by Jill Shalvis
Temporary.
She’d always considered that word to be a part of her personality.
And now that she’d fulfilled her promise to be his pretend girlfriend for his parents’ anniversary dinner— She froze halfway to a table. She’d fulfilled her promise to be his pretend girlfriend.
There was no need for Levi to see her anymore.
Little black dots danced in front of her eyes and she realized she wasn’t breathing. Gulping in air, she put a hand to her aching chest. For the first time in her life, she’d begun to settle, feeling things that were the very opposite of temporary.
And it was over anyway by her own decree when she’d extracted that ridiculous promise from Levi in the very beginning.
The snow crunched beneath her feet as she began walking again, making her way through the maze of skiers to a small, empty table.
Was it over?
Would she see him again?
And what business did she have for wanting to so badly her heart was threatening to pound out of her chest?
When she opened her eyes again, she wasn’t alone.
Shirl and Tess were seated opposite her, smiling.
“Heard you made an appointment for Cat to get spayed,” Shirl said, looking pleased.
Jane had to clear her throat to speak. “We decided to keep each other. My friend Charlotte offered to keep feeding her after I’m gone, so she’ll always have a home. What are you doing here?”
“We’re not stalking you or anything,” Shirl said.
Tess snorted. “We’re totally stalking you.” She looked recovered from her shocking pregnancy reveal last night. Serene and calm. “But we’re the good kind of stalkers, because . . .” She opened a large lunch box. “We come bearing food.”
“Thanks, but I brought my own.” Jane pulled out a banana, a yogurt, and a package of peanut butter crackers, all pilfered from Charlotte’s kitchen because she hadn’t had a chance to get to the store. Oh, who was she kidding. She hated going to the store, she always waited until she was half starved to death, and by then Charlotte had stocked her up.
Shirl looked over Jane’s lunch and shook her head. “That’s just sad.”
“I packed at five this morning,” Jane said in her defense. “I wasn’t feeling like much then.”
“How about a meatloaf sandwich?” Shirl asked.
“It’s her special recipe,” Tess said. “It’s crackalicious.”
“It doesn’t contain real crack,” Shirl said. “I do have a few secret ingredients in there, but they’re all perfectly legal, I promise you.” She pushed a glass container at Jane. “Brought you one.”
“How did you know I’d be able to eat with you?”
“Just hoping.” Shirl smiled. “I wanted to tell you how good you are for Levi.”
Jane’s smile faltered as she realized the depths of the deception she and Levi had laid out and how it was not only going to destroy herself—something she was trying to come to terms with—but also hurt others. In trying to make his mom happy, they were now about to do the very opposite. “You know I’m leaving soon,” she said carefully.
“Yes.” Shirl reached for Jane’s hand. “And you know about Amy?”
Jane nodded.
Shirl and Tess exchanged a knowing look.
“What?” Jane asked.
Shirl squeezed Jane’s fingers gently. “Amy was his best friend for years and years. And then his girlfriend. And then his fiancée.”
“I get that.”
“But you might not get that he hasn’t really let another woman in since. You’re the first. That’s how we knew before we’d even met you that you had to be special.”
“Because I’m Levi’s girlfriend,” Jane said quietly, hating the facade she and Levi had created.
“No, because you’re Jane Parks.”
Jane froze, feeling that definitive statement clear through her heart like an arrow had pierced it. How ironic that all her life she’d shied away from commitments to keep her heart safe, only to fail utterly here. Because what she felt for Levi was shockingly real, and now she was going to hurt his family, who didn’t deserve it.
“At least take a bite,” Shirl said, nudging the meatloaf sandwich closer.
Not knowing what else to do, Jane took a bite of the sandwich and— “Oh my God.”
Tess smiled. “Right?”
Shirl just sat back, looking pleased.
Jane practically moaned her way through the entire sandwich and just barely managed not to lick the container when she was done.
“Here.” Levi’s mom was going through her phone, tapping away, and then Jane’s phone buzzed with a text. “The recipe.”
“Are you kidding me?” Tess asked. “I’ve been asking you for that recipe for years.”
“You don’t need the meatloaf,” Shirl said.
“Was that a fat joke? I’m pregnant, not fat.”
“Honey.” Shirl reached out and hugged Tess. “Of course that wasn’t a fat joke, you’re perfect. I just meant that you don’t need the recipe because I’ll always cook it for you. You’ve given me Peyton, and now another sweet grandbaby is coming . . .” She put her hand on Tess’s still-flat belly. “And you indulge me by living at home and letting me be part of their daily village.”
“It’s because I can’t afford to move out.”
“Shh. Don’t ruin my fantasy.”
Tess laughed, but Jane actually felt her heart tug hard at these two women who’d somehow become a part of her life.
How was she going to let them go? How was she going to let Levi go? To distract herself, she looked at the recipe. “This might be above my pay grade.”
“Levi loves this recipe,” Shirl said.
“Are you suggesting that Jane cook it to snare Levi?” Tess asked in horror. “Mom, women don’t have to cook for their men anymore. You know that, right? Love comes from the heart, not the stomach.”
“Bull pucky,” Shirl said. “Cook the meatloaf, Jane. Trust me on this.”
“Mom, seriously. Stop. You’re setting women back fifty years.”
Shirl shrugged. “I’m still married to the man I married forty years ago. The proof’s in the pudding. Or, in this case, the meatloaf.”
Jane didn’t want to be rude and disagree, but personally she thought if a man wanted her for her meatloaf, he was going to go through life greatly disappointed.
But if said man loved her for her and her alone . . . and if that man was Levi, she knew she’d do everything she could to make it work. How scary was that?
WHEN JANE GOT off work, she stopped at the store and bought the ingredients for the meatloaf. But only because it’d been a most excellent meatloaf.
She wandered into the kitchen and found Mateo, who had Charlotte up against the fridge. They were . . . well, kissing seemed too tame a word, but even from across the room Jane could see how much he loved her even as his hands slid up her back, pulling her even closer.
Jane cleared her throat. “Nice use of appliance.”
Charlotte gasped and broke free.
Mateo grinned. “We got hungry.”
Jane loved the look on Charlotte’s face. Happiness. “Good thing I’m cooking then.”
Charlotte blinked. “Did you say . . . cooking?” She smacked Mateo lightly on his arm. “I knew it. You kissed all my brain cells gone because I could swear she just said she was . . . cooking.”
“Ha-ha,” Jane said. “Watch and learn.”
When she pulled the meatloaf out of the oven an hour later, the kitchen was crowded. Zoe and Mariella had joined them, brought in by the scent.
“Who are you and what have you done with my Jane?” Charlotte asked.
“Ha-ha. And it’s just an experiment.” Jane handed out forks and everyone dug in. Jane knew it had to be good when the only sound in the room was chewing.
“You’ve been holding out on me,” Charlotte said, mouth full.
“On all of us,” Zoe said, shoveling meatloaf i
nto her mouth.
Mariella was eating and working on her laptop at the same time. “Is it for fuck’s sake or for fuck sakes?” she asked the room. “It’s a work email, so it has to sound professional.”
Charlotte choked on her bite. “Honey, what have I told you about using the f-bomb for work?”
“To do it behind my boss’s back, not to his face?”
Charlotte waved a hand like Well, there’s your answer.
Mariella sighed. “And to think, I grew up for this shit.” And then she hit the delete key a bunch of times.
“You know who should have some of this?” Mateo asked. “Levi.”
“Seems only fair,” Charlotte said, looking at Jane. “Seeing as his mama gave you the recipe.”
Just yesterday, Jane would’ve agreed. But she’d been jerked out of her fantasy bubble after Shirl and Tess’s visit, making her realize that one, she’d fallen for Levi for real and she still didn’t know what to do with that, and two, continuing the charade and hurting the people Levi loved felt incredibly wrong. “I’ve got someone else in mind for the meatloaf,” she said.
Charlotte smiled. “Your grandpa.”
Jane touched the tip of her nose. Charlotte pulled her in for a warm hug.
“He looks good on you,” Jane whispered.
“I rather think it’s the other way around,” Charlotte drawled.
Jane pulled back and looked into Charlotte’s eyes. “You’re okay?”
“Well, I’m still neurotic as hell, but okay? Yes.”
Jane laughed, kissed Charlotte on the cheek, and headed out.
When she pulled into her grandpa’s driveway, she stared at the truck parked in it.
Levi’s truck.
Her heart skipped a beat in confusion, but also happiness.
She walked up the driveway and looked inside Levi’s truck. Empty. And the hood was cold. She knocked on the front door, but when no one answered, she let herself in. “Hello?” she called out, walking through the living room before coming to a stop.
Levi was on a ladder, head into the attic access, so all she could see was a pair of long denim-clad legs and possibly the best ass in Tahoe. “What are you doing?”
There came a solid thunk, followed by an oath, and then Levi craned his neck to look down at her, rubbing the top of his head.
“You okay?”
He smiled. “I am now. And hey.”
“Hey yourself,” she said casually because it felt way too good to see him. “What are you doing here?”
“Your grandpa called me. He wanted to know who to hire to make this place a smart house. I told him I’d do it for him.” He twisted and put his head back into the attic.
Fine with her. Great view. “You didn’t have to do this.” His jeans were faded and fit just right. His long-sleeved Henley rose up a bit when he stretched to reach something, exposing a strip of skin that made her mouth go a little dry.
“Don’t stand too close,” he called down. “It’s dusty up here.”
“Just appreciating the view.”
He craned his neck and met her gaze, his own hot. “Say that again and I’ll come down.”
“And then?”
“And then you’re coming too.”
She laughed, but he began to climb down the ladder with intent and she almost swallowed her tongue.
He grinned at the look on her face. “Later,” he promised huskily and kissed her. When he pulled back, he eyed the bag she held with great interest. “That smells delicious.”
“Hungry?”
“Always.” He kissed her again, a long, deep, drugging kiss that had her forgetting time and place. By the time she came out of the sexual haze he’d put her in, she realized he’d stopped kissing her and had taken ahold of the bag.
Grandpa came in the back door wearing a tool belt, and she walked over to him to greet him with a hug.
“Found my hammer,” he said with pride, and Jane realized that Levi had clearly included him in the work, which meant that the job was probably taking him three times as long as it should.
Damn. He was truly the best pretend boyfriend she’d ever had. More than that, he was the best man who’d ever been in her life.
“Your man’s had me working,” her grandpa said, looking pleased with himself.
And here was yet another person who was going to be hurt now that her pretense was over. “Grandpa, you know he’s not. That we’re . . . not.”
Her grandpa glanced over at Levi, who had moved away from them and was cleaning up, then gave Jane a rather impressive eye roll. “Yeah, yeah, I know. You got stuck on the gondola, thought you were going to die, promised his mom he was happy with a woman in his life so she wouldn’t think her son had died lonely and alone. It’s alllllll pretend.”
“You don’t believe it?” Jane asked.
“Sugar Plum, I’m not even sure you believe it.”
“I have food,” she said inanely.
Levi was back. “What takeout is it?”
“It’s not. I actually cooked. It’s your mom’s meatloaf.”
Levi’s eyes widened. “She gave you the recipe?”
She nodded.
“She never gives anyone the recipe. Her own sister died without ever acquiring the recipe, and there were many, many attempts.”
She gave him a smile that she hoped was her usual wattage. “She likes me.” She took the bag back and carried it into the kitchen. She divided the leftover meatloaf into three portions and carried everything out to the living room, where they all sat squished on the couch and ate while watching Jeopardy!
Before Levi, she’d never eaten a family dinner like the one at his house, with fancy china at a decorated table that had looked like something off Pinterest. Here at her grandpa’s, they were feet up on the coffee table, Grandpa yelling out all the answers to Jeopardy!
Even if her life had depended on it, Jane wouldn’t have been able to say which dinner had been better. They’d both felt . . . right.
It’s still not real . . .
Problem was, it felt real, more real than anything in her entire life.
After dinner, Levi followed her home. He parked and opened her door before she freed herself of her seat belt.
“This is usually where we argue about me walking you to your door,” he said. “But just FYI, I’m still going to. Not because you’re not capable of taking care of yourself, but because it’s the right thing to do, and . . .” He smiled. “It gives me an extra few minutes with you, where I plan on stealing at least one kiss and hopefully copping a feel as well.”
“You’re going to get more than that.” Yes, she was crazy to spend another night with him knowing she could no longer separate her feelings for him from the physical act of being with him, but she didn’t care. She wanted him, even if it was for the last time.
They walked hand in hand to the door. On the porch, he looked around. “Where’s Cat?”
“It’s a surprise. Do you have a minute?”
He cupped her face and smiled. “For you, I’ve got all the minutes.”
Her heart squeezed, which she tried to ignore. She unlocked the front door with her own key—smiling when Levi looked surprised at the fact she didn’t knock first. Still holding his hand, she tugged him into the living room and turned to the couch. “Levi, meet Zoe and Mariella, two of my roommates.”
Zoe and Mariella sat up straight. Zoe dusted some chip crumbs off her shirt and Mariella pointed at Jane. “Hey, you do know our names,” she teased.
Jane felt her face heat up and heard Levi’s soft laugh, but then there was a loud, demanding meow and they all looked down at the large gray cat unfurling herself from where she’d been lying in front of the woodstove. Chirping in happiness, she ran over to Jane.
“You invited her in?” Levi asked, crouching down to smile at Cat, who bumped her head against Levi’s thigh, demanding to be petted.
Levi obliged and Jane found herself rubbing her aching chest as she stared down
at two of her favorite living creatures. She no longer had any idea how she was supposed to do this and then leave at the end of the season. But she did know it was going to hurt like hell.
“Saw your name painted on your door,” Zoe said. “Congrats.”
“For what?”
Zoe smiled. “For coming in out of the storm along with Cat.”
Damn. She felt her face heat up again, but not from embarrassment this time. It was an overload of something she almost didn’t recognize—contentment. Which meant, of course, she was doomed. She didn’t have a lot of experience with contentment, but she knew one thing for absolute certain.
It never lasted.
“Show me your door,” Levi said softly in her ear.
Which was how she found herself taking his hand and leading him up the stairs.
Levi smiled at the prominently painted JANE and the landscape. “Nice. You going to invite me in too? Like you did Cat?”
“It’s a little messy.”
“I like a little messy,” he said and kissed her softly. Letting her know he liked her just as she was.
A powerful realization. A little flummoxed, she pushed the door open and walked in. Levi followed, nudged the door closed with his foot, then turned her in his arms to face him. He let his smile fade as he looked into her eyes. “You’re an enigma, Jane, and I love that about you. You have all these secret compartments and hidden locked boxes, and there’s no instructions or manual. It’s been a thrill of a ride, the not knowing what’s around the next corner, but you know what’s an even bigger thrill?”
Speechless, she shook her head.
Cupping her face, he slid his fingers into her hair, the pads of his thumbs brushing her jaw lightly. “Being on the inside.”
Her breath stuttered in her chest. “You think you’re on the inside?” she asked lightly, going for a teasing tone.
“I do.” He paused. “I hope.”
She dropped her head to his chest to muffle her startled laugh. Because when he was right, he was right. “You are,” she said. “In, I mean. But we no longer have to pretend anything for anyone, so . . .” She shook her head. “What are we really doing here?”
“I don’t know about you, but for me this is real.” He brushed his mouth to her temple. “Has been for a while now.”