His Southern Sweetheart

The phone in her hand began to ring. This time, instead of Natalia’s face, Amelia’s mother’s face appeared. Amelia’s heart thumped against her rib cage. Cynthia Marlow never called after nine. “Maybe. I’ll leave my info at the desk, but right now I’ve got to take this call.”

“Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” he teased, leaning forward to brush a kiss against her cheek. Any other given time, Amelia would have extracted her business card, her real one, and encouraged him to definitely use the number. But right now, for her mama to call after midnight, something was up.

“I’ll let you take your call,” he said as he reached behind her to open the door, “and get some coffee for us.”

Amelia half smiled while watching him walk away, appreciating the view. She closed the door behind her and exhaled a deep breath. What on earth had she been thinking tonight?

“Amelia? Amelia, darling, are you there?”

For a moment Amelia had forgotten her mother until she heard her father, Howard Marlow, question whether or not she was on the line. She tapped the speaker button and fanned her face with her free hand. “Hi, Mama, it’s late, what’s going on?”

“Amelia, honey, it’s your grandmamma.”

* * *

Nate Reyes stood by his motto, No complications. Yet, since his encounter with the reality show producer a week ago, his life seemed anything but. He wasn’t supposed to daydream about what she was doing. He wasn’t supposed to stop being interested in other women. Yet she consumed him.

“Can we stop this now, Uncle Nate?”

The words registered in Nate’s brain, but he did not acknowledge them until his niece Kimber exhaled a droll sigh. As he tried not to laugh at Kimber’s irritation, the pink feathers of the boa he wore around his neck flittered and stuck to the pink lip gloss he’d worn at the insistence of his other niece, five-year-old Philly. Nate glanced up from the tiny pink porcelain cup of air-tea in time for the dramatic eye roll. For the last forty minutes, Kimber had refused to partake in the semiformal tea party her sister had set up for them.

“Sorry, Tío Nate,” Kimber corrected herself with a heavy Spanish accent and clearer sarcasm.

In the span of eight months, Nate had uprooted his life to move from Atlanta to settle down in Southwood, Georgia, to raise his two nieces in their childhood home after his brother Ken and sister-in-law, Betty, had passed away. Named legal guardians, Nate and his older brother, Stephen, didn’t have a fight on their hands for custody of their nieces. Betty’s parents were too old to take care of the girls and Nate’s parents lived on Villa San Juan, a small island off the northwest coast of Florida.

Between him and Stephen, they’d seamlessly transitioned themselves into a daily part of the girls’ lives by bringing their real estate and contracting business down South. With the help of Stephen’s soon-to-be fiancée, Lexi Pendergrass, the clan now had a stable touch of femininity. They’d even managed to take Kimber and Philly on an overdue visit to their paternal grandmother when Nate’s mother had noticed the lack of Puerto Rican cultural influence in the way the girls were growing up. And somehow the blame was placed on Nate and Stephen.

“My bad,” Nate said, setting the dainty cup on its matching saucer with a clatter. He shifted in the small pink seat. Truth be told, he wanted to end this activity but he’d promised Philly a tea party if she could spend one full day without wearing her well-earned tiara from her beauty pageant last weekend. People in Southwood thought Philly waltzing around town with her pageant crown was cute, but if she scratched the back windows of his SUV any more he was going to have to replace them. Thanks to the heaviness of the twelve-inch Swarovski tiara, the walls in the house leading up the stairs were scraped. Everyone in the family had scratches on their arms from Philly standing too close and turning her head. Even the wooden headboard of Philly’s twin bed suffered from deep grooves because she slept with the crown.

“May I be excused now?” asked Kimber.

“Are you finished with your tea?” Nate asked with a lopsided grin. He leaned forward to peer into his oldest niece’s cup, which she angled toward him with another eye roll.

“You didn’t finish your cookies.” Philly pointed out the stack of burnt premade desserts the woman in the grocery store had promised would be easy to make.

Nate cleared his throat and nodded his head toward the cookies. Kimber’s mouth widened with disbelief.

“This is beyond punishment,” Kimber mumbled. “This is cruel and unusual.”

Burning the cookies had totally been his fault. His mind had been elsewhere—in Atlanta and on the sexy producer who’d fled the minute she had the chance. Of course, finding her wouldn’t be hard. He knew Natalia Ruiz personally and if he didn’t his media connections at MET would have come in handy.

Nate’s mind breezed over Amelia once again. Tomorrow would make a week since being with her and she still hadn’t gotten out of his system. The original plan in Atlanta had been to distract her at the bar, buy her a drink or something in order for Stephen to speak with a potential client. Taking her to bed the same night—well, those were the perks of being a great wingman.

A set of keys jingled at the front door and automatically Philly’s face lit up with excitement. A deep “aha” came from Stephen Reyes at the bar separating the dining room and kitchen. He entered; the front door slammed shut and moments later in walked the future Mrs. Stephen Reyes, Lexi Pendergrass, who shook her head in preparation at the banter.

“I expected you to teach them how to gamble,” said Stephen, standing at the bar and staring into the breakfast nook in a two-piece gray suit with a gray-and-blue paisley tie loosened at the throat, “but a tea party?”

“C’mon, bruh, you know when a five-year-old asks you to play tea party, you damn well better play tea party.”

“Oooh,” Kimber and Philly chorused.

“Go ahead and put your cash in the swear jar,” ordered Lexi.

For a split second Nate scowled in Lexi’s direction as she pulled Philly’s chair away from the table. Thanks to the rule Lexi had installed in her pageant dress shop, the swear jar had now made its way to the marble kitchen counter. Nate stood and stepped over his mini chair. Stephen followed him into the kitchen as if to make sure Nate extracted a dollar for the jar. So far they had enough money to take a trip down to Puerto Rico.

“I expected more from you,” Stephen pretended to scold.

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