by Jill Shalvis
He looked at her then; the intensity of her words had obviously reached him, as his arms came around her to help her keep her balance. “Better?”
“Getting there.”
With a shake of his head, like he couldn’t quite believe what a pain in the ass she was, he lifted her up and twisted, nudging her behind him so that he was carrying her piggyback as if she weighed nothing. He carried her that way to a small wild-grass patch under a tree for shade.
She slid down his back onto the grass, dug her toes into the coolness for a minute, and then lifted her face to his. “You’re not my biggest mistake. I’m so sorry I said that. I was angry and hurt, but coming home wasn’t the biggest mistake of my life. Hurting you was. Finding you again, having you in my life has been the very best thing to ever happen to me. I choose you, Eli, and I always will. Even when I’m being a dumbass.”
He looked at her for a long minute, his thoughts veiled from her thanks in part to his dark sunglasses. “How do I know you won’t run off again?”
“Honestly? You should be the one running from me.” She pulled those glasses off his face and looked into his stormy eyes. “But I’m not budging. Not ever again. I realized something when I was trying to spin my dad into something I needed him to be . . . You can’t make someone be your person. You can’t make them love you. You can’t hurry love up, or even set it aside. I know, because I’ve spent too much of my life trying to do just that. And standing there in my dad’s apartment, I finally understood that. I got it.” She drew a deep breath. “I love you, Eli.”
Whoa. That last part had just slipped out, and, startled to the core, she staggered back a step, and bent over, hands on her knees, before lifting her head to send him an apologetic grimace. “Sorry. I’ve never said that to a man before. But I mean it, even if I’m scared.” She straightened. “Terrified, actually, and I think that’s been evident,” she said wryly. “But I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. So if you’re going to run, you should do it now.”
He cupped her face, his thumbs gently rubbing her jaw, his fingers sinking into her hair as he stared into her eyes. “I don’t run from love. And I do love you, Brynn. I think I always have. I knew I was in trouble that day we ran into each other at the vending machine, from the moment you pretended not to remember me. So be sure. Because I’m playing for keeps.”
“Me too.”
He let out a breath. “Then there’s something you need to know.”
She stopped breathing. “Okay,” she said with what she thought was great bravery.
“I was going to come after you and figure out a way to get you back.”
Relief had her sagging, but he had a good grip on her. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly, looking right into her eyes. “I don’t want to scare you even more, but you should know that I’d have followed you anywhere.”
“Right back at you,” she said softly, and smiled. “Maybe it’s time for a new deal.”
“Conditions?”
She shook her head. “No conditions.”
He looked surprised. “That’s a lot to promise.”
“Yes, but I’m good for it. And your conditions?”
“Same as you.” He searched her gaze. “A forever deal, Brynn, yeah?”
Brynn smiled through her tears, everything but Eli fading away. “Yeah.” Going up on tiptoe, she kissed him, while from the car Kinsey yelled out the window, “You two about done yet?”
Eli lifted his head and looked into Brynn’s eyes, his own steely gray gaze no longer stormy, but warm and filled with so much promise, she could hardly believe it. “Never,” he said.
“Never,” she repeated fiercely. “You’re mine now.”
“I am, and right back at you.” He hugged her close. “Now take me home to seal the deal.”
She smiled as her heart swelled. “We should probably seal it twice. You know, just to make sure it sticks.”
“As many times as it takes,” he said, holding her hand in his as they headed to the car.
And to the rest of their lives.
Epilogue
Two years later
Kinsey pulled her phone from her pocket and called Deck. “My sister’s boring me. She’s in the bathroom. Again.”
“Babe, that’s because you insisted on your weekly girls’ night out even though she told you she wasn’t feeling well.”
“Well, she’s gone from not feeling well straight to living in the bar bathroom.”
“I’ll come down.”
“No, you don’t have to, you’re having a you-and-Toby night.”
“That got canceled. He’s got a cold, so he stayed with his mom. I was surfing with Max, we just got done. We’ll come keep you company.”
“Good, because this is her fourth time in there.”
Max came on the line. “Call Eli too.”
“She’ll kill me if I call and worry him.”
“Call him anyway.”
So she called Eli. “Your wife’s being a pain in the ass.” She moved from her high-top table at the Whiskey River Bar and Grill to the hallway so she could hear if Brynn needed her.
“Define ‘pain in the ass,’” Eli said. “Is this like the time last year when you were both still in the hospital after the kidney transplant and you got mad because you thought she stole your red Jell-O?”
“She did steal my Jell-O.”
“Yes, and when you got home, I had a year’s worth of red Jell-O waiting for you.”
“It’s not about the red Jell-O!” Kinsey was fighting back panic and anxiety and worry while Eli wanted to talk about the fucking red Jell-O. She eyed the bathroom door.
The locked bathroom door.
“Look,” she said. “This isn’t about me, okay? We both know I’ll never be able to repay her for what she did for me.”
“She doesn’t want you to.”
Kinsey drew a deep breath, her throat tight. With terror. “I think she’s sick, Eli.”
“Wait, what?” His voice got a whole bunch more serious. “You said ‘pain in the ass,’ not sick. She’s been fine, recovering with no problems at all.”
For which Kinsey had been forever grateful, but now she was afraid she’d jinxed it. “Come get her before she hurts herself.”
“What makes you think she’s sick?”
“She’s thrown up like three times.”
Eli disconnected.
Kinsey shoved her phone away and stood guard right outside the bathroom door, knocking on it. “Hey, let me in.”
Brynn unlocked the door. She was green. She held up a finger and turned back to the commode, sinking down in front of it.
Kinsey’s heart officially stopped working as she moved in close to hold back her sister’s hair. Five minutes later, Eli was rushing through the door, dropping to his knees beside his wife, hugging her.
At the sight of him, Brynn starting sobbing—no, wait, she was laughing. Laughing and sobbing.
Eli looked stunned as, right there on the floor of the bar bathroom, he pulled her into his lap. “Yes?” he asked her.
Brynn nodded, looking equally stunned. “Yes.”
“What the hell is going on?” Kinsey demanded, hand on her heart to keep it from leaping out of her chest. “Is she going to die? Goddammit, if you die, Brynn, I swear, I’ll follow you and strangle you—”
“I’m not dying,” Brynn said, eyes on Eli.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked her incredulously.
“Tell you what?” Kinsey yelled.
No one looked at her.
“I didn’t know what to say!” Brynn said to Eli. “It’s not like we planned it, and then last week . . .”
“What?”
“You don’t even remember? You came to our end-of-the-year classroom party, and little Maxie peed on you and you said something like ‘I never want one. Ever.’”
“I wasn’t talking about kids in general. I meant I didn’t want that one.”
&nb
sp; “He’s cute.”
“He peed on me.”
Kinsey was putting the pieces of the puzzle together, and got weak in the knees, so she dropped to the floor and joined them, her heart in her throat. “Are you saying . . . ?”
Brynn smiled and set her head on Eli’s shoulder. “We’re going to have a baby.”
Kinsey felt her eyes fill. Sure, the floor was undoubtedly covered in germs, but . . . pregnant? “We’re having a baby?”
Brynn smiled at her through her tears, and then they were hugging too, Kinsey holding on tight, eyes closed, feeling more love and affection than her heart felt like it could possibly hold.
“You’re going to be the best auntie on the planet,” Brynn said to her, eyes fierce and full of a matching love and affection. In five or ten minutes, that would most likely switch to irritation more than once, but Kinsey had never been as happy in her life as she’d been the past two years with her sister at her side.
Deck and Max appeared together in the doorway and stared down at the three of them on the floor.
“Are we okay?” Max asked worriedly.
“We’re pregnant,” Kinsey said, like her sister both laughing and crying. “We’re pregnant!”
Deck hit his knees and pulled his wife into him, fist-bumping Eli over Kinsey’s head, leaning in to press a kiss to Brynn’s sweaty temple as well.
“I don’t know anything about babies,” Brynn said to the room. “Do any of us know anything about babies?”
“Deck does,” Kinsey said.
“I winged it,” Deck said.
Eli pressed his forehead to Brynn’s. “Winging it, it is. With all of us, how can we go wrong?” He stood and helped Brynn to her feet. “You okay? How about some soda water, or crackers? Something to settle your stomach?”
“I’m better now.”
Max handed her some wet paper towels. “Can we name the baby Max?”
“Of course not,” Kinsey said, trying to smooth Brynn’s hair back down. “She’ll be Kinsey.”
Brynn looked into Eli’s eyes and smiled. “Feels right, doesn’t it?” she asked softly.
He pulled her into him again. “With you, everything feels right.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Kinsey said as they all followed the couple out of the bathroom. “But about her name . . .”
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the Author
* * *
Meet Jill Shalvis
About the Book
* * *
Reading Group Guide
Read On
* * *
Coming soon . . . An Excerpt from The Forever Girl
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 . . . mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s bestselling, award-winning books wherever romances are sold and visit her website for a complete book list and daily blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
About the Book
Reading Group Guide
Brynn is given a real shock when she learns the truth of her connection with Kinsey. What did you think of her reaction? How do you think you’d react if you were told a similar life-altering fact?
Kinsey has been dealing with illness her whole life. How do you think that’s affected who she has become? In what ways do you think difficulties shape our character?
Families come in many different forms and in this novel, Brynn and Kinsey are struggling to decide if they are family or if they are just biologically related. How would you define family? What makes a family unit?
If Kinsey had told Brynn the truth about their connection when she first moved in, would Brynn’s reaction have been different or would she have believed she was only wanted for her kidney? Was Kinsey right to try to build a relationship first?
If you were Eli, would you have made the decision to keep Kinsey’s secret?
Kinsey sees herself as selfish. Do you agree?
Keeping a secret to protect another happens more than once in The Summer Deal, from Brynn not telling her moms about the childhood bullying to Kinsey not telling Brynn about their father. Is this kind of secret worth it or is it a type of lie? Would you keep this kind of secret?
Read On
Coming soon . . . An Excerpt from The Forever Girl
Keep reading for a sneak peek at the next heartwarming novel from
JILL SHALVIS
The Forever Girl
Available January 2021
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Prologue
Three years ago . . .
MAZE PARKER WAS good at playing a role, so good she’d have sworn she couldn’t access a real emotion even if she wanted to. So she was shocked to find herself stopping twenty-five yards short of her goal, unable to so much as swallow past the lump stuck in her throat.
For ten years now, since she’d been fifteen, she’d made this annual pilgrimage, but her legs refused to go another step. As far as her eyes could see, green grass spread out in front of her like a blanket over gently rolling hills, dotted with aged sweeping oaks.
And a myriad of gravestones.
Above her, the sky above churned moodily. Thunder crackled, and a part of her heart smiled because Michael had always loved a good storm.
Buoyed by the idea of her onetime foster sibling sitting on a cloud creating weather to amuse her, she managed to coax herself closer and let the strap of her beach chair slip off her shoulder. She tried to open it, but it was more stubborn than . . . well, her. “Not today, Satan,” she muttered. She’d paid too much for this damn chair at the touristy general store in Wildstone for it not to work, and finally, after a two-minute battle of wills, swearing the air blue the whole time, she got the thing open. Feeling righteous, she plopped down—only to have the chair jerk beneath her weight, making her gasp dramatically and throw her hands out, braced to fall to her ass.
She didn’t.
Letting out a long breath, she pulled a can of soda from her purse, cracked it open, and toasted to the grave. “Happy birthday. Hope that was entertaining.”
“Oh, hugely,” said an amused female voice behind her. “And you beat us here.”
“Of course she did,” a second female voice said. “Maze’s far too perfect to be late. There’s a reason I always wanted to be her when I grew up.”
Maze snorted. Perfect. Right. Just one of many roles she’d played. She looked up as Caitlin and Heather moved into her view, two of the only people on earth who could both make her laugh and drive her insane—almost as if they were a real family.
Which they weren’t. Caitlin and Michael had been the only actual blood siblings. Maze and Heather, and a whole bunch of others, had been just the foster kids.
Caitlin and Heather began taking things from a big bag: HAPPY BIRTHDAY streamer, balloons, and a small cake—all superhero themed, of course.
Tradition for Michael’s birthday.
Maze stood, pulled a Deadpool action figure from her pocket, and set it on Michael’s headstone.
Heather smiled at her and produced a Thor.
Cat had—no big surprise—Catwoman. She and Heather got their beach chairs open without incident, setting them up in an informal semicircle facing Michael’s grave. Maze noted Caitlin had left space between them for a fourth chair.
The last member of their ragtag group hadn’t yet arrived. Hell, maybe he’d be a no-show this year. The thought made her chest go tight. She’d thought about not showing up either, but guilt was a huge burden, and no one felt the weight of it more than she—seeing as she was the one responsible for Michael’s death.
“Stop,” Caitlin said, cutting the cake in her lap into three pieces. “I can hear your self-destructive thoughts from here.”
A lot Caitlin knew about self-destr
uctive thoughts; she’d never had a moment of doubt in her life. Caitlin was the perfect one, the real deal perfect. Two years older than Maze, Cat had her shit together. She’d been born with her shit together. Her hair was a long, shiny, blond silk that never frizzed, her smile could draw in even the most hardened soul, and she had the sort of willowy body that looked good in every damn thing—even though her idea of exercise was lifting her Starbucks coffee cup to her lips. Maze could hate her for that alone, except . . . Cat was one of the most intensely loyal and fiercely protective, caring people that had ever come into her life.
“You can’t just tell someone to stop angsting,” Heather said, taking a piece of cake. Heather was petite, barely coming up to Maze’s chin. But what she lacked in height, she made up for in grit. Today her black hair had bright magenta highlights that gave her an implied attitude to mask the fact that she was the sweetheart kitten of the group, one who never used her claws.
She didn’t have to. Maze used hers enough for everyone. People said it was her red hair. It wasn’t red, it was auburn, thank you very much, but still, there was no getting around the fact that her hair—a bunch of uncontrollable waves and the bane of her existence—did tend to match her bad ’tude. She hadn’t needed the shrinks that CPS had sent her to to tell her that because she’d never really had a sense of belonging. That’s what happened when you were raised to be a wild tumbleweed in the wind, tossed in directions against your will. Whatever. She was long over it, and took another long pull of her soda to hide all the feels annoyingly bombarding her.
Caitlin handed her a piece of cake. She’d just taken her first bite when she felt it, awareness tingling at the back of her neck. Her body knew what that meant even if her brain pretended not to, and the frosting went down the wrong pipe. While she went about choking up a lung, Heather pounded her on the back until she could suck in air again.
Walker Scott hadn’t made a sound in his approach. No footsteps, no rustling, nothing. The man was silent as the night.
