by Jill Shalvis
She gave another heavy sigh. “I’m sorry.”
“For what, your sweet, sunshine-like nature? For assuming the worst of me? For apparently not knowing how to retract your claws?”
She had to laugh. “All of the above.”
He smiled, and she got the feeling he liked the sound of her laugh, which also made her all warm and fuzzy again. Dammit.
He merely bowed his head in acceptance of her apology and vanished outside again. She followed with the last of the load and got into his truck. She’d just buckled her seatbelt and he’d done the same when her stomach rumbled so loudly it echoed off the windshield.
Kel turned to her, brow up.
Horrified, she pressed her hands to her belly and pressed hard. “Ignore that.”
Kel flashed a grin. “You made all that amazing food and didn’t feed yourself, did you.”
“I was busy.”
He started driving. Ten minutes later, he parked at an all-night diner in the Marina District.
“What are we doing?” she asked.
“Feeding the beast.”
The diner was mostly empty at this time of night. It looked like it’d been opened in the 1950s and not renovated since. Black-and-white linoleum, steel tables, bright red booths. It was, however, done up for the holidays within an inch of its life. The walls and every available surface were twinkling with multicolored strings of lights and decorations.
It was a seat yourself sort of situation, so Kel gestured for her to pick a spot and she headed toward a booth, stopping short when she realized that hanging in front of each booth was a sprig of mistletoe.
Kel stopped too, and toe-to-toe with her, they both looked up.
“Don’t even think about kissing me again,” she warned.
He grinned.
“Because I’m not thinking about it,” she said. “So you shouldn’t either.”
“Honey, I’ve done nothing but think of it.”
Something deep inside her hummed in pleasure at that, but she ignored it and slid into the booth. Grabbing two menus sticking out of a holder, she tossed him one. “Have you been here before?” she asked.
“No. But the flashing sign in the window says Best Pancakes Ever, and I’m planning on testing out that promise.”
“Do you eat a lot of pancakes?”
“Whenever I can. None as good as yours though.”
She tried and failed to not be secretly pleased by that and eyed his leanly muscular build. “Where do you put it?”
“Good metabolism,” he said.
“Plus hard work,” she guessed. “You, Spence, and Jake go for miles every morning.”
“Do you ever run?”
“Only if I’m on fire.”
He laughed. “A coworker and I used to run in the mornings, then hit up a local diner. We won the pancake eating contest three years in a row.”
“If I ate pancakes every day, I’d weigh two tons. Is your coworker off work for these two weeks too?”
Kel looked at her for a long moment. “My coworker’s in jail,” he finally said.
She gaped before she could stop herself. “What happened?”
“She was dirty.” He suddenly seemed to find the menu engrossing. “They have French toast too.”
Her heart squeezed hard and she put her hand over the menu and waited until his gaze met hers. “Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Right. He was a male. She gave him a get real look and he blew out a breath, pushing his menu away. “I’m the one who turned her in. She tried to frame me. For a while, she nearly succeeded. And then she nearly killed me. Hence my forced leave. Seems my superiors need a little space and time.”
“But that’s not fair,” she said, a little surprised by her own vehemence. But she knew him, or she was starting to, and she knew the people who cared about him. She didn’t take the time to freak out about that. There was plenty of time for that later. “You’re innocent.”
The smallest of smiles almost crossed his lips. “You don’t know that.”
She looked right into his brown eyes, eyes that she knew could be razor sharp with focus and intensity, or soft with affection and heat. “I feel like I do,” she murmured, even more shocked by her easy admission.
He seemed just as shocked. “Look at you going all sweet on me.” He paused. “You’re a surprise, Ivy.”
And because he didn’t sound necessarily happy about that, she snorted. “Yeah. I hear that a lot. So what do all the women in your life think of your two weeks in San Francisco?”
“My women?”
“The people you’re seeing,” she said casually, eyes on her menu.
He flashed another smile, which she caught because he put a finger on her menu and pushed it down. “Are you fishing?”
Dammit. Yes. She lifted her chin. “In your dreams, cowboy.”
His smile slowly faded and he leaned in, eyes on hers. “Putting aside the fact that you know my life doesn’t lend itself to relationships, you really think I’d kiss you like I did if I was kissing anyone else?”
She stared at him, heart suddenly thundering in her ears. “Lots of men do.”
He gave a single shake of his head and brought his hand over the top of hers on the table, squeezing lightly. “Ivy?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but the men in your past really sound like a bunch of assholes.”
Unable to deny that, she shrugged. “There haven’t been that many, to be honest. But I do tend to . . . pick the ones who are bad for me.”
“How so?” he asked.
She was surprised to hear herself answer, and truthfully at that, especially since she very purposely never thought about this particular time in her life. “My last relationship was my longest. I met Dillon in LA, where I was living at the time. We stuck a whole year.”
“What happened?” Kel asked.
This was embarrassing. And embarrassingly revealing. “I’d moved in with him. Then he got a promotion he’d been hoping for, but his new position was in New York.”
“You didn’t want to move?”
She turned her head and looked out the window, not wanting to see his face. Or have him see hers. “I would have. But he took the job and gave up his apartment without asking me to go with him.”
“Leaving you homeless?” he asked with a whisper of disbelief.
She shrugged. She’d been homeless before. And hey, she’d had a few weeks’ notice from the building super to get out.
“That was a real dick move, Ivy.” She felt his hand take hers in his bigger, warmer one. “I’m sorry that happened to you. You deserved better.”
“It wasn’t meant to be,” she said. “And anyway, I ended up getting something out of it.”
“What’s that?”
“I realized I wanted to make some changes in my life. I wanted my own place. And real friends. I wanted a sense of permanence. And I came here, where I’m working at making it happen.”
“By buying the taco truck and one of the new condos.”
She nodded.
“The first round of owners are moving in next week,” Kel said.
“I’m not in the first round.” But she was hoping to be in the second. “I’m still working at getting my down payment. When I was there bringing you breakfast, they were doing finish work on the ground floor around the lobby, the offices, business center, and gym.”
“It’s nearly all done now. We just got the office and business center fully furnished and equipped. All the computer systems are up and running, and the state-of-the-art gym will be finished by tomorrow. There’s now more money spent on that floor alone than most developing nations.”
A waitress appeared at their table. She was midfifties with a trim build and a kind face, her gray-tinged brown hair pinned to the top of her head. She looked up from her pad and stilled, staring at Kel in shock.
Kel looked just as shocked. “Mom.”
>
Mom? Ivy stared at the woman, able to see it now. They had the same dark brown eyes, the same set to their jaw, and currently the exact same expression of oh shit on their faces.
Neither of them spoke.
“Wow, you have a mom?” she asked Kel in a teasing tone she hoped might defuse the awkward silence. “You were once a little kid? Somehow I can’t imagine you as anything but a smartass cop.”
His mom smiled a little. “He was a cute little boy. And sweet, so very sweet. He always held my hand when we went anywhere. He was my dragon slayer, even when he was barely three feet tall.”
Kel had recovered from his surprise. His expression was now completely blank.
“It’s been a long time,” his mom said quietly, her eyes on her son. “I know you didn’t expect me here. It’s a new-ish job since the last time we talked . . . When was that?” she asked.
“Grandma’s funeral last summer.”
Her smiled faded. “Right. I’m sorry about this. I didn’t expect you either, but I’m . . .” She paused to take in a deep breath. “I’m so happy to see you, baby.”
Kel didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. His eyes did it for him. He was seriously regretting offering to feed Ivy’s beast.
She wondered what his and his mom’s relationship was to cause him this much pain.
“I left him,” his mom said to Ivy’s unspoken question. “When he was twelve. I couldn’t help it, and I can’t take it back, but I regret it. I’ve deeply regretted it every day since. Especially because . . .” She turned back to Kel, her eyes swimming with unshed tears. “I know that you had to step up and work the ranch with your grandparents, and when they got older, you had to take over the entire operation. I know you put aside your own childhood to make sure Remy had hers. I know my selfish act meant you giving up your life to be the head of the household when you were way too young, which caused you to shut down your emotions and hold yourself in tight control at all times, something you never should’ve had to do.”
Kel’s expression didn’t change.
Cue another awkward strained silence, and Kel’s mom’s smile faded. “Well. You didn’t come here for this. You came to eat. What can I get you?”
As they placed their orders, his mom nodded, but never took her eyes off Kel, like maybe he was Christmas and summer vacation all in one. “It really is good to see you,” she told him softly.
Kel closed his eyes and shook his head.
His mom straightened and nodded. “Right. I’ll get your order in.” And then she was gone.
Chapter 11
Don’t let your head sell you out
Kel couldn’t believe it. Of all the pancake joints in all the world . . . He’d had to find the one where his mom worked. He’d watched the light in his mom’s eyes fade before she headed back to the kitchen and told himself he didn’t owe her a single damn thing.
But he still felt like a big bag of dicks. There was a time in his life when he would have welcomed her wanting to see him. But when she’d waited until he was nearly an adult to try to explain to him why she’d never come for her own children, he’d decided he no longer wanted to know.
Did that make him an asshole? Yeah. Probably.
And never in a million years had he thought he’d run into her like this, by complete accident. He’d purposely avoided the places he thought there might be a chance of seeing her.
Fat lot of good that had done him because here she was, and she’d looked at him as if he’d been the best thing she’d seen all year. When he’d been little she’d looked at him like that, like he was the sun and the moon. Her entire universe.
But he was no longer young and everything had changed.
“You okay?” Ivy asked quietly.
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
She didn’t break eye contact or let him get away with answering the question with another question. In fact, she—unlike anyone else in his life—never let him get away with much. “Obviously, there’s a problem between you two,” she said.
“The problem is that when I needed a mom, I didn’t have one.”
“And now you, what, don’t need a mom?”
“No.”
She nodded, accepting this easily, more easily than anyone he’d ever told. “She seems really sweet,” she said.
Kel let out a low, mirthless laugh just as his mom reappeared with hot chocolate, which she set in front of him.
He looked down at the steaming mug, his chest pinching at all the memories that slammed into him. This had been a tradition. On cold days when he’d come home from school, she’d make him hot chocolate. Up until the day he’d come home from school to no hot chocolate because she’d been in bed with another man. He pushed the mug away. “I didn’t order this.”
She clasped her hands together. “It used to be your favorite.”
“Yes,” he said. “When I was ten.”
His mom’s face flushed with embarrassment. Across the table Ivy slid the mug toward herself. “Well, I’m not ten, but my mom never once made me hot chocolate. No sense in this going to waste, right?” She took a sip. “Wow.”
His mom beamed at her. “You like it?”
“It’s the most amazing hot chocolate I’ve ever had,” Ivy said.
Kel rolled his eyes and Ivy kicked him beneath the table. Hard.
“I added my special secret ingredient,” his mom said. “A pinch of cinnamon.”
“It’s delicious. Thank you.”
“You’re so welcome.” His mom turned to him and shyly pulled something from one of her apron pockets.
Her phone. Which she opened to her photos.
Perfect. “Mom, this isn’t really a great time—”
“Aw,” Ivy said, eyes on the picture of Remy and the new baby. “So cute! Who is this?”
“That’s Kel’s sister,” his mom said. “And her new baby, Harper. This was taken right in the birth room. Harper was two minutes old.”
“Precious,” Ivy said softly, looking and sounding very sincere.
Kel had seen the picture. Remy had sent it, and he’d thought the same thing then that he thought now. The baby was red, mottled, and covered in . . . well, he wasn’t sure exactly what. Some sort of goop. Precious wasn’t exactly the word he’d use.
“And this was yesterday,” his mom said, thumbing to the next pic. “In her daddy’s arms.”
And okay, the baby was pretty cute now. She had Remy’s eyes and Ethan’s smile. And just looking at her made Kel smile, which was a real feat at the moment.
Then his mom slid her finger across the screen to the next pic, which was of her and Henry wearing Best Grandma Ever and Best Grandpa Ever T-shirts, holding Harper.
“Love the shirts,” Ivy said.
They were smiling down at the baby like real doting grandparents. The only person in the family missing from the photos was Kel.
His own doing.
His mom gently touched his arm, making him realize he’d frozen in place, staring at the phone. “My break’s in thirty minutes,” she said. “I could come and sit down, maybe catch up a little.”
“Can’t,” he said. “I’ve got to get Ivy home.”
His mom’s smile faded a little bit, and for the first time he didn’t feel the usual resentment and anger. He felt . . . guilt.
This time when she headed back to the kitchen, silence reigned at the table. He looked over at Ivy. “Sorry about that.”
She stood. “Excuse me a minute?” She headed to the restroom.
He eyed the hot chocolate on her side of the table. Fighting—and losing—the battle, he pulled the mug in close and took a sip. He didn’t know what he expected it to taste like—broken hearts and destroyed dreams? But it tasted like hot chocolate. Delicious hot chocolate.
Five minutes later, Ivy still hadn’t returned, but their food arrived. His was a huge stack of pancakes that he’d wanted only a few minutes ago, but his appetite was gone.
A few minutes later, his mom sli
d into the booth where Ivy had been sitting. She pulled Ivy’s plate toward herself, much as he’d done the hot chocolate.
“What are you doing?” he asked. “Ivy’ll be back any minute.”
“Will she?”
“What does that mean?”
She gave him a slightly pitying look. “Son, she climbed out the bathroom window about ten minutes ago.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Yeah, I think she thought we’d communicate better without an audience.”
“That’s . . . oddly specific.” He narrowed his gaze. “You talked to her.”
“No.” She took another bite. “She talked to me. She called a Lyft.”
Kel couldn’t believe it. She’d ditched him.
His mom took a few bites of pancakes and moaned, closing her eyes. “Sorry, I’ve been on my feet for eight hours and I’m starving.” With a long sigh, she finally pushed the plate away. “Don’t worry, I know you’re not interested in talking to me. And for the record, I did try to tell Ivy that. And I’m not going to take up your time. I just wanted to give you this.” She slid an envelope across the table.
“What is it?”
“An invite to Remy’s surprise baby shower. It’s on the night before Christmas Eve.” She paused. “I know you’re still mad at me, but it’s for your sister. You know that Harper was a preemie and we had to cancel the original shower. She’ll be over the moon if you come. The whole family together in one place.”
It was what he’d wanted every single day of his life during those years he’d been grieving his dad, stuck in Idaho, his mom gone from their lives, nothing of his dad’s to remember him by. All he’d wanted was his family together again.
But he was no longer a kid, and he no longer yearned for such things.
When he remained quiet, his mom nodded as if she’d expected it and stood up. “Okay. So you still don’t want to talk to me. I have to respect that. I hurt you, and we can’t come back from the past. But I hope you’ll at least think about it. I’d hate for you and your sister to miss out because you’re still mad at me.”
“I’m not mad at you, Mom.”
She just gave him a sad smile and walked away.
