Their Surprise Daddy. Ruth Logan Herne

      “Mornin’, boys.” She waved a hand as she stuck a paper onto an old-style order ring suspended between her and the kitchen beyond. “I’m orderin’ you the usual, speak now or keep it to yourself when you get same old, same old.”

      “Why mess with success?” the first man wondered aloud. The three men settled at the table to Cruz’s right, jawing about baseball.

      Cruz opened his computer and brought up his email. One message in, the second guy stood and came up alongside Drew’s table. “You got box scores on that thing?”

      “Excuse me?” Surprise toughened Cruz’s voice. Either surprise, or his Wall Street, tough-as-nails attitude. Bright blue eyes under faded brows gazed back at him from a face that had known years of weathering. “I expect they’re accessible.”

      “Bring ’em up, why don’t you, so I can show these yahoos what I mean ’bout the All-Star break makin’ a difference.”

      “He’s workin’, Badge,” Sadie scolded the older man from her spot at the counter. She was slicing big, thick wedges of pie, wrapping them gently and placing them in a tall rotating cooler. Seeing them made Cruz remember the mouth-watering pie at his mother’s table, thick and sweet. There was no such thing as good pie in Manhattan. In a city that claimed to boast everything good, pie hadn’t made the list. “I don’t think he lugged that machine in here to jaw about the American League East with you. Best leave him to it, don’t you think?”

      “I get your point, Sadie. Smart as always.” The old man accepted her advice and moved back across the aisle to his table. “I’ll let you get on with your day,” he added to Cruz.

      “If we had one of them smartphones, we’d know what’s up,” said the tallest man. “My Kimmie’s got one of them, and it’s law-awful how quick she can get on things.”

      “She’s connected, sure as shootin’.” The third man stared at his coffee, glum. “No regular daily anymore, no local radio shows that do sports, less’n I wanna sit home with the tube on, watchin’. Then it’s midmornin’ ’fore we get a clean look at who’s done what unless you’ve got cable, and my monthly check don’t allow for that kind of indulgence.” The old fellow sighed softly, but just loud enough for Cruz to hear.

      They were killing him.

      Worse?

      He knew what they were saying. Times had changed and unless you were familiar with smart technology, you were stuck waiting for access to information in fewer spots than there used to be. He slugged his coffee, pulled up the baseball box scores online and motioned the guys over. “Check it out, boys.”

      “For real?” They moved, en masse, coffees in hand, and slid into the other three seats at his table.

      Sadie came by with more coffee. She caught his gaze and smiled. “Nice.”

      He hadn’t really had a choice, not when they’d started talking baseball. He lived in a city with two of the greatest baseball teams in history, and he hadn’t gone to a game. Ever. Time was money in New York.

      Time is money anywhere, his conscience reminded him. But it’s more money in Manhattan. You might want to think about why that’s become so important.

      He set the open laptop at the end of the table so all three men could see it, and as they jabbered about who’d done what on the West Coast, the diner door opened.

      “Well, it looks like the early bird has gone and caught herself two of the sweetest little worms I ever did see!” Sadie exclaimed as Rory Gallagher came in with Lily and Javier. “This is a nice surprise, Rory!”

      “My toaster’s not working, I had no cereal and I need to feed these two before the school day starts.” She smiled down at the kids, back up at Sadie, then she saw him.

      Her smile faded, but it brightened again when she spotted the crew at his table. “Good morning, gentlemen.”

      “If it ain’t the prettiest of the Gallagher girls stoppin’ by!”

      “Ain’t them Rosa’s younguns?”

      “They are.” Rory said nothing about yesterday’s drama. “They get to stay with their teacher for a little bit. How cool is that?”

      “I think it’s a fine thing, Miss Rory.” The blue-eyed man seemed to understand more of what had transpired than the others. “A perfect place to grow and run and laugh while the dust settles.”

      “Thank you, Badge.”

      He didn’t nod or smile, but the old guy’s expression indicated approval. He slugged more coffee, then stood. “Boys, let’s get up and make some room here. Miss Rory needs a place to sit with the kids.”

      “With all them empty seats?” Surprised, the taller man swept the mostly empty restaurant a quick glance.

      Rory waved them off and indicated the next booth. “We can sit here. That way the kids can see Cruz while he works.” She flashed him a cool look of dismissal, as if working on a weekday morning was the root of all evil. Last time Cruz looked, it was considered normal, but he closed the laptop and faced her as the men moved back to their original table.

      She didn’t sit with him. She herded the kids into the adjacent booth, ordered eggs and pancakes and orange juice for Lily and Javier, and coffee for herself.

      Was she not hungry? Or broke?

      Only one way to find out. He stood and slipped into her booth, next to Lily. “Morning, guys.”

      Javier stared at him, uncertain. Lily looked less concerned. “Miss Rory told us that you know our Mimi.”

      “Mimi?”

      “Rosa,” Rory explained softly. “That’s what they call her.”

      “Not Abuela?”

      Rory met his gaze, and realization sank in. “Of course, Elina’s mother would have been Abuela.”

      “And they started with Mami for Rosa, but Javier morphed it to Mimi and it stuck.”

      “Your Mimi is my mother.” Cruz looked down at Lily. Elina’s eyes gazed up at him. His heart winced a little more as he thought of his cousin’s choices. “And your mommy was my friend and my cousin.”

      “She died.” Javier announced the words in a voice that showed a lack of understanding. “She might come back. She might not. Mimi doesn’t know.”

      Lily leaned across the table, so serious. “No one can come back when they die, Javi. They have to go live with God in heaven and there’s no way back.”

      The little guy’s face darkened. He stared at his sister and whispered, “She might come back, Lily. She might.”

      Cruz’s chest went tight. Seeing Elina’s fate through the eyes of two innocent children, emotion gripped him.

      They loved his mother.

      The irony of that didn’t sit well, because he could look back and count the few happy times on his fingers. His mother had been a tough taskmaster, a woman overseeing a burgeoning business overlooking Canandaigua Lake, and nothing mattered more than her success. Her vineyard, her special events center, was straight out of the hills of Tuscany. Casa Blanca meant more to her than anything. More than her hardworking Latino husband, and certainly more than her only son.

      But these children seemed bonded to her. Was it an act? Or had Rosa Maldonado changed?

      He had no way of knowing, but he wasn’t about to let two innocents go through similar experiences. Not if she was still the tough, overbearing, money-solves-everything woman he remembered.

      Rory slipped an arm around Javier and drew him close. “No matter what happens here on earth, God’s in heaven watching over us. Smiling down at us, wanting us to be happy and strong. And now your mama is there with him, loving you from up there. But