LITMIR.BIZ

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smiled to herself. The sad curve of her mouth mocked her as she looked at her reflection. Funny, she’d just assumed that Kate Fortune would go on forever, like the sun, like the tides. Never once had her grandmother given any hint that she was actually mortal. She’d never been sick, and she’d worked long, endless hours tirelessly. She’d been more an institution than a flesh-and-blood woman.

      Except that she could be warm and kind when a granddaughter was needy, Kristina thought sadly. She fingered the silver charm around her neck, the one shaped like a lace valentine. It had been specifically bequeathed to her, taken from her grandmother’s charm bracelet. It was the charm her late grandfather had given her grandmother the day Kristina was born. “Another valentine joins the lot,” Ben Fortune had told his wife, continuing the tradition of giving her a charm for each birth.

      As she touched the charm, Kristina remembered the way Kate had held her and let her cry her heart out over David, the one and only time she’d allowed her heart to be vulnerable. David, who had turned out to be far more interested in the Fortune name and inheritance than he was in her love. David, who had gone on to marry well, ensconcing himself in a political dynasty. Breaking off her engagement, Kristina had spent the night at her grandmother’s house. They’d stayed up all night and talked. Kate had been the only one to ever see this softer, vulnerable side of her. Kate had understood how much it hurt to discover that you had been made a fool of.

      She pressed her hand against the glass. Winter was just outside, harsh and unforgiving. Like life, she thought, if you let your guard down and made one mistake. Kristina blew out a long, tired breath. It didn’t help ease the tension.

      David and politics deserved each other, she decided, her mouth hardening. But her grandmother didn’t deserve what had happened to her.

      She thought of Kate as she had last seen her, her hand lightly resting on her lawyer’s arm as she inclined her head toward him, quietly commanding center stage, just by her presence. Kate Fortune had been a magnificent woman, even when approaching her seventh decade. She hadn’t aged the way other people did. There were no telltale wrinkles, none of the mocking badges that the passage of time awarded, like hands that shook, or a mind that became progressively more vague and enfeebled. Kate Fortune had embodied the very essence and vibrancy of life.

      That was why having that life snuffed out in a plane crash seemed so highly impossible. The ultimate insult. Kristina could barely make herself believe it.

      And yet, if her grandmother had picked a way to die, that was the way she would have chosen, Kristina was certain. She would have elected to go out in one astounding blaze of glory, crashing somewhere in the middle of a mysterious jungle.

      Leaving the rest of her family to realize just how much they missed her. How much they needed her. Not to run Fortune Cosmetics, but just to be.

      Kristina’s throat tightened with the swell of tears that insisted on forming. Tears she hadn’t allowed herself to release. Kate Fortune wouldn’t have wanted tears. She would have wanted them all to go on, to forge an even greater legacy than the one she had worked so hard over the years to give them. The Fortune success was due as much to Kate’s efforts as it was to Ben’s. Perhaps even more, for she had continued the expansion even after her husband died.

      God, but she missed her.

      Kristina sighed again. The weather was getting to her. It was so gloomy, so pervasive and disheartening.

      She needed to get away for a few days, she thought. Kristina glanced at the official document on her desk, the one she’d been studying this morning. Maybe, she considered, for more than a few days.

      She thought of Grant and Meredith and their pending marriage. And the honeymoon to follow. A gleam entered her eyes.

      Why not?

      With the enthusiasm that was the hallmark of everything she did, Kristina turned back to her desk and began making notes. The idea that had been born yesterday morning began to take on depth and breadth at a speed that would have astounded anyone who didn’t know her.

      Those who did knew that Kristina never did anything slowly or in a small way.

      At twenty-four, she was already successful and recognized as being insightfully creative, a definite asset to the advertising department she had joined. She was also driven. She took after her grandmother that way. A powerhouse who enjoyed making a difference, leaving her mark upon everything she came in contact with.

      Buffered by inheritances, completely devoid of monetary concerns, Kristina could very well have done nothing with her life but attend parties from dusk till dawn.

      That wasn’t her.

      Kristina thumbed through the folder Sterling Foster, their family lawyer, had been thoughtful enough to send on to her. There was a very lackluster-looking brochure included in the packet. Four pages in total, it featured three rather homey, unflattering photographs of a bed-and-breakfast inn, one her grandmother had made a sentimental investment in so long ago. Every word she read within the brochure generated more notes on her pad. And sketches that she kept for future consideration.

      The youngest in her large family, Kristina made certain that she would never have the adage “Last but not least” attached to her. She was never going to be last, in any manner, shape or form. She was too conscious of beinning first. Of being a winner.

      If, in winning, it cost her a friendship or two, well, she rationalized, those people couldn’t have been such very good friends after all. Not if they didn’t understand what making her mark upon things meant to her. Being part of the Fortune family meant having to try harder to make an impression. She didn’t want to be just one of the Fortunes, an interchangeable entity. She wanted to be distinguished from the rest. To do things her way and stand out.

      Like Grandmother.

      This might just be her key, she mused, turning the brochure over to the back page—even though the inn looked tacky. Tacky could always be fixed.

      Moving the brochure aside, she looked at the cover letter on her desk, the one Sterling had sent with the deed and the information on the inn.

      How like her, Kristina thought. Even in death, Kate had seen to everyone’s needs, leaving each of them not only a monetary legacy, but something else, as well. In Kristina’s case, it was a half interest in a country inn located in southern California.

      Until she was notified by Sterling, Kristina hadn’t even known her grandmother had the inn among her holdings. From what she’d gathered, it seemed Kate Fortune had remained a discreet silent partner in it for over twenty years.

      Kristina smiled fondly now. It was hard to envision her grandmother being a silent partner in anything. They had that in common, too. Neither of them had ever believed in keeping her opinions to herself.

      “The silent aren’t heard,” her grandmother had once said to her.

      At the time, Kristina had thought that the line was just a quaint, self-evident homily, but now she understood the deeper meaning behind her grandmother’s words. You had to make yourself heard in order to get your own way. If you didn’t, no one would ever know what you had to offer.

      And she had a lot to offer, especially to this tacky little place. Kristina tapped a well-manicured pink nail on the photo on the cover of the brochure for emphasis. In fact, she’d guess that the bequest had arrived here just in time. Just in time for the inn.

      As a matter of habit, she’d requisitioned the tax information on it from their accountant. It had taken some doing to find the information for her, but it had wound up on her desk this morning, just as she had requested.

      The statement wasn’t heartening, but that hadn’t been completely unexpected. There was a huge margin for improvement. As far as investments went, this hadn’t been a shrewd one for Kate.

      Kristina decided that Kate must have kept her hand in for some sentimental reason. Maybe she had even met there with Grandfather Ben for a lovers’ tryst.

      The thought pleased

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