Wise at Heart
Book 2: Arcadia Valley Series
He’s an old friend. She’s his twins’ nanny. There’s a spark. It would all be so romantic… if she weren’t keeping such a terrible secret.
When chiropractor Daniel Quintana needs a summer nanny for his twins, it only makes sense to hire Tabitha Moore. Just back from an extended mission trip, she needs the job. The fact that she was his wife’s best friend shouldn’t matter, and neither should the fact that he finds her attractive. Daniel’s not in the market for relationships because he’s just so bad at them.
Tabitha Moore doesn’t want to work for Daniel, because she knows a terrible secret about his daughters. But when staying with her sister is no longer an option, she feels like she has no choice. After all, it’s just for the summer…
With the help of Daniel’s five-year-old twins, Daniel and Tabitha start to become more than friends. Growing vegetables, rescuing a mama cat and her kittens, eating delicious Mexican food at El Corazon… all of it makes these two lonely souls crave to create a family long term… unless Tabitha’s secret rips apart everything they’re starting to build.
A Note from Lee
Wise at Heart, part of the Arcadia Valley series, was a fun story to write. I’d already written about two of the Quintana brothers, owners of a Mexican restaurant called El Corazon. I wanted the third brother to be quite different. And when I looked back at how I’d portrayed Daniel Quintana in the earlier two books, I saw that I’d already planted the seeds of his character. Daniel is quiet, intelligent, a chiropractor and single dad who doesn’t quite fit in with the boisterous Quintana clan. He likes things to be neat and organized, and when the book opens, he’s trying to get his household back to that state by hiring a new nanny for his twin daughters.
Of course, I had to throw a lot of obstacles at Daniel! Everything he thinks he has under control turns out to be just the opposite… including Tabitha Moore, the nanny he hires. Tabitha is hiding a big secret—for all the right reasons—and when the truth comes out, Daniel has to learn to deal with uncertainty and unpredictability and messiness. In order to be there for his daughters, he learns to rely on God and family in a much bigger way than ever before. And the newly-open Daniel is more open to love and romance as well.
