Tess lit up with painful hope. “Yeah? You’ve got someone special in your life, then? A good guy? They exist?”
“Um, not exactly. I’m only here for the ski season. After that, I’ll be contracted somewhere probably far away from here. Not exactly relationship material.”
Tess was quiet a moment. Reflective. “That sounds . . . lonely,” she finally said. “Is it hard to always be on the go, no connections?”
There was that word again. Connections. “I’m not that great at connections.”
Tess nodded. “You’ve been hurt, too.”
“Haven’t we all?”
Tess laughed a little mirthlessly. “Touché. Tell me you’re in a relationship with someone good. Give me some hope.”
“In a relationship?” It felt silly to say I feel a deep connection to a man I met only a couple of weeks ago when we nearly died together . . . “No, but . . .”
“Oh don’t stop there,” Tess said with a smile. “That ‘no, but’ sounds exciting.”
Jane let out a small laugh. “To be determined, I guess.”
Tess knocked her soda can to Jane’s. “To the ‘to be determined,’ then.”
LEVI COULDN’T REMEMBER the last time he’d felt nerves bubble in his chest, but he felt it now. It was date night—pretend date night, as Jane would say. A few days ago, Jane had agreed via text they could practice getting to know each other over dinner somewhere.
Louie’s on the Lake was just as its name proclaimed—right on the water, and a popular local dining spot that would be extremely public. As for neutral, he was going to try and remain just that and stay awake. He was exhausted, having spent the past few days catching up with his own company, while also doing a deep dive into Cutler Sporting Goods accounting.
The store’s situation wasn’t good. In fact, it was bad, really bad, but at the moment, the knowledge of that was all on his shoulders. He needed to talk to his family but wanted another day to finish going through everything first.
Either way, it was going to suck. At the heart, his mom and dad were good people who didn’t have filters or personal space boundaries because they expected the best of everyone.
And Cal had clearly counted on—and taken advantage of—that and them. And Tess. When she found out, it’d kill her. It was keeping him awake at night.
As was something else.
He’d been here two weeks. Longer than any other time since living here. He should be feeling claustrophobic and desperate to get out of town; he should be feeling San Francisco pulling at him to go back.
But he wasn’t. Oddly, Sunrise Cove was the thing pulling at him, calling to him. Being back here, even under duress, reminded him how damn alive he’d felt living in the mountains again.
He’d left because he’d needed some space.
But at some point, that need had gone away.
When his phone buzzed with an incoming call from his dad, who never called him, he answered with a quick “Everything okay?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?” his dad asked, sounding puzzled, and Levi had to let out a rough laugh.
“Because you never call me?”
“I do so,” his dad said.
“Name one time.”
“When your sister had Peyton.”
“Dad, that was six years ago.”
“Still happened.”
Levi put a finger to his twitching eye. “What’s up?”
“I’m in the store’s office. There’s a stick-it note on my computer that says to revamp the book section, that the books shelved aren’t selling.”
“That’s right. They’re the same four titles you’ve been selling for a hundred years.”
“Hey,” his dad said, “those books are on wilderness, exploration, and the history of the region. They’re fascinating.”
“Dad, they were written in the 1970s and are out of date.”
“I like them.”
“Then take them home, stick them in your bathroom, and read them during the three hours you spend in there every morning.”
“I’m not going to take them home.”
“Because . . . they’re not riveting?” Levi asked dryly.
His dad sighed and hung up.
Perfect timing. He could see Jane walking toward him in dark jeans, a sweater the same gorgeous green as her eyes, and some seriously sexy boots, and suddenly he knew staying awake wasn’t going to be a problem. Just one look at her and he felt more present than he had since . . . well, since the last time he’d seen her a few days ago, screaming with laughter in his ear all the way down the rock wall.
Best climb ever.
The weight of his stress and exhaustion faded, making him feel light for the first time since she’d agreed to this farce. And not just because she was saving his ass once again. He felt light whenever he was with her, pretend or not, although certain parts of his body told him there was nothing pretend about this attraction between them. And for once, those body parts and his brain seemed to be on the same wavelength.
Jane sat down across from him and without preamble, swiped her iPad awake and pushed it across the table to him. She’d loaded a site called How to Get to Know Someone in 100 Questions. He looked at her. “Seriously?”
“Okay, so we can skip the obvious ones, like how do you react in a life-or-death situation?”
He snorted, making her smile. “Just pick a random one,” she said. “Here.” She let her finger land on the screen. “Number fifty-two. What’s your most unusual talent?”
He smiled. “In or out of the bedroom? Oh, and hi, by the way.”
She softened with a low laugh. “Hi.” She pointed at him. “Now answer the question. And OUT of the bedroom is all I’m concerned about.”
He smiled.
“It is!”
Her defensiveness had him laughing. “Okay, okay, my unusual talent . . . Gadgets. Robotic gadgets.”
“I said out of the bedroom!”
God, he adored her. “I was actually being serious. I like to build robotic gadgets.”
“Oh.” She blushed. “Sorry.”
Their waitress turned out to be an old classmate of his. Kendra smiled warmly at him. “Hey, hot stuff,” she said. “Heard you went off and made good on that fancy brain of yours. You get paid to tell all those big CEOs in the Bay Area what to do with their data now, right?”
“More like I offer suggestions,” he said. “In a consulting capacity.”
Kendra grinned. “Still, gotta be fun.”
“Sometimes,” he admitted, and gestured to Jane. “Kendra, this is Jane. Jane, Kendra.”
“We went to high school together,” Kendra told Jane. “We sweated out AP Chemistry. And then blew off steam in the back of my daddy’s truck a couple of times.”
To Levi’s relief, Jane laughed. “Nice way to get through the worst class in the history of worst classes,” she said.
Kendra grinned. “Right? So what can I get you kiddies tonight?”
Levi gestured for Jane to go first.
“I’m trying to decide between the sweet potato fries and the shrimp kebab,” she said.