time had Blake looking at his own watch. “Hey, I’d better get going, too. I’ve got to drive over to San Antonio International Airport to pick up Katie,” he said, joining his brother in the hallway. “She’s flying in to help me with my strategy to win back Brittany.”

      Scott stared at him, utterly stunned. “She is?” he asked. This couldn’t be right. “You actually told Katie that you were ‘launching’ this so-called campaign to get Brittany to become Mrs. Blake Fortune?”

      “Well, not in so many words,” Blake admitted. The next moment, he saw a very wide smile curving his brother’s mouth. He was unaware of having said something funny. “What?”

      “Nothing,” Scott answered, waving his hand and struggling to keep the laughter under wraps. “Just, good luck with that.” And then, he couldn’t resist asking, “By the way, how many pallbearers would you like at your funeral?”

      Maybe the tornado had shaken Scott up more than anyone realized, Blake thought. His brother wasn’t making any sense. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

      But Scott continued grinning mysteriously. And then he patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll figure it out, Blake,” he assured him, just before he hurried off down the hallway and out of the house.

      Blake shook his head as he followed slowly in his brother’s path, heading for the car he’d left parked in the huge, circular driveway. He put the odd conversation with Scott out of his head.

      Right now he had something more pressing to attend to.

      The way he figured it, if the flight from Atlanta arrived on time, he was just going to make it to the airport by the skin of his teeth—barring the unforeseen. It was a footnote that he had gotten into the habit of adding ever since the tornado had turned his life and his family’s lives entirely upside down, tossing them on their collective ears.

      Katie had deliberately brought only carry-on luggage with her. She had no desire to spend the extra time required to wait for luggage.

      So, in the interests of speed and efficiency, Katie had stuffed into a single piece of luggage everything she felt she would need that couldn’t be purchased at some local shop between the airport and Red Rock. After engorging the suitcase to the point that it looked as if it would explode, she’d sat on the lid and fought with the zipper until she’d managed to bring the closure full circle.

      She managed to secure the very last ticket for the next outgoing flight to San Antonio International Airport.