The Summer Deal

by Jill Shalvis

  Oh, and fury. So much fury, she almost blew him back from the force of that anger alone.

  Which made two of them. Because she was going to walk away like everyone else. She’d just said coming home was her biggest mistake—which clearly included him. She was more concerned about storming out and being mad at Kinsey than dealing with the fact that she was blowing him and her up as well when, as far as he could tell, his only sin had been attempting to stand between someone he considered his sister and the woman he loved. “So what, you’re just going to walk away?”

  “Yes.”

  “Coming home was your biggest mistake?”

  She yanked free. “I need to be alone. I’m tired of this fight.”

  “You’re not even in this fight.”

  “I am,” she said. “I’m totally in it.”

  “Babe, you’re not even in the ring.”

  That must’ve been true because she wouldn’t even look at him. “Let me go.”

  “Brynn—”

  “Good-bye, Eli,” she said, then whirled and slipped out the door.

  Gone.

  He stood there, his hand on the door, not even sure what the hell had just happened. Then he slowly turned back to Kinsey.

  She raised her hand for a waitress. “I’d like the special, please.”

  A waitress hurried over. “The double-double pancake special, the triple-triple pancake special, or the quadruple?”

  “Yes,” Kinsey said.

  The waitress looked at Eli.

  “Nothing for me.”

  “You used to be in my corner,” Kinsey said when they were alone.

  “I’m always in your corner. But not even you can make me choose between you two. I love her.”

  Kinsey dropped her head to the table. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry I ruined it for all of us.”

  “It wasn’t all you,” he said, looking at the door where Brynn had gone. “Each of us made some questionable choices.”

  “Think she’s coming back?”

  “No.”

  Kinsey nodded. “Which probably makes her the smart one.”

  That might be true, but it didn’t make the hole in his heart that she’d left in her wake any easier to take.

  KINSEY WAS SITTING on a bench outside the restaurant, waiting for Eli who was paying for the food they’d not eaten—and hopefully leaving the waitress a big, fat tip—and frustrated.

  Brynn had vanished.

  Well, not completely, because Kinsey had that stupid Find Your People app now, so she and Eli had opened it and stared at the screen.

  Brynn had gotten into either an Uber or a Lyft, and was heading for their dad’s place. When the phone in Kinsey’s hand rang, she jumped and looked hopefully at her screen.

  Not Brynn. But her heart still took a big old leap.

  Her Biggest Regret was calling.

  She stared at the screen before she answered. “Deck.”

  “You called.”

  His voice. God, that low, gruff voice. “I did,” she admitted.

  “Then you hung up on me. And didn’t answer your phone.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “Yeah.”

  Out of all the things he could have said, what came out of his mouth both surprised her and warmed her cold, dead heart.

  “Are you okay?”

  God. Even now, when she’d screwed up so badly, he cared. “No,” she whispered.

  Someone sat next to her, and she lifted her head to glare at them, but instead she stopped breathing.

  It was Deck, still holding his phone to his ear, just looking at her.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Your sister.” He pulled his phone from his ear, hit disconnect, and waited as she did the same. “Why did you call me, Kins?”

  Tell him. Don’t blow it with him like you did with Brynn. Get something good in your life. “Because I was wrong.”

  “About . . . ?” he asked.

  Okay, he wasn’t going to make this easy, and she got that. “I was wrong to push you away, wrong to let you think I didn’t have feelings, deep feelings, for you.”

  “So why did you?”

  “Because I couldn’t admit I was scared.” She took a breath. “Scared to be alone. Scared to blow it. Scared to face my questionable future.” She paused and met his gaze. “Scared to admit the things I feel for you.”

  “Newsflash, babe. You’re going to face the medical shit whether you like it or not. And you are alone. You did blow it. Because I’d have been there with you if you’d let me. Every step of the way.”

  “I know.” She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a coward.”

  He lifted her chin with a finger and waited until she looked at him. “You’re anything but a coward, Kinsey. You’re one of the bravest women I’ve ever known.”

  Her throat tightened. “But I’m not normal.”

  “Look at me. Do I look normal? Do I look like I want normal?”

  “But I’ll never be the woman standing at the door waiting for you at the end of the day wearing heels and pearls. I mean, unless we’re playing some kinky sex game.”

  He snorted. “I’m putting that into the queue. Also, you’ve been watching old sitcom reruns again.”

  She lifted a shoulder, and he bumped his broad-as-a-mountain shoulder to hers. “All I want is for you to do you, and let me be a part of your life while you’re doing it.”

  “You said you wanted more.”

  “Yes,” he said. “More being more you in my life. More you sharing yourself. Letting me in.”

  “I want that too.”

  His eyes never wavered from hers as he took a beat. “Why now, after all this time?”

  Fair question. “Because I’m slower than most when it comes to matters of the heart? I think I’m getting caught up though.”

  He didn’t smile, didn’t move a muscle. “I was starting to think maybe I was wrong on how you felt about me.”

  “Yeah,” she said, not proud of this. “I’m pretty good at evading, misdirecting, and avoiding the truth.”

  “You mean lying.”

  She had to take a deep breath. “Yes. That.”

  “So my question stands. Why now?”

  Get this right, Kins, or lose him forever. “People don’t . . . see me. Not all of me anyway.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She shook her head, trying desperately to find the words. “You’re the kind of person who walks into a room and everyone notices you.”

  “Yeah, because I’m as tall as the green giant and covered in tats. It’s hard to miss me.”

  “That’s not it,” she said. “You change the light, you change the energy, without even knowing you do it. But someone like me walks into a room and no one . . . sees me. You’re so much more than me, Deck. You could do a lot better.”

  He stared her, and finally shook his head. “The first time I saw you was in the ER. You’d collapsed from dehydration from the flu. It was two in the morning and you were trying to tell the on-call doctor about your medical history and he wasn’t listening. You got up off your cot, hospital gown flapping open as you laid into him about patient rights and the skill of listening.” He smiled. “That doctor was an asshole, and I fell in love with you right then and there. I saw you then, and I’ve seen you every second since. Now say ‘Why, Deck?’”

  “Why, Deck?” she whispered.

  “Because Kinsey Teresa Davis, you light up my life.”

  She blinked. “That’s a song. A very old song. And if you say it again, it’s going to get stuck in my head.”

  “You light up my life.”

  “Oh my God,” she said, but inside she was thinking, Oh my God . . .

  “Need me to say it another way? You had me at hello.”

  She fought a half-hysterical laugh. “I never said hello to you that night.”

  “I know.” He smiled as if the memory were precious. “You said, ‘What the hell are you stari
ng at? Never seen a girl’s ass before?’”

  Another laugh bubbled out of her. “And you said, ‘Oh yeah, I have. What I haven’t seen before is a woman so beautifully unafraid to speak her mind.’”

  He nodded and then his smile faded. “I never knew you felt that way. That you don’t feel seen.”

  “People who know me see my disease. People who don’t know me just see a cold, unreachable woman.”

  He smiled. “You like that though.”

  She managed a small smile in return. “Yeah. Like I said, good at misdirecting.”

  He ran a thumb along her jaw. “What is it? Something’s still wrong.”

  “You’re not the only one I blew it with.”

  “Brynn?”

  She nodded.

  “She found out you knew where your dad was before you told her yourself,” he guessed.

  “Just like you said would happen.”

  Not one to say “I told you so,” he shrugged. “So go fix it.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Family is family. You can be annoyed, irritated as hell, fight with them . . . whatever you want, but you don’t just let them go.”

  She stared up into his face, cupping his jaw in her hands. “How did you get so wise?”

  “The love of a good woman.”

  She sucked in a breath. He meant her. He thought she was good for him. He thought he loved her. So who was she to argue with him? “I thought it was only sex with us,” she admitted. “But it turns out, that’s just how you hooked me.”

  He snorted.

  “I mean it,” she said. “With you there’s an emotional, intimate connection that scares the shit out of me. But . . . it’s what makes it impossible to walk away from you.”

  “And yet you managed,” he said lightly.

  “No, I didn’t. I tried, believe me I tried, but I couldn’t.” She turned to fully face him, meeting those warm, dark eyes. “I need you in my life, Deck. I’m sorry it took me so long to figure it out. And I get that you might not even want to take another chance on me, but if I don’t at least try to fix what I messed up, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. And I don’t know how long that might be, but—”

  He kissed her softly, then not so softly, pulled back and pressed his forehead to hers. Given the look in his eyes, she figured he was about to say something incredibly sweet.

  “Did that hurt?” he asked.

  She laughed.

  He watched her like she was the best thing he’d ever seen. Clearly not caring that they were on a public bench outside a pancake house in Bakersfield—which by the way looked a little bit like Mars and was hotter than hell—he hauled her onto his lap. “You called me,” he said. “Do you know what that means?” He cupped her face and made her look at him. “It means you want me in your life. You’ve known for a long time that I love you,” he said seriously. “I’m keeping you now, Kinsey. No take backs.”

  Her heart was pounding in her chest as she slid her hands into his hair. “No take backs.”

  His eyes were still very serious as he raised his hand to touch her cheek. “A long time,” he repeated, softer now.

  She let that soak in. Love had never done much for her except hurt. She’d always believed that that was what love was, a way to hurt someone. “What if I die?”

  “You do realize you’re not the only mortal here, right? I could get run over by a bus tomorrow.”

  “Deck.”

  “Or you could dump me and rip my heart out. Again. Either way, we could lose each other. But why are you wasting what time we do have? I know you love me back, Kins.”

  She nodded slowly. “I do. I love you, Deck. I love you so much.”

  His breath whooshed out. “I’ve always known you’d walk when things got too heavy, that you’d push me away, especially if your health took a turn for the worse. That you’d steal time away from me. But when it happened, it still nearly killed me.”

  “You still might lose me,” she said. “But I can promise you, it won’t be because I choose to walk away. Not ever again.”

  This time it was the six-foot-five tough guy whose eyes went shiny. “Forever then,” he whispered against her mouth.

  “Or for as long as you’ll have me.”

  “Forever,” he repeated. He met her gaze, fingers in her hair. “But I know you, babe. We can’t do this, we can’t do us, until you do what you’ve gotta do with Brynn.”

  That he so thoroughly understood her brought tears to her eyes. “I know. I’m going to try to fix that. And then Eli. And then you and me. But that does not make you my third priority.”

  “I know. And we’re already fixed, babe. Go do what you have to do. I’ll be there when you’re done.”

  The words he didn’t say, didn’t have to say, were that he always would.

  Chapter 25

  Brynn got out of the Uber at the address she had for her dad and took in the apartment building in front of her. It was utilitarian, with no landscaping other than the weeds growing through the cracks in the asphalt parking lot. The neighborhood looked sketchy at best, and she turned back to the Uber to ask him if he’d wait for her, but he was already gone.

  Okay, then.

  All she had to do was go knock on a door and meet her past. And her present. And maybe her future.

  But that didn’t feel true. It felt like her present and future were back at that pancake house, and she’d walked away from them.

  Kinsey.

  And Eli . . . God, Eli.

  Unable to process that right now, she stared at the building, anxiety and panic and sadness all stirred up inside her so that she could hardly breathe. She would’ve called ahead, but she’d only had the address, no number. Her mom had been able to get it through her contact, but no other information.

  But as it turned out, she could’ve gotten it from her very own sister. Furious all over again, Brynn headed up the walk, took the stairs to the third floor, and knocked on the door.

  A woman answered. She looked to be about Brynn’s own age and was wearing cutoff short shorts and a clingy white tank top, with higher heels than Brynn could’ve managed on her best day.

  “Um, hi,” Brynn said. “Does a Kenny Vega live here?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “That’s . . . a bit complicated.”

  The woman narrowed her eyes. “You’re not his ex, are you? He told me you two weren’t seeing each other anymore. I’m his new girlfriend, Karen, and I don’t share.”

  “I’m not his ex. I just really need to talk to him.”

  Karen looked past Brynn to the hallway. “Are you one of those server people for the courts?”

  Brynn blinked. “No. I’m . . . his daughter.”

  Karen’s entire demeanor changed. She straightened and smiled. “Oh my goodness, of course. I can see it now, you look just like him. Kinsey, right? Hang on, I’ll get him—”

  “No, wait—”

  Too late. Karen turned and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Kenny, get your ass up, your daughter’s here to see you! And don’t forget pants!”

  A man came up behind Karen, thankfully wearing pants. In his early fifties, he was tall, lean, and his girlfriend had been right. Brynn recognized herself in his face. Same eyes, same nose, same mouth.

  Same not-quite-tamed hair.

  “Honey bun, look,” Karen said. “Kinsey came to visit you. Thought you said you two were on the fritz.”

  His eyes were friendly, but confused. “This isn’t Kinsey.”

  Brynn swallowed back the renewed pain of the betrayal that he knew Kinsey. “Nope, not Kinsey.” Her smile faltered because she’d already blown it. She hadn’t planned to burst out with the information of who she was. For one thing, he’d clearly never meant to be in her life, so she couldn’t just step in and blow up that life. That wasn’t fair and not what she wanted.

  As for what she did want, suddenly she was short on the details of her own plan. She hadn’t thought thi
s through. At all. Which meant Kinsey was right, a fact she hated. “I’m Brynn Turner. I was born thanks to . . . a fertility bank in Santa Barbara.”

  He raised his brows and gave her a second look over. “No shit?” He grinned and looked at Karen. “What do ya know?”

  She smiled at him. “I’m going to give you two a minute.”

  “Thanks, honey.” He gave Karen a sweet kiss and then slapped her on the ass. “I’ll tell you all about it later, okay? Why don’t you open my laptop and see what I’ve been shopping for. Hint: it’s gold and sparkly, and it’s for you.”

  With a delighted squeal, Karen twirled and vanished into the depths of the apartment.

  “Sorry,” Brynn said. “I really didn’t mean to spring this on you.”

  “Look at us. We’ve got the same eyes. Same expression. I bet you’ve got the touch.”

  “The touch?”

  “The charisma, honey. You’ve got it in spades, I can tell. You come by it naturally, you know, and you are welcome.” He flashed a charming smile and stepped aside for her to move inside.

  The place was small and spare, with worn furniture. No personality, which was the very opposite of its two occupants. In the living room, he gestured for her to have a seat. Then he turned to a bar and splashed something into two shot glasses before turning to hand her one. “Vodka—”

  “Oh,” she said, automatically taking it. “Vodka and I aren’t really friends—”

  “To a new father-daughter relationship,” he said, and clinked his glass to hers before drinking.

  And because he hesitated, seemingly waiting for her to drink as well, she took a small sip. And then nearly coughed up a lung.

  “So,” he said. “Tell me all about yourself.”

  She searched her brain for something exciting to tell him and came up blank. “I went to summer camp with Kinsey.”

  He looked astounded. “Small world.”

  “It was the only summer camp in the area where we grew up, so not really all that surprising. We didn’t know we were related then.”

  “What do you do?”

  “I’m a teacher.”

  He flashed a grin. “I’ve got smart kids.”

  “Do you have any more? Kids?” she asked tentatively, not wanting to be rude, but desperately curious.