Fortune Found Read Free Page A

morning.”
    â€œI thought it might,” Flint said with yet another smile, this one understanding and yet still so engaging.
    Engaging enough that a split-second elapsed while Jessie stared into that smile, into those unique eyes of his and forgot everything.
    Then Adam yanked her back to reality by taking herhand and tugging her downward while he stood on his tip-toes to whisper, “He called me buddy. Tha’ means we’re frien’s.”
    â€œThat is what it means,” Jessie confirmed, appreciating that Flint had taken some care with her son’s feelings. Telling herself that that was all she was appreciating about the man.
    And all she intended to appreciate about him.

Chapter Two
    F lint woke Monday morning to the sound of children’s voices outside, a baby fussing in the next room, water running somewhere nearby and a sprinkler whoosh-whoosh-whooshing in the distance.
    Definitely not the quiet of his apartment on the outskirts of Denver.
    Then his brother Cooper’s voice drifted to him from somewhere close by, reminding him that he was in Texas. In Red Rock.
    Where his mother was born and raised. Where a chunk of his extended family lived. Where his mother had brought him, his two brothers and his sister to visit growing up—usually because she’d wanted to get rid of her kids while she went on yet another honeymoon, or because she needed to finagle money out of some of that extended family between husbands or jobs or citiesor any of the other flights of fancy that were always in play with Cindy Fortune.
    Flint opened his eyes and recognized the tidy spare bedroom of the house his brother had just moved into. Where he was taking a slight hiatus from his own work to help fix up the place and spend some time with Coop, his newly discovered son, Anthony, and new fiancée, Kelsey, and with he and Coop’s other brother Ross and their sister, Frannie, who also lived in Red Rock.
    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 thehouse 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