Fortune Found

by Victoria Pade

  “And then we set Goal Number Two—we wanted to buy a house. That took us five years of saving on an apprentice electrician and an office clerk’s salaries, but we celebrated our fifth anniversary moving in here.”

  The memory of that, of their first night in the house, of sleeping bags opened in front of the fireplace in the living room just so they could be there, the memory of ceremoniously throwing out the birth control pills and making love to christen the place, hoping to start their family that same night, brought a flood of tears to Jessie’s eyes.

  “You were happy,” Flint said very, very quietly, apparently seeing how frantically she was fighting the tears and guessing that it wasn’t only sadness that had brought them on.

  “We were,” she whispered.

  Flint gave her a few moments, running a purely comforting hand up and down one of her shins, and amazing Jessie with the fact that she could sit there with him—a man she was attracted to in so many ways that made her feel guilty—and still talk about this, still feel the way she was feeling, share it all with him, and even be comforted by him.

  Something that multifaceted was something she would have been able to do with Pete. And yet now she was doing it with Flint.

  And it was very confusing.

  It was also a phenomenon she didn’t want to explore, so as soon as she gained control over the tears and kept them from falling, as soon as she could clear her throat and go on, she took a deep breath and jumped ahead. “A year later Ella was born—having a family was Goal Number Three. And once the babies started coming—” She laughed. “It seemed like boom, boom, boom, we had four of them.”

  Flint hesitated another moment. Then he said, “And it’s been two years now, since the accident?”

  She drew another deep breath and blew it out completely, realizing as she did that talking about this tonight had been beneficial. It had cleared the clouds that had gathered at the party this afternoon and left her feeling much better.

  Better enough to be able to answer Flint more matter-of-factly. “Yes, two years,” she repeated.

  “And since then, have you dated?”

  That really made her laugh, although wryly this time. “Uh, no,” she answered. “Despite Kelsey’s nudgings in that direction, dating is about the last thing I’ve thought about.”

  Why that made him smile, she didn’t know.

  Then he said, “What about before the first day of your senior year?”

  “I had three boyfriends before Pete, but I was too young for them to be serious. I’d kissed other boys and gone through infatuations, crushes and the breakups and heartbreaks that went along with them. But for anything other than that, for anything real? Pete was It.”

  “And now here I am,” he said, very quietly. And while he’d gone on rubbing her shin, there was something about his touch that wasn’t solely comforting anymore. Something that made it more alluring and intimate.

  “How do you feel about that?” he asked.

  For a split second she thought he wanted to know how she felt about the way he was rubbing her leg.

  Then she realized that he was asking how she felt about what was going on between them—about the kissing they’d done, about the fact that she was sitting with her legs in his lap now, letting him give her what had become a sensual massage.

  “It’s kind of mixing me up,” she confessed, once more marveling at the sense of freedom she felt to even say that to him.

  “In a bad way?”

  “There’s a little guilt—like I’m being unfaithful.”

  “But?” he said the word she’d clearly left un-spoken.

  She sighed. “I know Pete is gone. Nothing will bring him back. Everyone tells me it’s time to go on…”

  But when it came to considering that in the form of another man, she’d honestly thought she wouldn’t be able to do it. That no man would measure up to Pete or what she’d felt for him. That she would never be able to have with anyone else what she’d had with him. That no relationship would ever be as effortless. That she would never be able to relax, to let her guard down so completely.

  And yet here she was, with Flint, and she couldn’t seem to keep herself from doing just that…

  “You do need to go on,” Flint said then, adding his support of what everyone else in her life advised.

  “Or maybe things just go on when they’re ready, naturally,” she said, more to herself, looking at him sitting beside her, more than she seemed able to resist no matter how confused she felt.

  He smiled thoughtfully. “True enough. Life moves on and there’s no stopping it.”

  Or him either, maybe, because he pulled her by the legs then to sit with her rear end right up against his thigh, bringing her close enough to look into her eyes.

  “Seems like there are a lot of things that there’s no stopping,” he said just before he kissed her.

  And it was the sweetest kiss. Soft and gentle, warm and inviting and so, so tender. So full of compassion and caring. And promise…

  Jessie pressed a palm to his chest but not to push him away. In fact, though it seemed odd to her, for the first time kissing him didn’t make her feel guilty.

  Had talking about Pete, being open with Flint about her late husband, freed her in that way, too?

  Maybe. Because as her lips responded to Flint’s, guilt was nowhere to be found.

  One of his hands came up to the side of her face, stroking her cheek while his other arm went around her back, pulling her more closely to him.

  Mouths opened by degrees until there was room enough for tongues to meet, to play, to tease and cavort.

  Flint repositioned them both and Jessie’s arms ended up around him. Her hands roamed over his broad shoulders and muscular back as he cradled her head against the increasing blitz of a kiss that had moved from sweet to spicy. Deliciously spicy…

  And away went all thoughts of other couples, of engagements and marriages and weddings-to-come. Away went even lingering thoughts of Pete, leaving just Jessie. Just Flint.

  His hands were in her hair, cupped around the column of her neck, massaging her shoulders and upper arms, and then her back in a way that again made her nipples stand at attention within the built-in bra of her camisole.

  She wondered if he could feel them against his chest, straining and screaming for some of what he was doing to her back, her shoulder blades.

  It was impossible to feel him caressing other parts of her and not want that same caress on her aching breasts. She was nearly lying across his lap by then and she arched her spine, pressing just a bit more into him, tightening her own arms around him, just trying to find a little relief as mouths opened wide and the intensity of that kiss took another leap.

  As if he were testing the waters, Flint found the hem of her shirts and slipped his hands underneath them, to just rest on the small of her back.

  Warm, calloused, infinitely gentle—not even the tiniest hint of guilt came with a touch that felt so good Jessie’s breath caught in her throat.

  Up those hands went, splayed to her back, dragging her shirt with them and leaving cooler air to kiss her flesh in their wake.

  She loosened her grip on Flint. She relaxed back ever so slightly, craving the feel of his hands everywhere…

  But that craving was left to grow while he worked the tension out of her muscles as effectively as any masseur, as his tongue continue to flirt with hers, making her desires grow…

  It seemed like an eternity, but it hardly took any time at all before she was putty in his hands, before all that was left in her were those desires, as one of his wondrous hands began a slow slide along the very bottom of her ribcage, coming to rest just below her left breast.

  She took a deep breath, and Flint’s mouth opened even wider over hers, taking that kiss into pure abandonment, almost making her forget that her nipples had turned to diamond-hard pebbles of need.

  Almost, but not completely, and when that hand finally rose by slow, steady incremen
ts, when it finally closed around her bare breast, she couldn’t keep a tiny moan from rumbling in her throat, or from insinuating herself that much more firmly into his grip.

  She’d forgotten how good that could feel!

  And it did feel mind-bogglingly good as his fingers pressed into her compliant flesh, as her nipple grew even harder within his palm, as he showed her just how adept he was with a mastery she’d never known before.

  But just when she was beginning to get lost in the sensations, in all that was springing to life inside of her, just when she was beginning to think of where this could go from here and wanting it to, something completely unexpected popped into her mind.

  Ella.

  Her unhappy eldest daughter.

  Jessie didn’t know where it had come from, but there it was, that thought that was suddenly torture because it reminded her that while she might have been freed of her guilt over being attracted to Flint, she still wasn’t altogether free. She still had four kids to consider. And how anything she did could affect them—particularly Ella, who didn’t really care for Flint.

  The groan that left her throat almost silently that time wasn’t solely from pleasure. There was a measure of remorse to it, too, as the fact that she couldn’t let this passionate play go on sank in.

  She just couldn’t…

  But she wanted to so much the idea of ending it, of not kissing Flint, of not having his hands on her, of losing the wonders he was working at her breast, of not letting this all go where she so desperately yearned for it to go, was actually painful.

  The kids, she reminded herself, for the first time since she’d become a mother actually having to force herself not to lose sight of that, of them, when it would have been so easy to just give herself over to her own needs and desires at that moment.

  Just another minute, she pleaded with herself, kissing him back with a new intensity, as if to get every drop of the last drink of water she might ever have. Digging her hands into his back and fighting the longing to stroke every inch of him…

  The kids…

  She drew her hands up and over Flint’s shoulders to his chest, meaning to push him back, to send the message that this had to end. But instead she somehow discovered herself doing some massaging of her own to his pectorals.

  But this did have to end, she told herself, even as her hand clasped over his at her breast, pressing him ever more firmly there for a moment before she brought that wet and wild kiss to a conclusion and muttered an almost incoherent, “I… We… Stop…”

  It took a moment for Flint to register the message and even when he seemed to, his hand stayed within hers on her breast. Chuckling slightly, he said, “I don’t know if you mean that…”

  She didn’t. But she had to anyway. And she knew she had to let him know that.

  So she said, “I don’t want to mean it. But I do,” she assured in a tone of voice fraught with all of the unwillingness she felt.

  But to prove she really couldn’t let this go on, she finally took his hand away, hating the loss of it as her breast seemed to strain for more at the same time.

  Flint took over from there, slipping out from under her T-shirt to place that same hand along one side of her neck while he kissed the opposite side, nuzzling her and making it all the more difficult for her to stick to her guns.

  But despite tipping her head to give him more access, despite closing her eyes again and losing another few minutes in the same warm sweetness of his mouth that had begun this, she whispered, “Really.”

  And then she tried not to hate it so much when he complied and stopped that, too.

  “Okay,” he agreed with a sigh of regret of his own.

  Jessie opened her eyes as they both sat up straighter, as they leaned away from each other. But despite that separation, Flint ran his hands from her shoulders down her back to her hips before he took them away completely.

  And that was when Jessie stood because to stay on that sofa with him was too much temptation.

  Flint stood, too, and as he faced her he searched her eyes with his. “Are we okay?” he asked, apparently worried that he’d overstepped his bounds.

  Jessie’s laugh was wry. “Way, way too okay,” she said.

  His smile was so endearingly sexy that it almost defeated her resolves all by itself. He took her hand in his then, grabbed his camera, brought her with him to turn off the light across the room and then turned off the light at the door as he led her out, letting her close it behind them.

  He kept hold of her hand to get her to walk him to the gate, too, releasing her only when they’d reached it.

  Then, facing her again, he once more looked intently down at her and asked with complete sincerity, “I didn’t make tonight worse for you, did I?”

  “No,” Jessie said without hesitation because that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. Then she confessed what she’d kept to herself earlier, “You got me through that party. And that…” she nodded in the direction of the garage studio but then didn’t know what to say about what they’d just shared. She merely settled on, “No, you didn’t make anything worse.”

  Except for churning up emotions in her that she wasn’t sure how to handle.

  He didn’t look completely convinced but didn’t push her for more. After another moment of studying her with an appreciation that only made her feel better still, he bent over and kissed her chastely before he said, “I don’t want to, but I guess I better let you go.”

  Once again he brought his hand to rest tenderly against the side of her face. Then he took it away, kissed her forehead and went through the gate.

  And Jessie had to swallow hard to keep from calling him back. To keep from saying she shouldn’t have stopped what had been happening in the studio.

  But she couldn’t forget who she was, she told herself as she turned away from the fence and headed for her house. She couldn’t forget how many responsibilities she had, how many people were depending on her to do what was right, to do what was best for them.

  She couldn’t forget how much could be at stake if she gave in to passion.

  Even if every ounce of her being was crying out for her to do just that.

  Chapter Ten

  “Jessie… Are you still awake or did you just get up?”

  Jeannie came into the kitchen at 3:00 a.m. and discovered her daughter sitting at the table.

  “Still awake. I guess I have a little insomnia tonight,” Jessie answered, though not in all honesty.

  The truth was that she’d been having trouble sleeping since she and Flint had had their encounter on the sofa in her studio Sunday night. Since he’d left and she’d decided she should keep her distance from him because it was the only way she could be sure that things between them wouldn’t get any more complicated than they already were. And she had kept her distance from him. But now it was three o’clock on Wednesday morning, and while she knew that eventually—usually just as the sun was coming up—exhaustion would finally let her doze off for a few hours, she was tired to the bone.

  Yet somehow still so stirred up thinking about the man, wanting to be with him, wanting him, that she couldn’t merely lie down in her bed at a reasonable hour, close her eyes and fall asleep.

  “I always wake up about now and come down for a glass of milk to help me get back to sleep,” her mother said. “But you… Are you feeling all right?”

  She knew what her mother was worrying about—for months after Pete’s death Jessie hadn’t been able to sleep. She’d wandered the house until all hours, frequently encountering her mother on Jeannie’s nightly forays to the kitchen. And even when Jessie had finally felt as if she could close her eyes, she hadn’t been able to face the bed she and Pete had shared. Instead she’d just slept on the couch downstairs.

  She was sure that her mother was concerned that if she wasn’t sleeping again, grief had made a return visit. So she said, “I’m fine. It isn’t Pete.”

  “What is it, then?” Jeannie asked
as she poured two small glasses full of milk.

  “It’s nothing,” Jessie insisted.

  Jeannie brought the two glasses with her to the table and sat across from Jessie, sliding one of the glasses over to her.

  “Did you have a fight with Flint or something?” her mother inquired. “Because I’ve heard you up the last two nights, too. And we’ve all noticed that you don’t seem to want to be anywhere near him since the party Sunday.”

  Living in the same house with her parents, living next door to her sister, didn’t allow for much privacy.

  “Why would Flint and I fight?” she said. “He took pictures of my rock sculptures after the party, and with the work finished on Kelsey’s house there just hasn’t been a reason for me to go over there as much. I thought I’d let her and Coop settle in without any more company.”

  Jessie could tell by the way her mother was looking at her that Jeannie wasn’t buying that.

  But still she felt compelled to add, “We’re nothing but acquaintances, Flint and I—he’s just Kelsey’s soon-to-be brother-in-law. What could we possibly fight about?”

  “I’m not blind, Jessie,” Jeannie said.

  What had her mother seen? Certainly Jeannie hadn’t seen her peeking out the window in her room, secretly hoping for a glimpse of Flint next door in his. Despite the fact that she’d done a ridiculous amount of that in the last two days and nights, she’d always made sure that her bedroom door was closed.

  But her mother might have seen Flint kiss her at the van after their rock hunt. Or on the back porch Saturday night. She might have seen Flint holding her hand as they’d walked to the gate Sunday night. And kissing her again then.

  Everything had happened late enough for her kids to all be sound asleep. But maybe not her mother.

  Jeannie smiled as if she knew the wheels of Jessie’s mind were spinning and clarified for her. “I’ve seen you looking over at Kelsey’s house every time you pass any window that faces that way. I saw you trip over the jungle gym pieces yesterday because instead of looking where you were going, you were craning your neck to spy on Coop and Flint digging that hole to plant the tree on the other side of the fence. I’ve seen your eyes glued to Flint every time he’s been outside and you catch a glimpse of him. I saw you frozen in the middle of changing the girls’ sheets this morning. I called your name three times before you stopped looking out their window at Flint up on Kelsey’s roof—it was as if you were in some kind of trance or something. You like that man.”