Sweet From the Vine

by Jacquie Underdown

  ‘Hey,’ he said, voice soft, empathetic. The last thing he wanted was to make her feel bad for a decision she made when she was eighteen.

  She looked at him.

  He managed a warm smile. ‘Don’t worry about it. It happened. No hard feelings, okay?’

  She smiled too as she nodded. ‘Thanks.’ Then the smile gradually slipped from her lips as an intensity overtook her features.

  That expression found a place within him, made his blood flow at a different pace, hotter. His breaths shallowed, head lightened.

  Her lips were all he could see. His desire to lean in and kiss her drowned out everything else in this moment. When her face shifted closer, her shoulders, chest, he reached for her and stroked his fingers across her neck to her nape where they rested, gentle.

  So soft.

  Warmth sunk deep into his flesh when her hand landed on his shoulder and the other touched his face. Those lips, full and gently parted, were the focus of his attention. And when she came closer, he closed his eyes.

  Her lips pressed against his and oh god, it was like any attraction, any yearning they held for one another, amplified in that moment and spread like fire through him. His pulse raced.

  She leant back, their lips separated for the smallest of moments before he leant in again for more, not wanting to feel that space between them.

  He wanted so much more. He opened her mouth with his, and their tongues met. The sensation of that soft warmth against his own tongue was like a shot through him.

  And then the most painful pang struck his chest, and he drew back with a gasp.

  He had forgotten.

  He had stupidly forgotten the past two years, the five years of marriage before that. How could he? How dare he?

  He stood and accidentally hit his beer, knocking it across the table. Bubbles spilled from it. Amy gasped as it sped for her, but Tom reached out before it went any further and stopped it.

  Mitch was shaking his head. Shocked and bemused that he had let it get to this. He had kissed Matilda. But he had not only kissed her, he had loved every second of it.

  How could he? How dare he?

  His mouth flapped open and shut and Matilda stared with confusion up at him. ‘I shouldn’t have …’ He shook his head again. ‘I …’ he pointed to the door, checked his wallet was in his back pocket and marched away, desperate to get out of there.

  ‘Mitch,’ came a few voices from behind him.

  But he ignored them, kept for the door. He burst outside and put his hands to his head, gasping in the cold night air. What had he just done? His chest was burning with pain, with the remembrance of one glaring reason he shouldn’t have kissed Matilda: Rachel.

  ‘Mitch.’

  He spun. Sam.

  ‘Mate, what’s happened?’

  Mitch’s face crumpled, his shoulders hunched as he pointed back towards the bar. ‘I kissed Matilda.’

  Sam nodded. ‘Yeah, we saw it. No big deal, right?’

  Waves of regret, shame and guilt struck his heart like a fist. He scrubbed his hands over his face. ‘I’m not ready. I’m not ready to feel like this. I miss my wife. I miss her every single moment of the day and … I can’t do this with someone else.’

  ‘All right. All right,’ Sam said, coming closer. ‘It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.’

  ‘I’m not ready. I’m just not, okay?’ He reeled away, hand shuffling through his hair. ‘I’m a fucking idiot. I’ve really screwed this up now. It’s her eyes. They’re … they undo me. Always have.’

  ‘Yes, Matilda is very attractive.’

  Mitch rolled his eyes. ‘Oh come the fuck on.’

  ‘Hey, I’m trying to be careful here. She’s my employee. And she’s your ex.’

  Mitch tugged at his hair and groaned. ‘Fuck it! I forgot that I’m in that position now.’

  ‘I’m sure she understands the circumstances.’ He rested his hand on Mitch’s shoulder. ‘Come on, mate. Let me drive you home, and we’ll have a chat.’

  Mitched nodded, swallowed a breath. ‘Yeah. I need to go home. Right now.’

  He needed to go home, but he didn’t want to go home. Home still reminded him too much of Rachel. And now he was going to have to walk into their house knowing he had kissed another woman.

  But not only kissed another woman, he had wanted to keep kissing her. He had wanted to do more than kiss her.

  This was all so confusing. His throat tightened as the need to cry and choke on his tears overwhelmed him, but he didn’t. He held strong, blinked back the burning warmth in his eyes.

  When at Sam’s ute, he sank down onto the passenger seat and wound down the window to allow the night to creep inside, to cool his flesh. With his elbow on the window seal, he rested his head in his hand and stared into the black night.

  Sam jumped in beside him. He didn’t say anything as they exited the pub’s parking lot and headed a good distance down the road towards the vineyard.

  The closer they were to home, the more knotted his stomach became.

  ‘I love Rachel so much,’ he said, voice weak with emotion. ‘That doesn’t stop because she is no longer here. I love her, and I got carried away tonight. I thought for a second I was the old me again.’

  Sam met his gaze for a moment as he held tight to the steering wheel. ‘The old you?’

  Mitch sighed. ‘The unbroken me.’

  ‘You still have feelings for Matilda?’ Sam asked, not looking at him this time.

  His stomach twisted. ‘Maybe. A little bit. It caught me off guard. I haven’t felt anything but sadness for so long, I just wanted to feel how I used to for a little while. I thought maybe I could … I can’t.’

  Sam nodded but didn’t say anything more.

  When they pulled into the vineyard, Mitch directed Sam to take him home. He wasn’t in the mood for a chat—not until he worked out how he felt about tonight himself.

  He stuck his head back into the cab of the ute when he had climbed out and said, ‘Sorry to ruin your night.’

  Sam shook his head. ‘You haven’t. Don’t worry about it. Call me if you need me.’

  ‘Sure. I’ll see you later.’ He shut the door and watched Sam drive off, taillights glowing red in the darkness.

  With legs as heavy as filled sacks of cement, he climbed the stairs and fumbled with the front lock, eventually managing to open the door.

  He was an adulterer coming back to his wife after a night out with another woman. Matilda’s perfume still lingered on his shirt.

  His heart heaved as he crept through the quiet house.

  Georgia had her own self-contained unit on the lower level, but she stayed up here when she watched the children of a night.

  Sophie and Livvy were sharing the nursery together—Sophie still in her cot, Livvy on a bed Mitch had purchased for her when she stayed the night.

  Mitch crept into the dark room lit subtly by the filaments of moonlight that snaked through the sheer curtains. Livvy was asleep on her back, dark hair splayed across the pillow either side of her head. Her deep steady breaths filled the room.

  Despite everything, a smile curled his lips. She was a gorgeous little girl and in the short time she had been part of this family, his love for her grew every day.

  But that love was nothing compared to what he held in his heart for his daughter.

  Before Sophie was born, he never knew he could love anyone like he loved her. Not even what he had with Rachel compared to this—it was different. This love was the type of love that he would kill bare-handed for. She, this little darling, curled on her side, lips gently parted, was his sun.

  He smiled as he watched her sleep, listened to the huffs of breath enter and exit between her little lips. She was gorgeous—thin brown hair that had, in the last few months, started to curl at the ends in big ringlets.

  This baby girl was the greatest gift he had ever been given. And Rachel had paid for it with her life. For that, he could never make a
mends. For that, he would love Rachel until the day he died.

  Without a sound, he gently tucked Sophie’s blanket up around her shoulders and crept out of the room. He went to his bedroom and shut the door behind him before turning on the light.

  He stared at the bed he had shared with his wife for many years. His heart heaved. Not since the night Rachel died had he experienced such intense guilt—it squeezed his innards, beat hard at his heart.

  Tonight, he had betrayed his wife not only by kissing another woman, but by thinking he was not only capable but that it was acceptable to move on with his life as though she didn’t exist. As though the love between them no longer existed.

  He sat on his bed and flopped onto his back, looking up at the ceiling fan that tiredly turned above him.

  Matilda would be confused. He had given her the impression that he was capable of kisses. He was barely capable of getting out of bed each morning let alone kisses.

  If it weren’t for Sophie, the vineyard, the tireless, selfless help of his brothers and their partners over the last long year and a half, he would’ve lost everything, not just Rachel, and ended up a drunkard sitting in a gutter somewhere trying to drown the pain.

  He closed his eyes—so tired. Not tired in the normal sense, but tired of pushing through the lingering grief every single second. Tired of feeling the stinging burn from his scarred heart. Tired of his brain weighing and assessing and referencing everything back to Rachel.

  ‘Sleep, Mitch. The best thing you can do right now is sleep.’

  So after a long shower, that’s what he did.

  Chapter 7

  Matilda had to confront Mitch. She was sick of the anxious knot in her belly every time she thought about talking to him at work on Monday morning.

  They had kissed each other. No big deal, right?

  Except it was. To her. But especially to him.

  She pulled her car in at the front of his house and turned off the engine. She looked up to the two-storey home, the front second-level panelled with windows. Maybe she should have waited until work tomorrow, but this seemed a personal matter, not a work matter, and, therefore, had to be handled in a personal manner.

  She can hardly remember the events leading up to the kiss except she had touched his strong jaw. And she had loved touching said strong jaw. And he had touched her face back and the tingles that spread from that touch through her body felt so strong and brilliant.

  Did she still have feelings for him?

  She shook her head, gripped tightly to the steering wheel. Of course she didn’t. They were reminiscing about the good times and she forgot that she had lived fifteen years between then and now.

  After a deep breath in, she opened the door and climbed out. Not hesitating, she marched up the stairs and knocked. An older woman, which she was not expecting at all, answered the door. She had short grey hair, a Texan accent and a generous smile.

  ‘Hi, I’m Matilda Nol … James. Matilda James.’ She hated that she almost said her married name. It had been a difficult transition, especially when she was flustered. ‘Is Mitch home?’

  ‘Yes. He’s out the back getting some space while his daughter is asleep.’

  ‘Oh, she’s asleep?’ Matilda asked, hushing her voice to a whisper.

  ‘That’s okay, she’ll sleep through an earthquake. Come on through. Was Mitch expecting you? He didn’t mention a visitor today.’

  She stepped into the house. ‘No, he’s not expecting me, though he probably won’t be surprised that I’m here.’

  The woman nodded. ‘I see.’

  Matilda was led through the lounge to big double doors that opened out onto a patio. Vines growing amidst trellises in row upon row were in the distance.

  ‘Mitch, you have a visitor,’ the woman said, clacking along the timber deck and around the corner.

  Matilda followed.

  Mitch was sitting in a round, steaming spa that resembled an oversized timber-slatted pale. It overlooked the mountains in the distance. His back was to her. A glass of red wine was sitting to the side of the tub. His arms were stretched across the rim, out wide, his back muscles flexed.

  He spun his head, saw her, and frowned.

  Her stomach sunk. Not the warm reception she was hoping for, though exactly what she expected.

  ‘I’ll leave you two to it,’ Georgia said and strode off back inside.

  Mitch stood, water sluicing down his half-naked body. Steam rose from his skin. Dressed in only a pair of black water-laden shorts that clung to him, he stepped out of the spa and found his towel.

  It was more than apparent that Mitch had grown up—filled out, took on the shape of a man, a big man, rather than the teenager she knew. Without her permission, her body reacted to the sight, particularly her breath and heart.

  She didn’t mean to look, but it was more out of curiosity—okay, and good old-fashioned appreciation—that made her continue to do so.

  A sparse smattering of dark hair coated his chest and trailed down his toned stomach to where it reached below his shorts.

  She snapped her head up, cleared her throat, and met his gaze as he quickly dried himself and wrapped the towel around his waist, leaving his muscled chest and arms still on display.

  That’s not going to make what I have to say difficult now, is it?

  Drawing her chin higher, she reminded herself that she wasn’t a befuddled teenager but rather a professional, assertive woman. She had dealt with all kinds of people during her career, she could certainly deal with a shirtless Mitch Mathews without losing her head.

  He stepped towards her. All that self-talk flew out the window when he was standing right in front of her and she was nose to his shirtless, undeniably naked chest.

  Her throat bobbed as she craned her head back and looked up into his eyes. She could actually smell him, feel him, as the steam from the spa continued to rise from his skin like whispers begging her to taste that skin.

  She was losing her bloody mind. She took a step back, licked her lips. She should not have done that because now he was looking at her mouth, and she was remembering when he had gazed at her lips last night and how that led to them swapping tongues.

  Matilda rubbed the back of her neck. ‘Mitch, we need to talk about what happened.’

  He nodded. ‘I guessed that’s why you are here. Come around here,’ he said gesturing back the way she had come in. Matilda waited for him to stride past her and followed him to the outdoor setting set up on the patio near the double doors. He made sure the doors were shut before taking a seat.

  Matilda sat across from him, reached into her pocket and slid an envelope across the table.

  He looked at it but didn’t take it. ‘What is this?’

  ‘My resignation letter.’

  His frown deepened. He shook his head. ‘I won’t accept it.’

  Her eyes widened. Was that even allowed? ‘What?’

  He shook his head again. ‘You’re not going to resign because I kissed you—’

  ‘I kissed you too.’

  ‘—not only does that make me a monster, but it will make me feel worse about what happened than I already do.’

  Shame surged up her throat from her stomach. Not a great combination of words he had chosen. ‘Well, if you feel so bad about what happened then maybe you should be accepting my resignation instead of worrying about how it will make you look.’ She couldn’t keep the sting from her tone. But if he wanted to get narky, she could too.

  He rubbed a finger over his brow. ‘I didn’t mean it that way. I liked our kiss … a lot …’

  Her heartrate accelerated. ‘But?’

  ‘Matilda, I lost my wife nineteen months ago. I’m still so desperately in love with her it makes my heart hurt every morning I wake up and realise she is no longer here. I am in no state of mind to be kissing anyone. You deserve … more than I can give.’

  She blew out a long breath. Wow. The old ‘it’s not you but me’ trick. That particular combina
tion of words didn’t feel so great either. ‘I don’t want anything from you, Mitch. It was just a kiss. It wasn’t a pledge of a future. It wasn’t an unspoken plea. It wasn’t a confession of love or even lust. It was just a kiss.’

  A brow rose and fell quickly back into place. That frown appeared again, deeper than ever. ‘I see.’

  She narrowed her gaze a little. Did that bother him? Interesting. ‘Last night you reacted pretty strongly, and now I can see that I may make your life complicated. I don’t want to do that. I just want to get on with my own life. Thus the resignation letter.’

  ‘You resigning would make my life harder than anything else. Okay? I … we … the vineyard needs you. Very much. You’re brilliant at what you’re hired to do, and I won’t let my inappropriate advance jeopardise that.’

  A small smile flittered on her lips.

  ‘What?’ he asked, leaning forward, elbows on the table.

  She chuckled. ‘Inappropriate advance? Believe me, if I thought what you did was an unwanted inappropriate advance, you’d know about it. I’ve seen you naked, Mitch. We’ve been naked together many times. And yes, you’re my boss. But last night, we were having drinks together as friends. As ex-lovers. And we kissed. It had nothing to do with work and everything to do with our shared history.’ She pointed to the letter. ‘That there is because I know you’ve been through hell. I can see it all over your face. And if my being at the vineyard is going to continue that hell, then I’d rather leave now before it becomes too hard to.’

  He shook his head, sighed. ‘No, Matilda. You don’t leave because of me. You don’t suffer because of my bullshit. That’s for me to deal with and work through. I’m sorry I kissed you. It won’t happen again. But I want you to keep your position.’

  She sighed as she gazed into his brown, apologetic eyes. ‘So how do we move forward?’

  ‘You turn up for work tomorrow like normal and be yourself. I’ll be the professional I can be. Everything else is my concern.’

  ‘Are you sure? Can we work together—?’

  ‘I’m certain.’

  She slowly reached across the table and retrieved the letter. ‘Okay. If you’re certain.’