Her Second-Chance Family. Holly Jacobs

gallantry. He’d not only offered to give them all a ride home, but pulled the car up to the school’s front door so they didn’t get wet.

      He had got soaked when he’d run to get the car, though. But that didn’t seem to bother Merrill. She kept reaching across the front seat and running her fingers through his long, wet hair.

      Audrey found their touchy-feely moments embarrassing. She generally tried to keep her distance when they got like that, but right now she was sitting behind Jude in the car, so there was nowhere to escape. Even watching the rain splattering against the window didn’t help, so she turned toward Ava instead.

      Ava Parker and Merrill Cooper were her best friends. Audrey couldn’t imagine her life without them.

      “Graduation. I can’t believe we’re done tomorrow,” Ava repeated for about the twentieth time in the past five minutes. She let out a long, loud squeal and her poker-straight black hair swung wildly. “I can’t believe we’re adults! I almost cried when we practiced moving our tassels over.”

      “That graduation rehearsal was one of the dumbest wastes of time ever,” Audrey said loudly. “I am perfectly capable of walking in a line to the stage, accepting a piece of paper and shaking a few hands.”

      “Don’t forget moving the tassel,” Ava teased.

      “Yeah, I definitely didn’t almost cry. Seriously, they made us practice that? I’m pretty sure that’s why I got accepted at Penn State. My impressive tassel-moving abilities.”

      As if she couldn’t stand having even twelve inches between her and Jude, Merrill unbuckled her seat belt and slid to the middle of the bench seat. She snuggled close to the completely soaked Jude.

      “Buckle up,” Ava commanded.

      Merrill turned around and shook her head in disgust, but not a strand of her beautifully styled blond hair shifted out of place. Audrey didn’t know what product Merrill used on her hair, but it was always perfect. Even in tonight’s humidity.

      “You are really thirty, right, Ava?” Merrill asked. “Thirty in an eighteen-year-old body.”

      “Almost nineteen,” Ava said prissily. “My father made me promise to never ride in a car with someone who’s been drinking, or won’t wear a seat belt.”

      Merrill made a big show out of finding the seat belt and clicking it in place. “There, I’m buckled,” she said, then turned back to cuddling Jude, who let out a yelp of excitement.

      “We’re graduates,” he screamed, and pounded on the horn.

      “Graduates,” Audrey and Merrill echoed as he continued beeping.

      Ava was not a scream-with-excitement sort of girl, but Audrey noticed she was smiling as they all acted like lunatics.

      Audrey might have complained about wasting time at the practice, but she was as excited as the others at the thought of graduating. Finally, she was going to start her life. She’d have a career—though she wasn’t sure what it would be—and a family. People who loved her and would always have her back.

      She knew she had that in Ava and Merrill. They were more than friends. They were her family. They’d saved her in so many ways.

      “We’re graduates,” Merrill hollered again. Jude and Audrey joined in, while Ava simply sat watching them.

      Her life was going to be amazing. Audrey just knew it. She was going to have everything she’d always dreamed of. All the things she’d wanted but could never have.

      Ava’s smile gave way to a frown. “Slow down, Jude.”

      “Come on,” Audrey teased her. “We’ll only be this young once. We’re going to have to work hard again in the fall, but tonight we’re...graduates!” She screamed and Merrill and Jude joined in.

      They all waited and finally Ava added her voice to their chorus.

      “Graduates!” they shouted at the top of their voices, and Jude beeped the horn again.

      “Gradu...”

      They never finished the cheer because in that split second everything changed.

      All her hopes, all her dreams.

      In that single moment Audrey’s future was transformed.

       CHAPTER ONE

      “JUST A MINUTE,” Sawyer Williams bellowed. He was pretty sure he knew who was at the door, and he was absolutely sure he wasn’t going to be pleased.

      He was right. A teenage girl stood on his porch. Her black hair fell softly to her shoulders today instead of standing straight in the harsher spikes she normally wore. Her expression said she wasn’t any more pleased to be here than he was to have her here.

      It was the same girl who’d stood on his porch each Saturday for the past month. And for the past three Saturdays, he’d cut her off and told her to leave his property or he was calling the cops. Every visit ended the same way...with him slamming the door in her face.

      And here she was again. His first inclination was to actually call the cops this time. But the curiosity that had nibbled at him since that first visit finally got the better of him. He knew who she was, but had no clue why she was here.

      Whatever she wanted to say had to be important. At least to her. Still, instead of threatening to call the cops or slamming the door, this time he asked, “Fine. I give up. What do you want?”

      The girl jumped back, as if she hadn’t anticipated him asking a question. Her dark blue eyes met his as she took a deep breath and said, “Mr. Williams, I’m Willow Jones.”

      “I know exactly who you are and I know exactly what you are.” He’d testified against her, after all. “I repeat, what do you want?”

      She glanced at the red SUV in his drive and then turned back to him. She straightened her spine. “I know you’re not happy to see me. Trust me, I am not happy to be here.”

      He’d gathered that much from her expression. “So, if you don’t want to be here any more than I want to have you here, why are you on my porch, knocking on my door for the fourth Saturday in a row?”

      “I want to ask you if I could mow your lawn this summer.”

      The young miscreant—this thief who was surely just getting started on her life of crime—was showing up weekly to ask him for permission to mow his lawn? “What?”

      “Listen, she—” she jerked her head in the direction of the car “—she says I need to balance my karma. Right now, I’ve got a lot of negatives going on. She says that being on teeny-bopper probation isn’t enough. She says that the probation actually benefits me and isn’t much of a punishment because if I keep my nose clean, I get my record wiped. It will be almost like it never happened. Only it did happen. And my clean record doesn’t do anything for you. She says that I harmed you and I need to make amends to you. She made me think of something I could do, and I remembered when I ripped off your place that your yard’s huge, so I thought that I could mow it all summer.” She paused and sighed. “And weed it, too.”

      Sawyer glanced at the car, but couldn’t make out the driver. He looked back at the girl who wanted to fix her karma. No, not fix it, balance it.

      “I have a lawn service,” he said. “They were just here last week and treated for weeds.”

      She glanced at the car again, then back at him. “Oh, man, whatever you do, don’t tell her that. She’ll lecture you about chemicals and water tables. Then she’ll show you her nifty little dandelion puller and tell you that if you can’t live with dandelions in your yard, you can yank them out. She’ll tell you that you should just let them be, though, ’cause the bees like ’em and we need bees. She’ll