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?”
“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.”