Chance ran both hands through his dark hair and leaned back in his chair. He wished he’d had time for a haircut—he was long overdue—and he felt weirdly overdressed in simple khakis and a white oxford shirt. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d worn these clothes. But they were the dressiest he owned, and he’d felt like he needed to make the best impression possible. His only interaction with Poppy Digby so far had been through emails, and in those she hadn’t sounded anywhere near as fun and lighthearted as her name would suggest. She’d been matter-of-fact and straight-to-the-point about everything, using the sort of language that was probably supposed to be comforting—but not really—and doing her best to be reassuring—which she didn’t quite manage.

The dichotomy between her bubbly name and her sober email demeanor had made Chance curious enough to google her. But that hadn’t helped at all, because in every picture he’d seen of her, she looked like a pin-striped pixie, something that just added to the puzzle. Her bio on the website of the Boston law firm where she worked had been even less helpful, telling him little more about her than her educational and professional credentials. Which, yeah, were impressive, but they still didn’t seem to suit her. Not a word about her interests or what she might do for entertainment, which were normally included in a lot of professional profiles. Unless maybe the part about how she spent her spare time reading biographies of economists and pursuing an interest in cacti was supposed to cover that.

All Chance knew for sure about her was that she was bringing his niece and nephew, Quinn and Finn—Seriously, Logan? You had to give them names like that?—to her firm’s sister law office here in Endicott, and they’d be arriving this morning at 9:30 a.m. sharp. That had been twenty-five minutes ago. Tardiness was another thing that didn’t seem to fit Poppy Digby. It only added to the surreal quality of his own life at the moment.

Two kids. Chance was going to be responsible for raising two kids. What the hell had Logan and his wife been thinking to name him as their preferred choice of guardian for their children? There had to have been dozens of people in their current lives who would be more familiar to the kids and better prepared to take on a task like that.

It was hard not to be angry at his brother for not telling him. For six years, Chance could have been the fun uncle, mailing off Christmas gifts and cash-stuffed birthday cards to the next generation of Foleys. Having the kids visit every summer to get to know them better, or flying up to Boston himself once in a while to let them show him their favorite places to visit in their hometown.