by Jill Shalvis
He blew out a breath. “I didn’t know that.”
“Of course you didn’t. Because you didn’t want to know. You know, she thinks you blame her for everything that’s ever gone wrong in our family.”
“What? Why would she even know to think that?”
“Because I was there when I told her.”
Kel scrubbed a hand over his face and then slid his hands into his pockets. It was that, or kill his sister.
“Look,” Remy said. “Mom wasn’t perfect.”
Kel rolled his eyes. He’d heard this speech before.
“But,” his sister went on. “She’s the only mom we’ve got. And she’s trying hard. She’s been trying hard for a decade now.”
“You always did want to see the best in people.”
“And why wouldn’t I? It’s not like I want to be old and grumpy like you.”
“Ha ha,” he said.
She flashed him a grin and unwound Harper from the sling before handing her up to Kel. “She thinks you hate her. Mom. Not Harper. Harper thinks everyone loves her.”
He took the baby. “You need to stop meddling.”
At his tone, Harper made a sound of distress, so he shifted her against him and stroked her back.
Harper immediately stopped fussing and gave out a little mew of happiness that did something funny to his heart. Then she yawned wide and set her head on his shoulder in a move so sweet that his chest actually went tight. Hugging her close, he kissed her head again. “Her scent. It’s . . .”
“Crackalicious, I know. I think they come that way on purpose so we’ll forget the hell they put us through and keep procreating.”
Harper nestled her face into the crook of his neck.
He could honestly say he’d never given thought to settling down and having a family of his own. It just wasn’t something he saw in his future.
But truthfully, he hadn’t given a lot of thought to his future at all and what it might hold.
And yet standing there cradling his soft, sweet, warm niece, something inside him actually ached. “Does it always feel like this?”
Remy laughed. She laughed so hard she snorted, which started her laughing again, until she had tears running down her cheeks. Finally, she sniffed, swiped her face, and got herself together. “I’m tempted to say yes and then ask you to babysit, but I have this thing against lying my ass off to family.” She shook her head. “She’s just been fed and changed. This is the happiest she gets. Ever. The rest of the time, she’s either pooping, throwing up, or screaming her fury to the world.”
Kel looked down at the little angel in his arms. She yawned again, relaxing every bone in her body for a single beat before letting out an impressive fart.
Right into his hand.
With a blissful sigh, she then snuggled in again while—holy shit—his eyes literally watered and he gasped for fresh air. “How could something so small and dainty smell so bad?”
Remy grinned and snapped a pic of him with her phone and looked at it. “Aw. Hold on . . .” She thumbed on her phone for a second. “Okay, I just posted it on Instagram and tagged you, so brace yourself.” She showed him the pic with the caption: One of These Two Adorable Beings Just Farted . . .
“Wow, seriously?”
“Hey, I’m still your baby sister.”
She was the only person who could make him roll his eyes so hard they nearly came out of his head. And she was now yawning too, and he took a longer look at her. She seemed beat. “Listen, that loveseat’s actually pretty comfortable. Why don’t you lie down and close your eyes for a few minutes? I’ve got this.”
Remy gave him a small smile. “You always say that. You’ve been saying it since the day Dad died. And you meant it. You always had my back, no matter what.”
“Because we’re family.”
“No, it’s because you care,” she said. “You love me.” Her eyes filled and he sighed, making her give a watery laugh. “Sorry. It’s the baby hormones. They make me weepy.” She met his gaze, her own still soggy but determined, and he braced himself.
Ah hell. “You didn’t come here to have me hold Harper for you,” he said.
“No.”
He braced himself. “Just get it over with, Remy, say whatever you came here to say.”
“I know about Mom.”
“Yes, we just had that conversation. I ran into her.” He shrugged. “Big deal.”
She shook her head. “I mean I know about the thing she did.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
Kel looked into her eyes and saw sorrow and regret, but he still didn’t believe she knew the real truth, that their mom had been cheating on their dad. No. There was no way she knew, because if she did, she wouldn’t have such a close relationship with either their mom or her husband—the guy she’d cheated on their dad with. “Remy—”
“She told me years ago.”
“Told you what exactly?” he asked carefully.
“About her and Henry.”
Kel could only shake his head. “Why would she tell you?”
“I was turning twenty-one and I wanted a family birthday party. I always wanted a family birthday party, but it was so hard to get you and her in the same place at the same time. I knew I was missing a big piece of our puzzle. She’d always told me that I was too young to understand, but that year I refused to hear it. I told her I was a grown-up, legal, and I wanted the damn truth, even if you didn’t. So she told me.”
Kel stared at her. She was quiet, calm, and clearly worried about him, which was crazy. No one needed to worry about him, ever. But she was also accepting. “You’re okay with it,” he breathed in shock.
“Let’s just say I made peace with it,” she said softly. “And the reason I was able to do so was because I listened to her story, really listened, and got both sides—”
“You don’t have dad’s side. He’s not here to tell it.”
Remy shook her head. “You’re the one who doesn’t have both sides, Kel. You acted as judge and jury, and you know what? I get it. We were kids and she left us. But she apologized to us. Or to me anyway. You weren’t interested in talking to her about it. But it was a long time ago and I think it’s time for you to make peace with it as well.”
“I don’t need you to tell me how to feel about this.”
“Are you sure? Because you’re acting like you’re still ten.”
“Look,” Kel said, unusually frazzled. “I’ll be gone soon enough, can’t we try to just enjoy the rest of my visit while I’m here?”
“Oh my God. Seriously, if I hear one more time that you have to get back to Idaho . . .” She shook her head. “Just tell me this. What’s holding you there other than sheer stubbornness? I mean grandma’s been gone forever, and now grandpa’s gone too. And you’ve got the ranch being managed by a solid team. Are you really not going to come and live near your family just because you’re still pissed at Mom?”
He recognized a trap when he saw one, so he kept his mouth zipped.
“Caleb told me you’re seeing someone, a friend of his. Does she know how screwed up you are about relationships?”
“I’m not screwed up about relationships.”
“No?” she asked. “When was the last time you had one that worked?”
“My job,” he said. “It’s—”
“It’s not the job, Kel, it’s you.”
The words were a not-so-surprising echo of what Janie had told him. But they didn’t—couldn’t—understand. They didn’t know what his mom’s early lies had done to him, how it’d been only further compounded by what had happened on the job he’d put ahead of his personal life for so long . . . “You don’t understand,” he said tightly.
“Oh, I think I understand plenty. You’re nursing a grudge that’s two decades old. And I get it, you were burned young, and that sucks. You can’t trust your heart, and that also sucks. But have you ever tried looking for a better outcome?”
; He opened his mouth to argue, but Remy shook her head. “Never mind, I’m wasting my breath,” she said, standing up. “My own fault. I thought you’d grown up.”
He was still standing there, pissed off and a whole bunch of other things as well when Remy gently took Harper from him.
“Maybe you should rethink being here at all,” she said quietly, resettling the baby against her. “If it’s so hard for you.” And then, with a kiss to his jaw that belied the harshness of her words, she left him alone with his own thoughts, none of which were good.
It would certainly be easier for him to just go and forget how his mom had looked when she’d laid eyes on him. Forget the way Harper had felt in his arms. Forget how it was to have Caleb close again. Forget the emotions that had broken free when he’d had his mouth on Ivy’s . . .
All of it, he could walk away from all of it, and maybe he should.
Chapter 16
Bust it out with every ounce you have left
Normally, Ivy left the truck in Jenny’s capable hands by five in the afternoon, which still made it a twelve hour day for her, but tonight Jenny had a coffee date, so Ivy was up.
“You sure it’s okay if I leave early?” Jenny asked for the tenth time.
“Go. Have fun. Take mace and a whistle, and make sure you text me when you get there and leave.”
“Yes, Mom,” Jenny said with a smart salute. “You do realize this is the only way to meet guys now, right? And that at some point even you, the hundred-year-old soul, is going to have to set up an online profile somewhere to get laid.”
“Eh?” Ivy asked, cupping a hand around her ear, pretending to be ancient. “But I don’t even know how to use The Facebook.”
Jenny snorted. “See, you are old. No one our age uses Facebook anymore, except to check in with their grandmas. And even if you don’t want a guy in your life right now, how about sex? And two of my best friends met their significant others on Tinder.”
“Not happening,” Ivy said.
“Then how will you meet anyone?”
Ivy thought of Kel, and how he’d literally just walked into her life. “If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.”
“That’s oddly sage and Zen of you,” Jenny said. “But you’re never sage and Zen.”
“Do you want to leave, or stay here and argue with me?”
“Bye,” Jenny said and vanished.
It was seven p.m. before Ivy finished cleaning and closing up shop. She backed out of the food truck, concentrating on making sure the new lock was engaged. Then she looked around to make sure no one was watching and did her little deal with a small piece of tape, squatting low to get it down where no one would notice it.
Okay, so yeah, she was far more unnerved than she’d let on about the two break-ins. She’d have to be stupid not to be. Pushing to her feet, she turned to leave, and caught a shadowy outline of a man way too close. With a gasp, she jumped back a step, and nearly out of her own skin to boot. “Dammit,” she said, hand to her chest. “You need a bell.”
Kel stood there in a jacket against the night’s chill, a hoodie beneath it with the hood up, hands shoved into his jeans pockets. “And you need to be more aware of your surroundings.”
That was just true enough to have her grimacing. She’d been too lost in thought. She’d clearly gotten too complacent, gone soft here in San Francisco, losing some of her edge, her survival instincts. That had to stop.
“I think we can do better than that for you,” he said of the tape.
“It’s effective enough.” Turning away, she started walking down the sidewalk.
“Let me drive you home,” he said, keeping her pace.
“I like to walk.”
“You like to be stubborn.”
“I like to be independent,” she corrected, and pulled up her own hood, wishing she’d remembered gloves.
A bolt of lightning lit up the sky, the accompanying clap of thunder making her jerk as the first drop of rain hit her on the nose. And then another, and with a sigh she turned and found herself toe-to-toe with the current bane of her existence. “Okay, fine. I’ll take the ride. Thank you,” she added begrudgingly.
He flashed a smile. “It’s because you’re cold, right?”
“No.” Cold, she could handle. But her hair was about to get frizzy, and that she couldn’t handle.
“You hungry?” he asked in the truck a few minutes later.
“No. You?”
He glanced over at her, eyes dark. It wasn’t hard to read his mind. Yes, he was hungry, just not for food.
And just like that, she was suddenly hungry too.
When he found a parking spot near her building, he turned off the engine.
She looked at him, not able to see much since now the only lighting came from the street traffic and surrounding buildings. But his outline was familiar and somehow . . . comforting, as was the feel of his gaze on her face.
For most of her life, she’d not given much thought to comfort, either needing or giving it. It’d been about survival, and comfort was a luxury.
But for over a year now, it hadn’t been about just surviving. It was about learning to . . . well, not be like a feral cat. Learning how to be more open and make friends and . . . yes, dammit, find comfort in the life she was building for herself.
But taking in the man sitting next to her, the strength and warmth of him, she realized she most definitely wanted more than comfort tonight. “You’re not sleeping outside again,” she murmured.
His voice came back to her in the embodied dark, low, and a little gravely. “Are you inviting me in?”
“Well you did win the bet.”
“This isn’t going to be about the bet, Ivy.”
“Yes, it is.”
Not answering, he got out of the vehicle with her. As they walked toward her building, he was the one to call out a greeting to Jasmine and Martina, both sitting beneath two side-by-side umbrellas.
He’d remembered them, and as people, not as homeless nobodies.
And utterly without warning, she softened for him. She’d thought she wanted his body tonight, but suddenly she knew it was far more.
At her door, he crouched low and eyed her “alarm system.” The piece of tape was in place. Still, he rose to his feet, held out his hand for her keys and then proceeded to clear the place.
When he was seemingly satisfied, he stood in the center of her postage stamp–sized apartment in that leather jacket, buttery soft faded jeans, and boots, hair damp from the rain, drops all over him. He liked to call her “Trouble,” but the truth was, it was him. Every inch of him was going to be trouble, and she was looking forward to it.
He was watching her watch him, leaving her to it, calm. Patient.
Eyes hot.
“So,” she said, mentally cracking her knuckles, trying to figure out how to get him closer and his mouth on hers. “Want to watch a movie?”
“Are you asking if I want to Netflix and chill?” He sounded amused, though that heated gaze of his was dark and serious. Very serious.
“Um . . . yes?”
He gave a slow shake of his head and came toward her, backing her up to the wall. Setting his hands on the wall on either side of her face, he leaned in and gave her what she’d wanted—one hell of a kiss. It started soft, questing, but when her arms wound around his neck and she kissed him back, he deepened the kiss. She heard herself moan as she fisted her hands in his hair. It wasn’t enough, so she regrouped and slipped her hands beneath his shirt instead, touching his abs, feeling the hard muscles ripple in reaction. His skin was warm, the scent of him delicious, and . . . dangerous to her heart and soul. She simply couldn’t be this close to him without losing her tenuous grip on her need and hunger.
He lifted his head and searched her gaze before his mouth curved very slightly and he backed up a step. “When you’re sure,” he said quietly, running his fingers along her jaw. “You’ll say when.” He dropped his hand from her. “’Night, Ivy.”
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br /> She stared at his very fine backside as it headed toward the door, her heart still pounding, lips tingling from his kiss. She pulled out her phone, hit his number to call him, and watched as he got halfway out the door before his cell rang.
Pausing, he pulled it from his pocket and eyed the screen and then answered it as he turned back to face her, his lips curved as he found her on her phone as well.
“When,” she said softly but firmly into her phone. She smiled. “And Merry Christmas.”
Eyes on hers, Kel moved in close. “Are you my present?”
When she nodded, he took the phone from her ear and tossed it aside. Still holding her gaze, he tossed his phone as well, which ended up next to hers. Then he pulled her into him. “Can I unwrap you now?”
In answer, she shrugged out of her wet sweater and let it hit the wood floor with a thunk. She toed off her shoes and then waited expectantly.
As she knew he would, he got the message. With another small curve of those lips she wanted back on hers, he bent and untied his work boots and then kicked them off. His leather jacket went next and then his sweatshirt.
Then they stood there staring at each other. She didn’t know about him, but her heart was racing, threatening to burst right out of her chest. She’d not lived like a monk, but she hadn’t been with anyone in a while. She hoped it was like getting back on a bike, because she was pretty sure Kel was about to give her the ride of her life and she intended to measure up. With a deep breath, she pulled off her tank and unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans.
“Wait,” he said, a soft but gruff tone as he moved closer. He unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged out of it. His T-shirt went next, all discarded in a heap on the floor with everything else.
She raked her eyes over his bare chest and then let her hands travel up to his sides, her fingers gently brushing his right side and the still healing bruises running down the length of him from shoulder to thigh. “The mechanical bull?” she asked in horror.
“No. Didn’t get out of the way of a desperate-to-escape bad guy fast enough.”