Romancing the Wine: A Boxed Set of 9 Newest Novellas from Award-Winning Authors

by Jan Moran

  Was she assessing the gigolo?

  She finished drinking and dipped her glass toward him. It would’ve spilled if she’d had anything more in it. “I’ve now decided about you, Buzz.”

  “You have?” Maybe this was the moment to come clean with her, before she made a true offer to him.

  “You are fun, aren’t you?” She tilted her head. “Do you know when the last time was that I had fun?”

  “I can’t begin to guess.”

  She seemed to count the days in her head. Meanwhile, over by the bar, Colin heard a lively “whoop!” as an old, smooth Eddy Arnold country tune came on. The singer crooned about making the world go away, and Colin’s little brother Jonsey had already gotten happy-drunk enough to sing along with it.

  In the Ruby Room.

  In any other place, Colin might’ve joined in, but tonight wasn’t the night—especially in front of this woman.

  Colin kept him in his peripheral sights as Leticia finally spoke.

  “It’s been years since I had true fun.” She sounded surprised. “Come to think of it, I haven’t slowed down since grade school.” She laughed. “Imagine that.”

  There was some history behind that laugh, maybe even some pain, and Colin turned off his flirting instincts for a moment to look into her dark eyes, which seemed to have a few complicated memories filling them.

  On the fringes of Colin’s perception, he could hear Tucker telling Jonsey to act like a gentleman and Jonsey chafing at the suggestion. It was enough to make Leticia glance over at them.

  “Those are your…associates?” she asked.

  “You could say that.”

  She stared long and hard in Jonsey’s direction, then turned back to Colin. “The blond reminds me of my brother. God help anyone who tried to talk him into restraining himself.”

  Just as she seemed ready to talk more about the subject, she shook her head, looked at her glass, then frowned at its emptiness.

  “Looks like I’ve finished my last drink for the night,” she said.

  Was she about to excuse herself?

  Colin wasn’t about to let her go anywhere. Damn the truth—if only for a little longer. “Don’t tell me you’re about to pack it in.”

  “I’ve had a full day. Liz and I saw to the finishing touches on the wine list and the food pairings this afternoon, then the girls pulled a surprise birthday party for me. It was just ending when you walked in, and I was ready to let the team do their thing with the clients while I did…whatever.”

  “Aw, come on. Weren’t you the one who was just saying something about the last time you had fun?”

  Now she was giving him a narrowed gaze, not Anita. And it looked as if she was turning something over in her mind again.

  “Tell you what,” Colin said, leaning closer. “I’ve never seen a wine cellar before. If you’d show me the one here, this beer guy would consider it a favor.”

  Yeah, he was a jerk for keeping this going, but the moment her gaze lit up again, he was glad he’d done it. If he were regular old Colin Burton, would she call it a night and leave him wanting? Or was he more interesting to a sophisticated woman as this gigolo?

  Before she could answer, he heard Jonsey and Tucker by the bar tangling it up again. Colin let out a long sigh and gently took the wine glass from Leticia.

  “Wait till I get back?” he asked.

  She thought for a second, and for every tick of time that went by, Colin’s hopes escalated. And when was the last time that’d happened with a woman?

  Never, really. He’d always taken the ladies as they came to him, never expecting more, never really wanting it. There’d always been the ranch and his family to pay attention to, plus whatever good times that could be had at the R&T.

  When Leticia smiled at him, he knew he’d gotten somewhere. He didn’t know for how long, but, as always, he’d take what came to him.

  He grinned at her, then sauntered toward the bar, where his brothers were locked in a death stare. When Tucker saw him approach, he glared extra hard at Jonsey.

  “Talk to this kid about how to behave in a place like this,” he said.

  Jon’s face got ruddy. “Tell this know-it-all that his advice isn’t required.”

  “God dammit,” Colin said quietly so the nearby bartender wouldn’t hear him. “I’m gonna pull both of you out by your ears if you can’t settle down.”

  Tucker’s gaze slid over to Leticia, and he shut up, knowing that Colin was too damned busy for this. Jon’s attention went there, too, and, just like that, he motioned toward the door.

  “We’ll give Liz our thanks later, when she’s not busy,” he said.

  Then both of his brothers left as if they hadn’t been at one another’s throats at all.

  But that was fine by Colin. Trouble averted. Just another day with the Burton brothers.

  As he put his mug and Leticia’s emptied glass on the bar, she began making her own way out of the room and toward a dark hallway past the lounge. Colin followed, thinking he would extend this good time for just a little longer…and how he was going to tell her who he really was when the right time came.

  Chapter 4

  So she was hanging out with a gigolo.

  As Leticia led Buzz down the dim hall toward the thick wooden door with Employees Only marked on it, she tried to put a cork in the giggle that threatened to bubble out from her.

  It was true that she was just a touch tipsy from her birthday celebration, and maybe that was because she wasn’t at home with her friends blowing out the candles this year. Forget her family; they didn’t get together for many of her birthdays.

  At any rate, she was adventurous tonight, ready to go places she’d never gone before. Her wine consulting had really taken off lately, and she deserved a reward.

  Maybe its name would even be “Buzz.” What did that stand for, anyway? Did he call himself that because he was good at certain tricks with his mouth? Did he give every woman he was with a sensual buzz…?

  Leticia pushed aside the erotic questions. It would be more rational to ask Liz Hughes if she intended to have these kinds of professionals in the Ruby Room every night. When Buzz and his cohorts had shown up, Anita and Liz hadn’t said anything about their presence or shooed them away.

  But Leticia wasn’t sure that gigolos fit with the Ruby Room’s branding. Or maybe they did. All she knew for certain was that one of the men—the one who had been getting loud in the bar—reminded her too much of Miguel, her brother.

  Miguel, who had broken the hearts of his family throughout their entire lives, separating them…

  Yet he was the last thing she needed to be thinking about tonight, when she was trying to be so happy. She shook it off, opening the door and reaching inside to flip on the low light. A curved iron stairway welcomed them, along with the mildly cold air.

  “The cellar,” she said, sweeping her hand in front of her. “It’s a comfortable fifty-five degrees, which is ideal for wine storage.”

  Buzz gave her an amused glance, then nodded at the stairs. “Don’t mind if I proceed you, Miss Leticia. I’ll be there to catch you if you happen to stumble on those polka-dotted heels of yours.”

  She flushed at his politeness as well as his practical point. He was right about her state of sobriety right now. Truthfully, she was more giddy than drunk, more excited than tanked. It felt wonderful to have a handsome cowboy paying her this much attention.

  Unless he was counting on getting paid for it in the end.

  “Just so we’re clear,” she said. “You’re not going to charge me for this alone time, are you?”

  “Nope.” He chuckled as he began to descend into the stone-walled cellar. “As I said, you’re doing me a favor with some fine schooling. That’s all.”

  Schooling him. It sounded naughty, and so experienced, and she’d never thought of herself that way. She’d been with men before, but never with…

  Well, someone like Buzz.

  They went down the stairs, a
nd she made it just fine on her sling backs. When they reached the floor, she couldn’t help a sense of pride from enveloping her as he looked around at the wine racks, where bottles were stored on their sides. A cooling unit was hidden away in an alcove near the back of the room, mostly because it didn’t look as sexy for private parties as the bottles did. The long table with chairs that ran down the middle of the area would be used for the VIPs who reserved the room for intimate dinners and tastings.

  “So,” Buzz said, hooking his thumbs into his belt loops, “you advised Liz on every single bottle in here?”

  “Almost. Her husband Ben included a few vintages. He’s a red kind of guy, while Liz is into whites and especially rosés.” Leticia wandered toward a rack where a collection of blush wine was stored. “We were both drinking them before they became more popular.”

  “I’ve seen people drink a lot of pink wine at the Rough and Tumble.”

  Leticia smiled at the cowboy, whom she knew preferred his beer. Standing there in his jeans and Western shirt and hat, he reminded her of a rough-hewn work of art, a man carved from raw materials. If she had any guts whatsoever, she could close the space that separated them and run her palm down his arm, feeling the muscles beneath the chambray of his shirt.

  Just thinking about it sent a wicked tingle through her.

  He glanced at her with that entertained grin—one that seemed to hide fun secrets and invitations to better times than she’d ever had in her constrained life. Another delicious shiver lit her up.

  “Pink wine,” she said, “isn’t always rosé.”

  “I get the feeling rosé is a wine for fancy times.”

  “Believe it or not, I don’t always recommend fancy. Who am I to say what everyone should like? I only match peoples’ tastes with their collections.”

  He continued to walk along the racks of reds. It gave her the wonderful opportunity to appreciate the way his jeans hugged his rear. Most guys didn’t have much for derrieres, but Buzz? All muscle and allure.

  All good.

  She went on. “Rosé gets a bad name because most people think it’s white zinfandel, which some call a ‘starter wine.’ Then again, some people say that white zin is a rosé.” She shrugged. “One thing you’ll find about wine is that everyone loves to argue about what’s what.”

  “But as far as white zin goes, you’re telling me it’s what people drink when they don’t know anything about snobby wines.”

  “Oh, they know they like something sweet that won’t empty their wallets. And more power to them. White zin is made from the zinfandel grape, which makes for a bolder, spicier red. The story goes that, back in the seventies when a winemaker was working on a white zin, a batch stopped at a stage when the sugar hadn’t turned to alcohol, so it stayed pretty sweet. Anyway, they decided to bottle it. But rosés can be made from different grapes, so that’s one way it’s different from white zin.”

  He braced his hands on the back of a chair and watched her with those heaven-blue eyes, and he didn’t have to ask for her to tell him more.

  Her skin was on fire, like little flames burning and tickling her.

  “Some rosés are darker than others,” she said, wandering toward the cooler waiting in an alcove away from the table. She opened the door, then pulled out a few different bottles, their hues ranging from light pink to near fuchsia to salmon. Then she set them on the table. “See? The color depends on how long the grapes’ skin sits in the wine while it’s made. And rosé can be dry or sweet. But what a lot of people love about rosé is that it’s a wine best consumed a few years after it’s bottled, and it’s not terribly expensive.”

  Buzz came closer, every boot step mocking the thud of her heartbeat. When he stopped by her side, her veins nearly shook themselves loose in her. God, she was dying to touch him, just to feel those muscles beneath that shirt.

  He was inspecting the different shades of rosé, and she watched him, realizing that he had a slight dimple in his square chin. There was a faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, and she imagined what it would be like to feel the whisk and burn of it against her own skin.

  “You make it sound like rosé is the cool kid of wine,” he said.

  “You could put it that way.” She laughed. “It goes well with all kinds of food, even something casual like barbecue. It fits into any social situation, just like the coolest kid at school always did.” She coasted a finger over the sweating glass of a bottle, leaving a clear trail. “And you should always serve rosé cool, anyway.”

  He’d been watching her stroke the bottle, and when his gaze met hers, it was hot.

  She swallowed but continued, anyway, in spite of her suddenly dry throat. “All in all, it’s cool and elegant and fun and anything you want it to be.”

  Just as she wanted to be tonight: anything she wanted.

  He looked at her again, so intense, so…

  Dear God, was he about to grab her and kiss her? Or was he putting on a gigolo show, trying to lure her into paying for a night with him?

  It was one thing to briefly have a good time with a man like this, but another to actually say yes to a whole night. There was a lot of appeal in a one-time stand with a professional who didn’t expect anything in return: no exchanged phone numbers, no broken hearts, no blue days and nights as you wondered what was so wrong with you that someone didn’t want you in their lives for the long term…

  She took a short breath and walked away, back to the cooler alcove. She thought she heard Buzz exhale behind her, but she was too busy grabbing a waiter’s corkscrew and a couple of crystal glasses to dwell on that.

  Yet even as she brought everything out and opened one of the rosés, she told herself that they would drink a glass together and that would be that. No gigolo, no nooky.

  She opened a bottle—and she managed it without trembling and giving herself away. After she had poured him a glass, she handed it to him. The crystal already had a film of condensation from the cool, bright pink wine, and she showed him how to hold the glass by the stem.

  “This is a Spanish rosado from just south of Barcelona. It uses different grapes, such as cabernet sauvignon, syrah, and merlot.”

  He went to drink it, but she laid her fingers on his wrist, stopping him.

  “Hey,” she said lightly, and with a surprising amount of flirtation in her voice. Was this really her? “Have you ever slowed down to really taste something?”

  He lowered the glass. “You mean, have I ever taken part in a tasting to determine the difference between cheap beers?” He chuckled. “Darlin’, I deal in down-to-earth business, not anything ritzy.”

  Ah. He was telling her that his clientele bought in to the cowboy fantasy. Understood.

  “Well, Buzz,” she said, growing bolder by the moment. “If I’m going to educate you, then we’ll have to take it slow.”

  Real slow, she thought, her belly knotting until the tightness traveled lower, to the spot between her legs that was already aching.

  All Buzz did was smile, clearly up for whatever she was willing to give him.

  Chapter 5

  Colin’s brain was telling him one thing: Don’t take advantage of the situation. Tell her you’re just a plain old rancher, put the wine down, and leave.

  But his nether regions had different ideas.

  Look at those lips. How would they taste with some wine on them? And those curves underneath her dress. Wouldn’t you like to feel them without all that material covering her?

  For now, he only reveled in the sizzle of her skin against his as she kept touching his wrist. But, soon enough, she let go of him, as if realizing that she’d made contact for too long.

  When she averted her gaze, let go of him, and glanced at his wine glass, he was pretty sure he’d gotten to her in some way that left her nervous—the good kind of nervous.

  She swirled the wine around in her own glass. “Wine One-Oh-One. Swirling is the first thing you can do to get the most out of the tasting.”

  S
o he swirled. “I’m not certain why I’m splashing this around, but it looks real official.”

  Holding back a smile, she said, “When you stop, look at how the wine runs down the inside of the glass. These are called ‘legs.’”

  The only legs he had a real appetite for were the ones she had—long, tanned, and lean. Just the sight of them got him going again, warming him up, rocking him through and through.

  “Legs,” she said, “help to tell us how much alcohol is in a wine. The higher density of the droplets you see on the side, the more alcohol there is. And if the legs flow slowly, the wine will be thicker and sweeter.”

  “I’ve always been partial to more alcohol in my drinks. And, right now, I’m thinking the sweeter, the better.”

  She lowered her gaze, and he could’ve sworn that she was thinking about more than just her wine.

  Then she sniffed the inside of the glass. “Swirling the wine around brings out the nose. Try it.”

  “But I already have a nose.”

  Laughing, she said, “That’s only another word for the bouquet, the aroma, the smell. Go ahead, give it a try.”

  Indulging her, he took a whiff. This definitely wasn’t beer. As a matter of fact, now that he thought about it, there were things about the beverage that gave him pause.

  “What do you smell?” she asked.

  Besides the citrus and berry on her skin? “Something fruity maybe. But not oranges or anything like that.”

  “There you go.” She sniffed again. “I get strawberries. But you might not identify the same thing as I do. We all have different palates and senses.”

  She wasn’t making him feel like a dumbass, and in the back of his mind, he’d sort of been wary of that. No one on the ranch ever called him stupid, but in this Ruby Room world, he was feeling exposed in a way that made him think that a lot of the people who’d shown up for Liz Hughes’ soft opening might look down on him.

  Leticia went on. “I’m also getting a scent that’s known as ‘mineral.’ Some wine lovers describe that taste as ‘stony’ or ‘acid.’”