by Camy Tang
Suddenly a kick to her calf—a la Trish—made Jenn blink. “Oh.” He had asked a question. What had it been? “Uh, yes. We need help. If you have time.”
“I don’t mind.” His voice had a light tone, as if he made quippy jokes often or poked fun at himself a lot. “You’re right near where the road curves, so it’s a bit dangerous. Better to get a spare tire on quickly.”
He had a fascinating little divot in his chin …
Trish delivered another not-so-subtle kick to Jenn’s ankle. “Er … thanks. I really appreciate the help.”
He smiled, then, and Jenn was completely lost. His laugh lines were deep, framing his bright, slightly shy smile. She suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to grab his face and kiss him.
Oh my goodness, she had to get a hold of herself. Her neck started to burn.
“So where are you two headed today?” he asked as he fiddled with the locking mechanism to unhitch her spare tire from the back of the SUV.
“We’re going to Armstrong Winery,” Trish said brightly. “I’m tasting wines to see if I want to order them for my wedding, and Jenn’s my caterer.”
He glanced not at Trish but at Jenn. “You should go to the Castillo Winery just down the road. It’s my uncle’s.”
“Your uncle owns Castillo?” Jenn perked up. “I’ve seen his wines but never tasted one.” She seemed to recall one of his pinot noir blends won an award last year.
He winked at her. “It’s better than Armstrong.”
Jenn laughed. “Of course you’d say that.”
“I’m completely unbiased.” Suddenly he frowned down at the spare, which he’d dropped on the ground from the hitch. “Your spare is flat.”
“What?” Jenn bent and pressed against the tire. It gave like a marshmallow. “But it’s new. I got five new tires only a few months ago.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to tow your car. Have you got AAA?”
“No, my uncle owns a garage,” Jenn said. “He always gives me free towing. I’ll call him.”
But when she got hold of her Uncle Roger at his auto repair shop, he said, “Sorry, Jenn, I won’t be able to tow it until later this afternoon. You don’t need to stay with your car—just tell me where it is and I’ll bring it in. You can get a ride home, right?”
Jenn told this to Trish, who pulled out her phone. “I guess we’ll miss our tasting appointment. Oh, no. My battery’s dead.”
“You can use mine,” Jenn said.
“No, I have the winery’s number on my phone. You don’t have it, do you?”
Jenn shook her head, then turned back to the handsome stranger. “You don’t happen to have your competitor’s phone number, do you?”
He smiled again, and Jenn’s stomach flipped. “I’ll do you one better. I’ll ask my cousin to come pick you up and take you to the winery.”
“We can’t ask you to do that,” Trish protested.
“I don’t mind. It’s my day off today. I’m also good friends with Barry Armstrong and I can make sure he treats you right, as opposed to their normal tasting room manager. And then you’ll come to Castillo to taste our wines, right?”
Trish laughed. “Okay!”
Jenn wanted to match her exuberance, but she worried about inconveniencing this man and his cousin. She always felt like a wet blanket around Trish. And she didn’t even know the guy’s name.
She waited until he had called his cousin and disconnected his cell phone. “I’m Jennifer Lim,” she said, extending a hand.
“Edward Castillo.”
His clasp was warm—no, hot. But not sweaty hot or uncomfortable hot. More like energizingly hot. His palm was slightly rough, as if he spent a lot of time doing rough jobs, maybe working in the vineyard. And he seemed reluctant to let go of her hand, which gave her heart a little blip of Whoopee!
“I’m Trish Sakai. Jenn and I are cousins.”
A slow smile that seemed aimed at Jenn. “I could tell.”
Really? Trish was ten times prettier—most people said so. The best they could ever say about Jenn was that she had a deep, husky Lauren Bacall voice. Somehow Edward’s words seemed like a compliment she might actually believe about herself.
His cousin David arrived within only a few minutes. “That was fast,” Jenn remarked as a pick up truck rattled to a halt in front of them.
“The back entrance to Castillo is only a mile up the road,” Edward said. “Armstrong is about ten miles beyond that.”
Trish was about to hop into the truck, but then she turned and gave Jenn that coy, I’m going to do something you’ll hate but it’ll be good for you look. “Jenn, didn’t you tell me you’ve always wanted to ride a Harley?”
What?! A pulse of abject fear swallowed her exclamation.
Trish turned guileless eyes to Edward. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot, but if you’d be willing to indulge a girl …”
He jumped on the suggestion. “I’d be happy to.” He extended a hand to Jenn. “I have an extra helmet with me, too.”
That hand was a tempter, enticing her onto that chrome-gilded death trap on two very small wheels. But the hand was confident, and its owner even more so. And while the death trap would have normally sent her screaming in the opposite direction, that hand pulled her like a truffle to a chocoholic.
“S-sure.” She gave him her hand, which felt numb and cold.
He squeezed her fingers slightly—she wasn’t sure what that meant. Her brain was firing Run away! Run away! synapses like exploding fireworks, but she followed him to the bike.
He slid a helmet over her head, its weight making her neck feel fragile and breakable, especially on a doorless machine going at 30 miles an hour …
No, she couldn’t think about that. She’d be with Edward, who seemed like a safe … well, she didn’t know if he was a safe driver. He seemed like a safe … no, she wasn’t quite sure he was a safe person, either, which she had to admit added to his appeal.
Um … God, keep us safe!
She climbed on board.
CHAPTER FIVE
She took his breath away. In more ways than one.
Or maybe it was because Edward had sucked in his gut the entire short ride to Armstrong Winery, because she’d been clenching him around his middle so tightly. She hadn’t seemed the flirty type. Actually, he would have interpreted her touch as a death grip if she hadn’t said she’d always wanted to ride a Harley.
She’d socked him in the stomach with her first glance at him, when he’d been passing her truck and she’d caught his eye. Something about her made him think of the moon over the vineyards on a clear night in summer. She gave him that same sense of peace and rightness and belonging.
He’d never felt this way about a woman before. It exhilarated him. It scared the rips off his jeans.
They pulled into the long driveway to the tasting rooms of Armstrong, but he led David to the back of the property to one of the main office buildings instead. The noise of the Harley brought Barry out of his office into the parking lot. “Oh my garlic,” he exclaimed. “Look at you.”
Here was a good excuse to show off his birthday present to Barry. Edward parked the bike and made to get off, but Jennifer’s arms were still in a vise lock around his midsection. He paused. “Uh …”
Jennifer started. “Oh. Sorry.” She slipped away from him, and the day got cooler.
“When did you get this bike?” Barry demanded with a wide, envious smile.
“Today. Late birthday present from Uncle Ron.”
“Lucky dog.” Barry bent to take a closer look at the engine.
“Happy belated birthday,” Jennifer said softly. She had a deep, sultry voice that made him think of old black and white movies.
“Thanks.” His coolness factor had skyrocketed just because of the bike and leather. Except how would she react if she knew he was normally not a mysterious biker dude, but just a rather nerdy farmer?
David had parked the truck and Trish climbed out. “Barry, this is Trish Sakai and her c
ousin Jennifer Lim.”
“Call me Jenn,” she said, taking his hand.
Jenn. That sounded more like her than Jennifer.
“We have an appointment with your tasting room manager,” Trish said.
“They had an appointment with your tasting room manager,” Edward said. “I told them you’d treat them better, Barry.”
Barry’s eyes narrowed as he surveyed first the women, then Edward. “Why aren’t they at your winery?”
He snatched at the opportunity. “Oh, so you don’t want them here? No prob—”
“I didn’t say that, chump,” Barry replied with a playful chop to his arm.
“Actually, Edward and David are helping us out after our car broke down a few miles down the road,” Jenn said.
He chose to think of it as an act of God that their car got a flat only seconds after he’d passed them on the road. He’d been reluctant to continue on his way after that first startling look he exchanged with Jenn, but he didn’t really relish being flattened by an oncoming car.
And now he had the next hour with them at Armstrong, and hopefully another hour at Castillo. He’d never before felt this kind of urgency to get to know a girl—then again, he’d never before been flattened by a first look from a woman, either.
They all trooped to the tasting room, where Barry served them himself. He also opened a few bottles of reserve wines normally not available for tasting, giving Edward and David an arch look as if to challenge them to be more gracious a host than he was being.
Edward and David ribbed Barry all during the girls’ wine tasting, but Barry gave back as good as he got.
“Hey Barry, your pinot grigio tastes less like lemonade today.”
“Last time, I did give you lemonade.”
“Barry, the zinfandel has finally learned not to bite.”
“The zin learned its manners. I can’t say as much about Castillo’s cabernet sauvignon.”
When they were tasting a rather nice pinot noir, Jenn nodded. “That would taste good with a nice, sharp cheese. Maybe a goat cheese.”
“One of the Castillo pinot noirs pairs well with our farm’s goat cheese,” Edward interjected before Barry could say anything.
“You make cheese?”
“We have both cows and goats, and we make artisan cheeses for our wine and cheese pairing menu.”
Jenn’s eyes lit up like amber jewels. “Wine and cheese pairing?”
Trish turned to Edward. “Maybe we can do that when we come to Castillo Winery after this.”
If he hadn’t been listening to Trish talking about her wedding plans, he’d have thought she was flirting with him. But the quick look she gave Jenn, then moving back to Edward, answered his questions.
Bride-to-be was playing matchmaker with the caterer and the winemaker. Sounded like a nursery rhyme. Except he liked the sound of that—caterer and winemaker.
Barry cut in with a “You’re better off drinking drain cleaner than Castillo’s wines,” but David replied with “They’re saving the best for last.”
“Let’s go,” Edward said. “Unless you’d like to try more of Barry’s poison.”
Barry responded with a hand clutching his heart. “You’re killing me, Edward.”
Maybe at Castillo’s he’d be able to chat with Jenn …
Suddenly two cell phones went off, both with song ringtones. He actually knew them both from listening to the Christian radio station—Trish’s phone played “Fool For You” by Nichole Nordeman and Jenn’s played “Not Gonna Let You Down” by Building 429.
She was a Christian? They were both Christians?
The heavens opened up with an angelic chorus singing something loud and magnificent and probably in Latin. Because Jenn was a Christian. Edward started to wonder if God Himself blew her tire just for him.
“Oh no!” both cousins said in unison into their phones.
It felt like a couple fertilizer bags fell on his shoulders.
The two women looked at each other with identical expressions of dismay. In that moment, they looked like twins.
Trish disconnected first. “Elyssa fell down my parents’ stairs!”
“Is she okay?” Jenn asked, her eyes wide.
“Mom took her to the hospital. We have to go meet them.”
Jenn nodded, but her eyes were distracted even as she shoved her phone back in her pocket.
“Who was that?” Trish asked her.
“Mom.” Jenn had turned white, but her eyes burned with a strange fire. “My one goat … has turned into three.”
CHAPTER SIX
The good thing about being a cousin was that Jenn had lots of blackmail options in her arsenal.
She’d already called Larry twelve times and left messages on his cell phone, so she resorted to email. But not just ineffectual demands for him to call her about the goat. No, the fact he wasn’t taking her calls required more lethal shots. Luckily, Larry being still in college and living in the dorms presented extra fodder for her devious mind.
She sat at her computer flipping through digital photos until she found a few particularly juicy ones, namely the ones involving the extended family’s trip to Hawaii, Larry showing off for some bikini-clad babes, unaware that the swim trunks he’d borrowed from a cousin had a huge rip in them. She attached them to an email and typed in the subject line:
I will send these to your dorm-mates if you don’t call me
After she sent it, she cocked her head and regarded her sent folder. Making threats wasn’t anything special coming from, say, Lex or Venus, but she knew she lacked a certain amount of fear factor in her cousin’s eyes.
She sent another email:
I mean it!!!! Call me!!!!
She knew he was on his computer because she got onto Facebook and saw he was online and “available to chat.” However, mere seconds after she had signed into Facebook, he signed off of chat.
Coward.
Ten minutes. He was deliberately ignoring her. Even the picture of him with the Polwarth sheep hadn’t been enough to force him to call her.
Jenn glowered at her laptop screen, then stood up and paced her bedroom, avoiding the pile of cookbooks on the floor and also the box containing new baking pans she’d bought to make Trish’s wedding cake.
She didn’t really want to send the pictures to Larry’s dorm-mates. Which Larry probably knew. If Venus had sent the email, Larry would have been dialing before the last picture even downloaded. Maybe Jenn should have asked Venus …
No, this was her problem. She had to stop relying on her cousins all the time to help her and be her “muscle.” She needed to develop some “muscle” too.
Fine. He’d called her bluff. She’d up the ante.
She called his mother, Aunt Glenda.
“Hi Aunt Glenda!”
“Oh, hello Jenn.” A little guarded in her tone. Was Jenn really surprised? The news that Jenn wasn’t going to work at the restaurant had probably reached Aunt Glenda within seconds of Jenn getting off the phone with Aunty Aikiko last week.