the statute of limitations has run out on those crimes. How about if I apologize for yawning?”
“Why in hell should you apologize?” Maggie frowned at him.
“Because it’s made you worry.” He drew his grandmother into his arms and just held her for a moment. Maggie’s hair was pure white now instead of the raven color it had once been. But it was styled to perfection, and in her red silk pantsuit she looked as if she’d just stepped off the cover of a women’s fashion magazine.
Looks weren’t her only asset. She had one of the sharpest minds he’d ever encountered. For the past two decades, she’d run Fortune Enterprises, a large business empire that ranged from mining and real estate holdings to publishing. And twenty-one years ago, she’d also taken over the job of raising him after his father’s untimely death in the Gulf War.
As he drew back, Nash wondered which she’d claim was the bigger of the two challenges.
“Thanks for the hug,” she said. “They’ve always been your best method of trying to distract me. But not tonight. I didn’t bring you up here just to scold you because you yawned at my birthday party.”
She tapped a finger on his chest. “The problem is you’re bored, period. I can see the signs. You’re not sleeping well.”
That was true although he’d never figured out how his grandmother could always tell.
“More lines around your eyes,” she said with her usual knack for reading his mind. “And twice so far this evening, I’ve seen you gaze off into space. Admit it. I was right. You’re regretting your decision to request a teaching assignment at the Air Force Academy.”
“Not true,” he said.
She held a hand up. “Let me finish. After all, I was responsible for your decision.”
“Partly responsible. Have you ever thought that I might have needed to come home? That maybe I was a bit restless and bored before I learned about your surgery?”
She stared at him for a moment.
Nash fully sympathized with her surprise. It was the first time he’d admitted to himself that his current feeling of…restlessness may have predated his teaching assignment. He might have been courting boredom even in Afghanistan.
She narrowed her eyes. “You’ve got the same problem your father had when he was about your age. Our country’s wars are winding down. And you’re getting older. You’re starting to see that you can’t fly those fighter planes forever. I imagine facing the young men and women who’ll replace you in the classroom each day drives the point home even more sharply. So I’ll tell you what I told your father. You can’t stop time. You have to accept it and go with the flow.”
He raised his brows.
Her lips twitched again. “I know. It’s my milestone birthday we’re celebrating, but your thirtieth wasn’t that long ago. And you can’t be a fly-boy forever. Your father was getting a bit bored with the life of a pilot in peace time before the Gulf War erupted.”
Nash captured one of her hands in his again. As usual, she was spot-on about some of what he was feeling.
“You could always think of making a career change.”
He met her eyes without disguising the surprise in his. From the time he’d been a child, she’d supported his dream of one day following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a pilot in the Air Force. She’d never once put any kind of pressure on him to consider taking over one of the many companies she ran—in spite of the fact that when she’d lost his father, she’d lost the son she’d expected to one day fill her shoes.
He narrowed his eyes as a sudden thought occurred to him. “Something has changed. You’ve received some bad news from your doctors.”
“No, nothing like that. I’m fine. I’d tell you in a heartbeat if I wasn’t.” Maggie raised the hand holding hers and patted it. “I’m just planting a seed about the future. It’s my birthday. I have a right to plant seeds.”
Nash laughed. “You have the right to plant seeds whenever you want.” And they had a tendency to take root and grow. Johnny Appleseed had nothing on his grandmother in that department. But he was beginning to wonder just what seed she’d intended to plant when she’d brought him up here to the balcony.
Maggie continued to meet his gaze. “I also have a right to worry. And perhaps feel a bit guilty.”
“Guilty? About what?”
“Your intolerance of boredom is probably embedded in a gene you’ve inherited directly from me. None of the Nashes were long on patience. And your impatience as a baby is how you came to be called by your middle name. When what you’ve inherited from my side of the family is mixed in with what you’ve inherited from the black sheep on the Fortune side of the family. Well?” She threw up her hands. “It’s worrisome.”
“You’re not planning on giving me the Jeremiah Fortune lecture again?”
Her eyes widened. “You remember him, then?”
His eyes narrowed. “If you can call up the names of my pet gerbils, I can certainly remember Jeremiah’s. You were always lecturing me that if I didn’t mend my ways, I’d grow up to be just like him instead of my father. I also remember that when I sassed you by asking just how badly a Fortune heir could turn out, you filled me in on my ancestor’s untimely and grim demise.”
Maggie remembered every detail of what she’d told him. The story was a good one, and she’d used it ruthlessly. Jeremiah had been the younger brother of Nash’s great-great-great-grandfather, the first Thaddeus. Though the details were sketchy, the story had the drama of a soap opera. After the two Fortune brothers had settled in Colorado and discovered a rich vein of gold, they’d argued over a woman. Tradition held that Thaddeus had won the woman and Jeremiah had run off to prospect for more gold on his own. Two years later he’d been hanged as a horse thief.
“Time to come clean, Grams,” Nash said. “You didn’t call me up here to remind me that I might have a few genes from a black sheep in my DNA. What’s the real reason?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie saw the real reason making her way across the terrace below them. Bianca Quinn had arrived right on schedule. Even now, Father Mike was raising his hand in greeting. Thank heavens Nash wasn’t looking out at the party anymore. Because she hadn’t finished yet. “I want a favor.”
“Anything.”
“I’ve hired a writer and commissioned her to write a book on the history of the Fortune family. There’ll be an emphasis on the early years, but she’s going to chronicle the entire saga right up to the present.”
She noted surprise flicker in his eyes, then curiosity.
“Aren’t you nervous about dragging all of the skeletons out of the closet?”
Maggie laughed. “I think it should prove highly amusing. Scandals sell.”
“I’m assuming you checked out this writer’s credentials.”
“Not to worry. I had your friend Gabe run a thorough background check. And she’s good. Her first book made the Times extended book list.”
“It sounds like you’re right on top of everything, as usual. How can I help?”
She beamed a smile at him. “I want you to cooperate fully with her. She’ll want to interview you as the current Fortune heir and one of Denver’s most eligible bachelors. And she’s been away from Denver for a while. I just want you to make her feel as comfortable as possible while she’s settling in to work on the project. Be nice to her.”
Maggie was careful to keep her expression bland, but she hadn’t raised a fool. Nash knew that she was up to something. She also figured that by now Bianca had joined Father Mike and Nash’s friends at the far end of