Their Surprise Daddy

But smart, too, because with Kimberly’s baby due, Rory might have to help her sister Emily run the event-planning business their mother had built. Kimberly had taken on Kate & Co. a year ago as their father fought brain cancer in a Texas treatment center, but she’d need time off now and the girls had pledged support for one another while their father recovered.

“Miss Rory, you’re not hungry?” Lily settled her hand on Rory’s forearm. “Not even a little bit?”

“I’m not a breakfast eater, darling.”

“Mimi says we have to eat in the morning.” Javier stared at his almost full plate and frowned. “I weally like just playing in th-th-the morning.” A tiny stutter plagued him when he got nervous or tired. “I wike that the most.”

Rory sympathized completely. “We’ll have Sadie box that up and you can have it at snack time, okay?”

“Weally?” His face perked up. “You don’t mind?”

“Dude, I get really annoyed when people push food on me. I know when I’m hungry. I know when I’m not. We’re all different, right?”

“Sure!” He looked downright excited by the thought of having a choice in the matter.

Sadie came by just then. “I heard those words of wisdom and I’ll take care of that right now, darlins. Lily, I cannot believe you wolfed that down. You go, girl!”

“I love pancakes!” Lily almost sang the words. “And I love coming to fancy restaurants and having food, Sadie! Thank you for being so nice to us!”

“Oh, my sweet thing.” Sadie crossed back to the counter, flipped out a foam to-go box and came back to the table as more folks filtered in through the door. “It is my sincere pleasure to be nice to my customers.”

“It is?” Javier peeked up as if her words were really special.

“Indeed. I am not one to blow sunshine at anyone, my friend. If Sadie says it—” the robust woman put her hands on her hips and offered Javier a sage expression “—Sadie means it.”

“It’s my p-p-pleasure to come here, too.” Javier dimpled when he told her, clearly pleased. “It’s s-s-such a nice place, Sadie.”

“Oh, you precious little thing!” Sadie beamed at them, then started walking away.

Rory called her back. “Sadie, I need the check. Is it in your pocket?”

“No check today, honey. A kindly benefactor has taken care of it.”

Did she just say the check had been paid? The only person who’d gone near the cash register was Cruz. She didn’t need him to buy her breakfast; she wasn’t broke, she was financially challenged. She’d avoided a full-time teaching position because she had other plans, plans that were being threatened, yet again.

Sue Collingsworth stepped into the diner as they were sliding out of the booth. She looked totally put together, like always. A stab of guilt dredged up a wave of emotion inside Rory, exacerbated by current events with Lily and Javier.

She’d longed for Sue’s friendship in junior high. She’d have done anything to hang out with the cool crowd, the gorgeous girls who were always in the know about everything. She’d thought so much about looks and reputation back then that she’d sacrificed her one true friend: Millicent Rodriguez, the daughter of a Dominican maid at the elegant Lakeside Inn. They’d been inseparable as kids, romping down the beach, dashing back and forth between the stately inn and Rory’s house.

And then she’d messed it all up by wanting to be part of the cool crowd.

So young. So foolish. And utterly selfish.

She’d been accepted by the cool crowd, probably because her sister had been a pageant queen. But they’d shunned Millicent.

And so had she.

When her childhood friend ended up dead from a drug overdose fifteen months later, Rory had to face the consequences of her actions. Would Millicent have joined the drug crowd if Rory had stuck by her?

Probably not, and the truth of that had stayed with Rory all this time. Now it was her turn to make a difference, and her planned preschool and kindergarten would do just that.

“Rory.” Susan lifted two perfect brows slightly, almost as if pained to acknowledge her presence. “How are you?”

“Fine, thank you. And—”

“Miss Wory! I’ve got to go potty, bad!”

Susan noted the presence of the children as if suffering stomach pangs, and when Lily reached out a hand to touch the sparkles running from shoulder to hip on her dress, Susan stepped back to avoid contact.

She was a rude, insufferable person back then, and not much had changed, but Rory had followed her around like a needy pup. No more.

She stooped low to reassure the little fellow. “Well, let’s take care of that before we walk to school, okay, my friend?”

Javi did a dance-hop step of urgency, nodding.

“May I sit at the counter while you go?” Lily climbed onto one of the taller counter stools. “I can talk to Miss Sadie, and twirl!” She spun the seat around, laughing.

“Yes, but keep your feet tucked so people can get around you. And use your indoor voice, remember?”

Lily nodded, and put two hands over her mouth. “Got it,” she whispered, grinning.

Susan said nothing more.

Just as well. They really had nothing to say to one another beyond hello. She walked Javi to the restrooms, then afterward held his hand while they strolled toward the White Church.

She’d learned a harsh lesson at a young age.

She’d watched the well-to-do crowd hurt other kids’ feelings, and had done nothing to stop it. She’d watched them reject kids who didn’t have as much, then treat them as failures. And when Millicent succumbed to an overdose, Rory had understood the tragic results of inaction. When Lily revealed that her mother had gone to heaven, Rory had had a major wake-up call.

Rosa didn’t have legal guardianship, and the children’s paperwork had been misrepresented. As a teacher, she was required to be upfront and honest, which meant if these kids needed help, she’d be wrong to deny it to them.

If Rosa had obeyed the law, there would have been no mess to unravel, but she hadn’t and Rory had had no choice but to reveal the information to authorities two days ago.

“Miss Rory?”

“Yes, Lily?” She tipped her gaze down. Two sad brown eyes gazed up at her.

“Thank you for letting us stay with you.” She gripped Rory’s hand tighter in a show of emotion. “I would have been a little scared with someone else. Except Mimi,” she amended quietly. “But I don’t like being with strangers.”

“I don’t wike them, either.” Javier shook his head with boyish vehemence. “I just wike people I know.”

“And let us not grow weary of doing good...” Paul’s words, as he reminded the Galatians to keep heart. As Lily clung to one hand and Javier gripped the other, emotion welled within her. She would put their needs first, and somehow, someway, she’d finagle time to get the paperwork done and submitted to the state before the deadline. If it meant little sleep for a few weeks, well...

That was the sacrifice she’d have to make. As they walked south on Main Street, Flora Belker flagged her down. “Rory, got a minute?”

She didn’t, but she’d make time for Flora. Flora and Rory’s grandmother had been best friends since childhood, and when Grandma Gallagher came up to visit from her retirement spot on Florida’s Gulf Coast, she and Flora would sit, laugh and talk for hours. Flora missed Maddie Gallagher tremendously. “Of course I do! What’s up?”

“I am fit to be tied.” Flora had been watering her lawn, always lush and green and weed-free, but she turned the water off and braced her hands on her hips. “My brother is finally getting his way and the Belker block is going to go up for sale despite my objections.”