Always on My Mind by Jill Shalvis Read Free Book Online Page A

could but had still felt so helpless. “Maybe me and Jack being a thing will help.”
    Ali shook her head. “Jack would be the first one to do whatever he needed to do to make his mom happy. But pretending to be in a relationship? That doesn’t sound like him at all.”
    Leah grimaced. “Yeah, well, that’s because it wasn’t his idea.”
    The amusement came back into Ali’s gaze. “You sprung it on him?” She let the smile come. “Would’ve loved to see that.”
    “This isn’t funny, Ali.”
    “Yeah, it is. You got Jack to actually agree to this pretend relationship?”
    “Not exactly.”
    Ali stared at her and then laughed. She laughed so hard she nearly dropped her vase. Finally, she straightened and swiped at a few tears of mirth. “Oh God, this is good. Jack in a pretend relationship.”
    “A secret , pretend relationship,” Leah reminded her.
    “A secret , pretend relationship,” Ali repeated. “The single women in town are going to go into mourning.” She was still grinning. “Luke’s going to love this.”
    “You can’t tell him!” Leah said. “Everyone has to think it’s real.”
    “Aren’t you cute.” Ali patted her on the arm as if she were a three-year-old. “Leah, it is real.”
    Leah gaped at her. “What? No. No, no, no. It’s…not.”
    Mostly because she’d already had her chance and blown it.
    Big-time.
    Which actually put Jack on her ever-growing list of regrets.
    Twice.
    Ali just smiled and turned, heading back inside her shop.
    “It’s not,” Leah called after her. “It’s all for Dee.”
    Ali lifted her hand, waved, and shut the door.
    “It is!”
    “Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Ali yelled back through the wood.
    “Well, dammit.” Leah whirled in the other direction and headed to her car. “It is pretend,” she told her rearview mirror. “Completely.”

Chapter 5
     
    L eah picked up her grandma for physical therapy, already mentally calculating the rest of the hours left in the day. She had to work on bookkeeping—her grandma had been extremely lax about that—and then there was the stack of payables about two feet taller than their receivables. But Leah was working hard on all of it and trying to increase business while she was at it, and it was starting to work.
    “You’re so sweet to do all this for me,” Elsie said. “But honey, I could have taken the Senior Dial-A-Ride.”
    “I don’t mind,” Leah said as they parked at PT. “And I didn’t want you to get stuck waiting.”
    “I have my lover,” Elsie said and waved her ebook reader. “I can wait forever with my Kindle fully charged and ready to please me.”
    “A lover who can never leave you,” Leah said with a laugh, turning off the engine. “Smart.”
    Her grandma’s smile faded some. “Is that what you think of men? That they’ll leave you?”
    Since that was far too serious a conversation for the moment—and absolutely one she didn’t want to have—Leah shook her head and reached over to hug her grandma. “You smell like roses.”
    Elsie huffed out a low laugh. “That’s code for ‘mind your own business, Grandma.’” Pulling back, she gently patted Leah’s cheeks. “I’m happy to have you back, Leah. So happy.”
    “I’m happy to be back.”
    Her grandma’s blue eyes held Leah’s for a long beat. “It’s been good for you, right?” she said. “Being here? Being happy here?”
    And there it was. The elephant in the room.
    Yes, Leah’s childhood had not been happy here in Lucky Harbor. But her parents had retired to Palm Springs, thirteen hundred miles south. And after her dad’s death, her mom had stayed down there. The distance worked for them both, more than it should. “Yes,” she said. “I’m happy here.”
    “Your mom says you called the other day,” Elsie said.
    Leah made an obligatory call every other week, during which she and her mom had a shallow conversation. Yes, she was fine. Yes, she was still baking. No, she hadn’t found a