“What planet are you buying?”
“While not buying Mars, as yet,” he said with a smile, “I do have some business regarding the colony. But prior, I’ll attend the first staff meeting at An Didean later this morning. After which, we’ll have a secondary meeting including some of the staff of Dochas, as we’ll want them working together as needs be.”
She glanced over. “You could, potentially, have minors who come to Dochas for shelter transferred to the school.”
“That’s a hope.”
She sat beside him. “It’s a good thing, an all-around good thing. You said when we were in Italy everything’s on schedule.”
“And so it is.” He lifted the warmers.
No oatmeal, Eve noticed—happily. Though she had a feeling the little dish didn’t contain fruit and crunchy stuff over ice cream, but yogurt. Still, the omelets and bacon could make up for it.
“And Rochelle, she’s working out?”
“Brilliantly. She’ll mourn her brother for some time yet.” He touched Eve’s hand. “But you gave her and her family closure. She told me during a brief conversation yesterday that she thinks of him when she’s in the school, thinks what a difference it would have made in his life, and how proud he would be she’s a part of it.”
“She moved in with Crack.”
“She did, yes.” Amused at her tone—not disapproving so much as baffled—he quirked an eyebrow. “Problem?”
“No. Just getting used to it.” She picked up the yogurt to get it out of the way.
It wasn’t actually horrible.
“And while we’re, more or less, on the subject of An Didean, I told you Jake and his bandmates have volunteered to guest instruct from time to time. Music and songwriting.”
“Nadine’s rock star’s okay.”
“He is, and our Nadine, in addition to taking one of our students, the inestimable Quilla, as intern, will also come in now and then to talk about journalism, screen writing, writing in general.”
She’d be good at it, Eve thought. Nadine knew her stuff, in and out and sideways. “You’re pulling in a star-studded crew.”
The yogurt wasn’t horrible, but the omelet was terrific.
“I like to think so. We’ll have guest chefs, artists, scientists, business types—”
“Are you going to guest star?”
“From time to time. Vocalists, designers.”
“Mavis and Leonardo.”
“Among others. Engineers, architects, programmers, doctors. Lawyers.”
She grunted at that.
He smiled, sipped coffee. “We want a well-rounded curriculum, as well as care, shelter, nutrition, safety. Part of that curriculum and exposure needs the law. All areas of it. Who better than Lieutenant Dallas to guest lecture on police work?”
“Uh-uh. That’s nuts.” She bit decisively into bacon. “I don’t know how to teach.”
He angled his head—then pointed a finger at the cat to halt Galahad’s bacon belly crawl toward the table. “I’ll just say: Peabody, Detective Delia.”
“That wasn’t teaching. That was training. She was already a cop. And she wasn’t a kid.”
Undeterred, smooth as velvet, Roarke laid out his case. “Some of them will be troubled, come from difficult homes, much as Rochelle’s brother before he turned his all-too-short life around. Much as you and I did, for all that. Who better to show them what a cop is, should be, can be than one who believes in the value of protect and serve? And kicks ass doing it?”
The man could negotiate with God and come out ahead, she thought. “You said that last thing to try to flatter me into it.”