Later when Pru had been a teenager, she’d come home from school to find her parents at the table with their neighbor, Mr. Snyder, who was also their accountant, talking about something called bankruptcy. Her mom had been crying, her dad looking shell-shocked.

And then there’d been the night her grandpa had shown up where she’d been spending the night at a friend’s. Weird, since she’d called her mom and dad for a ride, not her grandpa. She’d wanted to go home because her friends had decided to sneak in some boys and she hadn’t felt comfortable with the attention she’d been getting from one of them. He’d been in her math class, and was always leaning over her shoulder pretending to stare at her work when he was really just staring at her breasts.

The other reason it’d been weird for her grandpa to show up was because she hadn’t seen him in years. Not since he and her dad had been estranged for reasons she’d never known. And her dad and her grandpa being estranged meant that Pru was estranged by default.

So why was he at her friend’s house?

The night had gone on to become a real-life nightmare, the kind you never woke up from because she’d listened to her grandpa explain to her friend’s mom that he’d come to tell his granddaughter that her parents were dead, that her father had been past the legal drinking limit. He’d crossed the center median in the road and had hit another car head on, clipping a second along with the people on the sidewalk.

Pru did her best not to think about that moment, but it crept in at the most unexpected times. Like when she was in the mall and passed by a department store in front of the perfume aisle and caught a whiff of the scent her mom had always worn. Or when sometimes late at night if there was a storm and she got unnerved, she’d wish for her dad to come into her room like he always had, sit on the bed and pull her into his arms and sing silly made-up songs at the top of his lungs to drown out the wind.

Nope . . . eavesdropping had never worked out for her. And when she’d heard Sean and Finn yelling at each other through Finn’s open office window, she honestly hadn’t meant to listen in. Now she couldn’t un-hear what she’d heard. What she could do was be there for them. Because this whole thing, their fight, their being parentless, Finn having to raise Sean, all of it, was her family’s doing. She swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, Finn.”

He just shook his head, clearly still pissed off. “Not your fault.”

Maybe not directly but she felt guilty all the same. But telling him the truth now when he was already lit up with temper wouldn’t help him. It would hurt him.

And that’s the last thing she’d ever do.

At her silence, he focused in on her. “How are you doing, are you—”

“Totally fine,” she said. “The road rash is healing up already.”

Something in his eyes lit with amusement. “Good, but this time I actually meant from when we—”

“That’s fine too,” she said quickly and huffed out a sigh when he laughed. She looked around for a distraction and saw a couple of women talking about throwing some coins into the fountain. Pru nodded her head over there. “You know about the legend?”

“Of course. That myth brings us more foot traffic than our daily specials.”

“You ever . . .?”

“Hell no,” he said emphatically.

She managed a smile. “What’s the matter, you don’t believe in true love?”

His gaze held hers for a beat. “I try not to mess with stuff that isn’t for me.”

She couldn’t imagine what his growing-up years had been like or the hell he’d been through but she managed a small smile. “Maybe you shouldn’t knock something unless you’ve tried it.”

“And you’ve tried it?” he challenged.

“Oh . . .” She let out a little laugh. “Not exactly. I’m pretty sure that stuff isn’t for me either.”

His gaze went serious again and before he began a conversation she didn’t want to have, she spoke quickly. “I really didn’t mean to overhear your fight with Sean. I was just wondering if I could help with whatever was wrong before I went to work.”

“What’s wrong is that he’s an idiot.”

“If it helps, I think he feels really bad,” she said.

“He always does.”

Her heart ached for him as she took in the tension in every line of his body. “You guys do that a lot?” she asked. “Fight like that?”

He slid his hands into his pockets. “Sometimes. We’re not all that good with holding back. We sure as hell never did master the art of the silent treatment.”