see right through them. She swallowed. “I have an appointment with Mr. Longmire—”
“What are you doing here?” the man all but growled at her.
“I’m sorry?”
The man looked put out. “You’re supposed to be at his house for the interview. Didn’t they tell you that?”
They? They who? “No?”
Mr. Tattoos rolled his eyes to the sky and sighed. “You’re in the wrong place. You need to be at 2601 Pacific Street.” He looked at her dubiously. “2601 Pacific Street,” he repeated in a slower, louder voice, as if she’d suddenly gone deaf. When Trish just stared at him, he pointed again and said, “That way. Okay?”
“Yes, all right.” She stood there for a minute, too shocked to do much but not look through the holes in his ears. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, good luck—you’re gonna need it,” he called after her, then she heard the door shut and lock behind her.
Great. Trish was going to be way late. Panic fluttered through her stomach. Was this a sign—Nate had reviewed her case and decided that her charity didn’t meet his requirements? Why on earth was she supposed to go to his house—especially if he was going to turn her down? This wasn’t about to get weird, was it?
She did the only thing she could do—she started to walk. She loved walking through San Francisco, looking at all the Victorian houses and wondering what it would be like to live in one. To have a view of the bay or the Golden Gate Bridge. To not have to worry about making rent and having enough left over.
Her mother, Pat, had loved the music from the Summer of Love. When she was with a real jerk of a boyfriend—which was often enough—Pat would sometimes get nostalgic and talk about one day coming out to San Francisco to find Trish’s father. That was how Trish found out that her father had come to this city when he’d abandoned his family.
Trish did what she always did when she walked the streets—she looked in the faces of each person she passed by, hoping to recognize a little part of herself. Maybe her father had gotten remarried and had more kids. Maybe Trish would find a half sister walking around. Or maybe the woman her father had settled down with would recognize her husband’s face in Trish’s and ask if they were related.
Trish had lived here for five years. This on-the-street recognition hadn’t happened, not once. But she kept looking.
She walked to Pacific Street and turned. This was such a beautiful place, right across from the park. Nothing like the tiny garret apartment in Ingleside she rented for the subsidized sum of $350 a month.
She found the right house—she hoped. It was a sweeping three-story Victorian home, the exterior painted a soft shade of blue with bright white paint outlining the scrollwork and columns. The curtains on the ground-level windows were closed and a painted garage door was shut. Next to that was a wide, sweeping set of steps that led up to the perfect porch for a summer afternoon, complete with swing.
It was simply lovely. The small part of her brain that wasn’t nervous about this whole “interview at his house” thing was doing a little happy dance—she would finally get to see the inside of one of these homes.
But that excitement was buried pretty danged deep. To get inside the home, she had to get through the gate at the bottom of the stairs—and it didn’t budge. How was she supposed to be at the house if she couldn’t even get to the door? Then she saw a buzzer off to the right. She pressed it and waited.
Even standing here felt like she was interloping again. This wasn’t right. Nate had been very clear—she was to meet him at the office. Trish had no idea which “they” should have told her about the change, but what could she do? She needed the donation, desperately.
So she rang the bell, again, and waited. Again. She caught herself twisting her earring and forced her hands back by her sides. This was not about to go sideways on her. This was fine. She was a professional. She could handle whatever was on the other side of that door with grace and charm.
Up on the porch, the door opened and a short, stocky woman in a gray dress and a white apron stood before her. “Hello?”
“Hi,” Trish said, trying her best to smile warmly. “I have an appointment with Mr. Longmire and—”
“Ay mia—you’re late,” the woman said—but unlike Mr. Tattoo, she looked happy to see Trish. “Come in, come in.” A buzzer sounded and the gate swung free. Trish climbed the stairs, schooling her features into a professional smile—warm, welcoming, not at all worried about the lack of communication about any changes to the plan.
“Hello,” she said when she was face-to-face with the woman. “I’m Trish Hunter and—”
The woman latched onto Trish’s arm and all but hauled her inside. The door shut with a resounding thud behind her.
“Who is it, Rosita?” Trish recognized Nate’s voice as the one calling down the stairs.
“The girl,” Rosita called back.
“Send her up.”
It was only then, with Rosita the maid shooing her up the stairs so fast that she could barely take in the beautiful details of the entry room, that Trish heard it—the plaintive wail of a deeply unhappy baby.
It was pretty safe to say that Trish had absolutely no idea what was going on. But up the stairs she went, bracing herself for what baby-related carnage awaited her.
She was not wrong about that.
Nate Longmire—the same Boy Billionaire who had given an impassioned talk on social responsibility, the same Nate Longmire who had insisted on paying her dry-cleaning bill, the very same Nate Longmire that had looked positively sinful in his hipster glasses and purple tie—stood in front of one of those portable playpens that Trish had coveted for years. Nate was in a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. That part wasn’t surprising.
What was surprising was that Nate was trying to hold a screaming baby. The child was in nothing but a diaper and, unless Trish missed her guess, the diaper was on backwards.
“What on earth?” Trish demanded.
* * *
Nate spun at the sound of the exclamation from behind him just as Jane squirmed in his arms. Oh, hell—why were babies so damned hard to hold onto?
“Uh...” he managed to get out as he got his other arm under Jane’s bottom and kept her from tumbling. The little girl screamed even louder. Nate would have thought that it was physically impossible for her to find more volume from her tiny little body, but she had.
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” the woman said. The next thing he knew, Jane had been lifted out of his arms by a beautiful woman with striking dark eyes and—
Oh, God. “Trish!”
“Yes, hello,” she said, slinging the baby onto her hip with a practiced air. “Where are the diapers?”
“Why—what—I mean—you’re here?”
Trish paused in her search for diapers and gave him a look.
