“This was yesterday afternoon and she’s still here?” he asked slowly. “That’s some visit.”
“And it’s going to get a whole lot longer!”
Jillian stopped. It was either that, slam into the cellar door, or turn and stride back from where she’d come. She exhaled harshly, and discovered she’d spent enough aggravation to continue in a more reasonable tone. “When Mom heard that Anna and Jack were living in a sleazy motel room, she insisted they move into a guest room at the Vines.”
“And you have a problem with this stranger moving in?”
“No, that’s not it. You met Anna. She’s gutsy, she’s genuine, and she dotes on little Jack. She only agreed to stay after Mom played the guilt card over what’s best for him.”
Jillian’s brows drew together in concentration as she tried to settle on what, exactly, disturbed her most. There was so much to choose from.
“I’m worried about how this whole situation will affect Mom,” she decided finally.
“She didn’t look worried or upset today.”
Trust him—a man—to sound so reasonable. “I know, but she stews over things. At night, when she’s not sleeping. How could she not be affected by this? Spencer’s current wife was his secretary, too, you know. When Mom was married to the bastard.”
“History repeats,” Seth said evenly.
“In Spencer’s case, over and over again.”
She felt his gaze on her face, lingering on the tired circles beneath her eyes, touching her with that same velvetedged tenderness as last night. “Sounds like you need to do something more positive and less dangerous than stewing and losing sleep.”
Her reflexes kicked in before her brain, stiffening her shoulders, framing the automatic objection. What about the family celebration she and Mercedes were planning for the new tasting room? That was positive, wasn’t it?
Or was it only a cosmetic fix? Like a fancy label plastered on a bottle of poor wine—nice effect, but unlikely to fool anyone once the cork came out.
Jillian inhaled deeply through her nose, and the familiar layers of fruit and oak that pervaded the winery air steadied her churning emotions. The man at her elbow might unsteady her senses but talking to him was no hardship, she realized. Not even when the topic itself was.
“You’re right,” she admitted softly.
“I usually am.”
That response startled a snort of laughter from Jillian, and with it an easing of the tension in her shoulders and neck and head. Seth was more right than he knew, she decided in a moment of absolute clarity. This renovation project was only step one in building her future. Steps two through ten involved clearing away the rubble of her past, starting with Spencer Ashton and working her way up.
And once you clear away that rubble, will you be ready for a man like Seth Bennedict?
A wild little rhythm beat in her chest as she cast a sideways glance at her companion and found him watching her, all serious and intense for three rapid heartbeats before he jerked his head toward the door and eased the mood with a dry comment.
“I don’t know about you, but if I don’t dump these boxes my arms are gonna be permanently curled.”
Jillian breathed a sigh of relief and cut him a look through her lashes. “Your fault for going all macho and taking three boxes.”
“I can handle ‘em.”
And to illustrate, he shifted the entire load into one arm—Jillian’s breath hitched with shattered-glass fear and, yes, because of how his biceps flexed as it took the extra weight. Vaguely she registered him reaching out to open the cellar door. Mostly she registered the heat and scent of his body as she ducked under his arm and started down the stairs.
“Steady,” he cautioned from behind.
“I know these stairs like the back of my hand.” She glanced over her shoulder, all cool and haughty until she realized that Seth lagged two stairs behind. Which meant she copped a nice eyeful of strong thighs gloved in faded denim. Big and bold and full-bodied.
“I could take them with my eyes closed,” she finished, turning smartly to face front. “Them” meaning stairs, not his jeans.
“Well, don’t,” he said dryly. “I’m not up for dusting off your backside again.”
Jillian scooted down the rest of the stairs without a word. She did not think about his hands on her backside or about taking his jeans with her eyes closed. Much.
She deposited her box on the long table she’d coaxed Eli into setting up that morning and watched Seth follow suit. A new tension seeped into her body, as sultry and musty as the cellar atmosphere with its rich scents of aging wine and earth and timber.
Empty hands, alone with this man, in the place where her senses sang with the spirit of wine.
Not good, Jillian, not good.
Leaning her hips against the edge of the table, she forced herself to relax. She would not run away. She would face temptation with mature, rational calm. “This,” she said, patting the table with one hand, “is where we’ll be doing the tastings while you’re working upstairs.”
Apparently he took that table pat as an invitation, since he parked his denims right beside her, not touching but close enough for her hormones to rattle and hum with near-Seth stimulation. To flex muscles of their own as they sucked in deep drafts of his body heat.
She should move. She didn’t.
Seth was looking around through narrowed eyes, a long, slow sweep of their high-ceilinged subterranean world, and Jillian followed his gaze. Attempted to experience it with fresh senses, as he was doing now and as her tasting-room visitors would over the next few weeks.
“The controlled temperature and the low light are ideal for the wine. For aging and storage,” she said.
“But not so good for your tastings?”
“I’m looking forward to the change, actually, and I’ve always loved the atmosphere down here. My brothers locked me in once, when I was eight or nine, and they hated that I didn’t dissolve with terror.” A soft smile curved her lips as she remembered. “I asked Lucas that night if I could move in down here.”
“Did he let you?”
“He convinced me my ponies would hate it.”
One dark brow arched. “You had a collection back then?”
“Lucas gave me my first the year we moved here. I wasn’t much older than Rachel,” she said softly. “My stepfather is responsible for my two grand passions. Horses and wine.”
“Your only two passions?”
She turned then, found him studying her. Dark, silent, still. A tiny ripple of excitement raced over her skin. Did she want to answer that question? Did she even know the answer?
Two things she did know.
He was going to kiss her. And she was going to let him.
Seven
“Just a taste,” Seth murmured as their eyes met and held and his body resounded with the knowledge that she wasn’t going to stiffen or turn away, that she wasn’t going to reject his kiss.
One sip, he promised himself, as his lips slanted over hers and stilled in surprise. Unexpectedly cool, those lips, when her reminiscent smile had warmed him right through. Cool and exquisitely soft, like the first sip of a delicate white.
“Another,”