His head whipped her way faster than a bachelorette party asked for refills during a wine tasting. “Piper?” Ward bolted off his stool and rushed to her side. Ran strong hands down her arms. The heat burned right through the thin cotton of her grey sweater dress. “Are you sick?”
In light of his obvious concern, her originally planned snark seemed way out of line. On the other hand, they’d spent three years wildly out of balance with each other. No burning reason to swallow her sentence now. Aside from how his touch seared right through to her soul. Piper didn’t care if she sounded like a bad eighties love song in her head—it was true. Nobody else had to know, but she wouldn’t bother lying to herself.
So she rolled her shoulders back to twist out of his grip. “The nine-one-one call was for you, Cantrell. I saw you turn away a willing hottie. Figured you had to be hovering on your deathbed to ignore a sure thing like that.”
“Well, you just gave me a mini heart attack. But otherwise I’m fine.” Ward dropped his hands to his sides. “Had a bad day. Didn’t feel like any company tonight.”
“Oh.” The brush-off stung. Which made Piper toss her head and dial the brightness of her smile up another couple of notches, so that he couldn’t possibly tell. “Okay. Sorry.” She pushed the toe of her boot against the wall, swiveling away from him.
“Piper.” The low rumble of her name coming from his mouth arrested her mid-turn. “That doesn’t apply to you. You’re not company. You stopped being company the first time I made an emergency tampon run for you during cheerleading practice.”
Relief had her sassing back with, “What am I, then?”
A pause. A long pause. Long enough she didn’t hear just the riff of the three-piece jazz combo. Long enough, in fact, for her to notice that the bespectacled man with the close-shaved head—maybe recently out of the armed forces?—never looked up from the keyboard. In fact, silence reigned long enough for her to identify that the Cool Club of Hector was playing the classic “I Only Have Eyes for You.” Wasn’t that just her entire weekly dose of irony dropped on her all at once? Because Ward most definitely didn’t eye her at all. Not in that way. Whereas he was the only man who made her heart race, made her palms sweat and made her nipples tighten from a single glance.
Finally, just when Piper was ready to bolt to escape the tension gathering in the air, Ward lifted one shoulder. “You’re Piper.”
What a cop-out. It had her reaching for her wine with tight lips and an even tighter heart. Seriously, the heart was a muscle, right? Why couldn’t it get a charley horse? Then he spoke again. So close, this time, that his breath feathered across her ear in a warm caress.
“No single label could ever sum you up.”
God. She tried every single day to ignore the yearning she had for this man. To concentrate on Ward’s faults, like the way he wrapped a present more clumsily than a toddler. His idea of dressing up was swapping out a plain flannel shirt for one in plaid. He clammed up and brooded, instead of talking out a problem.
None of those faults ever lessened her wanting, but she kept trying. Piper was goal-oriented, and getting over Ward Cantrell was a goal she’d been working at for almost a decade. And then...then...he had to go and say something so supremely right. If she hadn’t already been sitting, her knees would’ve wobbled right out from under her.
Her hands felt like they should be trembling. But when she picked up her glass—with both hands, to be safe—they didn’t so much as bobble the thin glass stem. Piper took a sip. Winced at the sharp nip to her taste buds and set it back down.
“If you didn’t want company, why’d you come to a bar?”
“Didn’t want to be alone, either.” He retreated to his empty stool, retrieved his beer and returned to her side. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Piper reminded herself he would’ve said exactly the same thing if Casey or Ella were there instead of her. The four of them were old friends. Best friends. Just because she wanted to read a certain, deeper meaning into his words didn’t automatically invest them with it. “You know me—always happy to help a friend.”
“What are you doing here? You’re not the type to hang out alone in a bar.” Ward angled sideways, crowding in beside her.
“I ditched my date. He was...” Biting her lower lip, Piper tried to think of what to say.
“Old? Dull? Fat?”
Not you, she thought. Simple as that. She rubbed the stem of her glass with her palms, turning the liquid inside into a churning sea of red. “Not up to my standards.”
“Ah. The famous Morrissey standards. I’ll bet if you started dating the president, even he wouldn’t live up to your family’s standards.”
“Well, he’s married. Worse yet, he’s the wrong party,” she joked.
“Where did you meet this loser?”
“Up at Hobart.” The college nestled at the northern tip of Seneca Lake.
Ward’s eyebrows shot up. He rasped a hand over his cheek. “Trolling for them young now, huh? Decided they’ll be easier to train if you start before they’re even old enough to drink?”
Since he’d come back to town, they’d fallen into a pattern of being fine when they hung out as a group, with Ella and Casey. Mostly fine. Sometimes snippy, but overall...fine. The group dynamic was so natural, and so important to both of them, that they worked hard to maintain the deep friendship. When it was just the two of them, however, the gloves came off. Fast. And they jabbed with matching sharpness. Didn’t make it hurt any less, though, when Piper was the one on the receiving end.
“That was a low blow. And utterly uncalled for, might I add. Perhaps you would be better off by yourself tonight.”
“Jesus, I’m sorry.” Ward slammed down his beer mug to take her hand. “It just came out. I was teasing. I know there’s no way you’d go after a college kid. Not in a million years. It was a stupid thing to say.”
“Yes.”
His thumb rubbed back and forth over the top of her hand in a slow, soothing stroke. “I’m really sorry. I swear I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Sincerity roughened his voice, darkened his eyes. Put a tiny vertical crease between his eyebrows. Piper believed him. She also believed that it could’ve just as easily been her jabbing at him too hard. “I know. It’s okay.” Then she looked down, pointedly, at their joined hands. Because she couldn’t stand him touching her without the right intent for another second. “Want to let go, Romeo? Because you lost your shot at getting handsy with a woman when you shooed that blonde away.”
“Sorry.”
The balding man with a soul patch who’d managed to dance with just his upper body while plucking the bass squeezed in on the other side of Piper. He kissed the woman on the next stool long and noisily, then drained half a glass of wine in a single gulp. The cute but dopey way she smiled up at him, the easy way their fingers laced together as she blotted his forehead with a napkin highlighted just how on edge and decidedly uncomfortable Piper and Ward were. Piper was tired of it. Tired of only having Ward back in her life halfway. Tired of never dropping her guard around him for fear of him poking at her.
So she gathered her courage and took a leap. “How about we call a truce?”
“Did I miss a declaration of war?”
No war. Definite hostilities, though. Piper waved her blue-tipped nails, which matched the blue diagonal stripe on her dress, as if erasing her words. “Not a truce, then. I want us to break a bad habit.”
“We don’t smoke.” He tapped his mug against her wineglass with a dull clink. “You work at a vineyard and I own a distillery. Neither one of us is giving up drinking.”
Male-patterned obtuseness—another fault of Ward’s. “Not a New Year’s resolution type habit. Something smaller. I want us to stop sniping at each other. Like what just happened. The way I snarked at you earlier about the woman. Neither
one of us means it. We don’t want to hurt each other.”
“No, we don’t.”
“We got into a bad habit a long time ago, when we were—” Piper searched for the right words. Angry. Bitter. Hurt. Defensive “—at odds. We made peace, but we never kicked the habit entirely.”
“You’re right.”
“Let’s start all over again, right now. Tonight. For goodness’ sake, we’re twenty-eight. We shouldn’t need the buffer of Ella and Casey to force us to behave. Not if we’re truly best friends.”
Another long pause. The combo was still on a break, so this time only the din of chatting diners and the clang of silverware against china filled the silence. Piper bit her lower lip. Like most men, Ward hated hashing emotional things out. She’d done all the talking for both of them, but there was still a chance he’d clam up and walk away. Maybe a crowded bar wasn’t the best place to delve into dealing with their gnarled history. Maybe she’d pushed too hard. Maybe she’d mistaken the regret she thought she’d seen in his eyes earlier. Maybe—
Ward hooked a thumb at the swinging doors to the kitchen. “I ordered some bread and dips. They should be out soon. Want to share?”
A peace offering that would also fill her grumbling tummy. Things were off to a good start. “As long as we order a charcuterie board too. I’m hungry.”
He scowled. “You’re from upstate New York, not France. Drop the fancy name and call it a plate of meat and cheese.”
There. Normal, friendly banter. She knew they could do it. How long it would last, however, was still to be seen.
“You pay for it, and I’ll call it whatever you like.”
“Ouch. Didn’t see that one coming.” Ward raised his glass in a toast.
Piper responded, but after half a sip she pushed her glass back across the bar. “I know it’s bad luck not to drink after a toast, but I can’t let another drop of that assault my tongue.”
“Is it corked?” He bent low to sniff at it.
“No. At least that would be an excuse. It’s simply cheap. Poorly executed, poorly balanced, and not left to age nearly long enough before someone rushed it out the door to make a fast profit.”
Ward pushed it away. “So you’re saying it’s swill.”
She’d choose a more elegant way to say the same thing, but yes. “More or less.”
“Why’d you order it?”
“I didn’t.”
“Ah. Your mysterious college boy—” he crooked his fingers into air quotes and lifted one corner of his mouth to prove he was joking “—is a cheapskate.”
“Precisely.”
Ward barely cocked his wrist before the bartender scooted down to them. “A glass of the Heron Hill pinot noir for the beautiful redhead on my left. And add a plate of charcuterie to my order.”
Piper gaped at him. “The wine you ordered...” She trailed off, too shocked to continue.
He dropped his head back and cracked it in a half circle. Then he scrubbed a hand across his face. “Look, I know, it’s not from Morrissey Vineyards. But if you ask me, I think it makes you look like a douche to drink your own brand in a restaurant. I never order Lakeside whiskey or vodka when I’m out. Even though it’s a far superior product,” he finished with a cocky grin.
“I completely agree. I just can’t believe you remembered my favorite brand and varietal.”
“You’d be surprised at how much I remember.”
Silence hung for a third time. But this time it wasn’t awkward or bad. This time, it was loaded with innuendo and promise as they stared at each other. The kind of silence they hadn’t shared in a very, very long time. Piper half wondered if she imagined it.
Ward hooked the tip of a finger in the drop of her off-one-shoulder neckline. Tugged it half an inch lower. “Sexy. You pulled out all the stops for College Boy. What happened?”
“Neil and I—”
Drawing a hand across his throat and blowing a raspberry, he cut her off. “Stop. Neil? Neil? A name like that? Of course it didn’t work out.”
The name had thrown her at first too. But it seemed like such a petty reason to turn down a date. A bad name was a grudge to hold against the tasteless parents. With a giggle she tried to turn into a stern scowl, Piper said, “I’m starting over. Zane and I were on campus—”
This time he held up a hand to cut her off. “Sorry. Gotta stop you. Again. It’s Professor Buchanan when you’re talking about Zane at his job. The guy worked hard to rack up all those degrees on cult stuff. Give him his due.”
Ward was being playful. The bartender had just deposited a fresh glass of wine in front of her. This was already ten times more delightful than her aborted date. “Titles are good. Maybe I should call you that hot guy with bedroom eyes.”
The waitress placed a basket of crostini and a trio of spreads on the bar. Ward immediately started layering tapenade and pimento cheese onto the bread. Piper assumed he was starving, until he pushed a filled plate in front of her. God. Another utterly sweet gesture that was probably simple courtesy...even though it felt tinged with romance.
“Neil teaches at Hobart and was talking to Zane when I arrived. He was cute. Full of compliments, but not in a smarmy way. So when he asked me out, I said yes.”
“Yet you’re here with me now. What happened? Did you kick him to the curb just because he’s got crap taste in wine?”
“If that was a bar I made men live up to, I’d never date again. Even here in wine country. No, the problem was that there were three people on our date. Me, Neil and his phone.” Thinking back on it, Piper’s temper flared once more. “He checked it seven times in the first five minutes. Texted. Shot off an email. Never once apologized or offered up an excuse. He’s not a heart surgeon scheduling a transplant, or a detective tracking down a murderer. The guy teaches classics. Latin, of all things. It’s a dead language—there are no emergencies with Latin!” Yup. She’d finished at full-on rant volume and could tell her cheeks were heated to a pink that clashed horribly with her red hair.
Ward made a multi-dip sandwich out of his bread and shoved it in. Without looking at her, he said, “Neil’s an idiot.”
“Definitely.” Zane was going to get an earful about his colleague. He should warn the entire female faculty and staff to steer far clear of Mr. Self-Absorbed.
“He’s being punished for it.”
“How?”
Now Ward looked up. Shrugged. “He doesn’t get to spend the night with you.”
Piper’s heart rose up in her throat. For a couple of seconds, she actually forgot to breathe. Until her autonomic nervous system kicked in and had her gasping like a goldfish. “I’ll, uh, be right back.”
“I’m making serious inroads on this pimento cheese. Don’t expect much left if you dawdle,” he warned as she pushed back from the bar.
That was the Ward she was used to. The friend who fought her for the last scone at breakfast. The one who always used his turn on movie night to force her to watch horror flicks just because it made him laugh when she covered her eyes and shrieked. Once he came back to town, Piper had made a decision to put the past behind them and treat him the same way she did Ella and Casey. She could deal with him like that.
But their new truce seemed to have flipped a switch in him. Suddenly he was acting very much like the Ward who stole her heart and became her first love. Piper shoved through the bathroom door and made a beeline to the sink to splash water on her face. Tonight’s version of Ward showed glimpses of the man she still loved. But that didn’t matter. She didn’t dare react. Because overshadowing every interaction Piper had with Ward was the memory of how he’d stolen her heart, treasured it...and then shattered it into a million pieces.
Chapter Two
Ward’s hands were slick around the yellow end cap of the sculling oar. Probably equal
parts sweat and splash back from the river. There was a good burn between his shoulder blades. The smooth, metallic hiss of the seat sliding back and forth sounded like the iconic jazz beat of a brush against cymbals. Early birds twittered from the edge of the Erie Barge Canal. It was a perfect morning.
“Will someone remind me again why the hell we’re doing this?” At the front of the boat, Graydon Locke kept his oars moving in rhythm, but he sounded pissy. If he were one of the barn cats that still prowled around the distillery, all that black hair of his would be standing on end. Ward gauged him at 50 percent annoyed at the early morning and 50 percent annoyed at the activity. Gray liked to run. Period.
“Of course.” Zane propped his oar on his knee. Then he straight-armed one fist into the air. “To defend my honor!”
Ward snorted out a laugh even as he dug harder to compensate for the missing stroke. The professor was always good for some dramatic announcement or stupid trivia—Monday’s had been the exact number of slave laborers it took to construct the Sphinx. Zane said spreading the knowledge was his homage to Labor Day. Seriously. Nobody but the professor would use a word like homage while slurping down a red, white and blue Jell-O shot.
From the back, Joel McMurray slapped at the water with the flat of his oar. “First off, you’re not some quaking medieval virgin whose honor needs defending. Hell, as far as the virginity thing goes, do you even remember back to when you lost it?”
“Of course.” Zane twisted around in his molded seat. “Jessie Delavine. She of the golden locks and thirty-six C breasts. We made her parents’ minivan bounce like a pogo stick. I was seventeen.”
“Slowpoke,” Ward commented dryly.
He flexed his biceps. Or at least made the pose. Hard to tell, what with the baggy blue fleece covering him. “Hey, I may look all ripped now, but remember, I started out as a nerd.”
“You’ve got more degrees than I’ve got ties. You’ll always be a nerd, Buchanan.”
“I’ve made my peace with that.” Zane flashed a smug grin. “I’ve also made up the quantity gap over the years, believe me.”
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