Crippling anxiety is my cardio.
Lanie didn’t know what to expect from this talk with River. But what she did know was that Mark had been right. She had questions and she was pretty sure River had at least some of the answers. She watched as River swallowed hard and came close, her expression painfully earnest.
“I’m so glad you’re here. I thought you despised me.”
Lanie grimaced. “Not despised. Despised is a little strong. It implies that I’d unplug your life support to charge my iPhone, so I save that word for things like chia seeds, infomercials, and slow walkers in the aisles of the grocery store.”
River snorted. “Even when you’re mad, you’re funny. Can I go first?”
Lanie let out a breath and nodded.
River nodded too and came closer. “First, I just want to say that you don’t have to forgive me. You just have to know how truly sorry I am for lying to you. For sneaking into your room and invading your privacy. For all of it.”
The ironic thing was that if River had only told her the truth from the beginning, Lanie would’ve . . . what? Been a bitch like you were anyway?
River sat on the loveseat next to Lanie. She wriggled around in frustration until Lanie finally plumped a pillow behind her.
“Wow,” Lanie said when River finally sat back against the pillow, huffing with exertion. “I didn’t realize how tough it was for you to move around.”
“This is nothing. You should see me try to go pee in the middle of the night by myself. It’s a beached-whale situation.” She grimaced. “And you didn’t come here to hear any of that.” She met Lanie’s gaze. “I really didn’t know about you until after Kyle was gone.”
“I believe you.” And with that, Lanie had to admit something else as well. “You aren’t the first other wife to show up.”
River stared at her, mouth open. “That fucker,” she finally said. “That sexy, charming rat-fink motherfucker.”
“Yeah.” They sat in silence for a few minutes, both mired down by what they’d both fallen for.
Finally, River sighed. “You have questions for me. That’s why you’re here, right?”
She did have questions, but by asking them, by giving a voice to the doubts that came to her deep in the night, she was going to be revealing herself. Completely. She’d thought long and hard about it, but in the end her curiosity had won. “How did you meet him?” she asked. “When did you meet him?”
“I worked as a waitress at a truck stop on his route.” River paused. “Wait—he really did drive a truck for a beverage distributor, right? He didn’t lie about that too, did he?”
“No,” Lanie said. “He delivered beverage orders to restaurants, bars, and truck stops the entire width of Southern California every other week. He was gone half the time, always. It’s why I never caught on.”
River nodded her agreement on that fact. “I knew him for months before anything happened. He’d come in during the afternoons when I was run the most ragged and buy two iced teas and then make me drink one. He’d order an extra meal and get me to eat.” She hesitated again. “He was so . . . warm. And funny. And . . .”
“Charismatic,” Lanie finished softly. Deep down, she realized she’d been okay with Kyle being away all the time because she truly hadn’t wanted or expected any sort of hugely deep relationship. In hindsight, that sucked for the person she’d been and she was starting to realize that maybe, someday, she’d be ready for a real relationship with a real partner. “I know. He really drew people in. But River, you’re so young.”
River lifted her chin. “I was nineteen when I met him. Twenty when I got pregnant. I turned twenty-one after he died.”
“Yes, but Kyle was so much older than you. He should never have touched you.”
River frowned. “Twenty-eight’s not that much older than me.”
Lanie sighed and then found herself defending this girl that she didn’t want to care about. “River, he was thirty-eight. And married. He should be shot for what he did to you.”
River gasped and shot up to her feet. Well, not shot, exactly. Lumbered was more like it. “Are you kidding me?” she shrieked. “I slept with an old guy?”
Lanie actually laughed. “Yes. I’m sorry.”
River stared at her for a long moment before letting out a long breath. “Okay, so he definitely made mistakes. A whole lot of them.” She put her hands on her belly. “But this baby, she’s not one of them,” she said fiercely. “And she’ll never feel like she is, I won’t allow it.”
Seeing this girl so possessively claim a baby that had by all accounts only made her life even more difficult than it already was . . . well, Lanie didn’t even have the words. Her parents had never been penniless or on their own, but nor had they been willing to set aside their circumstances to jump into the joys of parenthood.
And here was River, loving her baby with such intense protectiveness, it nearly brought tears to Lanie’s eyes. “Of course the baby’s not a mistake.”
River gave her a small smile. “Thanks. And not that I want to defend him, but Kyle didn’t take advantage of me. When I was with him, he was nothing but kind and caring.”
Lanie wasn’t feeling so generous. She thought the man was a card-carrying douchebag. “River—”
“No, listen. After my mom died, I was . . . really alone.” She lifted a shoulder. “It was hard. I missed her so much. She was . . . everything. And I didn’t know how to go on without her. But she wanted me to become a nurse, said I was good at it. So that became my dream. Get through high school and then become a nurse.” She gave a rough laugh. “It seemed so simple, but it’s proven to be anything but. Until Kyle came along. He encouraged me to start taking classes, and when I didn’t have the money he paid for my tuition.” River met her gaze. “He was amazing to me, and so wonderful that I never thought . . .” She shook her head. “I never thought to doubt him or question him.”
“He told you he was single?”
“Well . . .” River grimaced. “I’ve been going over that in my mind. Honestly?” She shook her head. “I’m not sure I ever even asked him. We were just friends for a long time, months really, and he was out of town a lot for his job. Whenever he’d come back through, he never said much about himself.” She stopped talking. Swallowed hard. “That’s been keeping me up at night. That he got me to let my guard down so thoroughly that I didn’t even ask him. I’m sorry about that too.”
Lanie didn’t say anything for a minute. She didn’t know what to say. Kyle’s job had required him to travel. She’d never second-guessed him either, and that was on her. But in hindsight, it’d been easy for him to lead a double and triple and apparently quadruple life. He had been persuasive and charming and charismatic, and she’d been flattered by his attention. By his easy love. “I let my guard down too,” she admitted.
River let out a shuddery breath, like she’d been holding it for too long, and Lanie realized that she really did care what Lanie thought of her.
It’d been easy to resent River from the moment her dead husband’s name had left the younger woman’s lips. But it was another thing to hold on to that resentment given the facts. Which was also making it hard to hold back the other emotions vying for space in her brain.
Self-pity. Sorrow. Regret.
Shame . . .
And suddenly she wanted River to have her damn ring back. If she could do that, locate it in the single box of Kyle’s things she had in storage, then she could absolve herself of the entire situation. She could walk away knowing she’d done the right thing since Kyle couldn’t. It’d be over, the entire nightmare. She was very close to the end of her contract and basically done with all the heavy lifting. All she was doing now was making sure everything was in place and running smoothly. She could do that from anywhere, including Santa Barbara.
She could get the hell out of Wildstone and never look back. “We’re both off the day after tomorrow. You up for a road trip?”
“If there’s food involved. Why?”
“We’re going to get your ring back.”
And maybe then she’d also get her life back.
LATE THAT NIGHT, Mark came to Lanie’s cottage. He had her backed to the wall with his hands inside her clothing and his mouth on her throat when she stopped to sniff him.
He pulled back slightly. “What?”
“You smell like chocolate.”
“Just made cupcakes with the girls for school tomorrow,” he murmured and went back to kissing her neck.
Which felt great, but . . . “There’re chocolate cupcakes to be eaten?” she asked.
He stilled and then pulled back again, a light of amusement in his eyes. “They’re for school.”
“But you smell like chocolate. It’s making me hungry.”
He dropped his forehead to her shoulder, then smoothed her clothes back into place and grabbed her hand, tugging her to the door.
“What are we doing?”
“I know better than to try and seduce a woman whose mind is on something else,” he said and brought her to his truck.
“You have the cupcakes in your truck?” she asked.
He cupped her face and kissed her, and then belted her in. “No.”
“But—”
He shut the door on her nose and then slid behind the wheel. This time they did things in reverse. Store first—because according to Mark they’d burned the first batch of cupcakes and had only the exact number they needed. Gratified with store-bought brownies, they boogie-boarded under a full moon, racing for the right swells, laughing and competing like they were teenagers, trying to knock each other off.
Well, she tried to knock Mark off, but he was solid as stone on his board and couldn’t be budged. However, she was not solid as stone and he took her down and into his arms. He had her wrapped around him and was kissing her when a wave washed over them both.
They came up sputtering and laughing, and when they were too cold to keep going, they warmed each other up beneath a blanket of stars.
The next day she was buried with work, determined to make sure she finished her contract with her best work when River rushed past her to the bathroom for the hundredth time that day. “You okay?” she asked the blur that was a very pregnant River.
“I’m fine. It’s my bladder and the baby’s tap-dancing on it.”
As soon as the bathroom door slammed, the main phone line rang. This always happened. Lanie looked around. She was the only one at her desk. Dammit. She grabbed the phone. “Capriotti Winery, how can I help you?”
“I need to talk to my daddy.”
Lanie immediately recognized Sam’s voice and she twisted to see the clock. Ten o’clock in the morning on a Tuesday. “Hey, Sam, it’s Lanie. Your dad’s at work. What’s wrong?”
“I forgot to bring cupcakes and it’s my turn for Make-New-Friends Day.”
Once again Lanie looked around for someone more qualified to handle this problem. “Um . . .”
“Daddy helped us make them last night, but we forgot them this morning.”
Lanie stilled and flushed as she remembered Mark showing up smelling like warm chocolate and her trying to eat him alive before he’d taken her to the beach. They’d stayed up way too late. He’d probably been exhausted this morning and she felt at least partially responsible.
“We called Daddy’s work, but they didn’t like that,” Sam said.
“You called his cell?”
“No, ’cuz this is an emergency. I called 9-1-1 and asked real nice and everything.”
Lanie winced. “Okay, let’s not bother them again. What time do you need the cupcakes?”
“Right after lunch. They’re in the kitchen next to Great-Uncle Jack’s special sippy cup that we’re not allowed to use ’cuz it’s got adult juice in it, the kind that makes him wobble when he drinks too much of it.”
Lanie had to laugh. There were no secrets in this place. “Got it,” she said. “I’ll bring them to you.”
“Thank you! Love you!” Samantha yelled in enthusiasm.
“Um . . .” While Lanie struggled with the ease of those words being flung at her and her own difficulty in saying them back, she realized with a short laugh that Samantha had already disconnected so it didn’t matter that she was completely emotionally challenged.
Okay, then.
She went to the kitchen and found Mia fixing the big fancy Keurig with Uncle Jack hovering over her.
“Hurry up,” he said. “You millennials, you take forever to mobilize. No one’s ever lit a fire under any of your asses.”
Mia stopped working on the Keurig and gave him a long look. “You know, it’s okay if you’re old so you hate all of us twentysomethings, but then next time you can’t figure out how to fix your electronics, you don’t get to ask a millennial for help!” And then she walked out past Lanie, muttering about how sometimes she just had to remind herself that it wasn’t worth the jail time.
Uncle Jack went palms up. “She’s so sensitive.”
Lanie didn’t care about any of that. What she did care about was the plastic container containing the cupcakes. It was opened and filled with . . . a few chocolate crumbs.
The cupcakes were gone.
“Were they yours?” Uncle Jack asked from behind her. He belched and patted his gut. “’Cuz they were amazing. All this time I thought you could only make PB&J sandwiches. You’ve been hiding a secret talent.”
“Oh my God,” she said, horrified. “You ate the girls’ school cupcakes!”
His face fell. “Are you sure?”
She picked up the empty container and waved it around. “I’m pretty sure!”
“Shit. Fuck. Damn.”
Uncle Jack had been listening to his George Carlin tapes again. “I thought Cora took away your cassette tape player.”
“She did. I bought another on eBay.”
“Forget that. You need to make more cupcakes,” Lanie said urgently. “And fast.”
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t bake. I can cook, but the last time I baked something I nearly burned the house down and now I’m not allowed.”
Well, this was just great. She pulled out her phone.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Calling Cora. She’ll know what to do.”
“Yeah. She’ll know what to do. She’ll kill me!” He shook his head. “You can’t tell her.”
Lanie wasn’t one hundred percent sure where she stood on the whole divine issue, but she tilted her head up to the ceiling anyway. “Are you kidding me with this week?”
“If you’re talking to God, he’s busy saving the whales. And anyway, I don’t think he’d care that I ate the cupcakes, because I prayed for those cupcakes.”
Lanie narrowed her eyes at Jack, who cleared his throat and pulled out his wallet. “Look, here’s . . .” He counted out some bills. All ones. “I’ve got . . . uh-oh. Four bucks.”
“Forget it,” Lanie said and grabbed her purse. “I’ll handle it.” It’d be faster to go buy something new and try to pass it off as homemade anyway. Or so she assumed, but she’d never had to pull off a stunt like this before. So she did the only thing she could think of, she improvised and drove like a bat out of hell to the supermarket.
There she stood in the bakery section. No cupcakes. “Excuse me,” she called to the guy slicing bread behind the counter. “I don’t see any cupcakes.”
“They’re just about done,” he said and turned to the oven. He peered inside, nodded with satisfaction, and pulled out a huge tray of cupcakes perfectly browned.
“I’ll take them,” she said.
“Can’t sell these,” he said. “They’re not frosted yet.”
“Can’t you just frost them real quick?”
“No. They have to cool first.”
“Okay, then I’ll buy them as is.”
“Lady—”
“Please.”
He looked pained. He was maybe twenty-two, twenty-three tops, and she knew just how to reach him. “Cash,” she said.
He craned his neck, making sure they were alone. “Cash,” he said. “And this never happened.”
“Deal.”
Five minutes later she was in the car with the warm, naked cupcakes and several cans of frosting she’d picked up in the baking aisle. She was also the brand-new owner of a box of plastic knives—since they hadn’t sold just one and there’d been no one in that aisle to bribe. She’d also picked up two baking sheets and a roll of aluminum foil.
Thirty bucks poorer, she drove to the elementary school and then sat in the parking lot, where she covered the baking sheets in aluminum foil, set the cupcakes on them, and got to frosting. A few minutes later, she realized she’d made a tactical error.
Okay, so more than one.
First, she’d forgotten napkins. And second, she might be a professional cupcake eater, but she was in no way even close to a professional cupcake froster.
By the time she carried the tray into the school, she was wearing frosting all over her. She signed in at the front desk and was escorted to the classroom by an aide who kept looking at Lanie’s hair. Since that didn’t make any sense, she shrugged it off because, hello, bigger problems.
Then suddenly she was in the classroom and the twins came running up all smiles, helping her set the cupcakes on a table.
Sierra pointed to Lanie’s hair.
“Okay,” Lanie said. “What’s up with people staring at my hair?”
“You’re wearing frosting in it,” Mark said.
She turned and found him in uniform looking his usual badass self, a fact that the smile on his face only amplified.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, slapping his hand away when he tried to touch her hair.
He simply used his other hand and swiped his finger over her head, which came away smeared in chocolate frosting.
“Dammit,” she said.
“That’s a bad word,” Sam said. “Our friend Alesia gets a spanking if she says a bad word or fibs.”
Mark arched a brow at Lanie, and in a reaction that she did not approve of, her body disconnected from her brain and quivered. “No, but seriously, what are you doing here?”
“Dispatch got ahold of me,” he said. “I stopped at the bakery in Paso Robles.”
She eyeballed his perfect, bakery-made cupcakes. “Those aren’t homemade. They’re supposed to be homemade. You cheated.”
“So . . . you made yours, then?”
“Yes.” She paused. “Sort of.”
He leaned in and with his mouth against her ear said softly, “You remember what happens to fibbers, right?”
She got a hot flash.
From the front of the room, the teacher clapped her hands twice, which was apparently the sign for class to start because people started to scatter.
“You guys gotta go now,” Samantha said in a rush and both girls flung themselves at Lanie and Mark, giving hugs and wet kisses. “Thanks, Lanie,” Sam said. “Thanks, Daddy. Don’t go too hard on her, okay? Her heart’s in the right place.”
The words were Cora’s. Lanie could hear her boss saying those exact words and knew that was where Samantha had gotten them. If she hadn’t been so frazzled—and covered in chocolate—she’d have taken a beat to admire the wonderful qualities the woman was imparting to her family, and maybe even ache a little bit since she’d not gotten much of that from her own.
Mark was still chuckling as he and Lanie headed out of the school.
Lanie bit her tongue, refusing to ask him what the hell was so funny because—
She gasped when Mark pulled her around the corner and pressed her up against the wall of the building.
“What the—”
Before she could finish the sentence, his mouth came down on hers. He kissed her long and quite thoroughly before lifting his head and licking his lips. “Definitely store-bought frosting,” he chided.
She gave him a shove and he took a step back, laughing outright now. “You are so spoiled rotten,” she exclaimed. “You have no idea!”
His smile faded a little, as if maybe he suddenly remembered what had happened and all he’d learned about her, and just like that her humiliation renewed itself. She whirled around to leave, but he caught her hand and reeled her back in.
“Don’t,” she said, not sure what she was saying “don’t” to exactly. To looking at her in that way he had that both made her bones melt and her heart go squishy? To kissing her again? Because if he did, they’d end up in bed—where, granted, they did their best work—and that thought scared the hell out of her. It was getting hard to keep her heart out of the mix.
Actually, scratch that. Not just hard, but outright impossible.
Mark used his free hand to stroke her hair back from her face. Then he looked at his finger—streaked with chocolate—and licked it.
She made a sound that was half laugh, half sob and his hands tightened on her.
“You’re still avoiding talking to me,” he said quietly, no longer amused.
“No.”
“Lanie.”
She sighed. “Okay, yeah. A little. I’ve been avoiding talking to you a little.”
“Why?”
She stared up at him. “Have you not been paying attention?”
“I have. I’m paying all my attention.” He leaned in close. “What are you so afraid of, I wonder?”
“Honestly?” she asked. “I’m putting all of my energy into not seeking the answer on that.” She paused. “I’m going on a road trip tomorrow.”
“With River. You’re going to go through Kyle’s things to see if you can’t get her ring back.”
She shook her head with a sound of annoyance. “Do you know everything?”
“I try to. For instance, I know that you’re the most incredible, caring, warm, most amazing woman I’ve ever met.”
She snorted and rolled her eyes. “You need to meet more women then.”
His lips curved into a very small smile. “You coming back, Lanie?”
His eyes were like lasers, burning into hers, and she supposed it was somewhat of a relief that he could read her so well. Saved a lot of time. “I’m not quite done with my contract,” she said. “And I don’t leave in the middle of my obligations.”
His gaze held hers prisoner. “Is that all this is? An obligation?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Good. And you know damn well you don’t have to go at all; everyone here, including me, would love for you to stay.”
She dropped her head to his chest again. Let herself soak up the innate and delicious guy scent of him, his strength, his goodness. Then she pushed off. “I’ve got to go.”
He let her, and a minute later she was in her car. She drove to the winery on autopilot and parked. And then sat there, head down on the steering wheel.
What the hell was she doing?
She was still straddling that line of telling herself she couldn’t possibly stay. Still telling herself there was nothing to keep her here, a vow that had become even more serious once River had revealed herself.
But now her commitment to her self-pity was wavering, along with her resolve to stay unattached to anyone here. Her roadblocks were falling away one by one and it was . . .
Well, terrifying.
All the more reason to go, she told herself firmly. Stick by that. Own it. Finish your work and get out, walk away while you still can.
A few minutes later her phone vibrated in her pocket, nearly giving her heart failure. It was Mark. “Hey,” she said, annoyed at how breathless she sounded.
“Hey, yourself. I’m back at work, but according to Holden, you’ve been sitting in the parking lot talking to yourself for ten minutes. Am I worried?”
“No.” She paused and closed her eyes. “Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for caring.”
There was a beat of silence. She’d surprised him, she realized. “I care a lot,” he said very quietly, as if he didn’t want to scare her off.
And when had she become that person? she wondered. The one of the two of them who was afraid of her feelings and emotions? Okay, so she’d always been that person.
The truth was, she’d hidden behind his no-relationship stance because she was afraid, afraid that her feelings for him left her feeling as if she were naked in school and vulnerable. And she didn’t do vulnerable. “I know you do,” she said and then let herself say it. “I, um . . . care a lot about you too.” And then, because she was in uncharted waters without a navigation system, she ended the call.
By this time tomorrow she’d be on Lanie’s and River’s Most Terrifying Adventure.