by Jill Shalvis
Mark strode into the room. “If you think I can’t recognize pretend sleeping, you can both think again.”
If he’d spoken to Lanie in that scary baritone when she’d been the girls’ age, she’d have peed her pants. But his girls squealed and tossed back their covers, and then two bundles flew at him with the now-familiar “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!” coming from Sam.
Lanie held her breath, but he caught them both with ease, snuggled them in close, kissed each of them, and then . . . tossed them back onto the bed.
More squeals and peals of laughter, and Mark covered them both with the blanket.
“Daddy, Sierra has an owie!” Sam said. “She was playing a game in bed and the iPad fell and hit her in the head.”
Mark took in the half-inch scratch on Sierra’s forehead. “I can fix that.”
“You can?” Sam asked while Sierra’s eyes went hopeful.
Mark walked to the whiteboard on one wall, grabbed a pink marker, and came back to Sierra. He turned the scratch into a lightning bolt.
Sam shrieked in delight. “Now you’re Harry Potter!” she told Sierra, who jumped up to look in the mirror on the closet door.
Beaming, happy, they both crawled back into bed.
Mark sat on the edge of the bed. “Do I even want to know why you left this house alone at night, when the both of you know better?”
“Daddy, she’s got lip gloss and pretty purple nail polish that sparkles and everything!”
“She?”
“The new lady. Lanie.”
Mark craned his neck toward the door.
Lanie leapt back out of sight, feeling her face heat. Why was she even still standing there? Horrified and embarrassed, she hurried down the stairs, her chest tight, her pulse in her ears. She’d gotten all the way to the kitchen when Gracie barked.
“Seriously?” Lanie whispered. “You’re going to be a guard dog now?”
Gracie jumped up, put her paws on Lanie’s shoulders, and licked her chin.
“Okay, okay,” Lanie whispered. “We’re friends now, right? Good.” And with that she slid outside. She’d just shut the back door when it opened again.
She didn’t look. Instead, she picked up her pace but for the second time that night she nearly leapt out of her own skin when a hand settled on her arm and pulled her around.
Mark.
“Sorry,” she said, maybe gasped, because she was out of breath from holding her breath. “I wasn’t eavesdropping.” Much.
“Actually,” he said. “The sorry is on me. They’re insatiably curious.”
“It’s okay. I like them. No one else has asked me who my third favorite superhero is. They’re . . . cute.” And she was surprised to find that was actually true.
“They’re something, all right.” Mark gestured her toward the trail, a hand at the small of her back. Not a flirtatious gesture. More like an impatient one.
“You don’t have to walk me,” she said.
“You got the two people who mean more to me than anything else on this planet home safe and sound,” he said. “I’m going to return the favor.”
“I can handle myself.”
“Of that, I have no doubt,” he said. “But I’m still going to walk you home.”
“But—”
“Look,” he said, exasperated. “I’m exhausted. How about we just get this over with.” And then without waiting for an answer, he once again nudged her in the right direction. “Let’s move.”
“I don’t take orders very well,” she warned. “In fact, I barely take suggestions.”
She got an almost smile at that and they walked through the night. In silence. At her door, he waited until she opened it to speak.
“Again,” he said. “Thanks.”
She met his gaze. “Is it really ‘again’ if it’s the first time you said it?”
He let out a low laugh and scrubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. “I’m not very good at this. So you’re . . . okay?”
It was an odd question. She couldn’t remember the last time someone, anyone, had asked her such a thing. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
This got her an actual smile. “Are you always so prickly? Or is it something you save for just me?”
“It might be just you,” she admitted.
Small smile still on his lips, he nodded. “Good to know. I’ve got to get back. I promised they could tell me a bedtime story.”
“Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”
“We take turns.” He shook his head. “You know what takes longer than a kid telling a story?”
She had no idea, so she shook her head.
“Nothing,” he said and startled a quick laugh out of her. And then before she could recover, he was gone, vanished into the night.
Fine by her. She crawled back into her bed and this time fell right asleep, although she maybe had a few crazy dreams involving a tall, dark stranger with a bad ’tude and a really great laugh and incredible hands. She had no idea if the incredible hands part was true, but in her dream it definitely was.
Chapter 3
Me: What can possibly go wrong, though . . . ?
Anxiety: I’m glad you asked . . .
The end of her first week found Lanie at her desk, working on her new designs. Ostensibly. Because what she was really doing was staring out the window at Mark and Holden.
Their shirts were off, and they were headfirst inside the engine compartment of a tractor, working on . . . something. It didn’t matter what. What mattered was that they were a little hot and sweaty, jeans pulled taut across two incredibly nice asses, and it was an even better view than the lush countryside behind them.
She was very busy looking at said asses while on the phone with a silk and embroidery screener because Cora wanted the winery to open an apparel shop, and this fell into Lanie’s territory. She was talking about the design she hoped to use and still staring outside—specifically at Mark’s ass—when she realized he’d straightened and was looking right at her.
Watching her watch him. Brow raised.
Oh, crap. She ducked low, grimaced, and then peeked out the window. He’d been interrupted by three women. Winery guests, who were all dressed up in pretty sundresses, hats, and heels, looking like a million bucks as they sipped wine and flirted. That they were flirting with the same men Lanie herself had been ogling didn’t ease her annoyance one bit.
Neither did the fact that Mark laughed at something they said, spoke a few words that made them laugh in return, and that’s when Lanie remembered—she didn’t like him much.
She was reminding herself of just that when her phone vibrated. It was a frantic text from Mia to come to the employee bathroom.
Good. Something to do. So she rushed down the hall where she found Mia in the bathroom on her knees praying to the porcelain god.
“Hangover,” Mia moaned and curled up on the floor. “Drank too much last night. In other news, if you know a guy looking for a slightly alcoholic, psychopath girlfriend who swears too much, eats too much, and will probably try to fight him while drunk, I’m the girl.”
“Good to know,” Lanie said. “But I’m off men at the moment so I don’t have any guys to recommend you to—in spite of those attractive attributes.”
Mia laughed and then groaned, holding her head. “Do you have future plans?”
“Yeah. I’m hoping to see Australia sometime.”
“No,” Mia said. “Beyond that.”
“Oh. Lunch?”
Mia snorted. “I really do like you. I need you to cover for me and take the tour I’m supposed to give in half an hour to a group of fifteen.”
“Oh no. No, no, no,” Lanie said, horrified at the thought. “I couldn’t possibly give a tour.”
“Why not? Are you bitchy with people too?”
“Of course not, I’m a delight.”
Mia grinned and pointed at her. “You’re doing this.”
“Okay, first,” Lanie said, pointing back, “I don’t like
people enough for that, and second, I don’t know the first thing about giving a winery tour.”
“Go to my desk. Ignore the planners, highlighters, ballpoint pens, to-do lists, and anything else that gives the illusion that I’ve got my shit together. Grab my iPad. There’s a file marked ‘Tours’ on it with everything you need to know. Take it with you. Password is ihateeveryone247, all lowercase.”
“Oh my God,” Lanie said. “I was going to laugh, but I’m not sure you’re kidding.”
“I’m not. Are you afraid of public speaking?”
Only slightly less than, say, facing down a psycho madman. At her last job, she’d been in the middle of a presentation when Kyle’s third wife had shown up.
“Yeah, I have a question,” the woman had yelled from the back of the full conference room that had also held her boss and her boss’s boss. “What kind of a bitch keeps all her dead husband’s assets to herself when she wasn’t the only wife?”
Lanie closed her eyes. “I’m not afraid of public speaking,” she said to Mia. “I just don’t do it anymore.”
“Okay, but this is different,” Mia said reasonably. “You’re at a family winery and it’s just chitchat. You can even make stuff up if you want. I do it all the time. Just don’t tell Mom.”
Lanie’s heart was threatening secession from her rib cage. Just say no. It’s okay to set boundaries. “Listen, you look much better now, not nearly as green, so—”
Mia leaned over the toilet and threw up some more, and then rested her head on the toilet seat.
Lanie sighed. “Maybe I should help you to bed—”
“No, I need you to help yourself to my iPad and do this tour. Please, Lanie.”
“What happens if I don’t?”
“I’ll tell Uncle Jack you like older men and want to date him.”
“Wow,” Lanie said, and dammit, she went to the door.
“Wait—you’re going to do the tour, though, right?” Mia called. “And not tell anyone why?”
So much for not getting personally involved. And now she was keeping secrets, which was like the ultimate involvement. “You’re going to owe me,” Lanie said.
“Anything. What?”
“A favor,” Lanie said. “An unspecified favor to be chosen at a later date.”
“Damn,” Mia said. “I’m impressed. But yeah. Okay. A favor.”
Lanie went to Mia’s desk and easily found the iPad because Mia’s desk was neat and organized—not a mess at all. There was apparently far more to Mia than sarcastic, caustic party girl, but for some reason Mia hid behind the image. But hey, Lanie was hiding too. Maybe everyone was.
The “Tour” file was extensive and she sat down right there at Mia’s desk and began to read. The history of the winery turned out to be fascinating. Grandma and Grandpa Capriotti had come over from Italy, getting married on the boat—not for love but for family’s sake—though it turned out to be a really incredible love story after all.
Half an hour later Lanie, heart pounding in her ears, stood in front of the tour group and . . . choked. She tried reading directly from the iPad but her voice was too quiet and quavery and everyone kept yelling at her to speak up. She was working on that when her cell rang. “Excuse me,” she said and grabbed at the phone like it was a lifeline, hoping that someone, anyone, was calling to say they could take over the tour for her. “Hello?”
“Is this Lanie Jacobs, formerly Lanie Blackwell, married to Kyle Blackwell?”
She pulled the phone away to look at the number. She didn’t recognize it. “Who is this?”
“Kyle’s other wife, apparently. I understand you were the first, and as such the only legit wife, meaning you got the insurance policy.”
Wow, that made wife number four. Impressive, really. She turned away from the tour group. “How did you get this number?”
“I paid a private detective to find you. Kyle and I got married the year after you did, on the very same day. Apparently Kyle didn’t want to have to remember dates. I deserve half of that life-insurance policy payout. I earned it being married to that cheater!”
Lanie, incredibly aware of her audience, pasted a smile on her face. While she agreed that she wasn’t any more worthy of the insurance money than any of the other women in Kyle’s life, she hadn’t yet figured out a way to make it right for everyone. In the meantime, she was over being painted as the bad guy. “You’ll have to get in line,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me—”
“Don’t you hang up on me! I can find you, you know.”
On that lovely thought, Lanie turned off her phone. She took a deep breath and shoved the phone away. “Okay, so where were we?” she asked, turning back around.
Someone new had joined the tour.
Deputy Sheriff Mark. While she stood there and stared at him in surprise, the corners of his mouth tipped up slightly.
“I think it’s time for some wine, am I right?”
In the tasting room, she let everyone mill around and talk while she ran to the bathroom, tore out a few paper towels, and shoved them inside her top and beneath her pits to stanch the flow of flop sweat.
“The first time is the hardest,” Mark said quietly behind her.
She squeaked and pivoted. “I was doing fine before you showed up,” she said, yanking the paper towels out from her shirt and tossing them into the trash. “You give me stage fright!”
Again, that slight curve of his mouth. “Okay, it’s all my fault. So let me help you.” Taking her by the hand, he dragged her out of the bathroom and back to the tasting room. He caught Owen’s eye and the winemaker gestured them over. “Give us a minute, folks,” Mark called out to the tour group, all friendly-like, adding a flirtatious wink.
Owen’s desk looked like something right out of a science lab, covered with beakers and equations written on every surface. He’d been working on a sample and Mark offered Lanie a taste.
“What is it?” she asked suspiciously.
Owen started to answer, but Mark held up a hand to stop him. “Does it matter? Just drink.”
She took a little sip.
Mark shook his head. “More.”
So she took another. Whatever it was, it was actually quite delicious and . . . once it hit her system, she relaxed a little bit.
He flashed her a smile. “Now go get ’em, tiger.”
She started over with the whole Capriotti love story and the strangest thing happened. The people were totally into it. They wanted her to be good at this, she realized. They wanted her to succeed, and it was a huge confidence booster. She loved their reactions to the story and in truth, she fell a little bit in love with the winery herself.
After the tour, Cora came into the offices and stopped short, tossing up her hands. “I remember every lyric to every eighties song, but hell if I can remember why I just walked into this room.” She turned and walked out again.
And then suddenly she was back, carrying a bottle of wine. She set it down on Lanie’s desk. “I remember! You’re amazing. Mia caught the flu and you stepped up in a huge way today, doing a job that wasn’t yours without complaint.”
Lanie opened her mouth to admit she’d done plenty of complaining to Mia beforehand, but everyone around clapped and toasted her. Including Mark, who’d come in without her noticing, although she was pretty sure his expression was more amused than congratulatory.
“Anytime,” she murmured, feeling like a fraud. They clearly wanted her to feel like one of them, but she knew nothing about being part of a big family. Plus, she didn’t know their endgame. Or how they could really be so close and happy. She needed to learn to keep her distance better around them.
Especially Mark, because the man was one of those quiet troublemakers, she could tell—the kind that sneaked in under a woman’s guard and made himself at home. And then decimated her heart and soul . . .
“You okay?” Cora asked quietly.
“I don’t know.” Lanie shook her head and spoke the utter truth. “It still fe
els a little bit like you’re all too good to be true.”
Cora didn’t get insulted. In fact, she tilted her head back and laughed. “Oh, honey. Believe me, we’re not all that good. I mean, our hearts are in the right place, but trust me, we’re human.”
Just then, Uncle Jack walked by. He looked at Alyssa’s artfully torn jeans that probably cost her a hundred bucks and said, “Hey, did you know there’re holes in your jeans?”
Alyssa rolled her eyes and Jack farted audibly. “Jet power!” he yelled and kept walking.
Cora waved the air with her hand. “See? Proof we’re a little insane. Now let’s all get to work. Alyssa, open a damn window and someone get that man some Tums, pronto. Back to work, people!”
And back to work they all went.
Lanie settled in. Two months wasn’t really a lot of time given what she’d been hired to do—which was basically a redo of the entire Capriotti brand. She was working on everything from design and execution of simple business cards to their wine club brochures to their complex catalogs. And then there was the website that needed to be completely redesigned and overhauled as well, not to mention label designs that would hopefully sit up and beg people to pull Capriotti bottles off busy crowded store shelves and into their shopping carts. Almost two-thirds of all purchase decisions were still made in-store, and a great wine label design could be what closed the deal. On top of that, she needed to properly execute and manage the packaging, ads, and logos that would end up on menus, table tents, shelf-talkers, bottleneckers, posters, banners, window clings, case cards . . . everything.
She was completely lost in the work when Samantha and Sierra appeared with hopeful faces.
“Purple toes!” Samantha yelled cheerfully.
Right. She’d promised earlier in the week, but the girls had been busy after school ever since. Tonight was the night, even though what Lanie really wanted was a hot shower, a marathon session of a really bad reality show, and a pot of mac and cheese all to herself. “Now? Don’t you have more homework or another dance class or something?” she asked hopefully.
“Nope,” Sam said.
Lanie looked at Sierra. “How about you?”