Fast Lane

by Margot Radcliffe

  Cole’s head tilted, gaze considering. “Did you know?”

  Blair shook her head, then said, “Of course not, but it hardly changes the facts, right? I ruined a marriage.” She lifted her hands up and then dropped them back down to her sides with a dejected thump. “I’m a homewrecker. The other woman. The evil villain. And I don’t deserve to be happy.” She pointed a finger at his chest. “I don’t deserve this great sex with you.”

  A moment of loaded silence filled the room wherein she kicked herself for trusting Cole with the truth, but resigned herself to the fact that now he’d leave and this would end just like it should.

  What she hadn’t expected was that Cole would start laughing, but that’s exactly what he did. He was full-out laughing at the gnawing guilt and unworthiness she’d been feeling since it happened.

  “You’re not a villain, sweetheart,” Cole said authoritatively, running a hand over her hair. The hand came to rest on her shoulder, giving her a firm squeeze so she’d meet his eyes again. “You got played, but a man cheating on his wife is the person at fault here, not you.”

  “That’s not what his wife said,” Blair informed him, a little annoyed by the fact that he was brushing over it, as if what had happened wasn’t a big deal at all. She might not feel responsible for someone’s death, but she’d hurt someone. Badly. And one didn’t just get over it or brush it aside. It wouldn’t be fair to the person she’d destroyed.

  Cole’s eyebrow rose and Blair nodded. “She found messages from me on his phone and then tracked me down at a talk I was giving. Told me they’d been married ten years and how dare I try to break them up. They have children.” Blair got lost again in the memory of that day, the pain and betrayal and anger. “I understand that it’s not my fault, but it doesn’t take the guilt away—and how in the world could I be so dumb?”

  “So that’s what’s got you all nervous?” Cole asked. “You think this is some good sex we’re having and are trying to find a way out of it?”

  Blair stared at him. “No, I’m just telling you what kind of person you’re sleeping with.”

  Taking her shoulders in his hands, Cole crouched down to look in her eyes, fire burning in his. “Blair Sandoval, I can almost see the gears turning in your head. It has been really fucking good between us. Maybe we’ll never see each other again after today, I don’t know, but by the time I leave this weekend I want you to believe that you are not at fault for that shit. You ran into a hurt woman who was looking for someone else to blame, but she got it wrong.”

  “It doesn’t make me feel any less guilty,” Blair sighed, “knowing that it wasn’t my fault. I thought he loved me, Cole. I just don’t know how I could have gotten it so wrong. I don’t trust myself anymore.”

  “I’d say that you’re right to distrust people, Blair. Let that be your guide in the future,” Cole advised, brushing a thumb over her jaw, making her shiver.

  His easy acceptance made Blair uncomfortable because it felt a little like absolution, the thing she’d been waiting for for so long, and she wondered warily now that she had a little bit of it, how was she going to let Cole go when he was the one providing it?

  He smiled at that and pulled her into his arms, holding her so tight. “You’re a good woman, Blair Sandoval. A mouthy one too, but a good one nonetheless. Don’t ever doubt it.”

  Then he gave her such a sweet kiss, one that was simply meant to soothe, and she decided she’d probably let him have all her underwear if he wanted.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  TWO WEEKS LATER Cole disembarked from the airplane in California kicking himself for the fact that he hadn’t been able to stay away. He should have stayed away.

  Instead the day after he’d arrived, he’d followed Blair to Napa Valley, this time, to a different winery tasting room only to wait while she had a meeting with the owner. He sat inside a large room with high ceilings, gold-and-crystal chandeliers in a row down the rectangular space, the light reflecting and refracting off the building-length picture windows overlooking the vineyard itself. He’d traveled the world and met some wealthy people, but Napa Valley seemed to be the upper echelon of wealth, and the full effect of just who Blair was was hitting home to him. She might hide cheese and wear dusty jeans to work, but she was a wine star and the very definition of a coastal elite. In comparison, he was just some retired race car driver who killed his brother.

  He should have stayed in Europe and left her alone.

  “Sorry about this,” Blair told him, her eyes worried as she approached him. “I would have canceled if I’d known you were coming.”

  It wasn’t an admonishment, but Cole only smiled and assured her that it was fine. And it was. She had a fucking life, unlike him who was just flying around the world for a glimpse of her.

  On their way back to her place, Cole chastised himself for being ridiculous. So what if he’d flown back; she was the one who’d gotten him out of his sexual slump—it stood to reason he’d be interested in more. But that’s all it was; he didn’t need to worry about her getting the wrong idea. He’d just explain when he left this time that it would be the last time. Then he’d leave her alone and they could both get on with their lives.

  He kept up his end of the small talk just fine, but it wasn’t until they were sitting on her porch, the midday sun shining down and a bottle of chardonnay on ice on the table between them, that Blair seemed to sense his mood.

  “You don’t like it?” she asked, nodding to the salad she’d made that he was currently not eating.

  He shoveled a huge bite into his mouth. It was a good salad as far as salads went, with crunchy apples and candied walnuts, and a vinaigrette he’d watched her make while standing in her huge kitchen with glossy white shiplap walls, wide-slatted wood floor and top-of-the-line appliances. “Of course I like it,” he told her, eating more of it. “I’d eat just about anything you gave me. My mom would have my head if she thought I’d refused someone’s hospitality.”

  Blair’s eyes narrowed. “So...you don’t like it.”

  Cole wasn’t exactly in full command of his senses, which might be the reason this conversation was getting away from him. Having flown all night and most of the next day, sleeping fitfully on the plane, he’d arrived at Blair’s in the middle of the night and they’d been on each other, making desperate love into the dawn when they’d finally fallen asleep. Needless to say, his body and mind were not firing on all cylinders.

  “Blair,” he said, eyes beseeching. “I can’t say I love salads as much as I love a heaping plate of my grandmother’s gumbo, but this one is excellent.”

  The tension leaked out of Blair’s body. “I know, I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m so on edge. I just know you’re tired and I feel guilty that you flew all the way here again just to see me and all I’m feeding you is this stupid salad.”

  The uneasiness he’d been battling since stepping off the plane took a deeper hold because honestly what the fuck was he doing here? He was making an uncomplicated one-night stand into something else entirely. Blair sure as hell wasn’t traveling overseas to see his ass.

  But the four-day stretch he would have had between races had seemed endless and being with Blair was the only thing that put a stop to the recriminations and sense of loneliness and loss that creeped in every time he had a moment of free time. Since the accident, Cole had made sure he was busy all the time, hoping for the day he’d wake up and the hurt would be gone. But a year in, he’d come to the realization that the pain was never going to go away. He was always going to miss his brother like he would a limb and he accepted that, but seeing Blair had become like a drug, for the time he was with her the pain faded into the background.

  But that didn’t mean they were or could enter into in a relationship. Nothing had changed and he still didn’t deserve her and the happiness she brought.

  He set his bowl aside and took
her hands in his, only letting himself enjoy knowing that him being here was important to her for a moment. “First of all, there’s no ‘just to see me’ involved here. I get to see you, you understand me?” he asserted, making sure she got the point. He hated her asshole ex for ever shaking her confidence. Regardless of how things would eventually end with the two of them, he never wanted her thinking he didn’t find her amazing in every way. “Second of all, you’re right, the travel is ravaging my body, but even so, I still think I made a pretty good showing of it last night, so why don’t we quit worrying about little old me and enjoy the afternoon?”

  “You’re right,” Blair said, leaning back in her chair. “I’m sorry I tried to torpedo our afternoon.”

  “Sweetheart, you couldn’t if you tried,” he assured her. And it was the truth. He was so happy to see her he doubted even her punching him in the face could dim the happiness he felt at being near her again. He’d never truly adjusted to not having a home for the better part of a year, knew his brother, Scott, never had either. But that aimlessness was part of the reason why Cole had spent most of his time partying and carousing at all hours of the day and night. He’d missed home and since he generally had trouble looking his family in the eye, this was the closest thing he’d felt to home in far too long.

  “Do you live in a swamp?” Blair asked, curious, idly crunching on an apple slice.

  “No,” he laughed. “But there is a small pond on my land. I own just a regular old house. Nothing too fancy. Probably the size of this farmhouse.”

  Blair nodded. “This used to be a small place, but I’ve added a couple thousand square feet since I’ve been here.”

  “I bought a big house because I figured before long I’d want a couple of kids running around. It’s a great set-up for a family.”

  “So you’d want to settle in Louisiana?”

  He shrugged. He’d thought that’s where he’d end up eventually but he’d never had any real plans in place. He hoped the vineyard business would bring his family back together, though. “It was just the thought I had when I bought a place, looking toward what might fit my future. That’s about as far as it went.”

  He had an errant vision of Blair in his house with dark-haired kids running around and it stopped him cold. Being with Blair, or anyone, wasn’t in his future. He’d been busy the past couple of weeks, putting in the transfer to American announcing soon as well as buying a local winery to begin putting his family back together, but those plans didn’t include a mouthy viticulturist who lived all the way in California. Hell, he wasn’t sure he’d ever let anyone close to him again. All he wanted was to make sure his remaining family was happy and safe, and with the winery, he’d be creating an income stream they could always rely on even if he wasn’t around, as well as a reason to always be around each other. Not like now when they could avoid him as much as they wanted.

  “I didn’t think I’d ever have kids,” Blair admitted, taking a sip of wine. Her gaze traveled idly over her land before meeting his again. “My mom is always nagging me and Nate to have them so someone will take over the vineyard.” She shrugged. “But it’s not like I would make my kids do something they didn’t want to anyway, and what if they didn’t want to grow grapes or sell wine? We’d still need to find someone to run this operation.”

  “Have you always wanted to work here?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Maybe that’s boring but I spent my childhood running through these fields and eating warm grapes so juicy and sweet that finally piercing through the thick skin of a wine grape was like a special surprise. All that fruit bursting in your mouth.”

  Cole warmed at the image of Blair as a kid, was struck by the idea of his own children doing the same thing in a vineyard that he owned.

  “Leaving never really occurred to me,” she continued. “I travel a lot for speaking engagements. I lived in France and Spain and Australia in my twenties just to study and learn what I could about different types of wine making. Staying here never felt like a sacrifice because I love what I do. I think Nate feels the same way.”

  “There’s never any shame in doing what you love.” He held up his wineglass to toast. Though announcing wasn’t his dream, he’d sacrificed a lot to race, especially overseas, and he knew what it was to love what you were doing. The sacrifices were worth it up until they weren’t.

  “Where are you flying when you leave here?”

  He wanted to sigh. Hated to even think of the travel. “Germany.”

  Blair took a sip of her wine. “Ah, the land of Riesling. That was my favorite wine when I first started an actual position in the vineyard. We had a tall bottle, nearly up to my waist, and I’d stared at it for years because even though I lived on a vineyard I had to spit every time I tried something up until I was nearly twenty-one.” Blair rolled her eyes at this and Cole just found himself smiling stupidly. It was like that whenever she talked, him soaking up every word to take with him when he left.

  “In my limited wine experience, I’ve come to understand that sweet wines aren’t as well regarded.”

  “Well, the sweetness, which can be cloying and so overpowering to the palate that you can’t taste any of the other flavors, is the problem, but I never felt that way about a Riesling. There are different varieties anyway that are drier.” Blair shrugged.

  “I tell you what,” Cole said, having eaten the rest of his salad and kicked his legs up on the chair beside him. Damn if he didn’t feel relaxed. “You’re sexy as hell when you’re talking about wine.”

  Her cheeks reddened in an adorable blush that matched the pink wine in his hand. “You’re the worst, you know?” she complained, trying to pretend he hadn’t embarrassed her with the very real truth.

  Cole wasn’t much of a person for school, he probably would have failed out if not for some very helpful girlfriends who’d taken pity on him and tutored and maybe done his homework for him a time or two.

  “Oh, come on now,” he cajoled with a lecherous grin. “Give me some more vitification tutorials. I’m loving it. Only this time, why not take off your shirt too? I think that would really work as a memorization tool. You know, like word association or something. I’ll think of a breast and remember concrete fermentation tank.”

  Blair rolled her eyes. “Get out of here.”

  When his laughter died down, he took a deep breath, letting the slow breeze sweep over him. He felt great and if some small part of him felt guilty about it, he was making the executive decision to ignore that part.

  “You do have a nice setup out here,” he observed, taking in the rows and rows of grape vines. She lived just beyond the cabernet grapes field, the deep indigo bunches nestled into the green leaves.

  Blair leaned back in her chair with her glass of wine. “Yeah, it’s not so bad.” Taking a sip, she continued, “Sometimes I wonder if I should at least move off the vineyard, though. Even now it’s kind of like I’m staring at work. I can’t really get a break.”

  Cole nodded. He understood that. “Well, when you come work at my winery you can live in my big house far from any grapes.” He smiled, waggling his eyebrows in a suggestive manner. He was joking, but then maybe not totally. What the hell did he know anymore? He knew she’d never move to Louisiana, but he had to admit that he didn’t mind the image.

  She just rolled her eyes, but he continued. “Doesn’t that interest you, though? Starting your own vineyard from scratch instead of inheriting one?”

  Shrugging, she said, “Maybe, but my grandfather and father would pour epoxy on my tongue so I couldn’t taste anymore before they’d let me off this farm.” She smiled ruefully. “Obviously I’m just kidding.”

  “Obviously,” he said. But he understood what she was saying to him, that their future didn’t go beyond this farm. And despite the good talking to he’d been giving himself all day to remind him of just that, hearing it from her lips rankled. He w
asn’t asking for her to sacrifice anything but maybe showing him that this was something for her, too, might be nice. He’d been happy to fly back to California, but she hadn’t even made mention of traveling to him. So some kind of effort or mention of the future would be nice, but instead she’d gone out of her way to make sure he knew that she was firm on staying at the vineyard. The message had been received.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go back so soon,” she said with a sigh and all the unfavorable thoughts that had been rattling around his big dumb noggin vanished. She was enjoying the moment—he was the one getting too serious with it even after he’d vowed this would be their last time together. “This is so nice. Usually Nate or my friend Serena are always trying to get me to do stuff, like blind dates or paint and sips thinking that they’re helping me get over the breakup. It’s like they don’t understand the quiet sanctity of a glass of wine on a porch in summer.”

  Cole huffed a small laugh because who knew how many times he’d thought today how often he could sit on this porch with her and do not much of anything. It was as if he’d entered into some kind of meditative state of bliss.

  “Well, I enjoy a good sit myself but most importantly, where are these paint and sip creations? I definitely need to see your art, Blair.”

  She snorted. “Art is not the appropriate term. And I don’t have any of them, I gave them away as holiday gifts to people I don’t like very much.”

  Cole laughed then, the sound busting out of him unexpectedly. “Blair Sandoval, are you being serious?”

  She shrugged. “What? They received a personalized piece of art. That’s nice.”

  “Well, how do I get on this list of people you don’t like, because I’d kill to get my hands on an original work.”

  “Oh, it’s easy,” she told him. “You could keep up with this line of questioning, for instance, and you’ll get your very own canvas, signed and everything.”