The Family You Make

by Jill Shalvis

  “Until the year after college. I’ve dated on and off since then, but nothing serious.” He really wasn’t ready to explain what had happened to Amy because there was no way to do that without taking the mood to a somber place. He’d spent a lot of time in that state and didn’t want to go there tonight.

  Luckily, Kendra was heading toward them with their beer and food. She set everything down and smiled at Levi. “You sure did grow up real nice, Cutler.” She turned to Jane. “So is it true what they say about the geeks? That they only get better with age?”

  Jane looked at Levi, and he found himself holding his breath on her answer.

  “One hundred percent.”

  Kendra laughed, and when she left, they continued to stare at each other for another beat.

  “In for a penny, right?” Jane finally said and picked up a sweet potato fry. “Also, there’s no way we can eat all of this. It was sweet of you, but impractical.”

  That made him laugh because he was the most practical person he knew. In fact, normally by now on a date, he’d be mentally cataloguing the reasons she’d drive him crazy. It’d been his way of keeping himself emotionally unavailable. It was both funny and horrifying that she was doing it to him. “Impractical?” he asked. “My brain doesn’t even know how to compute that.”

  She shrugged. Not her problem, apparently. She took the last sweet potato fry. “Yum. Wonder how they get them so sweet.”

  “The longer they sit, the sweeter they get.”

  She laughed. “I should have known you’d know. So . . . why did you stop seeing whoever you were seeing last?”

  He thought of Tamara, the woman he’d met at a conference a few months back. They’d gone out to dinner and she’d eaten off his plate. Without asking. She’d taken the last of his fries, actually, and the irony of that made him laugh. “We weren’t compatible. And you never told me your most unusual talent.”

  “To piss people off, which is self-explanatory,” she said. “Robotic gadgets are not.”

  “It calms my brain.”

  She cocked her head and studied him. “Yeah, I can see that. You know what calms my brain? Cupcakes.” She picked up a shrimp kebab, dragged it through a mountain of sauce, and pointed it at him. “Now stop trying to distract me with all your sexy nerd hotness. We’ve got a mission, or at least I do. I need to get to know you fast if I’m going to pull this dinner off, and let me tell you something about me—I don’t like to fail.” She went back to her iPad. “Next question—”

  “Oh no.” He put a hand over her iPad. “You’re not getting away with telling me your talent is pissing people off. Play fair.”

  “But it’s true.”

  He cocked his head and studied her. She actually believed this. “You haven’t pissed me off.”

  “Give me time.”

  He leaned forward, waiting until she met his gaze. “Not going to happen.”

  “Maybe . . . but only because I’m going to be gone soon.”

  “That seems to be your life motto.”

  She shrugged.

  “Still not going to happen, Jane.”

  “You don’t know. You might disagree with me on stuff. Or not like my opinions, of which I have many.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with disagreeing or having varying opinions. I actually like that.”

  She looked at him for a long beat. “You’re different.”

  “Now you’re getting it.”

  Chapter 12

  Levi smiled when Jane just stared at him. The air seemed charged with something he hadn’t felt in a long time. And given the suddenly wary look on her face, she felt the same.

  All around them were the sounds of people talking and laughing, silverware against dishes, music . . . The table between them was small.

  Intimate.

  “Pretend,” Jane said, pointing at him. “This is pretend.”

  “Are you reminding me or yourself?”

  “Both.” She shoved his hand off her iPad and read the next question. “Is a hot dog a sandwich—and why.”

  He grinned. “Once again, in the bedroom or out?”

  She shook her head. “I walked right into that one.”

  He flipped the case closed on her iPad.

  “But—”

  He crooked his finger.

  She narrowed her eyes, but leaned in. “What?”

  Their faces were close. Not as close as they’d been the night of the blizzard, when she’d shown him the depths of her courage. Or when she’d shown up at the store and climbed the wall, revealing she also had determination, a sense of adventure, and a willingness to laugh at herself.

  “Hello,” she said. “Earth to Tarzan.”

  “You’ve got pretty eyes. They’ve got a ring of gold around the irises. When you’re irritated, it turns to fire. I like it.”

  She snorted, and he grinned, but let it fade. “You do know that for this to work, we need to know more about each other than how we categorize a hot dog. So ask me a real question, Jane.”

  “Okay . . .” She studied him thoughtfully. “You’re clearly smart as hell, successful, and some women might find you attractive . . .”

  It was his turn to snort. “I don’t hear a question.”

  “Why do you need a pretend girlfriend?”

  He was the one to break eye contact this time, turning to look out the windows at the lake. “I spend my whole day at work selling people on the idea that I’m the solution to all their problems. When I get home, I don’t want to have to be that guy. I just want to be me. And I guess I haven’t met a woman who’s okay with me as is. I’m a simple guy with simple needs.”

  “I get that,” she said, and nodded. “And same.”

  Easy acceptance. A surprise because no one had ever understood this about him. He shook his head.

  “What?”

  “I’m just sitting here thinking you’re one of the most fascinating, amazing women I’ve ever met. I guess I’m just stunned that you’re . . . available.”

  Her lips quirked. “Are you asking me why I’m single?”

  “If you’re willing to answer, then yes,” he said. “Why are you single?”

  “You mean other than most men suck?”

  He smiled. “It’s true, but I suspect you’ve always known that. So . . . ?”

  “So . . .” She lifted a shoulder. “I spend nine months of the year in other parts of the world dealing with real people with real problems, and at the end of the day, it makes dating seem . . .” She searched for a word. “Frivolous, I guess.”

  This made sense, but it gave him a pang deep in his chest for her. She reached for the iPad, but he gently pushed it away. “I want to get to know the real you, Jane, not how you would answer an impersonal website survey.”

  She leaned back, picked up one of the shots of beer, took a sip, put it down. Straightened her silverware.

  “You’re nervous,” he realized.

  “Am not.”

  He put his hand over hers. “I was nervous tonight too. Until I saw you.”

  She gave a small smile. “It’s actually the opposite for me. I wasn’t nervous until I saw you. Good thing this is only pretend, right?”

  He gave her fingers a squeeze. “We’ll start easy, okay? Tell me something about your day.”

  “About my day? I don’t know . . . it was pretty ordinary.” She thought about it. “I did meet someone new at lunch. I usually try to eat alone because it’s nice to get a minute of downtime between the rush of patients. But today this woman asked if she could sit with me. At first I was irritated.”

  “Not you . . .”

  She snorted. “But she was really nice. We actually exchanged numbers. She loves martinis, which I’ve never had, so we’re going to go for martinis soon. She’s a single mom, getting a divorce, loves skiing . . . Tess something or another.”

  Levi froze. No. No, it couldn’t possibly be . . . “Tess,” he repeated, trying to hide his sheer disbelief.

  �
�Yeah. Her daughter’s school and after-school program is across the street from the hospital. She was very chatty. Her daughter thinks she’s a fairy princess. Oh, and she has a totally annoying brother.”

  “Really,” he said dryly. “That must suck for her.” He really should’ve seen this coming, but his sister, and undoubtedly his mom as well, had clearly been cyberstalking Jane. He shouldn’t be so stunned at the level of duplicity and lengths they’d gone to in order to butt their noses into his business, but he was.

  And they wondered why he’d chosen to live in San Francisco.

  “Yeah, I guess he’s home for a bit,” Jane said, “and he acts like he’s still a teenager, leaving his clothes everywhere and dirty dishes in the sink. I never had any siblings, so it must be really hard to have to deal with that.”

  Oh, goody. They were still talking about him. “Must be,” he managed.

  Her smile faded a bit. “How big is your family again?”

  “There’s five of us,” he said. “Though sometimes it seems like triple that.”

  She didn’t smile, his first clue something was wrong.

  “And they’re . . . nice?” she asked.

  She was anxious about meeting them. “They’re going to be really nice to you, and very busy trying to figure out why you’re with me.”

  She did give him a small smile at that, and he paused before bringing up her family again. “You’ve not said much about growing up, other than you were passed around a lot. You’re not close to your family, I take it.”

  “No.” She pushed around the empty glass. “My mom was a teenager when she got pregnant and my dad didn’t stick around, so it’s an understatement to say she wasn’t ready to take care of a baby. It was tough for her to keep up with school and have a life, so we bounced around for a while, stayed with friends or family friends.”

  “Not family?”

  “Not then,” she said. “She’d burned some bridges.”

  “And you? What happened to you?”

  “I don’t remember much of this, but apparently when I was two, my mom got an opportunity to go away to college. I was sent to my mom’s older sister, Aunt Viv. But she had five kids of her own and worked all the time, so I ended up at my grandma’s sister’s daughter’s. I stayed there a bit, until she got married and wanted to start a family of her own.”

  “What was wrong with keeping you too?”

  “I was a needy thing.” She shrugged. “Got sick a lot.”

  Levi shook his head. “I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you.”

  “I was fine, I don’t really even remember much of it,” she said quickly, as if she didn’t want him to feel angry on her behalf, or worse, sorry for her. “And anyway, that’s when my grandparents took me in. And that was . . .” She smiled a little, as some of the fond memories appeared to beat back her bad ones. “The best. They lived here in Sunrise Cove in a tiny cabin. I loved everything about that time.”

  “Here?” he asked, surprised. “They’re here in Tahoe?”

  “Just my grandpa now. My grandma . . .” She paused, her liquid jade eyes revealing pain. “She died when I was eight.”

  “Aw, Jane. I’m so sorry. Did you get to stay with your grandpa?”

  “Her death was . . . hard on him. They’d been together since they were kids. They had an amazing relationship. He’d hide things for her to find. Food, cheap little knickknacks, seriously expensive jewelry, it didn’t matter. It was a game between them. He’d give her hints and she’d run around looking. She was just as happy to get a box of cookies as a diamond bracelet. He’d just sit there and laugh the entire time she was hunting for whatever it was.”

  “They sound amazing.”

  She nodded. “My time with them holds my favorite childhood memories.”

  “What happened after your grandma died?” he asked softly.

  “My grandpa had problems. Grief, and some health issues. My aunt Viv took me back in so I wouldn’t bother him or put any burden on him.”

  “Damn. You couldn’t catch a break.”

  “Maybe if I’d been an easier kid—”

  “Jane, you were just a kid. Someone should have given you the choice and made you feel wanted. Someone should have asked you to stay.”

  She shook her head. “Real life’s not like that. Memories stay. People go.”

  He hated that this was the lesson she’d gotten out of her childhood, and put his hand over hers. “What happened next?”

  “I bounced around, and when I turned sixteen, I emancipated myself.”

  Yeah, brave as hell, and he had a whole new appreciation for what she’d done with her life. But damn, he hated that she’d never really had a home to call her own. “Do you see your grandpa when you’re here?”

  “No. Thinking about it, though. Maybe.” She met his gaze, caught the look on his face, and shook her head. “Don’t feel sorry for me. It wasn’t all bad.”

  She’d been through hell and she was comforting him. His heart tightened at that. “Your family failed you.”

  “They did the best they could. And I never had to go into the system.” She shuddered. “I know people who are still scarred from that life.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Still, it couldn’t have been easy.”

  “Yeah, but when is life ever easy?”

  She was amazing and resilient, and he wanted to hold her. He wanted to do other things too. She was beautiful, and he was extremely attracted to her, but more than anything, he wanted to make her smile. Make her feel as special as she made him feel.

  Kendra came by and gathered up their plates. “Your s’mores platter is ready when you are.”

  Levi stood and took Jane’s hand, pulling her up. “Come on. They’ll serve it by the fire pit.”

  There were six fire pits spread out on a snow-covered patio. The sitting arrangements were low benches. They claimed a spot by themselves and Kendra brought a platter that held three bowls filled with marshmallows, chocolate bars, and graham crackers.

  “I’ve never done this before,” Jane said.

  Levi smiled and handed her a spear. “You just load a marshmallow—” He broke off as she loaded not one, not two, but three marshmallows on her spear and held it over the fire, looking so excited that he laughed as he loaded his own spear. He held his marshmallow over the fire too and gently tapped it to hers.

  She looked up at him from where she’d been deep in concentration on her marshmallow.

  “Thanks for tonight,” he said.

  “I haven’t been out in a long time,” she admitted.

  “How long is long?”

  She thought about it. “Maybe over a year. My last relationship was a long-distance one, and it didn’t work out.”

  “What happened?”

  “Long distance.” She lifted a shoulder. “I got a new assignment, and we weren’t serious enough to make it work.” She pulled her marshmallows back from the fire and beamed with pride. Perfectly golden. She carefully sandwiched them with chocolate and then graham crackers.

  “Thought you’d never done this before.”

  “Haven’t,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t always want to try.” She took a big bite, and he became enthralled with the dollop of melted marshmallow at the corner of her mouth.

  “What happened between you and Amy?” she asked.

  The question surprised him, but he supposed it shouldn’t have. He’d hesitated to tell her before, but he didn’t like the idea of hiding Amy. She deserved more than being a secret.

  Jane narrowed her eyes at his long pause. “Did you cheat on her?”

  “No.”

  “Just checking. You don’t seem to have a lot of obvious faults, so I had to ask. Did you know your marshmallow’s on fire?”

  “Shit.” He yanked his spear from over the pit and blew out the fire, eyeing the black lump that used to be a marshmallow.

  Jane laughed.

  He looked at her clearly enjoying his di
scomfort and had to shake his head. “See? Plenty of faults.”

  “Uh-huh, and one of them is being good at coming up with distractions when you’re asked uncomfortable questions. You make crap s’mores. And you don’t have a poker face.”

  She was still smiling, and damn if it didn’t bring out one of his own. “I have faults,” he said. “Lots of them.”

  “Yeah? I’m all ears.”

  “Okay . . .” He thought about it, not wanting to give away the farm, but wanting to be honest. “I hyperfocus on work and lose track of everything else. And when I’m in that headspace, I can apparently be . . .” He thought about the biggest complaint Amy and his few other shorter relationships had always had. “Distant.”

  “Me too,” she said and bit into her s’more. Her moan cut through him. As did her next question. “So. Amy. What happened? You’ve known her since you were a kid, she told you that you were in a relationship, you went to college together, and then . . . ?”

  “We got engaged.” The year after college, they’d played house and they’d been happy. Or so he thought. But then she started pressing for that wedding she’d been dreaming of since seventh grade. He made some agreeable noises and she’d been so happy, but he’d stalled on setting a date.

  And then she’d died—without the wedding, which had been all she’d ever wanted.

  These days he never made promises. Ever. He looked at Jane and felt a pang, because if he was the promising type, she’d be the woman he’d want to make promises to.

  “Levi?”

  Shit. Why had he pushed for deep tonight? He was allergic to deep. Maybe when he’d hit his head, he’d been more injured than he’d originally thought. Although it wasn’t his head aching now, it was his chest.

  Something to think about.

  But for now, there was no getting around this. “She passed away unexpectedly a year after we were engaged,” he said. “An aneurysm.”

  “Oh my God.” She set down her s’more. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed—”

  “No, it’s okay. And what was it you said? It sucks. Life sucks. But then you learn to live with it. You don’t necessarily forget, but you move on.”

  Her eyes were warm. Regretful, but also understanding. She didn’t offer empty platitudes, for which he was grateful. She simply nodded and then went about toasting another perfect marshmallow. Then she created a s’more with it and handed it to him.