Her Second-Chance Family. Holly Jacobs

      “The one and only. Call me Audrey,” she added. She turned to her charge and asked, “How’d it go Willow?”

      “Fine from my perspective.” She jerked her finger at Sawyer. “You’d have to ask him to see if he’s of the same opinion. I think he’d count it a success since I didn’t steal anything this time.”

      Sawyer ignored Willow’s snarky comment. “She did great work,” he assured her guardian.

      “I’m going to get the rest of my stuff,” Willow said, and bolted to the back, leaving them alone.

      “Thank you for giving her a chance,” Audrey said. “I thought about talking to you myself, but I decided that it was more important for Willow to make it work on her own.”

      “She was insistent. I’m pretty sure I didn’t have a choice.”

      There was a slip in Audrey’s smile as she said with far more seriousness than his words merited, “Everyone has a choice. It’s simply sometimes we make the wrong one.”

      The moment passed so quickly that he thought he’d imagined it, because in the next blink of an eye, Audrey’s smile was firmly back in place as she added, “And sometimes we make the right one. Giving Willow a second chance was the right one.”

      “And what if she screws up?” he couldn’t help but ask.

      “Then we’ll just give her another chance.”

      “That’s what Willow said you’d say,” he told Audrey.

      Her smile grew broader, if that was possible. “Then maybe I’m reaching her...at least a little.”

      “She really doesn’t have to do more than this. She busted her hump today. I finally took pity on her and helped carry the garbage cans. She didn’t even want that much help.”

      “You throw your grass clippings out?”

      Too late he remembered Willow’s warning and he waited for her to lecture him on saving the planet, but she didn’t. She simply nodded.

      “The county composts the clippings,” he added, though why he was defending himself he wasn’t sure.

      Willow reappeared and Audrey said, “Let’s put the mower in the car.”

      “I’ll help,” he offered.

      Audrey shook her head. “We’re two capable women. We can manage. But thank you again for allowing Willow to come today.”

      “I’ll see you next week,” Willow said.

      As they got in he heard Audrey say, “Ready to party?”

      Willow shrugged, but she looked at him and waved, and beneath her veneer of indifference, he thought he saw excitement.

      He needed to get some work done, but rather than head back up to his office immediately, he watched until the red SUV disappeared around the corner.

      “Hey, Sawyer,” Mrs. Wilson called from her driveway.

      He waved back. She took it as an invitation to walk across the street and ask, “Did you fire your lawn service? I use them, too, and if you had a problem...”

      He cut her off. “Not at all, Mrs. Wilson. I just decided to go another route this summer.”

      “Did you know...” she said, and launched into a litany of neighborhood news. Doug and Julie down the street had their baby. It was a boy. He didn’t admit he didn’t have a clue who Doug and Julie were, and because of that, he hadn’t known they were expecting. Bill Teller’s boys were spending the summer with him. It would be nice for Gina’s son, Austen, who lived with them full-time. And...

      Sawyer didn’t know many of the people she mentioned, but that wouldn’t matter to Mrs. Wilson. He knew Mrs. Wilson and the Tellers next to her, but that was about it. But Mrs. Williams still operated on the premise he not only knew the rest of the neighbors but wanted updates on their personal news.

      He’d moved here because he wanted some anonymity. This wasn’t the first time that he’d realized his logic was faulty.

      If he’d bought a condo in the Boston Store or at Lovell Place in downtown Erie, he suspected he’d have a lot more privacy than he did here with Mrs. Wilson keeping tabs on him and the rest of the neighborhood.

      She finally wrapped up her neighborhood updates. “Well, I’m glad there wasn’t a problem with the lawn service. I’ll talk to you later, Sawyer.” She waved and headed back across the street.

      He could have warned Mrs. Wilson that Willow was part of the group that had broken into his house, but she’d have spread the news through the neighborhood like an old-fashioned game of telephone.

      He wasn’t sure why that bothered him but it did. Sawyer had no reason to trust Willow—as a matter of fact, he had a very good reason not to. But he didn’t think she was going to be breaking into any more houses.

      He wasn’t sure if it was a reflection on Willow, or on her guardian.

      He thought about Audrey Smith. She wore an air of perpetual happiness, but for a moment as they spoke, he thought he’d caught a glimpse of something else.

      It made him wonder what lurked behind her happy facade.

      Audrey had said, “Everyone has a choice. It’s simply sometimes we make the wrong one.”

      Sawyer couldn’t help but wonder what wrong choices she’d made. And if those mistakes were the reason for that momentary look of sadness.

      * * *

      WILLOW WASN’T SURE what sort of celebration she expected, but this wasn’t it.

      Not that she was surprised. In the four months she’d lived with Audrey, Clinton and Bea, they hadn’t once done anything that seemed...normal.

      She’d grown up with other foster children. Most of the time when she went into a new home, there was some sort of pecking order the first few days. The oldest and strongest were at the top, along with the kids who had been in the home the longest. Everyone else was at the bottom.

      She got moved around a lot, so she was used to finding her place at the bottom. She was okay with that. The first thing she did in any new home was find a place to stash her e-reader. It was a given that the other kids would go through her stuff. Sometimes it wasn’t just the kids; it was the foster parents themselves. She didn’t care if they took some of her clothes, or looked at her schoolbooks. She could get along without most of her things. And she never went into a new situation with any expectation of privacy. But she couldn’t lose her books. She wouldn’t last long without them.

      When she was older and had a job, she was going to buy a book a week—an honest to goodness, hold-it-in-your-hands hardback book. New releases, dusty old tomes. She was going to have a bunch.

      In her head, she could see her someday apartment. It would have ceiling-to-floor bookshelves. Week by week, book by book, she’d fill them all.

      She hadn’t meant to break into anyone’s house. But Nico and Dusty claimed they had a foolproof plan and that the guy who owned the house would have insurance, so he wouldn’t be out money in the long run. His insurance would replace what they took.

      She knew at the time it was a dumb idea. Yet she’d gone along because she’d thought she’d finally have some money to buy a book.

      When the cops showed up, she’d been the one they caught. Nico and Dusty had run and left her holding the bag...or her side of the television, as it were. She could have dropped it to the ground and run, as well, but instead she’d held it up because she couldn’t stand the thought of breaking it.

      After that, she’d spent some time in juvie. When she got out, her foster parents didn’t want her, so she’d been moved again. This time to Audrey’s.

      But from the first day at Audrey’s,