Falling for Fortune

by Nancy Robards Thompson

  He fully intended to seize that chance and make things work between them.

  Today was the day of the Spring Fling. He and Kinsley had met at the fairgrounds early to get everything in place inside the white tents. Hank from maintenance had generously agreed to transport the putting green in his pickup truck. The guy had even taken it upon himself to build a wooden platform to keep the green out of the dirt.

  Christopher made a mental note to get Hank a gift card to Red or something else he would enjoy. He had gone out of his way transporting the putting green on his day off. Building the platform was above and beyond.

  But Christopher was beginning to learn that was how everything worked at the Foundation. They were all one big family. They helped and supported each other.

  After he finished getting the balloons in place, Kinsley introduced him to a young pregnant woman named Tonya Harris who had agreed to help them today. He realized she was the teenager Kinsley was coaching through Lamaze.

  Along with their anti-bullying message, the Foundation was also teaching self-esteem. The two went hand-in-hand. If a teen had low self-esteem, he or she might be more apt to fall prey to bullies. Bullies didn’t all come in the same package. Sometimes the bully was the enemy. Other times the bully might be the boyfriend who pressured his girlfriend to have sex against her better judgment.

  If they could save even one young woman from ending up pregnant and alone like Tonya, then he would consider this program a success.

  He admired the way Kinsley spoke to the teenager like a friend, asking her advice on the placement of chairs and even entrusting her with manning the table where kids would pick up information and sign the anti-bullying pledge cards.

  By the time the Spring Fling was open and running at nine o’clock, they actually looked as if they knew what they were doing. Music was playing from a sound system he had secured through one of his contacts. The putting green, which he was in charge of, looked pretty cool on its custom-made, green-painted plywood perch. Kinsley had wrapped a large rectangular box, where the kids would enter the drawing for the various prizes they were offering.

  He thought back to Thursday when he’d been talking about what a great team they made. It was the truth. Look at everything that they had accomplished working together in such a short time. They seemed to have the same vision. There was a synergy between them, and if he had to spend an entire year proving himself to her, he would.

  She was worth it.

  As Christopher was demonstrating proper putting technique to a young boy who was frustrated because he couldn’t seem to sink a hole in one, Lily Cassidy Fortune, who had created the Foundation in memory of her late husband, Ryan, who had succumbed to a brain tumor nine years ago, walked up and beamed at him, just as the boy sank his first putt. The kid let out a cheer and Lily clapped for him. After Christopher handed him his prize of two movie tickets and directed him to the table where Tonya could help him with the pledge card, Lily greeted Christopher as warmly as if he were part of her own family. It dawned on him that they actually were related somewhere down the line.

  “I came over here purposely to shake the hand of the person who has been doing such a great job getting the word out to the community about the Foundation,” she said. She gestured around the tent. “This is just magnificent. It’s exactly the direction that I am proud to see the Foundation going. I know my Ryan would’ve been proud of this, too.”

  A pang of guilt spurred on by her genuine affection and appreciation stabbed Christopher. He glanced over at Kinsley and saw her helping a kid fill out an entry form for the drawing. There was no way he could stand here and take all the credit, especially when she was over there doing all the work.

  “I appreciate you coming by, Mrs. Fortune,” he said.

  She put a hand on his arm. “Oh, please, do call me Lily. All my family does.”

  Christopher smiled at her generosity. “I would be honored to, thank you. If you have a moment, I want you to meet somebody who has been instrumental in putting together what you see here, and, I suspect, everything you’ve heard about the community outreach program.”

  “I absolutely have time.”

  Christopher motioned her over to the table where Kinsley sat with Tonya. Kinsley looked up and smiled at the two of them, genuine warmth radiating from her eyes.

  “Lily Cassidy Fortune,” he said, giving Kinsley a significant look. “I would like for you to meet Kinsley Aaron. She is an outreach coordinator for the Foundation and has tirelessly worked to put together everything you see today and more.”

  Christopher saw a faint hint of pink color Kinsley’s cheeks as she stood and offered her hand to Lily.

  “It is such an honor to meet you, Mrs. Fortune,” she said. “I’m proud to work for such an incredible organization. The Foundation took a chance on me when I had very little experience—I’m still going to school. Their faith in me has made me want to work even harder to connect the Foundation with the Red Rock community. However, you need to know that this guy right here is doing incredible work. He is making a real difference. He has a great vision and nice way about him that everybody seems to love.”

  Kinsley’s eyes sparkled good-naturedly, but the real meaning of what she said wasn’t lost on Christopher. He smiled back at her and quirked a brow, sending a message that she was the only person he wanted to love.

  Chapter Ten

  Christopher was right—they had been working hard. The turnout at the booth had been better than Kinsley had ever dreamed it would be.

  When they started, she was afraid they were going to have prizes to spare. But because of the fabulous response, they were having to tell the kids that they would do the drawings on the hour and that they had to be present to win. At the start of each hour, kids of all ages would cluster around the tent to hear the name of the lucky person whose name had been drawn from the box.

  Each time a name was announced the crowd would cheer wildly. It struck Kinsley that even this was bringing the kids together. There seemed to be no rivalry or resentment from those who didn’t win. Of course, Kinsley always made sure to announce that they could win prizes, like T-shirts, rubber bracelets and water bottles, instantaneously by signing the pledge card. Maybe these kids just needed a common meeting ground.

  The crowd was dispersing after the most recent drawing, and for the first time since they had arrived Kinsley had a chance to step back and look around. Every single volunteer who had signed up to work the booth had shown up. Most of them were even hanging around after their shift was over. In fact, right now they had a plethora of help.

  So when Christopher suggested that they take a break, she only hesitated for a moment. She was thirsty and what she wouldn’t give for a bite of the cotton candy that she had seen the kids enjoying.

  “Okay, but only if you promise we can go get some cotton candy,” she said.

  “Ahh, cotton candy. The way to Kinsley’s heart.”

  She tried to ignore the butterflies that swarmed when he said that. She was beginning to realize he was an insufferable flirt. He couldn’t help it any more than he could help the fact that his hair was blond and his eyes were a shade of blue that matched the clear spring sky.

  She couldn’t seem to help the fact that she noticed things like that about him. But what she had also noticed, she thought as they walked away from the Foundation tent, was that he had a much bigger heart than she had initially given him credit for. A lot of his bravado was to cover the insecurities of his upbringing.

  She silently vowed to never judge another person until she learned their story. After all, who would’ve known that slick-dressing, fancy-car-driving Christopher Fortune had actually come from very humble roots? He may have been a Fortune by name, but his modest upbringing really was at the heart of everything he did.

  After they grabbed some cotton c
andy to share, Christopher won her a giant teddy bear at the arcade shooting gallery.

  “You surprise me every day,” she said. “I never imagined that you’d ever even held a gun, much less that you knew how to use one. You’re a pretty sharp shot.”

  “And that’s just the start of my good qualities,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows comically. “If you don’t believe me, just give me a chance to prove myself.”

  His free arm, the one that wasn’t holding the teddy bear, lightly brushed against hers as they walked side by side through the fair. The skin-on-skin contact made her shudder with a strange anticipation and an emotion that she couldn’t remember ever feeling.

  “You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” Christopher said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Ride on the Ferris wheel with a beautiful woman,” he said.

  Kinsley rolled her eyes at him. “You are too cheesy for words sometimes,” she said.

  He laughed and and nudged her with his arm. This time the contact was on purpose. She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d felt the same electricity the last time their arms brushed.

  They made small talk as they made their way over to the Ferris wheel. By a stroke of luck the line was negligible. They were seated and the ride was in motion in less than five minutes.

  With the giant teddy bear at her feet, the warm sun on her face and Christopher sitting next to her, Kinsley couldn’t remember ever feeling so content or so free. When their car stopped at the top of the wheel, she felt as if she could see all the way to San Antonio. It was magical up there.

  The car rocked a little and Kinsley gripped the safety bar that stretched across their legs.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, stretching an arm around her and pulling her to him. “I’ll keep you safe.”

  It was as if they were alone in their own little world. Kinsley leaned into Christopher, relishing how they seemed to fit so perfectly together. And when Christopher lowered his head to taste her lips, she didn’t resist. In fact, she met him halfway.

  All too soon, the car was moving again, breaking the spell and propelling them back into the real world. The only thing different was that Christopher did not remove his arm from around her shoulder until they stepped off the ride.

  She wished that they could continue strolling around the fair hand in hand, stealing kisses and sharing cotton candy. But work called. They strolled back to the booth, not touching, looking as platonic as two coworkers ever looked walking with a giant teddy bear between them.

  “You’re an only child, right?” Christopher asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How did you get to be so good with kids? You really are a natural. I thought only children were supposed to have a hard time empathizing with others. And that was supposed to be a joke but it didn’t come out very well.”

  She smiled as he pretended to knock himself up the side of his head with the palm of his hand. “Just because I was an only child doesn’t mean I can’t relate to people, Christopher.”

  “What I’m trying so ineloquently to say is that I love watching you with the kids. They really listen to you and respect you. I think kids have a natural B.S. meter. They can tell when someone is sincere and when they’re not. You’re really good at what you do.”

  Her natural inclination was to make a joke out of his compliment or to spit out some snarky retort. But the words got caught in her throat. All she could manage was a choked “Thank you.”

  She cleared her throat. “I feel so lucky to do what I do, to have a job where I have an opportunity to make a real difference.”

  Christopher smiled. “Only-child anomaly number two—you’re not selfish, either.”

  She felt her cheeks warming. “Would you stop with the compliments, already?” She shot him a smile so that he knew she was kidding. “Thank you. But good grief, if you keep this up my head is going to swell as big as the bouncy castle over in the kids’ area.”

  “If it does, you’ll have good reason.”

  “Christopher...”

  “How did you meet Tonya?”

  She smiled at the mention of the sweet teenage girl. “I met her at the high school a few months ago when I was there doing a presentation for Principal Cramer. She had just found out she was pregnant. Her parents had kicked her out of the house, and she really didn’t have anywhere else to go. The boyfriend lives over in San Antonio and dumped her as soon as he found out they were going to be parents. She had slept at the bus station the night before and had almost gotten on a bus to San Antonio to try to talk to the boyfriend. The only thing that stopped her was that she didn’t have enough money for a ticket. She went to school the next day because she didn’t have any place else to go. I feel like it was divine intervention that I was there for her.”

  Christopher raked his hand through his hair. It wasn’t a gesture of vanity as much as what seemed to be an expression of disbelief. The astonishment in his eyes spoke volumes.

  “She broke down that day and cried and cried, right in my arms. I cried with her. And then I told her that she was allowed to have a twenty-four-hour pity party, but after that she needed to be strong for both her sake and the baby’s. She stayed at my apartment that night and I went with her to talk to her parents the next day. They let her come back and that’s where she is now. Her grades are good and she’ll miss a little school when she has the baby in about three months, but I’ve already talked to the principal and we’ve arranged for her to do schoolwork while she’s out. Her mother is going to watch the baby during the day, and she might have to get an after-school job to afford diapers, but she should be okay. I just keep telling her the most important thing is that she can’t get behind on her schoolwork and she can’t just give up. If she doesn’t, everything will be fine.”

  Kinsley shrugged at a loss for what else to say.

  “Isn’t that what everybody needs sometimes?” Christopher said. “For somebody to tell them that they can do it? That the road ahead may be hard, but if they’re persistent everything will be fine. Kinsley, you may have saved that girl’s life. You helped her smooth things over with her family so that she has the support she needs until she graduates and gets a full-time job.”

  She didn’t know what to say. So she didn’t say anything for a long while as they walked. Then she identified one of the feelings knotted in her belly. It was shame.

  “I meant what I said to Lily Fortune earlier. You really have done a good job. I didn’t give you enough credit when you first started. I thought you were just trading on your name and your good looks.”

  “Oh, well, you’ve got to cut a guy a break in the trading-on-his-looks department.” He shrugged and did a Justin Bieber-ish shake of his head, despite the fact that his close-cropped hair didn’t move.

  She knew he was kidding, but she couldn’t resist egging him on. “And here I thought you were the humble Fortune—”

  Her words were eclipsed by a commotion coming from the Foundation tent. She and Christopher exchanged a concerned glance and jogged over to the tent to see what was happening.

  A sluggish-looking teenage boy was standing in an aggressive pose over Tonya, who was still seated at the table. The two were exchanging heated words. When Tonya stood and backed away from the guy, he reached out a hand, grabbed the back of her T-shirt and pulled hard. Tonya stumbled and immediately put her hands up, as if to shield herself from a blow. That’s all it took for Kinsley to break into a sprint and put herself between Tonya and the boy.

  “What the heck do you think you’re doing?” she said to the guy. She got right in his face, determined to prove that she wasn’t afraid of him. She looked the thug square in the eyes but kept her voice level and low as she spoke with authority. “You need to leave now. Now. Or I am going to call the police and have them escort you out of here.”

 
A cocky sneer spread slowly over the guy’s face. He was tall, but he was skinny. And although she didn’t want to lay a hand on him, she was perfectly prepared to practice a few self-defense moves that she had learned over the years.

  “I’m just here to talk to my baby mama,” he said.

  “It didn’t look like you were talking to her. It looked like you were upsetting her.”

  “I don’t need you interfering with me and my family,” the thug said.

  Kinsley sneered right back at him. “Oh, then you must be Jared. I’ve heard about you, Jared.”

  The kid seemed to flinch at the revelation that Kinsley knew him. “I think Tonya’s dad would like to have a conversation with you. In fact, he’s supposed to be stopping by any minute. Why don’t you have a seat over there and wait for them?”

  Kinsley could honestly say it was the first time she had seen all the blood drain from a person’s face. Jared didn’t say another word. He turned and sprinted away. It was only then that Kinsley realized that Christopher was standing right next to her, looking as if he was ready to spring into action if Jared had made one false move.

  He squeezed her arm. “Why don’t you see to Tonya? I’ll deal with the crowd.” He motioned with his head to the knot of onlookers that had gathered to watch the confrontation.

  “Thank you,” she said, giving him a squeeze back.

  Tonya was huddled in the far corner of the tent, sobbing.

  “Honey, I’m so sorry. Did he hurt you?”

  Tonya shook her head as tears streamed down her face.

  “What did he want?” Kinsley asked this question only to find out if Jared had been coming around other times or if this happened to be a chance encounter.

  “Nothing,” Tonya said. “He was just being disgusting. He’s here at the Spring Fling with his buddies and he just wanted to act like a jerk.”

  And nobody had stepped in to help her.

  “How long had you been standing there before I got back?”