When they were alone, Levi turned to his sister. “Dad has blood pressure problems?”
“Dad’s got a lot of problems.” She got up and patted him like his mom had done. She left too, and a moment later he heard the shower go on in her bathroom.
Levi looked at his PowerPoint, which for the record still had ten pages left to go on the plan that would’ve shown them how he could help fix some of the most immediate problems.
Square peg, round hole.
He eyed the vodka. Tempting. But there was a cure far better than alcohol, and her name was Jane. He wanted nothing more than to go drown himself in her pretty green eyes and the smile that made him forget all the bad shit. But at the moment, he had another woman waiting, one he couldn’t disappoint.
Peyton beamed her welcome when he appeared in her doorway, and Levi felt a slight warming in the region of his cold heart. “I don’t have a superhero costume. May I still come in?”
“Yes! And here, I’ll help you.” She pulled off her sash and wrapped it around his head like a bandanna. “Sit!” she commanded.
So he sat at her tiny little table in a chair that barely fit half his ass. But he made it work and drank her pretend tea and ate her pretend cookies, and they plotted how Superwoman might save the world if she was real.
JUST AFTER NIGHTFALL, Levi was on a Zoom call with clients when his cell phone buzzed an incoming text from Jane.
JANE: I’m stuck and could use some help.
He immediately got out of his meeting and called her. “Jane.”
“Yep.”
She sounded not at all like herself. “Where are you?” he asked.
Silence.
“Jane?”
“I’ll text you the address.”
Yeah, definitely not herself, and maybe even tearful. His gut clenched. “Are you safe?”
But she’d disconnected.
He recognized the street name she’d given him, so he headed out. The night seemed to glow thanks to the reflection of moonlight bouncing off the snow. Just outside of Sunrise Cove, he turned and headed up a hill from the lake. Here the streets were narrow thanks to thick snow berms on either side, some single file only because they’d barely been snowplowed. He shifted into four-wheel drive and kept going.
A handful of turns and five minutes later, he saw Jane’s car. Dark. No lights. He parked behind her and got out, realizing she was sitting behind the wheel. He slid into her front passenger seat. “Why wasn’t this locked?”
She let out a mirthless laugh and tipped her head back, staring up at the roof of her car. “There’s not a lot of people who would ask me that.”
“Then I’ll make sure to keep asking.” He reached out and let his fingertips brush the nape of her neck, wanting to comfort, but also not wanting to push her before she was ready. “Are you okay?”
Instead of answering, she closed her eyes. “I’m short on brave tonight. You got any to spare?”
“You can have any of me you want.” Or all of me . . . “You said you were stuck.”
“I think my battery’s dead.”
“That’s easy enough.” He looked around. “Where are we?”
“Up that steep driveway is my grandpa’s cabin.”
And with that, he finally understood. She was going to go talk to her grandpa for the first time in twenty years. “You’ve got this, Jane.”
That got him a ragged but real laugh. “How do you always know the right thing to say?”