Their Surprise Daddy

“He got your sister to agree?” The three Belkers had inherited the multibuilding estate years ago, but had never been able to agree on much of anything. While Leroy had wanted to sell, the ladies hadn’t, and Thelma had been staunchly opposed to any kind of change for years. “How’d he do that?”

“After all this time she’s gotten a bee in her bonnet about moving to a Florida retirement community not far from your grandparents. A significant cash settlement would help buy her way in, and while I say good for her, the thought of that property going to a stranger is just breaking my heart.”

She looked more angry than heartbroken, and Rory knew what it was like to be odd man out with siblings now and again. She made a face of regret, but said, “You knew you wouldn’t be able to hang on to it forever, Flora. And you’ve got this place.” Rory swept Flora’s stately nineteenth-century home an admiring look. “And you told me yourself that keeping up both places had gotten to be too much for you.”

“But that didn’t mean I wanted my family heritage sold out from under me,” the older woman retorted.

“Of course not.” Rory nodded, sympathetic, but then an idea occurred to her. An amazingly wonderful, brilliant idea. “Miss Flora, are you guys selling the property as one unit or would you consider subdividing?”

“Obviously I’m not in the know about anything because I didn’t agree with the notion of selling in the first place, but I don’t think they care how it gets sold as long as it does,” she declared. “I’m just beside myself, but that’s not a worry to either one of them, more’s the pity!”

Maddie Gallagher had been the softhearted one of the trio, Flora Belker the tough girl who stayed single all these years and Thelma Brown the happy-go-lucky one. They’d hung together for years, but with Maddie and Thelma both in Florida, Flora would be left behind, and that might be part of the angst. Still, if they would be willing to subdivide the commercially zoned property, the original Belker home was a quaint one-story set on a grassy slope, easily accessible from the road behind Main Street, ideal for a preschool.

She’d call Melanie Carson, a popular local Realtor and her mother’s good friend. If Melanie could put in an offer for part of the parcel, Miss Flora might not feel so bad about the changes. A former schoolteacher herself, she might actually like the idea of their old home becoming a preschool.

Either way, it was worth a shot, because finding commercially zoned available property in Grace Haven was next to impossible.

* * *

Cruz showed up at the White Church just before noon. He’d left his car parked in the Gallagher driveway, and walked the four blocks at a brisk pace. When he arrived at the intersection of Fourth and Maple, he was almost sorry the walk was done.

Canandaigua Lake lay beyond the church, forming a long, slim, water-filled valley between rolling, verdant hills, a picture-perfect pocket of Americana.

He walked a lot in Manhattan. Everyone did.

This was different. It smelled, looked and felt different, and the ever-present city sounds he blocked out so easily had been replaced by birds chirping, kids playing and young mothers chatting as they pushed strollers.

He’d taken a left at Broadway and ended up in the greeting-card setting he’d brushed off for years. Only it was way nicer than he’d remembered, but maybe his memories were tainted by family dynamics. He spotted a hand-printed pre-K sign with an arrow underneath, and followed it to the back entrance of the church. He went through the back door, and down the steps to the church basement.

He didn’t need an arrow to find Rory. Her voice filled the space, laughing and singing with the two kids. He almost wanted to hurry, but that would be silly. He wasn’t here to mess with her time frame, but to apologize for wrecking her AC unit.

“Cousin Cruz!” Lily spotted him from across the room.

Javier turned, grinned and waved. “You can have wunch wif us! We’re having peanut butter and jewwy, and Rory made the jewwy all by herself!”

“It’s really good,” Lily assured him.

Rory frowned at the clock, then him. “What did you do?”

“What makes you think I did something?”

“You have a guilty look about you.”

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d driven corporate moguls crazy with his unreadable face, but here in Grace Haven, it seemed he was an open book. “I may or may not have killed your air-conditioning unit.”

“Oops.” She grimaced and moved forward. “Are you all right?”

Her question caught him off guard. She didn’t ream him out or make fun of him. She went straight to making sure he was okay. “I’m fine. I just lost my grip on it while I was maneuvering it into place, and it fell.”

“Oh, dear. Not onto a person, did it? Because that would be bad.”

“A fairly old garbage can on the back side of the garage has just become scrap metal.”

She waved that off. “As long as it wasn’t anything living, it’s no biggie. But we need to get you a unit for that apartment. I know how hot it gets up there.”

“I bought one.”

“Really? So quick?” She handed Javier his sandwich, then a second one to Lily.

“At the strip mall near the thruway. That’s all new since I moved away. And the road is four lanes now, not two. And there’s a ton of new development outside the village.”

“And still a crazy amount of traffic to navigate through in the summer,” she noted.

“Is that why the town is thriving?” he asked.

She made a face, considering. “Tourism is at an all-time high. Vacationers, destination weddings, conventions, golf tournaments, holiday functions. With all the event centers overlooking the lakes, it’s pretty busy nine months of the year now. Our sleepy little town has come into its own.”

It was quite a change from what he remembered, but not in a bad way. He wasn’t one of those people who saw progress in a negative light, but he also knew not everyone shared his viewpoint. “Your sister’s place seemed busy, too. And she also seemed very pregnant.”

Rory laughed. “She is that.”

He held his phone up. “I kept this nearby. Just in case.”

“We’re all a little nervous and wonderfully excited,” she admitted. “There hasn’t been a baby in the family for ten years, since my niece Tee Tee was born. But I don’t expect you walked over here to chat about babies.”

“No.” He certainly hadn’t, but he was pretty sure he had raised the subject. “I just wanted you to know about the AC unit before you came walking up the driveway and saw the carnage by the street, waiting for pickup.”

“It will most likely be gone before we get back there,” she assured him.

He frowned.

“Scrap pickers. Dumpster divers. Nothing much gets left for garbage pickup. Someone will grab it to reuse.”

He couldn’t imagine such a thing. “People go around, intentionally picking up garbage?”

“Recyclables. Things with some use. Like in times of war, when everyone saved everything.”

He had no idea what she was talking about.

“Use it up, wear it out,” she told him. Then she folded her arms across her middle, over the tank top that showed off her small waist. “You don’t recycle in Manhattan?”

“Some, sure, but if it’s garbage, it’s garbage. They pick it up and carry it away.”

She sighed, but not one of those weary, long-suffering sighs. This was one of those “you’re exasperating and know nothing, so why don’t you get on your way” sighs. “Things are different here. I expect it will all come back to you once you’ve been here awhile.”

He didn’t plan on staying long, but she could be right. Maybe small-town interaction wouldn’t seem so alien in a few days. “I wasn’t in town much growing up. I went to school, played baseball with Drew and Dave in the summer when we were young, and basketball in the winter through high school, but once I got older, I worked the grape.”

“You worked in the vineyard?”