why we pull our shades when we undress, Adam,” Jessie lectured. “So no one can see us when we put on our pajamas.”
“But you could wave to each other,” Adam persisted. “Cuz wookit, tha’s yur room, Mama, I kin see it!”
“Yes, that’s my room,” Jessie acknowledged.
“And we’ll be sure to wave to each other. Every night,” Flint assured, barely suppressing a grin.
“Oh, definitely,” Jessie agreed as if she, too, could joke about it when the truth was that she was having a silly schoolgirl image of peering at the handsome man just across the way.
“An’ wookit down there,” Adam said then, oblivious of the exchange between the adults. “Tha’s my gramma and grampa cookin’ on the barber-cue, and tha’s Ella an’ Braden an’ Beth’ny playin’ wis the hose—you kin see them all, too.”
“I can,” Flint said.
“And if Gramma and Grampa are cooking that means we’d better get home for dinner,” Jessie said, using the information to make her escape.
“Can Fwint come?”
“Aunt Kelsey has other plans for Flint’s dinner tonight.”
“Can I come back after dinner?” the tiny child asked hopefully.
“After dinner you need a bath, so no. You’ll see Flint again soon.”
“As I understand it, we’re all going to be working on the house this week, buddy, so we’ll probably see a lot of each other.”
Jessie recognized the expressions that crossed her son’s face as he decided whether to throw a tantrum or be appeased. In the end he drew an exaggerated breath, sighed it out with great effect and said a very reluctant, “Okay.”
“Come on, let’s get going,” Jessie said, seizing the moment before he changed his mind and threw the tantrum anyway.
“And Adam?” Flint added as the little boy trudged from the window to his mother. “I’ll be wearing tennis shoes like yours tomorrow, so don’t worry about the boots.”
Jessie laughed lightly at that and said, “Thanks, that saves me a fight tomorrow morning.”
“I 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 her hand and tugging her downward while he stood on his tip-toes to whisper, “He called me buddy. Tha’ means we’re frien’s.”
“That 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
Flint 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 cities or 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 the house 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 his.
Jessie’s curtains were open this morning. They hadn’t been when he’d checked last night before he’d gone to bed before closing his own drapes as far as they would go. But there was no sign of Kelsey’s sister, then or now.
He had to laugh a little, though, when he thought about what young Adam had said the day before and the fact that those curtains had been so steadfastly closed last night to ensure that he hadn’t been able to see Jessie put on her pajamas, or even just smile and wave when she saw him.
Too bad.
He wouldn’t have minded getting a glimpse of that petite body, with the great rear end that had tantalized him all the way up the stairs and the hint of firm breasts hidden beneath that oversize T-shirt.
The weird thing was that he also wouldn’t have
