The Family You Make

by Jill Shalvis

  Her grandpa looked pained. “I told them the interweb is a terrible place, and I want no part of it. I need to call Facebook and have them delete all the pictures and burn the negatives.”

  “Yeah, that’s not how it actually works—”

  “All the negatives!”

  Because his eyes were twinkling, she smiled. But she still wasn’t ready to let him off the hook. “I assume you’re eating well? Getting some walking in when it’s not icy?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, waving all that off. “It’s my damn TV that isn’t. My friend Doug’s grandson is selling TVs now, and he convinced me to upgrade my system. But the buttons are too small on the remote and I can’t figure out how to do anything. I’m stuck on some sappy movie channel. I mean, what are the chances of that? I couldn’t get stuck on, say, ESPN?”

  Jane walked into the living room and looked his system over. “It’s voice activated. We could set it up so you can just talk to your remote.”

  “Talk to my remote?” He shook his head like she’d just said he could visit Mars.

  “Almost as crazy as the Santa Claus story,” she said dryly.

  He had the good grace to laugh. “I just wanted you to believe in something good.”

  Her heart squeezed hard enough to hurt, but she concentrated on setting up his system and . . . failed. “Okay, I’m going to have to call in tech support,” she finally admitted.

  “It’s a little late . . .”

  “Oh, don’t you worry, this tech support’s open 24/7.” She pulled out her phone and called Levi.

  He answered with “You okay?”

  Her heart swelled against her rib cage. “I am. I’m actually calling for tech support. You available?”

  “Always.”

  She disconnected. “He’ll be right here.”

  The doorbell rang and her grandpa’s brows went up, but he headed to the door. “Are you her fellow?” he asked Levi.

  Levi looked past him to Jane, and she felt him taking visual inventory. His gaze slowed on her face and she knew he could see the trace of tears.

  “Right now I’m tech support,” he said to her grandpa.

  “And later?”

  “Whatever she needs me to be.”

  Jane felt her heart warm for Levi in a whole new way as her grandpa let Levi in.

  Chapter 18

  Levi kept his gaze on Jane, wanting a sign from her that she was okay. She gave him a small smile, looking emotional but more relaxed than she’d been in the car.

  “Grandpa,” she said, “this is Levi Cutler. Levi, this is my grandpa, Lloyd Parks.”

  Her grandpa was the same height as Jane, and round and solid as a tree trunk. He wore round spectacles, but was looking over the top of them at Levi. He had a wild mane of white hair that seemed to defy gravity—except for the bald spot at the top—and a beard that ensured he could pass for Santa if he wanted. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Parks,” he said and shook the man’s hand.

  “Call me Lloyd,” her grandpa said. “In fact, if you can fix my TV, you can call me whatever you want.”

  “I’ll do my best.” Levi put a hand on Jane’s shoulder, running it lightly down her arm to squeeze her fingers.

  She smiled and squeezed back. She was okay, at least for now.

  Good enough for him.

  She brought him over to the TV and handed him the remote. “Hope this is in your realm of expertise.” Then she turned to her grandpa. “Did you have dinner?”

  “Yes, and the hot cocoa was excellent.”

  “Grandpa, when someone has a heart attack, that someone should change his entire way of living, including how he eats.”

  Her grandpa smiled. “You’ve got your grandma’s bossiness.”

  She pointed at him. “Don’t try to distract me with sentiment, because trust me, my heart’s hard as stone. Did you really not eat yet?”

  “I had some cookies.”

  “Grandpa.”

  “I need them.”

  “You don’t need them.”

  “Kuchi zamishi,” Levi said.

  Lloyd laughed in delight and pointed at him. “Exactly! See, he gets it!”

  Jane looked at Levi, clearly waiting for the translation.

  “Kuchi zamishi is a Japanese saying. It’s the act of eating because your mouth is lonely,” Levi said.

  “Hence the cookies,” Lloyd explained to Jane.

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’re saying you eat bad because you’re lonely?”

  “Maybe?”

  “I’d remind you of whose fault that is,” she said. “But I don’t think you need the reminder. You’re going to start taking better care of yourself.”

  “I—”

  “You will,” she said. “So that when I come back, you can tell me about it.”

  Lloyd’s voice softened. “I will.” He dropped himself into the recliner that had clearly seen a lot of years and looked at Levi with a wry smile. “My sweet, gentle, mild-mannered granddaughter.”

  “She’s a lot of things,” Levi agreed. “All of them incredibly great, but . . .” He smiled at Jane. “I’m not sure mild-mannered is one of them.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I know,” Lloyd said proudly. “She’s amazing, isn’t she?”

  Jane went into the kitchen. A moment later they heard her mutter, “Oh my God. You’re using real butter, cream cheese, and whipped cream? Seriously?”

  Lloyd cackled, clearly enjoying himself.

  As for Levi, he was enjoying watching Jane handle her grandpa. Not giving away her heart, holding her thoughts close to the vest, but being far more open than he’d imagined she’d be. In spite of her wariness, she was being sweet. Caring. Real. It was clear her grandpa loved it. And her, at least in his own way.

  And crazy as it seemed, Levi was pretty sure he was heading that way himself. Shaking his head, he turned to his task. The TV.

  “So . . .” Lloyd said, watching him work. “You and Jane seem close.”

  “Hmm,” he said noncommittally. He held out the remote. “Okay, I think we’ve got it. Let me show you how to use this. I’ll also write down the password for you.”

  “You think I’m old enough to forget things?”

  Levi slid him a look. “I don’t think age has anything to do with . . . forgetting things.” Or people . . .

  Lloyd held his gaze, then nodded grimly. “Yeah. But I intend to work on that.”

  “Good.”

  The old man sighed. “I’m glad you don’t want to kick my ass. I’d like to kick my own ass for letting so much time pass.”

  “Not my place,” Levi said, but didn’t offer any empty platitudes about it being okay. Because it wasn’t. Not in his book.

  Lloyd gave a gruff nod. “Not letting me off the hook. I get that. I deserve that. She got passed around more than an offering basket in church, and I blame myself for that too. I let my grief overwhelm me, and then I let my embarrassment over how I’d handled things keep me from finding her. I don’t deserve her, but I intend to try and make up for whatever I can for as long as she’ll let me.”

  As frustrating as Levi’s own family could be, he knew they’d never pretend he didn’t exist or treat him like he wasn’t welcome. “I hope that’s true.”

  “It is. She deserved more from us, and I’m hoping it’s not too late.”

  “If you two are finished gossiping, dinner’s on the table.”

  The two men turned and found Jane standing there, arms crossed.

  Lloyd looked like a kid caught with his hand in the candy jar. “We were just—”

  “I know.” Jane met his gaze. “I found frozen chicken bowls in your freezer. They’re a little freezer burned, but there’s veggies in them, so let’s eat.”

  The old man got a little misty-eyed. “You made dinner.”

  “Well, ‘made’ is a bit strong. More like pushed a few buttons. Last one to the table has to clean up.”

  Her grandpa rushed to follow her into the
kitchen. Never having minded the mindless task of dishes—it let his brain settle—Levi followed more slowly, watching Jane. Something about her was different tonight. She was still the kickass, smart-as-hell woman he was starting to get to know on a level he hadn’t expected. But there was something new. She seemed . . . just a little more open.

  And right then and there, he vowed to see that look on her face as often as possible. He wanted to be with her as often as possible. And where the hell that had come from and how it had sneaked up on him, he had no idea. He didn’t want to be just another person in a long line of people who’d hurt her, but truth was truth.

  She was leaving at the end of the season. And he . . . well, that’d been his original plan, but his goal was shifting, changing. But even when—yes, when, not if—he changed his home base back to Tahoe, he knew she wouldn’t do the same. She already had a contract for her next job.

  They had an expiration date, him and Jane.

  And playing pretend wasn’t going to change that or keep them from getting hurt. Nothing was. Unless he somehow changed her mind about him being a keeper.

  Chapter 19

  An hour later, Jane watched Levi out of her peripheral vision as he drove her home. He’d tried giving her battery a jump, but no go. He’d told her he’d get it charged in the morning. She’d told him not to worry about it, she had roadside service and would get a ride out there before work to get it handled.

  And she would. She didn’t need to waste any more of his rare free time helping her. Besides, if he kept being so nice to her, she’d forget. Right now it was pretend, and pretend was awesome because pretend wasn’t real. Pretend was better than real any day of the week.

  Levi was in a driving zone, watching the road, his hand on the gear stick, shifting into lower gears as needed. There were no streetlights out here, because the original town planners wanted the Tahoe night sky to shine bright.

  And that it did.

  It was no longer snowing, which always meant the temperature dropped even more. The roads had iced up, making her more than a little relieved to not be the one driving. The sky was a black velvet blanket upon which countless millions of stars glittered like diamonds. Having been all over the world, she could honestly say she’d never seen a sky so gorgeous as the one above Lake Tahoe.

  Tonight . . . tonight had been a lot for her, though it’d gone better than she could have imagined. She honestly hadn’t been sure she could actually knock on her grandpa’s door and face him. But then Levi had shown up and soothed a place deep inside her where she kept her vulnerability and fear hidden from the rest of the world. With one easy smile, he’d made her feel like she could do anything.

  And she’d faced her past.

  “Thanks for tonight,” she said quietly.

  Without taking his eyes off the road, he reached for her hand, bringing it up to his mouth to brush a kiss to her palm. “After that night on the gondola and all we went through, I’d probably do anything for you, Jane.”

  As far as confessions went, that seemed like a doozy, at least according to the way her heart kicked it into gear. And he didn’t seem to have any regrets about saying it either. She took in his profile by the ambient light of the dashboard. He had a few days’ scruff on him that she loved. It went with his wavy hair that never quite behaved, and she loved that too. He was unapologetically himself, not to mention strong and steady, and . . . hot as hell.

  “See something you like?” he teased and nipped at the palm he still had hold of.

  Her insides quivered. Some outside parts quivered too. “Yes.”

  Clearly surprised at her response, he met her gaze briefly, then turned back to the road. “Good, because I can hardly take my eyes off you.”

  The words were more of a promise than an admission, and something deep inside her shifted and clicked into place. For years she’d let herself be tossed around in the wind like a wild tumbleweed. And yet suddenly she felt anchored for the first time in . . . maybe forever. “Levi?”

  He glanced over again.

  “I’m not ready to go home,” she said softly.

  This got her another, slightly longer look. “Where should we go?”

  We. She closed her eyes a beat. That’s what she got from Levi. Unconditional support. Total acceptance. “Anywhere quiet.”

  “Trust me?” he asked.

  He’d asked her that very same thing not too long ago, and she’d said no. But at some point over the past few weeks, her answer had changed. “I do.”

  He turned on the next road and suddenly they were going up a hill. And up.

  And up.

  Fifteen minutes later, they’d left all signs of Sunrise Cove behind and were on what was surely normally a dirt road but was currently covered with snow. Levi’s four-wheel drive easily handled the road, and though she could see nothing past the midnight-black night and the dark outline of trees, he clearly knew exactly where he was going.

  Finally he took a hairpin curve and stopped the truck.

  She took in the view and gasped.

  Above, a half-moon hung in the sky, streaked with fingerlike clouds, all of it surrounded by shimmering, twinkling stars, more than she’d ever seen in her life. With no city lights to mask anything, they had a clear view for as far as the eye could see. Far below lay the dark outline of Lake Tahoe, which she’d never seen from this angle, hundreds of feet up. “It’s like we’re on top of the world,” she whispered.

  “We are. We’re up on the Tahoe Rim Trail. At 9,500 feet.”

  “Wow.” She stared out at the night, enthralled and awed. “I don’t even have words.”

  “Same.”

  She turned to find him with a forearm braced on the wheel, his other hand on her headrest, watching her. Thoughts hidden. She sensed a careful restraint, a rare hesitation.

  She felt neither of those things. Around him, she’d never been able to control her emotions. Now was no exception, but he’d never seemed to have that problem, always steady, calm, in full control.

  What would it take to make him lose that control? And why did she want to see it so badly . . . right now?

  As if he could read her mind, he let out a rough laugh, the sound scraping at all her good parts. He’d come through for her tonight, giving her what she’d asked for, no questions. No pressure. No sense of impatience.

  She’d asked for somewhere quiet. In the moment, she’d meant for somewhere to just be and think. She hadn’t been ready to go home and call it a night, but her wants had changed. She wanted to climb over the console, straddle him, and have her merry way with him.

  “I smell something burning,” he murmured.

  She let out a quiet laugh because yeah, she was definitely thinking too hard. “It’s just that what I want seems . . . a little forward.”

  His eyes darkened. “You have my full attention.”

  With a nervous laugh, she pulled out her phone. “So . . . I found another questionnaire.”

  He groaned. “Not where I thought you were going with this.” His hand, the one on the headrest of her seat, slipped to the nape of her neck, making thinking difficult. “Thought maybe we were past the quick tricks of the getting-to-know-you stage.”

  “It’s called Ten Questions You Need to Ask Your Partner Before Having Sex.”

  He stared at her for a beat, then let out a smile that melted her bones. “Hit me.”

  Nodding, suddenly nervous, she looked down at the first question. Are you attracted to your potential sexual partner? Since that was a given, she skimmed past it. “Um . . . where’s your favorite place to be kissed?”

  This won her a slow, mischievous grin. “In bed or out of bed?”

  She laughed, and just like that, her nerves vanished. She had no idea how he always did that, lightened her world every single time, but he was good at it. “Either,” she whispered.

  He pointed to his lips, and she shook her head with another laugh. “Yeah, I’m betting that’s actually your second favorite
place to be kissed, but sure, let’s start there.” Heart pounding, she unbuckled her seat belt, came up on her knees, and leaned over him. She put one hand on the back of his seat, the other on his chest, and started with a light closed-mouth kiss to one corner of his mouth, her plan to move slowly, wanting to drive him nuts, wanting to see him lose that famed control.

  “Jane—”

  “Hmm?” She bypassed his mouth for the second kiss because his jaw called to her, and then his sexy throat.

  He shivered and his hands tightened on her. “If you want the same thing I do, we’re in the wrong place.”

  “I like this place.”

  “So do I. A lot. But we’re outside. In public.”

  “We’re in a truck, and there’s no one else out here, probably for miles. And besides, I’m just kissing you.”

  “Yeah, but—” He broke off with a sharply indrawn breath when she sank her teeth into his lower lip and gave a little tug.

  His scent was delicious, and she heard herself moan in protest as he caught her wandering hands, which had opened his jacket and were working to get beneath his Henley. “Jane . . . I didn’t bring you up here for this.”

  “I know. Also, I lied about the just kissing.”

  “Jane—”

  She lifted her head. “You’re not going to turn down your pretend girlfriend, are you?”

  “Like I could turn you down for anything.”

  That made her smile. “Then there’s just one more thing to discuss . . .”

  “I’ve got a condom in my glove box. At least, I used to. It’s been a while . . .”

  Her heart warmed that he would think to tell her either of those things. “I was going to remind you not to fall for me.”

  His rough laugh made her grin, and then he caught her mouth in a kiss that was soft and sweet, but made her think of things hot and bare and sweaty—

  “My turn to ask,” he said huskily, lifting his head. “Where do you like to be kissed?”

  “Um . . . everywhere?”

  His eyes went molten lava as he hauled her over the console and into his lap so she could straddle him. With her knees tight at his sides, he slid his hands up her back and into her hair, pulling her down for a kiss that quickly ignited.