Fortune Found

by Victoria Pade

  Ella shrugged her concession to that.

  “I’ll tell you what, though. I know what you’re talking about and I know how it felt when the man in my mother’s life yelled at me or did something that made me angry, so I can also promise you that when that happens, you and I can talk about it. That you can tell me how you feel and we can see what we can do to make everything be the best it can be for everybody. Is that something you think you might be able to live with?”

  “And you won’t just go away if we’re bad?”

  “I won’t. I’ll stay and we’ll make it work. I give you my word.”

  He said that so solemnly that that, too, broke Jessie’s heart and brought tears to her eyes as she looked on, as she watched her daughter study Flint, as she watched Flint endure that scrutiny that seemed to be Ella searching for signs that he was lying.

  Only after a long while did Jessie see Ella swallow hard, pull in her bottom lip once and for all, and say, “Okay, I guess.” Then, to Jessie, the seven-year-old said, “You can marry him.”

  “He hasn’t actually asked me to marry him,” Jessie pointed out, realizing that the ball was suddenly in her court again and not instantly sure what she was going to do about it.

  “Why don’t you go back to your movie and let me have a few minutes alone with her?” Flint said to Ella as if they were now in this together.

  Ella still wasn’t smiling. She was still clearly leery even if she had conceded. And before she conceded enough to leave, the front door opened and in came Jack and Jeannie and the rest of the kids.

  “What’s going on?” Jeannie asked as she took in the wet, red face of her eldest granddaughter and then looked from Flint as he stood up from his stance in front of Ella to Jessie.

  “Mama and Flint are gonna get married,” Ella announced somewhat fatalistically.

  “We’re just talking!” Jessie was very quick to interject.

  “Maybe we can go on doing that in the studio,” Flint suggested.

  “Will you guys keep an eye on the kids?” Jessie asked her obviously shocked parents.

  They agreed and without waiting for more, Flint took Jessie’s hand and led her out the back door.

  What am I going to do? Tell me what to do, Pete…

  Jessie was in a panic as she crossed the yard with Flint. But when they reached her studio Flint had to stop to answer a call to him by Coop from over the fence and she went in without him, grateful for even a minute to herself to think.

  But somehow once she was in her studio, where they’d spent every night, where her life seemed to have taken yet another change, a calm came over her.

  Or maybe it was Pete bringing that calm over her because again she had the sense of his presence. But not in any way that relayed displeasure. Not even in any way that caused her to feel disloyal. Instead, if anything, she somehow felt as if she had his approval along with Ella’s…

  “Pete?” she whispered because the sense of him was so strong that she wasn’t sure if she was having some sort of hallucination.

  But of course nothing happened. Nothing but a continuing feeling that everything was okay. And then that sense of him went away, as if he’d left her to her thoughts, to make her own decision freely.

  And yes, she thought she had a decision to make because, like Ella, she, too, had had the impression that all Flint had said was leading to a proposal. Having a future together, being a family, never leaving them. What else could he have been talking about except marriage?

  But marry him?

  Her mother had encouraged her to have this time with him while he was in Red Rock, this brief interlude, to indulge herself, to just enjoy what he had to offer. And she’d done that. To the hilt. And no, she hadn’t wanted to so much as entertain the thought of his leaving. But in the back of her mind, she also hadn’t doubted that he would.

  But now…

  What if he didn’t? What if she could have more than this passing fancy with him? What if she could have an entire future with him?

  It was surprisingly simple to consider.

  Her mother had been right in all of her observations of Jessie’s response to Flint—she had gravitated toward him from the start, he did make her laugh, she did enjoy him. Every minute with him. Everything about him.

  And what Jessie had said herself was also true—she was more comfortable with him than she’d ever been with anyone other than Pete. But more than comfortable, during these last nights together—working together, talking, joking and teasing, then drawing closer and closer, kissing, touching, making love—none of that had been merely about being comfortable with Flint. There was so much more to what she found with him. What she felt about him. For him.

  And now, potentially, that could go on.

  She could have Flint. Night and day.

  Elation came with that thought. But even so, she was very aware that it wasn’t for herself alone that she would be making that decision, that there were the kids to consider.

  Yes, Flint had basically won over Ella in the end. And Jessie knew that Adam, Braden and Bethany would be thrilled because Adam adored Flint, and even the twins were already more than fond of him. But was making Flint a permanent fixture in their lives best for them?

  Flint didn’t come from a stable background. His own history wasn’t stellar. And she again recalled that he’d defended his bachelorhood and been clear about his lack of desire to have kids.

  None of that added up to the ideal guy to bring into her family.

  And yet…

  Coop had come from the same background and had had a similar commitment to being a loner, and he’d settled in just fine with Kelsey and Anthony. And more importantly, he loved it. He loved them.

  So maybe history could be overcome. Especially when the desire to put it behind was there. And certainly from what Flint had said in the kitchen, he had the desire to move on. To move on to her. To being a father to her kids. He’d even promised Ella that he would always be there for her…

  Jessie considered that promise, she weighed whether Flint would make good on it.

  But she discovered that she didn’t doubt that if he made a promise, he would keep it because he was a man who did what he said he was going to do. He’d proven that with the commitment he’d made to Kelsey and Coop to help with their house, he’d proven it with her in what he’d already done with her sculptures.

  And what he’d done with her sculptures also made her think about his unfailing support of her, of her work, his encouragement, his belief in her. It made her think about how he saw her as more than the mother of four. He saw her as herself, too, as a person, as a woman—that had helped her to see herself in those lights again as well, and that was of more value to her than he could ever know.

  Everything he’d brought into her life was of value, she realized. His patience, his humor, his easygoing nature, his strength and willingness to pitch in, to help, to bear some of the burden. But with all he’d brought into her life, with the way he made her feel, with the way she felt about him, came the risk that she could lose it all, too—despite his promise that he wouldn’t go anywhere.

  That was a promise Pete would have kept if he could have, too.

  Okay, yes, there was that lingering fear—that even if she trusted Flint not to leave of his own volition, she could still lose him. Her kids could still lose him.

  And if she allowed Flint into her life more than he already was? Into her kids’ lives? And then they lost him? Could she—could her kids—go through that again?

  It would be devastating. And horrible. And nothing she would ever—ever—want any of them to have to go through again.

  But she came to the conclusion that the only way to be absolutely certain that she and her kids never suffered a loss as severe as the loss of Pete was to never let anyone get as close as Pete had been. Which would mean saying no to Flint. Closing that door forever.

  And suddenly the image of that, of returning to the way things had been in the las
t two years, wasn’t one that Jessie wanted to entertain. Flint had already added so much to her life, and even to the lives of her kids in small ways like the thoughtful gifts he’d given them with each of their personalities and problems in mind. He added an element that not even having her parents live with them had replaced with the loss of Pete. An element that was all his own.

  To lose that even now wasn’t something she wanted to go through. It wasn’t something she wanted her kids to go through.

  Life was full of risks, she decided. Was she going to throw away what she had, what she could have, what she wanted, in an attempt to keep those risks to a minimum?

  That seemed like a very fearful way to live. And not something she wanted to teach her kids as they went on to live their own lives, make their own decisions. When they faced the need to take risks themselves, she didn’t want fear to be what ruled them. So she couldn’t let fear be what ruled her now.

  Flint finally came through the studio door and closed it behind him. Then he turned the lock and leaned against the wooden panel as if to barricade it.

  That was when he laughed and shook his head. “What were we talking about?” he joked as if it hadn’t been memorable.

  Jessie laughed, too, taking in the sight of him, knowing in that moment that despite the fact that she’d thought she would never be able to love anyone the way she’d loved Pete, she felt every bit as much for Flint. That her feelings for him were stronger than all of her fears put together, stronger even than her feelings of disloyalty had been.

  “I believe there was some talk about the future…” she said.

  “Oh, yeah, right,” he pretended that his memory had been jogged. “I was about to say that I’m madly in love with you, Jessie, and ask you to be my wife.”

  “Simple as that? No fanfare?”

  “I was afraid if I didn’t get it out as soon as I could we might have more interruptions,” he joked again.

  He pushed away from the door and came to stand in front of her, clasping her arms in his big hands, squeezing as he gazed down into her eyes. Then he abandoned all teasing to repeat in a quiet, solemn tone of voice, “I love you, Jess. More than I ever thought it was possible to love anyone. I want you to be my wife. I want to be your husband. I want to be a father to your kids. Will you marry me?”

  “I will,” she answered as if it hadn’t taken any thought, any struggle to get her there. “I will because I love you, too, Flint.”

  He smiled a poignant, heartfelt smile just before he kissed her, sweetly, chastely.

  But there was always too much heat between them for it to stay sweet or chaste, and after a few moments his lips parted, that kiss deepened and daylight or no daylight, what erupted was what had erupted so many times already in that studio.

  The most Jessie paid attention to beyond Flint was to make sure the curtains were pulled closed over the windows. When she was reassured that they were, clothes began to come off and hands went on familiar adventures that instantly aroused and fed desires in her that had grown by leaps and bounds since learning what Flint had to teach.

  Naked and uninhibited, they ended up on the sofa where it had all begun that other night, mouths hungrily meeting, then fleeing to seek out other parts to delight and tease and awaken to new and old sensations.

  Hands trailed paths of divine pleasure, too, until neither of them could contain themselves a moment more. Bodies moved together to form one. Striving for that climax that always blinded them both in pure, exquisite ecstasy. That climax that held them so sublimely that nothing could penetrate it until they were spent and sated and Jessie knew all over again that being with that man for the rest of her life was exactly what she wanted.

  “It’s the middle of the afternoon,” she reminded when she could, when she’d caught her breath and was almost too weak to care. “After what Ella told my parents you know that they called Kelsey and told her something was going on. So the whole crew is probably watching this place and just waiting for us to come out. And look what you made me do,” she concluded as if she were blameless.

  She was on top, lying with her head on Flint’s chest, listening to his heart beat. She tilted her head backward to look up at him. To see the smile she was sure would be on his handsome face.

  “Yep,” he agreed. “I’m bad. But you?” He groaned a deep-throated, sexy groan. “You are sooo good it’s worth it.”

  Jessie laughed. “But your punishment is going to be no nap. If we don’t get out of here soon, you can bet someone is going to come knocking. And I don’t want to be found like this.”

  “We’ll just say the honeymoon started a little early.”

  “We’ll say that to my mother, my father, my sister and my children?”

  “Hmm, yeah, I suppose those are not the people to say it to.”

  After another moment of reveling in afterglow and just being naked in his arms, Jessie sighed and got up. “We’ll also have to look presentable,” she informed him gathering her clothes.

  “Then I can sleep for ten minutes while you fuss because all I have to do is pull on my clothes.”

  Jessie playfully hit him with one of the throw pillows that had fallen off the couch.

  But she spent a minute watching him drift off, loving that sight as much as she loved everything else about him.

  Then it occurred to her that from here on she would have that same face to look at whenever she wanted to.

  As she headed for the bathroom to make it appear that she hadn’t just been made love to, the thought of the years, the life with Flint that stretched out ahead of her filled her with more joy than she’d ever thought to feel again.

  Joy she couldn’t wait to share with her family.

  And with Flint’s family.

  Which they would be able to do; in a few minutes they could share it with her parents, her sister, her kids, his brother.

  Then the day after tomorrow, they could share it with the rest of the Fortune family at William and Lily’s wedding.

  No, taking those first steps, announcing their intention to spend the rest of their lives together, wasn’t quite as wonderful as it would have been to be still lying in Flint’s arms at that moment.

  But they were steps she wanted to take.

  Because taking them would put a formal seal on what she knew in her heart would be a phase as perfect for the second portion of her life as Pete had been for the last.

  Epilogue

  “Thank you all for coming early.”

  That was how William got the attention of the male members of his family a mere fifteen minutes before his wedding to Lily was to begin.

  Flint was standing in the church basement between Ross and Coop. Around them were their cousins—William’s sons—Drew, Jeremy, Darr, Nicholas and JR, as well as twenty-year-old Josh, who was the son of Frannie and Roberto Mendoza, making him Ross, Coop and Flint’s nephew and William’s great-nephew.

  Everyone—including underage Josh—had been handed a glass of champagne as they’d come into the church basement.

  “I have something to say and I have three toasts to make,” William continued. “First of all, Drew—” William focused his attention on that particular son “—I want you to know that I’m now ready to pass the reins of Fortune Forecasting on to you. With my memory as good as new, I can tell you that my only intention in delaying my retirement before was to make sure that work was not the only thing you ended up having in life. But now that you and Deanna have found each other just the way I was hoping—and trying to make sure—you would—”

  Everyone laughed along with William and raised their glasses in agreement with that sentiment.

  “Now that you and Deanna have found each other and tied the knot, I know that you will have what I wanted you to have, and that I can step down and enjoy the years I have left focusing only on Lily, knowing the business will be in the best hands it could be in.”

  Congratulations were extended by everyone—to Drew for becoming the CEO
of Fortune Forecasting, and to William for his retirement.

  But as Flint glanced at his cousin he thought that Drew was taking in stride having finally achieved what had once upon a time been the only thing he’d strived for.

  Now he has Deanna and she’s more important…

  That was what flashed through Flint’s mind, but it was what he believed—that his cousin had discovered that Deanna meant more to him than any job or any promotion.

  “I want to toast my cousin Ryan,” William held his glass high and glanced upward, above everyone’s heads. “I miss you. Lily misses you. But we both hope you’re here with us today in spirit, giving us your blessing. And I want you to know that I will take good care of our Lily, knowing full well that she always has a place in her heart for you.”

  “To Ryan,” everyone echoed.

  William lowered his glass and his glance to his sons, his nephews, his great-nephew, and Flint felt a swell of pride to be included in this.

  “And last but not least, I toast you all—the Fortune men. The Fortune family. My family. I’m proud of each and every one of you. I’m grateful for each and every one of you. And I wish each and every one of you the same happiness that I’ve found with Lily, who today I will—a little late—get to make my wife. To you all—health, happiness, love!”

  All glasses were raised, clinked with any that were nearby, and then the champagne was sipped a third time.

  “And to you, Dad,” JR said then. “To you and Lily, to getting your memory back, to many, many years to come.”

  “Hear, hear!” Darr seconded and then that toast, too, was supported all around before the champagne was polished off.

  Then, setting his glass down with some ceremony, William raised instead a brilliant smile and said, “Now, let me go get married!”

  Jessie had no idea what the first, unsuccessful wedding of Lily and William Fortune might have been like, but as she sat beside Flint and her children in the church, she couldn’t imagine that it would have been any more beautiful, any more heartfelt, any more touching than the ceremony that joined them Saturday evening.