Renzo + Lucia: The Complete Trilogy - Bethany-Kris Page 0,13

apologized for doing something wrong, and promised not to do it again when he still lived in the house. As though their mother wanted to believe John, but history proved different things.

The woman gave Lucia a look as they stepped inside the daycare. “I sincerely hope you keep that attitude once you really get started here. It seems like one thing when we’re operating during quiet hours. It’s quite another when the place is full, we’re at capacity, and people are knocking on the doors asking for help.”

Lucia blinked.

What could she say to that?

Nothing seemed appropriate.

“Hi, Laurie!”

The soft, boyish tone drew Lucia’s attention away from the shelter’s manager, and instead to a little boy she hadn’t even noticed was inside the daycare. He sat at a small, circular table in a tiny chair meant for children with a crayon in his hand as he colored what looked to be a purple and blue cat. Beside him, a woman typed something out on her phone before she slipped it into the bag at her side.

“Diego,” Laurie replied, a wide smile splitting her lips. “How are you, buddy?”

“Good. I made my cat purple and blue.”

He was the sweetest thing, Lucia thought. Big, dark russet eyes and pink-tinged cheeks. His dark hair curled at the ends like they could use a trim, but he looked terribly sweet with the longer hair, too. He was still small enough that the backs of his knuckles had dimples. They matched the ones on his cheeks when he smiled, too.

For some reason, Lucia thought the child looked familiar, but she didn’t know why. There was no possible way she’d met him before, but it felt like it.

Diego chattered on, and scribbled his crayon against the paper as Laurie looked to the woman sitting beside him.

“Late again?” she asked.

The woman shrugged. “I didn’t mind sitting with him.”

“Still, he knows the rules.”

“Is my brother coming soon?” Diego asked suddenly, his sweet face popping up expectantly.

Laurie shot the quiet woman a look. “I thought the mother—”

“You know he rarely asks about her.”

Lucia didn’t know what the two women were talking about, and she didn’t feel like it was her place to ask, either. Not that it mattered. Laurie had other things for Lucia to handle, it seemed.

“Listen, you can get a good look at the daycare tomorrow, Lucia,” she told her. “Could you finish up those papers for me, get them all filled out, and drop them off at the front before you head out for the evening?”

“Sure,” Lucia murmured.

“Great. Tomorrow—six sharp.”

“You got it.”

Lucia shot one more look over her shoulder as she exited the daycare, and found Diego was staring after her and smiling. He waved one chubby hand as if to silently say goodbye. She waved back.

• • •

The Cartier watch on Lucia’s wrist had just ticked past nine o’clock when she finished filling out the papers with her signature on the final line. Beyond the usual info that she had already provided to the shelter, these papers had just been a recap of policies and things that she needed to agree to adhere to while she volunteered at the shelter.

Things like appropriate behavior, no substance abuse, and other details that didn’t even cross Lucia’s mind on a daily basis. She had found the relationship policy rather interesting, though. Volunteers and workers were, under no circumstances, allowed to become romantically involved with the women in the shelter.

She wondered how many times that had needed to happen before someone decided to make a policy about it? And just how effective was said policy?

Shuffling the papers into a neat pile, Lucia scooped them up from the counter she’d been using as a makeshift desk, and headed into the hallway. She was reading over the papers to make sure she hadn’t missed anything when she first heard his voice.

God knew she hadn’t expected to ever hear it again.

Maybe that was why heat shot through her body as her spine stiffened like someone had shoved a rod through it. It was confusing, and disconcerting that someone’s voice could make her have that kind of reaction.

Lucia brushed it off, and picked up her steps to head for the front of the shelter where she needed to drop off her papers. And where that familiar voice was coming from.

Angry and bitter, the noise picked up as she rounded the final corner.

“I apologized, didn’t I?” he demanded.

“You know that’s not the point, though.”

“I get it—I was late.”

“It wasn’t even supposed to be you picking him