She and Jonah laughed at Faith’s groan, and Leo looked around in confusion.
“What am I missing?”
Jonah grinned. “The boss is scared of kids!”
“What boss?” Leo asked. When the other two pointed in her direction, he turned to her in surprise. “You? You’re not scared of anything.”
“It’s not that I’m scared of them.” She raised her voice to be heard above the laughter. “It’s just that they outnumber us, and someday they’re going to figure that out and use it to their advantage. Plus I never know how to, you know,talkto them.”
Elaine leaned in to Leo and mouthed, “Terrified.”
“If she doesn’t deal with kids, why do you keep her around?” Leo’s eye crinkles were back, and Faith’s breath caught in her chest as he looked at her with the amused affection she’d only seen in her dreams for years.
“Oh, Faith knows more about pedagogical theory than some of my college professors,” Jonah said. “Her lesson packets are things of beauty.”
She shrugged modestly. “We all have our talents.”
Like Leo, for example. His talent was looking at you like you were the only thing that mattered. It was a miracle to experience, and losing it was the coldest feeling imaginable. She should know.
She turned away from him, not wanting to dwell on the past any more today, and addressed her employees. “Jonah, did you say you’re meeting Freddy for lunch?”
“Correct.” He turned to Elaine. “Want to join me and the husband for pork tenderloin sandwiches? I assume these two have things under control here.”
“Sure. Go,” Faith said immediately. “Thanks again for parade duty!”
The pair left amid flurries of “see you on Monday,” and then she was alone with Leo again.
“Nice people,” he said.
“Yes. And they have jobs thanks to you.”
He waved off her words. “Thanks to Big Dig and the work you already did on BUILD.” He paused. “Even if you hate kids.”
The eye crinkles. The only-person-in-the-universe look. It was all back, and she was in danger of drowning in it.
Or she was until a pack of shouting children descended on their table.
TWELVE
Nothing slammed the brakes on wayward sexual thoughts like the arrival of five of your blood relatives under the age of ten.
“Uncle Leo! Uncle Leo!”
The attack seemed to be coming from all sides, and when Leo stepped out from behind the table to intercept it, he was immediately swarmed by children. He swooped the youngest two into his arms while the other three clung to his legs and waist.
He was greeted with a chorus of “Uncle Leo!” and “Bendición!”
“Dios te bendiga,” he replied automatically as he cuddled his twin nieces close and looked around. “Where is your mother?”
“Coming!”
Bearing down on him were not one, not two, but all three of his sisters, each one with an identically determined expression on her face. With a grim sense of foreboding, Leo realized why they were at the fairgrounds today, and it wasn’t because they loved gourds.
His oldest sister Vanessa reached him first and pried one of her son’s arms from around his waist. “Mom told us you’d be manning a booth today, so we wanted to come lend our support.”
Her words were friendly, but Leo started to sweat when her glittering eyes swung over his shoulder to narrow on Faith.
The second oldest, Cecilia, reached his side and plucked first one and then the other twin out of his arms. “Some things you just have to see to believe.” Like Vanessa, her gaze locked on the woman standing behind the table with a frozen smile on her face.
