Chapter Eight
Hallie shifted the truck into park in Julian’s driveway, heartbeat wild as a jackrabbit’s. There he was, stretching in the front yard. Deep, long movements that had her head tilting to the right unconsciously before she realized it. Wow. She’d never seen those kind of shorts before. They were gray. Loose sweatpants material that stopped just above the knee, a drawstring hanging down over the crotch. Which had to be why her eye was continually drawn there. Among other places. He could have cracked walnuts with those thigh muscles. Squeezed grapes in those butt cheeks. They were on a vineyard, after all.
“You should be locked up,” Hallie muttered, forcibly closing her eyes.
A full day had passed since she’d last seen him and—good news—she hadn’t been slapped with a restraining order yet. Which was generous of Julian, assuming he’d even found the letter in the first place. But that was the thing—she had no idea. And as the queen of avoidance, she would rather not know. Sneaking around for the rest of her life sounded so much easier.
Why did he have to be standing outside? She’d timed her arrival with the end of his run, hoping she could do her planting while he was in the shower and skedaddle again before he ever knew she was there. Now he was watching her through the windshield with that impeccably raised eyebrow. Because he knew she’d written the letter and found her cutely pathetic, like a puppy? Because he couldn’t believe the audacity of her, to show up after such a humiliating display of drunken affection? Or had the Napa winds been in her favor yesterday morning and the letter was halfway to Mexico by now?
Act natural.
Stop smiling like you just got your tax return.
You’re still waving. It’s been, like, fifteen seconds of gesticulation.
In her defense, Julian was sweaty—and that would turn a nun’s head. His white shirt was sodden, straight down the middle, plastering the material to his chest. With the sun beating down on him, she could see through the white cotton to his black chest hair and the hills and valleys of muscles it decorated. God almighty, celibacy was no longer working out for her. At all. A virgin in heat is what she’d become.
She could no longer delay getting out of the truck to face her fate. The dogs were in doggy daycare today, so she couldn’t even use them as a diversion. A few words out of his mouth and she would know whether or not he’d found and read the letter, right? Maybe he was even accustomed to women professing their admiration of him and this would be no big deal. They could laugh about it! And then she could go home, curl up, and die.
Hallie alighted from the truck on shaky legs, lowering the rear gate.
“Need some help?” he called.
Did he mean the psychiatric kind? If so, that would indicate he’d read her confession.
Hallie peeked over her shoulder to find him coming toward her with his usual commanding grace, expression inscrutable. Even in her nervous state, every step this man took in her direction turned a screw in a different location. Deep, deep in her belly. Between her legs. Just above the notch at the center of her collarbone. Was her distress obvious to the naked eye? It didn’t appear so, since he continued to come closer instead of calling an ambulance.
As soon as she was alone with her phone, she would google, How Horny is Too Horny? Those search results ought to be interesting.
“Hi, Julian,” she sang. Too loudly.
“Hello, Hallie,” Julian said seriously, scrutinizing her closely. Wondering if she was the secret admirer? Or perhaps being fully aware of it already? For all she knew, she’d signed her actual name at the bottom. “What are you planting today?”
Oh. Oh, sweet relief. The wind blew the letter away.
Either that or he was being extremely kind.
Those were the only two options. Obviously he wasn’t interested in her now, thanks to the sloppy admission. This man would only respond to a sophisticated approach to romance. A colleague introducing him to a young professional at a gala. Something like that. Not a spewing of infatuation scrawled in the back of a spiral notebook. And that was fine, because they’d agreed to be friends, right? Yes. Friends. So thank God for the Napa winds.
“Your mother asked for color, so we’re going with some flannel bush,” Hallie said. “Those are the yellow flowered plants you see in the bed of my truck. I’m going to come back tomorrow with some Blackbeard Penstemon, too.”
“This is going to be an ongoing, long-term project.” He nodded once. “I see.”
“Yes.” The tightness at the corners of his mouth made her heart sink down to her knees. “I know you’re working. I won’t make a lot of noise.”
He nodded again. The wind tripped around them, blowing a curl across her mouth, and he surprised Hallie by reaching for it. She held her breath, lungs seizing almost painfully, but he stopped, drawing his hand back at the last second and shoving it into his pocket with a low curse. “And what are we going to do about you?”
Breathe before you pass out. “Me?”
“Yes.” That word hung so long in the air, she swore she could see the outline of those three letters. Y-E-S. “You’re more . . . disruptive to me than the dogs,” he said, almost so quietly that she didn’t hear him. “Hallie.”
That grinding snap of her name was the equivalent of fingertips raking downward over her breasts. Was he admitting to being attracted to her? Like, out loud? Between that and him almost touching one of her curls, she was in imminent danger of passing out from sheer shock and happiness. “I can’t do anything about that. Sorry,” she whispered. “However, I am not sorry that I spent last night watching Time Martians On. So, you really believe the government is hiding an entire extraterrestrial colony in New Mexico?”
“I do not believe any such thing,” he murmured, leaning closer. So close she was beginning to grow dizzy. “As I said, they were very liberal with the editing button.”
“You’re definitely on a watch list, nonetheless,” she breathed.
He hummed in his throat. “Did it . . . make you smile? Watching the documentary?”
How could one man be so magnetic? “So much that my face hurt afterward.”
A muscle popped in the history professor’s cheek. His right hand flexed at his side. And then he forcibly withdrew from the intimacy of their conversation. So abruptly that she almost staggered under the sudden absence of it. “Good.” He looked back toward the house, speaking after a few beats of silence. “I apologize for my mood. My sister, Natalie, has become my new roommate. At this rate, maybe it would be better if I rented office space in town.”
She swallowed her disappointment. “Maybe it would be.”
His attention slid down to her mouth and away, leaving her pulse rapping in her temples. Drunk or not, she’d meant every word of her letter. Her attraction to Julian Vos was twice as potent as before, when he’d been just a memory. A two-dimensional person on the internet. Then he’d gone and delivered a top-notch prank call and saved her from the Tweed Twit. Now she couldn’t stop wondering what else he was hiding under the surface.
She wanted to know.
Unfortunately, he found her presence disruptive.
Where was the lie? But did he find her distracting in a sexy way? If so, he clearly didn’t want the distraction. Or perhaps . . . the temptation.
Lord, to be a temptation to Julian Vos. She’d throw out her entire bucket list.
As soon as she got around to making one.
Was it possible she did tempt him? The way he continued to catalogue different regions of her body, seeming to get stuck on the area just above her knees, made her wonder if the answer was yes. Unless this burdensome horniness was playing tricks on her. Entirely possible. Lately she’d been finding the angles of her gardening hoe more and more charming.
Flirtatious, even.
A gardening tool could never make her heart race like this, though. The way it had done when he stood up for her at the scene of her—totally justified—UNCORKED crime.
If she’s upset, I’m upset.
Hallie found herself staring into space at the oddest times, repeating those words. Wondering how seriously he’d meant them or if he’d just been trying to defuse the situation as quickly as possible. It scared her how much she wished for the former. Wished for a man this good and honest and valiant to care about her feelings. Enough to not want them hurt.
She waited for Julian to leave, to go back into the house—and he seemed on the verge of doing so at any second, but he never made the move. Simply continuing to study her as if she were a riddle. “So . . .” Hallie cleared the rust from her throat. “Natalie’s visit wasn’t planned?”
He scoffed, crossed his wrists at his back. “No. God forbid anyone have a plan.”
Ouch. She was definitely not a sexy distraction to him.
“Hey, look at me,” she said with determined sunniness. “Here before the kickoff of your fanatical writing sessions.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Did you plan that?”
“Uh . . . no.” That would mean she’d been paying way too close attention. Heh. “My day just kind of started . . . earlier than usual. A squirrel in the backyard set off a howling event before the crack of dawn, and I figured since I was already awake, might as well plant some things.”
“And so,” he said in a very professorial tone, “without the squirrel’s intervention . . .”
“I’d have been here around dinnertime.” She hefted one of the larger bushes, taking a moment to smell a yellow bloom. “Between noon and seven, at least.”
“You’re a menace.” He took the bush from her hands, jerked his chin at the rest of the lot, as if to say, I can take another one. “No, Natalie showed up out of the blue. We didn’t know she was coming in from New York.” Grooves formed on either side of his mouth as he glanced back toward the house. “She didn’t seem to know she was coming.”
“Didn’t say why?”
“A break from work. No further details.”
Hallie hid a smile, but he caught it and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Is it gnawing at you?” she asked. “The vagueness of it all.”
“That smile suggests you’ve answered your own question.” Again, his gaze dipped to her mouth, but this time it lingered twice as long. “Then again, you’re usually smiling.”
He’d noticed her smile?
“Unless I’m masterminding a cheese heist,” she responded, breathless.
“Yes, unless that,” he said quietly, brows pulling together. “That man hasn’t gone near you again, has he?”
His dangerous—almost protective?—tone of voice made her fingers dig into her palms. In a way, he’d claimed her as a responsibility. Someone to look out for. Because that was just so totally Julian Vos, wasn’t it? Everyone’s hero. Champion of men. “No. I haven’t seen him.”
“Good.”
Trying and failing not to feel flustered, Hallie picked up the other bush, and they walked toward the front yard, side by side, their shadows stretching on the grass to highlight their difference in height. The companionable feeling of carrying plants with Julian made fizz pop in Hallie’s bloodstream. Man, oh man, she had it so bad. For a split second, she even felt a niggle of regret that he wouldn’t see the letter. God knew she’d never have the courage to say those words in person.
“Um.” She swallowed. “Your mother must be thrilled to have both of her children home, though.”
A humorless laugh. “I guess you could say it’s complicated.”
“I know a little about complicated relationships with mothers.”
Her gait faltered slightly. Did she just bring up her mother? Out loud? Maybe because she’d been having digital, one-sided conversations with Julian’s face on YouTube for so long, she’d forgotten this one was real? Or perhaps talking to him in person seemed surprisingly easier than it was when she fantasized about them riding through a misty vineyard on horseback. Whatever the cause, she’d said the words. It was done. And she certainly didn’t expect him to turn with such rapt attention. As if she’d shocked him with something less than teasing or small talk about flowers.
“How do you know?” he asked, setting down the bushes. He took hers and put it on the ground, as well. “Does your mother live in St. Helena?”
“She grew up here. After high school, she ran away to Los Angeles. That’s where I was . . .” Her face heated, definitely turned red, and he watched it all happen with a small, fascinated smile. “I was conceived there. Apparently. No further details.”
“The vagueness of it all,” he said, echoing her earlier words.
“Yes,” she said on a big breath. “She tried raising me on her own. We came here, from time to time, when she needed to recharge. Or long enough to soften up my grandmother into loaning her some money. Then we’d be off again. But by the time I reached high school, she finally admitted I would be better off here. I still see her every couple of years. And I love her.” Hallie wished she could rub at the discomfort in her throat but didn’t want him interpreting the action. Or chalking it up to pain that had been building over a lifetime. “But it’s complicated.”
A low grunt from Julian. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve given me the CliffsNotes?”
“Maybe I have. Maybe I haven’t.” Hallie tried to smile, but it wobbled. “The vagueness of it all,” she tacked on in an almost whisper.
Julian stared at her long enough that she started to fidget.
“What?” she finally prompted.
He shifted, drawing those long fingers through his hair, still sweaty and windswept from his run. “I was thinking, in order to make this an even exchange, maybe I should give you the CliffsNotes version of why the Vos family, or what’s left of it in Napa, is complicated.”
“What’s stopping you?”
Mystified eyes flickered over her face, her hair. “The fact that I’ve completely lost track of time. And I don’t do that. Not around anyone but you, apparently.”
Hallie had no idea how to respond. Could only stand there and savor the information that she made this man forget the most important component of his world. And how . . . that could either be a great thing or literally the worst possible thing.
“Makes me wonder how long you could make me . . .” He dragged that bottom lip through his teeth while seemingly transfixed by the pulse on her neck. “Lose track of time.”
That pulse sped up like a sports car on an open road. “I have no idea,” she murmured.
He took a step closer, then another, a muscle bunching in his cheek. “Hours, Hallie? Days?” A raw sound ground up from his throat, one hand lifting to run a single finger down the side of her neck. “Weeks.”
Do I just jump him now? What was the alternate option? Because her thighs were actually trembling under the onslaught of his full intensity. That exploring gaze. His deep, frustrated tone of voice. Before she could fully convince herself they were talking about the same thing—sex, right?—behind her, a shout went up from the vineyard and they both turned, watching the tops of several heads move down the horizontal rows, all gathering in one place.
She turned back to Julian and found him frowning, his chest lifting and falling a lot faster than usual. “Looks like they’re having a problem,” he said hoarsely, clearing his throat. After that, he seemed to hesitate, those long fingers flexing. “I should see if they need help.”
Nothing happened. He didn’t move. The shouting continued.
Hallie shook herself free of the lingering need to get up close and personal with the apparent game-changing invention of sweatpants shorts. Did he seem uncertain about walking into his own family vineyard? Why? “I can come with you,” she offered, not sure why. Only that it felt like the right thing to do.
Those eyes cut to hers, held, as he inclined his head. “Thank you.”
* * *
When Hallie and Julian approached the group of men—and one woman—among the vines, every head swiveled in their direction. Conversation ceased for several seconds.
“Mr. Vos,” blurted one of the men, the tan of his cheeks deepening. “Sorry. Were we being too loud?”
“Not at all, Manuel,” Julian said quickly, flashing him a reassuring smile. Silence fell again. So long that Hallie looked up at Julian and found his jaw in a bunch, his eyes wandering over the rows of grapes. “It just sounded like something was wrong. Can I do anything to help?”
Manuel looked horrified at Julian’s offer. “Oh no. No, we have it under control.”
“The destemmer is broken again,” the woman said, giving Manuel an exasperated look. “Damn thing breaks once a week.” Manuel buried his head in his hands. “What? It does!”
“Does Corinne know about this?” Julian asked, frowning.
“Yes.” Manuel hedged. “I can fix the destemmer, but we’re already short-staffed. We can’t lose one more person out here. These grapes need to come off the vine today or we won’t stay on schedule.”
“Corinne is stressed enough,” said the woman, whipping a handkerchief from her pocket and swiping sweat from her brow. “We don’t need another delay.”
“My mother is stressed,” Julian responded tightly. “That’s news to me.”
Just like yesterday, when she’d informed Julian of the slow decline of Vos Vineyard, Hallie could see that he truly had no idea. He’d been kept completely in the dark. Why?
“I can call my son home from summer school—” started Manuel.
“No, don’t do that,” Julian broke in. “I’ll pick the grapes. Just show me where to start.” No one moved for long moments. Until Julian prompted Manuel, the apparent vineyard manager. “Manuel?”
“Uh . . . sure. Thank you, sir.” He stumbled in a circle, making a hasty gesture at one of the other men. “What are you waiting for? Get Mr. Vos a bucket.”
“I’ll take one, too,” Hallie piped up automatically, shrugging when Julian gave her a measuring look. “I was going to spend the day in the dirt anyway, right?”
His attention flickered down to her knees. “I think you mean every day.”
“Careful,” she returned. “Or I’ll pinch your grapes.”
Manuel coughed. The woman laughed.
It was tempting to go on staring into Julian’s eyes all day, especially now, when they were sparkling with that elusive humor, but Manuel gestured for them to follow, and they did, trailing behind him several yards into the vines. “This is where we left off,” Manuel said, gesturing to a half-picked section. “Thank you. We’ll have the destemmer up and running in time for the grapes to come in.”
“No need to thank us,” Julian said, hunkering down in front of the vines. He stared at them thoughtfully for a moment, then glanced back at Manuel. “Maybe we could sit down later and you could let me know what else around the vineyard needs attention.”
Manuel nodded, his shoulders drooping slightly with relief. “That would be great, Mr. Vos.”
The manager left, and they got to work, which she would have done much faster if Julian Vos wasn’t kneeling beside her in sweaty clothing, with a bristly jaw, his long, incredible fingers wrapping around each grape and tugging. Lord, did she experience that tug everywhere.
Hide your gardening tools.
“The quality of these grapes is not what it should be. They’ve overcropped,” Julian said, removing a cluster of grapes from the vine and holding it out to Hallie. “See the lack of maturation in the cane? They weren’t given room to breathe.”
His professor voice sounded so different out in the open like this, as opposed to pumping from her laptop speakers. “Hey, I just drink the wine,” she murmured, wetting her lips. “I don’t know the intimate details.” He had the nerve to smirk at her while adding the grape cluster to his bucket. “You are one of those professors who gives a test review that covers nothing that ends up being on the actual test, aren’t you?”
His gaze zipped to her, with something close to surprised amusement. “The entire body of material should be studied.”
“I thought so,” she drawled, trying not to let it show how flushed and sensitive his attention made her skin. “Classic Jeopardy! enthusiast move.”
He chuckled, and she couldn’t help but marvel at how different he looked in this setting. At first, he’d been tense, but he relaxed the longer they moved down the row in tandem, plucking grapes from their homes. “What did you do after high school?” he asked her.
“Stayed right here. Went to Napa Valley College. By then, my grandmother had already made me a co-owner of Becca’s Blooms, so I needed to stay close.”
He hummed. “And did you have professors like me in school?”
“I doubt there are any professors exactly like you. But I could usually tell on the first day of a semester which classes I would be dropping.”
“Really. How?”
Hallie sat back on her haunches. “Cryptic comments about being prepared. Or understanding the full scope of the course material. That’s how I knew their tests would try to trick us. Also that they were most likely sadists in their spare time.”
His laughter was so unexpected, Hallie’s mouth fell open.
She’d never heard him laugh before—not like that. So rich and resonant and deep. It appeared he’d startled himself, too, because he cleared his throat and quickly returned his attention to the vine. “It’s safe to say you would have dropped my class.”
She shifted on her knees beside him, still awash in the sound of his laughter. “Probably.”
Yeah, right. She’d have sat front and center in the first row.
“More likely, I would have dropped you the tenth time you showed up late.”
Now it was her turn to smirk. “Actually, I managed to make it to most of my classes on time, obviously with some exceptions. It was . . . easier back then. My grandmother wasn’t a strict person, but she’d cross her arms and look stern while I set my alarm. I made the effort because I couldn’t stand disappointing her.”
The rest of her explanation hung unspoken in the air between them.
Showing up on time no longer mattered, because she had no one to disappoint.
No one but herself.
That thought made her frown.
“It helps me to write my schedule down, too,” he said. “I would have liked her.”
“What happens when you don’t write down your plans?” she asked, surprised to see his fingers pause midair, the line of his jaw turning brittle. “Do you still . . . keep them as usual? Or does not seeing them on paper throw you completely off track?”
“Well, I definitely didn’t have picking grapes on my schedule today and I seem to be doing fine.” In one fluid motion, they crab walked to the right and continued picking. The action was so seamless, they traded a fleeting look of surprise, but neither one of them addressed their apparent grape-harvesting chemistry. “Schedules are vital to me,” he continued a moment later. “But I’m not totally thrown off by a deviation. It’s more when things sort of . . . move beyond the bounds of my control that I don’t . . . maintain the course.”
“I hope you’re not revealing your rage-control problem while we’re alone in the middle of this vineyard.”
“Rage control,” he scoffed. “It’s not like that. It’s more of an attack of nerves. Followed by sort of the opposite. I just . . . check out. In this case, I did it when my family needed me most.”
Panic attacks. That’s what Julian was getting at. And it was telling that he couldn’t call them by their proper name. Was he simply irritated by something he saw as a weakness or was he in denial?
“That must be why your colleague’s breakdown affected you so much,” she said, worried she was overstepping, but unable to help it. Not when they were side by side like this, hidden from the rest of the world by six-foot vines, and she wanted so badly to know the inner workings of his mind, this man she’d been fascinated by for so long. He was nothing like she expected, either, but his flaws didn’t disappoint her at all. They actually made her less self-conscious. Less . . . alone in her own shortcomings.
“Yes, I suppose so,” he said, finally. Just when she thought the subject was closed, he continued, though the words didn’t seem to come naturally. “My father’s head would explode if he knew I had my hands on these grapes,” he muttered. “He doesn’t want me anywhere near the operation of the winery. Because of what I just told you.”
It took her a full ten seconds to grasp his meaning. “Because of . . . anxiety?”
He cleared his throat loudly by way of answering.
“Julian . . .” Her hands dropped to her bent thighs. “That’s the single most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
“You didn’t see me. That night. The fire. What came after.” He used his shoulder to wipe away a bead of sweat, remaining silent for a moment. “He’s well within his rights to ask me to keep a distance. This morning, the destemmer breaks down, tomorrow there will be a lost shipment and an angry vendor pulling out. This is not for someone with my temperament, and he did the hard thing by pointing it out.”
“What happened the night of the fire?”
“I’d rather not, Hallie.”
She tamped down her disappointment. “That’s fine. You don’t have to tell me. But, look, you handled the broken destemmer just fine. You filled the need as efficiently as you do everything else.” Okay, it sounded like she’d been paying way too much attention. Sort of like a secret admirer might? “Or, at least, that’s how you seem to me. Efficient. Thoughtful.” She swallowed the wild flutter in her throat. “Heroic, even.”
Thankfully, he didn’t appear to pick up on the notes of swooning admiration in her voice. Instead, a trench formed between his eyebrows. “I think my mother might need help. If she does, she’s not going to ask for it.” He pulled down a grape cluster, studying it with what she could only assume was an expert eye. “But my father . . .”
“Isn’t here.” She nudged the bucket toward him. “You are.”
He scrutinized Hallie. And went right on looking until she felt her color rising. He seemed almost surprised that getting the worry off his chest hadn’t been a waste of time.
When the quiet had stretched too long, Hallie searched for a way to fill it. “It’s funny, you know? We’re both shackled by these parental expectations, but we’re dealing with them in totally opposite ways. You plan everything down to the minute. The very peak of adult responsibility. Meanwhile I . . .”
“You what?” he prompted, watching her closely.
Hallie opened her mouth to offer an explanation, but it got stuck. Like one of those king-sized gumballs, trapped behind her jugular. “I, um . . .” She coughed into the back of her wrist. “Well, I guess unlike you, I’m kind of self-destructive, aren’t I? I calmed down a lot for Rebecca. Because of her. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been well organized. Never owned a planner in my life. But lately, I think maybe I’ve been intentionally getting myself into messes . . .”
Seconds passed. “Why?”
“So I don’t have to slow down and think about . . .” Who I am now. Without Rebecca. Which version of myself is the real one. “Which style of necklace to wear,” she said on a laughing exhale, gesturing to the eclectic collection around her neck. There was no chance he was buying the way she made light of their discussion, but thankfully, he just studied her in that quiet, discerning way, instead of prodding her to elaborate. She couldn’t even if she wanted to. Not with these troubling revelations still so fresh in her head. “I guess we better finish up,” she muttered. “I have a few other appointments today that I’m considering keeping.”
“There you go. Already turning over a new leaf,” he said quietly, humor flickering in his eyes—and something more. Something that had his lids growing heavy, his focus sinking to her mouth. The notch of her throat. Her breasts. She would normally take offense to that, except when this very disciplined man checked her out inappropriately, as if he couldn’t help it to save his life, her vagina was the opposite of offended.
If she leaned a few inches to the left, they would? Could? Kiss?
Weren’t they about to kiss when they were interrupted? Or had she imagined it?
Despite her sad lack of make-out partners throughout her life, she could tell he was considering it. Very. Strongly. They’d given up any pretense of harvesting grapes, and he’d wet his lips. Holy shit. This had to be a fever dream, right?
She’d had plenty of those starring this man.
“If I regret one thing about not having a direct hand in making wine at this vineyard . . .” He leaned in, letting out a long, heavy breath into her hair. “It’s that I can’t watch you drink a glass of Vos wine and know my efforts are sitting on that tongue.”
Oh my God. Oh my God. Goose bumps made their presence known on every inch of her skin, her blood turning hot and languid. Definitely not a dream. She couldn’t have come up with that line to save her life. “I mean . . .” Her voice wobbled. “We could pretend.”
“As friends, right, Hallie?” His lips brushed her ear. “Is that what you suggested to me?”
“Yes. Technically.”
“My friend who I think about at night in her polka dot bra. That friend?”
Wow. New fave undergarment.
Focus. Don’t get pulled under. There was a reason she’d suggested friendship, right? Yes. “You need control and punctuality.” His teeth closed around her ear, bit lightly and licked the spot, leaving her moaning, her fingers itching to rub her sensitive nipples through the front of her shirt. “I’m like a leaf blower to those things.”
“Oh, I’m well aware. I wish I could remember that when I look at you.”
Hallie’s ears echoed with the beats of her twisting heart. How could she do anything but kiss this man who was equally incredible in the past and present? How?
She turned her head slightly to the left, and his mouth skated across her cheek, getting closer. This was it. Finally. She was going to kiss Julian Vos, and he was even better than her memory. But there was something about the setting that tugged hard at her memory. The last time they’d almost kissed was right here in this very vineyard—a moment that had ruined her forever. And he didn’t even recall it. Still.
Didn’t she have more pride than to pucker up after he’d implied without words that she was so forgettable? Yes. She did. Not to mention . . . she was reeling a little bit after her trip down Self-Discovery Lane. Her frame of mind was scattered. Enough to act in character and do something she might possibly regret. Like give in to her attraction to Julian while her disappointment over his lack of memory still jabbed sharply upward beneath her skin. After acknowledging the root of her recent behavior, she was too aware of those faults to indulge them now. If he just remembered her, maybe she could justify turning her head that final inch.
Meeting his parted lips with her own.
But while he regarded her with enough lust to power Canada, there wasn’t any of the recognition she needed to make this okay. Furthermore . . . she didn’t know if she wanted to be this man’s leaf blower. Any kind of relationship with her would be bad for him, wouldn’t it? Even if it was strictly physical. Did she want to be bad for him?
“I better go,” she said, questioning her decision more with every passing second, especially when the fingers of his left hand curled in the dirt. As if restraining himself from reaching for her. “See you soon, Julian.”
“Yes,” he rasped, visibly shaking himself. “Thank you for the help.”
“Of course.” Hallie started to pick her way down the row, but hesitated, looking back to find the professor watching her from beneath two drawn brows. The last thing she wanted was to walk away and leave things awkward or heavy, when talking to him had unlocked something big. When he’d shared so much with her in return. “Hey, Julian?”
“Yes?”
She hesitated for a beat, before blurting, “Abraham Lincoln had anxiety. Panic attacks ran in his family.”
His expression didn’t change, but he shifted slightly. “Where did you learn that?”
“Jeopardy!,” she answered, smirking.
A laugh crashed out of him. That was two in the space of one afternoon. She held it to her chest like a cozy sweater, sort of wishing she’d let go of her pride and kissed him after all. What was she going to do about her feelings for this man? “You watch?” he asked.
She turned and walked away, calling over her shoulder, “I’ve caught it once or twice.”
His chuckle was lower this time, but she could feel his gaze on her back, following her out of the vines.
* * *
Julian felt different when he walked into the guest room bathroom late that afternoon. Not bothering to turn on the light, he stopped in front of the mirror and observed himself streaked in dirt and sweat from hours spent harvesting grapes. The sun’s muffled shine through the frosted glass window backlit his body, so he could barely see his own shadowed expression. Only enough to know it was unfamiliar. A cross between satisfied at having sunk his fingers into the soil of the family land for the first time in years . . . and haggard with hunger.
“Hallie,” he said, floating her name into the silent bathroom.
He thickened so fast in his briefs that his dirt-caked hands curled into fists on the sink. Squeezed. With a jerky motion, he turned on the faucet, and after adding several pumps of soap, he scrubbed the earth from his palms, knuckles, forearms. But even watching the soil circle the drain reminded him of the gardener and her dirty knees. Hands that always looked fresh from planting something. The polka dot bra that remained pristine and protected inside of her shirt . . . and how she’d look stripping it off after a long day.
“Fuck. Not again.”
Even as he issued that denial, his teeth were clenched, his breaths coming faster and fogging up the mirror. His brain didn’t issue an order to shove down the waistband of his filthy sweatpants shorts, his hands simply knew beating off was inevitable when the polka dot bra came into play. God, the irony that something so frivolous could literally make him pant was galling—but his dick didn’t care. It strained free of his waistband, and he gripped it hard, biting off a moan.
Apparently Julian wasn’t half as evolved as he’d believed himself to be, because his fantasies about Hallie were increasingly sexist. In a way that was unforgivable. This time, she was stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire and no idea how to change it. She almost definitely had that knowledge in real life. Did his dick want to hear it? Hell no.
It just wanted that reward of Hallie sighing in relief as he wrestled the spare tire out of her trunk and jacked up her vehicle, dogs and all.
No, wait, the dogs are at home. It’s quiet, except for the sound of him tightening the lug nuts. She leans against the truck in nothing but that polka dot bra and jean shorts, watching him work and smiling.
Christ, yes. She’s smiling.
Julian groaned while mentally picturing those unbelievable lips spreading into her cheerful grin, propping a forearm against the mirror and burying his face in the crook of his elbow, his opposite hand moving in hard strokes, the base of his spine already beginning to gather and jolt. It wasn’t even funny how hard he was going to come. How hard he climaxed every time he gave in to his infatuation with Hallie.
Infatuation.
That’s what this was.
Infatuation was why, in his fantasy, he imagined her running to him, throwing her arms around his neck and thanking him breathlessly, her tits barely contained inside the bra now. Just bare and bouncy against his chest, her hand exploring the front of his pants, her eyes widening with appreciation at the length of him, her frilly bra just kind of disintegrating into the ether of his daydream. Along with the jean shorts. Still smiling.
She was still smiling as he took those generous tits in his hands and guided them to his mouth, one at a time, sucking her hardening nipples and listening to her whimper his name, her fingers clumsily yanking down his zipper.
“Please, Julian,” she purred, jacking him off, mimicking his increasingly frantic movements over the bathroom sink. “Don’t make me wait for this.”
“As long as this isn’t out of gratitude for changing your tire,” he rasped back, making a pitiful attempt to prevent his fantasy self from ditching ethics altogether. “Only because you’re hot for it. Only because you want it.”
“I want it,” she moaned, arching her back against the truck. “No, I need you.”
“I give you what you need, do I?”
"Yes,” she whispered, twisting a blond curl around her finger. “You make me happy.”
Lights out. No matter where the fantasies started, he knew only precious seconds were left when she said those words. You make me happy. His harsh inhales and exhales filling the bathroom, he mentally stooped down, lifted her naked body against the side of the truck, and entered her with a grunt, watching her face transform with total euphoria—this was his dream, after all—her pussy pulsing, gripping him nice and tight. Slippery. Heaven. “Such a good girl. So fucking wet,” he praised in her ear, because even the imaginary version of this woman deserved worship, especially when he was driving into her so hard, the encroaching orgasm putting him on that desperate edge. “If this was real life, sweetheart, I’d take better care of you than this.”
“I know,” she gasped, her curls and tits and necklaces shaking, moving with her, part of her. “But it’s a dream, so be as rough as you want.”
“As if I could help it when you make me feel like I’m going to fucking die at any second. Unless I’m inside you. Unless I’m as close as possible to that smile, that voice, your . . . sunlight.”
Julian choked on that truth into the crook of his elbow, stroking fast enough to break the sound barrier, picturing Hallie’s legs around his hips, her head thrown back in a throaty call of his name, her pussy cinching up with an orgasm, their mouths latched together while he joined her with a final ram of his hips, impaling her maddening body to the truck.
“I’d make you come just like this. Hard and wild. That’s not a fucking dream, do you understand me?”
“Yes,” she said on a shaky rush of breath, still trembling against him, even while she blinked up at him with a sweep of eyelashes. “Just like I’m making you come right now.”
A sizzle in his loins was followed by a trap door opening, all of the pressure and sexual frustration escaping. He dug his teeth into the muscle of his forearm, the tension that had been coiling leaving him in sharp waves while he still thought of her. Those eyes and breasts and filthy knees.
Julian couldn’t stop thinking of her when it was over, either—and he was beginning to wonder if a moment’s peace from the captivating gardener was nothing more than wishful thinking.
* * *
That evening, Hallie walked into her house and stopped just inside the door, seeing the mess through fresh eyes. It hadn’t always been like this. Not when Rebecca was alive. Not even immediately following her death. Sure, Hallie’s heartbeat naturally spelled out the word “clutter” in Morse code, but the disorganization was nearly a hazard now. Precarious stacks of mail and paperwork. Laundry that would never see the inside of her dresser. Dog paraphernalia galore.
Her mind was still stuck in the vineyard with Julian, replaying their conversation over and over.
I’m kind of self-destructive, aren’t I?
I think maybe I’ve been intentionally getting myself into messes . . .
So I don’t have to slow down and think about . . .
Anything, really. Wasn’t that the truth? As long as the whirlwind of trouble continued to spin, she wouldn’t have to figure out how to move forward. And as who? As Hallie, the dutiful granddaughter? As one of the many personalities crafted by her mother? Or was she a version of herself she hadn’t truly gotten to know yet?
Only one thing was for certain. When she was talking to Julian in the vineyard, she didn’t feel as alone. In fact, everything inside of her had quieted and she’d seen the source of her problem, even if she had no earthly clue how to solve it. The strict control Julian kept on himself had grounded her, too, in those stolen moments . . . and she wanted more of them.
It took Hallie a good fifteen minutes to find the notebook she’d purchased in the stationery shop, thanks to the General partially burying it in the backyard. And another ten minutes to locate a pen that wasn’t out of ink. She started off writing a to-do list, but stalled out almost immediately after writing Clean Out Refrigerator and Cancel Subscriptions for Phone Apps You Are No Longer Using. What she really wanted was to be back in the vineyard, talking to Julian. There was something about his directness, the intent way he listened, and his own willingness to admit his flaws, that made it so easy to dig into her own. To see them clearly.
After today, she was pretty sure Julian was attracted to her. They could talk about personal things like they’d been having heart-to-hearts their entire lives. But she’d been living with her feelings for Julian so long, it was almost hard to be around him knowing his couldn’t measure up. It was so impossible, she’d actually suggested they be friends only, just to avoid that potentially painful speech from him.
But here, in her letters, she could let her admiration pour out, almost in a therapeutic way.
And so, instead of being responsible and outlining a way out of #thatclutterlife, she found herself turning to a fresh page.
Dear Julian . . .