by Jill Shalvis
She jerked around, trying to quickly swipe the tears from her face. “Mark,” she gasped. “I . . . didn’t see you.”
He stepped out of the dark corner as she stared at him. “How much did you hear?”
“Everything.”
She winced. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About a lot of things, but mostly for fighting you and your family’s easy acceptance and love.” She met his gaze, letting him see her regrets, loneliness, sadness. “I’m not trying to give excuses, but it’s taken me a while to believe I deserved—” She shook her head. “But then River believed in me so much too and . . .”
“Did you mean it, Lanie? What you told the baby?”
She closed her eyes for a beat and then opened them on his. “Yes. But I’m not like you, Mark. The depths of what I feel for you is nothing short of terrifying.”
“And yet every day you show up,” he said, catching her hand and slowly pulling her in, pressing her palm to his chest over his heart. “What do you think the definition of courage is?”
“You,” she said, surprising him. “You were a soldier. You spent years overseas fighting for your country. And then you came home and faced being a single dad with the same ease.”
He had to laugh. “Ease isn’t exactly the word I’d use. For any of my life.” He paused. “I’ve been scared plenty of times. What I’ve never been is fearless. If you can run into a battle unafraid, you’re not courageous, you’re just a dumbass. It’s knowing the price you’re going to pay and being willing to pay it anyway that makes you brave.”
“See? You are the bravest man I know. And . . .” She swallowed hard. “I’m trying to learn from that. From you.”
He’d spent a lot of years learning how to control his reactions, but there was no controlling his heart in that moment as it took a good heart leap. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying . . .” She stepped in closer so that they were touching from chest to thighs. “I’m saying that I don’t want to keep running. Not from you.”
He stared at her. “Which means . . . ?”
“I love you,” she said softly but without any hesitation, her voice firm and knowing, the words a balm over his wounded soul.
“What turned the tide in my favor?” He cupped her face. “My two little heathens that interrupt us night and day? My insane family that constantly sticks their noses into our business? Or maybe it’s the impossible hours I work?”
She gave him a small smile. “Would you believe all of the above?” She slid her hands up his chest and wrapped her arms around his neck. “But it was also that you saw me at my worst. You saw me when I had one foot out the door and was ready to blindly run off and leave everything because I was scared, and you still looked at me like I was one of the most important people on earth to you.”
“Because you are.”
“Right back at you.” She slid her fingers into his hair. “You know that, right?”
He smile was slow and warm and sexy. “I do now. We make a good team, Lanie. Say you know that.”
“I know it. I love it. And I love you, Marcus Capriotti, so much.”
WHEN RIVER WAS released from the hospital, Lanie picked her up. She’d somehow managed to talk the entire Capriotti family into letting her go alone, not wanting River to be overwhelmed, thinking that mama and baby might need a few minutes of quiet time before being inundated with the whole clan.
Once they were in the car, River buckled into the backseat, the baby safely in her car seat next to River, Lanie carefully pulled out of the hospital parking lot and onto the street.
“Hey, Granny,” River said after a few minutes. “Did you know they can give you a ticket for going too slow?”
“I’m not going too slow.”
“If you were going any slower, you’d be going backward.”
Lanie didn’t speed up.
At a red light, River spoke. She was twisted to face the baby, smiling at her like she was talking right to her. “So . . . when are you leaving?”
Lanie glanced at her in the rearview mirror.
“I heard you and Mark fighting,” River said. “The night I almost . . .”
Bled out on her cottage floor.
The light turned green and Lanie put her eyes on the road as she pulled out into the intersection. “I’m not. Leaving.”
“But you said you didn’t want the extra work.”
“I changed my mind,” Lanie said. “I told Cora I’d stay for as long as she needed a graphic designer.”
“How long is that going to be?”
Lanie slowed for the next intersection even though she had a green light.
River rolled her eyes.
“Cora offered me a permanent job,” Lanie said.
River gasped in delight, reminding Lanie of Samantha. “So you got your head out of your ass?” she asked, clapping in glee. “You’re staying? Are you going to marry Mark and live happily ever after?”
“Seriously, you’ve got to stop watching Hallmark and Lifetime.”
River was smiling. “Come on, say it. Tell me.”
“Yes. I’m staying.”
“And . . .” River pressed.
“And . . . I’m going to make a go of this thing with Mark.” She couldn’t say it without grinning wide like an idiot. She clapped a hand over her mouth. “I don’t know what that is,” she said from behind her fingers. “I can’t get rid of the smile. It’s been there since last night.”
“It’s happiness about your happy ever after.”
“You’ve got to stop saying that,” Lanie said. “You’re making me nervous. I don’t want to jinx it. Let’s call it a happy for now, okay?”
“A happy for now,” River said, looking thrilled. “I like the sound of that. I could live with that.”
Lanie met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “You’ll get your chance.”
River looked out the window and didn’t comment, and Lanie got it. She knew River felt as if she’d blown things with Holden, who’d had to leave to go back to his post. He’d waited as long as he could, staying until they knew River was going to make it after her surgery.
“Hey,” Lanie said softly. “I’m the queen of messing up a good thing, but mistakes happen and they can be forgiven. Cora told me that and she was right.”
River looked at her pensively and slowly nodded.
Lanie pulled them up to the winery and helped River out of the car, turning back for the baby carrier. “I’ve got her,” she told River. “You’re not to lift anything more than a tissue for a week, remember?”
River bent over Delaney and kissed her little nose. “You’re in good hands with Aunt Lanie, baby.”
Aunt Lanie.
There were worse things . . . She found herself smiling with pride as they headed inside to find most of the family in the front reception room, where there were streamers and balloons and a huge banner that read WELCOME HOME, RIVER!
Cora, Mark, and the twins were there. No one else.
“I told everyone else to stay at work,” Cora said. “I figured you needed a quiet homecoming.” She walked up to River and hugged her tight. “Welcome home, honey.”
River burrowed in and wrapped her arms around Cora. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Lanie heard a sniffle and didn’t know if it came from River or Cora, but she suspected both.
Mark took the baby carrier from Lanie and set baby Delaney on a tabletop. Then he reached for Lanie’s hand. “Hey. You good?”
Lanie squeezed his hand and nodded.
“Lanie, Lanie, Lanie!” Sam yelled in greeting.
Lanie sank to one of the chairs so that Sierra could crawl into her lap. Lanie wrapped her arms around the girl and leaned over Mark to his other side where Samantha was sipping on red punch, complete with a red mustache. Lanie puckered up for a kiss and got a raspberry-flavored one. “Hi,” she whispered to the three most important people in her world.
“Hi!” the twins said in unison, with matching gr
ins.
Lanie’s heart skipped a beat. She loved hearing Sierra talk.
Mark was only slightly more restrained than his girls. He wrapped an arm around her and gave her a slow, not-raspberry-flavored kiss that would have had her knees buckling if she hadn’t been sitting down. “Love you,” he said easily and then playfully tugged a wayward strand of hair.
“Love you back,” she said with equally shocking ease.
His smile said he could see her surprise and was amused by it.
“Our dance recital’s in two weeks,” Samantha said excitedly. “You’ll come?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Lanie said.
“Good, ’cuz on the calendar in the office it says you’ll be gone. You won’t be gone?”
Lanie needed to change the calendar pronto. “I won’t be.”
“You’ll be here?” Samantha asked, apparently needing a two-step verification.
“There’s no place I’d rather be.”
“That’s good, ’cuz Daddy’s life doesn’t work without you in it.” Sierra smiled at her daddy. “Right, Daddy? That’s what you said to Grandma this morning when she asked.”
Mark, not looking embarrassed in the slightest, nodded as emphatically as Samantha had. “One hundred percent right, baby.”
Lanie leaned in past the girls’ faces. “Close your eyes,” she told them both. “I’m going to kiss your daddy real quick.” She did and then whispered against Mark’s mouth, “My life doesn’t work without you in it either.”
“I know.” He smiled that just-for-her smile, the one that never failed to warm her from the inside out. “But it’s nice to hear,” he said. “So . . . how do you feel about forever?”
Samantha bounced up and down in glee. “I love forever!”
Sierra nodded vigorously. She was back to talking, but clearly only when she felt it necessary.
Lanie stared at the three of them, her heart full to bursting. “I love forever too.”
“Then welcome home.”
Epilogue
One year later
It was lunchtime at the winery with all the usual pomp and circumstance. Lanie had Sam on one side and Sierra on the other, both of them digging into their cupcake dessert. Across from her sat River with Delaney in her lap, surrounded by Mia and Alyssa and the rest of the gang.
So much had changed in a year. For instance, it was Sierra who recounted the story of Great-Uncle Jack farting in the employee room and then yelling “Who stepped on a frog?”
Another change, Mia was texting someone who was making her smile softly. She was dating a woman who owned a horse ranch not too far from here, and while everyone was surprised at this change, no one had blinked an eye.
“You’re doing it again,” Lanie said.
Mia looked up, her eyes alight. “Grinning stupidly?”
“Well, maybe not stupidly . . .”
Mia shook her head and laughed. “I know. It’s crazy, right? Me being ridiculously happy?”
“It’s beautiful,” Alyssa chimed in with. “We’re all happy for you.”
Someone came through the gate and River’s head came up and froze in shock.
Lanie twisted around and saw it was Holden. Shorter hair, his body more leanly muscled than it’d been, but there was no mistaking the man who stepped onto the patio. He wore dark sunglasses, his face carefully blank, but Lanie knew his gaze went straight to River.
Cora, who’d been standing at the head of the table pouring wine, was the closest to him. She stepped in front of him, cupped his face, and said something softly, for his ears only. He nodded and she pulled him in for a warm hug.
Holden dropped his duffle bag and returned the hug. Then he pulled away and turned to River.
She’d dropped her fork onto her plate with a loud clatter at the first sight of him and stood up. She had a napping Delaney strapped to her chest as she just stared at the man in front of her.
He took a step and then hesitated, clearly unsure of his welcome.
But River didn’t look unsure at all as she closed the distance between them and reached for him. She slid her hands up his chest and into his hair and pulled his head down for a kiss.
“That’ll make things pretty clear to him,” Mia said. “And if not, her tongue down his throat should do it.”
“It’s so romantic,” Alyssa said. “I talked to him last week and he didn’t mention he was coming home. I’m guessing by the tears streaming down River’s face that she didn’t know either.”
“They’ve talked on the phone and via e-mail a lot this past year,” Lanie said. “She knew he would be coming soon, but he kept it a surprise.” Lanie watched, a little choked up as Holden and River stopped kissing long enough to laugh and talk at the same time, soft words no one could catch.
“Damn,” Mia said. “The least they could do is speak up and let us in on it.”
River took Holden’s big hands in hers and set them on Delaney, clearly introducing them.
Holden lowered his head and brushed a kiss over Delaney’s cheek. Then he met River’s gaze again, his own serious until River smiled through shimmery eyes.
And then he pulled her in as close as he could with Delaney between them, pressing his jaw to the top of River’s head, closing his eyes, his arms tight around her like she was the most precious cargo he’d ever held.
Lanie sighed, her heart happy. But not the rest of her. Nope, the rest of her was twitchy and sweaty. She shifted and fidgeted there at the table, fanning her overheated face, blowing out a long breath, which lifted some of the hair off her face—until it fell back into her eyes.
She was miserable and it was time to share some of that misery. Pulling out her phone, she texted Mark.
I’M HOT.
“Yeah, you are hot,” said a sexy familiar voice right behind her.
“Oh my God,” Mia complained. “Overshare.”
Lanie craned her neck to find Mark standing right behind her. He wore his uniform stretched taut over his broad shoulders, his impossibly long legs bringing him up against her, and her entire body gave a hungry little quiver.
“Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” the girls yelled in unison as Mark slid his arms around Lanie and rubbed his scruffy jaw to her face before claiming her mouth in a hungry kiss.
“Hey,” Mia complained. “Enough’s enough. I want to be the next person kissed!”
This didn’t stop Mark. He crouched at Lanie’s side and kissed her again, softly, languidly, his lips gentle against hers.
In the meantime, Sierra ran around the table and kissed her aunt Mia, who laughed and pulled Sierra onto her lap. “Thanks, munchkin, I can always count on you.”
Mark’s hands slid down Lanie’s arms to cup her eight-months-pregnant belly. “How are all of my girls?”
“We’re good, Daddy!” Sierra yelled.
Sam nodded.
Mark smiled and turned to Lanie. “And you two?”
“Baby’s good. But me . . .” Lanie stretched into his hands. “I’m feeling like an overinflated balloon, like I’m under a lot of pressure right now.”
He smiled. “Don’t worry. You’ve done some of your best work under pressure.”
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the Author
* * *
Meet Jill Shalvis
About the Book
* * *
Author’s Note
Reading Group Guide
Read On
* * *
Coming Soon . . . an excerpt from Hot Winter Nights
About the Author
Meet Jill Shalvis
New York Times bestselling author JILL SHALVIS lives in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is, um, mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s bestselling, award-winning books wherever romances are sold and visit her website at jillshalvis.com for a complete book list and daily blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures.
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About the Book
Author’s Note
I grew up in Los Angeles, but these days I live in the wild Sierra mountains near Lake Tahoe. Two entirely different worlds—one fast and one (sometimes) painfully slow. ☺ But no matter where I’ve lived, I’ve always spent a lot of time in San Luis Obispo, Morro Bay, and Avila Beach, all three nestled on the central coast of California. It’s all wineries and ranches and gorgeous hidden beaches, and truly my favorite place to run away to for a break. As a family, we have a lot of memories tied up there.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret: My oldest daughter’s name is Kelsey. So a few years ago, when we found a little family-run winery between San Luis Obispo and Avila Beach, we couldn’t resist. When you pull up, a bunch of peacocks greet you, the males all aflutter with their huge spread of vibrant feathers. The land is lush, the winery quaint, the people who run it friendly. So friendly that we sat and talked with the owner and the winemaker as we sampled their wines. And then they gave me a private tour and I got a peek at the behind-the-scenes of how a family-run winery works.
And I fell in love. Not just with the family and the people, but their closeness, their joy of working the land together, their love of each other and their wines.
So it’s not a surprise that I used Kelsey Winery as a backdrop for this book. Rainy Day Friends is set at a fictional winery in my equally fictional town of Wildstone (same as my last book, Lost and Found Sisters, also based on the central-coast area I love so much), but in my heart, it’s really Kelsey Winery, that small, quaint, wonderful place that has given us so many hours of joy.
Enter my characters. I’ve had Lanie in my heart for a long time—a woman who’s been deeply and devastatingly betrayed by love on many levels. River, however, didn’t come to me until she showed up on the page, chin up, heart broken, still a fighter and willing to take on the world for her unborn child.
Oh, the fun I had with this sisters-of-the-heart story between Lanie and River. But no Jill Shalvis novel is complete without a love story, and oh, how Mark Capriotti fulfilled both my heart and, eventually, Lanie’s.
