Always on My Mind by Jill Shalvis Page B

“going out” shoes. Leah, once the master sneaker, felt her eyes narrow. “Grandma, what’s going on?”
    “Okay, but just remember, this all started out with me trying to surprise you,” Elsie said.
    “Me?”
    “Yes. You’ve been working so hard and without a single word of complaint.”
    “Grandma,” Leah said, both touched and irritated, “I love being here with you. I have nothing to complain about.”
    “But you’ve taken over so beautifully, and the place is such a mess. I know it is, Leah; don’t even try to deny it. I just wanted to see what kind of renovations we could make. Cheaply, of course. Something to help you.”
    “I’m good with how things are,” Leah said. “Other than wanting new ovens.” She meant this, one hundred percent. In fact, the truth was that she actually loved the bakery’s slightly antiquated setup. It made her work hard, made her think, made her concentrate. She liked having little brain power left over for anything else.
    Like what the hell she was going to do in two weeks when the Sweet Wars finals aired and the gig was up? Or why she was happier here, back in the place that had once upon a time been the bane of her existence, than she’d been anywhere else.
    Although she suspected this was because of a certain big, bad, gorgeous firefighter who, thanks to her own doing, was now her pretend boyfriend.
    And a hell of a kisser.
    “Well, you’re a doll for putting up with everything,” Elsie said. “Anyway, I wanted to see what I could do and ran the thought by Max first.”
    “Oh, Grandma,” Leah said softly. “You give him way too much power.”
    “And he said I was absolutely welcome to make any renovations.”
    “Yes, because you have every right to,” Leah pointed out. “Grandma—”
    “And so I was just having a drink to thank him, and he…invited me to the firefighter’s ball next month,” she ended in a rush.
    Leah opened her mouth again, but Elsie cut in before she could speak. “No. Don’t say whatever it is that you’re going to say. I was wrong about him. Okay, yes, he can be a fuddy-duddy, but he’s also very conscientious about our town’s history and takes his job seriously. And actually, he’s a very nice man. I’m sorry if I let you think otherwise, especially because I know you don’t think all that highly of the male race in general. And maybe that’s my fault too, for not correcting your notion that they’re all temperamental horse’s patoots. That was just your daddy, honey.”
    “Well, I know that.”
    Elsie smiled a little sadly. “Do you? Because you’re quick to judge a man, and even quicker to cut one out of your life.”
    This threw Leah off her game a little. “Of course I know it,” she said. “I like men, Grandma.” She’d been on her own a long time. Twelve years, actually, since the day she’d driven out of town at age eighteen and not looked back. She’d had relationships. Granted, nothing that had lasted, but as she’d told Dee, it only took one…
    But did she really believe that? “I’ve had boyfriends.”
    “Had? Past tense?” Her grandma’s eyes were sharp. “Don’t you have a boyfriend right now?”
    Well, she’d walked right into that one, hadn’t she? “You mean Jack.”
    “Do you have more than one?” Elsie asked with a laugh.
      
     
    Jack woke up before his alarm thanks to a sensation of being crushed. Sitting up, he turned on the light.
    At some point in the night, Kevin had climbed onto the bed with him. The dog lay on his back, all four legs straight up in the air as if he were roadkill, snoring loudly enough to rattle the windows.
    He had nearly the entire bed.
    “Hey,” Jack said and nudged him.
    Kevin stopped snoring but didn’t move a single muscle.
    “I know you’re awake.”
    Kevin slit open one eye.
    Jack pointed to the floor.
    With a sigh, Kevin heaved himself up and stepped off the bed. He sent Jack one soulful look over his shoulder before heading out of the