Here in My Heart: A Novella (Echoes of the Heart) by Anna DeStefano Page B

and at home. What does it matter if keeping a piece of that for yourself has anything to do with me?”
    “It matters to me. Making my way on my own, working my butt off to get what I have and to pay people back for everything they’ve already given me, matters to me.”
    “And you don’t like the idea of one of those people being me,” he said.
    She sighed. “No.”
    She’d been fearlessly independent as a kid, though she’d adored her foster family. Brad wondered how much Dru still thought that she’d just gotten lucky, that the stars had magically aligned when Family Services chose the Dixons for her.
    She’d said as much to him once, when they’d been close: that it never really felt real, the life she’d stumbled into in Chandlerville. Maybe Vivian had figured that out, too, and this was her way of pushing Dru into accepting that she could stop fighting so hard to earn things that were already rightfully hers. Only now Dru had their teenage baggage to deal with, while she tried to wrap her head around Vivian’s final plans.
    “What about my kids?” Dru asked. “Did you let guilt make you think you should involve yourself in your grandmother’s funding of my radKIDS program?”
    “I’m not running my life based on mistakes I made when I was barely old enough to shave, Dru.” It was one of the first positive steps he’d taken, turning loose of what he couldn’t go back and change. “And no one talks Vivian Douglas into anything. She was intrigued by your proposal when you pitched the idea for the Whip to sponsor something that would make the community better. My being drunk off my ass half the time when I was a teenager, and sleeping with Selena Rosenthal, and the mess that night made out of all of our lives, had nothing to do with Vivian asking what I knew about radKIDS. Or me telling her she should support the program. It was good for the business; it gave the restaurant a stronger profile in the community and let the public see some of the good Vivian’s been doing behind the scenes. And it was good for you.”
    “ And the life I thought I was building for myself”—Dru pounded a beef patty flat, creating a sad-looking pancake instead of the kind of juicy, rounded burger Brad could still form in his sleep—“was somehow still about you, even after you rejected me when we were kids. How am I supposed to feel about that?”
    “Nothing. Don’t feel anything about me.” Something in his chest squeezed, making the words nearly impossible to get out. “Just know that I pushed you away when we were kids because Oliver asked me to, not because I didn’t want everything you were offering me that night. Accept that I was trying to do the right thing then, just like I was when I encouraged Vivian to help you. Then let it go, so we can deal with what she needs from us now.”
    “You . . .” Dru’s bottom lip trembled. “You wanted me back then?”
    “Yes.” She deserved to know that, even if it didn’t change a damn thing.
    He was standing between her and the door to the front of the place. He was close enough to block her escape through the back if she decided to run from him again. She was still wearing the same clothes as last night, loose jeans and a pink Chandlerville Chargers sweatshirt and beaten-up sneakers with no socks. Her short, softly curling hair looked finger-combed. There wasn’t a whisper of makeup to soften the shadows beneath her eyes. She was disheveled and sleep-deprived. She looked better to him than his best dreams.
    He didn’t say that he’d never stopped wanting her. She didn’t need that from him. He’d promised himself yesterday at the Y not to push her to be part of his life again, even temporarily. But now too much was at stake for her, for him not to try.
    “You won Vi over, Dru. You’ve made a difference in Chandlerville and Vivian’s life. You’ve made a difference in my life, too.”
    Her head snapped up. She stared at him as if she couldn’t take