A Fortune's Children's Christmas by Barbara Boswell, Lisa Jackson, Linda Turner Page B

about.”
    “Shoot.”
    She cleared her throat and forked the bacon onto a plate covered with a paper towel. As he watched, she deftly cracked three eggs and dropped them into the hot pan. “It’s about the water on my place.”
    “Is there a problem?”
    She flipped the eggs, then reached into the cupboard. “There could be.” Handing him a chipped plate, she said, “Dish up. While it’s all still hot.”
    “Go on. What about your water?” He pronged several slices of bacon and a pile of hash browns.
    “I’ve got a well on my place, but it usually dries up around August, so I use the spring in the late summer and early fall. The spring fills a pond, and I’m able to pump enough water from it for the horses and myself.”
    “Is it enough?”
    “It’s never been a problem before, but—” Hershoulders stiffened a little as she added, “The spring starts here, on this place, then flows into my land. I have a lease for water rights that the previous owners signed with Aaron ten years ago. But it runs out in June. Aaron claimed that he had a verbal agreement to extend it for another ten years with the previous owner, but I’ve searched through all my papers and I can’t find anything in writing. So…I’d like to renegotiate with you. Otherwise I’ll have to drill another well, and the truth of the matter is that I can’t afford it this year, or probably next.”
    “We’ll work something out,” he said, picking up a couple of hot biscuits and dropping them onto his plate.
    “Good. I’ll call my attorney when I get settled at home again.”
    “You don’t have to call a lawyer.” He settled into a chair at the scarred table and noticed that she’d set out place mats, silverware and a tiny vase with a sprig of holly in it. She filled her plate and sat across from him. A whiff of her perfume floated over the scents of bacon grease and burning wood. He was getting used to being around her, listening to her talk to herself, watching the play of firelight burnishing her hair. He slathered a biscuit with butter and tried not to noticed that her sweater hugged breasts that were probably larger than usual due to the fact that she was breast-feeding. Though she was still a little plump in her mid-section, her figure was beginning to return. She was sexy and earthy and had started to fill a darkvoid in his soul. A void he’d decided to live with five years before.
    He couldn’t get involved with her. At least not now, he thought as he crunched on crispy bacon.
    He had too much to do in the next year in order to make good on his end of the bargain with Kate. He couldn’t be distracted with Lesley and her baby. He’d been on that road before, and it had only led to pain.
    He glanced at little Angela sleeping soundly in her makeshift bed and felt a pang of protectiveness, but he swept that ridiculous emotion away with a steel-bristled broom of determination. For the next year all he could do was concentrate on getting this miserable scrap of land out of the red and solidly into the black. No one, not even Lesley Bastian, could derail him.

Five
    “W e’re home.” The words sounded hollow as Lesley, carrying Angela in her infant seat, stepped into her empty house. As if sensing a change she didn’t much like, the baby squirmed and let out an irritated cry. “Shh, sweetheart. It’s okay.”
    But the old farmhouse felt like a tomb. It was warm enough, the lights bright, but it seemed vacant inside, without that special glow that makes a house a home.
    Stop it, Lesley. You’re imagining things. Fool that you are, you just don’t want to leave Chase Fortune, that’s all. Get over it. Setting her jaw, she walked across the kitchen and tried to ignore the fact that she experienced no sense of homecoming, no relief at being home again.
    Chase carrying groceries and Rambo were right behind her. “Stay,” Chase commanded the old hound as he was bounding through the door.
    “No, it’s all right. He can come