“Well, between you and me, Ms. Miller, my wife wouldn’t say a word even if she was at death’s door,” Steven confided to Hailey.
Ellie laughed, waving away her husband’s obvious concern.
“Luckily, I’m not,” she insisted. “I—” She pulled up short as she pointed at two men who’d just arrived. “Steven, look. Aren’t those your cousins?” she asked.
Hailey and the mayor’s husband both turned to see who the mayor was referring to. The two men who had just walked up the spa’s front steps definitely bore a striking resemblance to not only Steven but to several other Fortunes, as well.
But while the two men looked vaguely familiar to Hailey, Steven recognized the duo almost immediately.
“You’re right,” he agreed. “That’s Adam and Kane Fortune. They’re my Uncle Gary’s two oldest sons,” he said for Hailey’s benefit since he knew she wasn’t as up on the Fortune family tree as he and his wife were.
“Are they in the construction business, too?” Hailey asked, making what seemed like a logical assumption to her.
Steven laughed under his breath. “I think they probably think they are.”
Hailey was trying to follow what Steven was saying. “So they’re not part of your construction company?” she asked the mayor’s husband.
She knew that Steven as well as Callum were both part of the same company that Dillon was part of. All of them had helped make the spa and several other new projects in Rambling Rose a reality in the last few months. The Fortune brothers were responsible for breathing life into the fading town.
“No,” Steven said with feeling. “They’re most definitely not part of the company. They’re recently in from New York, but I think they’re here to get the lay of the land and they either plan to eventually ask to join up with our company, or to form one of their own. To be honest,” he confessed, “it’s not exactly clear to any of us yet.” And by us, Hailey knew he was referring to Callum, Dillon and himself.
The next second, Adam and Kane came up to join them.
“Hey, you guys did a great job here,” Adam announced in a loud voice. “Too bad we didn’t arrive here sooner so we could have gotten in on the ground floor with all this.”
“There’ll be more projects,” Steven answered vaguely. “Right, Dillon?” he asked, looking over his cousin’s shoulder toward his brother.
The latter had just arrived and was silently taking all this in.
Ellie turned around to face her brother-in-law. “When did you get here? I don’t remember seeing you when we got here a few minutes ago.”
“That’s because I just arrived,” Dillon answered. For some reason, he felt it prudent to avoid Hailey’s eyes. Instead, he nodded at his two cousins. “Kane. Adam.”
“They were just saying how much they regret not having arrived in Rambling Rose sooner, that way they would have been here to help work on the various construction projects that are either going up or being renovated. Seems that they think this is a good place to invest in and build up,” Steven told his brother pointedly.
Ellie picked up on her husband’s tone and looked from him to his brother. “Am I missing something here, boys?”
Steven smiled. “Dillon’s the family Cassandra,” he explained. He continued despite the frown on Dillon’s face. “You know, the woman in Greek mythology who always foresaw all the bad things that were going to happen.”
“I didn’t say something bad was going to happen,” Dillon insisted. “I just don’t wear the same rose-colored glasses that you and Callum do,” he said flatly.
Hailey was trying to follow what was being said. “You didn’t want to renovate this spa?” she asked him.
Rather than attempt to deny the statement, Dillon tried to explain his thinking. “I just didn’t think the town was ready for it. The bottom line was profit and I just didn’t think that there was going to be that much profit to be made here, not the way my brothers did,” he explained.
“Let me put it this way,” Steven responded. “Callum and I see the glass half full and getting fuller by the minute, while Dillon here—” he glanced at his brother with an affectionate smile “—well, his glass is always half empty. Not only that, but the glass is leaking, as well. Am I right, Dillon?”
Dillon didn’t believe in washing dirty laundry in public. And even if he did, this wasn’t the time to do that or to argue, not at an important grand opening ceremony and definitely not in front of his cousins and a stranger, even a very attractive, sexy one. He decided to let the topic go. Any actual discussions he needed to undertake would be conducted with his brothers in private.
Smiling at his brother, Dillon inclined his head. “Close enough, brother,” he said to Steven.
Chapter Four
Steven Fortune inclined his head in close to his wife’s ear and whispered, “Looks like it’s time, Madam Mayor.” When Ellie turned her head to look up at him, he asked, “Are you ready, or do you need a little more time? I can stall if you’d like.” Taking nothing for granted, Steven was concerned that, even now, his wife might be battling another wave of morning sickness.
Her husband’s thoughtfulness touched her each and every time he displayed it. Once again, Ellie thought how very lucky she was that the two of them had found one another. When she thought of the odds against that happening, against her finding her soul mate, especially when she was already carrying another man’s child, Ellie was nothing if not humbled.
Grateful, Ellie squeezed her husband’s hand. “I’m fine,” she told him.
Taking her at her word, Steven moved over toward Dillon and gave his brother a thumbs-up sign.
“Looks like it’s time,” he
