Page 114 of Stuck with my Mechanic Daddies

Something less devastating.

I knew the feeling. But the more I looked at her, the more I saw how much this was weighing on her.

The tension in her shoulders, the tight grip she had on the letter in her lap. She was exhausted, overwhelmed, barely holding everything together.

And I wasn’t about to let her drown in it.

“We’re leaving.”

She blinked, finally looking up at me. “What?”

I stood, offering her a hand. “Come on. We’re getting out of here for the night.”

Aurora let out a dry, humorless laugh. “Owen, I can’t just leave.”

“Yes, you can.” I crouched in front of her, lowering my voice. “You need a break, Aurora. This? All of this? It'll still be here tomorrow. But you? You need to breathe. And I’m not letting you sit here all night torturing yourself over something that wasn’t your fault.”

She swallowed hard, her throat working as she glanced at the mess around us. I could tell she wanted to argue.

That she felt like she should stay, keep fighting, keep pushing herself.

But when her eyes met mine, something in her shifted.

“Where are we going?”

A small smile pulled at my lips. “You'll see.”

Thirty minutes later, we were parked on a quiet stretch of the lake outside town. The sky was dark, the stars bright against the water.

The only sounds were the soft lapping of the lake against the shore and the occasional chirp of crickets in the distance.

Aurora wrapped her arms around herself as I grabbed the blanket from the truck bed and spread it out on the ground.

“You planned this, didn’t you?” she asked, arching a brow.

I shrugged. “Let’s just say I had a feeling you’d need it.”

She sighed, glancing out over the water. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“I know.” I reached for her hand, tugging her down to sit beside me. “But I wanted to.”

For a while, we just sat there. I didn’t push her to talk.

Didn’t ask how she was feeling or what she was thinking.

I just let her be, let her sit in the quiet without the weight of the bookstore, the safe, or Hank Lawson pressing down on her.

Then, after a long silence, she spoke.

“I don’t know how to do this, Owen.” Her voice was quiet, tired. “I keep trying, but it feels like the second I get a grip on something, everything shifts again. I came here thinking I’d just sell the bookstore and leave.”

She let out a bitter laugh.

“Now I’m in the middle of some decades-old conspiracy that nearly destroyed your family. And my uncle, he must have been so scared to keep this secret for so long. Nancy said he was being blackmailed, but she didn’t know by whom. It has to be the Lawson family.”

I didn’t say anything. Just pulled her into my arms, letting her lean into me.

She didn’t fight it. For a long time, she just sat there, her cheek against my chest, her breathing slow and even.

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