know it probably doesn’t make sense to you, but if you, as my friend, could do me this one favor and pretend, just for a few meals, that we’re more than friends...I would owe you so big. So big. Anything. Anything.”
He couldn’t think of a time when Leah had ever seemed this vulnerable. Usually she was guns blazing, no one was getting in her way. She was tough as nails and didn’t ask for help unless it was absolutely necessary.
He’d always admired that about her.
The fact that she was asking, almost pleading, must mean it was absolutely necessary. “Okay.”
“I— Okay? Just like that? Okay?” Her voice was all baffled edginess.
Jacob shrugged. When it came to favors for friends, he’d never been any good at saying no. Besides, he excelled at charming parents. What was a few dinners with Leah and her family? She’d had plenty of dinners with his. All he had to do was pretend to be a boyfriend.
How hard could it be? Long as he kept his hands to himself, easy.
“Not up to anything kinky, are you?”
She scowled, all hints of vulnerability disappearing into that I’m-gonna-kick-your-ass glint in her eye. “No.”
“Then sure. Why not?”
“What are you going to make me do to make it up to you?” she asked skeptically.
He grinned and rubbed his hands together. “Hmm. I will have to think about that one. So many options.”
The scowl deepened until her eyebrows all but touched each other. “Damn it, Jacob.”
“Hey, now, I’m doing you a big favor. So, there are going to be a few rules.”
“Yeah, like what?” She crossed her arms over her chest. Jacob found himself wishing her dress had a lower neckline.
He shook that thought away. “Like, for starters, you can’t be all prickly and pissed off with me. If I’m your boyfriend, you’re in love with me, right? Women in love aren’t prickly.”
“I’m always prickly. And you like to bring it out in me.” She dropped her arms at her sides. “You’re really going to do this?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
He couldn’t read her expression. Not even a little bit.
“Thank you.” The words were heartfelt and it knocked some of the teasing out of him. The Leah he knew didn’t do heartfelt.
“You’re welcome. Just let me know when. Don’t have to kiss you, do I?”
She screwed up her face. “God, I hope not.”
He didn’t care for her answer, but kept the easy smile on his face. “Good. Probably be like kissing my sister.” Yeah, not by a long shot.
* * *
LEAH KICKED HER heels off the second her door was open. They landed with a thud in a pile of other shoes and clothes in her entryway. Some magazines and junk mail littered the floor, too. She was really going to need to clean up before her family arrived.
She could have had them stay in a hotel, but she knew how much Mom and Dad hated hotels. Or, more accurately, the expense of them.
The fact they had to pinch their pennies was one in a long list of things that were Leah’s fault, so she owed them.
Maybe Grace could help clean up. Maybe Kelly and Susan, too, if they were surviving their first month as new parents. MC’s interior designer and administrative assistant hadn’t been around much since they’d adopted their baby, taking maternity leave and switching off days when they did work. Leah had missed having them around as she was almost as close to them as Grace.
But Leah’s place was definitely not suited for a baby, so they’d probably have to pass. At least for a little while longer.
Leah dropped her keys on the cluttered kitchen table, then remembered how she’d been late to a job last week because she hadn’t been able to find them. She retraced her steps, found the bag she took to work every day and tossed them in there.
The house itself was a work in progress. A falling-down English cottage–style one-story built in the ’20s, it had been abandoned for ten years before she’d bought it, and the price had been right for a handy woman making a modest living. The past five years she’d put a lot of work into it, but she cringed at the thought of Mom and Dad seeing it. Her salary and Jacob’s help only went so far.
Maybe if she showed her family “before” pictures, they’d be impressed with how far she’d come.
On a sigh, Leah stepped into her room. Yeah, she was definitely going to need some help in the cleanup department. She smiled a little. It was nice knowing she’d have friends who’d chip in without a second thought.
MC and its employees had become her second family. For a while, she thought it’d be enough. She could do without her parents, and the brother she’d never been all that close to, because she had friends who cared about her. She didn’t know when that suddenly hadn’t been enough. But it wasn’t anymore.
She slipped out of the dress and examined the long white scar down the center of her chest. Mostly she tried to pretend it wasn’t there. A reminder of too many things she wanted to forget.
Fifteen years. For fifteen years someone else’s heart had beat in there. The five years directly following the transplant, she hadn’t treated it or herself or her family well. In fact, her careless, selfish, destructive behavior had almost broken them all apart as much as it had almost killed her.
So, she’d left Minnesota and moved in with the black-sheep aunt no one in her family talked to. She’d gotten her life and health together, put herself through electrician training. And without her and her health issues in the way, Mom and Dad had gotten back together after the stress of her health and hospital bills had caused them to separate.
Now she had this life. And it was good and enough time had passed that she wanted to heal. Wanted to have a family to spend holidays with. Wanted her brother to forgive her for wrecking their family. She wanted to make up everything she’d ruined.
So, if she had to lie, cheat or steal to accomplish it, she would. Hopefully it ended with the lying. Even more hopefully, it ended without her even more screwed up about Jacob than she already was.
JACOB STOOD IN front of the dilapidated old Victorian on Jasmine Street in the heart of Bluff City, Iowa. It was surrounded by renovated or completely rebuilt houses and small businesses. It was an eyesore and for sale.
Perfect.
Leah stepped out of the house followed by Henry, MC’s plumber. They were both covered in dust and wore hard hats. Jacob had already toured the place twice before he’d brought out Leah and Henry, so today he’d stayed outside, not wanting to hover over them while they checked it out.
“Have
