A Fortune's Children's Christmas

  She’d convinced herself she was imagining things, but now she wasn’t so sure. She looked around her ranch and saw it through new eyes. Aaron hadn’t bought the life insurance he’d promised, and Lesley had been making payments to the bank on the mortgage rather than keeping up with repairs. The farmhouse needed a fresh coat of paint and new gutters, the barn could be reroofed in the next couple of years, and each time she did a wash, she crossed her fingers that the old washer and dryer wouldn’t give out on her. Despite its problems, however, these weary acres were home. Her home. Angela’s home.

  Never once had she thought that it might have been Chase’s. Why hadn’t he confided in her, she wondered as she added fertilizer to her fresh row of corn, then turned dirt over the exposed kernels. Well, he was due over tonight, and she’d find out why he was being so secretive. She’d just started for the house when she heard Angela’s whimper. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” she called, running up the back steps and unlacing her boots. She had a half hour before her next student arrived, and in that time she would be able to feed and change the baby. Later, after she’d finished tutoring for the day, she’d talk to Chase. He was scheduled to come over this evening, anyway. Good. It was time to have it out with him.

  Chase punched out the numbers of his great-aunt’s office and waited while the line connected. He hated calling Kate, but decided he had no option. He expected to hear Kelly Sinclair’s cheery voice on the other end of the line, but was connected directly to Kate.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve been demoted,” he joked.

  “Chase!” She chuckled. “No such luck, I’m afraid.”

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “I was wondering when I’d hear from you. As for answering the phone, well, Kelly’s had to take a couple of weeks off.” She hesitated, as if she wanted to say something more but didn’t.

  “Even Kate Fortune’s secretary deserves a vacation.”

  “Yes, well, it’s not that. It’s not your concern. You called me with what I assume is a report on the ranch.”

  He launched into a quick report about the old Waterman place, about projected hay yield, wheat crop and cattle. Most of the calves had been born, he’d only lost a couple of heifers, the wheat was in, and he’d begun mending weak spots in the fence line while inoculating and tagging the herd. He mentioned that he’d been seeing Lesley and her baby, as well, but didn’t add that he’d begun to suspect that Kate was pulling his strings—that she’d not only inherited the Waterman place as payment for a bad debt, but also that she’d chosen it specifically to put him in close proximity with his old home. Anything else relied too heavily on coincidence, and Chase wasn’t one to believe in providence in a situation such as this.

  Finally he got to the problem at hand.

  “There’s just no way around it, Kate,” Chase admitted. “I can’t divert any water to Lesley Bastian or anyone else without charging them.” In frustration he raked his fingers through his hair with one hand while holding on to the receiver with another.

  “And Lesley needs the water in order to keep her ranch afloat?” Kate surmised aloud.

  “So she claims.”

  “Do you think she’d lie?”

  “No!” he said vehemently, surprised at the strength of his convictions. Lesley was nothing if not honest. Brutally honest at times.

  “How’s that little girl of hers?”

  Chase’s gut clenched, and he felt an unlikely sense of protection toward the infant. “Growing. Smiling. Holding her head up and looking around.”

  “Sounds like you see a lot of her.”

  “Sometimes,” he admitted. The truth of the matter was that Lesley and her daughter intrigued him more than he’d ever thought possible. More than he wanted to admit. He was getting too close to them, too tangled up in emotions that were dangerous, but he couldn’t help himself. He knew the pain that came with love, the torture of losing a child, and he had no intention of risking his heart again. But his intentions seemed to crumble each and every time he looked at mother and daughter. “That’s what makes this situation more difficult,” he admitted warily. “Because Lesley and her baby are good friends.”

  “Mmm.” Kate seemed to understand all too well what Chase was going through, as if, despite his being vague, she could see into the conflict raging in his soul. “Well then, I guess it’s something you’ll have to work out.” Any hope he’d had of getting some sound advice from his aunt was instantly quelled. And, he supposed, she was right to keep her opinions to herself. This was his personal dilemma, part of figuring out how to turn his ranch around, as well as deal with his neighbors and friends. The trouble was Lesley Bastian was more than a neighbor. More than a friend. A lot more.

  Lesley lifted Angela onto her shoulder and, humming under her breath, gently rubbed the baby’s back. Within seconds Angela’s little body stiffened, her head bobbed and she let out a burp. “Feel better?” Lesley said to the squirming little body. It was amazing how close she felt to this little lump of flesh who couldn’t talk, couldn’t walk, couldn’t do much more than watch her with round eyes that were curious and bright and offer a smile that was a reflection of Lesley’s own grin.

  She set the baby in a mechanical swing that gently rocked, then finished peeling potatoes, her thoughts centered on Chase. He’d been a godsend, more of a guardian angel than the one she’d seen or imagined while in the throes of labor. Whenever he came over, he fed the horses and checked on the buildings as well as expressed more than a little concern about the baby. He’d shored up a broken step, replaced several shattered windowpanes in the barn, exchanged worn-out washers in the faucets with new ones, sawed down a dead tree that was threatening to fall on the back porch and offered advice about the baby. In return she cooked for him, and after they ate and Angela had gone to bed, they watched television, listened to music, talked and made love.

  But Chase never spent the night.

  There was always a reason he’d left before dawn, throwing on his clothes in the darkness and stopping to look in on Angela before he crept down the stairs. Lesley had accepted whatever excuse he’d given her; now, in light of what Ray had said, she wondered if his explanations had been simple platitudes that never really touched the heart of the matter.

  She heard his truck pull into the drive and watched as he parked, climbed out of the cab and, with a quick look at the house, walk to the barn. Rambo ran ahead, nose to the ground, flushing a robin from a bush near the garage. “I think it’s time for a showdown,” Lesley said to Angela as she found the baby’s snowsuit. While Angela gurgled, kicked and smiled, Lesley bundled her up and placed her in the front pack.

  Outside, the wind was racing across the land, smelling fresh and wet, tangling in Lesley’s hair as she pushed through the gate and walked across the gravel-strewn parking area to the barn. The door gave way and the scents of warm horseflesh and aging leather greeted her. The light was dim, but she saw Chase, pitchfork in hand, tossing forkfuls of hay into the manger. Broodmares and foals peered at him with wide, liquid eyes.

  He glanced at her and noticed the backpack. “Kind of cold out here for the baby, isn’t it?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Little things are tender.” He slit the strings on another bale.

  “Since when did you get to be such an expert?” she asked, and she noticed his eyes darken.

  “I’ve brought a lot of calves and foals into the world.”

  “I know, I know, just like you helped with Angela’s birth, and, trust me, I appreciate the advice, but she’s fine.”

  “Whatever you say.” He didn’t seem convinced, but she let it go. Walking along the length of stalls, she patted one velvet-soft nose after another and watched as the horse’s ears flicked with the changes in the conversation. As if they felt the tension in the air, they were restless, tails switching, hooves shifting in the straw.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you used to live here?” she asked.

  He was shaking h
ay into one manger, but stopped, every muscle in his body coiling. For a second he seemed about to disagree with her, to deny that he’d ever set foot on these acres before meeting her, but instead he thrust his pitchfork into a bale and leaned his hips against the slats of a stall door. Dust motes swirled, and one of the horses let out a nervous whinny.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

  “Have you? When?”

  His mouth tightened at the corners and his gray eyes, usually so warm, turned frigid. “Whenever the time was right. It just never seemed to be.”

  “Zeke Fortune was your father.”

  “Yep. Zeke, Jr.”

  She let out her breath and glanced to the ceiling where the last rays of sunlight were burning through the circular window in the hayloft. “Some people around here think Aaron took advantage of him. Aaron didn’t seem to think so.”

  “Dad was desperate to sell.”

  “Why?”

  “The gossip mill hasn’t given you the rest of the story?”

  “I don’t listen to gossip.”

  He inclined his head and proceeded to tell her about Chet’s death and how it had affected his parents. “When the bank threatened to foreclose on the ranch, Dad sold out to the highest bidder, which wasn’t all that high.”

  “Aaron,” she said numbly.

  “Bingo.”

  “I…I didn’t know.” All the starch left her and she felt suddenly sad and somehow responsible for Chase’s pain as well as that of his family.

  “Now you do.”

  Tears of shame burned behind her eyes, and her soul wrenched at the pain this man had borne. “You should have told me.”

  “Why?”

  The question hung between them, seeming to echo against the dusty rafters and bounce against the walls of her heart. “I don’t know,” she admitted, feeling Angela snuggled against her. “But I think—I think I should have known.”

  He stepped closer, and she smelled his own particular scent, that of leather and a musky aftershave. “Would it have made a difference?”

  “In how I feel about you?”

  “In anything.”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted, and wished he would fold her into the safety and security of his arms.

  “Well, don’t worry about it,” he said, standing close enough to touch. “There’s something else I should have told you.”

  She braced herself. His tone convinced her that it wasn’t good news. “What is it?” she asked, and noticed a tic beneath the corner of one of his eyes. “It’s about the water rights, Lesley.” Her heart sank, and she couldn’t believe her ears. “If I want to make sure the place is profitable, I can’t allow any of the water from the spring to be diverted. Not even for you.”

  Eight

  “So, I think, under the circumstances, it would be best if we…if we—” Lesley’s voice broke, and she felt like an utter fool as she stared into Chase’s eyes. They’d come to an impasse over the water rights.

  “Better if we didn’t see each other anymore,” Chase finished for her. He was seated in the cab of his truck, ready to make tracks, the engine idling. Their usual routine had fallen apart after last week’s announcement that he couldn’t provide her with the water she needed. The tension between them had been unbearable, the strain and worry keeping Lesley awake at night. It was more than a simple issue of water, really: Lesley had begun to depend upon him and their relationship had become tense because of it.

  “Yes,” she said, dying inside. She was holding Angela who, as if sensing the drama unfolding around her, had begun to fuss.

  Rambo, seated in the truck beside Chase, let out a low, unhappy whine.

  “What ever you want, Lesley.”

  It’s not what I want. What I want is you, Chase Fortune. Can’t you see that? But I need to know that you want me, too. “Good.” She forced a smile and prayed that the tears stinging her eyes weren’t visible. “But we can still be—”

  “Neighbors,” he said, cutting her off.

  “Right. Neighbors.” She blushed. Of course they couldn’t be friends. Not now. Not ever. They’d shared too much.

  He reached out the open window as if to pat Angela’s head, and then with a tightening of his jaw, withdrew his hand before the tips of his fingers twined in the soft, dark curls. As if he’d thought better of the intimate gesture. Lesley’s heart cracked, and she realized as he rammed the truck into gear and stepped on the gas, how much she loved him and how foolish it was.

  “I told you I’d buy the whole lot,” Ray Mellon offered. Lesley stood with one arm folded over the top rail of her fence as she watched the foals frolic, racing from one end of the paddock to the other only to wheel and dash back, tails aloft, nostrils flared, eyes bright and wild.

  “I know.” The summer sun was warm against her back, a bit of a breeze toying with the wisps of hair that had escaped her ponytail. Angela was balanced on her one hip and showing interest in her earring.

  Lesley had worked her fingers to the bone these past few months. The rewards of her labor—a garden that promised full bounty, students who were managing to graduate, a baby who was lively, healthy and bright, and a ranch that was running on a shoestring—should have given her some peace of mind, a reason to pat herself on the back, but she couldn’t. Because August was looming on the horizon, and already there were signs of depleting water.

  “So Fortune won’t grant you water rights?” Ray asked, as if reading her mind.

  “There’s a problem,” she admitted, and wished she’d never set eyes on Chase Fortune. Since the day she’d broken off her love affair with him, she’d seen much less of him. He had still dropped by, still somehow figured it was his duty to look in on her and Angela time and again, but their conversations were always stilted, and the joy she felt at seeing him was tempered by the realization that he was self-centered and single-minded and could never be more than an acquaintance who had once been her lover. The hard part was the way he stared at Angela when he thought Lesley wasn’t looking. Her heart broke into a billion pieces when she recognized his pain, felt his anguish.

  “Well, maybe we could work something out,” Ray offered, bringing her crashing back to the present. “You know, Lesley, I always felt you and me, we had something special. I don’t hang around just because you’re Aaron’s widow.”

  “I, um, appreciate that,” she said, but cringed inside. She thought of Ray as a friend. Nothing more.

  “And keep in mind that I’d buy your herd in an instant, especially that sturdy little sorrel mare.” His eyes narrowed a bit. “She’s a feisty one, she is, the way I like all my women.” With a laugh that ended in a cough he slapped the top rail of the fence. “I’ll see ya, honey,” he said, and touched the top of Angela’s head, though his eyes never left Lesley’s face. “Think about what I’ve said. I’m serious. I think you’re as pretty as anything I’ve ever seen and—” his eyes shifted away for a second before he looked at her again; when he did she saw a flicker of lust in his gaze and her insides withered “—I could use a good woman.”

  “I don’t think I have to think about it, Ray,” she said hastily. She wasn’t interested in any man—any man but Chase. “I’ll sell you the mare and maybe a couple of other horses, but that’s it.” She met his gaze directly, just so that he wouldn’t get the wrong idea. “Angela and I are doing fine. Just fine. With or without Chase Fortune’s damned water.” That was a lie, of course, but she pasted on a brave smile.

  Ray’s mouth twisted into an odd, knowing frown. “You don’t have to make excuses, Lesley. Aaron and me, we go back a lot of years. I know how much money this place makes or should I say, doesn’t make. I thought maybe you and me, well, we could work things out between us, become sort of a team, but—” he lifted a tired shoulder “—if that ain’t the case, then I might be interested in buying you out. I know how much the mortgage is, and I’d give you enough above that so as you’d have yourself a tidy little profit. You could rent the house bac
k from me or buy a place in town.”

  Lesley was stunned at his offer. “I—I’m not interested in selling.”

  “I know, honey, I know,” he said, and reached into his shirt pocket for his cigarettes. “But there are times in a man’s life—well, a woman’s, too, I suppose—where he has to do something he doesn’t like much.” His gaze fell onto Angela’s dark crown. “Sometimes we have to think about what’s best for those who depend on us.”

  Lesley felt a lump clog her throat.

  “When Aaron died, I told myself I’d look after you, and even though it didn’t turn out quite the way I thought, I’ll make good on my offer.” His smile was benign. “Maybe it’s time you faced the fact that this place is too much for you.”

  Never, she thought foolishly, her pride wounded as he lit his cigarette and headed to his truck. Though his offer seemed to come from his heart, she couldn’t just give up her home, Angela’s home. Or could she? Wouldn’t financial security be worth something? A house in town, paid for, with no worries about water rights, the fluctuating price of oats, harsh weather or complicated foaling. She could get a teaching job, have a steady income, and even if she wasn’t home all day, she’d have security and summer vacations at home with Angela. She bit her lip and considered Ray’s offer. Though she felt an ocean of relief when he climbed into his truck and rolled out the drive, she couldn’t dismiss his opinion.

  She didn’t really trust Ray, especially when he’d hinted that she and he could get together. She shuddered at the thought. He was the kind of man who thought he was doing a woman a favor by raining attention her way. Some women ate it up, Lesley supposed, but not she. She wasn’t that desperate. At least not yet. She’d tutor more kids, take in a boarder, rent out part of her land, do just about anything rather than become some man’s paid trinket.

  Or she could sell the ranch. Her gaze swept the outbuildings and rolling acres, the small yard and garden, the sagging fences and sturdy horses, to finally land on the pump house that was absolutely useless when the water table lowered in late summer. This place had once been Chase’s home, his safe little corner of the world, until everything he’d trusted fell apart. He’d had to give it up once, she supposed she could, as well, though she’d come to love it here. She’d grown up moving from town to town until she settled here with Aaron. Despite her loveless marriage, she loved the land.