Free Don't Let Go by Marliss Melton Page B

eight years old and eighty pounds.”
    “What he needs is a teacher,” Solomon retorted, ducking into his truck without severing eye contact.
I choose you,
said his expression.
    Jordan tore her gaze away to watch Silas buckling his seat belt. He looked up and shyly waved as his father revved the engine. She found herself waving back.
    Then she thought of Miguel, who also needed her, Miguel whose hope for a better future was draining away like sand through an hourglass.
I’m coming, baby. I’m coming to get you,
she thought, turning back into the house. All she needed was someone to help her come up with the money.
    From one of the dozens of lounge chairs framing the kiddy pool at Ocean Breeze Water Park, Jordan watched Agatha frolic in water that went up to her knees. Graham and Cameron were off tackling the adult-sized water slides, and Jillian was enjoying a well-deserved day of rest at the ranch.
    Jordan wasn’t in the mood to frolic with her niece. Seated on a lounge chair in the only patch of shade at the park, she waited on pins and needles for her accountant’s call.
    Memories of Miguel played over and over in her mind, much like the mushroom fountain that sluiced young Agatha’s slender frame as she stood beneath it.
    The jangle of her cell phone had her reaching into her pool bag. “Anita,” she said, recognizing her accountant’s phone number. Her heart stilled with fearful anticipation.
    “Okay, Jordan. I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
    Jordan broke out in a cold sweat. “The good news,” she begged, clutching the phone tighter.
    “Well, your loan’s been approved. You can withdraw your money as early as Monday morning.”
    The tension rushed out of her on a gust of air, but then she remembered. “Then what’s the bad news?”
    “I could only approve twenty-five thousand dollars for you. Your debt-to-income ratio is just too high, hon. You just don’t have enough equity on the condo to borrow more. This also pushes your monthly mortgage up another three hundred dollars. Are you sure you can afford that?”
    Jordan swallowed hard. Twenty-five thousand dollars ought to be enough to pay for Miguel’s adoption and fly her in and out of Venezuela, but on her meager teacher’s salary, a mortgage that ate up two-thirds of her paycheck was absurd. “I don’t have a choice,” she replied, thinking she would face that challenge later, maybe rent out her condo and move in with her sister.
    “Okay, then.” The accountant sighed. “Swing by tomorrow, and we’ll process your loan.”
    “Thank you, Anita.” Jordan immediately dialed her travel agent. “Hi, Carol? It’s Jordan. You know that flight I asked you to look into? I can pay for it now.”
    “Oh, great. Let me pull it up for you. Okay, I have you flying out of Norfolk on August ten into Mexico City and switching over to a Venezuelan airline, arriving at Maiquetía International the next morning. You do realize your visa’s about to expire, right?”
    “My visa?” Jordan hadn’t given a thought to her visa.
    “Yes, by the time you arrive, you’ll only have five days left on it, so there isn’t much time in there for red tape.”
    The phone went slippery. Five days! Could she jump through all the necessary hoops in just five days? “I see,” she said, her stomach clenching uneasily. Encountering red tape was the norm in virtually any third-world country. “Can you get me out of the country any sooner?”
    “Um, let me look.” Jordan listened as the woman’s fingers tap danced on the keyboard. “I can fly you out the same way on the sixth. That’s in two weeks. Do you want me to book that flight?”
    “Yes,” Jordan confirmed, praying Miguel’s dossier would arrive by then. “I’ll come by the office and pay for it tomorrow.”
    “Okay, Jordan. See you then.”
    As she ended the call, a sense of foreboding sat heavily on Jordan’s chest. The tickets she’d just bought were nonrefundable. Once