Helen Lacey - Her Secret Texas Valentine

Valene hadn’t taken much interest at the time, since she’d been neck-deep in work and wanted to prove she could be as ambitious and successful at Fortunado Real Estate as her sister Maddie. But now the truth was out. They were really Fortunes—as their free-spirited grandmother had enjoyed an affair with the philandering Julius. Valene had learned to accept the fact that she had an incredibly complicated family tree. It wasn’t unusual to see an article on the internet or in the paper about the family. In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that a journalist named Ariana Lamonte had done an exposé on all of Gerald Robinson’s children, including the ones he’d sired out of wedlock. Yeah, complicated didn’t really cover it. Particularly now that Gerald Robinson, aka Jerome Fortune, had left his embittered wife, Charlotte, and had sought refuge in the arms of the first and only love of his life, Deborah—who had borne him three illegitimate sons decades earlier.

Yes, the Fortunado/Fortune/Mendoza connection was about as complicated as it got.

“Okay,” Schuyler said and grinned. “I’ll admit that I’m the flake in the family.”

“What does that make me?” Maddie queried.

“The workaholic,” Val said lightly. “And I’m the spoiled brat. I know, since our brothers have told me that repeatedly over the years.”

“You’re not spoiled,” Schuyler defended. “But you’re the youngest, and since we’ve already established that you’re Daddy’s favorite, you know you have to get labeled as something. But now I think we should check out this Jake on social media and see what he’s hiding.”

Val rolled her eyes. “He’s not hiding anything.”

“Everyone is hiding something,” Maddie said, her mouth flattened. “What’s his last name?”

“I’m not saying,” Val replied, standing her ground. “I’m not going to do anything other than go on a nice and respectable date with the man.”

Schuyler made a dramatic sound. “Oh, I see, you actually like him.”

Val waved an impatient hand. She loved her sisters...but sometimes they were impossibly bossy and interfering. “We spent an hour together. I’d hardly call that enough time to form any kind of opinion.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Maddie said seriously. “I was pining for Zach for years after the first time I laid eyes on him.”

“But underneath your corporate and workaholic demeanor, you’re a soppy sentimentalist,” Val said and chuckled. “And I’m a realist.”

They all laughed, and it was so nice to spend some quality time with her sisters. Since both of them had married, and Schuyler had moved to Austin to be with Carlo, she’d missed their company. Of course, she still regularly saw Maddie at both the Houston and Austin offices, but that was work. She had friends, but other than her bestie, Adele, no one came close to the affection she felt for her siblings. She even missed hanging out with her brothers. Particularly Connor, who lived in Denver and was always a great source of advice and counsel.

Growing up as the youngest Fortunado child had had its difficult moments. For one, her parents were overprotective of her and often treated her as though she were eighteen and not twenty-four. Since her father had retired and he and her mother had begun traveling, their stranglehold had lessened a little, but she still spoke to both her parents every few days. Case in point: she hadn’t told her parents she was using My Perfect Match to find a man, otherwise she knew her father would start handing out her number to people he thought were suitable for his youngest, beloved child.

She packed up what was left of her lunch and gave each of her sisters a hug. “I have to get back to work. I’m showing an estate in Bunker Hill this afternoon.”

“The McGovern place?” Maddie inquired, quickly in CEO mode.

“That’s the one,” she said and shrugged. “I have a buyer from Arizona, a couple who are transferring to Houston for work. We video chatted last time I did an open house, and they seem interested in the property.”

“But?” Maddie asked, always picking up on Val’s body language.

“They’re going in at under three fifty per square foot.”

“Median price is what?” Maddie queried. “About four hundred?”

She nodded. “Yeah...so we’ll see. The husband really likes the place, but his wife is a banker and is naturally going to try to screw the owners with a lower offer.”

Maddie’s brows rose quickly. “Please tell me you’re not using that terminology with the clients?”

Val laughed. She loved Maddie, but sometimes her oldest sister was too uptight. “Of course not,” she assured her boss and smoothed a hand over her perfectly tight chignon. “I am always at my professional best when I’m with a client.”

“Well, as long as you let your hair down with your hot cowboy on Friday night,” Schuyler said and chuckled.

Your hot cowboy...

Her skin turned uncharacteristically warm at the thought of Jake Brockton.

“Would you stop encouraging her to be as reckless as you?” Maddie scolded her sister.

Val was still smiling as she left the boardroom and headed up the hall. She passed her brother-in-law Zach McCarter and hiked a thumb in the direction of the boardroom. He nodded and grinned, clearly amused that she knew he would be looking for the wife he obviously adored. Val liked Zach; he was a good boss and a great businessman. She’d learned a lot from him since he’d moved to Houston from the San Antonio office. The transition had been at her father’s behest, of course, before her dad had retired. Kenneth had pitted Maddie and Zach against one another in a contest to secure the top job once he retired, and over the course of the rivalry, they had fallen crazily in love.

She was still smiling as she entered her office and was moving around her desk when her cell phone beeped. She checked the text message instantly.

It was her hot cowboy.

Toscano’s. Seven o’clock. Looking forward to it. Jake.

She grinned when she noticed the smiling emoji, wondering how he’d wrangled a reservation at one of the most popular restaurants in Houston. She texted back quickly and tucked the cell into her pocket.

She had a date.

And for the first time in a long time, Val didn’t feel quite so alone.

* * *

“Seriously, could you be any more evasive?”

Jake made an impatient sound at the whiny voice rattling in his ear. The same voice that had been demanding answers to a barrage of personal questions for the last five minutes.

“Cass,” he said quietly, “I told you, it’s none of your business.”

“But it was my idea,” she wailed and came around his left side, ignoring the fact he was hitching up the cinch on his horse and she was very much in the way. “I suggested the dating app to begin with.”

The big gelding sidestepped and stomped its foot. Jake loved his baby sister, but sometimes she was as annoying as a buzzing mosquito. And about as relentless. She’d been at him the moment she got home from college for the weekend, demanding to know how his coffee dates went. Well, date, in the singular, because he’d canceled the two other dates he’d made once he’d met the vivacious and beautiful Valene Fortunado. He’d never been a player, and dating more than one woman didn’t sit right.

“Cassidy,” he said, calling his sister by her full name, “button up, will you. I’ve got work to do.”

She huffed and swished her flaming-red ponytail. “Sometimes you are such a killjoy, Jake. If you hadn’t taken my advice, you never would have met this goddess.”

He turned his head and frowned. “And not once did I use that word,” he reminded her. “Remember that when you start telling Mom how you’re playing cupid.”