Fortune Found by Victoria Pade Page B

look at the whole picture as a positive.
    As just a reawakening, of sorts. Like the first blossoming of Texas bluebonnets in spring to mark the end of winter, feeling a hint of attraction to Flint Fortune marked the end of the emotional winter that had come over her with Pete’s death.
    It was nothing more than that.
    So it was okay, she concluded. She could go on this pretend date with Flint, come home and get on with business as usual.
    And if her heart skipped a beat when the doorbell rang and a moment later Braden called up the stairs, “Flint’s here…”
    It was just part of that secret attraction to the man that didn’t really mean a thing.
    And finally, firmly in that conviction, Jessie got the second earring in, took a last look at herself in the mirror, decided she was presentable enough and marched out of the room to meet her date.
    Â 
    The barbecue joint that Kelsey and Cooper had recommended was just outside Austin, so it didn’t take Jessie and Flint long to get there.
    Their conversation during the trip was merely about the best and worst barbecue they’d each had in the past, and about how to get to the place. But once they were seated at the round wooden table in the down-home roadside establishment that was part restaurant, part bar, part honky-tonk, Jessie knew it was time for a new vein of small talk.
    And maybe coming up with some of that would keep her from admiring all that Flint could do to a plain pair of cowboy boots, a crisp white dress shirt and jeans that had made it impossible not to look at his rear end and his thighs every chance she got.
    So she opted for satisfying one of the many pieces of curiosity she had about him and his family, and said, “Yesterday when William and Lily were at Kelsey’s house someone mentioned the medallion Anthony wore when he was found. That keeps coming up—was it some kind of family heirloom or something?”
    â€œYou might say that. Not that we knew it until recently. There are four medallions—Ross, Coop, Frannie and I each had one, but we thought they were junk. We only learned recently from our mother—when we pushed her on the subject—that Uncle William gavethem to her to give to us. Apparently he told her to make sure we knew that they were important keepsakes that had been in the family for generations.”
    â€œThat isn’t what she did?” Jessie asked.
    â€œNot our mother,” he said, somewhat disparagingly. “We had to piece it together ourselves. We think that the medallions were Uncle William’s way of trying to help us feel part of the family, to give us a sense of connection. Which would have been really nice for us all to know because we always thought we were the black sheep. But with my mother, that wasn’t how they were presented to us.”
    The drinks they’d ordered came and, with them, menus. But rather than looking at them yet, Jessie said, “How did she present them?”
    â€œThey were our Christmas gifts one year. We’d been left with a neighbor while Mom went off with her man-of-the-hour to Las Vegas the week before. She barely made it back for Christmas morning and our only presents were the medallions. I’m sure she’d forgotten all about getting us anything else and had taken out the medallions as a last-ditch effort to give us gifts. She told us they were from buried pirate treasure, which we believed at the time because we were all just little kids.”
    â€œWere you happy to get them?”
    â€œAt the time? They weren’t what any of us had wanted, but sure. If my mother is good at anything it’s spinning a tall tale. For weeks we used them to play pirate. They were our gold doubloons.”
    â€œBut that didn’t last?”
    â€œYou know how it is. Eventually the game got old, the medallions were stuck in drawers and as we grewup we all just figured they were worthless trinkets that she’d