Texan Seeks Fortune

The kid had the same wide, sunny smile that his mother had. He flashed that smile now at Connor as he grabbed the toy train and pressed it to his chest.

“Mine,” he repeated.

“We’ve established that,” Connor replied as if he was talking to someone his own age. “But why did you—?”

Brianna anticipated his question. “You’re not going to get an answer,” she told him. “He knows he’s not supposed to throw anything down there but for some reason, the toilet just seems to really fascinate him.” She looked at her son with an indulgent smile. “Axel used to have a pet hamster until one day he decided that Howard was dirty and needed a bath.”

“Let me guess,” Connor said to her, “Howard drowned.”

She surprised him by saying, “No, actually, he didn’t. I managed to fish him out of the toilet bowl just in time.”

“So you saved Howard,” Connor concluded.

“No,” she said with a heartfelt sigh. “I didn’t.” When he raised a quizzical brow, she told him the rest of the story. “As near as I can figure it, Howard died of a heart attack. After I rescued him and dried him off, I put Howard in his cage. I found him the next morning, lying on the floor of the cage, as stiff as one of the kids’ figurines.”

The boy had stopped making noise and now sniffled a couple of times.

“We had a funeral,” Axel said solemnly.

“So he can talk in sentences,” Connor marveled, looking at the boy. The boy seemed pretty young to him and he had no idea just what kids were able to do at any given age.

“Only when he wants to,” Brianna answered. Shifting her son to her other hip, she looked contritely at the man whose pant legs she had just noticed were wet. “I’m sorry I’m going on and on here. I don’t get much of a chance to talk to adults,” she admitted. Setting Axel down, she looked around for her purse. “How much do I owe you?”

Smiling at the woman, Connor shook his head. “Nothing.”

Brianna looked at him, confused. “But you just fixed my toilet—and got your knees wet in the process,” she pointed out.

“That’s okay,” he told her, shrugging off her offer of payment. “This is on me. No charge.”

That only managed to confuse things even further for Brianna. “I don’t think your boss is going to appreciate you doing things for free.”

“On the contrary,” Connor said. He thought of his father, who he was, in essence, working for at the moment while he was conducting this investigation. “I think he’d approve.”

Judging by her expression, his answer made absolutely no sense to the woman. “But you’re a plumber. How are you supposed to make any money if you don’t accept payment for doing a job?” she asked, confused.

“Because,” Connor answered cavalierly, “I’m not a plumber.”

This was making less and less sense to her. She began at the beginning. “But the company I called, they said they were sending someone right out.”

“They probably meant what they said, but they didn’t send me,” he told her.

Things were finally falling into place. Brianna looked at the man standing and dripping in her bathroom. She was horrified at her mistake. He probably thought she was an idiot.

“I’m so embarrassed,” she confessed, “I don’t even know where to begin.”

Amused, Connor laughed off her attempt at an apology. “Don’t worry about it,” he told her. “It was just an honest mistake.”

The fact that she had let a perfect stranger into her house and that he was still standing here suddenly registered with her.

“But if you’re not the plumber,” she cried, backing away from him, “who are you?”

She was doing her best not to panic or appear nervous. After all, she had no idea who this man was or what he was doing in her house.

Brianna thought of her children and a chill went shooting up her spine.

She had to protect them!

Connor offered her an easy smile as he put his hand out to her. “Connor Fortunado, at your service.”

But who was Connor Fortunado and why had he come to her house? His answer just created more questions.

Before she could ask him, the doorbell rang. For a split second, she appeared torn between questioning the man in her bathroom further or going to answer the doorbell.

The doorbell won.

Making up her mind, she hurried to the front of the house.

“Does it ever let up?” Connor called after her, curious.

“Sometimes,” she answered. Just not today.

Brianna opened the door and found herself looking at a slightly overweight man in coveralls that had seen better days.

“Somebody called for a plumber?” he asked her.

“Yes, I did, but I don’t need you anymore,” Brianna began, ready to close the door again.

The man looked at her skeptically, then glanced down at what was apparently a work order in his hand. “The toilet fixed itself?” he asked with a touch of sarcasm.

“No, but—”

Connor was about to intervene for her but Brianna’s son beat him to it. Or, more accurately, her son and her daughter did. The duo had decided to resume whatever battle they had been deeply embroiled in a few minutes earlier.

Connor came forward, listening. The battle was apparently over whether or not the rather scrappy-looking mutt who had come running in with them should be wearing a dress. The vote was tied. The little girl—Ava, according to the name her brother had yelled—was saying yes while Axel was very loudly proclaiming, “No! He’s a boy dog!”

Their supposedly small voices were completely drowning out the plumber, who, judging by the disgruntled look on his face, was protesting being sent away without collecting a fee. The fact that he hadn’t done any work didn’t seem to matter.

Meanwhile Connor found himself fascinated by the dynamics of the household he had walked into. Besides the scrappy dog, by his count he had glimpsed two cats and some sort of creature—a sea turtle perhaps?—living in a tank in the far corner of the living room. All he could really make out were a pair of eyes looking in his direction.

Connor’s attention was drawn back to the squabbling children, who were growing progressively louder with each passing minute. Glancing in their mother’s direction, he thought that she definitely looked overwhelmed. Taking pity on the woman, Connor decided to distract the children so that she could at least clear things up with the plumber.

“Gimme that!” Axel shouted, grabbing a frayed dress from his sister.

Though small, Ava was every bit as strong as her brother.

“No!” she cried, pulling the dress back out of her brother’s hands.

Connor thought of physically pulling them apart but decided that he’d get more accomplished if he treated them as short adults, not discipline problems.

“You know,” he began, “my brothers and sisters and I once dressed up our horse for Halloween.” He had to raise his voice above theirs in order to actually be heard.

Axel stopped trying to pull the dress away from his sister. Meanwhile Ava’s eyes widened as she suddenly became aware that there was someone besides her brother in the room.

“You dressed up your horse?” the little girl questioned, looking up at the strange man in her living room. Though she appeared a year or so younger than her brother, she was more articulate than Axel was.

“We sure did,” Connor told her, subtly coaxing the brother and sister away from the front of the house and the plumber. The dog decided to trot along with them, as well. “My sisters wanted to put a ballerina costume on Lightning but my brothers and I said that the ballerina costume would just embarrass him.”

“Who won?” Axel wanted to know. He gave his sister a superior look. “Bet it was the boys.”

“Bet it wasn’t,” Ava countered, ready to get into yet another argument with him. “Everybody knows that boys are dumb.”

“No they’re not!” Axel yelled back.

“Actually,” Connor said, raising his voice as he took each of them by the hand and brought them toward the kitchen, “Lightning won.”

“The horse?” Axel questioned, scrunching up his forehead.

“How could the horse win?” Ava wanted to know. “Could he talk?” she asked in awe.

“No, he wasn’t a talking horse,” Connor managed to say with a straight face.

“Then how did he win?” Axel asked, crossing his arms before his small chest and waiting to be given an answer.

“Lightning won because he got to keep his dignity,” Connor told his small audience.

Ava and Axel exchanged perplexed looks. “What’s dig-nitee?” Axel asked.

“Being proud of yourself,” Connor explained.

Intrigued, Ava asked, “How did the horse get to keep that?”

“Well, Lightning was a boy horse,” Connor told them. “We put a pirate’s costume on him, using some of my mother’s scarves. We all agreed that he looked a lot better in that than he would have in a ballerina costume. Besides,” Connor confided, lowering his voice and winking at the children, “the tutu would have really been impossible to get on Lightning.”

The abbreviated reference to the ballerina costume seemed to tickle Axel and he started to laugh. He laughed so hard, he wound up rolling around on the floor. The sound was infectious and it set Ava off. In no time flat, both children were on the floor, holding their sides and laughing.

Which was how Brianna found them when she walked into the kitchen.

The sight astounded her. For once, her children were actually getting along and no longer at each other’s throats. Brianna stood for a moment, drinking in the sight.

Stunned, she looked at the man who was apparently responsible for her kids’ miraculous about-face. She was both amazed that this Connor Fortunado had somehow managed to calm her little hellions down and horrified that she had allowed a total stranger to come into her house.

Allowed? She’d literally dragged him in, Brianna thought, berating herself.

Okay, there’d been a mix-up, which caused her to make the mistake, but even so, she’d let a stranger into her house. The house where her children lived. The man could have been an ax murderer or a serial killer and she had just let him come waltzing in without so much as checking his credentials.

What kind of a mother did that make her?

“Did your mom yell at you for making the horse wear her scarves?” Axel asked the possible ax murderer.

Connor looked perfectly serious as he said, “No, she decided she didn’t like those scarves anymore. She said she was happy to give them to Lightning.”

They were lapping this up, Brianna realized. And this stranger was obviously very good with children.

She supposed she was overreacting, she thought. If this man was a possible ax murderer or a serial killer, chances were that he wouldn’t be sitting cross-legged on her floor with her children, telling them this exaggerated story.

And besides, he did fix her toilet, she told herself. She strongly doubted that ax murderers went around fixing toilets for their victims just before they did away with them.

Brianna had just decided to exonerate the man in her kitchen when he suddenly looked in her direction with the softest brown eyes she’d ever seen.

For the briefest of moments, she felt something inside of her tighten in response.

“Everything all settled?” he asked her.

It took her a minute to focus on his words. “With the plumber?” she finally asked. When he nodded, she said, “Yes, I convinced him that it was a false alarm and that the toilet was running fine now. He wasn’t happy, but he left.” Coming closer, she stood over Connor and extended her hand. “We never got a chance to finish with our introductions. I’m Brianna Childress,” she told him. “And those are my children, Axel and Ava.”

“I know,” he said. “At least, I know who you are. The kids I have to admit were a surprise.” In more ways than one, he thought.

Brianna’s suspicions returned. She shifted so that she stood directly in front of her children, as if to protect them. “Why do you know who I am?”

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