Then He Kissed Me

by Christie Ridgway

  She knew it was because what they had done the night before made it that much harder to resist him. Add in his French accent, his Southern drawl, and his amazing body and her willpower was toast. Ten minutes, four outfits, and a pile of discards later, she descended the stairs in clothes she’d never worn before.

  “Nice,” said Jack, lounging against the newel at the bottom step.

  She plucked at the thin black sweater. It was tucked into a red skirt that Allie had decided was too tight for her. It was red, full, and buttoned up the front, the high waistline tight to her ribs. She wore black tights, slouchy boots with low heels, and a black and red scarf wound around her neck.

  Also red lip gloss.

  She never wore red lip gloss.

  And his gaze was focused there. Mom’s only half right about that blow-job mouth. I’d quadruple your points in the appearance category.

  “Ack!” she said, squeezing her eyes shut. “This is all your fault. Every bit of it.”

  His grin was lazy. “Haven’t we gone over this before? It’s just a chemical thing, mon chat. Nothing to get your fur ruffled about.”

  She let that be the last word on it, because there was a meeting she had to make at Tanti Baci with Giuliana and the Bennetts. Jack trailed her into the winery offices, too, but told her he’d wait in the tiny reception area. That led to an encounter with the two Bennett brothers, and Seth - the lawyer - quirked a brow at them.

  “Bring him into the conference room, Steve. He’s your fiancé, after all, so he might as well be involved.”

  Her belly tightened. “Word’s out, then? Uh, Edenville knows about … us?”

  “Of course,” Liam said. He shook Jack’s hand and pressed a kiss to Stevie’s hot cheek. “I could have predicted this days ago. Congratulations.”

  “For what?” Jules asked, as she came out of her office to lead their party into the small room that was stuffed with an oblong table and beat-up chairs. “Did someone win the lottery?”

  “Jack, I guess.” Liam sat down beside Stevie’s older sister and grinned at his buddy settling across the table. “Won the lady of his dreams, one of the beautiful Baci women. Look at the way he glows.”

  Jack laughed as Jules met Stevie’s eyes. Would her sister shine a light on their deception? Her lip curled. “Ah, yes. Young love. I remember it well.”

  “Really?” Liam sounded surprised, though there was a distinct edge to his voice. “And here I thought you’d surgically removed from your life anything that has to do with me.”

  A strange expression crossed Giuliana’s face. Her fingers curled tight around the pen she was holding.

  “Hell,” Liam cursed, his voice soft. “Jules. Damn it, Jules. Damn me -”

  “A sentiment I’ve long agreed with,” her sister said, pulling her notepad more squarely in front of her and then looking to Seth. “Shall we get this over with?”

  The lawyer hesitated a moment and then turned a page on his notepad. Stevie didn’t blame him for ignoring the tense byplay between the two oldest siblings.

  Whatever had gone on between Liam and Giuliana years ago had left a wealth of pain that rose to the surface at the slightest scratch. The tension between them had only grown worse since Jules had returned to Edenville after years of working in Southern California.

  “What the hell is he doing here?” Liam demanded now, the earlier apology in his voice evaporating as his attention focused on Kohl Friday walking into the room. The dark-haired man took the seat on Jules’s other side.

  The tension between Jules and Liam had grown far, far worse since Kohl had started exhibiting an irrefutable interest in the oldest Baci sister.

  “I invited him,” Seth said, loosening his tie as if readying to break up a physical altercation. “Welcome, Kohl.”

  Liam muttered something.

  “What’s that?” Jules asked sweetly. “Are you expressing your gratitude that the vineyard manager would take time at the end of his busy day to meet with us?”

  “It’s the fucking winter,” Liam said, both the crude word and the harshness in his voice out of character. “What else does he have to do? It’s not as if he’s sweet-talking the fruit to ripen or chasing tourists out of the vines.”

  Jack’s chair scooted closer to Stevie’s. “You didn’t tell me we’d have some pre-entertainment entertainment,” he said into her ear. His warm breath washed a swathe of goose bumps down her neck.

  “What can I say? Every day’s an adventure at Tanti Baci,” she whispered back.

  Under cover of the tabletop, his hand snuck beneath the full folds of her skirt, where his forefinger drew a pattern on her tights, just above her knee. “It’s going to take an intrepid explorer to find his way to interesting territory when you’re wearing these, mon ange.”

  She was not going to squirm! Instead, she ignored Jack, his wandering hand, and the jittery way her skin shivered under her clothes. “Seth, can we get going? I have an appointment with one of the brides after this.”

  He turned to her with a little smile. Just a year older than Stevie, Seth had the golden Bennett good looks. After law school, he’d gone to work for his family, keeping all their various businesses on track. She’d always had a soft spot for him and smiled back.

  Jack must have noticed. His hand tightened on her leg and he whispered in her ear again. “Remember you’re an engaged woman.”

  “I still have my memories,” she whispered back. “I can’t look at Seth without remembering our kiss.”

  “What?”

  At the outburst, those circling the table turned to Jack. “Is there a problem?” Seth asked.

  “I, uh…”

  “I think he’s jealous, Seth,” Stevie put in, taking the opportunity to needle the man whose palm was hot and hard on her knee. “I told him about our big smooch.”

  “Is that right?” Seth’s smile grew and his eyes warmed. “That was pretty memorable. Why your lips -”

  “Don’t talk about her lips.” To Stevie’s shock, Jack’s chair legs screeched against the floor and he half rose. “Don’t say another word about her mouth.”

  “Good God,” Jules said, rolling her eyes. “Seth was ten, Stevie less than that, and she pushed him into a pile of manure right after the fact.”

  “Then we tussled in the stuff,” Seth reminisced, as if they’d been rolling in sweet-smelling clover. “First and last time I let a girl get the best of me.”

  “Oh, please,” Stevie said. “You cried like the little baby you were until I took pity on you.” Then she turned to Jack. “I was sitting on his chest and he claimed he couldn’t catch his breath. Do you believe that?”

  All the earlier temper was gone from his face and he was smiling that amused smile again. He cupped her cheek with his hand. “Absolutely, mademoiselle.

  You take away my breath on a regular basis.”

  Flustered and hot, Stevie jerked free from his touch and primly folded her hands on the table. His seductive manner was unlike the way any man had ever been with her, and she kept running into corners trying to escape it. “The meeting… ?”

  “As long as you’re finished teasing your guy,” Seth said, “we’ll go right ahead.”

  At her embarrassed nod, he began. A few minutes of routine matters followed. Then he tapped his pen on his pad. “We started these monthly meetings so that there’s more communication between the two families. Everyone here - with the exception of you, perhaps, Jack-knows that Tanti Baci is teetering on the brink. Allie’s weddings bought us time with some much needed cash flow, but with her laid up, we might need to rethink the viability of keeping that side of the business going.”

  “I’m doing my part,” Stevie said, leaning forward in her chair.

  “For the moment,” Jules said. “But facts are facts, and you’ve never been keenly committed to the winery.”

  “But…” But it was true. She’d been the first to divorce herself from the winemaking tradition; the one who always felt she was watching t
he family business from the outside. Six months ago, when they’d faced up to the disaster that was the Tanti Baci finances, she’d been an advocate for cutting their losses and selling out.

  “Stevie’s stepped up now, though,” Jack said. His hand stroked from her nape to her waist in a soothing caress. “While your sister’s out, she’s handling the weddings.”

  “We still have to consider that the weddings may not be enough,” Seth said.

  “Maybe…” Stevie didn’t know where this sudden desperation had come from, but she didn’t want to hear him say the winery had fallen so far it would never get back up again. “Maybe I can find the treasure,” she blurted.

  She must have grown a second head, the way the assembled company stared at her. “You know … Seth gave me the key. It could … I don’t know…”

  Giuliana shot Liam a hard look. “I blame you and your brother for this. Feeding her silliness -”

  “I don’t have a silly bone in my body,” Stevie protested.

  “Until it comes to ghost stories and treasure hunts. How many times did you read Robinson Crusoe?”

  “Hey!” she complained.

  Jack found Stevie’s hand, squeezed. “My sister says that wedding venues aren’t easy to come across. Can you charge more?”

  Liam was shaking his head. “Maybe, but we’re pretty competitive on that score, according to Allie. Our new issue is that due to her marriage, she’s not in northern California full-time. We run her ragged when she’s in Edenville, but there are still gaps, which means to keep this end going we should hire someone we can’t afford.”

  “But if we can’t keep the weddings going,” Stevie said, “then we can’t afford -”

  “The winery,” Jules finished. She sighed. “It keeps coming back to that.”

  Stevie clutched Jack’s hand. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Her sisters and the Bennetts had agreed to keep the place on life support for at least a year, but now they were giving up? Except she couldn’t complain about that, could she, when she was the one who’d walked away.

  “I’m back in,” she said suddenly. “Full-on. Full-time.”

  “Back in what?” Jules asked.

  “Back in the winery. We said we’d give it twelve months and for these remaining six I’m committed to Tanti Baci.” Her stomach felt sick at the promise and she had to repress the sudden urge to leave the table and run away. Jack seemed to sense it, and he gripped her hand that much tighter.

  She turned panicked eyes on him and found herself glad he’d followed her home and then to the winery. She needed a strong hand to hold on to. Because what had she just done? Why had she made such a perilous promise? Everybody knew that the more you cared about something the harder it would be to lose.

  *****

  Some instinct told Jack he should take off following the meeting at the winery. Make excuses and then plan a date for a different night, because now he needed some breathing room. Seeing Stevie interact with family and friends had peeled back yet another layer of her and the resultant glimpse of her emotional inner self compromised the casual approach he’d been working on with her.

  Her sister called her silly, yet she’d just made a serious six-month-long commitment.

  She still mooned over a legendary treasure, probably just as much as when she’d slapped down Seth Bennett for stealing a kiss.

  As tough as she always tried to sound, she’d clung to his hand when they’d discussed the loss of the winery.

  Until this moment, he’d never known what a sucker he was for strength paired with vulnerability. That was Stephania Baci: tough as nails, sweet as fiery candy.

  And, Christ, in that skirt the color of the cinnamon Red Hots in a dish on the desk in her office, she looked the part, too.

  They’d moved from the conference room to that smaller space where Stevie would conduct her appointment with an upcoming bride. He hovered at the doorway, studying her as she moved around the room, tidying papers and files.

  “How about if I catch up with you later,” she said, sliding a look at him as she bent toward a box on the floor. “We can meet somewhere in an hour or so.”

  That would work well enough, he decided. He’d go off, busy himself with something. An hour should give him time to screw his head back on straight.

  “Yeah -” The word choked off as she bent lower. He stared at the glimpse of creamy skin rising above the band of her thigh-high stockings as her hemline rose. “What the hell are you wearing on your legs?”

  She jerked straight, her hands going to the back of her skirt as a blush bloomed on her face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You’re wearing those to deliberately provoke me, aren’t you?” he asked, thoughts of leaving flying from his head. “You let me get a glimpse of them just to torture me.”

  She glared at him. “I let you get a glimpse of them because I hardly ever wear skirts. My mother used to forbid me from playing in dresses in case boys would get a glimpse of my underwear. So I’m a jeans and pants person, which means I forget how easily these ridiculous hem-lines rise up. And I’m wearing thigh-high tights because I won’t be caught dead in panty hose until the President of the United States is wearing them at a State of the Union address. Though I’m sure that will never happen because once we have a woman in the White House, the damn things will be outlawed.”

  He would have laughed if lust hadn’t given him such a single-minded focus. He stalked toward her, his hands itching to slide back under the skirt and touch that silky, creamy skin. Maybe he’d even get her to bend over again, so he could see all the way to her contraband panties.

  His intent was likely etched on his face, because her breathing quickened and she took a step back for every one of his forward strides. “Jack…”

  “Now, Stephania,” he said. “You know you set out to tease me.”

  “I did no such thing!” But her face flushed and it had to be guilt that caused her to bite her bottom lip. “Everybody knows I’m not a teasing kind of girl.”

  He trapped her behind her desk. “I don’t know that. Or is it that I’m the only one you like to tease?”

  She shook her head. “Straightforward Stevie. That’s me. Shoots from the hip.”

  He had her nervous now, and he liked it, because damn if he hadn’t been nervous with those weird tender feelings for her welling up in his chest during that meeting. Turnabout made the play more fair. “I shoot, too, remember? Also from the hip.”

  Color blazed across her face. “Jack!” Her gaze darted to the door. “I’m expecting a bride.”

  Oh, yeah. That. Though it was after five and he’d noted the rest of the office had cleared out-including the Bennetts and Giuliana - the doors were open in expectation of her appointment. He assured himself he wasn’t sulking as he allowed her to push past him. Grabbing a handful of that cinnamon candy from the dish, he considered leaving again.

  But hell, one hour wasn’t going to cool him down now.

  There was a commotion in the hail outside her office and Stevie crossed to the doorway. Dual squeals had his hands slamming over his ears and he saw her leap into the reception area. More slumber party-styled shrieks. Then Stevie was reentering her office, dragging a young woman behind her.

  “The appointment log only said ‘Bride G,’ ” she explained. “I had no idea it was you, Gertie.”

  Gertie, a buxom blonde who had wide blue eyes, giggled. “I had them write it in that way on purpose. I wanted to surprise you.”

  Clearly delighted, Stevie turned toward Jack. “I babysat Gertie and her little sister, Gretel, for years.” Her gaze went back to the younger woman. “You can’t be old enough to get married.”

  “I’m twenty,” she said. “And you’re getting married, too.” Curiosity filled the gaze she turned on Jack.

  He smiled at her. “Was my fiancée a good sitter?”

  “The best.” Gertie clasped her hands together. “We always asked for her because she’d actuall
y play with us. The others would watch TV or talk to their boyfriends on the phone, but Stevie would take us outside and play catch or teach us to turn cartwheels.”

  “Cartwheels? Now that I’d like to see.” He raised a brow at Stevie, and from the widening of her eyes, he knew she realized he was imagining her playing acrobat in that full little skirt. Bad Jack. He hid his smile by stuffing his mouth with another handful of Red Hots.

  The two women chattered after that and he only half listened to the talk of attendants, floral arrangements, and justices of the peace. He’d heard enough about that kind of thing from his sister to last a lifetime. He didn’t tune back in until Gertie returned to reminiscing.

  “Remember all those fairy tales you used to read us?”

  “Oh. Sure.” Stevie darted a glance his way, an embarrassed smile turning up the corners of her mouth.

  “Stories of knights and maidens and princes and castles. And now you’re going to be a princess yourself. Imagine that.”

  “Imagine that.”

  Gertie grinned at Jack and then at Stevie. “A fantasy come true.”

  “Exactly right,” Stevie agreed, her face going pinker. “A fantasy come true.”

  Jack smiled and fed himself another fistful of Red Hots, then waved a goodbye to the bride as she exited the office, still babbling on about how she wanted Stevie to meet the guy she’d marry. Sweet as she was, Jack was still happy to see the last of her.

  Because then he was alone with his cartwheel-twirling, fairy tale-loving, temporary princess-to-be. She came back into the office, smiling. “That was such a…” Her voice drifted off as she caught the look on his face.

  “Surprise?” he supplied in a soft voice. “Bolt from the blue? Don’t say pleasure, mon anqe, because I assure you, that’s about to happen right now. Lock the door behind you.”

  “Jack…”

  “I can’t wait, I don’t think.” He was leaning against the front of the desk, having pushed the visitors’ chairs out of the way. “And it doesn’t seem like I should have to. You just said I’m your fantasy come true, so now I think it’s time you make one of mine come true, too.”

  One of the best things about Stevie was that her moments of indecision didn’t last long. She flushed at his words, looked poised between running off and giving him a tongue lashing, and then she squared her shoulders. Reached behind her to turn the lock. Swaggered in his direction.