Page 59 of Falling Overboard

The waiter interrupted us, bringing us our crepes. We both thanked him and I dug in. I’d never had crepes this good before. “You were saying?”

She took a deep breath. “Long story short, my stepdad left when I was fourteen. I think he’d met someone else. My mother had been a stay-at-home mom while they were together but they’d never married, so when he took off, she didn’t have any rights to alimony. She worked a bunch of jobs to take care of us and I pitched in. She ran up credit card debt and could only make minimal payments. Things never got better because of it.”

Her stepfather abandoning them was another major loss for her. I had to put my fork down. If Lucky had been beautiful to me before, she was even more so now. Harper’s death had nearly destroyed me. I couldn’t imagine what Lucky had gone through—continually losing the most important people in her life but persevering in spite of it. I admired her so much. She was incredibly strong.

It made me feel like I wasn’t good enough for her. I needed to try harder and be better. Maybe I could become the man she deserved.

Instead of giving any indication of where my thoughts had gone, I went back to her story. “And I’m guessing you helped out a lot with taking care of your sisters.”

“I did. And I was glad to do it. I liked that I could do something to make my mom’s life a little easier.”

I could have guessed that she had done whatever she could to help her mom. I wanted to tell her how much I liked her and how incredible she was. She was being so honest with me. Maybe I should do the same. Tell her about my family and my situation. Ease her into it. “Did I tell you that I have two younger sisters, too? Not twins, though. They’re eighteen and sixteen.”

Her phone buzzed and she glanced down at it. Her face fell.

“What is it?” I was ready to slay dragons again.

“One of my sisters needing money. They only ever text me when they need something. It’s six thousand dollars this time to fix their car.”

That was our entire tip from the Carmines. Did they know that? My gut told me that they were taking advantage of her. She had dreams and needed money for it. I told myself that I didn’t have enough information and needed to back off.

I wanted to protect her. But she hadn’t asked for my help or my advice. I couldn’t rush in and try to rescue her. Harper had often teased me about my white-knight syndrome and told me that I couldn’t save everyone.

If Lucky wanted my perspective, she would ask for it. That didn’t mean I couldn’t point out what was happening. “Do they do that a lot? Ask you for money?”

She shrugged. “I guess. I’m the only family they have left.”

“But you’re saving your money for your bakery.”

“It might delay me a little bit, but they need my help. Plus, now that I’m chief stew, my base pay is higher, so I’ll be able to save up faster. I have a three-year plan.”

A plan that would never happen if she kept bailing her family out. “How old are your sisters?”

“Twenty-two.” I heard the defensiveness in her voice.

I needed to tread carefully. “I understand wanting to help, but sometimes it stops being help and starts being taken advantage of. Especially someone like you.”

“Someone like me?” The defensiveness had turned into anger.

I held up both of my hands, not wanting her to misunderstand. “Someone who is generous and thoughtful. I understand why you want to help them. I’m overprotective of my younger sisters, too.”

She stayed quiet and I was hit by a wave of tiredness and frustration that I couldn’t help her out of her situation. I covered up a yawn.

“Am I boring you already?” she asked.

“No, somebody kept me up late last night.”

“Me?”

“You talk in your sleep,” I told her.

“What do I say?”

“It would be ungentlemanly of me to repeat. But it works out well for me because I like to listen in my sleep.”

“I don’t know how it would be possible for you to hear anything, Mr. Kettle. You snore like you swallowed a chain saw.”

Before I could tease her back, a wasp darted directly at her and she gasped, standing up and knocking her chair over. This I could help her with. I grabbed a napkin and swatted it away from her.

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