Mendoza's Secret Fortune

Odd girl out, that was her.

She was always the tallest girl in her class, at times taller than all the boys, as well. Tall and thin as a rail, which made her an easy target for other girls who felt their own stock was enhanced if they could bring hers down by several notches.

So they did.

Though she had thought of herself as an outcast, her father, in one of his rare times at home rather than at work, insisted that she was “special.” To that end, he saw to it that she was enrolled in a number of different classes—dance, tennis, piano, whatever it took—and Rachel discovered that she was good at all of them.

That discovery fueled her confidence, and Mother Nature stepped in to take care of the gawky, awkward issue. Thinking she was doomed to go through life all knobby knees and elbows, Rachel was delighted to find herself transforming from a plain duckling to a lovely swan.

It was a transformation that did not go unnoticed by the local males. Suddenly the center of attention, she continued to be so through her college years. She was flying high when her entire world came into question at the end of her senior year, courtesy of a former friend turned jealous rival. A rival who chose the dance floor at the senior-week dance to humiliate her by making certain allegations and so-called secret facts about her father public.

That was when Rachel’s world came crashing down around her. A short time later, she arrived in Horseback Hollow.

Though done in haste, it had turned out not to be such a bad move after all. She didn’t mind hard work. It brought her a sense of satisfaction. And here she wasn’t anyone’s daughter or sibling. She was just Rachel Robinson, hardworking restaurant hostess.

And she liked it that way, Rachel thought as she deposited the menus on the table, presenting each of the three men with the daily-special cards.

As she distributed them, she became acutely aware that one of the men was sizing her up closely. He leered at her. Rachel quickly looked away.

“Your server will be right with you, and let me know if there’ll be anything else you need,” she said, addressing the trio.

“Maybe you could get us some extra napkins for these two to use when they stop drooling,” the oldest man at the table suggested.

Rachel flashed an automatic smile and told him, “I’ll see what I can do, sir.”

She was about to head back to the hostess station up front when the one who had been eyeing her so closely said, “Don’t rush off so fast.” He caught her by the wrist. “Where have you been all my life, darlin’?”

The inner feistiness that she always tried to keep under wraps broke through. She heard herself answering, “Well, for the first half of it, I wasn’t even born.”

Rather than being put off because his friends laughed at her response, the man, still holding her wrist, said, “Lively. I like that in a woman.”

With a hard tug, Rachel pulled her wrist free. “Pushy. I don’t like that in a man,” she replied sweetly.

The man who had asked for extra napkins laughed and said, “She sure got your number, Walt.”

She certainly did, Rachel thought. And that number was a big zero.

* * *

Matteo Mendoza was running late. There were few things he hated more, but sometimes—like today—it just couldn’t be helped. Still, he knew that his older brother, Cisco, would have some sort of asinine remark to toss his way. He braced himself for the onslaught.

Preoccupied, he passed by the table with the boisterous cowboys and heard the whole exchange play out. The young woman was certainly far too beautiful for the job she was doing, but that didn’t mean she deserved to be treated with anything but respect. Rather than look for his father’s table, he approached this one first.

“Problem here?” Matteo asked, coming up behind the attractive hostess.

“Just havin’ a little fun. Nothing serious,” the man called Walt said, raising his hands to indicate that it was hands-off from now on as far as he was concerned.

“Thank you,” Rachel said to the tall, dark and handsome knight in shining armor who had ridden up to defend her honor. She moved away from the rowdy cowboys’ table. “But that wasn’t really necessary. I can take care of myself.”

Matteo inclined his head, as if to agree with the young woman. “Nobody said you couldn’t,” he replied.

With that, he moved farther into the dining area, scanning it to find where his father and brother were seated.

For the most part, when he joined his brother, Cisco, and his father for lunch at The Hollows Cantina, Matteo was thinking about going home. Home in both his and Cisco’s case was Miami. Being here, in this little town with the improbable name of Horseback Hollow, was nothing short of an overwhelming culture shock.

Initially, he and Cisco had come to this slow-as-molasses, underdeveloped Texas town because their baby sister, Gabriella, had inexplicably fallen in love in Horseback Hollow.

Specifically, he and Cisco had come out here for Gabi’s wedding to Jude Fortune Jones.

But the wedding had come and gone, and much to Matteo’s chagrin, he and Cisco were still here. Their father had prevailed upon them to stay a little longer—as a personal favor to him.

Orlando Mendoza had been the first of their immediate family to come out here from Miami. It wasn’t a sense of wanderlust that had prompted the patriarch’s relocation, but rather a feeling of urgency, a search for a purpose. Orlando was desperately trying to find a way to go on with his life after losing the love of his life, his wife, Luz.

A former air force pilot who had retired to care for his ailing spouse, Orlando found new purpose in his life when he came to Horseback Hollow. He joined Sawyer and Laurel Fortune in their fledgling venture, the Redmond Flight School, and also used his expertise to help operate the occasional charter service they ran.

It was while he was flying one of the planes—a plane, as it turned out, that had been intentionally tampered with—that he suffered a plane crash and had gotten seriously injured. The moment she got the news, Gabi had been quick to fly in from Miami in order to nurse him back to health.

As luck would have it, Gabi wound up nursing herself right into a love affair. Marriage turned out to be a by-product of that affair.

It was obvious to Matteo that Gabi, as well as his father, really liked this town and preferred it to Miami. His father had already tried subtly to talk Cisco as well as him into relocating to Horseback Hollow. Orlando made no secret of the fact that he wanted nothing more than to have his entire family living somewhere in proximity.

Although he loved and respected his father, Matteo couldn’t see himself staying here indefinitely, much less living here.

“No offense, Dad, but this place is just too small, too mundane and too rural for my tastes.” Snagging another tortilla chip, he popped it into his mouth and then continued, “It’s like everything moves in slow motion around here. They even roll up the sidewalks at ten o’clock.” He nursed his tall, cold glass of beer.

“Now, Matteo, you know you are exaggerating,” Orlando chided him.

“There’s no nightlife here,” Matteo countered, “not to mention that there’s just no excitement whatsoever in this town.” He leaned over the table to get closer to his father. “I’m not like you, Dad. I’m young. I need excitement.”

Orlando laughed the way a man might when he saw himself in his son’s words. Everyone needed to take risks and behave foolishly, getting it out of their system when they were still young. He fully understood that. But he also had a father’s desire to have his children learn from his mistakes so that they wouldn’t repeat them.

“Oh, there’s excitement here in this town, hijo,” he assured Matteo. “Trust me, there is excitement. It’s just of a different nature.”

Matteo smiled just before he tilted back his glass again. Obviously he and his father had very different definitions of “excitement,” and he could understand that. At sixty-one, his father had earned the right to kick back and take it easy, while he, a pilot like his father and twenty-eight to boot, wanted nothing less than to take on anything that life might want to throw at him. Doing so got his adrenaline going and made him feel alive. He’d always had a competitive streak, especially when it came to his brother. He and Cisco had been competing against one another for as long as either one of them could remember.

“Give this place a chance,” Cisco said with the thousand-watt smile that all the women within a ten-mile radius always found to be nothing short of spellbinding. “I know I am.”

Matteo looked at his jet-setting older brother in disbelief. He’d been right. Cisco had decided to stay on for a while. He couldn’t help wondering why. Cisco loved the pace in Miami as much as he did.

“You’re staying?” he asked. There had to be an angle that Cisco was playing, but what?

Cisco lifted his glass in a mock toast to his brother, then drained it before answering, “That’s what I just said.”

Cisco liked to party more than he did. His choosing to stay here didn’t make an iota of sense. “Why?” Matteo asked.

Cisco raised his broad shoulders and let them fall again in a vague, careless shrug. “Dad and Gabi seem sold on Horseback Hollow. That means there’s got to be some merit to this town, right? I intend to stick around awhile and find out if I see it for myself. Might be some good real-estate investments going begging here.” And then Cisco all but lit up. “Speaking of merit,” he said, his attention directed toward something—or someone—he saw over his brother’s head.

Curious, Matteo turned around in his chair, looking behind him. Which was when he saw her. The hostess he had verbally defended against the clowns at the other table a few minutes ago. She was heading their way. Matteo caught himself sitting up a little straighter.