Fortune Found

He’d be spending time with some of the other extended family, too, but for a change that didn’t strike him as such a bad thing.

In the last five months the Fortune family had seen a lot of turmoil that was hopefully beginning to settle down. Turmoil that still came with a whole lot of questions that had yet to be answered because the current head of the family—his Uncle William—had suffered a head injury in a car accident and remained in the throes of amnesia, unable to answer those questions.

But surprisingly to Flint, in the course of all the madness, he and his siblings had learned that they really weren’t considered the black sheep of the Fortune family the way they’d always thought they were. That they were actually thought of as valued members of the group in spite of their mother and the haphazard way she’d raised them. In spite of the fact that none of them had been quite as brilliantly successful as their cousins.

So for once Flint was happy to be in Red Rock, even if all the noise had cost him his last half hour of sleep.

Because it was impossible for him to doze off with the racket outside, he conceded to it, sat up and swung his feet to the floor.

Which left him facing the window aimed at the house next door. The house young Adam had pointed out to him yesterday when he’d first gotten here. Jessie’s house.

That had to be where all the voices were coming from.

For the sake of decency, Flint dragged on his jeans from the day before and a white undershirt. Then he stood and went to the window. The drapes left a gap that gave him a view of the other house even from bed. Now he used a single index finger to nudge them open a few inches more so he could better see out.

Yep, a whole passel of kids were running around in the backyard, where it looked like parts for a swing set or a jungle gym were being delivered.

Flint couldn’t have cared less about that. But he stayed at the window, his gaze drifting up to the one directly across from his.

Jessie’s curtains were open this morning. They hadn’t been when he’d checked last night before he’d gone to bed before closing his own drapes as far as they would go. But there was no sign of Kelsey’s sister, then or now.

He had to laugh a little, though, when he thought about what young Adam had said the day before and the fact that those curtains had been so steadfastly closed last night to ensure that he hadn’t been able to see Jessie put on her pajamas, or even just smile and wave when she saw him.

Too bad.

He wouldn’t have minded getting a glimpse of that petite body, with the great rear end that had tantalized him all the way up the stairs and the hint of firm breasts hidden beneath that oversize T-shirt.

The weird thing was that he also wouldn’t have minded just seeing her wave to him. And for that he had no explanation.

What was he, some schoolboy hoping for just a look at the girl next door? Just a raise of her hand to acknowledge him?

He hadn’t felt like that since he was thirteen. He’d actually stood there for at least half an hour last night hoping she would appear. And here he was again this morning.

She was something to look at, he told himself as consolation for how dumb it seemed.

Not that he hadn’t seen—up close and personal—plenty of women who were something to look at. But a pretty woman was always something to look at. And Kelsey’s sister? She was more than just pretty. A lot more.

When he’d first seen her yesterday, he’d recalled, instantly, the first moment he’d seen her.

She was the woman from Lily’s party who had caught his eye over and over again, long before he’d finally been introduced to her.

Jessie—he’d barely learned her name and he hadn’t had the chance for more than that at the time.

Then all of a sudden yesterday, there she’d been again, in the living room downstairs.

She was lovely. Downright beautiful, actually. Even in baggy jeans and that World’s Greatest Mom T-shirt. Beautiful, but in an approachable kind of way. Natural and artless. And without any indication that she was even aware of her looks.

She had the silkiest hair he’d ever seen—chestnut brown and so shiny that it glistened as it fell to below her shoulders around a face that no man could ignore. Her skin was fresh and flawless, interrupted by only a small, adorable dot of a beauty mark just below the corner of her left eye.

And those eyes, big, round, cocoa-brown, they had the softest look to them. They glimmered a little—they were almost dewy. He’d had trouble glancing away from them.

Until his own gaze had slid down her straight, thin, well-shaped nose to those lush, exquisite lips. Slightly full but not too full. Petal pink. Just the right shape. Perfect whether she was smiling or talking or doing nothing at all with them. Perfect for kissing …

Not that he’d ever know if that was true, he reprimanded himself, shoving aside the thought by altering his view from her bedroom window to her backyard again.

Four kids.

Four!

A mom—however beautiful—who had been widowed somehow and left to raise them on her own. That was a situation shouting for him to stay away.

He was happy for his own three siblings—all married or engaged. But for himself? Marriage wasn’t in the cards.

He’d tried it once, and once was enough. More than enough to confirm what he’d seen of marriage growing up and watching his mother do it again and again. Complicated and difficult and costly. Something that could too easily deteriorate into a very, very ugly situation—that was what marriage was to him, and as far as he was concerned, it didn’t have anything to recommend it.

And the fact that Jessie had four kids?

Flint wasn’t a kid person. One of the worst pieces of news he’d ever received in his life had come last month when word had gotten to him that Anthony might be his. He hadn’t had the foggiest idea what he was going to do if that was true. And he’d never experienced the kind of relief he’d known when the baby had turned out to be Cooper’s instead.

I’m just not dad material, he thought, remembering Kelsey’s comment about how Adam had chosen him as a role model and not even feeling as if he could be that. He didn’t have any idea how to be either of those things. How could he when his own father had barely had anything to do with him, when none of his mother’s other men—husbands or not—had ever hung around long enough to be either of those to him? When he hadn’t spent enough time with the Fortunes to have found that in Red Rock either?

Plus he liked his freedom. He liked coming and going as he pleased. He was enjoying his life the way it was now and he didn’t want to change anything.

And when it came to women? There was no shortage of them—never had been. Not even when he made it clear that he had a strict no-strings policy. That he liked to keep things light.

Which didn’t mean kids. Or the extra responsibility, the extra burden of worrying about those kids ending up feeling the way he and his sister and brothers had felt every time another man had come into their mother’s—and consequently their—lives. Every time they even began to get accustomed to those same men and then watched them walk out the door.

It was something he never wanted to inflict on any child, let alone four of them.

So Jessie was a no-go for him. However beautiful she was, with four kids who could end up getting hurt in the shuffle he’d learned so well as a child himself, she was strictly, totally, completely, one-hundred-percent off-limits, regardless of how beautiful she was. Or how doe-soft her eyes were. Or how kissable her lips might be, or how much he’d wanted to reach up and run his fingertips over her cheek to find out if her skin was as smooth as it looked …

Then, suddenly, there she was—in the yard with all her kids.

And just as suddenly all those kids seemed to fade into the background as he honed in on her as if she were out there alone, her hair drinking in the morning sunshine and reflecting it.

She was wearing better-fitting jeans today, with a tank top tucked into the jeans. And when she leaned over to check a tag on whatever it was that had been delivered, her well-shaped backside was impossible for him not to look at.

Flint’s hand actually tingled with the urge to cup that great little bum, and suddenly being a good role model was the last thing on his mind. Only Jessie was. And the fact that in just a while she was scheduled to come over here and work …

Knock it off! he commanded himself, refocusing his eyes, making sure his view again took in those four kids running around, climbing on things, making a ruckus.

She has four kids, he told himself once more, firmly, sternly, determined to brand it into his brain so that he never lost sight of it.

But then she stood up straight again, turned enough to be in profile, slipped her hands into the rear pockets of those jeans and this time it was the sweet, sweet swell of her breasts that made his hands ache to touch.

But it didn’t matter, he swore to himself. She was a no-go.

And he meant it. If he had to dredge up every lousy memory he had of his own childhood to stick to it, that’s what he’d do.

But one way or another he wasn’t getting involved with The Mom Next Door.

“I don’t think I know your last name—or is it Hunt, like Kelsey’s?”

It was not easy for Jessie to be in her sister’s laundry room, sharing the painting duties with Flint late Monday afternoon after he and Cooper had returned from buying supplies for that day’s project.

The space was small—only big enough for a side-by-side washer and drier with enough room in front of them to open their front-loading doors. And if Flint had seemed to fill Kelsey’s entire living room the day before with his mere presence, it was nothing compared to the laundry room.

In close quarters, alone, with a potently attractive man—how was she supposed to keep her mind on painting, let alone small talk?

There was nothing Jessie could do but try to make the best of it. And because Flint was going to be her sister’s brother-in-law, she decided she might as well get to know him.

“I’m Hunt-Myers,” Jessie answered, hoping it wasn’t unduly belated and also hoping that the fact that she’d been climbing to sit cross-legged on the tarp covering the drier so she could paint the wall behind it offered a reason for the delay. “I hyphenated when I got married. I guess it was a way of maintaining some independence and then it stuck.”

They’d begun painting at the door, gone in opposite directions but were now both working on the long wall behind the appliances. The lower half of the wall was tiled and so didn’t need paint, and unlike Jessie, Flint was tall enough to reach the half above the appliances just by leaning over the washing machine.

He was dressed in a pair of old, ragged, torn jeans, and an equally as worn chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. They were clearly work clothes and yet they still managed to look good on him—and to accentuate his every asset. Assets that Jessie was all too aware of when his well-shaped rear end, or muscular jean-encased thighs, or broad shoulders or expansive chest were always mere inches away from her.

“What about you?” she countered. “You and Coop are both Fortunes, but you’re Fortunes on your mother’s side, aren’t you?”

“We are,” he said amiably. “My mother never took any of her husband’s last names. Maybe she knew none of her marriages would last.”

Beyond the fact that Cindy Fortune was not well thought of, Jessie knew nothing about Flint and Cooper’s mother. But even though she was curious—especially about that comment about multiple marriages—it seemed beyond the realm of small talk to ask for details. So with the name-related questions answered, she opted for moving on.

“You live in Denver, right?” she said then.

“Right. Just outside of the city itself.”

“Do you have a house or—”

“I rent an apartment. I like to have a home base, but not with roots that are too deep. If I end up with a neighbor I don’t like, or the grass looks greener somewhere else, I want to be able to pack my stuff and move on without much fuss. That’s what I grew up with, and I guess it stuck.”

“The Fortune family are staples around here—ranchers, businessmen, philanthropists—they’re pillars of the community. But you grew up rootless?”

“Oh, yeah,” he answered with a mirthless laugh.

But again he didn’t offer an explanation beyond that and again Jessie thought that to push him for more might be prying.

He didn’t let there be an awkward silence, though, before he said, “What about you? Do you own the place next door?”

“I do,” she answered, liking that he didn’t put her in a position of quizzing him, that he asked questions of his own. Although she tried not to think that he might actually be interested in her, and told herself he was likely just being polite.

“Owning a house of our own was my late-husband’s and my biggest goal when we got married,” she went on. “It took us five years of saving, but we celebrated our fifth anniversary by moving into that house.”

“And you’re still there after how long?”

“Eight years.”

“That’s an eternity to me. You must be all about deep roots.”

“Stability is important to me.”

“And family, too, I’m guessing—because your parents live with you and now you have Kelsey right next door.”

“You could definitely say I’m all about family,” she confirmed. “I don’t know what I would do without them.”

“That’s nice,” he said just when she was wondering if he was approving or disapproving of her closeness to her family. But he sounded as if he honestly did think it was nice and she wondered if he regretted that he wasn’t closer to his own family.

But again he kept their chat going by saying, “It was you who gave Coop the heads-up when this place became available, wasn’t it?”

“It was. That’s how it all came about so fast.”

“And they’re renting with an option to buy, right?”

“With the first three months rent-free because none of this work is being hired out.”

“That’s a big change for Coop, too—that putting down roots thing. But he seems really happy.”

“I think he is. I know Kelsey is.”

“Good for them!” Flint decreed. “And Kelsey is okay raising Anthony?”

“She is. I don’t think she would love him any more if he were her own.”

Jessie knew that Anthony was the product of an earlier relationship Cooper had had with a woman named Lulu. There were many questions about Anthony turning up in Red Rock at the same time Flint and Cooper’s Uncle William had had his car accident in January. Ultimately Anthony had been linked to the Fortunes through a small gold medallion that had been draped around his blanket-cocooned little body by a fragile chain. A medallion that had been traced back to Cindy Fortune’s children, narrowing the possibilities for Anthony’s father to Cooper or Flint.

“I’m really glad it all worked out for them the way it did,” Flint said. “It looks like Anthony will have a good home.”

“Were you disappointed that he wasn’t yours?” Jessie asked.

Flint laughed spontaneously. “No,” he answered forcefully. “I was a wreck thinking he might be mine and wondering what I was going to do with him if he was. I can’t even keep plants alive. Believe me, this was a much better way for things to turn out.”

“What would you have done if he’d been yours?” Jessie ventured, challenging him just a bit.

He laughed again. “I probably would have cried like a baby myself,” he joked.

Jessie smiled at the wall she was painting, amused by the thought of the man she’d been thinking of as supermacho quaking at the mere possibility that he might be a father.

“I would have stepped up,” he said then, without hesitation, winning him points. “But I’m afraid poor Anthony would have suffered for it.”

Jessie laughed at him. “Well, I know you travel for work and that would have made it a lot more complicated, so you’re probably right—it’s for the best that things ended up the way they did.”

But what she didn’t know was much about his work and that seemed like another avenue for conversation, so she said, “You’re in sales, aren’t you?”

“Buying and selling, yeah.”

“What is it that you buy and sell?”

“I buy Western-themed arts and crafts and novelty items, and I sell them to gift shops and galleries and some private clients all across the country.”

That piqued her interest. “When you say that you buy arts and crafts and novelty items, do you mean from manufacturers or—”

“I have accounts with some wholesale houses that bring up trinket-type things from Mexico. But whenever I can I buy from artists and craftsmen. I like to deal in the unique and original more than in the mass-produced stuff.”

“Do you work for a company or something?”

“The business is mine. But business sounds more … I don’t know, corporate than I am. I’ve just come up with a name—Fortune Fine Arts and Crafts—because I’m in the process of having a website set up so I can do more selling over the internet. But really, I’m just a middleman—I hunt down stuff to sell, usually buy it outright myself and then resell it at a profit. Or sometimes I find a gallery or shop that will let me place a piece there and if it sells, the money gets split three ways—between whoever produced it, whoever’s shop or gallery it was sold from, and me.”

“That would make you an agent or an artist’s representative, then, wouldn’t it?”

“Again, sounds a lot fancier than I am. What I am is an old-fashioned horse trader. Except that I don’t deal in horses, I deal in brass sculptures of horses and kachina dolls and hand-sewn moccasins and tribal headdresses and authentic totem poles.”

“Hmm. I never considered that there would be a market for tribal headdresses or totem poles.”

“They aren’t my best sellers, but they’re fairly popular for decorating hunting and fishing lodges and hotels that want a rustic appeal.”

“And I guess you can’t call yourself a totem pole seller,” she teased him a little.

“That’s why we just say that I’m in sales,” he concluded, pleasing her with the fact that he’d grasped her gentle gibe.

“Is the goal of the new website to reduce the amount of travel you have to do?” she asked.

“I guess potentially it could, but the traveling doesn’t bother me. I don’t have anything tying me down, and I like getting around, seeing the country. The life of a traveling salesman suits me.”

Their painting met at the center of the wall behind the washer and drier then, and while Flint stepped back to survey their handiwork, Jessie used one final application of her roller to blend that meeting line seamlessly.

And with that, she sat back and looked around, too.

“That didn’t take long,” she admitted, thinking that the time had actually seemed to fly.

“Apparently we work well together,” Flint said just as Adam burst through the door with an excited, “Hi, Fwint!”

“Hi, Adam,” Flint greeted the three-year-old with a mirroring of Adam’s enthusiasm. “Where’ve you been today?”

“He’ppin my grampa wis our new junger gym. We digged howes for plantin’ the powes so it don’t fauw over.”

“They dug holes to cement the poles into the ground so the jungle gym doesn’t fall over,” Jessie translated. “Sometimes the L’s come out and sometimes they just don’t.” Then to her son, she said, “What are you doing here now?”

Before Adam answered that Jessie heard the voice of her oldest daughter, Ella, calling for Adam.

“We’re in the laundry room, El,” Jessie called back.

The seven-year-old bounded in, much the way Adam had except rather than joyfully having discovered Flint, the much more serious Ella scowled at her brother. “Gramma said you could only come with me if you held my hand, and you didn’t!”

“I had to find Fwint,” Adam answered as if his sister should have known that.

“Ella, you remember Flint, don’t you? Coop’s brother?” Jessie interjected, both to remind her daughter of her manners and to avoid a fight between her oldest and youngest.

“I remember,” was all Ella said to Flint because she was still more intent on wrangling with her brother. And to Adam she goaded, “Flint. His name is Flint.”

“Okay, okay,” Jessie said before war broke out. “What’s up, El?”

“Gramma says it’s almost dinnertime and she needs a pan she can’t find to cook. Can you come home and show her where it is?”

“I think I can probably do that. We’re finished here, aren’t we?” Jessie said, trying not to analyze why she was sorry that that was true, and why she was also sorry to be pulled away so suddenly.

“Looks finished to me,” Flint confirmed.

To Ella, Jessie said, “You can tell Gramma I’ll come home as soon as I wash out these paint things.”

“Come on, Adam, let’s go,” Ella said as if she’d just been given the upper hand.

“Ouw go wis Mama when she goes.”

“Adam …” Ella said in the warning tone she always took when she was in the mode of oldest-child-as-boss.

This time it was Flint who stepped in before a fight broke out. To Jessie, he said, “I’ll take care of the cleanup, go ahead and go home.”

Jessie laughed. “Be careful. I’m the mother of four—I don’t get offers for other people to cleanup too often and I never turn them down when I do.”

That made him smile back at her—a wide grin that showed perfect white teeth and drew ever-so-appealing lines around the corners of his mouth. And the very fact that his smile made her flush was a phenomenon Jessie didn’t want to delve into.

“Go,” he urged with a nudge of that sexy, slightly dimpled chin.

“If you’re sure …”

“I’m sure. It’s nothing.”

So he’s not only hot, but he’s also a nice guy, Jessie thought, remembering the previous day’s conversation with her sister.

But that, too, wasn’t something she should be caring about and she decided that before she started to actually like this guy, she’d better go home where she belonged.

“Okay, I’ll take you up on that, then,” she announced, scooting around on the drier so that she could get down.

But that set the tarp into motion and it began to slide, taking her with it until Flint lunged forward to catch her.

And in a split second Jessie found herself with Flint Fortune’s handsome face scant inches from hers, his arms on either side of her, his hands flat against the tarp but so close to her rear end that she thought she could almost feel them.

And her own hands somehow clasped to his powerhouse shoulders to catch herself.

Wide-eyed, she stared into his dark eyes and wasn’t quite sure whether it was the near fall from the drier or Flint that had stolen her breath. But one way or another, for a moment she was frozen there, so close that they could have kissed had either of them moved an inch.

And why that went through her mind, she had no idea.

“Mama?” Ella said with some shock in her voice.

It took Jessie a moment to remember herself, to breathe, to veer away from Flint and pull her hands from shoulders she was enjoying the feel of much too much …

“Whoops,” she said feebly.

“Mama aw-most fawed off—tha’s funny,” Adam said with a giggle.

“Thanks for the catch,” Jessie muttered, leaning as far back from Flint as she could.

But still he stayed where he was, anchoring the tarp, looking into her eyes, while a much more intimate smile slowly spread agile lips. So intimate that it made something skitter across the surface of Jessie’s skin—a sensation she hadn’t had in longer than she could remember.

“No problem,” he said in a voice that had a deeper, almost sensual timbre.

Then he pushed off the drier and took hold of the tarp from behind her. “Okay, now slide off,” he advised.