“I didn’t mean—”
“Save it.” Though clearly angry, she dialed it all back and stooped to face Kendra with a smile. “Thanks for letting me into the dragon’s den, sweetie. I’ll see you later.”
“No!” Kendra grabbed Livia’s hand and whirled on him with a healthy dose of six-year-old ferocity. “Livia’s going to—”
“Miss Livia,” he corrected.
Now hopping from one foot to the other, Kendra amped up her plea. “Miss Livia’s going to come see my dinosaur books because she doesn’t believe dinosaurs are related to birds. O-kaaay? Please? Please, please, please?”
“That’s okay,” Livia told Kendra. “We’ll do it another—”
“Actually, we’d love to have you come for dinner,” he said.
Livia gaped at him, probably because he’d crossed over the line they’d been skirting. Flirting was one thing. An attraction—and Lord knew they had an attraction going here—didn’t have to lead to anything. But if they spent time together, then they’d start down a road that inevitably led to them sleeping together and who knew what after that.
It was a bad idea; he understood that. Their different worlds had collided for only a few days while she was here in Napa, pretty much as if a zebra had taken a submarine into the Caribbean and taken up with a dolphin, but what could he do? Ignore the power of his infatuation with this one special woman who was good with dogs and children, loved baseball, had a nose for grapes and was sexy as hell?
No.
If he’d ever had a choice about it, he didn’t now. If he didn’t at least try to get to know her better, regret would haunt his steps for a good long time.
Livia still hadn’t recovered from her surprise, so he took advantage of the momentary silence to send Kendra on her way. He had no idea what he thought he’d say or do next, only that it involved him and Livia alone. “Go on up to the house, Dino-Girl. Grandma’s looking for you.”
Kendra didn’t want to go. “But Miss Livia—”
“I’ll see if she wants to come to dinner. So tell her you’ll see her later.”
Being no dummy, Kendra whirled on Livia and turned on the charm. “Please will you come to dinner? Pleeeeaaaaase?”
There were many advantages to having the world’s cutest kid and he was witnessing one of them right now: people couldn’t say no to her. It made his life tough when she turned those big baby browns on him and he had to be the bad guy, but right now he thought his daughter was pretty spectacular. Hell, he ought to buy her another dino figure later as a reward.
Livia’s uncertain gaze wavered between the two of them, and then she caved. “I’d love to come to dinner. See you later, okay?”
“Yay,” Kendra sang, already hopping down the path. “Bye!”
“Bye,” they called.
Then the girl disappeared, leaving awkward silence behind.
It didn’t take Livia long to fill it with an accusation. “You’re Hunter Chambers.”
“Right.”
“How the hell do you get J.R. out of Hunter? A typo on your birth certificate?”
“It’s for junior. My dad is senior.”
“Your family owns this vineyard.”
“Right.”
“So you’re not some random employee that I could get into trouble or fired say by complaining to your mother, are you?”
“Nope.”
Her kissable lips flattened into a sexy little pout and her faint drawl intensified. “So you had a nice laugh at my expense.”
“I sure did.” Matter of fact, he was having a hard time not laughing now but, judging by the steely flash in her eyes, she wasn’t above taking a swing at him, so he kept his current amusement to himself.
“Have I offended you in some way?” she asked sharply.
“No.”
“Because you’ve had an issue with me since the second I got here. First you accuse me of doing something to your dog, and then you accuse…”
There was a whole lot more in that vein, but his mind wandered.
They were attracted to each other, he and Livia Blake, supermodel. When they were near each other, they all but ignited the air between them. Maybe she wished she didn’t feel it, but he could see it in her overbright eyes and flushed cheeks, and he’d definitely felt it when she licked that grape juice off his thumb.
“…and we were just sitting there! In broad daylight, looking at dinosaurs! Is that a crime now? What did…”
It’d been a long time since he’d had anything other than the occasional booty call with a woman, and an even longer time since he’d felt this fascinated by anyone, this enthralled.
“…I am a nice person! I don’t care what you may have heard about me on Entertainment Tonight or some other show. And I don’t appreciate…”
She wasn’t for him. A woman like this could snap her fingers and have any man she wanted, from European royalty to billionaires, from professional athletes to U.S. senators, and he was only fooling himself if he thought he was anything other than a farmer. A grape farmer, true, with one of the best labels in Napa, but still just a farmer. Phylloxera could attack the roots of his vines tomorrow, the crops would be ruined and he’d be in a world of hurt. He was doing pretty well for himself, but there was no danger of him being able to afford his own plane anytime soon.
“…what happened to the benefit of the doubt? Or doesn’t that apply here in northern California? Do I have horns on my head? Is that it?”
Still.
He wasn’t a bad guy even if he wasn’t rich and famous, and she, when it was all said and done, was just a woman. He was here now, and she was here now. They were attracted to each other and that was pretty basic no matter how you sliced it. And he really, really wanted to get to know her.
Great. Decision made. He tuned back in to her rant.
“…think you owe me an apology?”
Oh, man. He liked this one. A lot. All attitude with just enough sweetness thrown in to make him sweat. He’d bet she had those hands on her hips again and—yep. There they were.
“Hello-ooo! I am talking to you—”
“Livia, do me a favor and shut up a minute so I can kiss you, okay?”
The second her mouth popped open in surprise, he made his move. No point in giving her time to protest or manufacture more denials about being interested in him. Cupping her face between his hands—Christ, when had he ever felt something so soft and fine?—he leaned in to taste her.
Chapter 5
He’d meant it to be an easy brush of lips, a nibble at most. A quick, simple and nonverbal statement of intent—assuming, of course, that she didn’t smack him away. But then they were connected and she made one of those sounds that women do. It was a coo, raw and sexual, and it sent him over an edge he hadn’t even known was there. He pulled back, shaken and burned, and stared at her. Livia. She was all shocked, wide eyes, heaving breasts and wet lips, and he wanted her.
He wanted her.
Tightening his grip into her nape, he pulled her in again, devouring her this time without any need or ability to be gentle. She made it easy for him, opening her sweet mouth and slipping her tongue into his. God. This woman did something dangerous to him, and he was so far gone he couldn’t expose his jugular fast enough.
Someone moaned; it was impossible to tell who because there was no separation between them, nothing but a perfect, seamless whole. And when he found himself delving into her hair, caressing her back and reaching for her ass to press her writhing hips against his, he let her go because the time wasn’t right.
But, he now knew, the time would definitely come.
The sound of their mutual panting filled the space until he could talk again.
“Thanks for your help with Kendra. You’re really good with her.”
She’d backed up a step and put her fingers to her lips. Now she blinked off some of her sensual daze and studied him with a keen focus. “I wasn’t helping her. I was enjoying her. Why wouldn’t I? She’s
a bright, beautiful child.”
“A bright, beautiful child who never talks to strangers and has a tough time coming out of her shell.”
“She wouldn’t stop talking.”
“I know,” he said. “That’s not normal for her. Ever since my wife died—”
“Oh.” Something in her expression darkened, closing off from him and shutting him out in the cold. He didn’t like it in the cold. “So that’s what that was? A gratitude kiss?”
Is that what she thought? Was she insane? “No, but I’m happy to give you a gratitude kiss if you’re in the mood.”
“What was that, then?”
Some questions didn’t need answering, so he simply stared at her until a knowing flush crept over her face and that glittering light behind her eyes came back on again.
“You know what that was, Livia,” he said softly.
She met his gaze, not quite smiling but not looking away, either.
Taking that as agreement, he leaned in for another kiss, a quick one this time, because he was already addicted and he couldn’t help himself. Just that simple touch made her sigh and soften, and he realized she couldn’t help herself, either.
This was dangerous, what they were doing.
And he couldn’t hurtle toward it fast enough.
“Dinner’s at six-thirty,” he told her. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
*
Hunter watched Livia go and barely resisted the overwhelming urge to call her back. What the hell was wrong with him? You’d think she was departing for a one-way trip to a neighboring universe, forever taking the secrets to food and air production with her. Was this normal? Hell, no. Yet seeing her walk away opened up a yawning ache inside him and the feeling was so compelling that he had to take a minute. Shake his head and clear it. Remind himself that he’d see her again in a few short hours.
Well, they wouldn’t be short hours, apparently, but a few hours.
In the meantime, he had something to do. Something important.
Too bad he couldn’t remember what it was.
The feeling of Livia’s lips moving beneath his? Now that, he could remember. Maybe he should take a quick dip into the icy river and clear the remnants of her touch out of his thrumming blood. Maybe then his mind would be able to access the other parts of his life, of which there were many.
Think, man. He’d already met with the production manager this morning and spent an hour walking the vines, checking the grapes…
Lunch! He was supposed to be having a late lunch with his mother and daughter up at the B and B, where his parents lived in a private wing away from the guests and spent a lot of their time.
Right.
By the time he got there and made his way to the small family dining room off the huge kitchen, however, Kendra was gone and Mom, who had a disquieting gleam in her eyes, was clearing the dishes.
“Sorry, Mom.” He paused to kiss her cheek before taking his seat at the weathered oak table that sat in front of an enormous bay window overlooking the pool in the distance and, beyond that, the tennis courts. “What’d she eat today?”
Kendra, with the unerringly faulty taste buds of a six-year-old, ignored all the delicious farmer’s market produce, fresh fish and gourmet dishes the chefs prepared for the guests here, preferring to eat chicken fingers, hot dogs, pizza and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches in an endless and disgusting rotation. They’d long ago given up trying to fight city hall and instead focused on sneaking her an occasional carrot stick or grape.
“PB&J.” Mom made a face in case there was any doubt about her thoughts on this particular selection. “But I did get her to drink a big glass of milk and eat some pineapple slices.”
“Fresh?” he asked hopefully.
“Canned.”
Sighing, he accepted the soup and salad she passed across the table to him—creamy lobster bisque, field greens with grilled salmon and balsamic vinaigrette and all the hot sourdough rolls he could eat, which was usually about four—and bowed his head for grace. When he sensed her hovering over him, waiting to pounce, he kept his head down for a few seconds longer. Eventually that just became silly, and his bread was getting cold.
He braced himself for the coming inquisition, took a fortifying bite of soup and decided to take the bull by the horns. “Something on your mind?”
Mom looked around from where she’d begun wiping the counters down, all bewildered innocence in an Emmy-caliber performance. “Hmm—what? No. Why do you ask?”
Snorting, he tore into a roll and reached for the butter.
“Kendra went to find her dinosaur books.” He kept chewing as his mother spoke. They were getting closer now. “Because she wanted to show them to Livia Blake—” almost there “—and she seems to be a lovely woman. I thought she’d be one of those Hollywood-diva types, but she wasn’t like that at all. She’s very good with children, but she wasn’t too happy with you. Said you were rude to her or something. What’s that about? You’re never rude to anyone, especially paying guests. What do you think of her?”
Bam. There it was. The elephant in the room.
Mom had sniffed something in the air and was now on the trail of a potential romance for her widowed son. Any roads that might lead to additional grandchildren must be followed with due diligence—that was the woman’s philosophy in a nutshell.
Shrugging, he focused all his attention on pouring a glass of iced tea from the pitcher without spilling a drop. Fortunately, his hands didn’t shake. Unfortunately, he couldn’t prevent the hot wave of…something from crawling over his face and making him feel sheepish.
“She’s fine.”
“Fine?” Gaping, Mom tossed that sponge on the counter.
“Fine.”
“That’s all you have to say, Hunter Chambers? Or should I call you J.R.?”
“That’s all I have to say, Mama Chambers.”
Mom returned to wiping all nearby hard surfaces with a frustrated vengeance; she hated it when he stonewalled her. You’d think she’d stop with the pointed questions now that he was damn near forty, but no.
“Well, I like her. Kendra really likes her—”
“Willard likes her, too.”
That was when that shrewd gaze zeroed in on him, cutting off all means of escape. “I’m guessing you like her best of all.”
He shoveled salad into his mouth, willing her not to notice his burning cheeks. “Guess all you want. It’s a free countr—”
Ah, shit.
She walked over, cupped his face in her soft hand like he was three years old again and gave him a shot of that maternal understanding that always made him want to press his face to her belly and lean in for a comforting hug that lasted two to three hours. He was lucky to have a mother like this and he knew it. He just wished she didn’t know him so damn well.
“It’s time, Buddy Boy,” she said gently. “It’s time.”
That old familiar misery inside him woke up, yawned and stretched and reported for duty. Though it might take a break for an hour or two here or there, or even a few days when he was lucky, misery always checked back in with him and kept him from getting too far away.
In the three years since he, Annette and Kendra had climbed into that car for a day trip down to San Francisco and only he and Kendra climbed out alive, he’d learned to master misery a little bit, to keep it at arm’s length by focusing on something else like, say, Kendra or the winery, and he tried to do that now. To shrug it away and laugh.
“You’re not fooling anyone.” He smiled around his sip of iced tea but it felt strained and weak, as though his mouth muscles weren’t strong or experienced enough to manage expressions of pleasure. “You just want more grandchildren.”
“I just want you to be happy.”
As if that wasn’t a big enough test of his emotional control, she bent down and kissed him on the cheek, leaving a powdery fresh scent in her wake. And he damn near lost it.
Was he allowed to be happy when Annette was d
ead and his daughter had been motherless since the tender age of three? Really? Who said? Where was the fairness in that? Why did he get his mother’s blessing on living his life when Annette was gone and he’d had to scatter her ashes down into the vine-strewn valley she’d loved so much? Wouldn’t it be better if he kept his existence utilitarian and tormented into the indefinite future? And if his whole life didn’t need to be given over to grief and penance, wasn’t a mere three years way too short a time to mourn the wife he’d loved and lost to a slick road?
This time the casual shrug and smile didn’t come so fast. They didn’t come at all, especially after he stared up into the bottomless understanding in his mother’s wise eyes.
“Is it that easy, Mom? Being happy?”
“It might be.” She dimpled at him in that reassuring way she had, opening the door to the possibility that things may not be quite as bad as he feared. “With the right woman, it just might be.” Disappearing into the pantry, she left him to digest this kernel of wisdom in peace.
Until his father banged into the kitchen through the back door, stomping his work boots on the mat to get rid of mud and smacking his leather gloves against his dirt-smudged jeans. Harvesttime and walking the vines always got his juices flowing, but that did not, Hunter knew, explain the brilliant sparks of excitement in the old man’s eyes.
“What’s up?” Hunter wondered.
Dad gave one of those low, appreciative whistles that never needed an explanation, especially among the male of the species. “I just got a glimpse of that model, Livia Baker—”
“Blake,” Hunter said, starting to get the picture and trying not to laugh.
“—and let me tell you—”
Mom reappeared in the doorway of the pantry, carrying a jar of cookies and glaring.
Dad’s cheeks flushed but to his credit, he never missed a beat. “—that she is nowhere near as pretty as she looks in the magazines, poor thing. They must do a whole lot of airbrushing with that one. Oh, hey, honey. Can I have a cookie?”
“Absolutely not,” Mom said, stalking through the kitchen and into the main dining room, leaving the door to close behind her with an irritated flap.
Love in the Limelight Volume Two: Seduced on the Red CarpetLovers Premiere Page 5