Fortune Found (5 page)

“I'm sure,” Flint said sympathetically.

“But I do still have four kids to keep going, to hopefully send to college, so last year I started temping in the school district as a secretary. I liked working with the kids, the teachers and the principals were all great—there's sort of a community feel to working in a school that was really nice. The pay isn't wonderful, but I've applied for a full-time position next year because it would be a way to make a living without dipping into the nest egg too much, and it would give me hours and vacations similar to what the kids will have when they're all in school with Ella.”

Their food arrived, but beyond thanking the waitress, Flint's attention remained on Jessie. “You've applied for a full-time job but you don't know if you got it?”

“Not yet—it's summer vacation. I was told not to expect to hear anything until July or even the first of August—just before the principals go back for the next year.”

They tasted their sandwiches and decided Kelsey and Coop had been right about the food. Then, as they ate, Flint returned to the subject of her working.

“Will you put Braden, Bethany and Adam in day care until they start?”

Jessie couldn't imagine that he was actually interested in any of this, but his eyes only left her to glance at his food. They never strayed to even the curviest of the waitresses, and he seemed completely intent on Jessie, as well as genuinely listening to what she said. It was nice.

So, hoping she wasn't boring him to tears, she answered his question.

“Braden and Bethany are in preschool this year—I found one that really focuses on preparation for kindergarten and it runs four mornings a week. So the twins will be gone a lot. Adam is starting preschool this year, but his will be more playtime and it's only two afternoons. But my folks have promised to stay as long as I need them and they can get everybody where they have to be while I work, and babysit when the kids are home.”

Despite Flint's interest—or at least the appearance of it—Jessie felt as if she'd talked too much about herself, so she said, “What about you? Have you always
done what you're doing now—selling Western arts and crafts?”

He laughed. “Not by a long shot,” he said before going on to regale her with tales of other sales jobs as well as a laundry list of different things he'd tried his hand at, beginning with lawn mowing jobs when he was ten.

“Wow, you really are a jack-of-all-trades,” Jessie marveled.

“My résumé says I'm diverse,” he joked. “But I've been doing what I'm doing now for the last eight years and I'm sticking with it.”

They'd finished eating by the time he'd completed the list of his various occupations and Jessie wasn't sure if it was the relaxed atmosphere they were in or Flint's winning charm that had somehow put her at ease. But the jitters she'd been in the grip of earlier were gone and she realized she was actually enjoying herself. Enjoying talking and listening to him.

But their meal was over and she expected him to suggest they put phase two into play—ending the evening early to make it more convincing that they hadn't
clicked.

Instead, the band that provided the live music promised on the sign outside took the stage at the other end of the place, gave a rebel-rousing yell and announced that it was time for some line dancing. With a glimmer in his eye, Flint raised a challenging brow at her. “What do you say?”

Jessie loved to dance and hadn't done it in longer than she could remember.

“Really?” she asked.

“I don't know why not.”

Jessie knew there must be some reasons why not, but at that moment she couldn't think of any. She also couldn't keep from smiling and taking him up on the dance—which
was
only a line dance, she told herself. Line dancing was innocent enough—it wasn't as if she'd be in Flint's arms or anything.

So with Flint helping her ease her chair away from their table, she stood and together they went with many of the other customers to the wooden dance floor.

To aid her recollection, Jessie kept a close eye on every move Flint made beside her, following his lead until she no longer needed to. Or maybe a little longer than she needed to just so she could keep glancing over at him because watching him dance was something to see.

He had a kind of loose-limbed cowboy grace and a casual confidence that echoed in every step, every gesture. He was light on his big, booted feet. Those long legs of his were flexible and powerful at once. His broad shoulders dipped with such a sexy sway that it made Jessie's mouth go dry. And when he hooked his thumbs into his front pockets and drew her eyes to his hips… It wasn't the dancing that took her breath away.

It didn't end up being an early evening after all. Before Jessie knew so much time had passed, it was last call and the place was closing. And even then Flint persuaded her to stay for the final dance before they left with everyone else and returned to Flint's rental car.

“Mothers are not supposed to close bars,” she jokingly chastised as Flint opened the passenger door for her.

“That's not a theory
my
mother ever subscribed to,” he answered wryly.

Shutting the door, he went around to get behind the wheel, and once they were on the road to home he said, “So if closing bars isn't how you have fun, what is?”

Jessie laughed, feeling tired, a little giddy and so, so much more relaxed than she had been even before all the dancing. “What do I do for fun…?” she reiterated. “I get away to the studio whenever I can.”

“What studio? Explain.”

“Pete turned the garage out back into a one-room apartment about five years ago. We rented it, but that turned out to be more hassle than it was worth and attracted some people we were worried about having around the kids. So I took it over as a sort of studio. Or maybe I should say a workshop.”

“To sort of do what kind of work? Art?”

Jessie made a face because it seemed like putting on airs to say what she did was art. “It's more just a hobby I have. I make stone sculptures. But really it's just a chance for me to get out into the woods with the kids—hike a little, enjoy the scenery and collect stones. Then I use the stones to put together these sculptures—my versions of rock formations, I guess.”

“Is that where you're going off to tomorrow? Coop said we'd be working in the morning, but that in the afternoon he and Kelsey have to take Anthony in for a well-baby checkup, and that you had other plans.”

“That's exactly where I'll be. We make a whole outing of it—I bring hot dogs, we build a fire, make s'mores for dessert—” And then maybe because she was feeling slightly giddy, without considering the wisdom in it, she heard herself say, “Would you like to come with us?”

Flint took his eyes off the road to glance at her. To
smile. To surprise her by saying, “I think I would. I toast a mean marshmallow.”

Jessie laughed. “Then you'll fit right in.”

“Will I? Or will it ruin Ella's time if I come?”

He won points for thinking of her daughter and Jessie considered the effect it might have on Ella to include Flint in this family outing. But in the end she said, “Ella probably won't be thrilled, but it also might give her the chance to give
you
a chance. She's made a snap judgment of you and it might be good for her to get to know you, to see you in a different light.”

Flint smiled at her again. “Assuming that when she gets to know me she doesn't still hate me.”

The more Jessie had come to know him tonight, the more she liked him. Liked just how pleasant and easy to talk to he was, how easy it was to be with him—much as she wished that wasn't the case. But because it was, she couldn't imagine that eventually Ella wouldn't warm to him, too, and come to let go of her unfounded resentment of the man who would soon be like an uncle to her.

“I have faith in you,” Jessie informed him in a way that goaded him a little and made him chuckle a throaty chuckle that she found all too sexy.

They'd arrived home by then, though, and Flint parked at the curb in front of Kelsey's house.

Jessie didn't wait for him to come around to her door. She met him at the front fender and wondered if they would merely say good-night there and go to their respective houses—which would aid the cause of convincing everyone that this had not been a successful date.

But Flint motioned in the direction of her house and walked her to her door.

It was so late that there was no question about asking him in, although the thought did flit through her mind—shocking her a bit.

But standing in the glow of porch light at her door, she merely faced him.

Before she had said the good-night she intended to say, however, she found Flint looking into her eyes, smiling a warm, intimate smile that somehow stalled the farewell.

“I know we're not supposed to let anybody else in on this,” he whispered, “but I had a great time.”

“Me, too,” Jessie whispered back guilelessly, following it with a nod in the direction of Kelsey's house. “But the roof needs fixing and we have to get everyone to leave us alone,” she reminded.

“Right…” he said, not sounding fully on board with that. “So I guess we say…”

“We didn't click,” she repeated with a hint of facetious ness to that last word.

“We didn't click,” Flint echoed as if nothing could be further from the truth. “Except that I'm going rock hunting with you tomorrow.”

“Oh, that's right,” Jessie said, making a face when she realized that contradicted the goal of tonight's outing.

“We could say,” Flint suggested, “that I didn't know what I was going to do with myself while Coop and Kelsey were gone to the pediatrician and you took pity on me, invited me to go along—just as friends—to give me something to do.”

“Just as friends—we'll have to really push that,” Jessie said. “Let's try it.”

He grinned. “What's the worst that can happen? They'll all still keep putting us together and we'll just
have to have another pretend date to confirm that we don't click.”

Jessie laughed. “Or maybe we could just let them all see that we can be friends and only friends, and leave it at that.”

“Friends…” he repeated without much fondness for that word. But then he seemed to accept it, and said, “As long as I still get to go rock hunting.”

“Because it's long been a dream of yours,” she teased.

“It has,” he insisted, playing along.

But it was the end of the evening and Jessie knew they should be saying good-night and parting ways.

Yet she still went on standing where she was, looking up into Flint's handsome face, letting his eyes delve into hers, trying not to think about the good-night kiss that seemed as if it should come at the conclusion of the kind of evening they'd just shared.

Then Flint grasped her shoulders, pulled her slightly forward, leaned toward her…

And kissed her forehead.

Sure, he stayed there a moment longer than he should have—long enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath in her hair—but only a moment before he pulled back, let go of her and said, “See you tomorrow.”

“See you tomorrow,” she parroted in barely more than another whisper, remembering only belatedly to actually open her front door and go into the house as he headed across the yards to her sister's place.

And although she was telling herself as she went in that not even the kiss on the forehead should have happened, it didn't change the fact that she was secretly wishing for more.

And feeling guilty for that wish.

More guilty still for the craving to feel Flint Fortune's lips on hers.

“W
e're supposed to hoist shingles onto the roof before breakfast?” Flint said as he and Coop went out to the garage early Thursday morning at the instruction of Kelsey.

“We're supposed to hoist shingles onto the roof while Kelsey makes breakfast,” Coop qualified as he got the wheelbarrow off the garage wall and they began to load packs of shingles into it. “But you know the real reason—she can't wait for me to find out how your date with Jessie was last night.”

After only four hours of sleep Flint was not at the top of his game. But even so the mere mention of that date made him want to smile.

He didn't. He worked not to because he had some convincing to do and he knew the time had come. But
it took effort to instead make the most pained face he could muster and lie through his teeth.

“The date was not good,” he complained.

“But Kelsey said she got up with Anthony at one this morning and you were still out—how does a bad date go on past one in the morning?”

“Yeah, well, I had to make it look good, didn't I? Jessie is Kelsey's sister after all.”

“But you had a lousy time?” Cooper asked, sounding confused.

“There's just nothing there, Coop. You know how it is.”

“With Jessie? There's nothing there with Jessie?”

“Who else are we talking about?” Flint said, taking the offensive because his brother seemed completely confounded by the notion that there wasn't any attraction between Flint and Jessie.

“But every time the two of you are together—”

“Right. Again, making it look good,” Flint insisted as he plopped another bundle of shingles into the wheelbarrow. “I'm not saying that she isn't nice and pretty and what have you. I'm just saying that she doesn't do anything for me. And I don't do anything for her. We don't…click.”

Liar.

“Is it the kids?” Coop asked, apparently unable to believe that it was as simple as Flint was making it out to be.

“Well, come on,
four
kids, Coop,” Flint said. “That's—”

“I know, it's a lot. And you and I and Frannie and Ross, with our background…there's nothing to recommend family life in that. I mean, I love my son and I
wouldn't trade him for anything, but coming to grips with the fact that I
have
a son? That was something. If it wasn't for Kelsey I'd have been lost.” Coop shook his head. “So I get it. Taking on someone else's four kids would be huge to sign on for, no matter how great Jessie is.” And Jessie
was
great, Flint thought. Beautiful and fun and smart and sweet—and
wow
could she move on a dance floor when she got into it!

But he liked to keep things light and breezy with women, and light and breezy with a woman with four kids just wasn't going to happen.

Or if it
did
happen, to him it would mean that the woman was the kind of mother his own mother had been. And carelessly letting a man come between her and her kids was something he could never respect.

“It's just better if Jessie and I are nothing but friends,” Flint said then, even though he'd really chafed at
that
word when Jessie had said it last night. Because for a moment he'd lost sight of everything but the beauty standing in front of him—the woman he'd had a terrific time with, the woman he'd been wanting so badly to kiss the desire had been eating him alive. And there she was, saying they needed to just be
friends.
The ultimate rejection.

Not that he'd been feeling rejected when she'd said it with that little smile that put the damned cutest dimple just above the left corner of her mouth…

“So you're going to the woods with her and the kids today as friends?” Coop asked then.

Just before Flint had come out to the garage with his brother he'd told Kelsey not to expect him for dinner tonight and why.

Flint shrugged. “Jessie is nice and so are her kids. It's not as if I don't like them all.”

“You just don't want to get into anything serious.”

“Exactly,” Flint answered honestly. “And if you can get Kelsey to see that it's nothing against her sister, but that there just can't be more to it than Jessie and I knowing each other, maybe hanging out a little, being friendly, I'd really appreciate it.”

“I'll do what I can,” Coop promised. “But I'll leave the kids out of it. Kelsey has been so good about taking on me
and
Anthony, I'm pretty sure she wouldn't think too kindly of somebody not wanting to be daddy to her nieces and nephews. I'll just tell her the ‘no chemistry between you' thing.”

“Whatever it takes to keep the peace and still get Kelsey to give up the matchmaking so we can replace the shingles.”

“I'm all for that!” Coop said as he grasped the wheelbarrow's handles and rolled it out of the garage with Flint following behind, carrying one more bundle on his shoulder.

But even as he did, Flint was thinking
no chemistry, no clicking—it would be so much easier if any of that was actually true.

But despite the fact that it wasn't—that there was so much chemistry and “clicking” for him when it came to Jessie that being nothing but friends with her was going to be one of the toughest things he'd ever done—he knew he had to do it.

It would be bad enough for him, for Jessie, if they got involved and it ran the same course he'd watched his mother run with all the men in her life—the same
course his own marriage had taken. Dragging her four kids along for the ride would only make it worse.

So, light and breezy it is,
he told himself.

And he was determined to make it stick.

Even if he had lain awake for too long last night after leaving Jessie at her door, remembering the sweet smell of her hair and the softness of her skin under his lips when he'd kissed her forehead.

And remembering, too, just how much he'd wanted to pull her into his arms, hold her against him and kiss her lips instead.

The situation just wasn't right for any of them. Jessie
was
a mother of four and he was not in any way, shape or form a family man.

And that was all there was to it.

 

“Okay, pick one again!”

“No, Braden,” Jessie told her son. “No more ‘pick which hand the rock is in.' It's time to go.”

“You can see it anyway,” Bethany said. “You gotta use a smaller rock, Braden.”

“The fire is out, everything is packed up—now all of you get in the van,” Jessie commanded for the third time.

Darkness was falling. They'd had a full afternoon of rock hunting, the cookout had filled everyone's belly with hot dogs and beans and various other side dishes that Jessie had brought in plastic containers, and they'd roasted an entire bag of marshmallows to squish between graham crackers and chocolate bars.

As a rule on these jaunts, Jessie left for home long before darkness fell. Because Flint was with them, that had added an entirely different element to the occasion,
so she'd let things go on longer than usual. But now they really did need to leave.

Ella alone had taken Jessie's urgings for that seriously. The seven-year-old was already in her seat in the van. Clearly only too willing to put an end to this, she'd gone the first time Jessie had announced that they needed to go home. Now Ella was waiting with the disapproving scowl that she'd managed to maintain despite every attempt to get her to enjoy herself. But the twins and Adam were still fluttering around Flint, ignoring his futile attempts to get them to listen to their mother.

They'd taken teaching Flint about rock collecting very seriously and tutored him during that portion of the outing. But since returning to the campsite for dinner Flint had become their audience for clumsy attempts to fool him with silly four-year-old tricks, bad jokes and—in the case of Adam—just plain showing off and periodically climbing onto Flint's broad back and wrapping tiny arms around his thick neck in demands for piggyback rides.

Which was how Flint finally got Adam to the van—offering a piggyback ride that got the three-year-old onto his back, legs wrapped around his middle, Adam's arms choking the life out of Flint's neck, at the same time that Flint hauled Bethany under one arm, and Braden under the other, while walking like a stiff-limbed robot and making monster noises that delighted them all.

But at least he finally got them to the van. One by one he deposited each giggling child inside, laughing as they went to their respective seats to be securely belted in by Jessie.

Once that was accomplished, she said, “Ella won the
coin toss, so she gets to choose the movie for the ride home. What's it going to be, El?”

“Beauty and the Beast,”
Ella said with a glare at Flint that was embarrassingly obvious.

But Jessie merely said, “
Beauty and the Beast
it is.”

Then she flipped down the small screen that came out of the van's ceiling to face the rear seats, put the DVD into the player and turned it on.

With all of the kids' eyes on that, she got out of the van's side door, slid it closed and faced Flint who was still standing nearby, watching.

“Sorry about Ella,” she whispered.

“It's okay,” he assured. Then, as if to prove her daughter's hostility was nothing to worry about, he dropped the subject and nodded toward the front of the silver van. “Are you sure you don't want me to drive home— I don't mind.”

“No, I'm fine. You're probably more worn out than I am—the kids really ran you ragged.”

“I'm fine, too,” he said, but she still insisted on driving.

As Flint got into the passenger seat, Jessie went around and climbed behind the wheel. By the time she'd done that Flint was angled in her direction, his arm stretched across the back of the driver's seat.

It was slightly unnerving to have him looking at her as she turned the key in the ignition and put the van into gear, but it was also nice to have his undivided attention.

She had to back out onto the nearby road that led to the highway, and as she did Flint looked out the rear
window, too, apparently catching sight of the kids in the process.

“Wow, they're already asleep,” he marveled.

Jessie laughed. “It always happens—the woods, the hiking, the rock collecting and then full tummies—they can't stay awake for the trip home.”

“Shall I turn off the movie?”

“No, that'll wake them up. Just let it play,” she advised as she turned onto the highway from the side road. Then, with a sideways glance at Flint, she said, “Sooo… Did you just hate all of this today and tonight?”

He looked surprised by the question. “Are you kidding? I had a fantastic time!”

“Even with all of Ella's dirty looks and thinking you should have to eat the marshmallow that fell in the dirt?”

Flint laughed. “Yeah, I'm sorry that Ella still thinks I'm an evil interloper who only deserves dirt-laced marshmallows. And I know I shouldn't be, but I'm also a little sorry that I didn't get to spend much time with you.”

Despite the fact that he said the words as if he probably shouldn't, they still sent a warm flush across Jessie's face that she hoped he couldn't see in the waning light. She also didn't want to acknowledge the impact such a small thing could have on her, so she made a joke of it. “You did miss out on going with me on some really fun trips to the bathrooms with one kid or another.”

Flint smiled as if he knew what she was doing, but he didn't push it. Instead he said, “I just played with the kids, like one of the kids. You did end up doing most of the work—seems unfair.”

“You were the marshmallow toaster—that helped.
And you were right, you do toast a mean marshmallow,” she teased him.

“Yeah, but that was just fun, too. And I suppose that made Ella's point—I
did
drop the marshmallow in the dirt, so it would have served me right to have to eat it.”

“A seven-year-old's reasoning.”

“And
Beauty and the Beast?
” he said with a grin. “I think there might be a message in that. And it isn't that I'm the beauty.”

“I really am sorry,” Jessie apologized again, unable not to laugh at her daughter's barely veiled jibe.

“I think I can take a little heat from a seven-year-old. And I'm actually glad to see that you aren't trying to force her to act like she likes me—that's what
my
mother would have done. It just made us hate whatever guy she was ramming down our throats even more.”

Jessie flinched. “Does it seem like I'm ramming you down their throats?”

“No!” he was quick to answer. “My mother would refer to some perfect stranger as Uncle So-and-So and expect us to act like they really were family. She'd fall all over them while we were there to see it. She liked to pretend that every man she ran through her life and ours was the be-all-and-end-all of existence, and God help us if we didn't keep up the charade. I don't think even Ella would say you did anything like that.”

His mother was one of the people in his life Jessie was curious about, and now that he'd opened that door, she felt more invited to explore what was behind it. So she said, “I don't know much about your mom, but Kelsey did say that you and Cooper are half brothers,
not full brothers. And I know your mom was married more than once…”

“Four times,” Flint said as if it were no secret and he didn't have a problem with her asking. “There were no kids with Husband Number One. Ross and Cooper had the same dad—Husband Number Two. I came from Husband Number Three—Parker Anderson. And Frannie's dad was Number Four—Elliot Jones. He was the best of the lot, but he died. The other three were divorces.”