by Jill Shalvis
Cora ignored her. “Listen to me, Marcus. That woman challenges you, and we’ve all been amazed at how she is with the girls. She treats them like adults and they eat it up. She loves them and they love her. So why can’t you just drop your stupid rule and let yourself be happy with her?”
“Because the last time I dropped my ‘stupid rule,’ I ended up being a single parent to twins, of whom one still isn’t speaking.”
“Mark,” his mom said softly, looking behind him.
He turned around and shit, there stood Sierra, silent, staring up at him with those soulful eyes. Fuck. “Hey, munchkin—”
She whirled and ran off into the house.
Fan-fucking-tastic. Lanie was gone and now so was Sierra, two of the most important females in his life, hurting because of him.
He pulled out his phone as he strode into the house, calling Lanie.
Not only didn’t she answer his call, she ignored it. “Call me back,” he said to her voice mail. “We need to talk.”
Someone “tsked” and he turned to face his grandpa. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“Look, Grandpa, I’ve got a lot on my plate, so either get it off your chest or keep it to yourself.”
“Women don’t like to be told what to do.”
No shit. “I didn’t tell her what to do.”
“You told her that you two needed to talk. You can’t go in like that, barrels blazing. They’ll circle around to your six and stab you dead.”
Mark’s eye started to twitch. Good. He was going to stroke out. It would save him a lot of trouble.
“All I’m saying,” his grandpa said, “is that you have to nicely ask if she has time to have a chat. And then you let her come to you. Otherwise, you’re a sitting duck.”
Shaking his head, he went upstairs and found Samantha in her room playing a game on the kid tablet Mia had bought for her.
In the meantime, his phone remained ominously silent. “Hey, baby. Where’s Sierra?”
Samantha, without taking her gaze off the screen, shrugged.
Mark sighed and then crouched before her, having to put his face between hers and the screen to get her attention. “Hi.”
“Hi, Daddy.”
“Do you remember the other night when we were talking about the difference between adults and children?”
“Yes. You told me I couldn’t stay up all night like you get to.”
“And why is that?”
“Because adults are old and have experiences. They get to do what they want. And when I’m old I’ll get to do what I want, but I’m not old yet.”
Close enough. “Good. Remember that the next time you leave your bed in the middle of the night. Where’s Sierra?”
She hesitated. “I don’t know.”
“You always know.”
Samantha’s gaze skittered to the shut closet door and then back to Mark’s.
Nearly outsmarted by a pair of six-year-olds.
He moved to the closet and opened the door. Sierra was lounging in her hamper of dirty clothes, playing on her tablet. She didn’t look up. Like Sam, she had unruly curls—although they were a slightly softer version in the same dark brown color of his own hair—but her unique, quiet, old-soul temperament was all her own. “Hey, you.”
She was engrossed in her game. Or pretending to be. Mark lifted her out of the hamper and then sat in her place with her in his lap. The hamper strained under his weight and they didn’t quite fit, but he made it work, leaning back against the closet wall with various pieces of clothing hanging in their faces.
Sierra giggled and, in spite of himself and his worries, he smiled at the sound. “Baby, you need to know that I love you with all my heart.”
“Hey,” Sam said from the bed.
“I love both of you with all my heart,” he called out and then looked at Sierra. “I don’t care if you don’t want to talk. That’s okay. But I do care if you choose to never talk again because I miss your voice very much.”
Sierra stared at him, eyes luminous.
“So I need to know,” he said softly. “Are you ever going to talk again?”
She paused, thinking about it before giving him a slow, single nod.
“Good,” he whispered, jaw pressed against the top of her head.
Sam came into the closet and climbed into his lap too, and then his heart felt too big for his chest as he hugged them both tight.
Chapter 17
Anxiety: Beware.
Me: Can you be more specific?
Anxiety: . . .
After a run to the print shop and a quick side field trip through the ice cream shop, where she got a triple scoop of chocolate chip cookie dough, Lanie shut herself in at her desk.
After a few minutes, she heard someone coming her way and braced herself for it to be Mark. She would absolutely not be moved by whatever he had to say.
Probably.
“Hey,” Mia said. “How’s things?”
Lanie sighed. “You don’t have to pretend that I didn’t completely mortify myself in front of every one of you Capriottis at lunch.”
“Oh, that?” Mia shook her head and laughed. “That was nothing. When I got dumped by Sean, I stood up on one of the tables and sobbed. You’ve been here, what, a month and a half? A few weeks before you started, Alyssa and Owen had a huge fight and food was their weapon of choice.”
“They had an actual food fight?” Lanie asked. “Seriously?”
“Serious as a heart attack. Someone joined in and put a pie in Mom’s face.”
“Someone?”
“Okay, me,” Mia said and winced. “Not my most shining hour. But my point is that what happened today was nothing. No one ended up standing on a table sobbing or with pie in their face.”
Lanie just stared at her. “You guys are so . . .”
“Awesome. I think the word you’re looking for is awesome.”
Lanie laughed softly and turned back to her desk.
“Listen,” Mia said. “About my brother.”
Lanie closed her eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“No, I get that. And normally my relationship with my siblings is somewhere between ‘I’ll help you hide the body’ and ‘don’t even breathe in my direction,’ but in this case, I’m with you. And you should know Mark would’ve gone after you today, but Sierra ran off.”
“What? Is she okay?”
“Yeah, he found her.” Mia perched a hip on Lanie’s desk. “He’s a great dad.”
Lanie pretended to be very busy on her computer, grateful it was turned away from Mia because she was literally just watching an apple bounce slowly across the screen. “Yes, he is.”
“I know my mom asked you to extend your contract that ends in two weeks and stay longer.”
Two weeks . . . Was that all she had left? Her gaze locked on the bouncing apple. “She did.”
“And I know you haven’t said yes yet.”
“Mia—”
“Look, you fit in here. I think you know that.”
Lanie didn’t want them to, but the words . . . warmed her. Growing up, she’d been extremely aware of being different from her parents. And different hadn’t been good. Never fitting in with her own people had scarred her, she knew this. Hearing that she fit in here was both amazing and terrifying.
“We want you to stay,” Mia said. “All of us want that.”
“Yes,” Lanie said, still staring at her computer. “For the sake of the girls.”
“Well, of course. They’ve been through hell and we’re still trying to heal them from that, but this is more than just about them. It’s about the rest of us. And you. We all like you, Lanie. Very much. You feel like one of us.”
Lanie didn’t know how to react to this. She wasn’t good with emotions outside of her anxieties, and she sure as hell had no idea how to deal with them. She’d promised herself not to get involved. A promise she’d broken because she had gotten involved, and she had no idea what
to do about that. “I’m thinking on it,” she finally said.
Mia smiled. “So not a quick no, then. Good.”
When she was alone again, Lanie went to the employee room for tea. Sipping it, she stood in front of the humongous whiteboard calendar on the wall. It had everyone’s schedule there, but the most important one to everyone was the twins’. There was a blank spot for tomorrow’s dance class. She grabbed the pen and wrote her name in the spot.
“I’m going to owe you for that too,” a low, sexy voice said quietly behind her.
She stilled as Mark pressed up against her back. Or her body stilled.
Her mind did not.
Mark turned her to face him. “I’m sorry about my family.”
“I’m not mad at your family.”
He studied her for a moment. “When I was a kid,” he finally said, “I used to wish for a superpower. I wanted to be able to fly, but if I could have a superpower right now, I’d want to be able to read your mind.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
He let out a low, mirthless laugh. “You’re mad at me.”
“Look at that,” she murmured. “No superpower required.”
Cupping her face, he ran a thumb over her jaw, his fingers sinking into her hair. “You’re mad because . . . I went after the twins first?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I’ll never be mad at you for putting your girls first.”
His eyes never left hers as he clearly wracked his brain, and she decided to help him. “You told me we needed to talk.”
“Yes. Because we do.”
“You told. You didn’t ask, you told.” He blinked and then closed his eyes and dropped his head to her shoulder, muttering something about his grandpa being right and an impending stroke.
She gripped his arms. “Your grandpa’s having a stroke?”
“No, I am.” He lifted his face. “I’m sorry. I’m bossy and demanding.”
“Because of the military?”
“Because of all the females in my life.”
“The females in your life are the best thing about you,” she said with a small smile she couldn’t seem to hold back.
“If you think that,” he murmured with a small smile of his own, “I need to get you back in bed.”
She laughed softly, but her amusement faded fast.
“Look,” he said, “let me revise my earlier statement. Can we please talk at your earliest convenience?”
“Wow. Did that hurt?”
He laughed, and dammit, he melted away the rest of her mad. “I wanted to thank you,” he said quietly.
“For the orgasms?”
His eyes darkened. “Most definitely, but that’s not what I was going to say. I wanted to thank you for putting up with us Capriottis. I know you think you’re out of your comfort zone here—”
“I don’t think, I know.”
“—but you’re a natural. You fit in, you care—”
“It’s a job.”
“You care,” he repeated softly, running a finger along her temple, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “You care deeply.”
“You’re thanking me for caring deeply?”
“Yes.”
She didn’t know how to take this. No one had ever accused her of such a thing before. And since her MO had been to not care at all, she was at a loss as to when exactly everyone had sneaked in under her radar and made themselves comfy and at home in her heart. She shook her head. “I don’t want your thanks.”
“So you don’t want my thanks, and you won’t let me pay you for your extra time that you spend with the girls. What can I do for you?”
“There’s no price,” she said. “Remember?”
“But say that I wanted there to be a price,” he said. “What would it be? Name it,” he whispered, his voice now filled with all sorts of naughty conjecture.
She barely caught her moan as he brushed his rough jaw to hers, taking her earlobe between his teeth and giving her a shiver. “We’re in the office,” she whispered. “Isn’t this what got us in trouble only a few hours ago?”
“We’re in contract negotiations,” he said. “Name your stipulations.”
She considered him. He was teasing and she liked that. A lot. And since she did, and because this really wasn’t the place or the time, she teased back. “Would I have to call you sir?”
The look that came into his eyes made her heart rate skyrocket and other parts of her body start to override her brain.
“You can call me sir anytime you want,” he said, his lips traveling up the curve of her jaw, his stubble prickling against her skin as he pressed a kiss to her ear. “But you won’t get any work done if you do.”
With a laugh, she pushed him away. “Speaking of work . . .”
“Okay, but later then,” he murmured, more of a promise than a statement.
“Later,” she agreed softly.
And then counted the minutes until she was done for the day. She made her way to her cottage, her mind skipping ahead. Her life had been a train in a dark tunnel for a very long time. But it was like she’d somehow changed course and now she could see a little bit of light.
She was smiling, she realized in surprise. Happy. It was such a shock, this unusual feeling coursing through her veins, that it didn’t register that someone was already inside her cottage.
She knew she’d locked it when she left that morning—force of habit—and the lights were off, but there was someone with a penlight going through her closet. She froze in the open doorway, then smacked the light switch so that she could see.
River was on her knees going through Lanie’s things.
Lanie was frozen to the spot in shock. “What are you doing?”
“It’s not what you think,” River said quickly, struggling to get to her feet.
“You sure? Because what I think is that you’re stealing from me.”
River closed her eyes.
Lanie stayed right where she was, a lead weight in her chest where her heart had been only a moment before. She actually felt glued to the floor. She couldn’t have moved toward River to save her own life. “What the hell’s going on?”
“Please,” River said, breathing like she’d just run a mile, bending over to catch her breath. “I’m not stealing.”
Lanie looked at what River held—the one and only thing she had of her grandma’s, a small gold diamond necklace. “Your hands seem to disagree with you.”
Chapter 18
It’s almost time to switch from my everyday anxiety to my fancy holiday anxiety.
River felt the panic clutch her so thoroughly that the baby in her belly rolled a slow somersault, leaving her winded enough that she had to put a hand on the wall for balance.
Lanie was patting herself down, clearly looking for her phone.
“No!” River cried. “Please don’t call the police. I can’t go to jail. I can’t have her born in jail.”
“I wasn’t going to call the police,” Lanie said. “I was going to call Cora—you look like you’re going into damn labor and more than you don’t want to have this baby in jail, I don’t want to deliver this baby.”
“I’m not in labor.”
Lanie sighed and came close enough to take River’s hand and guide her to the bed. “Sit.”
As soon as River sat, Lanie dropped her hand and stepped back, like she couldn’t stand to even look at her. The gesture made River’s heart hurt even worse because this was all her own fault.
Stupid. She was so stupid.
“Why were you stealing from me?” Lanie asked, arms crossed.
River opened her mouth, but then shut it again because what could she say? Nothing. She couldn’t tell the truth. No one would believe the truth. Hell, she hardly believed it herself.
“Hello,” Lanie said.
River looked into Lanie’s eyes. Behind the anger was pain. Pain River had caused. She had no real choice here, she realized, or at least not a choice that she wanted
to face. Maybe if she’d opened up on her very first day and told Cora the truth about how she’d landed on their doorstep.
But she hadn’t.
And now she had to live with her lie. She’d taken the job because she’d seen an easy way in, only the joke was on her because she’d fallen for this place and everyone in it. She’d had it so good here that she’d become . . . happy.
And that had been the slippery slope. She’d gotten comfortable in this life where there wasn’t a daily worry about a roof over her head and food to eat, no stress over how she’d be able to take care of her baby. She’d forgotten how far from this world she belonged.
And in the end it didn’t matter since she’d just sabotaged it all. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Lanie let out a sound that very clearly said not good enough. “What were you looking for?”
One last lie, as it was easier than the truth. “Something I could pawn for quick cash.”
Lanie looked around her cottage and shook her head. “No. You’re lying. I left my purse on the counter—it’s right there in plain sight, and yet it’s still zipped. You didn’t even look in there for cash. You’re in my closet searching through what’s mostly an empty suitcase. Like you’re looking for something specific.”
With that rather shockingly accurate assessment, River managed to get back to her feet. She started to hold out the necklace, but Lanie came close and snatched it from her hands, hugging it close to her chest. It was an unguarded reaction that made River deeply ashamed. Her heart was pumping in her throat now with the need to somehow fix this. “Lanie—”
“Please just go.”
“Are you going to call the cops?”
“Just get the hell out!”
But River couldn’t leave, not like this, and she dug her feet in. “Not yet. Please, Lanie, please let me—”
“What the hell’s going on in here?” Cora asked from the still-open front door.
River startled in shock and would’ve gone down if Lanie hadn’t grabbed her. She waited until River had found her feet before once again jerking her hands away as if she’d been burned, taking a big step backward, carefully not looking at River again.
