Intoxicating

by Lori Wilde

  “Then why didn’t you let me sleep in?”

  Her mother slid a plate of French toast in front of her, along with a cup of espresso.

  “Eat,” Wyatt said before her mother had a chance to say it. Then he turned back to Grandmamma. “Tell me more.”

  Grandmamma held up another photograph. “Here’s where she took first prize in the fifth-grade science fair. She was interviewed in the local paper. You should have seen her. Chest puffed out, eyes shining with happiness. We were so proud of her.”

  Kiara didn’t miss Wyatt’s lazy gaze zeroing in on her chest. She frowned at him, wrinkled her nose and took a long gulp of coffee. She needed an IV infusion of caffeine to get through this day.

  She ate her breakfast as fast as she could while Grandmamma kept turning the pictures.

  “Here’s her prom.”

  “She went to the prom?” He sounded surprised. Granted, she wasn’t the prom-going type, but did he have to sound so surprised?

  “Oh, my, yes. Didn’t she look so pretty in that purple dress?”

  “Who’s her date?” Wyatt asked, leaning over Grandmamma’s shoulder for a closer look at the photograph. “Was that her first boyfriend?”

  “No.” Grandmamma sighed. “In high school, like now, Kiara didn’t date much.”

  Kiara rolled her eyes to the heavens.

  “That’s her cousin Jerome,” Grandmamma went on. “They were the same age.”

  “Jerome didn’t go into the family business?” Wyatt asked.

  “Jerome was killed,” Kiara rushed to explain so Grandmamma wouldn’t have to talk about her cousin. “In a scuba-diving accident.”

  “I’m sorry,” Wyatt murmured.

  Grandmamma’s smile brightened as it always did when she was trying to ward off sad memories. “It was ten years ago….” she said as if time had healed all wounds. But the she added, “It still hurts.”

  “Sorry to hear that. Well, I’m ready to go if you are,” Wyatt said to Kiara, clearly out of his league on the topic of tragic death. Hey, he’d started this. She ought to let him suffer. But she was suffering too.

  “Done.” Kiara finished her last bite of French toast, went to rinse her plate and put it in the dishwasher. She turned back to Wyatt and for the first time spied a picnic basket on the floor behind his chair.

  “We’re going on a picnic?”

  “Among other things.”

  “What other things?”

  “You don’t have to know all the secrets of the universe,” Grandmamma said. “This young man has prepared a nice day for you. Go, enjoy.”

  Kiara glanced at Wyatt skeptically.

  “The day is all planned,” he said. “Your only job is to relax and enjoy it. Can you handle that?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  When was the last time she’d let down her hair and stopped thinking about work for ten seconds? It had been so long, she couldn’t remember. Long before her father got sick. Probably back in college, although she’d been pretty studious then too.

  “C’mon.” Wyatt put his hand to the small of her back and guided her outside into the dewy morning.

  The sun was bumping over the horizon, casting the vineyards on the gently sloping hill behind the house in a soft Dreamsicle glow.

  “Look at that.” Beside her, Wyatt breathed deeply.

  “At what?’

  “Those beautiful grapes.”

  He was right. They were beautiful. She was usually so focused on the details that went into making a good wine that she rarely took the time to marvel over the vineyards the way tourists did. The way Wyatt was doing. As if this moment were somehow magical. He was right. She didn’t appreciate the wonder of where she was privileged to live, of her unique heritage.

  “Good,” he said.

  “Good what?”

  “You’re relaxing. I can see the tension draining from your face.”

  She raised a hand to her cheek. Was the stress that obvious on her? “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll see.”

  He took her elbow—and to Kiara’s surprise, she let him—and he led her down the path to the Bella Notte Welcome Center. Parked outside the small stone building was a rack filled with bicycles built for two. They were rented out to tourists who wanted to tour the winding paths of Idyll Island. The bicycles had been Maurice’s idea and to Kiara’s chagrin they had been wildly popular. More romantic poppycock.

  “Oh, no,” she said. “Not the bicycles built for two. I don’t do bicycles built for two.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s corny.”

  Wyatt gave her that knee-melting, hundred-watt grin. “C’mon, corny can be fun.”

  “It’s not my thing.”

  “So indulge me.”

  Kiara shook her head. She didn’t know why she was resisting so hard. “Look, I don’t know how to ride these things.”

  “Really? You’ve never ridden a two-seater?”

  “That’s what I mean by I don’t do bicycles built for two.”

  Wyatt made a tisking noise. “You’ve been missing out.”

  “I suppose you’ve ridden one before.”

  “Hundreds of times.”

  “Hundreds?”

  He shrugged. “Okay, maybe I exaggerate. Dozens.”

  “You’re really weird, you know that?”

  “Why? Because I know how to enjoy myself?”

  “But a bicycle built for two?” She wrinkled her nose. “Really?”

  “It’s no different from riding a regular bicycle, you just have to get into a rhythm with your partner.”

  That’s what worried her—getting into a comfortable rhythm with Wyatt, because the temptation was very strong, but she had no illusions about this man. He was a romantic, like her family. She knew better than to lay her heart on the line over chemistry. She was a clear-eyed scientist. She didn’t let hormones and pheromones control her brain. She was in charge. Not biology.

  Yeah? Keep telling yourself that. Maybe it’ll stick.

  Wyatt secured the picnic basket inside the wire basket attached to the front of the bike.

  What would it hurt? A fling with him. Appease her biology and then scrub him right out of her mind. She knew this couldn’t lead anywhere. She didn’t want it to lead anywhere, but if he could help her to relax, could ease some of her tension, then why not just let it happen?

  Why? Because it wasn’t her way.

  Maybe it’s time to change your ways.

  “Front or back?” Wyatt asked. “What?”

  “Do you want the front or the back?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Well, in the front, you get to steer. You’re in control. But the back is the power position. The motor, if you will.”

  Kiara stared at the bike. What would he do if she just turned and fled to the safety of the lab and reneged on her promise? “You’ve got stronger legs than I do, you take the back.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Wyatt said, his gaze roving over her legs. “You’ve got some awesome legs on you, lady.”

  Don’t fall for his charms. Don’t be like every other woman on the planet. Resist. Resist. “I like being in control. I’ll take the front.”

  “Good choice.” He took the bike from the rack.

  They mounted the thing in unison and it took a wobbly minute to get accustomed to riding together, but they quickly got in sync and once they were underway, the bike sailed along with swift ease.

  “Where to now?” she called to him over her shoulder, noticing how good it felt to have the wind ruffling through her hair on this early Saturday morning in June.

  Don’t fall for the romance of it. Of him. Don’t you dare.

  “Head for the marina.”

  “Are we going to the mainland?”

  “I’m not giving away my secrets.”

  “You’re a tease.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “How can I be in control if yo
u don’t tell me where we’re going?”

  “That’s the surprise. You’re not really in control.”

  Kiara tightened her fingers around the handlebars. “Turkey.”

  “Stop tensing up,” Wyatt called to her.

  “How do you know I’m tensing up?”

  “I’m behind you. I can see the set of your shoulders.”

  “On the way home remind me to take the backseat.”

  “You? In the backseat? It’ll never work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if I’m in front I can’t see your sexy butt. What do you think gives me the impetus to keep pedaling?”

  “No fair, I wanna see your butt.”

  “You can see it on the boat.”

  “So we’re going on the water. I have a clue!”

  “Yes, Irene Adler, you have superior powers of deduction, especially considering that we’re on our way to the marina.”

  “Who’s Irene Adler?”

  “Don’t you ever read any fiction?”

  “Hey, I went to college. I suffered through the requisite English classes.”

  “No Sherlock Holmes?”

  “No.”

  “No fiction on your own?”

  “I started Grapes of Wrath. I thought it was a book about vineyards. I couldn’t get past the chapter-long treatise about a turtle crossing the road.”

  “The turtle was symbolic.”

  “I got that. It was still boring.”

  “I’ve got my work cut out for me,” Wyatt said. “I’m considering having you kidnapped and deprogrammed.”

  “What for?”

  “I think your brain has fermented with so much focus on winemaking.”

  “You’re just jealous,” she said.

  “Of what?”

  “My incredible powers of concentration.”

  His laugh ran out over the streets of the village, and Kiara acknowledged it had been a very long time since she’d had this much fun. Okay, so she’d been a bit quick to prejudge bicycles built for two.

  They arrived at the marina and Wyatt directed her to park the bike beside a kiosk that rented sailboats.

  “We’re going sailing?” It had been years since she’d been sailing.

  “We are.”

  “You know how to sail?”

  “I do.”

  But, of course, he knew how to sail. He was that kind of guy, glib and smooth and charming. He was probably an expert sailor.

  Her suspicions were confirmed the minute they were out on the water in the rented sailboat, the picnic basket stowed in the bottom of the hull between them.

  The rays of the sun glittered off the water and the breeze was refreshing, but not cold. It was a perfect morning for sailing. The ocean rippled calmly, the sky was filled with innocent cloud puffs. The only sounds were the sail flapping in the wind and the steady clank of the rigging against the metal mast.

  Along the shore came the sound of seagulls squabbling near the ferry landing. In no time they were away from Idyll and it occurred to Kiara that she was out here alone on the ocean with Wyatt. No other people. No distractions.

  Just the two of them.

  Delight shivered up her spine.

  “Cold?” Wyatt asked. “No.”

  “C’mere.”

  She eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”

  “Come sit right here.” He patted the transom of the boat beside him. “I’m going to help you relax.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “Why? Does relaxing scare you?”

  “Frankly? Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “You know you sound irritatingly like a three-year-old.”

  “That’s because three-year-olds are very inquisitive. It’s how they learn.”

  “So, following that line of reasoning, you are trying to learn what?”

  “As much as I can about you.”

  “Why?”

  “Ah.” He grinned. “Now who’s the three-year-old?”

  “You got me.”

  He patted the spot again. “Come. Sit.”

  She edged over, keeping her body very rigid. “What are you up to?”

  “You’re going to love this, I promise.”

  “Love what?”

  “Have you always been this suspicious?”

  Had she? Probably.

  “I won’t bite, I promise.” He paused. “Unless you want me to.”

  “Yeah, that’s what the Big Bad Wolf said to Little Red Riding Hood.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in fairy tales.”

  “I don’t.”

  “And here you are referencing one.”

  “It’s not a happily-ever-after one.”

  “Red gets rescued. What’s not happy about that?”

  “From the wolf’s point of view, he sort of got murdered. Not much happiness in that.”

  “So, you believe in dark fairy tales, but not the good ones.”

  “I’m a pessimist. Get used to it.”

  “You’re missing out on so much.”

  “Like what?”

  “Serotonin for one thing. The feel-good hormone.”

  “Technically, it’s a monoamine neurotransmitter.”

  “Remind me not to argue with you about anything science-related.”

  “While you were reading Sherlock Holmes, I was reading biology textbooks for fun.”

  “You’re strange.”

  “I read that pessimists actually have a better grip on reality than optimists.”

  “Hence the reason they are pessimists.”

  Kiara snorted. “I’ve spent my life surrounded by optimists. Do you know how frustrating it is for twenty people to try and cheer you up when you simply want to worry, pout and sulk?”

  “I’ll let you worry, pout and sulk if you want to, just not today. Today is about having a good time. Relaxing. Letting go. If you clear your mind, your creativity will come back to you.”

  “I’m not creative, I’m a scientist. I deal in solid facts.”

  “Scientists are creative too. Where would the world be without Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton and Einstein? In fact, wasn’t Einstein famous for some kind of quote about the imagination being more powerful than anything else?”

  He had a point. She’d spent so much of her life resisting anything that smacked of whimsy that she’d closed herself off to many creative avenues. She’d tried so hard to stay levelheaded, her feet anchored to the ground. It was not an easy thing to do amidst the Romano clan.

  “Shh,” he said. “Close your eyes and let me take your worries away. Just for today.”

  Kiara did as he asked. Closed her eyes. Took a deep breath.

  A second later she felt her skin tingle at Wyatt’s touch. His fingers skimmed over the back of her neck, gently kneaded her tight muscles.

  “When was the last time you had a massage?” he asked. “You’ve got knots upon knots.”

  “I’ve never had a massage.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Who has time.”

  “You do. Right now.”

  “Plus, I’ve never been all that keen on strangers touching me.”

  “Must wreak havoc with your love life.”

  “What love life?”

  “Exactly,” his said, his fingers firm but gentle as he rubbed the kinks from her neck.

  In spite of herself, Kiara could feel her shoulders relaxing. Wyatt had a way of making a woman feel totally at ease around him. Which was disconcerting. For another thing, it had been so long since a man had touched her so tenderly that she soaked up the experience like a flower soaking up the sun. You’re so easy.

  He moved from her shoulders up her neck, his fingers finding sore spots and then dispatching them with steady, rhythmic strokes. Kiara moaned softly. This mini-massage felt so incredibly good. Sitting on the open water, the sailboat skimming over the rocking waves, the sun shining down on them, Wyatt’s fingers working their magic, a sweet sense of perfect
ion settled over her. She had been missing out. This felt sublime.

  But if you did it all the time, it wouldn’t be special. Just enjoy the moment, tomorrow you’ll get back to work and everything will return to normal.

  It was a valiant promise. She wanted to believe it. How great to be able to take a day off, recharge her batteries and go back to work. But she feared it was not going to happen that way. Feared that she wouldn’t be satisfied with just one day. Feared that this was only going to make her want more, more, more. Wyatt was an easy person to grow accustomed to. Never mind that he was serious eye candy. He had a way of making her spirits lift simply by walking into a room.

  His fingers were at her scalp, rotating circles through her hair. It felt so good, she moaned again and her spine curled against him as his fingers kneaded and stroked and caressed. It was the most intimate thing she’d ever done with a man besides sex.

  “That’s it,” he murmured. “That’s right. Let all your worries drain away. Just let go, Kiara. Let go.”

  And darn, if she didn’t. At least for a few minutes. She thought of nothing but the pressure of his hands on her head and the warmth of the sun and the smell of the sea and the sound of the metal clip banging gently against the metal pole. It was sublime. One she’d remember for a very long time—long after Wyatt had vanished from her life. Because he would vanish. He was an intern. They were total opposites in every way. And Kiara knew she was not the easiest person in the world to get along with. She’d always imagined she’d eventually marry. Someone like herself. Another scientist as absorbed with his work as she was with hers. A practical, measured man who would fall into lockstep with her.

  But after meeting Wyatt, she wasn’t sure she wanted that any longer. Her imagination conjured other possibilities for her future. Possibilities with a man who was not like her. A man who was so different he fascinated her at every turn. A man who was the yin to her yang. The other half who made her feel whole. The—

  What in the hell was she thinking? That was romantic stuff. The Romano way. She’d fought against the impracticality of romantic myths her entire life.

  Why do you think it’s a myth, whispered a voice in the back of her head. No one in your family has ever gotten divorced. Why do you fight it so hard against it?

  “You’re tensing up again. Stop thinking about work. Look at your watch, it’s after five.”

  She laughed. “It’s hard not to,” she said, reluctant to tell him what she was really thinking. “My work isn’t just a job. Wine isn’t just in my blood and my bloodline. It’s in my heart and soul as well. It’s all I care about, besides my family.”