Her Second-Chance Family. Holly Jacobs

not to steal stuff. She’d wanted some paper. She’d snooped, but not in a malicious way. No, she’d acted almost as if she were a little sister. Not that Willow had any personal experience with little sisters, but as a reader she’d experienced a lot of them. She couldn’t help but think of Little Women. Or Trixie Belden. Younger siblings were prone to snooping.

      But Bea wasn’t her sister. Not really.

      And Audrey and the kids weren’t her family.

      Sometimes, she almost forgot that.

      She looked at the three of them. Clinton and Bea were in the backseat of the car, and she had the front. Audrey had a rule—the oldest person in the car got to sit up front. “...Willow, I said would you like that?” Audrey asked.

      “What?” She’d missed the question.

      “Your permit. You’re sixteen. You could have gotten it by now. I wondered if it was your choice, or no one had offered.”

      “I...” Willow couldn’t hide her surprise. “You’d let me drive your car?”

      “If you have your permit, yes. Why wouldn’t I?”

      “What if I wreck it or...” She shrugged. She wasn’t sure what other damage she could do, but she knew that cars were expensive and she couldn’t imagine anyone letting a new driver use theirs.

      She thought of Sawyer’s fancy car in the garage. He kept it covered with a tarp. They’d loaded it up after Nico found the keys on a hook in the kitchen. Given the care he gave it, she’d wondered if maybe the car was more than just a means of transportation to him.

      “It’s a car, Willow,” Audrey said. “I’d be more worried about you getting hurt.”

      Willow watched Audrey’s hands tighten on the steering wheel. She didn’t know what to make of Audrey...of any of them. “I was just sitting here thinking I don’t get any of you. It’s like you’re all alien pod-people. You can go through the motions of being human, but if anyone gets too close, they can see that there’s something wrong with you.”

      Audrey laughed. “And what’s wrong with me is that I’d let you use my car to learn to drive?”

      “That and so many other things. You don’t get mad. You’ve never hit me, or any of us. You seem happy all the time.”

      “Except for at night,” Bea said quietly from the backseat. “She doesn’t seem happy at night.”

      Willow looked back and there was something in both Bea’s and Clinton’s expressions that said she was missing something here.

      She knew that Audrey had had a nightmare and wondered what it was about. She didn’t ask because that would be like admitting she was interested in her, and she knew from experience that wasn’t wise. She’d come to care for a few foster parents and think they might keep her. But they never had. Just like her own parents.

      It was easier to not get too close.

      She’d read enough books to know that’s what she was doing. She was keeping people at arm’s length to protect herself from being hurt. Sometimes she felt as if her true family existed only in books. Brave and stalwart people who’d never leave her. Who’d fight to keep her.

      Maybe Audrey was different, but Willow didn’t want to count on it. So she simply said, “Yes. If you really mean it, I’d like to learn to drive.”

      “Great. We’re going up Peach Street for dinner. We’ll stop at the DMV and pick up whatever we need for you to apply for a permit.”

      “Okay,” was all she said.

      “We’re going to the Mexican place,” Bea said. “I’m going to get...” She proceeded to list all the dishes she was going to eat. Audrey and Clinton joined in, then they started talking about the Greenhouse...

      Willow let the conversation flow around her. She thought about the fact Audrey was going to let her learn to drive her car.

      Willow stared out the passenger window and, for about the thousandth time, wondered about the family she’d found herself placed in.

      Clinton and Bea were Audrey’s foster kids, too, but the three of them were definitely a family.

      And a tiny part of her, a part she brutally pushed down whenever it appeared, wished that she were a part of their family, too.

      But she wasn’t.

      She had to remember that. Sooner or later, social services would move her again. Someday soon, though, she’d age out of their jurisdiction.

      Then her life would really begin.

      She’d get a job and have that apartment with shelves and every week she’d buy a new book to add to her collection...

       CHAPTER FOUR

      THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, Sawyer made it a point to be home early on Monday afternoons. He rationalized that when you had a convicted thief mowing your lawn, it was probably wise to be present and keep an eye on your house.

      But if he was honest with himself, he wanted to see Willow’s guardian again.

      Audrey Smith had been on his mind a lot.

      The first week, he asked her about composting.

      She went into a long discussion about open piles versus closed barrels. He found her enthusiasm for compost amusing, but he was also slightly envious. He couldn’t remember ever being that excited about anything.

      As Willow finished mowing the following week, he came out with a glass of ice water and some chips. “They’re organic,” he assured her as he sat beside her on the picnic table bench.

      He wasn’t someone who generally paid attention to the very few groceries he bought. But he figured Audrey did, so he’d chosen the organic kind of chips. And he had to admit, they were pretty good.

      Willow took one and studied him a moment. “You like her,” she finally said.

      He didn’t need to ask who Willow referred to. “She seems like...” He searched for a word and settled on, “An interesting woman. She’s passionate about the things she believes in.”

      “You don’t know the half of it,” Willow said. There was a slight scoff to her tone, but he heard something else. Maybe pride? “Audrey’s passion for her new work project is why the kids and I had to spend our weekend at an overgrown vacant lot. We couldn’t even mow it because there was so much junk piled up.”

      “Junk?” he asked.

      “Yeah, the site is downtown. The city owns it. I guess there used to be railroad tracks that went through there. Now that they’ve closed down and the land reverted to the city, they’re donating it to Audrey’s project. It’s wild and overgrown. We filled ten bags with garbage, and hauled away a bunch of bigger items that couldn’t be bagged.”

      “Why is it up to you all to clear it?” he asked. “I thought Audrey was the architect.”

      “Oh, cleaning up that lot isn’t her job or ours, and she is the architect, but this isn’t a normal project. It’s a volunteer thing. She says that it will pay off in the long run. Mr. Lebowitz—that’s her boss—will get publicity and she’ll be building a legacy. She could have waited for fall so some of the schoolkids could help clean...”

      “Schoolkids?” he asked.

      As if talking to a young child, Willow explained, “The project’s meant to educate and empower us, whatever that really means.”

      “Oh. And Audrey’s...”

      “Certified, like I said. She knows environmental rules and policies, so they talked to her, and she wanted the project. Her boss got behind the idea. He’s