“And now?”
“It’s funny.” He gazed out at the lake, the kids, the soft wind shifting thin willow branches this way and that. “I’m remembering a bunch of things that weren’t so bad and I wonder if the bad stuff sticks better and messes up how we see things as kids.”
Her anguish over Millicent’s choices proved him right. “I think it does. Kids don’t have the maturity to discern, so hurt gets magnified.” She hesitated, then went on. “I’ve been wanting to start my preschool for the past few years as a payback for something that went bad in high school. I’d promised God I’d do something to make up for my selfishness back then. Creating this school is my personal pay-it-forward. It doesn’t fix the old wrongs, but if it’s a help to others, that can’t be a bad thing.”
“I can’t imagine you being selfish, Rory.”
She made a face of doubt. “Well, I was a kid and kids do stupid things. Anyway, I planned and plotted and then Dad got sick. When his treatment took a year in Texas, that meant Mom would be gone. We all jumped on board, no questions asked, because that was the right thing to do. And when they wanted to retire, I knew I might be needed to help at Kate & Company, and that was fine because families should help one another. But this summer I’ve come so close.” She set her hands on her pulled-up knees and leaned forward, watching the kids build castles in the sand. “My paperwork is finally done, I’ve got everything lined up, except once again there is no available commercial space to rent or buy. The site I loved, the one I talked to Miss Flora about, managed to sell in a nanosecond. She felt bad, but it wasn’t her fault.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault, it’s just how things go. So is God putting hurdles in my path because it isn’t the way I’m supposed to go? Or are these normal circumstances I need to face and overcome?” She frowned, still gazing out. “I have no idea, but I’ve either got to find a way to make the school work or get a full-time teaching position. I can’t tread water forever. Right?”
* * *
He had to tell her.
There was no choice, not really, because when the Washburn deal became public knowledge, so would his identity. Better she hear it now from him than be surprised down the road.
Gentle waves lapped against the shore, lazy rolls of water against sun-bleached sand. And on that sand, two children played, kids who had been brought to freedom against strong odds. As a woman who respected faith and truth, she deserved that from him. “Rory.”
“Hmm?” She looked back at him, brows lifted.
She was so beautiful. So wise, so sweet, so innocent in her own way, an innocence that was strengthened by faithful resolve. He held her gaze, knowing that what he was about to say would upset her, but he had no choice. “I bought the Belker complex.”
Confusion shifted her brows together. “I don’t understand.”
“I saw that it was going up for sale when I first got here and knew real estate here was prime. I had my associate put in an offer immediately. It was a generous offer, and the family agreed quickly.”
“Then you own the house.” Excitement cleared the confusion from her face. “You own the house I want to buy. Can I put in an offer on the Belker homestead, overlooking Jackson Road? How perfect would that be?”
“Rory.” He swallowed hard, then put his hands on her shoulders, wishing he didn’t have to confess the rest. “I resold it about thirty-six hours later.”
“You what?” She looked stunned.
“My associate cut a deal with Washburn Hotels. They’d been looking in the area, but everything sells quickly, and they could never find the right location. I knew there was a shortage of hotel rooms when I came to town, and it just made sense because it takes forever to get commercial zoning approval here.”
She pinned him with a cool gaze of assessment. “You sold it at a profit, of course.”
“Of course.” He held her gaze, got the gist and shook his head. “I didn’t know you wanted it until after it was sold. If I’d known, Rory—”
“If you’d known, what would you have done, Cruz?” She stood, dusted off the seat of her pants and called the kids to pack up their things, then turned back to him.
He stood, too. “Rory, there have to be other places around. I’ll help you find one. I’ll—”
“Stop.” She looked him square in the eye. This wasn’t the compassionate kindergarten-teacher side of her. This was warrior Rory, like he’d seen the morning of Lily’s dream. “I get it, Cruz. Money first. I saw it before, and you told me, but I chose to believe what I wanted to believe. Not what was in front of my eyes.”
“That’s not true. I didn’t know you wanted it until after I made the deal. How was I supposed to know that you had plans for that one building?”
She didn’t flinch, didn’t waver. “It’s got nothing to do with knowing or not knowing, don’t you see? It’s a simple case of doing what you do best—making money. You saw the chance to turn a quick profit...”
That was exactly what he’d done, so he couldn’t fault her reasoning.
“...and didn’t think there was anyone else around who might have a want or a need. And because you have quick cash at your disposal...”
Again, true.
“...you’re able to cut deals at lightning speed, while the common folk follow the rules, going step by step.”
“Rory, I—” He started to protest, but she raised up a hand, a very casual but firm hand.
“I trusted you, Cruz. How silly you must think I am, walking around town, talking about a school for needy kids, so absolutely naive. Well, I should thank you.”
She didn’t look like she wanted to thank him. She looked like she wanted to sock him in the jaw.
“I’m less naive now than I was thirty minutes ago, that’s for sure. And now—” she laid a soft, ivory hand on Lily’s dark hair “—I’m going to take our little friends home for a quick shower and bed. Tomorrow is their last day of school and we’ve got a fun day planned, so we can’t be up late tonight. Say good-night to Cruz, guys.”
“Do we have to?” Javi lifted puppy-dog eyes her way. “I was just gonna see if Cwuz would take us to see Mimi.” He tipped a big bright smile of entreaty Cruz’s way. “For just a wittle while? Pwease?”
“We’ll go home when you say.” Lily grabbed hold of Cruz’s hand on one side, Rory’s on the other, and for a moment they looked like a Norman Rockwell scene, the kids begging Mom and Dad for extra time at the beach. “We won’t make Mimi too tired, okay?”
But they weren’t Mom and Dad, and he’d just dashed her plans. Was it his fault she lived in a hot real estate market?
No.
But he should have told her the week before, before she’d had time to get her hopes up.
“She’s sleeping, guys,” Cruz began. “I’ll bring you to see her tomorrow, okay? When she’s awake.”
Javi looked disappointed. So did Lily, but then she threw her arms around Cruz and hugged him. “Then we’ll see you and Mimi tomorrow, okay? It’s a deal!”
“Will you tell Mimi I wuv her?” Javi tipped his gaze up, eyes wide. “Like this much!” He stretched his arms wider than he had for the fish, pointing tiny fingers as far and straight as he could. “I’ll see her tomorrow, too! After school, okay?”
What could he say? “After school. I’ll come get you.”
Rory took one of their hands in each of hers and started walking away.
He wanted to stop her, make her listen and see his side. Would she glance back, over her shoulder?
She didn’t. She paused at the road, waiting until it was safe to cross, then escorted the children away from the water, the beach, the breeze and him.
Was it wrong to have made the purchase like he had?
Not in Manhattan circles.
But things were different here.
Though one look at the bustling Main Street seemed to say otherwise. A large segment of people in Grace Haven worked hard to make a good living in their busy, quaint town, and if they saw a way to make money, they did it. Otherwise the real estate market wouldn’t be so tight.
It wasn’t business that was different, he realized. It was the heart of a woman with a dream, a dream he’d messed up with his quick action.
A text from Chen buzzed in as Rory and the kids disappeared from sight.
Rodney froze accounts.
A power play, typical of his former boss. Rodney liked to toy with people in a game of cat and mouse. Was Chen smart enough to have kept his personal accounts away from the business?
Business, right? Not both?
A few seconds later, a text came back and it wasn’t the answer he wanted to hear.
Both. My records were tied into my stock options.
He didn’t tell his colleague that was a dumb move. He was pretty sure Chen realized that. And at the moment, he had a dying mother and two kids to look out for, and he’d probably just ruined his best chance at the kind of relationship he’d never thought possible.
Maybe it would have been possible if he hadn’t been so stuck on himself...and money.
He called Chen. The call went straight to voice mail. Either Chen had turned his phone off or wasn’t ready to talk to the man who’d cost him his lucrative position in the financial district.
An hour ago he’d been delighted with the progress on the house and the joy that gave his mother. Rory’s reaction put a damper on that.
She’d instigated a town-wide effort to help him because she cared about others, so maybe that was the chasm between them. She put others first, all the time.
Cruz hadn’t done that since he was a boy.
Could he relearn? Could he turn off the high-finance mind-set he’d been using for years?
He pulled into the parking area and stepped out of his car. Upscale car, trimmed-out, mansion-style event center, gorgeous yard, beautiful gardens...
Standing there, surrounded by the beauty of where he’d been raised, he knew he fit here, too. Maybe too well. He checked in on Rosa. The evening nurse was quietly doing crossword puzzles as his mother slept nearby. He explained he’d be next door, then got back in the car, drove to the abbey and knocked on Steve Gallagher’s door.
Steve came around the corner of the sprawling stone complex. “Cruz, what’s up? Is it Rosa?”
“No.” He made a face of contrition. “It’s me.”
Steve studied him. “I’m weeding in the back. The crew at your house inspired me and it’s cool enough to tackle now. Come talk while I work.”
Steve walked through the gate of a fenced-in vegetable garden and picked up a hoe. He started working his way down a row of not-so-tall corn. “What’s going on?”
Cruz looked over the big garden and Steve. “Got another hoe?”
“To your left. Tara was helping me earlier.”
He found the hoe and began clearing the next row. “I’ve messed up, Steve.”
A tiny muscle in Steve’s cheek shifted up. “Welcome to life. Are we talking current, past or both?”
“Both.”
“Fix it.”
“It’s not that easy,” he began, but Steve turned, rested his arms on the hoe and frowned.
“Nobody said anything about easy. But everything is fixable, Cruz. Two weeks ago, would you have expected to be here, staying at Casa Blanca, helping your mother?”
That question required no thought. “No.”
“And yet...” Steve looked from Cruz to the vineyard stretching between the properties.
“Yet here I am.”
“Yup.” Steve went back to hoeing, stroke by stroke. “Of course your life is in New York.”
Was it? It had been, he realized, as the hoe blade nipped noxious quack grass out of the ground.
“And your job is there.”
“Not anymore. The boss got upset that I was staying to help Mom and let me go. And fired my team. So my choices affected a lot of innocent people.”
Steve faced him now, eyes wide. “He fired your group because you wanted to spend time with your dying mother?”
The shock on Steve’s face underscored Rodney’s depravity. “Yes.”
“Why would you consider staying in a place like that?” Steve didn’t wait for him to answer—he waved a preacher-style hand around, indicating the broad, open fields, the majesty of the woods, the lake, the surrounding patchwork-quilt countryside. “When God provides this?”
“You mean why would I stay at Randolph & Gordon? Or in New York?”
“Either.”
He stared at Steve, pondering the question.
Why was he planning to go back? What was in the city that he couldn’t have here in Grace Haven?
All I need is air-conditioning and high-speed internet.
He’d summed it up when he first came to town. As long as he had a flat surface and high-speed internet, he had an office.
So why not here?
“I mean, if you need to go back, then you do what you have to do, but a smart man like you, a man who’s already made a lot of money...” Steve kept hoeing as he spoke, so Cruz did, too. “Why not shift your office here? It’s not like you’ve got inventory to move. It’s you and a computer, right? And good phone service. All of which we’ve got.”
And the kids would love to stay in the Finger Lakes, to grow up in the only place they’d known peace, love and joy. “I could do that. There’s risk involved, of course, but my clients trust me.”
“And if you look around here, there’s still a fair share of old money looking for investments, and new money looking to avoid taxation,” Steve pointed out. “A lot of folks here could use your expertise. It might not be the huge bankroll folks take for granted in the city, but who needs that kind of money?”
He didn’t, Cruz realized. He’d wanted to make it big to show his mother he could make it big, but then the urge for more had grabbed hold and never let go. Somewhere along the way big ceased being enough because there was always something bigger and better, just out of reach.
“It gets to be like a cancer.” Steve leaned on his hoe once more. “Wanting more, never thinking it’s enough. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
“I’ve never been accused of being meek,” Cruz admitted.
“Neither had your mother, but when she saw the grief her choices brought—losing her husband’s love, losing her son’s respect—she grabbed at the chance to make a difference to Lily and Javi. She changed her heart and her mind,” Steve reminded him. “If your mother can manage to do that at her age, then you’ve got no excuse, son. We make the first step to humility by putting others first.”
Chen. His family. Rory.
It came clear, right then, as if the sun shone brighter and the shadows grew shorter. “What if I mess up?”
“Nobody learns to play ball or build a business by getting it all right the first time. We practice. And when we fall down—”
“We pick ourselves up.”
“There you go.” They’d finished the two long rows of corn, and when Steve slapped his neck, he set the hoe aside. “Mosquitoes. I’m calling it a day.”
“Thank you, sir.” Cruz set his hoe against the fence and followed Steve out the gate. “I appreciate it.”
“Nothing like solving the world’s problems over God’s own dirt.” Steve stuck out his hand and shook Cruz’s. “I’m here whenever you need me, Cruz.”
“Like old times.”
Steve smiled. “Exactly.”
Putting others first.
He resolved to put that into practice, first thing in the morning. Once Chen was calm enough to talk, he’d i
nvite him on board. He’d make a plan and work his plan, the same way he’d charted success all along, with one major difference.
This time the plan would have others’ goals and needs in the front seat. He got back to Casa Blanca, and pulled into the drive. His phone jangled at the same moment the front door opened. The evening nurse came through the door as Regina’s car pulled in behind his.
“She’s fading.” The nurse glanced at the phone in his hand. “I tried your number but it went to voice mail, so I called Regina.”
Regina started for the door. “Let’s check this out.”
Cruz hurried inside. He crossed to the hospital bed, not thinking of washing his hands or cleaning up, only thinking of one thing: his mother. “Mom?”
He bent low. Regina turned the lights up slightly. She moved in from the other side of the bed. She pressed two fingers to the inside of Rosa’s wrist and checked her breathing, then stepped back. “We’re slowing down, Cruz.”
His heart stuttered. His throat went tight. “Are you sure? Isn’t there anything we can do? The kids wanted to see her, they—”
He couldn’t say anymore, thinking of how Lily and Javi had grabbed hold of him a little while ago, sending messages of love to Mimi.
Put others first.
He leaned down, holding Rosa’s hand. “Mom? Javi and Lily want you to know they love you. They love you so much. And they’re so glad you took care of them, and kept them here and gave them such a good home. They love you, Mom.” He didn’t think his throat could grow thicker, but it did. He leaned closer yet. “I love you, Mom.”
Cool fingers squeezed his hand. Her eyes fluttered open, just long enough to see him. To smile at him. Her head shook as she tried to speak, the struggle for words a harsh hurdle. “You don’t have to say anything,” he told her. He leaned in and kissed her cool, pale forehead. “I know you loved me. Give Dad a hug for me, okay?”
Her eyes went wide, then relaxed. Her chin dipped down as if nodding, and then she whispered, “Yes.”
One word, one tiny, soft-spoken word, and then she eased back against the raised pillow. Her eyes closed. Her breathing paused.
Their Surprise Daddy Page 14