eye when she’d closed her eyes to savor her coffee.
The face belonged to Matteo Mendoza.
This time she didn’t bother trying to deny it or to talk herself out of her obvious attraction to the man. Instead, she just found herself wondering if she was going to see Matteo again.
And if so, when.
* * *
Rachel made it to the Fortune Foundation office at ten to nine, approximately fifteen minutes before the newlyweds arrived.
Their attempt to slip in quietly was quickly thwarted. Several of the other people who worked in the office saw them the moment they walked in and greeted them with hearty words of welcome.
Rachel added her voice to theirs, genuinely delighted to see the happy couple.
“Welcome back, you two,” Rachel cried, speaking up to be heard above the rest. “We missed you.”
Christopher laughed as he looked in her direction and replied, “No offense, but we didn’t miss you.”
Chris looked back at his wife, and Rachel knew exactly what he’d meant with his last remark. That Kinsley filled up his whole world and there was no space left over for anyone else, so no one else could possibly be missed.
Rachel felt envy pricking her. The love Christopher and Kinsley had for one another was almost visible.
She caught herself wondering if she was ever going to find someone who loved her like that—someone whom she could love like that, she silently added.
If the way she’d felt yesterday evening after her date was any indication, the answer to that was a depressing but resounding no.
Pushing that daunting thought aside—and knowing that the couple undoubtedly was on cloud nine and not quite ready to descend and start working just yet—Rachel came over to them.
“So, how did the big family reunion go?” Rachel asked him. When Christopher looked at her, clearly puzzled, she clarified her question. “At the wedding. That was the first time you actually met some of the other members of the Fortune family—your family,” she corrected herself. “Right?”
Christopher nodded, the look on his face telling her that he was partially reliving the scene in his mind. “Right.”
“And?” Rachel prompted him eagerly.
“And,” Christopher continued after taking in a deep breath, “it was kind of rocky at first. I wasn’t sure how they’d all react to all of us, or to me,” he said glibly. He spared no words criticizing his own behavior. “I mean, I hadn’t exactly welcomed the news with open arms initially myself. To tell you the truth, I was pretty surprised that they even showed up at the wedding.”
“But your mother invited them,” Rachel pointed out.
“That made no difference.” And then he smiled. The smile was equal parts humor and relief. “But just as when I first met most of them in Red Rock last year, they turned out to be a lot more understanding than I expected. I can truthfully say that they are a very nice bunch of people as a group and individually,” he added. “To be honest, if I had to pick my own family, I couldn’t have done a better job than picking the Fortunes. They’re charitable and decent, and they don’t behave as if they feel they’re privileged or something particularly special.”
Christopher abruptly stopped talking. “You’ve got a strange look on your face, Rachel. Is there something on your mind you’d like to talk about?”
Yes, there is. But you didn’t come back to work to be burdened by my problems.
“No,” she said out loud. “I was just curious.”
But maybe now wasn’t the time to satisfy her curiosity. After all, there was the matter of that little gold band on his left hand. That undoubtedly would take him a bit of time to get used to, too—even after the honeymoon.
For now, Rachel decided, she was just going to keep a low profile and do her job—or jobs, she corrected herself, since, just for a moment, she had forgotten about her job at the Cantina.
The second she thought of the Cantina, an image of Matteo flashed through her mind. Something else she couldn’t think about right now, she silently chided.
With effort, she focused on what she had to do right this moment, at the Foundation—but it wasn’t easy. Thoughts of Matteo continued to tease her brain.
It took a few more minutes before things settled back down and the office returned to its former rhythm, with everyone focusing on preparing for next month.
Rachel hardly had a chance to sit at her desk again when there was a slight commotion at the outer door. Since the Foundation wasn’t scheduled to open until April 1, they were still closed to the general public.
As far as she knew, everyone who was supposed to be here was here.
So who were these two people, a man and a woman, walking into the second-floor office?
Looking at them more closely, Rachel was struck that although the woman was a blue-eyed blonde and the man had dark hair and dark eyes, both bore a striking resemblance to Christopher. Were they part of his family? she wondered.
The way he greeted the duo the next minute answered her question for her.
“Hey, look what the cat dragged in.” Christopher laughed, crossing the room to them with his wife.
“I told you we were ready to come do whatever it is that you’re doing here,” the man reminded him, looking around the room as if to get properly oriented.
Christopher had an inch on the other man, and his dirty-blond hair was more like the woman’s. He looked genuinely pleased to see both of them.
“You’re not fooling me,” Christopher told the man. “You just think you can hide out here, away from our crazy matchmaking relatives. I can tell you now, it won’t do either one of you any good. They’ll find you.”
Having said that, Christopher glanced around at the other people in the office, all of whom were looking at the two latest arrivals, clearly wondering who they were. Their curiosity was short-lived, thanks to Christopher.
“Hey, everybody, I’d like you all to meet my big brother, Galen, and my little sister, Delaney. Study them carefully. They’re the last of their kind,” he declared with no small amount of amusement.
Delaney frowned. “You make us sound like we’re about to go extinct.”
“Well, aren’t you?” Christopher asked with a straight face. “Hey, don’t blame me,” he pretended to protest. “You two started it by calling yourself ‘the last remaining singles.’”
“Well, what would you call us?” Delaney wanted to know. “Now that you and our other three siblings have gone to the other side and joined the ranks of the happily married, everybody thinks Galen
