Fortune's Convenient Cinderella, page 1
THE FORTUNES OF TEXAS
Follow the lives and loves of a complex family with a rich history and deep ties in the Lone Star State
DIGGING FOR SECRETS
A ruse brings six estranged Fortunes to Chatelaine, Texas, to supposedly have their most secret wishes granted. They’re thrilled—until they discover someone is seeking vengeance for a long-ago wrong...and turning their lives upside down!
Fortune’s Convenient Cinderella
Bear Fortune had sworn off love—forever. So when Morgana Wells catches his eye, he’s got an unconventional proposal: become the mother of his child! Housekeeper Morgana’s got her own reasons for being intrigued by the Fortunes...and her position as a motel maid is the way to find out more about them. But will the secrets she discovers about them both shatter any hope of a shared future?
Dear Reader,
Welcome back to the exciting world of The Fortunes of Texas! I have always wanted to write a Cinderella-inspired book, and this story about Barrington “Bear” Fortune and Morgana Mills was so much fun to write. There aren’t any talking animals, but I am curious to hear how many nods to the original fairy tale you discover while reading.
Bear is a wealthy oilman who stays away from his family for months at a time, but when he hears that his brother is alive after years in hiding, he travels to Chatelaine, Texas, to see him. He didn’t expect to be so drawn to the beautiful maid who sings and dances while cleaning his room at the old motor lodge on the edge of town. Morgana is reluctant to share any personal details, but she sure has been asking a lot of questions about the Fortune family. He is determined to find out what she’s hiding, and learns some interesting facts. Bear is a pro when it comes to closing million-dollar business deals, so why is he having such a hard time convincing Morgana to go along with a proposal that will benefit them both?
I hope you enjoy Fortune’s Convenient Cinderella. As always, thank you for reading!
Best wishes,
Makenna Lee
Fortune’s Convenient Cinderella
Makenna Lee
Makenna Lee is an award-winning romance author living in the Texas Hill Country with her real-life hero and their two children, one of whom has Down syndrome and inspired her first Harlequin book, A Sheriff’s Star. She writes heartwarming contemporary romance that celebrates real-life challenges and the power of love and acceptance. She has been known to make people laugh and cry in the same book. Makenna is often drinking coffee with a cat on her lap while writing, reading or plotting a new story. Her wish is to write stories that touch your heart, making you feel, think and dream.
Books by Makenna Lee
The Fortunes of Texas: Digging for Secrets
Fortune’s Convenient Cinderella
Harlequin Special Edition
The Women of Dalton Ranch
The Rancher’s Love Song
Her Secret to Keep
Home to Oak Hollow
A Sheriff’s Star
In the Key of Family
A Child’s Christmas Wish
A Marriage of Benefits
Lessons in Fatherhood
The Bookstore’s Secret
The Fortunes of Texas: Hitting the Jackpot
Fortune’s Fatherhood Dare
Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.
To Mackenzie.
We are so glad you’ve become part of our lives. Thanks for making our son so happy!
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Excerpt from A Lullaby for the Maverick by Melissa Senate
Chapter One
A talented female voice singing ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” made Barrington “Bear” Fortune smile before he’d even unlocked his motel room door—with an actual metal key. The pretty maid he’d seen around the old motor lodge was standing on the foot of his bed, barefoot and on top of a pile of stripped-off sheets. She stretched to swipe her duster across the ceiling, and her knee-length white skirt swished around her slim legs as her hips swayed to the upbeat song.
Something warmed inside Bear’s chest. He squeezed the key in one hand and his laptop case with the other, all in an effort to resist pulling her into his arms just to see what kind of dance partner this alluring and mysterious woman would be.
The door swung closed with a thud, and as she spun to face him, her feet slipped out from under her. She landed on her butt, bounced off the mattress and right into a standing position at the foot of the bed.
He chuckled, surprising himself with the sound of his own laugh because he hadn’t heard it in months. “Wow. Impressive move.”
“Mr. Fortune, I am so sorry! I don’t usually stand on the bed, but there was a cobweb. Way up high.” She stepped into a pair of black ballerina flats and smoothed the front of her uniform, a white cotton dress that buttoned up the front. A turquoise apron with big pockets was tied around her slim waist.
“It’s fine. I was just jumping on the bed this morning,” he said with a straight face. A skill he’d perfected while making business deals around the world.
Her eyes widened even further at his joke, and she worked her mouth, but nothing came out.
“Kidding,” he said, then added, “Maybe.”
That made her smile, and it lit up her face. Long, dark eyelashes feathered around eyes the color of vibrant rainforest moss, and a lush mouth that had caught his attention the very first time he saw her coming out of a motel room was quivering with a smile she was holding back.
“Once again, I’m sorry, Mr. Fortune.”
“You don’t have to call me Mr. Fortune. Please, call me Bear.” He gave her one of his trademark grins that often made women giggle, or on occasion, give a kittenish purr of invitation. But this young woman only ducked her head.
“Bear. Got it. I’m Morgana. I’ll be done in here in a few minutes.” She scooped up the pile of sheets from the foot of the bed. “Or do you want me to come back later?”
“Now is fine. Take your time.” He was alone so often and usually liked it that way, but having her in his room was... He couldn’t put a finger on the feeling stirring inside him, but he wanted her around. The entertainment possibilities of having her in his room were intriguing. He put his laptop case on the bistro-sized table by the window. “And feel free to keep singing.”
A rosy blush spread across her high cheekbones. “I can’t believe you heard that.”
“And I enjoyed it.”
She tried to hide a smile as she stuffed the sheets into a canvas bag attached to her rolling cart. “This job can get a bit monotonous. Sometimes I have to entertain myself.”
“I can understand that.” He was enough of a lone wolf to be well acquainted with the art of entertaining oneself. He had years of practice and had taught himself to be okay with having no one else around.
Whether from desertion, death or deceit, each person who’d disappeared from his life had made him withdraw from emotional attachments a little more each time.
Tension gathered deep in his chest, just like it always did when he thought about his ex-wife, but he pushed it away in a well-practiced move. She and his former best friend had served him a large helping of harsh reality, proving being alone and keeping love out of the equation was the safest path.
Bear sat in one of two chairs that were molded out of yellow plastic with flecks of silver. Very retro and surprisingly comfortable. He pulled out his computer and opened a new oil lease contract he needed to read before tomorrow, but his mind kept wandering back to the pretty maid moving gracefully around his small motel room.
What was Morgana’s story? Why was this beautiful young woman working in a motel? Was she a loner like him, or was there something more to her story? His family had warned him that Morgana had been asking a lot of questions about the Fortune family, the mysterious Freya Fortune—who was staying in this same motel—and the silver mine collapse sixty something years ago that killed fifty miners. Fifty-one if the two mysterious notes about there being a fifty-first miner were to be believed.
His siblings and cousins had moved to Chatelaine at Freya Fortune’s request. Freya might be like a beloved step-granny to some of the Fortune family, but Bear felt like something was off about her. And he had no interest in her wish granting. His brother Camden’s girlfriend, who was a journalist, also suspected Freya was hiding something. Maybe even playing a cat and mouse game with the Fortune grandchildren of Edgar and Elias Fortune.
But there was no denying that Freya had been making their wishes and dreams come true with the money from her late husband’s will, and despite some ups and downs, all his siblings and cousins were happy and in love. It was all so confusing, especially with Morgana in the mix, but it was a riddle he planned to solve before leaving town.
With the alluring maid still in the room putting clean sheets on his bed, he couldn’t concentrate. All he could think about was wrinkling those sheets...with her. He gave up on getting any work done and closed his laptop.
“Where are you from?” he asked Morgana.
Her hand paused momentarily as she smoothed the ivory bedspread. “Tennessee.”
“Nashville?”
“No. A little farming community that no one has ever heard of.”
“A country girl. So what brought you all the way to Chatelaine, Texas?”
“Oh, I forgot to give you fresh towels.” She rushed into the bathroom with a stack of fluffy white towels from her cart.
Her evasive move made him even more curious. Morgana might be fond of asking questions, but her quick retreat into the bathroom suggested she didn’t like to answer them. Intriguing and just the kind of challenge he enjoyed getting to the bottom of. And speaking of bottoms, hers had moved so enticingly as she danced. Could Morgana be the distraction he’d been looking for or was she a test of his willpower? They did say keep your enemies closer. But was she really an enemy?
That’s exactly what he intended to find out.
He glanced around his room. At first, he’d been shocked by the pink tub, sink and old square tiles, but he kind of liked the old motor lodge with its dated but not worn-out furnishings, and thanks to this entertaining maid, it was always clean. Since he’d made millions off his oil wells and by inventing drilling equipment, he’d become so used to luxury that one might think he’d snub these simple surroundings. But something about this place felt authentic in a way he’d forgotten, proving to himself that he wasn’t completely jaded or spoiled by wealth.
Did he like a fine bottle of scotch, a suit tailored just for him and handmade Lucchese boots? Absolutely. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate the simpler things in life. And the Chatelaine Motel was the only lodging in town, so there was that. He’d had offers to stay with some of his family members, but he declined because he needed his orderly space and the quiet of being the only person in the room. However, he wasn’t going to complain about the occasional singing maid being tossed into the mix.
Morgana breezed back into the room. “I ended up in town because my car broke down while I was on a road trip,” she said as if there hadn’t been a long pause in their conversation. “I stayed here at the motel while I waited for it to get fixed, and the owner, Hal Appleby, offered me this job. So, I decided to stay in town for a while.” Her eyes darted to his for a moment. “What about you? What brought you to Chatelaine?”
“I came to see my brothers.”
“Camden and West Fortune?” she asked.
“Those are the ones.”
She fingered the small silver charm resting in the hollow of her throat. “West is the one who is back from the dead, right?”
“Yes.”
Believing West was dead not long after his ugly divorce had put him into a downward spiral. Bear had started spending all of his time around strangers who didn’t know anything about his past. He’d thrown himself into work and little else. Having his little brother back in his life was an unexpected gift that had begun to mend a small part of his damaged heart, but it would never be fully healed.
“I’m happy for your family,” she said. “I can understand why you’ve come for an extended visit.”
“I’m also working on a new business deal,” he confided to distract himself from his own thoughts. “Then I’ll be on my way to somewhere else far away.”
Morgana cut another quick glance his way then refocused on meticulously organizing tiny bottles of bath products on her cart. “So, has Freya asked you about your biggest wish like she did with all the others?”
“You know about that?”
“Small town,” she said by way of explanation. Rounding the bed, she fluffed a pillow, pulled something from one of her pockets and placed a foil-wrapped chocolate on top, but she still wouldn’t fully meet his gaze. “What wish will she be granting for you?”
He ground his back teeth. Nobody went to this much trouble to give away money without gaining something in return. He barely knew Freya Fortune, the cagey woman who was claiming to be their step-grandma, but he had a strong hunch she was up to something. “I’m not interested in Freya’s wish granting. Why are you asking me about it?”
“Just making conversation.” She hurriedly opened the motel room door. “I’ll get out of your way. Have a good afternoon.”
“You, too.”
She still wouldn’t meet his eyes as she backed out of the open doorway, and when the wheels of her cart got caught, she gave an extra tug to get them to bump over the threshold. A roll of toilet paper tumbled off and unfurled as it rolled across the room.
She mumbled something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like damning all toilet paper to hell, and he fought a laugh he figured she wouldn’t appreciate. Because the beautiful maid was trapped outside by her unwieldy cart, he snatched the roll up off the tan carpet.
“Think I’ll just keep this.”
“Excellent choice,” she said, as if complimenting his selection of wine with dinner.
His lips twitched, and his mood that had started to sour when she’d asked about Freya’s wish granting was once again lifting. This lovely young woman with her singing and dancing and unplanned humor might be up to something, but she was also good for his mood.
“See you around, dancing queen.”
Chapter Two
Morgana Wells—currently using the last name Mills—rushed away from Barrington Fortune’s motel room, the metal wheels of her housekeeping cart squeaking and clacking along the wooden planks of the second-floor walkway that ran across the front of the Chatelaine Motel. First, she’d been caught singing and dancing on his bed. Then she’d finished off her ill-timed performance with a roll of runaway toilet paper.
Way to completely and totally embarrass yourself.
Her face was flaming, and the blasting July 1 sun wasn’t helping. The rural farm community where she’d grown up in Tennessee was in a valley near the mountains and had milder summers. This Texas heat took some getting used to. She glanced back at the door of his corner room. Kind of like the challenge of resisting Barrington’s magnetism.
“Bear,” she whispered. The nickname suited him. When he’d looked at her with smoldering eyes the color of the most decadent chocolate, her insides had gotten all warm and tingly. And that devilish smile...
She turned away and shook her head out of the clouds. Those same eyes had flared with warning when she’d asked what wish Freya would be granting for him. Something about the question had set him off, and she needed to find out why. It could be an important clue.
Way to push things too far too fast.
She’d been looking for a chance to talk to him and see what he knew about Freya Fortune and what information he might have to aid in her search for her grandmother, Gwenyth Wells. But she’d rushed things and he’d become defensive. Maybe she should ask her coworker, Rhonda, to clean his room from now on.
Her stomach did a little flip. She immediately dismissed that idea. The whole reason she was in Chatelaine was to gather information that would lead to putting her family back together. She just needed to go about things with a little more...finesse.
Morgana returned the cart to the storage room above the office that was centered below her on the ground floor. The old motor lodge sat at the tail end of Main Street, a bit removed from the action. It had fourteen rooms with decor that was stuck somewhere between the 1970s and 1980s. She had asked her boss about doing some updates, but guests seemed to like its back in time vibe, so he only made repairs rather than remodeling.
She opened the washing machine to start a load of laundry, and when she pulled out the sheets that she had stripped off Bear’s bed, she caught the scent of his cologne and pulled his pillowcase to her nose. Notes of cedar mixed with cinnamon and fresh mountain air made her whole body sing in the best way possible, and she wanted more of the delicious feeling he roused. She had the inappropriate urge to take the pillowcase to her room but stuffed it into the washer instead.
