by Jill Shalvis
“Oh my God!”
“Did we kill her?”
Charlotte sat up and wiped the quickly melting snow from her eyes and mouth, just as a tall shadow dropped to its knees at her side.
“Charlotte?”
She didn’t answer right away as she was spitting out some snow, so Mateo hauled her upright, holding on to her hands, and he stared down into her face, his own creased in deep concern. “Charlotte, say something.”
She looked past his broad shadows to find a whole bunch of what looked like Morenos of all ages scattered in the yard, clearly in the midst of a killer snowball fight. “Who threw it?”
Every single person pointed to Mateo.
She swiveled her head and looked at him.
He grimaced. “Look, you were tiptoeing in the back way. I thought you were my cousin Rafe. He sneaked in last time and took me down.”
She arched a brow. Or at least she thought she arched a brow, but since they were frozen, she couldn’t be sure.
“I’m so sorry,” he said quietly, stepping closer, cupping her face to tilt it up to his. “Did I hurt you?”
“Hmm,” she said noncommittally and bent under the guise of rubbing her ankle. “I think I sprained something. Do you have a first aid kit?”
“Of course.” He turned toward the house.
“Mateo?”
He turned back just as she rose upright again, patting the snow she’d just scooped up into a snowball as she did. Which she threw at him.
And nailed him.
Also in the face.
His family erupted in wild cheers.
She grinned and took a bow.
This got her an ovation.
Mateo, who hadn’t fallen to his ass, straightened—snow in his hair, dripping off his nose and sticking to the stubble on his jaw—and just looked at her.
“Mateo, can we keep her for our team?” someone called out.
“No fair,” someone else yelled. “She’s got a wicked right arm. We need her on our side!”
“Charlotte,” Mateo said and swept an arm across his yard, “meet my wild and crazy cousins. Primos, meet Dr. Charlotte Dixon. And she’s far too civilized to play with this lot.”
“I’m not that civilized,” Charlotte said. “And I want to play against you.”
Cheers broke out on one side of the yard, groans on the other side.
Mateo met her gaze, his own lit with humor but also challenge. “You sure?”
“Oh yeah.” She shrugged off her purse and computer bag. Mateo put them on his patio table and turned back to her. “You should know, there’s no rules. First one to call ‘tío’ gets a cease-fire and a loss.”
He looked a little worried for her. Cute. She turned to her team. “Let’s do this.”
It was mayhem. It was chaos. It was rough-and-tumble. Snowballs flew so hard and fast that it was a constant, unrelenting battle, and Charlotte loved every second of it.
A snowball took her beanie right off her head. When she looked up, Mateo stood there with a wicked mischievous unrepentant grin.
She mirrored his expression and quickly formed a snowball. Ducking his next hit, she came up and threw, and nailed him right between the eyes.
He wavered, but didn’t go down, so she launched herself at him, and then they were in free fall. Mateo landed flat on his back, cushioning her as she followed him down.
“Say it,” she said, laughingly holding him down, knowing that if he wanted to, he could easily have flung her off him. “Say it,” she said again, their noses nearly touching.
His hands went to her hips, his mouth curved, but definitely not saying a word.
“Say it, say it, say it,” her team of Morenos began to chant.
Charlotte wiggled a bit, realizing she was getting cold as the snow had slowly seeped into her clothing. Mateo’s hands tightened on her hips to hold her still, and suddenly his eyes had gone from amused to hot.
She stared down at him, time suddenly stopping as she gulped.
“Tío,” he said huskily.
She cocked a hand around her ear, smiling as she said, “Excuse me? I didn’t catch that.”
His eyes narrowed playfully. “Why, Dr. Dixon, I forgot how viciously competitive you were.”
“Never have tried to hide it.” She smiled and hoisted another handful of snow threateningly. “Say it, Moreno.” Amongst the cheers, he rolled her to her back, came over on top of her, and dropped a kiss to the tip of her icy nose. “Our next round is a one-on-one,” he said for her ears only, and then rose, hauling her to her feet as well.
After that comment, she felt her knees wobbling, so he held on to her for an extra second. “Yeah?” he asked.
She drew a deep breath. “Yeah.”
LEVI WAS AT his dad’s desk, ostensibly working while also playing that kiss with Jane on repeat. Good thing he could multitask. He was putting together a PowerPoint presentation to explain all the shocking accounting discrepancies to his family in an orderly fashion. And to hopefully mitigate their panic while he was at it. He’d also come up with a few possible solutions for the now-struggling store, not to mention a list of the evidence needed to put Cal away. The thought gave him a pang for Peyton, who deserved better from her dad, but they’d deal with how to tell her when the time came.
The problem was the mitigation of panic. Cal had managed to get his hands on a lot of the Cutler money, enough to put them under if the store didn’t bring in a lot of money quickly.
And the high revenue season—the holidays—was behind them. Knowing that, Levi planned to present the info in a way that they could stomach.
Or so he hoped.
Making it worse, Cal had gone off the grid. With some time and the right resources, Levi felt confident they’d be able to find him and haul his ass back to Tahoe to face his crimes. But one thing at a time.
Jasper padded into the room and gave a soft woo woo. Translation: he was hungry.
“You’re always hungry,” Levi said.
Jasper nudged his arm.
“You had dinner. In fact you had your dinner and half of mine, because when I got up to get a drink, you got up on your hind legs like Scooby-Doo and helped yourself to my plate.”
Jasper lay his head on Levi’s thigh and gave him the “I’m starving to death as you speak” eyes.
“You know the vet told Mom you’ve got to lose some weight.”
At this, the dog huffed out a huge sigh and plopped to the floor, propping his face on Levi’s shoe so he would know if Levi moved so much as a single inch.
Tess appeared in the doorway wearing oversize plaid pj’s and crazy hair. She helped herself to Levi’s bed—aka the couch—and sighed more dramatically than Jasper.
Levi knew this trap. He’d grown up with this trap. So he just kept working on his laptop.
Jasper abandoned him to jump up on the couch, all ninety pounds of him crawling into Tess’s lap.
Another very loud sigh came from Tess as she scratched Jasper’s head.
Levi gave up and looked at her.
“I just spent the last ten minutes helping Peyton look for the cupcake she got from school.”
“And?”
“And . . . I ate it two hours ago.”
Levi laughed. “Isn’t it past her bedtime?”
“She got up to go potty. Then she wanted another story. And then she needed water. We were in the kitchen getting a cup of water when she noticed the cupcake was missing.”
Of course she would notice. Not much got by his niece. “I assume you lied your ass off.”
“Yeah.” She sighed again and hugged Jasper. “I’m a terrible person.”
“You’re not a terrible person. You’re a single mom on the edge.”
Tess burst into tears. “Oh my God, I’m a single mom! I don’t want to be a single mom! How did this happen to me?”
With a grimace, he got up from the desk and sat next to Tess.
Jasper, an equal opportunity hugger, crawled from Tess
’s lap to Levi’s.
“It’s not your fault,” Levi told Tess. “Your husband is a big bag of dicks.”
She sniffed. “Yeah.” She stared up at the ceiling. “Today Peyton got mad at me when I wouldn’t let Jasper drive her home from day care, when her bath was ‘too wet,’ and when I wouldn’t buy her shoes like her friend Skylar. And please do note that there is no Skylar.”
He laughed. “Sounds about right.”
Tess sighed. “Not that I’d change a single thing about my precious girl, but sometimes her bedtime is my favorite time of the day. No, scratch that. Her falling asleep is my favorite time of day.”
“Hate to break it to you, but she probably never went to sleep tonight. She just pretends, and then she goes under the covers with a flashlight and reads.”
Tess smiled. “I know. She thinks reading past her bedtime is an act of rebellion. It hasn’t yet occurred to her that her flashlights never seem to run out of batteries.”
He smiled. “You’re a good mom, Tess.”
She blinked in surprise, looking unbearably touched. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks,” she whispered and cleared her throat. “And you’re a good uncle. I know she wakes you up every morning. I know she gets into your things and makes you have tea parties, and you never complain. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you’re such a good male role model, when her dad can’t love her enough to do right by her.”
“He’s an idiot.” He shrugged. “And she’s an easy kid to love.”
Tess nodded, then laughed. “Scary how easy it is, even if half the time I’m pretty sure she needs an exorcism.”
“Maybe it’s a female thing.”
She chucked a pillow at his face and it landed with the accuracy only an older sister could execute.
THE NEXT MORNING, Levi asked everyone to meet in the kitchen at the table at eight A.M. sharp. He was there with copies of his presentation and an open laptop, ready to start the slide show. Jasper sat at his side, clearly hoping the show included breakfast.
Levi’s mom and dad showed up two minutes past the hour.
Tess came strolling in fifteen minutes later. “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I didn’t want to come.”
Levi didn’t blame her. He didn’t want to do this either. “Can everyone see my laptop screen?”
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Tess said. “I caught Mom and Dad ears to the wall, fully eavesdropping on you earlier. So chances are, they already know whatever it is you want to tell us.”
His mom glared at her beloved daughter. “That’s going to cost you my chocolate chip cookies.”
“I already ate them,” Tess said.
His mom looked at Levi. “I’m sorry. But you were on the phone and I was hoping it was with Jane.”
Levi drew a deep breath. Everyone in the house knew that the study was directly overhead. They also knew that if you put your ear to the wall behind him, the one with the doorway to the living room, you could clearly hear every word said in the study. “I was on work calls. For Cutler Analytics.”
“I know. It was very boring,” his mom said, looking disappointed. “Though I did hear you swearing.”
“I was swearing because your printer is ancient and prints a page a year. I’m buying you a new one.”
“We don’t need a new one,” his dad said. “That printer works just fine. A new one will only break. They don’t make things like they used to.”
“Dad, you have to shake the ink cartridge after every page you print.”
“So she’s a bit touchy, that’s all,” his dad grumbled. “She still has a lot of ink left in that cartridge—don’t replace it. Those fuckers are expensive. And I still don’t see why we couldn’t have done this in the study.”
“Or in the living room on the comfy couches,” his mom said.
“You don’t allow liquor on the couches,” Levi said, handing out glasses of orange juice. Then he grabbed the vodka from the freezer, pouring a healthy shot into the OJ glasses.
“It’s eight A.M.,” his mom said.
“Eight seventeen,” Levi said. “Which means that somewhere, it’s five seventeen. And a mimosa contains thirty-two percent of your suggested dose of vitamin C, so you’re welcome.” Then he pregamed by downing his.
His mom stared at him, looking worried. “It must be bad if my most well-behaved child is drinking so early.”
“Excuse me,” Tess said. “Most well-behaved child?”
“Honey, when you graduated and I went to have a little celebratory . . . ‘mimosa,’ my vodka was nothing but water.”
“Fine,” Tess allowed. “But Levi screwed up plenty too.”
“He was an angel,” his mom said.
Levi winced.
“Oh my God,” Tess said, tossing up her hands. “He’s no angel. You just never caught him at anything.”
True story. “Focus,” he said. He handed out the folders with the evidence of Cal’s creative accounting, along with Levi’s plan on how to steer the damaged ship without going under. “I’ve also sent each of you the digital file.”
“What is this?” his mom asked, flipping through the pages.
“It’s an accounting of where the store stands financially. I’ve run all the monthly and year-end reports, so what you’re looking at are the balance sheets for the different departments, all of which have their own bottom line, debt-to-income ratios, accounts receivables and payables, assets, and inventory orders.”
“Why does it look so much worse than last year?” his dad asked.
“Because it is worse than last year.” Levi paused. “Orders were placed for store inventory, large orders. The money left your account to pay for those orders, but we never received the inventory.”
“Well, that doesn’t make any sense,” Tess said. “Cal was in charge of all of that . . .” She gasped softly. “Oh my God.”
His dad ran a hand down his face. “Fuck.”
“Hank!” his mother gasped.
His dad slugged his OJ down.
Jasper farted. At least Levi was pretty sure it was Jasper.
Tess looked like she wanted to throw up. Instead, she also drank. Swallowed. Pounded her chest. Then pointed at Levi. “Are you telling me that the lying son of a bitch I’m still married to was stealing from Mom and Dad to fund his new life with his girlfriend on some gorgeous island near Bali that he could never find the time to take me to?”
He nodded grimly. “It looks like he was creating invoices for fictitious accounts to funnel the money to himself.”
“Fictitious accounts?” his mom asked.
“Yeah, there are a bunch. One of them is called Buffy Slater.”
His mom drank her glass down.
“What?” his sister shrieked and leapt to her feet. “Buffy Slater is the babysitter’s name! We need to sue. We need to call the police! We need to kick his ass!”
“Yes,” Levi said, pouring her another drink, nudging it toward her. “All of that, and not necessarily in that order.”
Peyton stuck her head in the kitchen. She was in Wonder Woman pj’s, hair looking like an explosion in a mattress factory, her face pink as if she’d been sleeping on it. “Hi! I wanna have a drink too!”
His sister drew in a steadying breath. “Not now, baby.”
“Okay. Then can I have candy for breakfast?”
Levi went to the pantry and came out with a single-serving-size packet of natural fruit gummy bears and a to-go box of apple juice.
Peyton beamed her thanks. “Will you come to my tea party? I’m all set up in my room.”
He crouched in front of her, opened the gummy bears for her, and then ruffled her hair. “Give me a few minutes.”
“My mommy says that, but a few minutes never happens.”
“Have I ever not come to you when I said I would?”
She thought about that. Then shook her head.
“So I’ll see you in a few minutes,” he said.
>
“Okay, but don’t forget to dress up as a girl superhero! Only girl superheroes can come into my room.”
He grimaced, but his sister pointed at the screen. “How long?” she whispered. “How long has this been going on?”
Shit. Levi really didn’t want to tell her this. He gave Peyton a kiss on the forehead and gently nudged her out of the kitchen. Then he rose to his full height and looked at his sister. “Two years.”
His mom grabbed the vodka bottle and refilled everyone’s glass. Minus the juice.
His dad jabbed a finger at the laptop. “You didn’t need this whole virtual presentation, or whatever you want to call it, to tell us our business is going under. You could’ve just called me into the office and had a meeting. Man-to-man.”
Levi’s mom whipped around to stare at him. “Why? So you could hide the fact that our company’s going under? And then what would happen, Hank? You’d shoulder all that responsibility on your own and keep it from us?”
“This is all my fault,” Tess moaned, dropping her forehead to the table and giving it a few hits. “Everyone needs to stop arguing. I’m the one who’s going to fix this mess.”
“Nonsense.” His dad’s fist hit the table and all the glasses did a little jump. Everyone grabbed theirs to keep them from spilling, and then, looking at one another, shrugged and drank again.
“I’m the one who gave that SOB a job,” his dad said. “Instead, I should’ve kicked his ass.”
Peyton poked her head in. “Uncle Levi? You’re taking too long!”
Levi went back to the pantry, grabbed a box of cereal, and handed it to her.
She squealed with delight and vanished again.
“Are you kidding me?” Tess asked him.
“Hey, it was crunchy granola, not Frosted Flakes.”
His mom pointed a spoon at her husband. “I need to know what you meant by your previous comment. Are you saying it’s my fault, since I was the one who told you to give Cal a chance?”
“I’m just saying I should have gone with my instincts. If I had, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
Tess drew a shaky breath. “I’m the one who should never have given him a chance. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to bed and stay there until my life’s on a better track.”
“I want to go back to bed too,” Levi’s mom said.