Fortune by Helen Hardt

Author:Helen Hardt [HARDT, HELEN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642633672
Publisher: Waterhouse Press

Chapter Twenty-Two

Brendan

I sit with Ruby in the kitchen, drinking a pumpkin spice latte that she made from her Italian cappuccino machine. It’s surprisingly good, especially given the fact that my taste buds are on hiatus.

“I should be going.” I wipe the foam off my upper lip with a napkin. “I should see how things are going at the bar.”

“Please, wait for Ava. She’ll need you.”

“Of course, I’ll do anything for Ava. But I’m not sure she’ll need me, Ruby. I think maybe she’ll need you. Her mother. What she needs now are answers. She doesn’t need me to protect her. She doesn’t need you and her father to protect her. She needs, simply, to know what’s going on.”

“I’m not sure she’s ready to hear all the answers,” Ruby says.

“Ava is a strong woman.”

“I’m not suggesting that she isn’t, but there are things… Things about our family…”

“I know. Believe me, I’ve heard the rumors my whole life that the Steels own this town. Then when I found those documents hidden in my place, it seemed the rumors may be true.”

“There are things even Ryan and I don’t know about his father,” Ruby says. “Things we will never know. Things that died with him all those years ago.”

“But you’re not just talking about Ryan’s father, are you?”

Ruby looks down at her latte cup, swishes the contents around a little. Then she looks up and meets my gaze. “No, I’m not.”

“Ava says you never talk about your own father.”

“No, I don’t.”

“I won’t ask you to tell me anything,” I say. “But I hope you’ll tell Ava. She’s feeling in flux right now, like she doesn’t know exactly who she is. The cards she’s drawn have got her pretty freaked.”

“I’ve always wished she wouldn’t take the tarot so seriously.”

“But she does, and I respect that.”

“I respect it too,” Ruby says. “I have the utmost respect for my older daughter. She’s an amazing young woman, and she’s accomplished everything without the help of her family’s money. That’s something I’m very proud of. But I’m a detective, an investigator. We work on facts, on evidence. Not on intuition and emotion.”

“I doubt that’s wholly the case, Ruby. I would bet, as a detective, your intuition serves you well.”

“Absolutely. I’ve followed my gut many times, and it led me to facts. But intuition alone is nothing without the facts to back it up.”

“When you’re a private investigator.”

“Yes. When you’re a private investigator.” She chuckles lightly, but then her face regains its gravity. “But you have to understand, Brendan. That’s my mind-set.”

“I do understand. Probably better than Ava does.”

“Ava has always had her own way of looking at things,” Ruby says. “Even when she was a little girl, I knew she was different. She was so in tune with nature, with the animals on the ranch. Quite frankly, I was surprised she didn’t stay on the ranch, take more interest in Joe’s or Talon’s professions.”

“Interesting. She never told me any of that.”

“This ranch is a beautiful place,” Ruby says. “And I think she considered staying.

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