take, since she’d single-handedly earned it. Who would she invite? She could take her siblings out, but she wasn’t sure they’d appreciate it. Perhaps, if she could find another night off soon, she’d treat Nicole to a meal out.
But even thinking about that was like wondering if she might buy herself a pet unicorn.
Another night out would be bliss, and yet she knew getting used to such things was a bad idea. Although not as bad as asking Ronan himself. Wouldn’t that make it even harder to face reality every other day of the week?
Ronan pulled off the highway and followed the road through Kissing Creek toward the college parking lot, where Big Red was waiting for her. The local mechanic had gotten her working again, but every time she turned the engine over, she was worried it would be the last. Audrey glanced at her watch. It was just after eleven thirty—plenty of time to get home before her father even thought about wrapping up his poker game.
Ronan slowed down to turn in to the parking lot and pulled up beside Audrey’s car. There were only a few vehicles scattered across the otherwise empty space, and when he killed the engine, it was deafeningly quiet. For a second, Audrey could have sworn her heartbeat was loud enough that Ronan could hear it. But if he did, he didn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry I assumed your life was perfect before.” She didn’t even know where the thought had come from, but it popped out of her unbidden. A delay tactic, maybe? Because the second she got into Big Red, that would signal that Cinderella had to hang up her pretty dress and get back to scrubbing floors. “Sometimes things look one way from the outside, but I should know better than to take it at face value.”
Ronan shifted in his seat, turning so that he faced her. Even in the dark night, with streetlamps casting light in yellow pools, his eyes were mesmerizingly bright. “I’m not even sure why I told you all that, to be honest. I don’t usually talk about it.”
For some reason, knowing that he’d chosen her to confide in made Audrey feel warm all over. It made her feel special…and that was not a word she ever associated with herself.
“I guess I felt like…” Ronan dragged his fingers through his hair. “Something told me you’d understand.”
Did he feel that connection with her that she did with him? That little spark of magnetic attraction that told her they were cut from the same cloth? They were fighters. Doers. Survivors. Only he’d managed to climb out of the hole his parents had dug for him and move on to bigger and better things.
Audrey was still trying to find a ladder.
“We’re not broken,” she said softly. “Our parents’ mistakes don’t have to define us.”
It was the thought she clung to on her darkest days, when she looked at her father and wondered why she didn’t recognize him anymore. He was broken, and she was the strong one, even if it didn’t always feel that way. If only she knew how to put him back together so they could be a real family again. So she could live her life.
“How are you so young and so wise?” He shook his head.
“I had to grow up fast.” She shifted so her head was resting on the headrest, facing him. If there was a way to pause time so she could stay in this darkened car, staring into Ronan’s eyes forever, then she would gladly do it. “I didn’t have a choice. Either I grew up or my siblings would have been taken away.”
That threat had loomed until Audrey was of legal age—when her father was repeatedly found washed up in some bar and she was home with the kids. She’d spent sleepless night after sleepless night wondering if Child Protection Services would show up and say her dad wasn’t fit to care for them. The day Audrey turned eighteen, it was like a weight lifted off her…but she felt far older than her tender years, back then. She was an adult too soon.
“Don’t you wonder what life might have been like?” he asked.
“No,” she lied. Of course she wondered, but saying it aloud would be like opening Pandora’s box. Wondering didn’t help anybody.
“You’re a better person than I am.”
“I don’t know about that.” Her breath hitched. Energy crackled in the car, zipping between them like lightning bugs. The way he was looking