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Ronan extended his hand. This was a dream. The headache meds torturing me. Any second, I was going to wake up back on the street…
But Ronan’s hand was strong and real, shaking mine.
“I put some food in your fridge to get you started. Not sure what you’d want,” he said, then nodded at an envelope on the small kitchen table. “That’s your first month’s pay plus some change if you want to do laundry.” He jerked his chin toward a cordless phone unit on the counter. “My cell number is on there. My business partner—Hector’s, too, if you can’t reach me. I’ll be back tomorrow to start showing you the ropes.”
“What does Shiloh think of all this?”
He smirked. “It was her idea.” He turned for the door.
“Ronan.”
“Yeah?”
I shook my head, the words to thank him sticking in my throat. Small and weak, like how I’d felt for so long. “I won’t let you down.”
“Good.”
He smiled a little and went out, shutting the door to my place behind him. My place.
“Not yet,” I muttered. What Ronan had done for me went beyond words, and I didn’t deserve it. Not yet. But I could do a good job and earn it. I’d prove to him I wasn’t the worthless piece of shit my dad called me every day of my life.
Because what Ronan had given me was better than food or even a roof over my head, and rarer too.
A second chance.
IV
“How’d it go?” Shiloh asked as I crossed the sand to where she sat at the firepit—in one of six beach chairs. She smiled in the late afternoon sun.
I bent and kissed her, then sat beside her. “Good. I think he’ll be okay.”
“I hope so.” She shook her head, ringlets blowing across her cheek. “If you’d have asked me four years ago…”
“I know,” I said. “So damn weird. But it feels good. It feels right.”
Shiloh leaned over and kissed me again. “You’re a good man. The best.”
“Don’t know about that. But you’re my wife, so I must’ve done something right.”
Her smile was radiant. Happy. To think I had a hand in that blew my fucking mind. We’d been married for a year and every day still felt like a dream, one that I never wanted to wake up from.
Voices sounded from down the path that led to the Shack. Violet and Miller appeared, him with his guitar strapped to his back and carrying a cooler while helping his very pregnant wife along.
“I think I remember how to walk on sand,” Violet teased, then laughed as Shiloh and I hurried over.
“You guys are too much,” Violet said after Shiloh hugged her and helped her to her chair. She was only four months along but looked about ready to burst.
“I remember lugging one around in there,” Shiloh said. “I can’t imagine two.”
Violet laughed. “Neither can I. Neither can he.” She jerked a thumb at Miller who looked more tired and harried than his wife.
Shiloh beamed at Miller. “Because he’s taking the best care of you, aren’t you?” She kissed his cheek.
“I’m trying,” Miller said.
“He’s doing more than trying,” Violet said, smiling fondly at him. “He’s amazing.”
“The both of you are,” Shiloh said warmly.
