Page 28 of Redemption

“What’s home like?” Ryder tried again.

She tried to remember how it was when things were good, anything she’d be willing to admit to—though why she wanted to sugarcoat the truth for Ryder, she had no idea. “My parents’ place was something like this.”

That was true. It was also bullshit, true only in the fact that Iowa had lakes and bullfrogs and that she dangled her feet over the edges of lakes. But that was about where the similarities ended.

“You should call them.” His inflection was earnest, and it killed her the way he simply believed that because she lived in a place like this that might mean her folks were good.

Victoria wanted to swipe away the urge to let him know more about her.Absurd, really. She hadn’t shared her last name. But the fabric of who she was? Why not… She almost shook her head at the silliness. She spent the night in his arms, let him watch as she panicked under the covers, and yet she could barely bring down the wall on her true self. “I don’t know how to get ahold of my mom, and my dad’s… hard to explain. My dad is…”

“Dads are a tricky one sometimes,” he finished for her.

Her dad wasn’t a conversation topic she wanted to bring up. Maybe Ryder would forget he even asked if she stayed silent long enough.

“Is he dead?”

“Sometimes it seemed that way.” She sighed.

“How many guesses do I get before you tell me?”

Maybe it was easier to talk about this under the protective barrier of the night. “Federal lockup.”

“Ah.” His body shifted as the short word drew long into the evening.

Not knowing what he thought, how that now colored his opinion of her, everything that she hated about her dad’s constant run-ins with the law twisted in her gut. “I’m not a bad person.”

“Didn’t say you were, Victoria.”

She twisted toward him in the dark. “He’s probably not a bad person either, just not a great person. Just, I don’t know,” she rambled, hating how Ryder’s opinion of her was likely lessening by the second, but she had to say something positive about her dad—or as positive as she could muster. “He’s just a person who can never get it right.”

Embarrassed, she wished she could lose herself in the night. Victoria put her hands behind her and dropped her head back to stare at the stars when all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and pretend she hadn’t admitted that part of her family history. Why did she share that? Unsettled emotions bubbled under her surface, and she focused on the sheet of stars overhead.

“There are so many,” she whispered about the brilliant, sparkling lights that beckoned for her attention like there were so many paths one could take in life. It was easy to focus on one star, but what if she chose wrong and wasted the entire time she spent there staring at some man-made satellite or hunk of human garbage reflecting the sun? Her dad went down the wrong path, and now his life was gone. But Ryder wouldn’t think of it that way. He was, in a way, in law enforcement, and he wasn’t saying much now that she’d clued him in on a small portion of who she was.

“More than we can comprehend.”

“Does my father’s history make you think less of me?” She turned her head, waiting expectantly for the usual answer.Of course not!But it was always a lie. She could tell in their voices no matter what their words said.

Ryder inhaled as though he considered her question. “Should it?”

“No.”

He dropped back on his elbows, not looking at her, but still mimicking her position. “I wouldn’t think less of you. How long’s he got?”

“This time?” She fed him more information with that bit of a question. “No idea. A while. I stopped asking or counting, I suppose.”

Ryder nodded.

“You have something to say about everything, advice to give, but nothing about my dad?”

“Do you need advice?”

“No.” She lifted a shoulder. “You asked about home. I guess you’re trying to figure me out…” A light bulb went off. “Look at what happened to me. I was a statistic waiting to happen.”

Ryder jolted. “I don’t believe that.”

“Why not?”Damn.She hadn’t even seen the irony until now. Not wanting to become her parents, she’d tried so hard to be the opposite of them that she became a statistic. If it weren’t pathetic, she would’ve laughed. “God, it was only a matter of time before something like this happened to me.”

He put his hand across her back, consoling her. “Stop, love. You’re getting worked up. Change of subject. What do you do for a living?”

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