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

almost smugly, as if she’d expected his visit. “This is sudden, isn’t it?”
    “Yes. But it has to be done.”
    “Well, we have a deal, Chase, and you have nearly six more months to make it work. I think, if you explore all the angles here, you’ll come up with a better solution.”
    He eyed the elderly woman, whose mind was as quick as that of a woman—or a man for that matter—half her age. “You know what I think, Kate,” he drawled, watching her attention sharpen on him. “I think you deliberately set me up on the place because it was next to Dad’s old ranch,” he said, watching her reaction. “Next to Lesley Bastian.”
    Her eyes twinkled mischievously. “You’re giving me far too much credit for being clever.”
    “Don’t think so.” He rubbed his jaw. “I got a call from my cousin Kyle the other day.”
    She sighed and glanced out the window. “I didn’t know you were close.”
    “Not really, but he’d heard about me ranching the spread in Montana and told me about the deal you set him up with years ago. Sounds kind of familiar.”
    “There are similarities, yes.”
    Chase had made his point. Kyle, the playboy, had been offered the ranch in Clear Springs, Wyoming, if he stayed there for six months. What he hadn’t counted on was that his neighbor was none other than his old girlfriend, a woman who had borne his daughter out of wedlock.
    “Kyle settled down. Did better than I expected.”
    “And now you’re playing with my life and, if the rumor’s true, a couple of my other cousins.”
    “Don’t forget, Chase, you wanted your life played with,” she reminded him, and ignored his dig about the other deals she’d offered his cousins.
    “You’re not God, you know.”
    She chuckled. “Of course not. No one is. I prefer to think of myself as a kind of…well, for lack of a better word, a guardian angel.”
    “What?” he asked, thunderstruck at her particular choice of words.
    “Well, that’s a little lofty, perhaps, but you get my drift. I believe everyone makes their own decisions, no matter what he’s given or offered in life. Others, like me, are there to help.”
    Chase wasn’t certain of the details of Kate’s other ventures, only that she was involved in some deals with Ryder and Hunter, his first cousins, and had setthem up in similar situations as this bargain she and he had agreed upon. Not that it mattered.
    Kate trained her attention on Chase. “I think you’ll be able to handle anything that comes along, even the problems you’re having with Lesley Bastian.” She winked at her great-nephew. “Just search your heart.”
    “That’s your advice?” he asked, clucking his tongue at the cliché. “‘Search your heart’?”
    “It’s always worked for me.”
     
    Chase wasn’t so sure that his heart could be trusted where his wallet, or more precisely, the ranch was concerned, but he left Kate and the high-rises of Minneapolis to return to his new home in the foothills of the Bitterroot Mountains. If nothing else, flying away from the bustle and congestion of the city convinced him that he belonged in Montana.
    With Lesley. You belong with Lesley, a voice nagged him, as the nose of the airplane broke through the clouds and the jet cruised toward the setting sun. You belong with her because you love her. It’s that simple, Chase. As Kate advised, all you have to do is ‘search your heart.’ You can’t keep running from the past forever. Emily and Ryan are gone. Lesley and Angela are alive.
    He ordered a drink from the waitress and told himself he was being foolish. Kate’s advice was far from simple. Or was it? As the jet banked slowly, the germ of an idea began to take hold in his mind. It was an idea he’d discarded long ago, but it was an answer, and the only one that made any sense.
    For the first time in a week he smiled, and a sense of peace invaded his soul. Yep. As soon as he touched down on Montana soil, he’d start the wheels in motion to