advice for me?”
“Well, it’s like that advice they give to parents about sibling rivalry. You know the best way to avoid it?”
This was not his problem, and the way things were going with his love life, Grace would never have a chance at a sibling. “Tell me.”
“Have one kid. So if you’d like your baby to sleep through the night? Fast-forward a few years.”
“Aw, hell’s bells. Not helpful. And I’m going to need me a new sitter, too.”
“What happened?” Emily asked as she walked out of Stone’s office.
“Annie got married. She called me from Reno this morning.”
Emily slapped a file on Cassie’s desk. “What? No heads-up or anything?”
“What did you do with Grace?” Cassie asked, a little squeak in her voice.
He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I left her with my next-door neighbor.”
“Carly, I hope.” Cassie nodded.
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“I know everything,” Cassie said.
It didn’t surprise Levi much, since Cassie was pretty much the senior-citizen oracle of Fortune, California.
“I was in a bind. Annie quit on me, no notice.” Levi relaxed and took a seat near Cassie’s desk. “I have a good sense about people. She’s obviously got a few rug rats of her own running around. Said she’s an expert.”
“Um, not exactly,” Emily said, coming around to her desk.
“What’s that supposed to mean? She lied to me?” His spine stiffened. If she’d lied, he’d have to get out of here now and go pick up Grace. He did not deal with liars. Period.
“I doubt she lied to you. Her mother died last year and left the family a baby company, and Carly’s running the show now. So that’s probably what she meant by she’s an expert,” Cassie said.
She’d never said she had children of her own. He’d just assumed, and she hadn’t corrected him. Not quite the same as lying, but he still didn’t like it. Maybe sleep deprivation had his senses off-kilter. Wouldn’t surprise him any.
“This time I suggest you take a little more time finding a sitter.” Cassie frowned in his direction. “You need someone who has the time to do it. Someone like Carly, reliable and dependable, but with the extra time to give attention to a baby.”
He shrugged. “Annie said I didn’t pay her enough, but I was paying all I could afford.”
When the landlord had told him how much he wanted for rent, Levi had thought the man was kidding. Levi had made a joke about the Kardashians, which the landlord hadn’t found funny. Levi hadn’t thought it funny, either, once he’d realized the rent figure was actually considered a deal for the area. Back home in Lubbock, he’d have land at those prices. But he had steady work and benefits as a pilot in Fortune, and Stone had promised him a raise as soon as possible.
“Sandy’s parents still want me to bring Grace back to Atlanta. I don’t want to give them any reason to think I can’t handle raising her and working.”
“Millions of women and men do it every day. Why can’t you?” Emily said.
“Exactly.”
While he’d like to believe he had nothing to worry about with the Lanes, nothing in life was one hundred percent certain. Least of all when it involved people and their emotions. Not everyone had mastered mind over matter. Sandy’s parents, for one. They were somewhat hysterical people who were still operating from raw emotion. He’d tried to be understanding, given that they’d lost their daughter. But while he was sure they understood that Sandy’s death had nothing to do with him, he’d become a convenient scapegoat for their pain. He got an email from Frank Lane every day, and they were never kind.
As far as Levi was concerned, he would raise Grace on his own. It didn’t matter where. At the moment it happened to be in the small town of Fortune, where he had a good job and a community of friends. But he’d go where he had to go in order to make ends meet. To create a life that worked. No need to get sentimental and emotional about one particular place when there were so many all over the country. If there was one thing he’d learned in the summers he’d spent with his grandfather on his ranch while his parents were traipsing all over the world, it was to rely on himself.
For now, he’d stay in Fortune. It was what he told himself every time his boots got too itchy about the idea of settling down in one place for too long. The stability of a small town would be good for Grace. With the Sierra Nevada Mountains and snow just hours away, the beach a forty-five-minute drive and San Francisco only an hour away, both location and weather were near perfect. And despite being south of the larger Silicon Valley, he’d found a small community of like-minded people here, in a place where he could see himself raising Grace.
A few hours and flights later, Levi headed home to Grace. This had already become his routine, and it had become comfortable. On some mornings, he smelled garlic wafting from the closest town, the garlic capital of the world. He drove down Monterey Road toward his residential development on the other end of Fortune. When he’d landed here weeks ago, he’d discovered a three-stoplight town. A bedroom community just south of San Jose. Even so, here in Fortune, Levi had immediately noticed a strong sense of community, reminiscent of a small town.
It was no Lubbock, even though there were still a few small mushroom farms hanging on for dear life. This was the mushroom capital of the world, after all. The smell of fertilizer didn’t faze him at all. Instead, it was the high cost of living. The price of gasoline. The heart attack–inducing price tag on ownership of a single family home. He could go on, but why depress himself?
He definitely felt squeezed like an orange, but it wasn’t as if he wasn’t familiar with sacrifice. One way or another, he’d find a way to make it work.
A THOUSAND OR so years later, Carly had changed Grace’s diaper about five hundred times, give or take, and fed her all three bottles. Levi had better get his cute ass here on time, or someone was going to blow a gasket. At this point she really couldn’t say whether it would be her or Grace. Possibly both.
Oh, yes, because Carly had cried at times right along with Grace. Turned out to be kind of cathartic. It had been a while since Carly had had a good cry. She’d always been guided and driven by her emotions, despite her attempts to think with her head and not her heart. She was a full-grown, twenty-six-year-old woman who’d always struggled in school, seen her career go up in flames, lost her mother from a sudden heart attack and had her father nearly confined to a wheelchair due to a hip injury. Carly considered herself a survivor. But today she’d been reduced to sobs because of a helpless baby.
As it turned out, Grace did sleep. Occasionally, that was, and only when the spirit moved her. It seemed to move her every half hour for about forty-five minutes, give or take. Carly had tried to get work done during that time, but she was so tense and exhausted that all she could do was sit and stare at the blank screen. Where to begin? Practice safe sex. Don’t have
