CHAPTER 1 RUSTY sighed and wondered again if she’d done the right thing in hiring the kid part time. They didn’t need the help in the store. Frank kept busy despite objections from the family about overdoing it after his heart attack a few years earlier. Rusty helped out when she was home from school, and there were any number of Kellys willing to drop everything and help anytime they were needed. And yet . . . She hadn’t been able to refuse the kid. Maybe it was the quiet desperation in his eyes. It was a look—and a feeling—she was well acquainted with. “But by the grace of God—and the Kellys—go I,” she murmured, a half smile curving her lips upward. There was little doubt she’d still be in a run-down trailer living with her shithead of a stepfather, scratching out a hand-to-mouth existence, if Marlene Kelly hadn’t taken Rusty in. Oh, she wouldn’t still be with her stepfather. She would have run away. Eventually. And she’d likely be on the streets somewhere. Prostituting herself just to survive. A shiver overtook her as long-suppressed memories crowded to the surface. Painful, humiliating memories. Marlene Kelly was a saint. An angel’s angel. Rusty thanked God for her and Frank every single day. Because of them, she was in university. She’d graduate in a year’s time! With a degree. A life. Prospects!