all the appropriate places. A regional airport would mean the pain of TSA but also more traffic, more flights and, most important of all, more money. He sure as shit could use more money. He could also use at least one decent night’s sleep. Just one, please.
Levi squashed a yawn.
“Hey, I can’t have you up there if you’re not on track,” Stone said. “Fresh as a daisy.”
“No worries, boss.” Levi saluted. “I’ve got this. I was with the air force. You may have heard of it?”
“You’ve got to fix it, bro.” Matt leaned back in his chair and studied Levi.
“What am I supposed to do? Order her to go to sleep? It doesn’t work that way.”
“Hell if I know,” Matt said with a shrug. “But you can’t do this on your own. You know that, right?”
“Why the hell can’t I?” There again, he resented the fact that no one seemed to have the slightest bit of faith in him as a father.
While he told himself that they were all trying to help, when Matt and Sarah or Emily and Stone showed up on the occasional weekend and shoved him out the door for some R & R, he fought it every time. Grace was his deal, his responsibility, and not theirs. And he did not fall down on his responsibilities. Plus, he could handle it, lack of sleep included. He already had enough of the lack of confidence in him from Sandy’s parents and didn’t need his buddies questioning him, too.
“You’re a guy.” Stone slid him a look as if those three little words explained everything.
“Wake up to the twenty-first century. There are single dads doing this every day, and doing it well.” He tore off a piece of paper from the airplane and wadded it up between his fingers.
“Maybe so, but it wouldn’t hurt you to think about settling down now. With a good woman.” This was from Matt. “And I don’t mean the beach babes you normally hang with.”
“What the hell? That’s my favorite kind.”
Matt quirked an eyebrow. “You need a woman with an IQ bigger than her tits.”
Levi scoffed. “This is about what I expected from you whipped fools. Never would have thought I’d see both of you settled down like a couple grandpas.”
“Hey, life is good.” Matt crossed his arms behind his head, his I-got-laid grin full throttle.
Stone gave Matt a censuring look, and Levi took that time to wet his spitball.
“You going to see Lily again?” Matt said. “Who knows. Maybe this could be the one.”
Lily did seem nice, so too bad he didn’t believe in the one. She worked events at the ranch Emily’s family owned, and they’d been introduced a week ago. They’d had coffee at the Drip, talked for a couple hours. Levi was supposed to call her next week to set up dinner. He didn’t expect much. In fact, he’d had more chemistry with Carly while bonding over a baby crib, which said something.
“I’m never getting married. It’s the single life for me.” Levi scoped out his aim and best shot. It was looking like Matt for the win, which was perfect.
Most of his friends wanted him to slow down. And he understood the reputation he had, though much of it had been greatly exaggerated. For instance, it wasn’t true that he’d taken two women home after a bar fight in Yonkers, New York, two years ago. The bar fight part was true, since some jackass had been slapping a girl around. But the rest of it? Levi had never found out how that particular rumor started.
Matt opened his mouth as if to add something when the spitball Levi aimed hit him square in the nose and fell to his lap. “Well, shit.”
The conversation went downhill from there.
A few minutes later, Emily opened the door and caught all three of them in the middle of Spitball War Z.
“Not again.” She shook her head. “You’re cleaning that up.”
“Enough.” When Emily shut the door, Stone threw his last volley, which Levi caught in midair.
After the meeting in which they’d discussed the planes that most needed work, picking up more plane inventory and how they might best accomplish that with little or no money, Levi had a flight lesson scheduled with a retired software CEO from the valley who’d recently purchased his own plane. Before that, he grabbed his phone to check in with Carly.
When he heard Grace crying in the background, it was all he could do not to run out like a jet at Mach speed. “Something wrong?”
“She’s okay. Okay, that’s okay, baby,” Carly said, sounding a little frantic herself.
He got that. Grace’s wailing could even make him break out in a trickle of sweat when she carried on for hours.
“I’ll get her down for a nap now,” Carly said. “Don’t worry. She’s fine.”
He hung up and found a desk to check his email. As anticipated, another one from Frank Lane. God forbid he should pick up his phone even one of the many times Levi had tried to call him. This one suggested that Levi retain a lawyer, because Frank would sue for custody if it came to that. To pile on the guilt, he mentioned that Grace’s grandmother cried for her daily. He hoped Levi felt good about that.
Levi felt like a pile of dog shit.
Of course, he couldn’t afford a lawyer. Levi fired off a response, inviting both of them to visit him in Fortune yet again, but clearly stating that he would never give up his daughter.
Maybe this time the message would get through.
* * *
SO FAR, ALL was not going according to plan for Carly.
Why was Grace always crying? That couldn’t be normal. Carly consulted the baby bible section on teething. Grace had gone through no fewer than five cold rags she gnawed until they were no longer cold. They entertained her but did nothing to stop the crying.
She had growing sympathy for Hot Dad. If he had to deal with Grace all night, he had to be working on fumes. A girl wouldn’t know that, though, if she went by the way he kissed. That kiss had scared her a little bit, given that she’d been hot and bothered within seconds. Not the reaction she’d expected. Loneliness and desperation had weakened her. That, and the way Levi had checked her out, his heated gaze sliding over her as if he’d seen a cookie he wanted. As if he’d die without a bite.
But she needed to stay away. After months of juggling nothing but responsibilities and heavy commitments, she would sell this baby business and pursue her own dreams. Her life. Besides, she and Levi both had people who depended on them and who needed to be put first. She had her father, and Levi had Grace.
They’d settled into a bit of a routine after that hot kiss, one that didn’t include any more of those kisses. Every afternoon Levi picked Grace up right on time, threw her up in the air, then caught her. Grace would squeal and laugh for the first time that day. Carly would pretend it didn’t scare her to see Grace airborne. They’d talk a little bit about his search for a permanent babysitter—which, frankly, was not going well—and about Grace’s day, then go to their respective corners. He and Grace to his house. Carly to her sewing machine, where she had a little fun before hitting her business chores after dinner.
Interestingly, he’d not taken her up on her offer to babysit evenings. She supposed that meant he wasn’t dating anyone yet. Thank God for that, because she’d offered in a moment of over-the-top selling of her idea. She didn’t want to facilitate his getting laid. Carly was the one who needed to get out more. She missed her clothes. Marc Jacobs, Kate Spade, Louis Vuitton and all their cool friends were sitting in her closet collecting dust.
Carly sat at her laptop to do what she did best. Also known as stalling. In the background, an old but favorite episode of Never Wear This played. On one hand, she wasn’t sure why she bothered with the blogging. The posts took forever to compose, and her