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

by Jan Moran

  Boomer and Jimmy Beetles, a nomad biker who always enjoyed a fight, had joined in with Jonsey and the so-called damsel, a spitfire trucker named Daisy who’d already taken down the asshole who’d planted his hands over her tits and gotten in a good squeeze. In fact, she’d laid him out with a punch, and Jonsey had made sure he stayed on the floor with more well-aimed right and left hooks.

  Damn Jonsey. Because now, as Deputy Felix, a rangy, slow-talking Jimmy Stewart type, cuffed him, he didn’t seem at all sorry for his part in the rabblerousing.

  The saloon was cleared out by the deputy as well as some of his associates, and Jonsey’s hat was still on the floor when they sat him on a bar stool with his hands restrained behind his back, waiting for Deputy Felix to take him out.

  “Daisy,” he drawled to the trucker woman who was being escorted away by another deputy. “Would you mind?”

  He nodded toward his hat, and with a smile, she picked it up, resting it on Jonsey’s blond head. She kissed him as if he’d just stormed a castle for her, and it was up to Deputy Felix to tear them apart. The other deputy got her out of the bar.

  “Enough of that nonsense,” Felix said, pulling Jon by the arm off the stool and leading him toward the door. “Don’t be taking advantage of my better nature, son. Hauling you off has become a habit.”

  “I’m sorry about that, sir.” Jonsey’s hat was poised at a rakish, drunken angle.

  As Colin walked with them, he ignored Jonsey, speaking to Felix instead. “What’s the damage tonight?”

  “No one’s pressing charges so far,” the deputy said. “But your brother’s such a hothead that I think he needs to cool his heels in one of the drunk tanks overnight. I’d separate him from the other idiots in here, of course, but let’s face it, Buzz—having you constantly talk Jon’s way out of a holding cell isn’t doing him any good.”

  “Aw, Felix,” Jonsey said.

  “I’m serious, Jon. One of these days, your luck’s gonna run out and, instead of a holding cell, you’ll be on a slab in the morgue.”

  Jonsey smiled and said, “As long as there are assholes disrespecting women, my luck’s always gonna hold. Besides, Buzz’ll make sure my heels cool at the ranch. Come on, Felix, get these cuffs off of me, won’t you?”

  Colin’s temper simmered. Once again, it was big brother to the rescue. Every time Jon got into a scrape, Colin had always been there to clean it up. He’d gone along with his little brother’s way of acting out, had even chuckled about it, thinking it would end someday but…

  Damn, he was sick of it.

  The longer Colin kept his silence, the more the sparkle in Jonsey’s eyes died as they went through the door and onto the boardwalk. Outside, the moonlight fell over the desolate main street, emphasizing the cracks in the blacktop of the road.

  “Buzz?” Jon asked again.

  It felt as if Colin’s heart was crumbling inside of him, but this just didn’t feel right anymore. “I’ve had it with the brawling. And don’t tell me you didn’t start things up tonight, because I know better.”

  “But—”

  “You’re twenty-six now. Just think of what Dad and Mom would say if they were alive to see what a mess you are.”

  Jonsey had always been a hell raiser—and so had Colin and Tucker. But it seemed like things with Jon had gone into high gear lately. Jonsey didn’t seem capable of growing up, and as far as Colin and Tucker went…?

  Well, maybe it was time for all of the Burton boys to mature. After all, Colin himself was old enough at thirty-one. Shouldn’t a man start leaving behind the fights and…

  His chest tightened. And the jokes.

  Wasn’t it time to slow down and get serious?

  He thought of Leticia in the poker room, thought of how they’d met tonight. She was the kind of woman who made a guy want to go serious, and the realization left Colin flummoxed.

  Deputy Felix was putting a very quiet Jonsey in the back of the patrol car. “You’ll call Tucker about this?”

  Tucker would be livid with Jonsey, and Colin closed his eyes, almost giving into his soft spot for his youngest brother. Then he opened his eyes and shook his head. “I’ll let Tucker know myself.”

  After the deputy nodded curtly, then shut the door, Jonsey looked lost in the backseat. Colin crossed his arms over his chest, and Jonsey blankly looked away. It was as if he couldn’t believe he was finally going to pay the piper and have some time to stew about what he’d done.

  This was for the best, though.

  On the way over to the driver’s side of the car, the deputy gave one of Colin’s arms a long look. It made Colin do the same, and when he found that his shirt was ripped and bloodstained, he further inspected it. A cut. Maybe it’d happened when someone had broken a bottle during the fight. Everything had gone down so fast that Colin couldn’t remember.

  “Better look to that, Buzz,” Felix said.

  “Will do.”

  As the deputy drove off, Colin watched Jonsey as his brother sent him one last hangdog glance. The temptation to follow the car was overwhelming, but when would Jon learn if Colin kept enabling him as he had in the past?

  After leaving Tucker a voice mail, Colin went back into the R&T. The scent of old smoke almost choked him, even though he’d grown up breathing it ever since he was old enough to sneak inside to listen to the bands and ogle the women—especially the painting of Cherry Chastain above the bar.

  But the storied starlet was nothing compared to the woman who waited for him in the poker room.

  Colin didn’t mind his injury—he was more concerned about Leticia. He was glad he’d acted fast enough to get her out of the shit in the bar room, but he wanted to get her out of here even faster. It hadn’t been a wise move to bring her to the R&T in the first place.

  When he opened the door, he found her alone, playing solitaire with the cards on the table. Leticia had obviously washed the birthday cake off her neck, and she glanced up at him, wide-eyed, worried as she scanned the wound on his arm. The care in her eyes was enough to send the blood to pumping in him—and it was going to some pretty dangerous places.

  “What happened?” she asked. “I mean, there was another woman back here, and we heard bits and pieces of the story when she was picked up by her date, but…” She motioned toward Colin’s injury.

  “It’s nothing a bandage can’t cure.”

  There was a private bathroom back here for the illegal gamblers, and it was a far better sight than the crappy pit stops in the bar area, which barely had enough space in them for a man to take a whiz. Colin went to the little room, flicked on the light, and opened the medicine cabinet.

  The well-stocked supplies seemed to take Leticia aback. He could see her expression in the mirror.

  “Is this a stealth emergency room?” she asked.

  He raised an eyebrow at her. “Welcome to the Rough and Tumble.”

  As he started to take out ointment, bandages, and gauze, she wandered farther inside. Around them, the walls were red, with a wooden strip that divided the solid color from the floral-patterned wallpaper on the bottom. Fancy for the R&T, but it was still no Ruby Room.

  “Unless you’re proficient at using one hand to bandage yourself up,” she said, “I’ve got this.”

  “I think I was caught by a broken bottle.”

  “Tough guy. You act as if it doesn’t hurt a bit.”

  He shrugged. He hadn’t even realized it was there, but he didn’t want to sound macho by telling her that.

  She used a gentle hand to push him to the other side of the sink counter, then washed her hands with the lavender soap Kat kept in here. Leticia even knew enough to reach for the box of latex gloves Kat kept in supply, too.

  Colin decided to let Leticia take care of him. He’d tended wounds a hundred times by himself, but he wanted to feel her fingers busy at work, healing him, making him feel better about having let Jonsey go with the deputy.

  “So I heard the ruckus was over a girl,” she said, d
rying her hands on one of the towels piled by the side of the sink.

  “Isn’t it always?”

  “Not in my experience.”

  Her words seemed to mean more than what was on the surface, and he gave her room to explain. But she only went on with the topic at hand.

  “Your brother was the one who was in the middle of the fight. Is that right?”

  “Yup, it was Jonsey. I can depend on him to tear things apart in here at least twice a month.”

  She only nodded, and it was with such seriousness that Colin wanted to start the night all over again, beginning back when he’d been putting on his clothes before driving out to the Ruby Room. He would’ve chosen something nicer to wear, although his best get up consisted of new black denim and a silk shirt topped off with a bolo. He would’ve made himself know more about wine instead of just beer. He would’ve been the type to talk with Leticia about more important things than gigolos.

  But that would’ve required him to be more than a good-time guy.

  He had already rolled up his sleeve, and he saw that his shirt had absorbed a lot of the blood from the cut. Luckily, the injury wasn’t deep, and the blood had already begun to clot, but he stood still as Leticia expertly cleaned his wound with water, then around the cut with soap, as well.

  “It doesn’t look like there’s any glass or debris here,” she said softly.

  “You sound like an expert at this. Are you also a nurse in your spare time?”

  “I might as well have been.”

  She touched him so tenderly that he might’ve mistaken her attentions for something other than what they were. A rogue tingle was taking him over, getting him hard, making him wonder if she knew what she was doing to him.

  As she used the gauze to apply the antibiotic ointment, she sighed. “Let’s just say I grew up knowing how to bandage wounds—and they weren’t necessarily my brother’s. Sometimes they were…”

  She stopped. Why did he get the feeling that she’d been about to say my own?

  Swiftly bandaging him, she finished. “I wish they’d made bandages for keeping the family together, too. And from the way you walked in here, Buzz, I’d say you wish the same.”

  He didn’t want to talk about Jonsey, but there was something about what she’d said that felt like a link to her, a vine that connected them in a way that ran deeper than it should’ve.

  He barely knew this woman, yet here he was, having a life experience. May he was ready to grow up, but it wouldn’t happen overnight. Yet from the way she kept her gloved fingers on his bare arm, as if she didn’t want to stop touching him, he thought it would be good medicine for him to spend a little more time with her.

  Just an hour.

  Or two.

  And she seemed to have the same idea as she watched him with those soft brown eyes. “So does this mean we’re calling it a night, Buzz?”

  Chapter 8

  Before they left the now-empty bar, Leticia had blindly picked some wine from the cooler of the Rough & Tumble since Buzz had told her that he didn’t have any on hand at home—and that he wanted to continue what they’d started earlier in the night with his wine-steeped education.

  Even a cowboy needs to know his grapes, he’d said as he’d sent her to choose the wine. Then he’d left to clean up the mess in the saloon so the owner, Kat, wouldn’t have to.

  Afterward, they’d gone to his pickup, hitting the dark road farther into nowhere, toward his ranch.

  All the way, she had contained her excitement: the trembling of her thighs as she pressed them together, the quakes that shivered along the lining of her belly. She tried not to talk, because she knew the nerves would come out in her voice, so when Buzz had put on the radio, she’d thanked heavens for that.

  Even after what had happened in the Rough & Tumble with Jonsey, Buzz was shaking it off, and she was going to get her night of fun with this cowboy after all. And tomorrow…?

  She wouldn’t think about that.

  They pulled onto a dirt road lined by desert scrub and cacti, and straight ahead, the iron sign for the Bar DB Ranch was shadowed by the light of the moon. She saw a one-story house, then an area with a barn and corral, but it all seemed so quiet.

  Before she knew it, they were inside his home, and there was a sunken fireplace, rustic wooden floors, artistic ironwork, and simple framed art that looked as if it could have doubled as tattoos with a Southwestern flavor.

  On the way to the kitchen, Buzz jerked his chin toward one picture that looked like a Joshua tree stretching toward a primitive sun. “My brother Tucker is into body ink. It seemed a shame for him to throw some of his sketches away, so I put them up here.”

  “Does Tucker live with you?”

  “Nah. He’s got a place in Vegas. Jonsey lives in the foreman’s cottage, and a couple employees have housing on the property, too. It’s just me in here.”

  And her. And both of them. Alone.

  She followed him all the way into the kitchen, where he put down the bag in which Kat had wrapped the three wine bottles from the Rough & Tumble. Buzz pulled one out at a time, looking at the labels. Two of them were from a local winery up in Pahrump.

  “A red,” he said, setting down the first bottle, then the next and the next. “A white, and a…What did you call the pink rosé stuff?”

  “A blush.” She smiled at him, shy, then even shier as her gaze brushed over the bandage she’d put on his arm.

  He noticed where she was looking, then removed his hat, tossing it next to the wine on the table. His dark hair was ruffled, carelessly heart-gripping. “I suppose the first thing I should do is get out of this bloody shirt.”

  Yes, please, she thought, and it wasn’t because of the blood on it. She wanted muscles, man, him.

  She fought the urge to blow out a long, pent-up breath. “Why don’t you show me where the corkscrew is, and I’ll open a wine while you…do that.”

  Couldn’t she even say take off your shirt? That’s what she wanted, wasn’t it?

  It was strange to admit that she could be so concentrated on the physical when she had always wanted more than temporary liaisons, but that was what tonight was about. Here and now.

  He got out a winged corkscrew from a drawer, saying that it was something left over from the years his mom had ruled the kitchen, then two blue wine glasses that looked as if they’d been handed down from the 70s. Then he departed, and she opened the rosé.

  Why not continue what they’d started earlier? He seemed to be taking the situation with Jonsey in stride, even though she suspected that it was bothering him…and that’s probably why he had brought her here. With her, he wouldn’t be alone with his thoughts.

  Lord knew she understood.

  She poured, relieved that Buzz wasn’t in the room to see how her unsteady hand threatened to spill the pink liquid everywhere. Luckily, she was done by the time she felt him standing in back of her.

  As she turned around, her heart flailed, jogging in her chest as if it’d never been exercised before. And it hadn’t been—not like this.

  His approach had been so quiet because he’d taken off his boots, but he still had on his jeans. As far as his shirt went, though? He had put on a fresh one, but he hadn’t buttoned it up, and it left her with a grand view of his smooth, muscled chest and ridged abs. She’d never seen a stomach like his, defined by sleek lines with a slim trail of hair that traveled down from his belly and into the top of his jeans.

  If the reason she was here hadn’t been obvious before, it was painfully clear now. Her skin seemed to hop with the goose bumps on it, with the heat combing over her.

  She tried to play it cool. “I opened our second rosé of the night.”

  “I see the pinkness from here.”

  The way he said it… God. It was as if he were talking dirty, referring to all her pink parts. And based on the sly smile he had going on, she wouldn’t have put the insinuations past him.

  No one had ever really talked dirty to her bef
ore, and the fact that he had dared sent another tremor through her.

  “Actually,” he said, coming closer, “the kind of pink I see in that glass is the same type you get during a sunset.”

  He was so close that she could smell soap on him, as if he had washed up just for her, scrubbing away the cake from his neck and the effects of the fight from earlier.

  She imagined Buzz in action, landing punches on the man who’d disrespected that girl Jonsey had been defending. What if she told him that some kind of bad, primitive thing inside her wished she’d seen him going at it? She shouldn’t want to watch a man throwing punches but…

  Phew.

  She started babbling, just as she had in the cellar of the Ruby Room, when she had been anticipating what might happen between them: a kiss? A touch? More?

  “This rosé was made from merlot at a small winery in the state of New York, near the coast. It’s an artisanal operation, and Kat obviously has some good taste in wine to have picked it up. It, as well as these other two bottles, was like a little treasure among the rest.”

  He listened to her, just as he had before. He coasted a fingertip around the rim of one glass, throwing her off balance at the suggestion of his touch.

  “It should be a dry wine,” she said. “It might not be to your taste, and don’t worry if it isn’t. In fact, if someone doesn’t enjoy the wine at a tasting, they’ll spit it out. Usually there’s a bucket for that, and it’s not considered bad form to use it.”

  He dipped a finger into the liquid, stopping her from continuing. When he glanced up with those deep blue eyes, she nearly wilted.

  “Go on,” he said in a low, sexy voice.