A Fortune's Children's Christmas (9 page)

Far away in Montana, the phone on the other end of the line began to ring.

“So that’s it,” the woman who identified herself as Kate Fortune said. “I hope you understand.”

Lesley was left speechless. She hung up, her mind spinning out of control, her heart filled with despair as she thought of Chase and all he’d gone through during his life. She’d known, via Ray Mellon, about Chase losing the ranch, his twin brother, and mother. Chase himself had once alluded to the fact that he was estranged from his father and sister, Delia, and he’d explained that his wife and son had died. What she didn’t understand was that Chase suffered from guilt over their deaths.

Chase Fortune had become a lonely, bitter man. No wonder it was so hard for him to open up, to share his heart.

Well, damn it, she was going to make him try. She’d wake Angela, drive over to Chase’s house and tell him the truth, that she loved him, that she thought there had to be a way to make things work between them, that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. Despite all her vows to herself that she didn’t need another man in her life, could stand on her own, would be mother and father alike to her young daughter, she loved Chase Fortune, and whether he wanted to hear it or not, she was bound and determined to tell him the truth.

She’d just reached for the diaper bag when she heard a truck in the drive. Peering through the kitchen windows she recognized Chase’s pickup, moonlight spangling the fenders. Her heart jolted, her pulse raced, and when she saw him stretch out of the cab, she crossed her fingers and silently promised to say what was on her mind.

Wearing jeans and a worn rawhide jacket, he walked up the path to the back door and as he stepped onto the porch, she flung open the door. “I have something I want to say to you,” she said before she lost her nerve.

“Isn’t that something?” he drawled. “I have something I want to say to you.”

Her resolve started to crumble under the weight of his stare. His eyes were dark with the night, his jaw granite hard, his lips as thin as razor blades.

“I—”

“Marry me.”

“—love you.”

“Marry me.” He stared at her for a second. “What did you say?”

She held her breath for a second. Was she hearing correctly? “I…I said I love you.”

One side of his mouth twitched into a smile. “Well, that’s handy, since I just asked you to marry me.”

She laughed, trying to sort it out as his arms surrounded her. “You didn’t ask, Chase Fortune, you demanded.”

“I just wanted to say it fast.”

“Before you chickened out?”

His chuckled was deep and low. “Because you scare the living tar out of me.”

“Why’s that?” She couldn’t believe her ears. Her heart was pounding, the world seeming to spin more brightly than ever.

He scooped her off her feet. “Because, lady, I love you. Way too much.”

Her spirit soared and as his mouth crashed down on hers, she parted her lips and opened her heart. Could it be? Did he truly love her?

“You haven’t answered me.” He carried her into the house and kicked the door shut with his heel. “Getting married solves all our problems, you know.”

“Such as?”

“That little issue of water rights. I think if we’re careful, we can work both places off the spring runoff. We’ll live in one house, keep the stock in one area and monitor what we put in troughs. Your horses will run with my cattle.”

“You’ve got this all figured out,” she teased, as he carried her up the stairs.

“It was a long plane ride from Minnesota. Gave me time to think. We’ll work together and make both places profitable, but that’s not what really matters.”

“It’s not?” Her heart was so full she was certain it would burst.

“Nope.” Hauling her into the baby’s room, they stared down at Angela sleeping peacefully in her crib with only a night-light and the moonlight streaming through her window giving any illumination. “It’s you. And me. And Angela.” His voice lowered with
emotion. “We’re a family, Lesley. If you just say yes.”

Tears touched the corners of her eyes. “Yes, Chase,” she said, overcome with a joy that started deep in her soul. “I’d love to marry you.”

He gave out a whoop, and Angela started in her crib only to fall instantly asleep again. As he carried Lesley into her bedroom, she glanced out the window to the summer night. Her mind was playing tricks on her, of course, because she couldn’t have seen the guardian angel she’d conjured up in December, the spirit named Sarah who had guided Chase to her disabled and frozen car.

No, she decided, kissing the man who was to be her husband, her mind was only playing tricks upon her because she was so blithely and deliriously happy.

She was soon to become Mrs. Chase Fortune.

C
hristmas bells pealed over the city, and the lights of the high-rises of Minneapolis were dazzlingly brilliant. A cold snap had blanketed the city with snow, and traffic was snarled. Chase helped Lesley and Angela out of the cab and into the Fortune Corporation headquarters where the annual Fortune Christmas party was being held.

Angela’s eyes were round and bright, the ribbon in her hair sliding off a clump of her wavy dark tress.

“It’s gorgeous,” Lesley said as Chase guided her into the room where the party was in full swing. Guests were dressed in holiday finery. Jewels sparkled under the brilliance of thousands of tiny lights.

A lot had happened since last year, and Chase no longer felt out of place, though he still tugged at his tie, and his boots pinched a bit. He was married, the father of a beautiful little girl, and Lesley was pregnant again, barely showing, but radiant in a black velvet dress. On top of all that good fortune, his ranch, the “old Waterman place” had turned a small profit for the year because of the value of his breeding stock. He’d decided to rename the ranch the “new Fortune place.”

Music and conversation buzzed around them and
Kate, spying Chase and his family, waved, flagging them down as she approached. “Oh, my,” she said, sighing happily. “Look at the three of you!” She hugged Lesley as if she’d been a part of the family for years. “This couldn’t have turned out better if I’d planned it myself,” she teased, and Chase skewered her with a look that said he wasn’t buffaloed for a minute.

“You look like a million bucks, Kate.”

“Do I?” She laughed deep in her throat. “Well, speaking of money, I have a deed locked in the safe downstairs. It gives you full title to the ranch. Good job.”

Chase hugged her and kissed her cheek. “I think I should thank you, Kate. Not for the ranch, but for giving me my life. My family.”

“Goodness.” She sniffed loudly and blinked against a sudden rush of emotion. “This did turn out well, didn’t it?” She glanced over at Lesley and little Angela as a crafty smile toyed at her lips. She winked at Chase and said, “Perhaps I should do this all again next year….”

Barbara Boswell

A
beaming Kate Fortune surveyed the festive group gathered to celebrate her eightieth birthday. A tall decorated Christmas tree stood in the center of the room, and red and white poinsettias surrounded the table showcasing her two-tiered birthday cake. Kate herself had pointed out that since her birthday was so close to the holiday, it made sense to combine the two celebrations. The Fortune canon of “target and strategize” was applicable, even for a landmark birthday and Christmas.

Kate felt a familiar burst of pride as she looked at the guests of all ages who were talking, laughing, eating and exuberantly racing around, clearly having a wonderful time. All her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren were here, along with a slew of nieces and nephews and their offspring, too. She adored them all.

The only person here who wasn’t related to her was her sweet young social secretary, Kelly Sinclair. From across the room, Kate caught Kelly’s eye and gave her a little wave. Kelly had done a marvelous job of coordinating this party.

Kate was well pleased at the turnout. Due to time and distance, these days it was rare to have all her
loved ones under one roof, but everybody had agreed that her eightieth birthday party was not to be missed.

“Quite a gathering, Kate,” observed Sterling Foster, coming to her side, his eyes sweeping over the jovial crowd. “Of course, I expected no less. It’s a very fitting tribute to a very special lady.”

Sterling was her second husband—her love, her best friend and coconspirator, and her lawyer. He handled all his roles with humor, intelligence and candor. He’d been instrumental in helping her with her latest plan—to bestow gifts upon additional members of the younger Fortune generation.

“Have you spoken to the boys yet?” Sterling asked.

Kate chuckled. The “boys,” Chase, Ryder and Hunter, were ages 34, 32 and 29, respectively. But she understood Sterling’s frame of reference. These days, she herself viewed everybody under fifty-five as boys and girls.

“I thought I’d speak to each of them separately.” The trio were cousins, her late husband, Ben Fortune’s, grandnephews.

She’d kept track of them since childhood; all three had grown into interesting, unique individuals. But all three were at something of a crossroads in their adult lives. They needed something, somebody, to provide the chance that would ensure their happiness and wellbeing. They needed their great-aunt Kate.

“I know Chase, Ryder and Hunter are going to do well with these gifts,” she assured Sterling before he could voice the concern that they might not. Sterling
was a dear, but he did tend to worry too much at times. “After all, I had smashing successes with my gifts to my grandchildren, didn’t I?”

“I can’t argue with that. You seem to possess a certain knack for arranging things, my dear,” agreed Sterling. He snatched two glasses of champagne from the tray of a circulating waiter. “Shall we toast your upcoming smashing successes?”

Kate clinked her crystal goblet to his. “Definitely.”

A stunned Ryder Fortune stared at the twinkling lights on the enormous Christmas tree. All around him a multitude of relatives were partying, but he stood mute with wonder as he contemplated the incredible news his great-aunt Kate had just delivered.

She was offering to
give
him a company, a design firm along the lines of the one his father used to own. His dad had intended for him, the oldest son, to join his company when he came of age, but back then Ryder had ideas of his own concerning his future.

Upon earning a degree in industrial engineering and an MBA, he had defiantly tossed aside the role of heir apparent. All of a sudden, despite—or perhaps because of—years of preparation, the business world struck him as too confining, a life sentence in a corporate straitjacket. An unbearable fate for a restless twenty-three-year-old. After all, he was a
Fortune,
born and bred—and that meant doing exciting things!

So he’d shed the shackles of his paternal legacy, broken up with his trophy fiancée—he was way too young to get married anyway!—and asked his great-
aunt Kate if she had something for him to do. Something that had nothing to do with the tedious corporate grind.

Aunt Kate had challenged him at first: “Are you absolutely sure you want to give up your future with your father’s company? If anyone was born to be a business mogul, it’s you, Ryder.”

But Ryder had held firm, and Kate sent him to South Africa to work in the diamond mine owned by her multinational Fortune Corporation. His parents hadn’t been pleased but had accepted his defection better than his fiancée Victoria, who’d staged a spectacular display of hysterics when he had ended their engagement. Ryder heard via the family grapevine, shortly after he left the country, that Victoria had married a thoracic surgeon some twenty years her senior. According to his sister, Charlotte, the mere mention of the name Ryder Fortune still made Victoria froth with fury. Ryder felt nothing at all when he heard Victoria’s name.

A few years after his son’s departure, James Fortune had closed the doors of his company and retired to Arizona with his wife, Sylvia. Although there was no longer a business for Ryder to inherit, at the time he didn’t care.

But time had changed him, and now a mature Ryder found challenge and excitement in the prospect of running his own business. And tonight Aunt Kate had offered him his own design company.

She’d purchased the once-lucrative business for the proverbial song.

“It used to be a solid company but is currently floundering, thanks to the inept and careless decisions of its previous owner,” Kate told Ryder, not bothering to mask her disdain. Inept and careless behavior in business offended her. “I have faith that you can put the firm back on its feet, Ryder. Make it a player in the field again.”

Ryder had listened, too staggered by her generosity, by the thrilling vistas opening up to him, to utter a single word.

“Take the ball and run with it, Ryder,” Kate said. “There is only one condition attached. You have one year to make good….”

After one year Ryder would either own the company outright or it would revert to subsidiary status within the Fortune Corporation, perhaps to be sold to the highest bidder.

One year.
“I’ll do it,” Ryder had declared fervently. “Aunt Kate, saying thank you doesn’t seem like enough for such a—”

“Don’t worry about thanking me. Show me results,” Kate interjected. “And, Ryder, don’t spend the entire year buried in the office. To truly thrive, a successful businessman needs balance—a home, a place to unwind. Love.” She gazed warmly at all her progeny who filled the enormous room. “A family.”

An elated Ryder was already envisioning his triumphant entry into the business world he’d formerly rejected. He really wouldn’t have time to fall in love and start a family for quite a while. After all, finding
a wife meant socializing, and he was going to be way too busy for that.

Still dazed by his unexpected good fortune, he wandered out of the party room into the long corridor, preoccupied with plans. This was the happiest and most promising night of his life.