LITMIR.BIZ

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letter. He bit back a smile. Kid was young, but had a set on him.

      The spiky-haired spitfire watched close, ready to step between them again.

      “Oh, yeah, I saw that.” He squinted down at the kid. “What’s your name?”

      “N-Nacho.”

      “Well, N-Nacho, not bad work. For a beginner.”

      The kid looked like a prisoner whose firing squad had just taken a smoke break.

      “But.” He pointed, and put every bit of badass into his voice. “Defacing private property is a crime, and accepting stolen property can land you in jail.” He leaned into the kid’s personal space. “Did you learn anything?” He raised an eyebrow. He was having a tough time holding his face hard. He hadn’t had this much fun in a long time.

      “Y-yessir.”

      “What?”

      “Crime costs more than it’s worth.”

      He couldn’t help it. His lips quirked, but they probably wouldn’t see it through the beard. “Good answer.”

      The woman let out a breath and put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Okay, we can go now.”

      The boy shrugged from under her hand. “Um, sir?”

      “Name’s Bear.”

      “Mister Bear—could you tell me how you did this?” He pointed to the flames on the bike’s gas tank. “They’re epic.”

      Bear chuckled. The kid was cute. For a delinquent. “It takes years of practice kid, and the right tools.”

      Nacho looked up at Bear, hero worship plain on his face. “Would you show me?”

      The woman put her hand on the back of the kid’s neck. “Getting late. We gotta go. Sorry to bother you.” Steering him ahead of her, they motored for the exit, then disappeared among the boxes.

      The prison priest had told him he could atone, by helping children. That was bullshit.

      Most likely bullshit.

      But there was something about this one. The odd combination of innocence and hardcase made Bear wonder what the kid’s story was.

      None of your business.

      Another, not so different pair of eyes shivered through his mind.

      He raised his voice, and it boomed through the barn. “If you come back sometime, we’ll talk.”

      He could always tell the kid to get lost if he got irritating. Besides, from that woman’s body language, that was probably the last Bear would see of...what’d he say his name was? Nacho?

      * * *

      “THANK YOU BOTH. I don’t know how this would have happened without you.” Hope stood in her new doorway, rubbing moving day bruises, trying to choke out a goodbye to her work crew. They’d refused to leave until every picture was hung, every drawer was full.

      “Our pleasure, sweetie.”

      Maybe, but her cousin looked very un-Jesse-like. In faded shorts, a stained T-shirt and holey Keds, she was downright disheveled.

      Hope reached out to tuck a hank of Jesse’s blond hair behind her ear. “I feel bad, making you two do all the work.” She’d had every intention of packing up the apartment herself, earlier in the week. But she’d only gotten the door open—her feet refused to cross the threshold. Even after fifteen minutes of trying.

      Today, with Jesse and Carl there, she’d managed to step inside. She’d even managed to pack the kitchen, probably because the men hadn’t gone in that room that awful night. But she still hadn’t been able to force herself down the hall to her bedroom. Even picturing Carl packing her underwear drawer couldn’t get her to budge.

      She was bone tired and emotionally spent, but if she felt past those, there was a tiny warm spot of pride. She hadn’t done it all, but by God, she’d done something.

      “Are you sure you’re okay here alone?” Carl studied her from under creased Nordic brows.

      She considered her injuries—emotional, as well as physical. “You know, I think I am.”

      “This place is the start of your new life.” Jesse reached up and cupped Hope’s face in her hands. “Go find out what it holds for you.”

      “I will, Jess.” Hope closed the door of her cottage, then waved to Jesse and Carl through the bay window as they walked the flagstone path to the driveway. She sank onto her mother’s antique settee and hugged herself, only partially to quiet the bullet track burning in her gut.

      The antiques fit the cottage’s Victorian style so perfectly, she felt she’d fallen through time. In the quiet, a delicate peace came and settled like a cat in her lap.

      Mine.

      It was as if, with the closing of the door, the cottage wrapped itself around her, new, yet familiar. Comforting. It already felt more like home than anywhere she’d ever lived, including the house she’d grown up in. Maybe this was an omen. A bridge, between her past to the life she felt coming, emerging from the darkness, touching the edges of her present.

      She’d always been good at waiting. She’d waited to grow up. She’d waited for the chance to live her own life. But looking back, she could see that when the cage door had opened, she’d just built another.

      Maybe because a cage was all she knew.

      She’d moved to Widow’s Grove and still, she waited. Waited in her adequate career, her adequate life, for something to happen. Something wonderful, that would transport her from a little church mouse to...she didn’t even know what.

      It had taken her almost dying to realize that with all the waiting, she hadn’t yet lived.

      Well, that ended today. Jesse was right. No more waiting. If she wanted a different life, it was up to her to find it.

      Now she just had to decide what that was. She stood and walked to the kitchen, pulled a steno pad and pen from the drawer, then sat at the tiny round table she used as a dining table. At the top of a blank page, she wrote “New Life” in tidy cursive. Then she sat, staring at the wall for five minutes.

      How can you not know?

      Well, maybe a place to start would be to consider what she admired in other people. Who would she be if she didn’t have to consider anyone, or anything else?

      “Who would you be, if you weren’t afraid?”

      Something about the question broke the logjam in her head and she wrote fast, trying to catch the thoughts before they floated downstream.

      Adventurous Independent

      Pioneering Brave

      A fizz of thrill, like bubbles of champagne, coursed into her blood. Oh, yes, she’d admire someone like that. She wanted to be someone like that. But how?

      What would a person like that do in their leisure time? She jotted:

      Surf Skydive

      Outdoorsman Jog, ride a bike, sports

      Who knew you could plot out your life? So, what career would a person like that have? She wrote what came to her, without filters.

      StewardessWilderness guide

      Park rangerPilot

      ParamedicBusiness owner

      Tennis proTruck driver

      HitchhikerMountaineer

      Okay, so the last two weren’t careers, and some may not be practical, but dang it, the cage door had been blown off its hinges, and she was going to open herself to all possibilities.

      So there, Mom.

      Smiling, she added to her list.

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