even known Elina had children. If pressed, he wouldn’t have been able to say what his cousin had done once she’d left for Mexico...but what were her children doing here, and what happened to Elina? “How are you?”
The simple question took her by surprise, but not for long. “I am fine. The children and I are fine.”
A lie. Again, no surprise. “Reverend Gallagher says you’ve been ill.”
“I have my days. Some good, some bad. Why are you here? Did he call you?”
Cruz nodded.
“He shouldn’t have done that. He should have left things be.”
“Well, the thought of you serving a jail sentence for harboring illegal immigrants weighed on his conscience. He is, after all, a minister.”
She scowled. “He’s a neighbor first, a man who knows you have no respect for the mother who gave you life and raised you. Steve knows this, and yet he still makes the call.” She raised her chin, a classic move. “I can’t imagine what he was thinking.”
She needed help in more ways than one. Her Italian skin tones were usually deeply tanned by this time of summer. Today she looked pale, and the threadbare pants and loose shirt she wore had seen a lot of use. Always stocky, she’d put on weight since the funeral. The changes in her appearance reflected the ones on the estate. “I told Steve I would help.”
She scowled. Her face darkened. “And as I have said before, I don’t need your help, Crusberto.”
The cold anger in her face used to break his heart.
No more.
He’d moved beyond her reach, and her tirades meant nothing now. “You’re wrong. You do need my help. The place is a mess, and my guess is you tried to overmanage everything like you usually do, your workers quit and you got yourself into debt trying to recover. But now you’re in too deep and there’s no way out, and you’ve got two kids to watch. How am I doing so far?”
She unwound her arms and fisted her hands. “You checked up on me.”
“No.” When she almost relaxed, he added, “I had my office assistant check up on you while I drove here, so the fact that you are bordering on bankruptcy and your business is uncared for tells me you’re on the brink of disaster. If we throw a double federal offense onto the table for willfully harboring two illegal aliens and passing them off as your grandchildren...” He set one foot on the lowest step of what had been a gracious, columned porch, leaned in and said, “You’re wrong, Mother. You do need me, like it or not.” He straightened and shoved his hands into his pockets as memories surged. “Honestly, if it was just you, I’d walk away, like you did to me so many times, but it’s not just you. There are two little kids involved, who deserve a better chance than they’ve gotten so far, and who’ve done nothing to deserve being raised by you.”
He expected her to lash out. He was prepared for that. What he wasn’t prepared for were the tears.
Her hands lost their tension.
Tears streamed down her cheeks in silent succession.
Rosa Maria Maldonado didn’t cry. Ever. To see her come undone messed him up.
He took a step back, then forward, but what could he do? They hadn’t comforted one another for a very long time.
He stood absolutely still as her tears flowed. Somewhere deep inside, a tiny longing to help ignited.
He extinguished it quickly. He’d learned how to protect himself decades ago. He’d steeled himself to pretend her indifference didn’t matter. He pretended he didn’t care.
She swiped the back of her hand to her face, turned around and walked back inside. The door closed behind her, and the click of the lock slipped into place.
So be it. She didn’t need him. He didn’t need her. But those two children needed something more than to be made wards of the court and deported.
He strode back to his car, got in and drove away to find a hotel room. It took him less than an hour to realize the entire town was booked solid.
Of course everything was taken—it was midsummer at one of the most beautiful lakeside recreation spots in Central New York, the heart of the Finger Lakes.
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Ten hours ago he’d been gearing up to oversee the takeover of a small dot-com company. That single acquisition was going to make their firm millions.
But he wasn’t on Liberty Street, signing the final papers. He’d left that to others. He was here in Grace Haven, a place he’d vowed to never see again.
He got into the car, hit a phone app and came up with no vacancies surrounding the lake. So where could he stay?
Hello, Captain Obvious. Your mother’s got room. Plenty of room. Why don’t you pretend to be a peacemaker and go back there?
He’d sleep in the car first. And that’s exactly what he intended to do, except then his phone rang with a call from Drew Slade.
“Cruz, it’s Drew. I just realized you might not be comfortable staying at Casa Blanca...”
That meant his reaction to his mother showed, and Cruz never let reactions show. It was this stupid town, and these throwback circumstances undermining his skills as a stone-faced negotiator. “My wife and I just vacated a nice little garage apartment at the Gallaghers’.”
“Is that an inn?”
“No, the Gallagher family. At Chief Gallagher’s house. I married his oldest daughter, Kimberly.”
“The Gallaghers, as in the holier-than-thou schoolteacher I just met?”
“That’s Rory.” Drew sounded almost cheerful about it. “Anyway, Kimberly and I are in our new house, the apartment is in great shape, and if you really don’t want to stay with your mother, this could give you some peace of mind and a clean pillow. I know the town is booked up. Summer is a crazy-busy vacation time here.”
It was vacation time in New York City, too, which was the only reason he was able to be here, and not in the city. His boss would no doubt go ballistic when he returned from his three-week European vacation and found Cruz still in Grace Haven. But with Rodney Randolph, ballistic was often the status quo. He’d deal with that as needed. “I don’t want to be an inconvenience to anyone, Drew.”
“The place is empty, you’re inconveniencing no one, and if you and Rory are sharing kid duty until we figure things out, you might as well be geographically close.”
That part made sense, and was about the only thing in this convoluted mess that did.
“Were you able to find a room for tonight?”
Cruz couldn’t lie. “No.”
“Then use it, man. One forty-seven Creighton Landing, just beyond the turnoff for The Square, in walking distance of everything. Just like Manhattan.” Drew laughed, and Cruz was glad someone found humor in this situation, because he hadn’t stopped frowning since the reverend’s phone call that morning.
“You
