Read Online Fortune Found by Victoria Pade - Free Book Online Page B

everyone else and returned to Flint’s rental car.
    â€œMothers are not supposed to close bars,” she jokingly chastised as Flint opened the passenger door for her.
    â€œThat’s not a theory my mother ever subscribed to,” he answered wryly.
    Shutting the door, he went around to get behind the wheel, and once they were on the road to home he said, “So if closing bars isn’t how you have fun, what is?”
    Jessie laughed, feeling tired, a little giddy and so, so much more relaxed than she had been even before all the dancing. “What do I do for fun…?” she reiterated. “I get away to the studio whenever I can.”
    â€œWhat studio? Explain.”
    â€œPete turned the garage out back into a one-room apartment about five years ago. We rented it, but that turned out to be more hassle than it was worth and attracted some people we were worried about having around the kids. So I took it over as a sort of studio. Or maybe I should say a workshop.”
    â€œTo sort of do what kind of work? Art?”
    Jessie made a face because it seemed like putting on airs to say what she did was art. “It’s more just a hobby I have. I make stone sculptures. But really it’s just a chance for me to get out into the woods with the kids—hike a little, enjoy the scenery and collect stones. Then I use the stones to put together these sculptures—my versions of rock formations, I guess.”
    â€œIs that where you’re going off to tomorrow? Coop said we’d be working in the morning, but that in the afternoon he and Kelsey have to take Anthony in for a well-baby checkup, and that you had other plans.”
    â€œThat’s exactly where I’ll be. We make a whole outing of it—I bring hot dogs, we build a fire, make s’mores for dessert—” And then maybe because she was feeling slightly giddy, without considering the wisdom in it, she heard herself say, “Would you like to come with us?”
    Flint took his eyes off the road to glance at her. Tosmile. To surprise her by saying, “I think I would. I toast a mean marshmallow.”
    Jessie laughed. “Then you’ll fit right in.”
    â€œWill I? Or will it ruin Ella’s time if I come?”
    He won points for thinking of her daughter and Jessie considered the effect it might have on Ella to include Flint in this family outing. But in the end she said, “Ella probably won’t be thrilled, but it also might give her the chance to give you a chance. She’s made a snap judgment of you and it might be good for her to get to know you, to see you in a different light.”
    Flint smiled at her again. “Assuming that when she gets to know me she doesn’t still hate me.”
    The more Jessie had come to know him tonight, the more she liked him. Liked just how pleasant and easy to talk to he was, how easy it was to be with him—much as she wished that wasn’t the case. But because it was, she couldn’t imagine that eventually Ella wouldn’t warm to him, too, and come to let go of her unfounded resentment of the man who would soon be like an uncle to her.
    â€œI have faith in you,” Jessie informed him in a way that goaded him a little and made him chuckle a throaty chuckle that she found all too sexy.
    They’d arrived home by then, though, and Flint parked at the curb in front of Kelsey’s house.
    Jessie didn’t wait for him to come around to her door. She met him at the front fender and wondered if they would merely say good-night there and go to their respective houses—which would aid the cause of convincing everyone that this had not been a successful date.
    But Flint motioned in the direction of her house and walked her to her door.
    It was so late that there was no question about asking him in, although the thought did flit through her mind—shocking her a bit.
    But standing in the glow of porch light at her door,