Stroke of Fortune by Christine Rimmer Read Free Book Online Page A

baby’s mama. Everyone says so.”
    â€œWell, maybe everyone is wrong. Maybe it was someone else altogether who left that baby on the golf course.”
    â€œHumph,” Margie said and dragged hard on her cigarette. “Someone else like who?”
    â€œWell, now, how would I know?”
    Margie tipped her red head back and blew a couple of perfect smoke rings. “You said it. You don’t know. It was the mother that did it. Mark my words.”
    â€œWow.” Ellie Switzer, who was eighteen and very sweet and constantly getting her orders mixed up, craned over Josie’s shoulder to look at the ad. Ellie let out a dreamy sigh. “The Carson Ranch. I’d like to look around that place. They say the house is gigantic, got a pool and gorgeous gardens. And those twins. What a life, huh?” Besides a younger brother, Flynt had twin sisters, Fiona and Cara; the twins were in their twenties. “I wouldn’t mind being them.”
    â€œWell, you ain’t,” said Margie with another dry cackle. She puffed on her coffin nail some more.“And if you got questions about the Carson place, ask Josie here. She used to work for ’em. She was their housekeeper.” Josie must have flinched, because Margie did some more cackling. “Didn’t think I knew that, did you? I got my ear to the ground, girl, and don’t you forget it.”
    Josie shrugged. This was Mission Creek, she reminded herself. And people did talk. “It’s no secret that I worked for them,” she said with an offhand shrug.
    Ellie giggled in delight. “You did, Josie, really? As their housekeeper?”
    â€œThat’s right.”
    â€œOh, tell me. What’s Fiona like? And that Flynt—he is one fine-lookin’ man.”
    â€œHumph,” said Margie. “Fine-lookin’, he may be. But you heard about what happened to his wife, didn’t you? And that other baby—the one his wife was carryin’ the night she died?”
    â€œI read all about it, right there in the Clarion, ” Ellie declared. “They said it wasn’t his fault. The road was icy, and he spun out.”
    â€œHumph.”
    â€œIt wasn’t his fault,” Ellie insisted. “And you have to admit—” she made a motion of fanning herself “—he is so hot. And Matt, too. They’re both just to-die-for handsome, rich as they come and sort of…dangerous, you know?”
    Josie wondered why she was still standing here,listening to this. She picked up her Coke and started to turn away. But the stars in Ellie’s eyes stopped her. Everybody had dreams, everybody longed for things they’d probably never get. It was human nature to fantasize a little about the folks who seemed to have it all.
    â€œCome on, Josie,” Ellie pleaded. “Tell me. What’s that Fiona Carson like?”
    Josie surprised herself by answering frankly, “Spoiled and kind of spiteful sometimes. Way too wild. And a better person deep down than she even knows.”
    â€œAnd Cara?”
    â€œJust as beautiful as her sister.”
    â€œWell, I know that. They are identical, after all.”
    Josie grinned. “You didn’t let me finish. I wanted to say she’s just as beautiful as Fiona, but in a softer, gentler way.”
    â€œWhat about Matt?”
    â€œMatt Carson is—”
    Just then their boss, Gus Andros, came striding in from the main part of the restaurant, grousing as he came. “You think I pay you to hang around back here and yack? Margie, your break’s over. Ellie, your break ain’t started yet. The both of you, get out on the floor.”
    The two waitresses bustled off, Margie grumbling, Ellie looking worried. The younger waitress stillhadn’t caught on that Gus’s bark beat his bite by a country mile.
    Gus sent Josie a glare. “You got six minutes left.”
    Josie gave him her sweetest smile. “You