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Luckily, she absolutely adored Lucas as if he were her own little brother. And lucky for Ian, that love extended to Lucas’s family. Even if she couldn’t do anything for him, she’d at least try to make sure that everything happening was by the book.
Turning away from the sounds of ICE agents rummaging through his kitchen and harassing his staff, Ian looked down at his magazine and frowned at his image on the cover. The presence of ICE in his domain felt like a dirty smear across his perfect dream.Five fucking hours.
It took Ian five hours to get rid of the ICE agents. They lingered in his restaurant as if they had nowhere else to be. And through it all, they found absolutely nothing. Not that Ian thought they’d find a damn thing.
Every one of his employees had a proper ID and credentials, proving they were in the country legally. Only Enzo was a foreign citizen, but he had all his papers proving that he had a visa to work legally in the United States.
And then the damn dogs. He loved animals but not in his freaking kitchen!
Sarah had come to Rialto immediately, but it was clear that there wasn’t a damn thing she could do, thanks to the warrant. She’d stayed every minute though, making sure that not one of his employees were harassed or dragged off. The agents quickly learned to give the tiny woman a wide berth.
By the time the ICE agents were gone and Ian had his restaurant back, they were well into the dinner rush. But they couldn’t cook. Too many people and dogs had trekked through the kitchen, touching the food, the counters, and the equipment. Everything had to be thrown out or scrubbed down.
To his chagrin, the restaurant was forced to close for the night so they could properly clean. Customers had to be called so their reservations could be canceled and rescheduled as best as they possibly could.
It was after midnight when the lights were turned off and the doors were locked. Ian sat alone in his office, exhausted and angry. He couldn’t understand why anyone would make such a report against his restaurant. It was absolutely ridiculous. There was a part of him that wondered if ICE had even gotten the right restaurant, if it had all been a stupid mix-up. He tried to reassure himself that it was all over and that life would now return to normal.
Besides…he had a sexy husband to get home to.Chapter TwoCity lights decorated the night, passing in a blur as Hollis focused on the road. A cool front had moved into Cincinnati, allowing Hollis and Ian to enjoy the drive with the windows down. Hollis had one elbow on the edge of his door and one hand lightly resting on the steering wheel. He glanced over and smiled at the way the wind ruffled Ian’s once perfectly styled hair, a thoughtful expression on his handsome face.
“It was a good meeting,” Hollis said as he guided them home from the foster parent training class.
After several long talks over the past months, they had decided to try and become foster parents. Ian had brought up how many kids were out there without loving homes, and they felt their home could be the perfect refuge from a difficult world.
It also didn’t hurt that they were both plagued with worry about the kids they’d helped rescue from pedophile crime boss Boris Jagger. What had happened to the ones who hadn’t had families? There were no forthcoming answers on that front, so they could at least take steps to help those struggling to find a warm, welcoming place to belong.
They did eventually plan to adopt and had discussed surrogacy, but this was the route they’d decided on to ease into creating their family. Hollis also looked at this as a chance to brush up on his meager parenting skills before they had their own kids. He’d helped raise his younger sibling, but that had been years ago. And the occasional babysitting of little Daciana Vallois wasn’t exactly putting him on track to be father of the year.
Regardless of whether the kids that were placed in their home were there for a week or years, it didn’t matter. They were both excited about this new step they were taking toward building a family.
The path to becoming foster parents wasn’t easy. The process could take anywhere from six months to a year with classes, paperwork, and home visits. Up front they had twelve classes to go through. Each one was three hours long and happened twice a week. They were on week four, and rearranging their schedules for them was getting hard.
It was worth it, though. With each class, Ian had grown more and more excited, and Hollis loved seeing his enthusiasm. Normally, he left the long classes bubbling with excitement and talking a mile a minute about all the things they needed to do.
