Their Surprise Daddy. Ruth Herne Logan

      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?”

      She looked surprised, as if he was some silver spoon that coasted through life. “Everyone did. The vines were our legacy, the basis for making Casa Blanca great, so yes. I worked. We all worked. And my mother polished her little dynasty like a newly minted coin. As long as everything appeared perfect on the outside, we were doing an okay job.”

      Sympathy deepened her gaze, but he wasn’t after sympathy. He’d learned a lot from his mother. How to work long and hard, and take no prisoners.

      She’d been ruthless.

      So was he.

      But he was also fair. Rosa had spent a lot of her life not playing fair with others. She’d alienated workers, suppliers and other event centers with her strong-armed dealings.

      “Mimi says I can work the grape when I get bigger,” Lily told him while chewing a bite of sandwich, and he had to admit, the scent of peanut butter with fresh jam enticed him. “If we still have grapes, that is.”

      Untended vines stopped producing, which meant Rosa was preparing the children for the vineyard’s demise. “We’ll have to see what happens, okay?”

      She met his gaze and nodded, but not because she agreed. Because what choice did she have, a small child, with others planning her destiny?

      His throat went thick.

      Allergies? Maybe. But he knew better.

      It wasn’t allergies causing his discomfort.

      It was the reality he saw in Lily’s eyes, the uncertainty gazing back at him.

      Their destiny lay in his hands.

      He’d negotiated multimillion-dollar acquisitions without arching an eyebrow, overseen hedge fund bundles controlling mega-units of the economy without a twitch, but the thought of determining the outcome of two children struck fear into his heart, because Lily and Javi weren’t faceless documents, ready for signing.