The Family You Make (Sunrise Cove #1)

Hated.

And then there was the way Levi was looking at her, like he felt sorry for her. The thought of anyone pitying her made her feel anxious again, and though she knew how much worse it could have been—that she’d had her basic needs taken care of, had never gone hungry or without clothes—thinking back on her life never failed to make her feel like a spare button, the ones that came attached to new sweaters but were easily removed and tossed aside. “My turn now,” she said. “Do fake girlfriends get the friends and family discount?”

He laughed, breaking the emotional tension, but his eyes remained serious. “Fake girlfriends get whatever they want. Why?”

“I was hoping to buy my roommate the jacket sitting at the checkout counter.”

He smiled. “Smart. Funny. Sexy. And a shrewd businesswoman. You got it. So . . . we’re doing my parents’ dinner party?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “We should probably spend a little time getting to know each other before the dinner.”

She blinked. “Like a date?”

“Great idea,” he said. “Yes, a date.”

She stared at him.

He smiled.

She narrowed her eyes. “Did you just trick me into going out with you?”

“Or . . . did you just trick me into getting the discount?” he countered.

She had to laugh. “Smooth. We’re talking a pretend date, though, right?”

“Whatever you want, whenever you want. Just name the time and place.”

She hesitated, shockingly tempted. “I don’t know . . .”

“If it helps, you could consider it a fact-finding mission on your pretend boyfriend. We can get to know each other.”

“When I’m ready.”

“When you’re ready,” he agreed.

At just the thought of what she was agreeing to, meeting his family while playing a role that she’d never been any good at—doting girlfriend—she quivered with more nerves than she’d battled while climbing up this wall.

Levi’s mouth curved, like maybe he was reading her thoughts. “You trust me, Jane?”

“No.”

“Damn.” But he was grinning again, clearly, unabashedly not worried. “Then this isn’t going to be nearly as much fun.”

“What isn’t?”

He stood and took her hand, pulling her back to the edge of the wall.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“My first act as your boyfriend is to get you safely to the ground.”

“Pretend boyfriend,” she corrected, and then screamed all the way down.





Chapter 10


Charlotte cranked up the radio and mainlined a huge mug of black coffee to keep herself awake as she drove home from her shift. She was coming off twenty-four straight hours in the OR, and thanks to the season and all its icy snow, she’d been on her feet the entire time.

Car accident victims had arrived on top of car accident victims. Heaven forbid people slow down or take the road conditions into account as they leave their cities and hit the mountains. Nope, they were on vacation, so caution went out the window.

She used the drive home to decompress. She breathed deeply and calmly, sang along with the radio even though she couldn’t carry a tune, and did her best to stick with happy thoughts. All to shed off the horrors of the day, the shocking and devastating results of those accidents that rivaled any episode of Grey’s Anatomy she’d ever seen.

By the time she parked at the top of her driveway, she felt almost human again, and out of habit, glanced over at Mateo’s house. No vehicle in the driveway. He hadn’t been on shift, but he wasn’t home either. At the crack of dawn.

Doing her best not to think about whose bed he was in if he wasn’t in his own, she let herself inside her house. It was quiet. Empty. She knew Zoe and Mariella were at work. She had no idea where Jane was. There was a stick-it note on the fridge in Jane’s scrawl that read Don’t worry.

Jane’s idea of letting Charlotte know she was alive and okay.

In truth, it was a huge step from the beginning years. In those days, Jane hadn’t understood that Charlotte actually cared about where she was and if she was okay. So Jane’s leaving a note now was the equivalent to shouting out from the rooftops that she considered Charlotte family. Her feral wolf cub was growing up enough to realize that other people might actually worry about her whereabouts.

Progress.

She was a decade older than Jane, but if you compared Jane’s life experiences to hers, Charlotte was the youngster. Still, she loved to smother Jane in affection, because one, near as she could tell, Jane didn’t let anyone else do it, and two, because it was fun to watch Jane squirm trying to figure out how to accept said affection.

She’d planned on showering, pulling down her blackout shades, and going to bed, but, restless after her shower, she pulled on jeans and a sweatshirt and went out into her backyard. Hands on hips, she stared up at the roofline of her house, where her Christmas lights twinkled at her mockingly.

“I know, I know,” she said. “It’s February and you’re embarrassed to still be up there.”

At work, there was always an ongoing bet of some kind or another for comic relief. Charlotte was rarely the instigator, but she almost always was the winner.

She couldn’t help herself, she hated to lose. Last month the bet had been who could go the longest without a bathroom break. This had stemmed from the fact that the staff bathroom between the ER and OR had been closed due to renovations, leaving all of them having to run up a floor and use the Labor and Delivery staff bathroom as needed. They’d installed a small camera at the entrance of said bathroom to make sure to catch everyone entering so they could see who didn’t enter—and that would be their winner. They’d even installed a camera on the third-floor staff bathroom to make sure no one bent the rules.