The Lemon Sisters Read online

  But that was all behind her now. She’d promised herself. So she gave the guy a vague not-interested smile and turned away to look out the window. Rude? Maybe. But she was admittedly more than a bit calloused these days and—as every guy she’d ever let get too close had complained—a tough nut to crack. The words cold and scary had also been thrown around.

  She didn’t mind. She actually liked it, even as she realized the image went completely against her Disney princess–like moniker, “Ivy Snow.” But hey, it wasn’t like she’d named herself. Her mother had done that, reportedly on some good prescription meds at the time.

  At her stop, she exited the bus and walked the last two blocks to work, getting a little happier with each step because one, exercise was over for the day, and two, she loved her job.

  For as long as she could remember, her entire life had been temporary. She’d gone to fifteen different schools before getting her GED at age sixteen. As a result, she was a pro chameleon and excelled at temporary—temporary friends, temporary jobs, temporary life. It had suited her for a long time. Until it didn’t.

  She’d woken up one day about a year ago and had realized she’d changed. Moving around no longer suited her, and she was over living out of a backpack. So at the dubiously mature age of twenty-eight, she was now trying a new lane. She’d settled in the Cow Hollow District of San Francisco, running a thing called the Taco Truck and living in an apartment that had her name on the lease.

  Roots. After a lifetime of running, being invisible, and just barely getting by, she was growing roots. She was going to get the life that until now had only existed for her on TV and in movies. Meaning friends and family, real family who’d stick with her through thick and thin. And maybe . . . maybe even someone to love.

  It was unnerving that she was actively working toward the very things that had terrified her for most of her life, but she’d decided she would rather be scared shitless than live with regrets. So she’d learned to put a smile on her face, because everyone knew you had to fake it to make it, right?

  The Taco Truck was parked in the alley behind the Pacific Pier building. She kept it there at night thanks to the fact that the owner of the building, Spence Baldwin, loved her food. On workdays, she pulled the truck out to the street at the entrance to the building’s courtyard, always a gamble because her city permit hadn’t yet come through.

  She’d just moved the truck out of the alley and parked to set up for the day when her day’s deliveries arrived. She received her preordered inventory and eyed the time. Six thirty. She opened at seven sharp, so she got started chopping ingredients, frying up meats, and arranging the makings for the day’s menu. Her menu. She liked the work. Actually, she loved the work, and her boss wasn’t bad, either. She smiled at that as she worked, because she was the boss. She owned the truck.

  Okay, so she was making payments on it, but she was actually in the black. Everything about that thought improved her day on the spot. Today she wasn’t going to worry about bills or permits. Or anything. She was going to enjoy herself, her food, and her new goals.

  She turned around in her small but mighty space of seventy-five square feet. It was here where she worked her magic, making what she liked to think were the most delicious tacos in the Bay Area. It wasn’t an easy job. She spent just as much time prepping and being a mechanic as she did being a chef. And then there was the ordering and buying of all the necessary supplies, not to mention the bookkeeping, which often kept her up late into the night.

  Her work was never done, but she was good with that. Hell, she was great with that. After spending most of her life at the mercy of others, she thrived on being independent and having no one tell her what to do or when to do it.

  She was still prepping when she heard voices outside. She handled breakfast and lunch on her own, and then her part-time helper, Jenny, came in the afternoons to handle the dinner crowd. For now, Ivy still had her CLOSED sign up, but the voices stopped right outside her truck. Men, at least two of them, possibly three. With a sigh, she opened the serving window and stuck her head out.

  A trio of extremely hot guys dressed in running gear and looking hungry as hell glanced up from the menu board posted on the side of her truck. Ivy knew two of them, Caleb and Jake, both currently off the market, so she felt free to give them her flirtiest smile and shake her head. “Sorry, boys, not open for another twenty minutes.”

  Jake, who in spite of his wheelchair was one of the strongest, most stoic, badass men she knew, returned her flirty smile while upping it another factor, which she knew was just a ploy. He’d been dating someone for over a year now.

  “But you make the best food in the city,” he said sweetly, as if Ivy could be swayed by sweet. “And we’ve all gotta be at work by seven.”

  Caleb stood at his side. He was a friend and also a savior to Ivy, as he’d helped her navigate the purchase of her truck after dealing with the previous owner had become tricky. “I’m pretty sure you once said you owed me a favor,” he said, also sweetly, and also always the negotiator.

  Knowing the venture capitalist could talk anyone into just about anything, she laughed and gave in. “Fine. Figure out what you want, and make it quick. But then we’re even, Caleb.”

  They weren’t even. She owed him much more than an early breakfast, and they both knew it.

  Having gotten his way as he always did, he smiled. “The usual for me.”

  “Me, too,” Jake said.

  Ivy nodded and turned her attention to the third man.

  She’d never seen him before; she most certainly would have remembered. Like Caleb and Jake, he was in running gear that fit his leanly muscled bod—one that he held in a way that suggested military or cop. The always-on-alert, scared little kid she’d once been sent an automatic warning to her brain. Danger, Will Robinson!

  But she was no longer helpless, she reminded herself. She no longer had to pretend to be tough and brave. She was tough and brave. So she kept her smile in place, forcing herself to relax. She had nothing to hide. Everything she did these days was on the up and up—she’d made sure of it.

  And it wasn’t exactly a hardship to look at him. His smile certainly was heart-stopping as he added his charm to both Caleb’s and Jake’s. And there was considerable charm. He had dark eyes and dark hair cut short, and in spite of his smile, when those eyes met hers, they gave nothing of his thoughts.

  Yep, cop, she thought. Too bad . . .

  ALL KEL O’DONNELL KNEW was that his body ached like a son of a bitch. Pushing it for a five-mile full-out run hadn’t been the smartest of ideas after what he’d been through. But his more immediate problem was that if he didn’t get food, and fast, his stomach was going to eat itself.

  The woman in the taco truck turned to him for his order. “And you?” she asked, her voice slightly amused, as if life wasn’t to be taken too seriously, especially while ordering tacos.

  But he was taking this very seriously, as his hunger felt soul-deep. “What do you suggest?” he asked.

  Her light green eyes slid to the menu written on the side of the truck, the menu she’d probably written herself.

  Not one to waste words then. Something they had in common. “I mean, what’s good?” he asked.

  This caused twin groans from his cousin Caleb and their longtime friend Jake, which Kel ignored.

  Not his server, though. She quirked a single brow, the small gesture making him feel more than he had in months. Certainly since his life had detonated several months ago, when he’d chased after a suspect and then been hit by the getaway car, getting himself punted a good fifteen feet into the air. No worries—the asphalt pavement had broken his fall, which was when he’d realized he’d been duped by a dirty cop. And not any dirty cop, but a longtime friend and also his partner, nearly costing him his career.

  But hell, at least his life wasn’t on the line this time, or his livelihood. It was just a pretty woman giving him some cute, sexy ’tude while waiting for him to choo