Karen Templeton - Fortune's Cinderella

A snort preceded, “Yeah, fear is kinda my go-to emotion when I think I might die.”

“We’re not going to die.”

“Oh? Last I heard, death couldn’t be bought off.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Her eyes opened as she shifted, clearly trying to suppress a wince. And shivering. “S-sorry. Today hasn’t gone exactly the way I thought it w-would … no, it’s okay, I’m fine,” she said when he let go to shrug off his jacket.

“I’m wearing a sweater. You’re not. So no arguments. Can you sit up a little more?” Nodding, she did, at least enough for him to wrap the jacket around her shoulders, tug her smooth blond braid free.

“Thank you.”

“Anytime.” Elbowing aside the first stirrings of alarm, Scott glanced around. “This is … surreal.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Especially as I can’t recall ever seeing a tornado around here before. Farther north and west, sure. But …” Her eyes lifted. “I think … I’m gonna pretend this is all a dream. And any minute I’ll wake up and … it’ll be over.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He inched a little closer. “I’m Scott, by the way.”

“I know.” Her eyes drifted closed again. “Heard you on your cell phone.”

“Speaking of which, mine’s gone AWOL. Do you have one?”

“Sure thing. In my purse.”

“Which is where?”

She almost laughed. A sound that, under other circumstances, he would have found extremely appealing. “Around here somewhere. And you need to be quiet now.”

Scott angled his head to see into her face. Her eyes were still shut. “You didn’t tell me your name.”

“Christina. Hastings. Now hush.”

“What … what are you doing?”

“Praying. Trying to, anyway.”

“You really think that’ll help?”

“We’ll never find out if you keep talking, will we?”

A damp draft swept through their little cave. “Is your head okay?”

“And that better not be you thinking I’m off my nut because I’m praying.”

He did, but he wasn’t about to say that. “Not at all. But if your head got hit, you might have a concussion. So you shouldn’t close your eyes in case you fall asleep.”

“Oh. No. Head’s fine. Well, no worse than usual—”

A muffled sound from outside made Scott jump. Holy hell. How could he have forgotten—?

The initial shock sloughed off, he jolted to his knees again to claw at the wall of debris barely three feet away separating him from the others. “Blake! Mike!” He yanked at a chunk of drywall, sending plaster dust and small chunks of heaven knew what sifting down on them. “ Dad! Can you hear me—?”

“For heaven’s sake, stop!” Christina snapped behind him. “You want to bring whatever’s left up there down on our heads?”

“No, but … dammit! ” Terror erupting in his chest, he stared into the darkness quickly swallowing up what might as well have been a mountain. “Most of my family’s out there. Somewhere.”

“It’ll be okay,” she murmured, although he wasn’t sure if the reassurance was aimed at him or she was trying to talk herself down off the ledge. Scott duckwalked back to where she lay, planting his butt on the floor beside her and listening to the unremitting drip, drip, drip of rain somewhere above them.

“You sure about that?”

A beat passed before she said, “Somebody’s bound to know what happened, where we are. It might take a while, but … we’ll be okay.”

He could barely see her now, but that first image when he’d looked up from his phone earlier and actually noticed her was indelibly etched into his brain: the sass and intelligence in those enormous blue eyes, the barely repressed humor—at his expense, no doubt—behind her smile. “For somebody convinced a minute ago we were about to die, you seem amazingly calm now.”

“I had my moment. It’s over. Or I could be in shock. Hard to tell.”

“Or maybe you did get beaned.”

Her soft laugh melted something inside him. “Or maybe I did.”

Crazy. Most women he knew would be in hysterics by now. And Christina’s hair and skin had to be as caked with plaster dust as his, her eyes and mouth as gritty. Not to mention she couldn’t have been more than five-two, five-three tops. And yet—

“You’re tougher than you look.”

“So I’ve been told.”

More distorted sounds from the other side of the wall snagged his attention; he crawled over, shouting. “We’re in here! Can anybody hear me? Javier! Is that you?”

“You’re wasting your energy, you realize.”

His head swung back to her. “I can’t sit here and do nothing .”

“Looks like you don’t have much of a choice.”

“Doing nothing is not a choice.”

“We’re not doing nothing. We’re waiting.” She paused. “And trusting.”

“Ah. That praying thing again, right?”

He sensed more than saw her shrug before she said, “Tell me about them. Your family.”

“Why?”

“Maybe it’ll keep us distracted.”

Scott’s gut contracted. “You are in pain.”

“Let’s just say I’ll never complain about cramps again.”

Honestly. “Do you always say whatever pops into your head?”

“Depends on the situation. This definitely qualifies. Besides …” She shifted slightly. “Either we’re gonna die, in which case we’ll never see each other again. Or we’ll be rescued—which would definitely be my preference—and you’ll go back to Atlanta, and we’ll still never see each other again. Either way, I’m not too worried about making a good impression.”

Except you are , Scott thought, startled, thinking if he had to be trapped in a pile of rubble with anybody, he could have done far worse than this smart-mouthed, cool-as-a-cucumber little bit of a thing with her soft, raspy voice and even softer blue eyes.

“So talk,” she said. “How many of you are there, exactly …?”

He made her laugh.

And, bless him, forget. As much as she could, she supposed, given the situation. But considering their initial encounter, not to mention the frown lines he’d probably been working on since kindergarten, the last thing Christina had expected was for the man to have a sense of humor.

Not that she couldn’t hear weightier threads lacing the stories about growing up with five siblings, despite Scott’s obvious discretion at how he presented his family to a complete stranger. Even so, when, for instance, he told her some silly story about him and his older brother, Mike, setting up competing lemonade stands across the street from each other when they were kids, she could hear the frustration—and hurt—underlying his words. Mike couldn’t let an opportunity pass to one-up his younger brother … and that their father had praised eleven-year-old Mike for his ingenuity at besting Scott, who’d only been in the third grade at the time.

She was also guessing that Scott had been busting his buns trying to win his father’s approval ever since. Not that Scott would ever admit as much—certainly not to Christina, at least—but nobody knew better than she did what it was like to yearn for a parent’s attention and respect.

His obvious loyalty—and genuine affection—was honorable. But good Lord, if half of what he’d said was true, this family took the concept of sibling rivalry to new heights, not only not discouraging competition but fostering it, pitting the kids against each other to make them stronger. More fierce. And yet, from what she could tell, they all loved each other, even if those bonds were mainly forged by their mutual interest in FortuneSouth’s success.

It was enough to almost make her grateful she was an only child.