Читать книгу The Ashtons: Jillian, Eli & Charlotte - Bronwyn Jameson - Страница 17

“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,” she whispered against his lips and when Seth hesitated, her breath hitched and caught at his willpower.

No, he cautioned himself. Bad idea.

But then her hand crept up his arm, her fingers curled around his biceps, and her mouth moved against his. “One more taste,” she pleaded, a low, husky appeal that curled through his blood like liquid temptation.

What harm could one small sample do? One sip of the passion he felt simmering beneath his mouth and his hands?

When his lips moved over hers, changing the angle and deepening the contact, she made a tiny yielding sound. Barely a sigh, it echoed through his body, bouncing off every tense, hard surface—and there were plenty—until it thundered in time with his pulse. It didn’t help that her other hand had fastened around his neck, holding him tight, urging him to forget every take-it-slow vow he’d ever made to himself.

Then her mouth opened under his and he was a goner.

Their tongues met and the essence of the kiss changed in one stroke of heat. Like one of her big California reds, she exploded in his mouth. Hot, intense, packed with complex flavors he knew would linger long after this kiss had ended.

End it now, he told himself. While you can.

Ah, but he couldn’t, not when this had been so many years coming, this chance to get his hands and his mouth on Jillian Ashton. He nipped at her bottom lip and dived back into her mouth. He eased back to taste her lips with his tongue, to press kisses to the corner of her mouth, to her chin, to her lips again. He kissed her throat because he couldn’t stop himself, and she tasted as he’d imagined, as addictively sweet and supple as the flesh under his fingertips. The flesh that curved in wicked torment—

He stopped cold.

He had his hands inside her jeans?

What had happened to take it slow, earn her trust, give her time? How far did he think he could stretch his willpower before it snapped? Before he lay her down on this table and ripped away her clothes and tasted the wine and woman on her body, in places he’d dreamed about, in ways he’d only fantasized about, for so many years.

Not the kind of horizontal tasting this table was intended for.

Carefully he slid his hands from the curves of her backside and up to her waist. He put her away from him and watched her faraway green gaze struggle to refocus as her grip loosened and slipped away from his neck.

And there they sat in an awkward afterward vacuum, their breathing ragged, her face flushed with sensual heat and his feeling about the same. Seth figured he should keep his mouth zipped until his brain started being helpful. Anything would be better than his current mental blame game. It didn’t matter who started the kiss or who goaded whom for more, only that he’d extinguished the hot connection before it burned out of control.

He should apologize—she probably expected at least a sorry, won’t happen again—but, dammit, he wasn’t sorry.

“I’d forgotten about kissing.”

Huh? Seth stared back at her for a second, completely thrown by her comment. “You’d forgotten what?” he asked, since she clearly hadn’t forgotten the how-to part. Maybe, like him, she was having trouble with cognitive function.

“The things that stir my juices,” she murmured absently. “Like a good wine or a hot gallop.”

He hadn’t known what to expect from Jillian, what reaction, which first words. Fair to say he hadn’t expected that comparison. “Are you saying that kissing should be on your short list of passions?”

“Possibly.” She pressed her fingertips to her lips, then—holy Moses—she reached up and touched him the exact same way. “And it should be on your list of skills.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.”

God, she was turning him inside out. The candor of her words, the heat in her eyes, the gliding touch of her fingertips across his cheek. Seth covered her hand with his, trapping it against his cheek and savoring its smooth warmth for the time it took him to feel something else.

The smooth warmth of her wedding band.

It lay flush against his skin, a real and visceral reminder of why he shouldn’t have been kissing her. Why he shouldn’t have been dreaming up some go-slow, win-herover fantasy, either. His brother’s widow still wore the symbol of her love, of her enduring connection to a man who’d scorned the sanctity of marriage.

Right up until the night he died.

Seth’s gut twisted as he peeled her fingers from his face. “I shouldn’t have kissed you,” he said shortly, and he stood up. “I’ll go get the rest of your glasses.”

Confusion clouded her eyes as she stared up at him. “There’s no need to do that.”

Oh, yeah, there was a need. To get the hell out of here before the bitter churning in his gut had him saying things that didn’t need saying. He folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. “You don’t trust me with your glassware anymore?”

“I trust you, Seth. You’ve always been straightforward and honest with me, so please don’t walk away now. Not without explaining what just happened here.”

No, he hadn’t always been straightforward and honest. He’d kept things from her, painful truths that he’d buried deep beneath the rubble of the past. There was no reason to share them, then or now or ever. No need to share the truth burning hot in his blood, either, but she was watching him with a steady, direct gaze, quietly pleading for the same from him.

“I haven’t always been honest with you,” he admitted tightly. “Not about you and me.”

A stillness came over her body, her expression. “Do you mean about this…attraction?”

“Yeah. That’s exactly what I mean.”

“Oh, okay. Because I’ve felt something, too, this past week. I know—”

“Not just this week, Jillian. You had reason to feel uncomfortable around me. That kiss has been a long time coming.”

Yeah, she had reason to look shocked, too. A right to stare at him with those big green eyes while the thick cellar air enclosed them in recollections of that kiss.

“And now it’s been—the kiss, that is—” She swallowed and moistened her lips. “What now?”

Seth straightened, preparing to leave and get those glasses, whether she wanted them or not. Preparing to get the hell away from honest-eyed temptation.

“While you’re still wearing that ring? Nothing, Jillian. Not one blessed thing.”

Seth might have rocked Jillian’s world on that sultry Sunday afternoon, but one breathtaking kiss and one ground-shaking revelation didn’t change much in the big scheme of things.

Afterward, back at the Vines, Caroline had insisted on serving coffee and cake in her garden. Rachel snuggled onto Jillian’s lap and made her chest ache with a hollow tenderness. Nobody seemed to notice the studied lack of eye contact between Seth and Jillian.

And the next day, life went on. The renovations started with Seth using the winery’s two visitor-free days to attack the heavy work. Better that no walls fall on tourists, she supposed, and she’d left him alone to do his thing. He knew where to find her if needed.

Obviously he hadn’t needed.

A good thing, Jillian reminded herself for the umpteenth time on Tuesday afternoon. Not seeing him meant she didn’t have to worry about forgetting herself and staring at, say, his mouth in a moment of unprofessional weakness. She had enough to keep busy anyway, what with setting up the tasting stations in the cellar and priming her staff on the new layout and procedure. On top of this, she’d initiated her let’s-stop-stewing-and-start-acting strategy regarding the Anna and Spencer situation.

If one could label a tentative first step with no planned future steps a strategy.

On Tuesday afternoon, with Mercedes for company and moral support, she’d visited the Ashton estate and met her half sisters Paige and Megan and their cousin Charlotte for the first time. Tea was taken, pleasantries exchanged, concerns expressed. Although nothing concrete had been accomplished, they had opened the lines of communication between the two families. And not a lawyer in sight!

A promising start, Mercedes and Jillian concluded on the drive home.

Jillian turned her car into the winery parking lot, and her heart did its usual upbeat jive when she saw the blue truck parked alongside the tasting room. Even though she was only dropping off Mercedes.

“How’s the work coming along?” her sister asked from the passenger seat.

“Apart from Eli bitching about the dust? Pretty good, I’d say.”

“Glad to hear it, since it looks like a nasty big mess to me.”

“You think?” Jillian peered more closely and felt a quiver of excitement deep where it mattered. “Oh, look, he’s done the windows!”

Mercedes stared, too. “Hate to break it to you, but those are holes in the wall.”

“No, they’re windows. Great big, rounded arches that reflect the shape and size of our wines.”

“You’ve obviously been working too hard, since you’re sounding scarily like me.” Mercedes shook her head as she reached for her door. “Go ride your horse and clear your head of that marketing-speak.”

Jillian grinned. “I intend to.”

But first she needed to change clothes and report to Anna, a thought that turned her smile upside down as she drove back to the Vines. While their half sisters had seemed friendly enough, she’d seen the exchange of looks when she’d broached the topic of Anna and Jack. The cooling from friendly to wary to let’s-not-push-this-too-far. It would not be easy, winning acceptance and a fair deal for this latest addition to the Ashton clan.

She parked her car and hurried upstairs, pausing at the open door of the guest room. Anna looked up from where she sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by piles of clothes and baby gear, and her eyes widened in surprise. “You’re back.”

“And still in one piece.” Jillian sidestepped a stack of cuddly toys and perched on the end of the bed. “Where’s Jack?”

“Being thoroughly spoiled by your parents.” Anna picked up a onesie, and smoothed her hands over the garment before she looked up at Jillian again. “It didn’t go well, did it?”

“Well, we met Megan and Paige and Charlotte. They were all open to what we had to say—especially Megan.”

“Except?”

“Except the news about Jack has come as a shock to them. I suspect they just need a little time to adjust.”

Anna released a harsh snort of breath. “I can’t say I’m surprised but thanks for trying, Jillian.”

“Hey, that’s only step one. You’re not giving up. We’re not giving up.”

“I won’t give up.” Anna clutched the onesie tight in her fingers, then pressed it to her chest. To her heart. “I’ll do whatever it takes to protect him and keep him safe, you know.”

Yes, Jillian did know. She saw the determined set of Anna’s jaw and the fierce light in her eyes, like a tigress set to defend her cub, and it echoed in the hollow of her own maternal soul. “I’m sure I’d feel the same way if he were mine.”

Anna nodded, a little stiffly, then returned her attention to the clothes. For the first time Jillian focused on that folding and stacking. “Are you packing?”

The other woman’s hands stilled for a second. “I’ve imposed on your family’s hospitality enough.”

“Oh, no, you haven’t even begun to impose. You haven’t let me babysit once, and you know I’m dying to have Jack all to myself.”

“You say that because you’ve never changed his diaper.”

“I muck out six stables every day. One little baby is nothing.”

Anna smiled at her attempted humor, but the effort looked forced. She picked up a stack of baby clothes, so small and innocent, and carefully placed them in a duffel bag. “I have to go, Jillian. I can’t take your charity indefinitely and I don’t want to leave owing your family any more than I do now.”

Pride held her shoulders straight, and that posture and the quiet determination in her voice chimed a loud note of recognition in Jillian. She understood Anna’s need for independence, to not feel beholden as she had done to Seth. Seth who had stepped in and insisted on helping, as her mother had done with Anna. Seth who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Seth, whose kiss had been a long time coming.

Jillian straightened her own shoulders, to ward off the stray stroke of desire. “Are you going back to your apartment in San Francisco?”

Anna shook her head. “I can’t risk that. Between the threats and the photographers.”

“Then where?”

“I’ll find somewhere.”

She had nowhere to go, nowhere except another cheap room like the one she’d fled to before. With nowhere for Jack to play, no company for Anna, and no security against whoever had threatened Jack’s safety. Jillian leaned forward and put her hand on the other woman’s shoulder.

“Stay a few more days, until you find somewhere clean and comfortable and safe for Jack. I’ll help—we all will. If we put our heads together I’m sure we can come up with a decent rental. An apartment or a cottage or even a room in a boarding house.” She could feel the tension in Anna’s shoulder, knew pride wouldn’t allow her to give in easily. “Promise you won’t go right now. Give us a few days.”

“Until the weekend,” Anna relented finally.

Jillian smiled. “We’ll find you somewhere before then. I promise.”

Jillian hadn’t expected to find an answer to her promise so close at hand or so soon. Half an hour later, it loomed out of her afternoon ride so unexpectedly that she reined Marsanne to a halt and just stared in why-didn’t-I-think-of-that bemusement.

“Caroline’s enchanted cottage,” she murmured. “How utterly perfect.”

She urged Marsanne into a canter and by the time they halted beside the pretty rail fence, her mind was humming with certainty. The cottage had been empty since their vineyard foreman fell for Abby Ashton and moved to Nebraska a month or two back. They could set a nominal rent, enough to satisfy Anna’s pride but not too much that she couldn’t afford to pay. How could she object?

Because she wanted to keep Jack safe.

Jillian’s excitement dimmed as she studied the pretty but not very childproof fence and the lake beyond. She clicked Marsanne into her long, loping stride and circled the perimeter, studying the fence with an objective eye. “It wouldn’t be too big a job, would it?”

Marsanne shook her head.

“Well, yes, you’re right. For me it would.”

But what about for—say—a builder? A builder who had survived the toddler years as a single parent, keeping his child safe and protected and loved.

Her heart quickened and tightened in her chest.

A builder she’d avoided these past two days because she lacked the courage to deal with his answer to her “what now?” question.

It had been so much easier to bury herself in work and the busy-ness of life than to face the consequences of that kiss and Seth’s admission. That kiss has been a long time coming.

“Not good enough, Jillian,” she muttered, stiffening her spine despite the clutch of nerves in her stomach.

Today, by driving up to the Ashton estate and meeting her half sisters, she had conquered one fear of the unknown. Perhaps, she decided as she touched thumb to ring finger and turned her horse back toward the winery, it was time to face another.

Seth had left before Jillian rode up to the winery on Tuesday afternoon, but she caught him on his cell phone the next day. He was working on another job, but he promised to take a look at the problematic fence before the weekend. Sometime. Thursday he found himself driving by Louret on his way home from a site inspection, and he decided he might as well swing by the cottage.

Three minutes, give or take, and he’d worked out a fix for the fence. He’d also worked up a decent level of irritation. Any half-handy vineyard or winery worker—or brother or stepfather—could have repaired this fence. She hadn’t needed to call in a builder any more than he’d needed to say, “Sure, no problem, I’ll take a look.”

Hell, and weren’t those the words that got him into trouble in the first place? Agreeing to take a look at her tasting room when every instinct had screamed “no” and “are you a masochist?”

Seth stalked to his truck and slapped on a tool belt. Since he was here, he might as well fix the loose screen he’d seen on one of the windows round back. While he was at it, he’d check all the latches. According to Jillian, Anna Sheridan was nervous about security.

He heard a vehicle but paid no attention until it pulled up out front. Then every disgruntled cell in his body stood up and took notice. Damn. He didn’t even know who was out there. It could be Anna or Caroline or some half-handy worker come to fix the blessed fence.

Except it wasn’t.

Instinctively he knew that before he saw her coming through the gate, her arms loaded up to her chin with God knows what. With his truck parked in clear sight, his presence here was pretty much a given. Yet Jillian pulled up short when she saw him round the corner of the veranda. Her mouth softened in a soft “oh” of surprise, and all Seth could think about was that kiss.

Four days and he could still taste her on his lips and in his blood. Four nights of shouldn’t-have-done-it recriminations and all he wanted now was to kiss her again. To simply walk right up and take that open mouth with his.

Except he didn’t.

Instead he leaned his shoulder against a veranda post, crossed his arms, and concentrated on anything but her mouth’s wet heat.

The stuff in her arms. That would do for starters.

“Moving in?” he asked, inclining his head toward her heavily laden arms.

She blinked, then glanced down. “Oh, this. No. It’s just some things for Anna, to make the place more comfortable. For Jack’s room, mostly.”

“She’s agreed to take the place?”

“She took some convincing, but yes.” With a small grimace, she readjusted her load. “This isn’t heavy, but it’s awkward. Maybe you could get the door for me…?”

The door. Right. He straightened and started to turn. Then remembered it was locked. “Keys?”

“In my hand.” She jiggled the keys in said hand, somewhere beneath the voluminous folds of what looked like a duvet. Then, with a sharp yelp of alarm, she clutched at her slipping cargo.

Seth leaped in to help—what else could he do?—and ended up with his arms full of soft duvet and his veins filled with the heat of body contact. Carefully, with a minimum of self-indulgence, he redistributed the weight.

“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” she said, her voice low and husky. They were standing close, and when he looked down into her face their eyes met and held, and the connection, her nearness, the four-day-old kiss pulsed through him with the slow, steady beat of desire.

“The door,” she said quickly. “Can you please get the door because this is starting to slip again?”

Yeah, and so was his willpower. One kiss, one taste, one fleeting contact arm-against-breast and he wanted so much more. He wanted—

With a snort of disgust, Seth swung away and strode to the door. He wanted a good hard kick to his senses. He wanted his head examined. He wanted to build a wall of aggravation to keep this insidious desire at bay.

“Any more in your car?”

“No.” She shook her head. “Mom had Lucas bring down the cot and some other bits and pieces earlier.”

“You didn’t think Lucas could have checked the fence, too? Seeing as he was here?”

She’d started fussing with the duvet and a baby blanket, folding them, smoothing them, but his snippy tone brought her head up slowly. “Yes, but I thought you’d do a better job, since you’ve probably faced the same toddler-proofing problems with Rachel.”

“It’s not rocket science.”

“If you didn’t want to help me,” she said, her tone frostier with each carefully delivered word, “you should have said so.”

She was right, but why waste her snooty mood? Why not slap a few more bricks on the wall?

“I’m not doing this to help you, Jillian.” He crossed to the living-room window and checked the catch. “I’m helping Anna. Seems like she can use all the help she can get.”

As he moved to the kitchen, he felt her gaze shadowing him every step of the way. Felt it in every tense muscle of his body, every wired nerve. In every brain cell that urged him to stop acting like a jerk and admit what he wanted, straight-up and honest.

Except what would be the point? He wanted her, but how could he have her?

“I’m glad you see it that way,” she said finally. “Anna can use a friend or two.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have felt the same way about her sister.”

“Why is that?”

Slowly he turned from the window and met her puzzled gaze. “She had an affair with a married man.”

He brushed by her on his way out of the kitchen, left her standing there in stunned silence, while he moved from room to room, systematically noting the locks that needed changing, the latches he could shore up. Work, system, routine: the props that had kept him functioning through his short and troubled marriage, and through his discovery of Karen’s infidelity.

Jason hadn’t cared that she wore a wedding band or that she was married to his own brother, but he wasn’t like his brother. He would never sleep with another man’s wife…or widow while she still wore that ring.

Why the hell did she still wear it?

Why the hell don’t you ask her?

Seth huffed out a breath. Yeah, it was time to talk. It was past time.

He walked to the last room and saw that she’d spread the brightly patterned duvet over a single bed and draped the baby’s blanket over the side of a cot. Jillian herself stood with her back to the door, holding a framed picture to the wall, and the sight of her there, amidst all the trappings of family, hit him hard.

Same as the day at the Vines when she’d taken Rachel to check out her pony collection. Same as Sunday evening, in Caroline’s garden, with Rachel’s pigtails mushed trustingly against her shoulder.

Damn, but this was supposed to be physical. The sweet ache of lust, the slow throb of sexual need. That’s all he wanted. No emotion, no happy families. None of that phony fantasy.

“You want that picture hung?” he asked, his voice as surly as his mood.

“Yes, but I can manage.” Cool, so very cool. And she didn’t even turn around. “Have you finished out there?”

“Checking the locks, yes.” He stalked over and took the picture out of her hands. “Center of this wall?”

For a second he thought she would argue—for a second he hoped she would—but then she nodded stiffly. “Where you have it is fine.”

Not a picture, he noticed after he’d positioned the small whitewood frame, but a message done in some kind of fancy stitching.

You’re braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, smarter than you think.

“Yours?” he asked.

“My mother made it for me.” Then she said, “It’s from Winnie-the Pooh.”

“Huh.” He straightened the frame and stepped back from the wall, his ragged mood soothed by the simple task of hammering a nail. And by her softly voiced explanation. “I didn’t know the bear was such a philosopher.”

“Christopher Robin said it to Pooh.”

“Not sage advice from mother to daughter?” he asked as he moved forward and thumbed the frame up a tenth on the left. He edged back and surveyed it through narrowed eyes. Gave a small grunt of satisfaction. Waited for Jillian’s response.

She couldn’t answer right away. She’d been so ready to show him the door, to slam it on his moody brooding back, but that quiet question turned her around all over again. The affirming message, stitched by her mother’s hand so many years ago, resounded through her with an escalating rhythm, reminding her of the decision she’d made two days before.

A decision made and put on hold.

Well, Christopher Robin, let’s see how brave and strong and smart I am.

Drawing a deep give-me-courage breath, she turned to face Seth. The hand she extended trembled like a newborn colt, but she still managed to hold her shoulders straight as she splayed the naked fingers of her left hand.

“It feels very strange after wearing it for so long.” She wriggled her fingers. Yes, it felt strange in several ways. Strange unfamiliar, strange scary, and strangely liberating now she’d finally taken this positive step forward, out of the shadows of the past.

“Why did you keep wearing it?” he asked after one long beat of intense silence.

“Not because I still felt married or bound to Jason.” And since her hand wouldn’t stop shaking, she tucked it in the pocket of her jeans. Then she lifted her chin and looked right at him. “I wore it as a reminder of all that marriage cost me. I’m ready to put that behind me, now. To move on.”

“What are you telling me?”

“I’m not telling, Seth, I’m asking.” Jillian paused to moisten her suddenly dry mouth. “What now, Seth? Now that I’m not wearing the ring?”