Shirl paused. “Putting yourself on the front lines to take care of other people. I don’t know if there’s a more respectable job than that. Your mom must be so proud.”
Jane’s mom was something all right, but proud probably wasn’t it. But then again, if she’d had a mom like Shirl, Jane probably wouldn’t be running all over the world. Instead, she’d want a relationship with her family. She’d want to put down roots and live close.
You’re living close to your grandpa . . .
At the thought of him, she was hit by the usual colliding mix of emotions. Some she knew—regret, resentment. More regret . . . The other emotions she couldn’t name. She reminded herself that she didn’t have a relationship with him because his health had been frail and she hadn’t wanted to cause any more problems. How many times had her aunt Viv told her that? Too many to count. Jane wouldn’t be the one to bring him any more stress, like reminding him of happier times, when his wife had still been alive.
And what about the fact that he hadn’t fought to keep her? He’d let other relatives take her, pass her around like last week’s leftovers, only a day from going bad.
Oh, wait. Seemed she could name the other emotions after all. Shame. Embarrassment. Fear of further rejection . . . “I’m not close to my family.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” Shirl clearly felt bad for asking in the first place, which didn’t stop her from asking another question. “Well then, certainly the man in your life is proud.”
“Um—”
“Oh, dear,” Shirl said suddenly while still checking out Cat. “Interesting.”
Jane’s heart leapt into her throat. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Well, that’s just it. He’s not a he, he’s a she.” Shirl beamed. “Isn’t that something?”
Jane nearly collapsed in relief and put a hand to her heart. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Shirl took in the look on Jane’s face and her own creased in regret as she reached for the hand Jane had clasped to her chest. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just that it’s clear she’s already had a litter. You might want to get her spayed before she has another.”
Jane scooped Cat up and hugged her close. “You’re a mama?”
Cat gently bumped her face to Jane’s and her heart nearly exploded. “You have babies?” And she probably didn’t even know where they were, how they were doing, if they were okay. If they had homes . . . Jane’s throat tightened so that it hurt to even speak.
Shirl leaned across the examination table and patted her hand. “You don’t need to worry. Our vet here is one of the very best.”
Jane hugged the cat tighter. “Thank you. Yes, I’ll think about getting her spayed, as soon as possible.”
Shirl smiled. “You’re a good person, Jane. If you’re worried about her, we’ve got personalized collars and tags out front. You can put your phone number on the tag. In fact, you can put multiple numbers on the tag. A lot of people put down their significant other’s number too, so if their pet ever gets lost, you can both be contacted. Would you like that? Would your significant other want to be put on the name tag?”
A tag that would claim Cat as her own. That seemed like both a horrible idea and the best idea on the planet. “I’ll think about that too,” she said softly.
LEVI SPENT THE day in the back office at Cutler Sporting Goods. He purposely waited until everyone was busy to let himself into the stock room. He wanted to do an inventory check against what was in the system, because so far, as near as Levi could tell, Cal had dipped his fingers into just about every corner of the family business.
Levi needed to get the authorities involved so they could nail Cal’s ass, but he didn’t want to freak out his parents and Tess until he’d finished his audit. He wanted to have all the details before breaking all their hearts. And he was close.
But after last night’s date, his mission at the store today was more than just the inventory check. He wanted to ask Tess what the hell she’d been thinking befriending his pretend girlfriend.
But his sister came to him, poking her head into the back storage room. “What are you doing poking around back here?” she asked.
He leaned against a wall of shelving. “Seems to me you’re the one poking around in other people’s business.”
She blinked. Grimaced. And then came all the way into the room and leaned against the shelving unit opposite him. “You’ve got something to say?”
He resisted the urge to be the baby brother and come right out with it, because from experience he knew that would only make her defensive. No, the only way to get information out of Tess was to outwit, outlast, and outplay her. Ten years older than him, she’d been bossing him around since birth. On the other hand, she’d also been loving him since birth. He knew she’d been blindsided by her divorce and terribly hurt, all the while still managing to be there for his parents and her daughter. And him.
That’s why she interfered, he reminded himself. Because she loved him, in her own messed-up way. Still, he just stared at her, knowing the value of silence when it came to gaining any intel from her. She hated silence and always rushed to fill it. And she would, in three, two, one—
“Fine,” she said. “Clearly Jane told you about our coincidental meet-up.”
Coincidental, his ass. “I don’t know how you figured out where she would be scheduled that day and what time she would take her break, but that was no coincidence, Tess.”
She shrugged. “So one of our regular customers happens to be an X-ray tech and knows her. It’s not my fault you won’t tell us anything about your girlfriend. Like the fact that she’s not your girlfriend.”
Never underestimate the depths of deception that an older bossy sister would sink to. That had been his first mistake. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mistake number two, denial.
Tess smiled, knowing she had him. “She’s clearly single, Levi.”
“Or she isn’t into gossiping about her love life.”
“Is that the story you’re going to go with?”
Damn. He could compound his errors by continuing the pretense, but his sister was better than any lie detector in the land. Besides, maybe she could help him find a way out of this farce that he never should’ve started to begin with. “Okay,” he said. “So hypothetically, let’s say I do have a pretend girlfriend.”
Tess crossed her arms. “Uh-huh . . .”
“What if I wanted to make things real?”
“Let me guess,” she said. “You’re asking for a friend.”
“Sure,” he said. “Let’s say that.”
Tess looked at him for a beat. “Is your friend asking for advice to get into this woman’s pants, or is he genuinely seeking advice on how to get to know this person—because I don’t want to see her hurt, and you have a way of being effortlessly charming when you want to be and getting whatever you want.”
“I’m asking for a friend, remember?”
“Is your friend an idiot?” she countered.