She shut down any hope before it could even bud.
What game was August playing now?
“You must really be desperate,” she said after she dredged up and disregarded possible reply after reply.
“Desperate?” he repeated, his blue eyes darkening to the color of an impending storm.
Beautiful.
She didn’t even try to look away; he was that mesmerizing.
“Yes,” she said, forcing herself to voice her painful realization. “Verflucht must mean more to you than anything or anyone else for you to suggest such a crazy thing.”
A dam had built up behind her eyes, behind her heart. Pain. Anger. Sorrow. And a loneliness so profound she didn’t think she’d ever find her way through it. But maybe, maybe if she let out what always felt like a scream building and really blasted him with it, she could finally move on. Away from him.
“Of course it’s important,” August said, blissfully unaware of the pit of anguish brewing inside her. “The ranch has been in my family for more than one hundred sixty years. This is my chance to put my mark on the land. To build my own legacy. With you,” he tagged on.
Right.
“You’re ranch all the way, Cat. Texas to your bones. Only now you’ll have a home where you can build your own legacy…with me,” he added as if that would be so appealing she should leap up and clap. “You know wine. You know how to create special events. Together we’ll own this town and the Hill Country AVA. We’ll be a destination winery. Not just for tastings but for experiences.”
“And you think we should get married to build up your winery, to create a wine group and create magical experiences?”
“It will be our winery,” he said. “Ours, Cat. Full partners in Verflucht and in life. Fifty-fifty. Or one hundred percenters if you want to think of it that way.”
He even smiled and his body relaxed a little. No way was August Wolf nervous or uncertain. Not him. He thought he had her hook, line, sinker.
Catalina looked out over the acres of planted land and the rolling hills beyond. She thought of the plans she’d drawn up for future blocks—varietals, facilities, staff, events. And the juice—the heart of it all—a seductive blending of art and science, nature and earth. All she had to say was yes, and no one would be able to take it all away from her—the work, the wine, the home, the family—ever again.
But all of those things came with August.
Depended on August.
“Wow.” The word felt hot as it emerged almost like she had a dragon inside. “Like I said, desperate.”
“Explain.” His eyes flashed, and she nearly smiled. He was always so sure of himself, and yet still so easy to rile if she didn’t fall immediately in with any of his plans.
Seriously?
“Pretty sure that’s self-explanatory.”
“We have a history, Cat. A long one. Best friends. Lovers. Yeah, there have been others.” He waved his hand, rending the other women she still couldn’t think about without feeling a little sick to nothing. She wanted to slap him. Scream at him. But then she’d show how much he’d hurt her. Again and again. “For both of us, I’m sure,” he added airily, like the other relationships he’d had in between them being together and the intervening years afterward had meant nothing to him.
And if that were true, how could she believe that she’d ever meant anything to him whereas he had…?
Don’t even think it.
She didn’t want to play this game or walk down memory lane with August. Give him an inch and he’d take ten thousand miles.
“We make a great team.”
So she’d thought. But then why had he wanted freedom before? And not just once, but twice?
“Marriage isn’t like hooking up,” she said stiffly. “For me it would be forever.”
“Of course,” he said quickly—too quickly in her opinion. “Although no need to make it sound like a jail sentence.”
He smiled. Perfect teeth. Whiter than summer clouds. One dimple. “It’s the perfect solution.” His fingers grazed her cheekbone and then his thumb traced along her jaw and pressed lightly on her pouty lower lip.
“To a problem we don’t even have.” She knocked away his hand. “You didn’t even suggest marriage when I found out I was pregnant.”
He took a step back as if she’d struck him. Immediately, his expression closed off.
“Not once in the few months we knew that we’d made a baby.”
Now it was his turn to look away. His good hand jammed in the pocket of his jeans, and he rocked back on his heels.
“I was barely twenty-one, Cat,” he said, his voice hardly audible. “Expanding my business on two fronts. The news took me by surprise.”
News? They had made a child. She’d already imagined the baby in her arms, the soft down of hair against her lips.
Don’t think. Don’t answer.
She’d lost the baby. The dam would break. Seven years later and she still would sometimes ache unexpectedly at the loss of their child.
“You were on birth control. Pregnancy wasn’t part of the plan.”
A mistake. Like she had been. A mistake of birth control her mother had reminded her about over and over until the day she’d walked out with her older, more pageant-worthy beautiful sister.
“My baby might not have been planned,” she hissed, “but he was wanted. I wanted him.”
“He? You knew the sex?” August looked like she’d struck him.
Had she? August was pale, with red slashes across his magazine-ready cheekbones.
“After the miscarriage I had to bring the…the…articles of conception to the hospital to…”
“What? Jesus, Cat.” He stumbled away from her and raked a hand unsteadily through his hair over and over, and then he grabbed it and pulled hard. “Why didn’t you tell me? I should have been there with you.”
“You were in Montana or Idaho on a jobsite. Busy.”
Too busy to text her. Too busy and probably embarrassed and uncomfortable to check on how she was feeling. He’d spent more time away than usual after she’d told him about the baby, and when he’d been home briefly, he’d been quiet. Sunk in thought. He’d treated her like heirloom china. He’d done a killer impression of a zombie.
“You didn’t even want to talk about the baby. Some support you would have been. It took me more than a week to call you and tell you because I was afraid you would be so relieved and happy, and I was so…so…lost.”
He made an indescribable noise and paced as if he were on a leash but couldn’t stay still. He pulled on his hair more, his face a stark mask of incredulity.
“You thought I’d be happy our baby died?”
Our baby. She’d never heard him refer to their baby like that. He’d shied from the word like a skittish thoroughbred. Catalina couldn’t respond. She shouldn’t have brought their baby up. She tried not to think about him—afraid she’d get so lost in grief again she’d barely function.
“For real, you thought I’d be happy.” His breaths came in pants.
Not a question. And when phrased like that, it sounded awful, but really, what had she been supposed to think? He’d never done the things she’d seen expectant fathers do in movies or commercials or magazine ads—hand on their partner’s swelling abdomen, a look of bliss on their face. Savoring the moment when for the first time in her life she’d had breasts. And her sex drive had been off the charts. But August hadn’t enjoyed her changing body. He’d seemed afraid of her. He’d shut down and become a stranger. The man who talked about everything enthusiastically had gone remote and silent. The man who couldn’t get enough of her body had stopped touching her.
“You knew we lost a son and you waited a week to casually drop the bomb because you thought, what, that I would be high-fiving my new distributor in Montana and Idaho? Or toasting the news with the contractor on the groundbreaking for my first project in Boulder?”
Her skin heated, prickled, and meeting his hurt and angr
y stare was one of the hardest things she’d ever done.
“We had a son,” she whispered. “He would have been seven. Diego’s age.”
She’d thought she’d have a piece of August. Forever. But like so many other things in her life, her hope was snatched away almost before she realized she had a chance for happiness and belonging.
“You thought I was that much of a selfish prick that I’d be happy my own child didn’t have a chance to live?” He stalked toward her, still limping, his movements not his normal fluid, athletic flow, but each word hit at the same time his boots hit the cement floor of the winery’s barrel room.
“I…I…” He clearly felt something now—too much of something. Cat swallowed hard. She wasn’t afraid of him and the emotions that clashed and radiated from him like he was a star about to implode, but she’d never seen him so out of control. August always kept himself tight—appearing easygoing, unaffected, even when going in for the kill.
For a moment she felt a stab of triumph. She was hurting him like he’d hurt her. But a bigger part of her wanted to soothe him.
And she despised the conflicting impulses.
She needed to be indifferent to August and his moods and emotions and wants, and most importantly of all his body. Even now with him injured, angry and confrontational, that heat woke low in her abdomen. Pulsed between her thighs and spread through her torso warming her cool, nervous heart. Her nipples peaked hard under her tank, and she was glad she’d worn a shirt over the tank.
Don’t think of his body.
She needed to think of something else—anything else.
“You were young,” she said, using his own excuse. “Building your business, and it’s not like you were in love with me or planning to have a future with me,” she forced herself to say the words. “You always said we were supposed to be fun. Friends and lovers who had each other’s backs no matter what.”
She repeated those words back. She’d memorized them because she’d heard them more than once. They’d been as reassuring as they’d been hurtful because a man who said things like that was not in love, was not thinking of proposing or being a family.
And she’d loved him so much.
He stopped in front of her. Pale. His breathing erratic. His jaw tight enough to crack teeth.
“Look me in the eye and say that again,” he demanded, his anger and tension barely leashed. “Tell me you think I am that big of prick that I would wish my own child dead.”
“August.” She could barely squeeze his name out between her frozen lips.
She hadn’t thought that. Not like that.
“Ahhhhh!” August ground out the sound between gritted teeth. And the cry echoed around the winery.
He bent over, his injured arm strapped to his heaving chest, and his uninjured arm wrapped around his body. The position had to hurt. He had fractured ribs. His breathing was harsh, uneven in the quiet. Catalina bit back a sob, stepped closer and a little to the side so that his hunched-over figure brushed her thighs. Her fingers shook, but she trailed them up and down his spine.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Catalina wanted to absorb his pain. Hold on to it because she knew how he felt. Alone. She hadn’t been able to share her feelings of loss with her family. Not ever. And friends didn’t get it. Didn’t want to hear about a miscarriage—especially one so long ago, even when some days it felt close. They’d look uncomfortable or sympathetic and dismiss the ‘event’ saying that it was ‘for the best’ and that ‘something had been wrong with the baby and nature was just doing its job.’
Cat had hated those words that had rung so hollow. To her, the miscarriage had always been a death. And for years she had felt as if the soul of her unborn baby fluttered helplessly around her as she went through what seemed like useless days and nights alone almost like a Ba, the ancient Egyptians’ spirit that had been depicted as a bird with a human head in hieroglyphs.
August remained hunched. Her palm rested on the base of his spine. She felt connected to him in a way that she hadn’t in so long.
And she couldn’t let that happen.
“That’s why your proposal is so stupid.”
He straightened to full height as if she’d jerked him up. His eyes practically shot sparks, and for a moment she wondered if his cheeks were wet.
She’d never been diplomatic with words, but stupid had been a poor choice even for her. Since August’s call, she’d felt catapulted into a past that still had a grip on her mind and body and jangled her nerves all to hell.
“It wouldn’t work.” She wanted to be clear. “But I do want the winemaker position. And with the right assistants and crew I can also manage the vineyard. I like quality control. This assures it, but I will need more staff.”
Because all she had was work going forward. And the more demanding the better. Less time to think, to dream, to wish, to see August finally find a woman he really wanted to propose to and make a family with. Catalina felt sick just thinking about it.
“We will need more staff,” he said.
“We,” she agreed, doing her best to face him calmly and not show how so many emotions were churning inside of her. She huffed out a breath feeling like she was going for broke. “I’m sorry to throw the past in your face like that,” she said stiffly.
“I’m not.” His voice was curt. And his gaze seemed searching in a way that made her feel like she was exposed. She even looked down quickly, needing to ensure that her clothes covered her properly.
“The baby is our past, Cat. We never talked about the baby before.” His eyes had darkened nearly to black with an emotion she didn’t dare name. “You were right. I was young. Immature. Freaked out. Self-absorbed. Total prick.”
Catalina blinked at the list and bit down on her lip to stem the flow of words that wanted to burst out in his defense.
“I let you down in the worse way a man can let a woman down,” The words sounded like they were wrung from deep in his body.
His confession eased something hard inside of her. What was wrong with her? She needed to cut the emotional ties to him that kept trying to connect like a weak Wi-Fi signal. She needed to think of him as a boss. An owner—hopefully a very long distance one. She had to emotionally move on because one thing she’d realized during this fraught let’s-do-a-deep-dive-into-the-past drama was that she hadn’t budged.
She still cared for August Wolf too much. No way would she think the L word.
“We should have talked.” He squared his shoulders and angled them back a little like he was getting ready to compete in a contest.
Obviously. This was just occurring to him now? Usually she lived to throw down, jump into the fire, and clash wills like swords. But the way August looked, like he was heading into battle, made her nervous.
She licked the inner rim of her bottom lip.
“Let’s just stick to the now,” she told him, keeping her voice and eye contract firm.
“We need to explore our past, Cat, so that we can have our future.”
Now that made her tummy flip practically into her throat.
“We’re just working together. Business partners. I’ll have twenty-five percent of Verflucht. You’ll keep everything else,” she said quickly. “And I know that you’ll be leaving the ranch often to keep your hotels, and brewery and pubs and distillery running smoothly and expanding,” she said quickly. “So I’ll be managing the vineyard and wine and tasting room, but of course I’ll keep you up to date.”
That sounded professional. Competent. Emotionally removed. Catalina felt proud of her control until she saw August’s reaction.
The slow smile that spread across his lips—lips that she was trying so hard not to remember against her mouth and other parts—lit a match. And then the left dimple. And then the smile lit his eyes.
“That’s not how I’m envisioning our marriage, Kitty Cat. Not. At. All.”
“We are not getting married,” she denied. “Stop playing.”
>
“Not playing.” He took her hand as if he had a right. His thumb stroked once then twice across her palm and then he lifted her hand to his lips and pressed a kiss in the exact center that she felt all the way to her toes.
She pulled away. “August.” It sounded more like a plea than a protest. He then pressed his palm against her abdomen down low. His eyes went black again. Smile gone.
“Did it hurt?”
So much. Physically and emotionally. But now she needed to get away from him. Away from his intensity and her reaction to him. Away from their past. Away from their present.
She wanted to run. Keep going.
Just like she had before, she realized with a thud of unwelcome awareness. They hadn’t talked about the miscarriage because she’d run. She’d sent a flurry of emails, called in a few favors and dropped her life to work a harvest halfway around the world as if she could outrun her loss. Outrun the pain.
She’d waited a week to tell him and by that time she had an internship, a plane ticket and a packed suitcase.
“Cat?” The concern in his voice reached deep inside of her.
She nodded.
Pain rippled over his face. Again he stepped into her space and rested his forehead against hers.
“I am so sorry.” His words feathered over her skin like gentle kisses. “I wish I’d been there for you. I wish I’d known how. I wish I hadn’t gone on the business trip. I wish you hadn’t taken the internship. I wish…”
She pressed her fingers against his lips.
“We were both at fault,” she interrupted, although she hadn’t felt like anything had been her fault at the time.
August had let her down.
Her body had let her down.
Fate had let her down. Again.
So she’d run.
“We made mistakes,” she said. “It’s over.”
“It doesn’t feel over.” One hand smoothed down her spine and anchored on her hip. “It feels like today and until we sort our past out, we can’t sort our present.”
When did August Wolf become the voice of emotional reason?
A Bride for the Texas Cowboy Page 10