Fortune Found

by Victoria Pade

  If that was all her mother had seen it wasn’t so bad.

  Jessie merely shrugged it off. “He’s a nice guy. And he’s not hard on the eyes.”

  Jeannie laughed and reiterated, “And you like him. The two of you have gravitated to each other at every meal we’ve had together, on game night, at the housewarming. Your face just lights up the minute he comes into a room. So why stay away from him? Especially if staying away from him is making you antsy and keeping you up nights?”

  “It’s just not that simple…”

  “Well, sure it is.”

  “It was one thing when we were working on Kelsey’s house—she needed the help and you’d signed on for doing more with the kids while I was there. But now that the house is finished, doing anything with Flint would take more time away from the kids. Plus Ella doesn’t like him and—”

  “Oh, stop!” Jeannie reprimanded. “Jessie, you’re a good mother. You are. But you can’t let those kids be all there is for you. You need other interests. Other outlets.”

  “That’s why I do the stone sculptures.”

  “That’s not enough,” her mother insisted.

  Jessie shrugged. “Pete’s and my old friends don’t call anymore now that I’m not part of a couple—and it would be awful to see them and be alone. My old girlfriends are all married, so whenever I’m with them it always ends up a pity party with all of them feeling sorry for me and saying they don’t know how I do without Pete—”

  “But now there’s someone right next door who you like being with,” Jeannie interrupted.

  “Even if that were the case, bringing a man—especially a man like Flint who isn’t interested in commitment—into the kids’ lives right now is too much, too soon. It couldn’t be good for them,” Jessie said softly.

  “It’s not too much or too soon,” Jeannie refuted. “But I’m not even talking about bringing a man into their lives,” she repeated. “I’m just saying that there’s nothing wrong with—while Flint is here—the two of you spending a little time together. He’s someone your own age who makes you laugh. You just seem to enjoy each other’s company. So why not ask him to take a walk, or have coffee, or go out to dinner with him again?”

  Because things between us have already gone so far beyond that…

  That was the answer to her mother’s question, but that was the last thing Jessie was going to say to her mother.

  Instead she said, “I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “Taking a walk, going out to a dinner—those wouldn’t even involve the kids. And your dad and I don’t mind babysitting. That’s part of why we’re here.”

  “To raise my kids while I run around with men?” Jessie joked.

  Jeannie laughed, shaking her head as if she thought Jessie were hopeless. But still she said, “We’re here to help, and I think it helps you to get out a little. It isn’t good for you—or for the kids—to put all you’ve got into them and their lives, and nothing into your own, Jess. You can’t sacrifice everything for the kids. You can’t. I know that seems like the way to go now—”

  “And the easiest and safest thing for us all.”

  “But it isn’t,” her mother said firmly. “There has to be something outside of the housework and the laundry and the grocery shopping and taking care of the kids, something that’s only for you, that recharges you—”

  “I don’t want to go to your quilting club, Mom.”

  “But I have my quilting club. And my once-a-month poker with the girls, and my book group—they all give me time to just be me. When I come back from those visits, I’m a new woman. And unless I’m mistaken, every time you come back from being with Flint, you’re a new woman, too. So I say, don’t fight it. He’s not going to be here forever. But while he is, where’s the harm in seeing him? Especially when not seeing him seems to keep you up nights?”

  Jessie was afraid Jeannie was beginning to understand—too much.

  “It’s all just weird,” Jessie confessed to keep whatever containment she could on what her mother was thinking. “For some reason I’m really comfortable with him. I have an easier time talking to him than I thought I’d ever have talking to a man who isn’t Pete, an easier time being with him…” Even in ways that I wish weren’t happening so easily. “But because he isn’t Pete, I feel guilty. And taking time away from the kids on top of it… I don’t know. I guess it’s just a dilemma that’s keeping me up nights right now.”

  “It’s only a dilemma if you make it one. If you stop fighting what you want, the dilemma is gone,” Jeannie said conclusively as she took her now-empty glass to the sink and left Jessie’s untouched one in front of her. “Flint doesn’t live here. He’ll be gone before you know it. And if I were you, I’d make the best of it while you can.”

  Jessie couldn’t suppress a grin when she thought that her mother had no idea what she was giving her permission for.

  But what she said was, “That’s part of the problem.”

  “Maybe,” Jeannie allowed. “Or maybe that’s exactly the right setup for you to get your feet wet with a man again.”

  Oh, how she would have liked to do that!

  But it just wasn’t as simple as her mother thought it was.

  Not when Jessie imagined the day Flint would pack up and leave his brother’s house and go on his merry way.

  Without a backward glance.

  Without her.

  Leaving her with what she was very much afraid might be another great big sense of loss to deal with all over again.

  And the thought of that scared her so much, that after breakfast later that morning, when Kelsey came next door to invite Jessie, the kids, Jeannie and Jack to dinner that evening at her house, and also mentioned that Coop and Flint would be working on the yard all day, Jessie couldn’t make herself heed her mother’s advice.

  Instead she made the impromptu decision that she and the kids would be going rock hunting and having their usual cookout in the woods.

  Jeannie didn’t give away the fact that that decision had happened on the spot and went along with Jessie’s ruse that rock hunting had been preplanned. But Jeannie did give Jessie a sad sort of look and shake her head at her when no one else could see.

  It didn’t matter. The thought of Flint being within her sight for the entire day to come, the thought of having another meal with him while still trying to maintain some distance, some reserve, some detachment, was too much to endure.

  So she rounded up her kids and essentially ran like a rabbit to keep herself away from Flint—and the temptation she was too afraid to give in to.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sleepless nights made for extra time to get things done, so after a long day of rock hunting with Ella, Braden, Bethany and Adam, driving home and getting all four kids bathed and to bed, Jessie even managed to shower herself, shampoo her hair, unload the van and get all the rocks washed.

  She’d just finished that when there was a knock on her studio door.

  It was after ten o’clock and she didn’t have to look to know that it was Flint who was standing outside of that door.

  She willed him to go away, but then she heard his deep voice say ever so softly, “It’s me, Jess,” and she knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  She was aware that he could see the lights and would know that no one else would be using the studio at that time of night. So she didn’t have a choice but to open that door to him.

  And nearly wilt at that first close-up glimpse of him in days.

  Tall and lean and muscular. His hair shiny clean and carelessly disheveled. His face clean-shaven and so handsome that it made her just want to stare at him for hours. Wearing a pair of low-slung jeans and a black T-shirt that hugged every inch of that sculpted body. And looking at her with those coffee-colored eyes that seemed to convey confusion and hopefulness at once.

  How was she supposed to resist all that?

  All that and his holding up a bottle of wine when he said, “I have new
s you’re gonna want to hear and something to celebrate it with. Can I come in?”

  If only she could say no.

  “Sure, come in,” she answered, stepping aside and working like mad to make it appear as if she was as aloof as she wished she truly were.

  Certainly how she was dressed didn’t give her away, though, and now she wished she’d done more with herself after her shower. But she hadn’t thought she’d be seeing anyone else tonight and with Texas temperatures rising as the month of June progressed, she was in her bare feet and had only put on a simple, knit sundress cut like a tank top to fall in an A-line to a hem that barely reached her knees.

  Plus, the only thing she was wearing underneath it was a pair of panties. And while there was nothing revealing or indecent about the black-and-white polka dot dress that had a very minor built-in bra, she still felt a little too uncontained. Especially when her nipples tightened up the minute she laid eyes on Flint.

  Hoping it seemed casual, she crossed her arms over her chest, clasping each upper arm with the opposite hand, and pivoted on her heels to allow him into the studio.

  “I wasn’t expecting company,” she said self-consciously, thinking, too, about her hair. Left with only a brushing after it had dried, it always formed waves that tonight she’d clipped back—again for the sake of cooling off. A few stray strands had escaped the clip to fall around her face and she wondered if she looked a mess because of it.

  “You might not have been expecting company, but you look good enough to go to a party,” Flint said with enough appreciation to be convincing. Especially when his dark eyes seemed glued to her even as he came in and closed the door behind them.

  His compliment helped remove some of her concerns about her appearance, but the way he was looking at her was somewhat of a turn-on, and Jessie began to worry that the heat in her cheeks was going to become a full-fledged blush.

  Then he grinned, held up the wine bottle again and said, “I have more than a dozen gift shops that want to buy your sculptures and three galleries open to display them for sale.”

  And shock replaced some of her discomfort. And some of the turn-on that had come with the purely primal awareness she seemed to have of him.

  “You have twelve shops and three galleries interested just since Sunday?” she asked.

  “Just since Sunday,” he answered smugly. “I told you this stuff is salable.”

  “And you came to gloat?” she goaded.

  “I came to celebrate. And to find out if something is wrong because I haven’t seen you in three days.”

  Maybe a glass of wine would help calm her nerves.

  Jessie went into the kitchen section in search of a corkscrew and two glasses.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” she said along the way, glad she didn’t have to look him in the eye when she did. “I just felt like I’d neglected the kids and put too much burden on my parents while I helped out with Kelsey and Coop’s house, so I wanted to give the kids some concentrated attention and give my folks a break.”

  “Ah, that makes sense,” he said as if he didn’t doubt her word.

  That went a long way in preserving the illusion she wanted to maintain, too—that she could kiss him—and more—on Sunday night, and take it so in stride that she hadn’t given it another thought. The illusion that hid the fact that she had been nearly sleepless for the last three nights and plagued day and night with wanting more of that kissing—and even more than that…

  With wanting him.

  Instead, she could be breezy, as if Sunday night hadn’t been completely out of character for her and knocked her for a loop.

  “And now we can talk money,” Flint said as he joined her at the kitchen counter, took the corkscrew she’d just located and opened the wine.

  “Right…money,” she repeated.

  Pouring the wine, he said, “I purposely didn’t discuss price with you before because I knew you’d undervalue your work.”

  He went on to tell her how much he was asking for her sculptures and Jessie knew her shock had to show in her expression.

  “Are you kidding?” she said.

  “And that’s for the small pieces that I offered to the gift shops. The bigger ones that I presented to the galleries will go for much more.”

  Jessie didn’t think there was any color left in her face after he told her exactly how much more he was talking about.

  “For rocks that I found in the woods?” she said in astonishment.

  “It isn’t the rocks themselves that we’re selling. It’s the artistry in the way you put them together.”

  “I can’t believe it…”

  Flint laughed. “Maybe we better sit down—you look like you need to.”

  Jessie was still doing math in her head while he led her to the sofa where they both sat in the center of it.

  “This will help so much,” she muttered as figures began to form.

  “Good. I’m glad. Now tell me the truth—were the kids and your parents the only reasons I haven’t gotten to see you yet this week?”

  Oh. So she hadn’t been off the hook on that score after all.

  “You don’t think those are reasons enough?” she countered because he’d again taken her by surprise and she was at a loss for an answer.

  “Let’s just say that kids and parents don’t seem like reasons enough to me.”

  Jessie sipped the wine. “Maybe that’s because you live a different life than I do—the life of a childless bachelor who doesn’t have too much contact with your own parents.”

  He laughed, took a drink of his own wine, then said, “Childless bachelor—you do not make that sound like something anyone should want to be.”

  “You’re not married—that makes you a bachelor. And you don’t have any kids, so you are childless.”

  “But both of those things are just simple facts, not things I’ve been sentenced to for some kind of crimes I’ve committed.”

  The perplexed creases in his brow made her smile. She also thought that this line of conversation gave her another way to escape talking about why she’d kept her distance. And along with that she might also get the answers to some of the other questions she had about Flint. And his past.

  “Why are you unmarried and childless?” she said with some challenge to her tone.

  He laughed again. “I told you I was married once, years ago, but not for long enough to have kids.”

  Jessie shrugged as she took another sip of wine, then tucked her feet to one side and behind her so she ended up facing Flint, resting her arm on the top of the sofa cushions.

  “How many years ago were you married?” she asked then.

  “We were both twenty-two—that was seventeen years ago. Her name was Myra.”

  “How long did it last?” Jessie probed because as he drank his own wine he showed no signs that he was reluctant to talk about this.

  “Seven and a half months.”

  “You weren’t even married for a year?”

  “Maybe that’s what happens when you don’t put any thought into it.”

  “You got married without putting any thought into it?”

  “In Vegas. It was Myra’s suggestion that rather than ending our fourth date, we get in the car and drive there for the weekend.”

  “You got married after just four dates?”

  “We didn’t go to Vegas to get married, we went to make a long weekend of the date. But once we got there, we did a lot of drinking, Myra said wouldn’t it be funny if we just got married and—” He grimaced at the expression on her face. “I know how bad that sounds. It was stupid, believe me. But I was young and she was…” He shrugged. “The whole thing with Myra was a burn hot, burn fast, burn out kind of thing,” he said. “That’s what happens when it’s purely physical.”

  “Purely physical?” she repeated, knowing she’d done too much of that but suddenly feeling some insecurity about the fact that Pete had been her one and only, about Flint not merely having had more than a
single other partner, but also having been with someone with whom things had been so hot that he’d been swept all the way into an impromptu marriage.

  “Myra was…intense,” Flint continued. “In everything. In everything she liked, everything she disliked. In everything she said and did. In every emotion she had, including, especially and most of all, anger.”

  “Really.”

  “Actually, Myra was not just angry, she got enraged. At the drop of a hat. Anything she saw as a slight, or even imagined was a slight, meant a screaming match. Somebody talking in a movie theater—Myra would be the one to stand up and make a scene about it. Myra was…”

  “Irresistible to you?” Jessie asked, not understanding how what he was describing had had any appeal to him.

  “She was like riding the most extreme amusement park ride. I…” He shrugged again. “I just couldn’t not do it. But once I had? Once the thrill was over? Disaster.”

  “In what way, besides her tantrums?”

  “Well, strange as it may seem, insane sex is not enough to build a relationship on,” he said facetiously. “And for Myra, insane sex was not even something she wanted to have monogamously. I came home unexpectedly one day and found her in the shower with another man.”

  “Oooh,” Jessie said sympathetically.

  “Uh-huh. And yet somehow, to Myra, I was in the wrong for coming home unexpectedly. So she had no qualms about taking every penny she could get her hands on, every meager possession of any worth that I owned, and consequently, every drop of pride I had, when she took off with her lover. In my car.”

  “Oh dear.” Jessie merely muttered because she wasn’t sure what to say to that revelation.

  “So between Myra and everything I saw with my mother, I’d say there are worse things than being a bachelor.”