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“But they made you. And you’re a pretty girl, and you seem smart too.”

She snickered. “Smart-ass, you mean.”

“You don’t have to be a smart-ass. That’s not a requirement. But you are smart. You found your way all the way from down south to up here. That wouldn’t be easy to do. I think you have the potential to be a fine person, but you’ve got a ways to go.”

“Oh, wow. Thanks for that.” It was quiet for a few seconds, and then Candace sighed. “Yeah, I guess I deserved that. And I guess you’re right. But I’m just not like the other kids around here. I don’t like the same things, or like to go the same kinds of places, or wear the same kinds of clothes, or any of that stuff. I’m just different.”

“Yeah, and that’ll make you popular in school.”

Candace stared at Cherilyn in alarm. “School? Who’s talking about school?”

“You have to go. It’s a law.”

“I’m not going to school.”

“Candace,” Cherilyn said, locking eyes with the girl, “if you don’t go to school, Child Protective Services will take you and put you in foster care. If your dad doesn’t enroll you, he’ll be in trouble. If he does but you refuse to go and skip, they’ll put you in juvenile detention, and you heard what Maisey said about that. Is that really what you want?”

“No. I didn’t want any of it. I didn’t want to be kicked out of my house, I didn’t want to lose my car and my credit cards, and I didn’t want to come here.”

Cherilyn almost said,They weren’t your car or credit cards, but she didn’t. “I didn’t want to be in the woods either, but I did what I had to do to get by. That’s where you are right now. You can do what you need to do to be comfortable here, or you can fight against it constantly and unsuccessfully, make yourself miserable, and make everybody around you miserable. Is that really what you want?”

The girl lifted and dropped her shoulders in a deep, hopeless shrug. “I guess not.”

“Then I’d suggest you try being thankful for your dad and the chances he’s willing to give you, the home he’s offering you, and the things he’s glad to do for you. Your dad is a good man, one of the best. Everybody who meets him likes and respects him. As fathers go, you could do a lot worse.”

“But there’s no swimming pool, or hot tub, or?”

“No. But there’s a house that’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer. You’re not getting wet when it rains. You’ll have clothes to cover up your nakedness and food to fill your tummy. Do you have any idea how many people in this world would give their left arm to have the things your dad is offering you here?”

“Oh, god, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that, I…” The girl stopped for a few seconds. “So let me ask you something. You love your girls.”

“More than anything in the world.”

“Could you ever love me like that?”

Cherilyn gave the teenager a gentle smile. “You’re Shaw’s daughter, and if I love Shaw, I can love you too.”

“Do you love my dad?”

Be honest here, she warned herself. “I think so. I mean, we’re still figuring things out, and then there’s this big dark cloud between us, and?”

“Dark cloud?”

“Uh, amurderer?” Cherilyn reminded her.

“Oh, yeah. I see.”

“Yeah. So there’s a lot of pressure here, and a lot of fear, and we want to be sure that what we feel for each other isn’t pity, or looking for security, or trying to be a hero, or any of those other things that can be mistaken for love.”

“How do you know when you’re in love?” There was no guile in Candace’s voice. She was genuinely curious.

“I think… I think when you’re to the point that if you both were standing in front of a gunman and you could honestly say, ‘Let him go and take me instead,’ that’s love. Love is wanting more for the other person than you do for yourself. It’s thinking of the other person before your own needs. It’s knowing that if anything happened to them, there would be a hole in your heart thatno one elsecouldeverfill. Ever.”

“Hmmm. That makes sense.” She smiled without looking at Cherilyn. “I’ve never loved anybody that way.”

“I’m not surprised. Kids don’t usually. Until they’re grown, the world revolves around them because their parents take care of them. But once they’re out on their own and know how hard it is to be a grownup, they start to feel the need to be connected to other adults, to form bonds, and then they know what it feels like to lose someone. As soon as that loss hits, they understand. Some kids feel it earlier, like when they lose a parent.”

“I just… I don’t know…” Candace was trying to say something, but it wouldn’t come out.