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CHAPTER THREE

“ H ola, Jenn!”

She smiled warmly at the lively ten-year-old boy and his more reserved seven-year-old sister when they dashed toward her as she emerged from the dining hall, arms full of a large basket of corn.

The Spanish classes she took in high school and college were extremely helpful in communicating with the local people.

Fortunately, several of them knew some English, which was great when she couldn’t remember specific words or phrases.

“ Buenos días , Matteo and Elena. ? Cómo estás ?”

“Good,” Matteo replied, switching to the English he learned in school at Dr. Sanchez’s commune. “Can we help you?”

“Sure, if you want to.” She had to shuck the corn, which would then be dried and ground into cornmeal.

Two weeks had passed since she and seven others from all over the United States arrived in San Justino.

The commune was much larger than she expected it to be—approximately forty acres.

It was once a grand estate in the 1800s, but it was eventually abandoned in the 1950s after the government seized it.

About thirty years later, Dr. Sanchez’s predecessor, her uncle, who was also a physician, had purchased the land and created a haven for the impoverished.

After completing medical school and gaining some ER experience in a Chicago hospital, she came to work with him.

Side by side, they helped the underprivileged people of the region for three years until his death.

He left her the property in his will so she could continue his charitable work.

Donations from various sources helped fund items such as medical and school supplies.

The doctor and her primary staff lived in the main house.

The volunteers shared two bunkhouses, which reminded Jenn of ones she’d stayed in when she went camping with her Girl Scout troop as a girl.

A third bunkhouse had small one-room apartments with a shared living room area for the guards who protected the place—mostly expats from the US and Canada.

The property’s other buildings included a clinic with room for a few overnight patients, the schoolhouse, the dining hall and kitchen, a chapel, and several storage units.

Along the north perimeter were over a dozen small cabins, occupied by local families, including Matteo and Elena.

About five acres of the property were sectioned off for livestock, and another seven for a large garden—both providing most of the commune’s food.

Several men and women who lived in the cabins helped care for the livestock and tended to the garden in exchange for their children’s education and the security provided by the guards.

Others worked various jobs in the town of San Justino or on nearby coffee bean farms and contributed what they could to the commune.

Jenn dumped the corn atop a rustic picnic-style table and set the basket on the ground beside it for the ears after they were shucked.

Matteo and Elena got to work, peeling the husks from the corn.

It was Saturday, so the school was closed.

All around the compound, other children played or helped the adults with chores and repairs.

A few volunteers were fixing a hole in the chapel’s roof, while others assisted in the clinic, garden, or kitchen.

It was a sunny day, with the temperature hovering around sixty, which was normal for the summer here.

However, the heavy humidity had Jenn’s T-shirt and cargo shorts sticking to her skin.

Rain was expected later in the day, but from what she had already learned, it wouldn’t change the humidity level by much.

“Hey, everyone. Mind if I join you?” Tony Barone, a twenty-six-year-old high school Spanish teacher and hockey coach from Hazard Falls, Kansas, set a basket filled with carrots on the table.

“ Si !” Matteo responded while grabbing two ears of corn and handing one to his sister.

He was a good big brother, always including Elena when possible, and very protective of her.

She was shy and didn’t talk as much as the other children, but she loved to read.

Even though she was only in second grade, Elena had read everything available in the small school library up through the fourth-grade level several times.

Last week, Jenn emailed Uncle Ian a lengthy list of supplies and other items she wanted him to send to her, including more books for the younger ones in both Spanish and English.

Tony pulled a paring knife and a carrot from the basket, then sat across from Jenn, giving her a smile and a wink.

The dark-haired man was handsome and friendly, and Jenn had taken an immediate liking to him.

On the flight to Colombia, they chatted for over an hour before getting into conversations with the other volunteers.

This was his third summer volunteering at the commune.

While the rest of them would be there for three whole months, he had to cut his time short by two weeks to be home in time for the start of his school year.

“Matteo, ven a jugar con nosotros !” one of his friends called out, waving him over to play fútbol with them, or soccer as Jenn knew it.

The boy looked at Jenn with a silent plea in his eyes. She smiled at him. “You don’t need my permission to go play. Thanks to you and Elena, the corn is almost done, and I can finish the rest. Gracias .”

“ De nada. ” He glanced at his sister, and his brow furrowed. “ Pero Elena ...”

“She can stay with me. But before you join your friends, could you run and get a few of her favorite books?”

Matteo jumped up, grinning from ear to ear. “ Si! Gracias , Jenn!”

He returned in less than two minutes with several books for Elena. As her brother went to play with the other boys, the little girl climbed onto a wooden rocking chair on the dining hall’s porch, not far from Jenn and Tony. Opening one of the books, she got lost in the story.

“They’re great kids,” Tony said while peeling another carrot. “I miss them so much by the time I get home. And then, when I come back down nine months later, I can’t get over how much they’ve grown.”

“What made you choose to volunteer here?”

“My first year, I came with one of my colleagues. Jeff was a social studies teacher, about ten years older than me, who wasn’t married and had no kids of his own.

He volunteered here for almost a decade.

By the end of that first summer, I knew why he loved it so much and swore I’d be back.

Unfortunately, Jeff was diagnosed with cancer about a month into that school year.

It was aggressive, and we lost him in the middle of the third semester.

I like to think I’m carrying on his tradition by coming here. ”

While Tony talked, Jenn felt the blood drain from her face. When his gaze lifted, and he saw how pale she was, his eyes narrowed. He dropped the paring knife and carrot and reached for her trembling hand, covering it with his own strong one. “Jenn, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

She shook her head and used her free hand to swipe at her watery eyes. Her heart ached, but she couldn’t blame that on Tony. “I’m sorry. You just caught me off guard when you said your friend’s name. Jeff was my dad’s name too.”

“Was? He’s gone?”

His voice was filled with compassion and sympathy.

Most people who weren’t part of her extended family didn’t know what happened to her parents, and usually she just told others that they were dead, without giving them any details.

But something about Tony gave her the courage to explain further.

Over the past two weeks, they had become friends, and she felt comfortable telling him the whole story.

“Both my mom, Lisa, and my dad are gone. They were killed...murdered actually, in a home invasion when I was seventeen.”

Tony’s eyes widened. “Oh my God! Jenn, I’m so sorry.

That’s horrible. I-I don’t know what to say.

” He stood, circled the table to her side, and sat beside her.

For a moment, she thought he would put his arm around her, but instead, he clasped her hand and squeezed.

“You told me that you lived with family in Tampa, and I just assumed...” He shook his head.

“I’m sorry. That must have been so hard for you. ”

“It was. And it was even worse knowing I could’ve been killed with them, but I was at a slumber party that night.

A neighbor saw the open front door the next morning, and the police were already there by the time I got home.

” She took a deep breath and shifted to face him.

Understanding filled his dark hazel eyes, and another squeeze of her hand urged her to continue.

“They called my Uncle Ian—he’s my dad’s best friend and my godfather.

They were Navy SEALs together.” The corners of her mouth ticked up slightly, and she shrugged.

“I sorta have a lot of quote, unquote uncles who were my dad’s teammates—and a lot is an understatement—but Uncle Ian is the closest to me.

I don’t know what I would’ve done without him.

I was an only child, and so were both my parents.

All my grandparents passed away either before I was born or while I was still really young.

So, Uncle Ian stepped up and took care of the funeral arrangements, life insurance policies, my parents’ wills and probate, and everything else I was too young to handle.

He stayed with me in Virginia so I could finish out my senior year, then packed up and sold our house, and brought me to live with him in Florida.

And on top of that, he found me grief counselors in both Virginia and Tampa who helped me get through it all. ”

“Your uncle sounds like a great man.”

She gave him a watery smile. “He is. The absolute best.” A chuckle escaped her.

“He’s sarcastic and protective as hell, but I couldn’t ask for a better godfather.

And now, I’m his baby’s godmother. His wife, Angie, gave birth to their little girl, Peyton, last year.

The only thing that sucks about being here is that I’m going to miss her first birthday in a few weeks.

But thanks to the satellite internet, I can Skype the party. ”

“Thank goodness for the internet.”

“Yeah, I miss my nieces and nephews something fierce.” She pulled out her cell phone, tapped the photo gallery icon, and turned it so he could see the screen as she swiped through several images.

“This is Peyton with JD, who is Uncle Devon and Kristen’s son.

These are Uncle Marco and Harper’s two little ones, Mara and Luca.

Zane is Uncle Brody and Fancy’s. And these two cuties are my friends’ boys, whom they adopted from Argentina, Franco and Victor.

They’re both eight years old but not blood-related.

Shelby and Parker flew down there to get Frankie, and when they found out the boys were best friends, they adopted both so they could be brothers. ”

“Cute kids. And that’s cool that they adopted his friend too—instant family. I don’t have any nieces and nephews yet, but I want to do that someday—adopt, I mean. Some so many kids need homes.”

“I think you’d make a great dad.”

“Thanks. I have a good role model. My dad is one of the best. My mom, too.”

“That’s awesome. They probably can’t wait to become grandparents.”

“Oh, yeah. Mom’s been dropping hints about it for the past few years, but she’ll have to wait a bit longer. I’m not ready yet, and neither are my two younger sisters—none of us are married—but someday.”

Smiling, she tucked her phone in her back pocket, and they resumed preparing the carrots and corn. A few moments of silence passed before he asked, “So, did they...um. If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand, but did they ever find out who was responsible? Who killed your parents?”

Concern eclipsed curiosity in his tone, and Jenn was glad she opened up to him.

Just from observing him over the past two weeks, she knew he was a great teacher.

His students in Hazard Falls probably loved him as much as those at the commune did, and many of the high school girls most likely had crushes on him. Maybe some of the boys did too.

“Yeah, they did. It had to do with my dad seeing something while on a SEAL mission, so I don’t know any of the details.

All I know is that the guy murdered two more of my dad’s former teammates before someone in law enforcement killed him.

” That was a slight exaggeration, since Uncle Ian’s friend T.

Carter was a US government spy, something she wasn’t allowed to disclose to anyone, for her safety, his, and Jordyn Alvarez’s, who worked with him.

“Wow. That’s...that’s crazy. I keep up with news all over the world and don’t remember seeing anything about Navy SEALs being killed on US soil a few years ago.”

She shook her head. “You wouldn’t have. The connection between my parents’ deaths and the other two SEALs, whom I also knew, was never made public. And the three of them were already retired from the Navy at the time.”

“God, Jenn. I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine going through something like that as an adult, much less as a teenager. But thanks to all the help you got, you seem to have survived and thrived. Your parents would be proud of you.”

Before she could say anything more, they were interrupted when two other male volunteers wandered over to join them.

They’d finished repairing the chapel roof and were taking a break.

Releasing her hand, Tony stood and went back to peeling the carrots, while Jenn breathed deeply and pasted on a smile.

Despite the heavy conversation, she was glad she told him her story.

Fiddling with the watch Uncle Ian gave her on her left wrist, she sighed inwardly and studied Tony’s face as he laughed at something one of the others said.

He was a nice, attractive, compassionate, and attentive man.

Why couldn’t she fall for someone like him?

Why was the man who invaded her dreams night after night the one who didn’t want her in return?

And why was she counting down the days until she could see him again?

Damn it. So many “why” questions, and she didn’t have or like the answers to any of them.