Rainy Day Friends

by Jill Shalvis

  Not exactly an adrenaline-filled shift.

  But thanks to zero sleep the night before, by the time he got home, he was ready for food and bed, in either order. But his life didn’t lend itself to fulfilling his own needs very often and today was no different. He knew from the slew of texts he’d gotten all day that River and the baby were home and his entire family was abuzz with excitement. No one cared that River wasn’t a Capriotti. When the Capriottis fell for someone, they gathered them in and treated them as their own.

  And that’s just what they’d done with Lanie and River, whether the two women liked it or not.

  And Lanie didn’t. Or at least she didn’t trust it.

  Or him.

  He wanted to prove her wrong. Wanted to prove that she could, and had, fallen for this family, this place, and him—since he’d most definitely fallen for her no matter what he’d promised himself.

  But he had no idea where she stood. For a guy who’d put his life on the line and trusted his instincts on the job, he actually wasn’t sure of anything when it came to Lanie.

  Inside the house, everyone was hovering and helping with the baby, and after being home for a couple of hours and taking in the goings-on, he realized something not all that surprising.

  Lanie was doing everything in her power to not hold the baby.

  After he’d gotten Sam and Sierra into the tub, Mia showed up with something called a bath bomb and took over, so he left them to it. He made his way into the huge living room where Alyssa, his mom, his grandma, and River were sitting on the couch, staring in loving marvel at the baby asleep in a little bassinet in front of them.

  “I just want to eat her up,” Cora said.

  “Nibble on her fingers and toes,” Grandma said.

  “Me too,” Alyssa said with a laugh as she cupped her hands protectively over her own baby swaddled to her chest. “She makes my ovaries ache.”

  Lanie was standing near the ceiling-to-floor windows, looking out into the night.

  “How about you?” he asked, coming up next to her. “Your ovaries aching?”

  She didn’t take her eyes away from the window. “I think mine might be defective.” She met his gaze in the glass, still not turning to face him. “Do you look at a baby and wish you had one?”

  “I’ve already had two.”

  “I mean . . . do you ever want more?”

  He could tell by her sudden stillness how very important his answer was to her. Reaching out, he ran a hand up her back, trying to soothe, even though he wasn’t one hundred percent sure what was wrong. “My life feels full with what I have,” he admitted. “And only a few months ago, I’d have said I’ve no need for anything more.”

  At this, she turned and faced him. “And now?”

  He smiled into her worried eyes and gave her the utter truth. “Things have changed. I’ve learned that life is a crapshoot, and at any moment someone can walk into it and change it forever.”

  She closed her eyes. “Don’t,” she whispered.

  He started to ask her Don’t what? but from behind him the baby began to cry at the same moment the twins came into the room wearing nothing but wet towels from their bath.

  “Hey,” Mia said, coming in behind them. “I’m looking for two cutie-pie escape artists, has anyone seen them?”

  The twins giggled and the baby wailed louder, scrunching up her eyes and waving angry fists.

  “I’ll get her,” Alyssa said.

  “Wait,” River said, holding out a hand to stop Alyssa from getting up. She smiled over at Lanie. “You haven’t had a turn to hold her at all. Don’t you want—”

  “I’ve got it,” Lanie said.

  Mark glanced over in surprise, as he knew damn well she hadn’t so much as looked at the baby, much less touched her.

  She moved away from the window and . . . went straight for his kids. She scooped up a giggling Sierra in one arm and then Samantha in the other arm. With the girls grinning from ear to ear, she swept them out of the room.

  “One of these days,” he could hear Lanie saying as they vanished down the hall, “I’d love to hear what your objection to bedtime is. Because that’s my personal favorite time of the day.”

  River met his gaze, her own worried.

  “Lanie’s just amazing,” Cora said. “So sweet and kind and helpful. Whatever’s needed, we can always count on her.”

  Mark nodded. “She is amazing,” he agreed, because she was.

  An amazing actress too, as she was hiding in plain sight, doing to River and the baby exactly what her parents had done to her—freezing them out. And no one, least of all him, could blame her.

  Chapter 30

  If overthinking burned calories, I’d be dead.

  Late that night, Lanie lay in bed trying to chase sleep. It should’ve come easy, as she was to-the-bone exhausted. Clearly, it was time to go. She hadn’t been meant to stay here. She couldn’t even warm up to the idea of a damn baby and as soon as everyone realized it, they’d know her truth.

  She was a horrible person.

  Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the look in Mark’s gaze. He was on to her. He knew she couldn’t hold or even look at the baby. Who couldn’t love a baby? But she couldn’t seem to help it; she felt like Delaney was the very manifestation of everything wrong in her life.

  Not that it’d be easy to leave Wildstone. The entire Capriotti family had seriously wormed their way into her heart. Uncle Jack, who told the same dirty joke every day at lunch and still made her laugh. Mark’s sisters, who’d become friends. Real friends. Cora, who’d taught her so much about acceptance and love.

  But she was in way too deep.

  A knock sounded at her door, a single knock that had her nipples going hard.

  Mark.

  She lay there another beat, toying with not getting up. It was the safest route for sure. Mental health–wise, anyway. But her body overruled her brain because her body, knowing she had one foot out the door, wanted every last minute in his arms that she could get.

  Slipping out of bed, she looked down at herself. She was wearing a pilfered shirt from his own back. It was big and comfy, and best of all, it smelled like him.

  He would read into that, she knew, but she opened the door a crack anyway.

  His gaze slid over her and heated. “You going to let me in?”

  The truth was, she already had. She’d let him into her bed, into her mind, into her body, and she was afraid, into her heart. She stepped back and in he came, shutting the door behind him.

  He’d changed into running shorts and a T-shirt that hugged his lean, muscled bod in all the right places. It said: WORLD’S BEST DADDY.

  He grimaced. “In hindsight, not exactly a seduction shirt, but . . .”

  She found a smile. “It’s cute.”

  “See, now, that’s the thing,” he said, voice all husky as he crowded her, tugging her into him. “I wasn’t going for cute.”

  “What were you going for?”

  “The best thing you’ve ever seen. Something you can’t walk away from.”

  The words came so close to what she’d just been thinking about. The air backed up in her lungs and she met his gaze. “Mark.”

  His smile faded. “Come on, Lanie. Are we really going to keep pretending that this is just a temporary job, a temporary relationship? That I’m just a one-stop for you?”

  “We’re not pretending,” she said. “We started this thing with you saying you had no intention of being with someone until your girls were grown.”

  “Like I said, things change.”

  She stared up at him with no idea how to feel about that. “Relationships are complicated.”

  “They don’t have to be,” he said. “I take care of you and you take care of me. End of story.”

  She absorbed this for a moment, feeling the panic lick along her limbs like flames. But along with that, there was something else, something she didn’t want to acknowledge.

  The fact tha
t every time he spoke about them, or alluded to a tie between them, a very tiny little spark warmed her from the inside out.

  Hope, when she didn’t believe in hope.

  But Mark stood there, steady, calm. Patient. There was something new in his eyes, or maybe not new at all—something that had been growing over time since she’d been here.

  Holding her gaze prisoner in his, he stroked his fingers along her jaw and the question that she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer to escaped her lips. “What are you thinking when you look at me like that?”

  He smiled and pulled her closer. She liked that because if she stood on tiptoe she could put her nose right at the hollow of his throat and get high on the heady scent that was his alone.

  Then the world stopped spinning because he told her what he was thinking. He ran the pad of his thumb over her lower lip and said, “I love you, Lanie.”

  She stared up at him. He loved her. He loved her. He loved her.

  And she had no idea what to do with that. In fact, she was pretty sure that other than the lying-his-ass-off Kyle, no one had ever said those three words to her. At least not while meaning them. “I bet you say that to all the girls,” she said in what she hoped was a teasing tone.

  “Don’t,” he said with a single shake of his head. “Don’t make it a joke because you’re scared.”

  “I’m not scared. I just don’t think you’ve thought this through.”

  He cocked his head to the side and for the first time since she’d met him, she’d have sworn he looked at her with pity. “Have you ever known me to not think something through?”

  “No, I . . .” She closed her mouth and shook her head.

  “Do you not believe me?” he asked. “Are you that sure you can’t stop being terrified of what we could have?”

  Goddammit. Why was he putting this back on her? Her throat tightened and her eyes burned. “I think you should go.”

  “Not until we talk.”

  “Forget it. I’ll go.” She would’ve strode right out her door if he hadn’t stopped her.

  “Pants,” he said quietly.

  She looked down at herself and closed her eyes. A second later, her jeans were pressed into her hands. She opened her eyes and met his gaze and realized that for the first time since she’d known him, he was hiding himself from her. Blank eyes. Blank expression. “Thanks,” she whispered but before she could put on her jeans, he was gone.

  She nodded to herself. Okay, so that had been easy, chasing him away. And it was for the best. She didn’t belong here. And with that in mind, she left her cottage. A storm was brewing and the wind battered at her as she walked the path, looking for Cora. She was surprised to find the woman in her office. “You’re working at this hour?”

  Cora smiled a happy smile and shut her laptop. “Well, we’ve set aside a lot of work in the past few days. Trying to catch up.” Then she caught a glimpse of Lanie’s expression and she stood up. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  Was she that transparent? “I just wanted to let you know that the work you hired me for is basically done. I’ll continue to monitor it for as long as you want to make sure it all runs smoothly, but I won’t be staying in Wildstone. I . . . can’t.”

  Cora opened her mouth, but clearly changed her mind because she shut it again. Looking sad and worried, she simply nodded. “Okay,” she said softly. “I understand.”

  But she didn’t, Lanie knew. She couldn’t. She thought of Lanie as a fiercely brave woman who stood strong against the odds.

  It simply wasn’t true, not any of it. She was weak and alone, and terrified of getting hurt. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and left like her own ass was on fire.

  The wind had picked up and it’d begun to rain. She ran through it straight to her cottage and to the small closet, where she’d shoved her suitcase two months earlier. She yanked it out and tossed it to the bed before going to the dresser and opening the top drawer. Grabbing everything in a handful, she dropped it into the suitcase.

  Her door opened. She’d neglected to lock it. Mark stood there in the opened doorway, the rain slashing behind him. He met her gaze, his own dark and stormy, matching the night behind him. “Are you kidding me?” he asked. “I said ‘I love you’ and you didn’t say anything. In fact, you had no reaction. After the past two months we’ve shared, you let me walk away thinking that not only did I mean nothing to you, you didn’t give a shit about my feelings.”

  Well, when he put it like that . . . “Look, I’m not good at this, okay? I told you that from the start.”

  “I call bullshit.”

  She went hands on hips. “You can’t call bullshit on my feelings, Mark. And there’s something else too. I’m not all that good of a person.”

  “You’re a fucking amazing person,” he said. “One who maybe hides behind her cool front because she’s a chickenshit . . . Which is entirely different from not being a good person. And if I say something you don’t like, I expect you to tell me.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t always listen.”

  “I always listen. I just don’t always agree. See,” he said, “that’s how this works. Give and take. Compromise. If what I said was too soon, you tell me. If what I said is the opposite of how you feel, you tell me. Whatever you feel, you tell me. And then we figure it out. Together. That’s how a relationship works, Lanie.”

  She couldn’t form words. She could feel the panic rising in her chest and she was clearly now holding her breath because she was also light-headed. She had to somehow defuse this and now, because though she was leaving, she didn’t want to leave on bad terms, not with anyone, but especially not with him. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

  He stared at her for a beat and then came closer. “But . . . ? Because I sense a really big but coming here.”

  “But . . .” She paused. “I didn’t expect you to say what you did either.”

  “You mean when I said I love you.”

  Her stomach tightened. “Yes.” She swallowed hard. “That.”

  “Jesus.” He shook his head, ran his hand over his face. “You can’t even say the word in a sentence. How did I not see this coming?”

  She tossed up her hands. “That’s what I want to know! I told you I was messed up in the head!”

  He sent her a fulminating look. “You’re not, though. Messed up in the heart maybe, but not the head.”

  She wasn’t amused. “I can’t do this, Mark. I’m not ready. I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready. I’m not programmed like all of you Capriottis are.”

  He took in the open suitcase on the bed. “So you’re what, turning tail and running away?”

  “The job is done.”

  “There’s more here for you if you want it and you know that.”

  She inhaled a deep breath and faced him. “This isn’t all my bad, you know. You told me in the beginning that you weren’t going to ever fall for another woman again, at least not until the girls were grown up and out of the house. It was a rule, Mark, and you were very serious about it.”

  “I told you, things change.”

  Shaking her head, she started to back up, but he caught her hand. “Things change,” he said again, softer now, no longer angry but something else, something just as wild and passionate as he slowly reeled her in. “You’re scared,” he said quietly. “I get that. You’re scared because you love me too.”

  She pushed him away. “No.” Yes. God, yes. She loved him so much it hurt, and she had no idea what to do with that, not a single one. She turned away, back to the dresser, where she opened the next drawer down and scooped up her things. “Which is why I have to go.”

  He stood there watching her, arms crossed. “So is it that I gave you a reason to go, or that you were just looking for one?”

  Mark held his breath for Lanie’s answer.

  “This was your rule,” she said.

  “So you’ve already mentioned. But I’ve also already mentioned—things happen. Real feelings h
appen. You love me.”

  “No.” She shook her head, her eyes locked in on his as she backed up a step. “I can’t. I don’t.”

  At the words, he stilled and actually rubbed his chest where it felt like he’d just been hit by an IED. It was all suddenly a terrible echo of what Brittney had said to him, the words bringing it all back like it was yesterday.

  I don’t love you and I never wanted children . . .

  Had he learned nothing from his past? Apparently not, because at the first sign of trouble and hard times Lanie wanted out.

  Just like his ex.

  “Shit,” he said, feeling stunned at the realization. “It’s me. I’m the common denominator here. I’m the dumbass who did the same thing while expecting a different outcome.”

  Lanie frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Unable to discuss this rationally, he whipped around to get the fuck out, just as a scream went through the walls, followed by a thud—like a body hitting the floor in the next cottage over.

  “Oh my God,” Lanie said. “That was River!”

  Mark was already running out the door with Lanie right on his heels. “River!” she yelled, pounding on the door. “River, are you okay?”

  No answer.

  “I’ll go get a key,” Lanie said.

  “Just back up,” Mark said and kicked the door open.

  They found River lying on the floor in a growing puddle of blood.

  “Oh my God!” Lanie cried.

  “Call 9-1-1,” he said and dropped to his knees at River’s side.

  Chapter 31

  I don’t fall asleep, I overthink myself into a coma.

  River was both hot and cold, shivering and sweating, and she knew what that meant. High fever. Something had been nagging at her all day, she’d felt off, but she had attributed it to having just given birth and a serious lack of sleep.

  But as she lay on the floor in a puddle of her own blood, she knew she’d gravely underestimated her problem. She was delirious, unable to open her eyes beyond slits, unable to speak as she watched Lanie’s pale face hover above hers. “Delaney,” she tried to say, needing them to look after the baby.