The Family You Make

by Jill Shalvis

  “Yes, baby.”

  “Is your girlfriend here?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Did your mom tell you to ask me that?”

  “No. Grandma.”

  Levi sighed.

  She giggled. “Where is she hiding?”

  He had no problem bending the truth for his nosy mom and sister, but he wouldn’t lie to Peyton. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “Okay, let’s talk about my tea party. It’s soon. You’re coming.” She had a purse around her neck, one of Tess’s, and from it she pulled a small notebook and pencil. She opened it and made some scribbles and quickly closed it back up.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “It’s my secret diarrhea.”

  He bit his lower lip so as not to laugh. Maybe one day he’d correct her, but today wouldn’t be that day. “What do you write in there?”

  “Important notes. Mommy writes important notes in her diarrhea to save and show Daddy so she can kick his ask if he comes to visit.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t tell her I said ask, okay? Ask is a bad word.”

  Levi mimed zipping his lips closed.

  “Do you think my daddy’s coming soon?”

  “I don’t know, baby.” But he’d gladly help Tess kick the guy’s “ask” for leaving two of his favorite females hurting. He sat up and realized that his dad sat only a few feet away, behind his desk, head bent to an awkward level so he could peer over the top of his glasses instead of actually using said glasses. He was muttering about “bullshit, crap internet reception” as he pecked with his index fingers on his computer’s keyboard.

  Paying none of them any mind at all—not the dog, the man, or the little girl. Just as well. Peyton was back to jumping up and down, and shit, she was making him dizzy as hell.

  “Can we have a tea party?” She put her face back close to his. “Can we? Can we? Can we?”

  “I might need a nap first.”

  “But! But! But!” Peyton liked to repeat herself. At high decibels. “I’m ready now!”

  “Peyton!” Tess yelled from somewhere down the hallway, also at high decibels. The apple never fell far from the tree . . . “Don’t wake up Uncle Levi!”

  “He’s already awake! Jasper did it!” Peyton squatted down and carefully picked up her bowl of . . . yep, Froot Loops. Sans milk because everyone was tired of slipping or sitting in spills that never got reported. “I brought you breakfast,” she said, the bowl balanced precariously in her little hands.

  Levi leaned in to take a Froot Loop, but she held up her wand. “Any color but red,” she said very seriously. “The red ones are my favorite.”

  “How about the yellow?”

  “Those are my next favorite.”

  “Green?”

  “You can haz green,” she decided.

  “Thanks.” He popped one in his mouth and she grinned at him, a sweet guileless toothless grin that tugged at his heart. He playfully pulled on a strand of her hair. “You know they all taste the same, right? They’re not individually flavored.”

  She blinked, this new intel sinking in. “The reds are the prettiest.”

  “Understood.”

  She did the Energizer Bunny imitation again. “Get up, get up, get up!”

  “Okay, okay.” He started to sit up before remembering he’d stripped down to just boxers last night. “Uh, why don’t you get the tea party all set up and I’ll come meet you after I shower.”

  “Yay! Yay! YAY! DON’T BE LATE!” And she skipped out of the office.

  Silence filled the room except for his dad’s two pointer fingers continuing to pound away on his keyboard.

  Levi stood up and groaned. The bed sucked. Or maybe it was his life.

  His dad slid him an unimpressed glance. “’Bout time you got up. I don’t know what you do in the city, but here in the mountains, our mornings start before ten.”

  Levi had always operated on the assumption his dad enjoyed pushing his only son’s buttons. And he was good at it. It hadn’t been easy growing up knowing he’d been expected to stay in town, take over the family business, and live happily ever after—without following any of his own hopes and dreams.

  He’d gotten past all that. Okay, so maybe he still harbored a little resentment. But since his stint in the hospital and now his stay here at the house, Levi was starting to realize that maybe it wasn’t that his dad didn’t respect or understand his son’s choices. Maybe . . . maybe the guy was just doing the best he could to get through his own day, and being a cynical ass helped him do that. “What’s going on, Dad? What’s with all the mumbling?”

  “Don’t ask when you don’t really want to know.”

  The family store was the only sporting goods store on North Shore, which meant it was highly trafficked and did great business. But there wasn’t a huge profit margin in it, and Levi’s family had struggled plenty—something he hadn’t appreciated growing up because his parents had never let on about any financial strain.

  Knowing that they’d protected him and Tess from that stress usually gave him more patience when his dad pulled the holier-than-thou crap. But he felt pretty rough this morning, and was definitely short on patience. “Dad, just tell me what’s going on.”

  His dad pushed his chair back from the desk, looking disgusted. “The store’s books are a mess.”

  For the past decade, Cal—Tess’s soon-to-be-ex-husband—had been doing the accounting for the store. He’d started right after college, the first nonfamily member to ever handle the books.

  But when Cal took off with the babysitter a month ago, he’d walked away from the job. If he was being honest, Levi hadn’t even given it a single thought, knowing someone else would now be handling the bookkeeping.

  Apparently that someone had been his dad. This wasn’t good because, though the man knew his stuff, he was impatient as hell when it came to the business side of the store.

  His dad tore off his reading glasses and tossed them onto the desk. “Cal’s a piece of shit.”

  “Agreed.” Levi took a closer look at his dad and saw the tight grimness to his mouth and the stress lines around the eyes. “What’s wrong?”

  His dad rubbed his eyes. “It’s not good.”

  Levi’s heart sank. “I’m going to need you to be clearer. Did Cal mess up the books, or did he help himself to the kitty?”

  His dad opened his eyes and looked at Levi. “I’m not sure. But I think the second thing.”

  “Jesus, Dad.”

  The guy shook his head. “It’s just a gut feeling. I haven’t been able to find anything.”

  “The software I sent you last quarter should’ve alerted you to anything out of the norm going on.”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t make heads or tails out of that program. And why change something if it’s not broke.”

  “Are you kidding me—” Levi broke off and drew a deep breath because nope, not getting baited into a fight. “Mom told me it was working out great.”

  “Because that’s what I told her.” His dad looked away. “It was complicated to load and I never got around to it. Obviously, not my smartest move.”

  A surprising admittance. But the thing was, Levi’s program wasn’t complicated. It was simple. And no one would have had to do anything but let the program run in the background. Levi drew a deep breath. “Dad.” He couldn’t believe he was about to say this. “Why don’t you let me take a look and see what I can figure out?”

  “What, so you can get it all working, only to go back to the city?” His dad waved his glasses around. “I don’t want to be left trying to undo something someone did.”

  Levi swallowed the automatic defense bubbling in his throat. “I’m not Cal, Dad. I’ve never left a mess behind.”

  His dad sighed, scrubbed his hand down his face. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. I don’t mean to take this out on you. But shit, that asshole left us in a bad place.”

  “Then why do you always say everything is fine when I call?”

&n
bsp; “Your mother didn’t want me to bother or worry you. And anyway, you’ve never wanted the store, you’ve never been happy here, so what does it matter to you?”

  “Jesus, Dad.” He started to scrub a hand down his face and realized he’d inherited the tell from his dad and stopped. “I love it here,” he said. And it was true. He loved it on the mountain, loved knowing that he could have any outdoor adventure he wanted. “I want to help.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes.” That he’d not given the store a single thought after knowing Cal had gone, leaving them in a lurch, had guilt swamping him. “Let me go through the books with a fine-tooth comb and see what I can find.”

  “I can’t ask you to do that.”

  “You didn’t ask. When I’m done, I’ll install the software for you, which will do the job of finding these problems when I’m not around.”

  His dad looked uncertain, and wasn’t that a kick to the gut. Levi made a living, a really good living, and a lot of that came from solving people’s problems. Problems just like this. But because he was the baby of the family, and let’s face it, different, his dad had a hard time seeing his value to the family.

  “Dad, let me help.” He gestured for him to move out from behind the desk so Levi could get to the computer.

  “You going to put on some pants first?”

  “Yeah.” He grabbed his jeans from the floor and stepped into them. A T-shirt too. He didn’t live like a slob at home, but here all he had was the couch, so things naturally ended up on the floor around it. When he sat behind the desk, he caught the look in his dad’s eyes. Maybe relief. Maybe hope. Hard to say, as the man wasn’t in the habit of giving much away.

  Guess it could be said that Levi himself, the apple, hadn’t fallen far from the tree either.

  His dad put a hand to Levi’s shoulder. The Cutler equivalent to a warm, hard hug. “Thanks.”

  Levi slid him a look. “You must be extra desperate.”

  His dad smiled ruefully. “I was two seconds from chucking the laptop out the window before you woke up.”

  Levi supposed he should be thankful for the small things. For instance, it was better to have been woken up by a dancing fairy demanding a tea party than by the sound of a laptop crashing through the window and falling to its death two stories below.

  Chapter 9

  Jane woke up late, a rare treat. It wasn’t often she had a day off. Typically when she was in Tahoe, she worked every shift she could get. Because she’d had some lean years with no one but herself to rely on, working her ass off and saving for a rainy day had become second nature.

  But lying in bed, contemplating the ceiling, she knew what she’d told Charlotte was true. She wasn’t on her own anymore.

  She touched the locket. Normally it invoked memories of her grandma, but there were new memories attached to the locket now. The way Levi had looked at her when he’d brought it back. She’d known he had a killer smile, that he was also funny as hell, and could more than hold his own in an emergency—all super attractive things.

  But she hadn’t imagined he could do sweet, and her eyes drifted shut as she smiled—

  And then flew open when the bed shifted.

  And began to purr.

  “What the—” She leapt out of the bed, yanked back the covers, and came face-to-face with a pair of slightly crossed gray eyes, tail twitching in annoyance at losing the covers. Alley Cat.

  “Oh my God, how did you get in here?”

  He stood, stretched, turned in a circle, then lay down, his back to her.

  She had to laugh. “You can’t be in here. This house is a pet-free zone, and plus, I only pay rent for one.” Scooping him up, she strode down the hall to the kitchen, unable to resist nuzzling her face against his, making him purr louder. Damn. If she’d been one to stick somewhere and put down roots, she’d keep him in a heartbeat. But she wasn’t, so she couldn’t. “Please understand,” she whispered against his fur.

  Charlotte was at the table, glaring at her laptop. “You’d think that paying bills online would be so much more calming. It’s not.”

  Jane passed by her to the back door and set Cat outside.

  His tail switched back and forth for a few beats. Then he stalked off.

  “He’d have kept your feet warm,” Charlotte said.

  “Is that why you let him in?”

  They looked at each other, Jane waiting for the confession, Charlotte not looking sorry at all.

  “You know I can’t keep him,” Jane said softly. “And you know why. Don’t make this harder on me.”

  Charlotte sighed as Jane poured herself a coffee and then refilled Charlotte’s cup as well, nudging a chin toward the laptop. “You know you could double what you’re charging people to live here, since we all know you don’t charge enough, and then the bills wouldn’t be as stressful.”

  “Not doing that.”

  Jane tossed up her hands, and Charlotte smiled. “You love me.”

  Jane rolled her eyes.

  “You do,” Charlotte said.

  “Maybe,” Jane admitted. “But I don’t love you sneaking the alley cat into the house and opening the door to the den so he could get onto my bed.”

  “First of all,” Charlotte said, “he wanted to come in. Secondly, he’s not an alley cat, he’s your Cat, and he went looking for you, crying outside your door—which isn’t the den, it’s your bedroom.”

  Jane’s chest tightened at the thought of Cat crying for her. “I can’t keep him. You know I’m leaving. It wouldn’t be fair to him to live with me for the next month, and then be out on the street again.” She picked up a piece of paper with a list on it. “What’s this?”

  Charlotte shrugged. “My family and some others keep asking for my birthday wish list.”

  Jane slid her a look. Charlotte hated accepting gifts, but it was the “some others” that interested Jane. “Is one of them named Mateo?”

  Charlotte pretended not to hear her. “I made the list, but it seems greedy, so I’m not sending it to anyone.”

  Jane stealthily pulled out her phone and snapped a pic of the list. If Charlotte wouldn’t take her damn money, then she’d give the woman a hell of a birthday gift, and make sure others did as well. The southern belle would never, ever, turn down a gift—it would be rude.

  “So . . .” Charlotte said.

  “So . . . what?”

  “You going to do it? Be the hot guy’s girlfriend?”

  “I knew I was going to be sorry I told you about that. I’m going to shower and then run errands.” Jane turned to go.

  “Don’t forget to buy a bed for Cat to sleep on in your room,” Charlotte yelled after her.

  “Sure, soon as you stop taking care of everyone but yourself,” Jane yelled back.

  Back in her room after she’d showered and dressed, Jane pulled out her phone and sent the photo of the list to Mateo with a text:

  JANE: She’s made herself a list and she’s checking it twice. I’m attaching a copy. Calling dibs on the ski jacket.

  MATEO: Look at you showing your sweet.

  JANE: Take that back.

  MATEO: You’re a good friend, Jane.

  Not sure that was actually true, she shoved her phone into her pocket and headed out for the jacket. Charlotte didn’t put a lot of stock into material things, unless it involved skiing. The woman loved to ski.

  Jane wasn’t as big on clamping two skinny boards to her feet and flinging herself down a steep mountainside. But she could appreciate the need for good equipment, so she was going to Cutler Sporting Goods.

  Had she picked the jacket to give herself an excuse to go there? No. Definitely not. Or at least probably not . . .

  Okay, yes.

  Yes, she had.

  The store was downtown, which consisted of a four-block-long area called the Lake Walk, lining the lake the length of Sunrise Cove. It was filled with bars, cafés, touristy stores, galleries, anything and everything that might lure more tourists i
n. The buildings were mostly from the early 1900s, and though they’d all been renovated many times over, they still held a certain Old West style that was hugely appealing. At night, every storefront and tree on the sidewalk would be bright with thousands of twinkle lights that reflected off the lake and made the place look like a postcard.

  But even by daylight, the charm was still there. Cutler’s was done up like an old warehouse with turn-of-the-century sporting equipment decorating the walls and hanging from the open rafters. Old-time skis and sleds, wood surfboards, and the like.

  Jane walked in telling herself her mission was to get in, find the jacket, and get out—all without catching a glimpse of Levi. She had no idea if he was even here, but she strode directly toward the ski section, not looking left or right, just straight ahead, stopping at women’s jackets.

  Girlfriend.

  Levi had wanted her to pretend to be his girlfriend.

  If he’d known her better, he’d have laughed at the idea of her doing any such thing. After all, she’d never been successful at making a real relationship work, much less a pretend one.

  But there had to be someone out there for her, right?

  Damn. She needed to stop secretly watching the Hallmark and Lifetime holiday movies. She found a jacket that seemed to match Charlotte’s description and pulled it out. When she caught site of the price tag she almost passed out.

  Damn.

  You can’t put a price on friendship, she told herself. At least not when it came to Charlotte’s friendship and all she’d done for Jane. Calculating how to cut her food bill down for . . . oh, the next year, she headed to the checkout counter and stood in line. The woman ahead of her was saying, “Don’t forget the fifty percent off employee discount, which is of course why I’m getting too much. I couldn’t resist. Thank God Robby loves working in your bike department, right?”

  Employee discount . . .

  Did pretend girlfriends qualify?

  “Good morning,” the checkout clerk said when Jane was up. “You find everything you need?”

  “Actually, I just realized I need to check on something. Do you know where I can find Levi Cutler?”

  The girl pointed up.

  Jane looked up. And up. And up . . . The entire back wall was a climber’s paradise. The wall itself was divided into three different climbing heights, the tallest being the entire three stories of the building, and there was Levi near the top and, close as she could tell, the only thing holding him up there was a very thin-looking rope.