by Jill Shalvis
“Hungry.” He grabbed a fork. “You’re the new hire.”
“Lanie,” she said and watched in awe as he began to shovel in food like he hadn’t eaten in a week.
“Mark,” he said after swallowing a bite, something she appreciated because Kyle used to talk with his mouth full and it had driven her to want to kill him. Which, as it turned out, hadn’t been necessary. A heart attack had done that for her.
Apparently cheating on a bunch of wives had been highly stressful. Go figure.
“You must be a very brave woman,” Mark said.
And for a horrifying minute, she was afraid she’d spoken of Kyle out loud, and she stared at him.
“Taking on this job, this family,” he said. “They’re insane, you know. Every last one of them.”
Because he had a disarming smile and was speaking with absolutely no malice, she knew he had to be kidding. But she still thought it rude considering they’d served him food. “They can’t be all that bad,” she said. “They’re feeding you, which you seem to be enjoying.”
“Who wouldn’t enjoy it? It’s the best food in the land.”
This was actually true. She watched him go at everything on his plate like it was a food-eating contest and he was in danger of coming in second place for the world championship. She shook her head in awe. “You’re going to get heartburn eating that fast.”
“Better than not eating at all,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I’ve got ten minutes to be back on the road chasing the bad guys, and a lot of long, hungry hours ahead of me.”
“One of those days, huh?”
“One of those years,” he said. “But at least I’m not stuck here at the winery day in and day out.”
It was her turn to go brows up. “Are you making fun of my job at all?”
“Making fun? No,” he said. “Offering sympathy, yes. You clearly have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into. You could still make a break for it, you know.”
That she herself had been thinking the very same thing only five minutes ago didn’t help. Suddenly feeling defensive for this job she hadn’t even started yet, she looked around her. The winery itself was clearly lovingly and beautifully taken care of. The yard in which they sat was lush and colorful and welcoming. Sure, the sheer number of people employed here was intimidating, as was the fact that they gathered every day to eat lunch and socialize. But she’d get used to it.
Maybe.
“I love my job,” she said.
Mark grinned. “You’re on day one. And you haven’t started yet or you’d have finished your wine. Trust me, it’s going to be a rough ride, Lanie Jacobs.”
Huh. So he definitely knew more about her than she knew about him. No big deal since she wasn’t all that interested in knowing more about him. “Surely given what you do for a living, you realize there’s nothing ‘rough’ about my job at all.”
“I know I’d rather face down thugs and gangbangers daily than work in this looney bin.”
She knew he was kidding, that he was in fact actually pretty funny, but she refused to be charmed. Fact was, she couldn’t have been charmed by any penis-carrying human being at the moment. “Right,” she said, “because clearly you’re here against your will, being held hostage and force-fed all this amazing food. How awful for you.”
“Yeah, life’s a bitch.” He eyeballed the piece of cheese bread on her plate that she hadn’t touched. It was the last one.
She nodded for him to take it and then watched in amazement as he put that away too. “I have to ask,” she said. “How in the world do you stay so …” She gestured with a hand toward his clearly well-taken-care-of body and struggled with a word to describe him. She supposed hot worked—if one was into big, annoying, perfectly fit alphas—not that she intended to say so, since she was pretty sure he knew exactly how good he looked.
“How do I stay so … what?” he asked.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you that fishing for compliments is unattractive?”
He surprised her by laughing, clearly completely unconcerned with what she thought of him. “My days tend to burn up a lot of calories,” he said.
“Uh-huh.”
He pushed his dark sunglasses to the top of his head, and she was leveled with dark eyes dancing with mischievousness. “Such cynicism in one so young.”
A plate of cupcakes was passed down the table and Lanie eyed them, feeling her mouth water. She had only so much self-control and apparently she was at her limit because she took one, and then, with barely a pause, she grabbed a second as well. Realizing the deputy sheriff was watching her and looking amused while he was at it, she shrugged. “Sometimes I reward myself before I accomplish something. It’s called pre-award motivation.”
“Does it work?”
“Absolutely one hundred percent not,” she admitted and took a bite of one of the cupcakes, letting out a low moan before she could stop herself. “Oh. My. God.”
His eyes darkened to black. “You sound like that cupcake is giving you quite the experience.”
She held up a finger for silence, possibly having her first-ever public orgasm.
He leaned in a little bit and since their thighs were already plastered together, he didn’t have to go far to speak directly into her ear. “Do you make those same sexy sounds when you—”
She pointed at him again because she still couldn’t talk, and he just grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “I bet you do. And now I know what I’m going to be thinking about for the rest of the day.”
“You’ll be too busy catching the bad guys, remember?”
“I’m real good at multitasking,” he said.
She let out a laugh, though it was rusty as hell. It’d been a while since she’d found something funny. Not that this changed her idea of him. He was still too sure of himself, too cocky, and she’d had enough of that to last a lifetime. But she also was good at multitasking and could both not like him and appreciate his sense of humor at the same time.
What she couldn’t appreciate was when his smile turned warm and inviting, because for a minute something passed between them, something she couldn’t—or didn’t—intend to recognize.
“Maybe I could call you sometime,” he said.
Before she could turn him down politely, the little cupcake twins came running, leaping at him, one of them yelling, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy! Look what we got!”
Catching them both with impressive ease, Mark stood, managing to somehow confiscate the cupcakes and set them aside before getting covered in chocolate. “Why is it,” he asked Lanie over their twin dark heads, “that when a child wants to show you something, they try to place it directly in your cornea?”
Still completely floored, Lanie could only shake her head.
Mark adjusted the girls so that they hung upside down off his back. This had them erupting in squeals of delight as he turned back to face Lanie again, two little ankles in each of his big hands. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said into her undoubtedly shocked face. “I think it every day.”
Actually, even she had no idea what she was thinking except … he was a Capriotti? How had she not seen that coming?
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m one of them, which is why I get to bitch about them. And let me guess … you just decided you’re not going to answer my call?”
Most definitely not, but before she could say so out loud Cora was back, going up on tiptoes to kiss Mark on the cheek. “Hey, baby. Heard you had a real tough night.”
He shrugged.
“You get enough to eat?” she asked. “Yes?” She eyed his empty plate and then, with a nod of satisfaction, reached up and ruffled his hair. “Good. But don’t for a single minute think, Marcus Antony Edward Capriotti, that I don’t know who sneaked your grandpa the cigars he was caught smoking last night.”
From his seat at the table, “Grandpa,” aka Leonardo Antony Capriotti, lifted his hands as if to say, Who, me?
Cora shook her head at both of them, helped the girls down fro
m Mark’s broad shoulders, took them by the hand, and walked away.
No, Lanie would most definitely not be taking the man’s call. And not for the reasons he’d assume either. She didn’t mind that he had kids. What she minded was that here was a guy who appeared to have it all: close family, wonderful children, a killer smile, a hot body … without a single clue about just how damn lucky he was. It made her mad, actually.
He took in her expression. “Okay, so you’re most definitely not going to take my call.”
“It’s nothing personal,” she said. “I just don’t date …”
“Dads?”
Actually, as a direct result of no longer trusting love, not even one little teeny, tiny bit, she didn’t date anyone anymore, but that was none of his business.
He looked at her for another beat and whatever lingering amusement he’d retained left him, and he simply nodded as he slid his sunglasses back over his eyes. “Good luck today,” he said. “You really are going to need it.”
And then he was gone.
He thought she’d judged him. She hated that he thought that, but it was best to let him think it. Certainly better than the truth, which was that the problem was her, all her. She inhaled a deep, shaky breath and turned, surprised to find not just Cora watching, but Mark’s sisters, grandpa, and several others she could only guess were also related.
Note to self: Capriottis multiply when left unattended.
CHAPTER TWO
Anxiety: Look out.
Me: For what?
Anxiety: Just look out.
That night Lanie got into bed at eight o’clock with a book and a glass of wine. The book was because she liked the idea of reading and also because it made her feel like the wine was justified and not a necessity.
Even if it was a necessity.
The habit had started six months ago on the night of Kyle’s funeral, which was when Kyle’s boss had to tell her that another wife had popped up.
Lanie had promptly moved out of the condo they’d lived in and rented a small town house in a different neighborhood. She hadn’t yet made it her own, so she didn’t have any plants or pets to worry about while she was gone, and any friends she’d had were work friends or had been Kyle’s friends as well, and everyone had seemed to fade away.
Or maybe that had been her.
With a sigh and a big gulp of wine, she sat back against the pillow. Usually when she was to-the-bone tired like this, she couldn’t think too much. But tonight she sighed and …
Proceeded to think too much.
This wasn’t a big surprise given all the recent changes. She was still on Capriotti property, for one thing. Room and board had been part of her two-month deal, and she’d been promised her own cottage.
She’d jumped on it.
Ten acres of land had been cordoned off on the far west side of the winery property, just north of a small, hidden lake. There the Capriottis had built several houses, all belonging to family members, and a small series of cottages lined up like a motel, dedicated to employee housing.
There was both good and bad to this. Good because it was free. Bad because it was very interactive and there was little to no privacy.
Even as she thought it, there was a knock on her door. She froze for a beat and then got out of bed and put her eye to the peephole. A guy stood there looking back at her. He was lanky but solid, wearing jeans, boots, T-shirt, a military buzz cut, and an impassive expression. She’d met him earlier when Cora had introduced him. Holden worked as a horse wrangler and extra ranch hand whenever he was on leave from the army. Though he was in his early twenties, apparently he’d lived here at the winery for a long time. He stood there holding—be still, her heart—a plate of cookies.
Lanie opened the door a crack.
“From Cora,” he said with a slight, slow southern drawl, and thrust the plate at her.
“Oh, but I couldn’t—”
“I’m not supposed to take no for an answer,” he said.
And then he was gone.
Okay, then. She went back to bed with her plate of cookies and ate far too many of them because they were little bites of heaven. At this rate, by the time she left here in two months, she’d have gained a hundred pounds. But surprisingly, it was actually hard to feel any kind of anxiety at the moment, even though she’d given it a good ol’ college try. The fact was, she was away from the city and she was in a gorgeous place with a fun job, and she was going to take her first deep breath in months and find herself again.
No matter what.
Her plan was to leave here a changed woman, one who remembered how wonderful it was to be on her own, empowered and … not anxious or stressed. Finding confidence would be a bonus. Being happy would be a pipe dream.
I don’t care what you grow up to be, as long as you’re self-sufficient and no longer need us for anything, her mother had said when Lanie had gone off to college.
She squeezed her eyes shut, shoved that very unwelcome memory far away, and tried to think of something else, anything else.
Am I hard to love, Kyle?
Maybe a little when you’re overworked. Or tired. Or hungry …
Yeah, so that had been hard to hear from the man who as a beverage sales rep to all of Southern California had only been home two days a week, but she’d come to understand something. It wasn’t about being unlovable. It was that she couldn’t trust someone to love her. It’d started with her parents. Both physicists, they’d expected her to follow in their footsteps. Only problem was she’d hated math and science, instead preferring the arts.
Being the square peg had made her an enigma to them, and not in a good way. It’s not that they’d been on her to change. It’d been worse than that. Once they’d realized how different she was, they’d given up on her completely.
And apparently, so had Kyle. She’d really thought she’d known everything about him and their relationship, and yet he’d betrayed her. So she no longer believed in her own judgment and other people. “Gah,” she told the dark cottage and flopped over, redirecting her thoughts to the only thing she could do something about.
The present.
[no ornament]
Day two of Lanie’s job went much like the day before. She had a nice big space they’d created for her to do her thing. It was an open floor plan, meaning everyone working had their own corner but they were all together.
Peaceful and quiet, it wasn’t.
It turned out that Alyssa handled sales and hospitality, and spent most of her time on the phone charming the socks off people. Which had been fascinating to watch because Lanie herself hadn’t gotten the charming-the-socks-off gene.
Mia was the tasting room manager, and in spite of not having the sunniest of dispositions, she was also head of tours. Mostly because no one else wanted to be, she’d told Lanie as she’d flitted in and out of the office a hundred times an hour, sprinkling sarcasm and cynicism every time she came and went.
“When life knocks you down,” she said to Lanie after getting yelled at by a very rude customer, “calmly get back up, smile, and very politely say ‘You hit like a bitch, bitch.’”
Lanie was pretty sure that wasn’t Cora-approved.
“I hope my future husband looks at me in the mornings like I’m looking at this leftover pizza,” Mia said after raiding the employee fridge. “Like, yeah, maybe it’s looked better, but it still makes my heart happy.”
There were others around too, many others, and everyone knew everything about everyone. And whether Lanie liked it or not, she knew things too now because she couldn’t not hear them. Like about Cora’s brother, who ran the company’s social media platform. Uncle Jack had Crohn’s disease and was supposedly on a strict diet, but he constantly cheated and then locked himself in the employee bathroom for hours at a time, during which, if one had a Twitter account, they could read his ongoing thoughts. Such as: Inhaled four Cinnabons. #TacticalError #RookieMistake. And then the one that had Cora finally changing the pas
sword so he couldn’t sign in:
Dear People who type in all lowercase, we’re the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse & helping your uncle jack off a horse. Capital Letters.
In essence, Capriotti Winery was a small town all on its own where there were no secrets and the gossip mill was alive and well.
Not that anyone was going to learn Lanie’s secrets. You’re just playing a part, she reminded herself. Just like you did with being a daughter. A wife … There’s no need to let anyone know just how unsuccessful in love you’ve been.
That night she got into bed and was nearly asleep when there came a quiet knock.
Cookies, she thought, and leapt out of bed. Her cottage was all one room, a kitchenette in one corner, bed in another, small couch and coffee table near the front door. She peeked out and found … no one. Then she nearly jumped out of her own skin when the knock came again, accompanied by a giggle. Actually, make that two soft giggles, and she relaxed as she opened the door and yep, found the cute little cupcake twins.
They wore matching Wonder Woman PJs, matching bare feet, and matching contagious grins. They had dark unruly hair and dark chocolate eyes like their dad’s, and sweet, innocent smiles—unlike their dad. “Uh, hi,” she said and peeked out past them to see who was in charge.
But there was no one with them. “You guys okay?”
They gave matching bobblehead nods. The one on the right had her hair in a bun on top of her head. Her twin’s hair was loose and in a complete riot around her face.
“So,” Lanie said and paused, waiting for them to fill in some gaps.
Didn’t happen.
“Is there something I can do for you?” she asked.
“We were wondering something,” the one on the left said. Wild Hair. She looked at her twin. “Right?”
Her twin, missing her front teeth, nodded.
Lanie was at a loss. She knew nothing about kids. Less than nothing. She was an only child, and actually she couldn’t remember ever even being a child, at least a carefree one with cute PJs and crazy hair and a silly, adorable smile. “Are you out here by yourselves?”
