who will step up to the plate to oversee the children with me.”
Dashing footsteps announced the children’s race down the long, tiled hall.
“I win!” Javier fist-pumped the air as he slid into the room, jubilant when he spun to face his older sister.
“You did!” Lily hugged the little guy as if she hadn’t deliberately slowed her pace to allow his victory. “Es muy bien, Javi!”
Her voice. Her words. Her encouragement, so like her mother’s before her.
Cruz glanced down. Big mistake, because Lily stared up at him, a miniature of the best friend he’d ever had.
Cruz! Let’s climb to the hayloft! Let’s check the little goats, see if they’ve gotten loose! Let’s go bother Ninny for a snack!
They’d grown up together, cousins by birth and friends by proximity, pestering every caretaker they ever had. Only Cruz’s father had married the rich American landowner and Elina’s mother...
His heart grew tight, remembering.
Elina’s mother hadn’t married anyone, ever. She’d had two kids out of wedlock, Elina and Juan. Juan had been killed in a drug sting on the border nearly fifteen years ago. Elina had gone back to Mexico and...
He had no idea what happened to his old friend and cousin, because he’d never bothered to check up on her. Guilt mushroomed.
He kept his gaze on the children, hands linked, and a voice sounded from somewhere inside him, a place he thought he’d lost a long time ago. “I’ll do it. I’ll stand guardian for them with the teacher.”
He felt her eyes on him, and he was pretty sure he was about the last person on earth she’d pick to watch over these two children for however long the legal process took. But he was equally sure he had no choice in the matter because Elina had been more than his cousin. She’d been his friend when he truly needed one. It was way past time to return the favor.
* * *
Rory Gallagher’s life was one strike away from being called out at the plate by a series of bad pitches.
The filing date for the elongated grant application to help fund her dream preschool for disadvantaged kids loomed in late August. The application process also stated that the school site would be upgraded to meet state standards, and she needed to find this site in an accessible part of a town where real estate sold quicker than water flowing from a tap. On top of that, the popularity of Grace Haven as a place to live, work, play and pray had pushed property values through the roof, making potential sites scarce.
Fortunately, her summer Universal Pre-Kindergarten program was split between two teachers and would end in two weeks. She’d taken the morning session and Glenda Moore ran the afternoon classes. That had allowed her some time, but not much in the way of research or paperwork would get done with two kids to watch, so the little time she’d set aside just got swallowed up.
How had this happened? She’d dotted her i’s and crossed her t’s, planning work and application time carefully, knowing her sister was due to deliver a baby, and that the family might need her help at her sister’s popular event-planning business. And now...
She couldn’t say no to helping with Lily and Javi, even if their story didn’t break her heart. The fact that it did, and that she actually liked their somewhat blustery Italian great-aunt, added to the weight of responsibility.
And then her uncle had relegated her to working with an uptight, full-of-himself financial whiz, and if he glanced at his pricey watch again, she would be tempted to kick him in the shin, just to wake him up to reality. The fact that he was to-die-for handsome with dark chocolate eyes, café au lait skin and rumpled black hair would make heads turn in their thriving summer town.
But not hers, because people whose main goal was amassing wealth annoyed her. How could he be thriving in New York and ignoring his mother’s failing business and health in the Finger Lakes? What kind of person did that?
This couldn’t possibly be happening, and yet—it just had. Cruz Maldonado didn’t look too happy. Well, neither was she, but she understood that Lily and Javier were in need. Their plight took precedence.
“Miss Rory?”
Lily’s plaintive voice melted Rory’s heart. She bent low and snugged an arm around the girl’s thin shoulders. “What’s up, darling?”
“Javi might be scared.” Lily kept her voice soft, her gaze down, not looking up at Cruz. “Like, not much, but...” She leaned in close. “Just a little bit. Maybe.”
Three-year-old Javier didn’t look scared.
If anything he looked energized, while Lily looked nervous. “There is no reason to be scared, my little friends, because we are going to have ourselves...” She paused, building their anticipation. “An adventure!”
“A ’venture?” Javier’s smoke-toned eyes opened wide. “For weal? I wuv ’ventures so much!”
“With him?” Lily glanced up at Cruz and scrunched her face, clearly unconvinced.
“So it would seem.” Rory took Lily’s hand, then stood and took Javier’s on the other side. “Lily, Javier.” She stood as straight and tall as a five-foot-three-inch person could and faced Rosa’s tall, broad-shouldered, successful son. “This is your cousin Cruz.”
“Hey, guys.” He crouched down to meet the kids at their level. “I was friends with your mommy when we were little.”
“You know our mommy?” Excitement heightened Lily’s voice, as if finding someone acquainted with her mother wasn’t the norm. “You played with her?”
“We climbed trees and played in the big barn, and fed goats and chased kittens and trimmed a lot of grapevines in our time,” he told her.
“Our mom was wittle?” Javier eyed him with frank suspicion, as if the words didn’t quite compute.
“Everybody is a little kid at one time,” Rory reminded them. “We start as babies, then we grow to be kids.”
“Then big kids,” added Lily.
“And then we get to be moms and dads!” Javier added that last with all the excitement he could muster. “I’m Javier and I’m th-this many.” He held up five fingers, then forced his thumb down with his other hand. “Four.”
“Almost four. In three months,” Rory reminded him.
“Th-that’s right. Free months.”
Lily pointed up at the clock on the wall. “Can we go back to be with Mimi now?” She looked from Steve to Rory, ignoring Cruz. “I just want to be back with her and I think it’s time.”
“Me, too.” Javier’s voice choked slightly. “I miss my Gator so much.”
Rory caught Cruz’s sympathetic expression, and acted quickly. Something about these kids seemed to touch a nerve in him. A nerve that said the hard-jawed, grim-faced man might actually have a heart.
She bent between the two
