Page 28

“Good point. You shouldn’t look at Lucas at all tonight. He’s not that interesting.”

She took a long, calming breath. This was all for show. She couldn’t let herself forget that. She batted her eyelashes at him, the essence of innocence. “If you really want me to be a convincing bad girl, the red leather jacket has a matching leather mini skirt that would do the job.”

He cocked his head. “Would it, though? Or would it just complete your chic Paris outfit?”

“Hey, Paris has plenty of bad girls. And leather is guaranteed to make parents and vegans dislike you. I’m a size eight.”

“Uh huh.”

She forced a smile that she hoped was endearing. “Speaking of your family’s opinion of me, please don’t tell them I dated guys who use gangster nicknames like Wildcat and Felon.”

“Hellcat and Trouble.”

“Oh, and the bottomless pit nickname—that could be interpreted as a crack about my weight.”

His hand ran along her back, warm, distracting “Sorry. Wasn’t meant to be.” Still holding her in dance position, he stepped away enough that his eyes could run over her. “Your body is perfect the way it is.” His gaze went over her again, more slowly this time. “Ten out of ten.”

And that… She forgot what she was going to say next. She’d completely forgotten what they’d been talking about before he rated her.

He pulled her closer again and murmured into her ear. “How about the nickname Sugar because you’re sweet—and given the right circumstances, you could kill someone.”

Nicknames. That’s what they’d been discussing. “Not Sugar. It sounds like a stripper name.”

His lips pressed together in thought, like he was debating whether to add that to her backstory, so she said, “Don’t even consider telling your family anything that would make them think I’m supplementing my income on a pole. You’re leaving in July, but I have to stay here.”

“You don’t have to stay here,” he said.

“I’m my grandmother’s caregiver. I definitely have to stay here. You’ve seen the trouble she gets into. Trouble ought to be her biker nickname.”

Jace’s brows drew together, studying her again. “What about your parents and sister? Couldn’t they take a turn?”

That was the problem. They couldn’t, or at least wouldn’t.

Growing up, Marlowe’s parents had worked in real estate, her mom as an agent, always impeccably dressed in fitted blazers and heels. Her dad had been a home inspector, with a sun-lined face and callused hands that smelled faintly of drywall and caulk.

When Marlowe was nineteen, a prolonged downturn in the market had nearly bankrupted them. They’d packed their belongings into a U-Haul and moved to a condo in Bozeman in search of steadier work. Now they managed a string of apartments and were on solid footing again. They couldn’t risk leaving that behind to return to Lark Springs for jobs that might dry up again.

Marlowe’s older sister, Katrina, had a life rooted in Bozeman too.

After her grandmother’s stroke, her parents had called a family meeting to discuss the situation. Not long into that meeting, it became clear to Marlowe that her future had been decided before she even showed up. Grandma refused to move to Bozeman and refused to have a live-in caregiver—someone, she was sure, who would rob her blind. That limited the options.

“Being a hairstylist is a flexible job,” Katrina had said in that clipped, rational tone of hers. Meaning not quite as important as everyone else’s. “And you’ll be able to live at Grandma’s rent-free. That will help you save up for when you figure out what you’re going to do with your life.”

Katrina was sure that eventually Marlowe would want to do something else.

Katrina had always been a straight-A student, the one whose ease with math ensured she’d have a choice of high-paying careers.

During Marlowe’s teen years, she’d been so busy with extracurricular activities that she’d only had a B average. Or, sometimes she wondered, perhaps she did so many extracurricular activities because she needed an excuse for being a B-average sort of person.

But even as a kid, when Marlowe pictured her future, it wasn’t climbing a corporate ladder—it was raising a family, maybe doing a little work on the side.

That wasn’t the kind of thing you said out loud, though. You couldn’t admit that your dream job was packing school lunches, teaching your kids to read, or shuttling them to soccer and dance. Women were supposed to be career-oriented. Girl bosses. Building empires in stiletto heels.

“Grandma has already had one fall,” her father reminded her.

If the neighbor hadn’t seen her, or if Grandma had fallen in her backyard, she might have frozen to death. A fall inside could be equally dangerous since Grandma refused to wear the help alert necklace her parents had bought her. That was the most frustrating part—Grandma’s total unwillingness to see her own limitations.

What else could Marlowe have done but agree to be her caretaker?