eight o’clock tonight.
Any other woman would have felt like Cinderella, being whisked off not in a coach that had formerly been a pumpkin but in a shiny, fully loaded black luxury SUV. When she’d asked him where they were going, he’d given her a sexy wink and said in an equally sexy voice that it was a surprise.
She had to admit to herself that that had made her a little nervous. Growing up in Austin as the child of a very rich man, her mother and the family housekeeper had made her and her siblings acutely aware of being on their guard against possible kidnappers. Having money did not come without a certain downside.
She was fairly certain that Cisco Mendoza didn’t know about her real background—although she couldn’t be 100 percent sure—but then again, there were other reasons for women to go missing.
Cisco must have noticed her tension, because several minutes into their road trip, he laughed and told her where they were going. He was taking her to Vicker’s Corners, a town that was roughly twenty miles away and had once been as quaint as Horseback Hollow. But the citizens of Vicker’s Corners had chosen to embrace progress, and the town was now well on its way to becoming far more urban than rural.
“I’m taking you to The Garden,” he’d added. And then, just in case she wasn’t aware what that was—she was, but she pretended she wasn’t because he seemed to delight in surprising her—he went on to tell her, “It’s a trendy little bistro. I thought you might like to have a little change of pace. It’s different from The Hollows Cantina,” he promised.
She knew he meant it was more romantic than the upscale restaurant where she worked. Apparently Cisco Mendoza was pulling out all the stops.
She wished her heart was in it—but it wasn’t, no matter how hard she tried.
She’d told him that she appreciated his thoughtfulness, then felt the need to point one little fact out, careful to keep it generalized so that he didn’t know she was well-informed about the restaurant in question.
“If it’s so trendy, wouldn’t getting a reservation on the spur of the moment be really difficult? They’re probably booked way in advance.” She made it sound as if she was guessing, but the truth was that she knew for a fact The Garden was booked solid.
Cisco’s grin had gotten wider at that point—and, if possible, sexier.
Another wink only intensified that impression, especially when he said, “Leave that part to me. I’ve got a few strings I can pull. That should be able to get us in.”
She was surprised that he was being secretive about that connection of his. She knew better than to pry and try to find out anything beyond what was being volunteered. She was just rather stunned that Cisco wasn’t trying to impress her with his mysterious connection.
But that wasn’t the real problem as she saw it. The bistro had indeed turned out to be trendy as well as really captivating. It had stained-glass windows, copper ceiling tiles and a vintage art-nouveau crystal chandelier in the entryway.
Moreover, the food was perfect, the conversation was interesting and Cisco was charming, funny and a complete gentleman from start to finish. The date didn’t end abruptly or last too long. In the words of Goldilocks, Rachel thought, changing into a pair of jeans and a baggy sweatshirt, it was “just right.”
So why had she left Cisco at the door, hotfooting it inside and not inviting him in, not making herself available to be kissed good-night?
As she went in, Cisco had acted as if there was nothing out of the ordinary going on, but she could tell that she had surprised him—and disappointed the man, as well.
Rachel walked back out into her living room and flopped down on the sofa. Picking up her remote control, she turned on the TV and automatically began flipping through channels.
She was searching for something—anything—to distract her.
Rachel frowned, wondering if there was something wrong with her.
It had been a perfectly nice date, and she had had a perfectly nice time. Granted, there hadn’t been a magical spark of chemistry blowing her away, but hey, that was lightning in a bottle, right? Finding something like that was exceptionally rare.
Especially since her mind kept drifting off, envisioning that other Mendoza at her side instead of his equally handsome, equally intelligent older brother.
Right up to the end, as she waited on their table earlier today, she kept hoping that Matteo would be the one who would ask her out or, barring that, the one who ultimately showed up in Cisco’s place, murmuring vague apologies for his brother and saying something about Cisco being unavoidably detained.
She had found out fairly early in their time together tonight that Cisco was a real-estate investor. So being detained by an important deal was perfectly plausible.
But Cisco hadn’t been unavoidably detained, and Matteo hadn’t come to take his brother’s place. Cisco had been the one waiting for her, the one who followed her home so that she could leave her car there and then ride in his as they went out.
On paper, the man was perfect—and very easy on the eyes, as well. But she heard no bells ringing and no banjos playing when they were alone together. And she really didn’t want to settle for anything less than bells and banjos. More than anything else, she wanted a magical relationship—or nothing at all.
It was just as well that it had been Cisco tonight and not Matteo, she told herself, still flipping channels and looking for something numbing and mindless to help her unwind. Cisco had told her that his younger brother was a pilot “like our father.” She felt that flying was somewhat risky, and flying for a living just increased that risk.
The last thing she needed was to lose her heart to someone who had a dangerous occupation and might not be there in a week or a month.
This way, there were no unnecessary complications for her to deal with. Just a nice date. End of story, she told herself.
“Face it, Rach. This is not the time for you to get involved with anyone.” First, she had to get her life in gear and on track—find out where she was going with this Foundation internship she’d taken on. Once that was settled, then she could think about getting romantically involved with someone and falling in love, she thought, giving herself a mental pep talk since she had no one to turn to for any sort of support. “Don’t go putting the cart before the horse. Remember, you’ve got a plan and order is everything.”
It made for a good argument, she thought, watching channels as they whizzed by.
But deep down in her soul, she wasn’t completely convinced.
* * *
Just as she had anticipated, Rachel didn’t sleep all that well following her date. Every time she managed to doze off, her brain would conjure up fragments of dreams.
For the most part, they had to do with her evening out. But oddly enough, instead of the charismatic and confident Cisco, she saw Matteo at her side.
The dreams seemed so vivid that she felt they were actually happening—until she would wake up and find herself in her bed.
Sweating profusely—and very much alone.
After she’d gone through three such cycles, Rachel gave up all attempts at getting any sort of decent rest.
Besides, she reasoned, it was actually already too late for that. Her alarm was set to go off at seven-thirty. That was in less than another hour. She was going to work at the Fortune Foundation this morning, and she wanted to get there early, before her workday actually started. She wanted to absorb everything she could about the company.
Rachel already knew that the Foundation had been founded in the memory of Fortune patriarch Ryan Fortune, a man who had been a firm believer in paying it forward. He had lived his life that way, personally doing just that at every opportunity.
She’d learned that from the