by A. J. Pine
She’d been enough for him to pass the test.
She’d been enough to make him say no before the bottle was even open.
She’d let him play the part of the man he never thought he could be. Even if it was a game, she was saving him bit by bit, and that would have to be enough.
He strode toward his bedroom, replaying visions of her in that dress, her tight curls bouncing against her bare shoulders, and his jeans were suddenly tighter.
He chuckled. Maybe the game wasn’t exactly enough.
He kicked off his shoes and padded into the bathroom, turning the shower to cold.
He’d get used to this part.
Eventually.
Violet sat on the twin bed she’d slept in since she was a kid with a packed suitcase beside her. Because of her “date” with Walker last weekend, she’d stayed in Oak Bluff for almost two full weeks. After Sunday dinner with her parents, she would be headed back to her free room at the B and B for another week of winery and wedding prep, German shepherd walking, and bed-and-breakfast reservation taking. She was grateful for her various sources of income, but she was starting to feel like two different versions of herself—the one in Oak Bluff who was getting used to her new jobs and setting her feelings for Walker aside, and the one in Santa Barbara who—when Walker wasn’t around—spoke of him like he was the light of her life. There was also the Violet who was planning a trip to France unbeknownst to her parents, so it was probably more accurate to say she was living three lives at the moment. It was getting harder and harder to keep them all straight.
“Vee,” her mother called from the kitchen. “Someone is at the door, and I am in the middle of preparing dinner. I think Papa is on the balcony. Answer it, s’il vous plait?”
Maman was having a good day, which meant she’d been toiling away in the kitchen all afternoon—her favorite thing to do when she was able. Violet’s father, though an amazing chef in his own right, enjoyed the days he didn’t have to “bring the office home with him.” This Sunday was one of those days.
Violet planned on washing and setting her curls tonight, but for now she had her hair wound into two buns on top of her head so that she looked a bit like Mickey Mouse. She threw open the front door, and her breath caught in her throat.
“Walker?”
Her eyes widened, and she backed away from the door without so much as inviting him in. Sure, her parents had offered him an invitation to drop by for Sunday dinner, but she didn’t actually think he’d drop by without warning. She suddenly felt more exposed than she did the time she’d dropped her robe and let him see her naked.
“I probably should have called,” he said. “But I didn’t quite realize I was on my way here until I was pulling up your street. Friends are allowed to pay each other unexpected visits every now and then, aren’t they?”
He stood there in a black and white plaid shirt, sleeves rolled to his elbows, and a pair of dusty but well-fitting jeans.
“Did I hear you say Walker, Vee? Invite him for dinner. There is plenty.”
He raised his brows and stuck his head inside the doorway.
“I could eat,” he said. “It is a ninety-minute drive here and back. I might be a little hungry.” He furrowed his brows at the door’s threshold. “You gonna invite me in?”
“Are you a vampire or something?” Violet asked. He narrowed his eyes, and she let out a nervous laugh. “I mean yes, come in. Show up without warning and have dinner while I’m dressed like I rolled out of bed just in time for class.”
Walker raised a brow. “What class was that, and why the hell wasn’t I in it?”
She rolled her eyes, feigning annoyance, but it didn’t change that she sorta loved that he found her attractive no matter what. Even if they were no longer going to act on their attraction, it still made her wonder if what he was attracted to was more than the way she looked.
He stepped over the threshold and clear into her personal space.
They stood there staring at each other for what felt like an eternity.
“Don’t be shy, Walker,” she heard her father call over her shoulder.
Violet groaned and turned around, the humiliation of teen dating making an unexpected comeback. “Papa, really?” she said.
“Evening, Gabe,” Walker said with a grin.
Violet’s father waved her off, then rounded the corner into the kitchen.
She pivoted back to Walker, shaking her head as her cheeks filled with heat.
“I am really sorry about that.”
Walker shrugged. “Maybe we shouldn’t disappoint the man.”
Violet’s throat went dry. She’d resigned herself to nothing more than some suggestive hand-holding if her parents were around. But kissing wasn’t out of the realm of possibility now, was it?
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” she said, but took a step over the line they’d already drawn.
Without another second of hesitation, he slid a hand around her waist, pulling her to him as he dipped his head, his lips brushing softly against hers. Her lips parted, and he teased her with one small flick of his tongue as his hand slid up her torso and his thumb brushed the side of her breast.
Because she’d spent the day in her pajamas, the girls were of course commando under her tank, which meant his small touch rocketed through her like a tidal wave.
She responded with something between a whimper and a sigh when he let his hand drop and he backed away.
“Sorry about that,” he said softly, but a devilish grin played at his lips.
“Oh my God,” she whisper-shouted. “You copped a feel!”
Her own smile belied any protestation. To be honest, she’d been thinking about kissing him—and other things—since their “date” last weekend.
Maman’s cooking was beyond good, but the taste of this man on her tongue was simply beyond. And good lord the feel of his hands on her. How was she supposed to make it through dinner knowing exactly what those hands were capable of when they were alone? Good thing they weren’t going to be alone any time soon. Plus, what those hands could do in private had nothing to do with their pretend relationship.
As if his driving ninety-four minutes to see her and greeting her with a bone-melting kiss wasn’t enough, from behind his back he produced a small bouquet of irises. Violet gasped.
“You—you brought flowers?” she asked, incredulous. “Walker Everett, I never pegged you as a man who bought a girl flowers.”
He whispered in her ear, his breath warm against her skin, “They’re not actually for you.”
She leaned back, her eyes narrowed. Then she glanced to where her mother was still happily working in the kitchen.
“What game are you playing at, mister?” she asked him.
An unannounced visit, flowers for Maman? Who was this man? He was playing his part far too well, which was going to make it all the more difficult when their little charade ended. For her parents, of course.
“Figure if I stay on Camille’s good side, I’ll get invited back. Think of all the places in this apartment I might be compelled to kiss my fake girlfriend. Hell, I might even be compelled to do it outside.” He cleared his throat, and she knew his mention of outside triggered the same memory for him as it did for her. It would be a long time before she forgot the hood of his truck and those very capable hands doing very capable things.
“This isn’t real, you know,” she reminded him, and maybe herself, too. “We already agreed there are so many reasons why it can’t be. You were the one who made the intelligent decision when I couldn’t, remember?”
He nodded. “I do. But I wanted to test a theory.”
“What’s that?” she asked.
“That enjoying the perks of pretend maybe isn’t the worst thing we could do.”
She shook her head ruefully and hoped he didn’t notice the heat creeping up her neck and to her cheeks. “No,” she admitted. “I guess it’s not.” She turned her head toward the kitchen. “Maman, Walker brought you a
gift.”
A few seconds later Camille Chastain emerged from the kitchen. She still used her cane, but her steps seemed lighter today, less painful.
The woman’s brown eyes brightened when she saw the flowers in Walker’s hand.
“Oh! De si belles fleurs.” She took them from him and breathed in their fragrance. Violet grabbed a vase from on top of the refrigerator and filled it with water. “Just beautiful,” her mother said again in English. “What are you doing all the way down here on a Sunday evening?” she asked.
“Was visiting my aunt in Los Olivos,” he said matter-of-factly. “Hope it’s okay I took you up on your invitation without calling first. Figured if I was already halfway here I’d drive the rest of the way.”
Violet placed the water-filled vase on the dining room table, and her mother deposited the irises into their new receptacle.
“Is this a regular thing?” Violet asked. “You visiting your aunt on Sundays?”
He gave her a playful smile. “It can be.”
Violet bit back a grin of her own, but just barely.
Maybe Oak Bluff didn’t have to be her only escape from reality. Walker brought some of that escape right to her door with a kiss that turned her knees to jelly and flowers for Maman.
After her mother’s seafood gumbo and homemade mango sorbet, they played Scrabble, le jeune contre l’ancien—the young against the old—and Papa and Maman had wiped the floor with her and Walker, despite Walker’s triple-word score for “pizza.” No guy Violet had ever dated had ever fit in so seamlessly with her tiny little family. Not that she and Walker were actually dating.
Violet walked him out to his truck at the end of the night. Here they were, in the very same spot as the day they met. But he made no move to hoist her onto the hood of his vehicle, and she made no move to kiss him good night. Without her parents nearby, there was no need to perform.
“What are you thinking, Teach?” Walker asked. He stood with the car door handle gripped in his palm while she leaned against the side of the truck.
“I’m thinking that this was really nice, you coming here for dinner.” Kiss or no, simply being with him put her at ease.
He let go of the handle and shoved both hands into the front pocket of his jeans. “I guess that makes two of us. Because it was really nice hanging with you and your folks.”
Violet crossed her arms, not sure what to do with her hands if they weren’t splayed against his chest. “You’re different here, you know—than you are in Oak Bluff.”
She expected him to protest, but instead he nodded. “You’re good around family. Me? Not so much. You hear anything more from that aunt of yours on another continent?”
His immediate change of subject was her cue not to dig any deeper into the Oak Bluff Walker versus Santa Barbara Walker situation. Plus, she’d been dying all night to tell him about Ines.
“We spoke on the phone late last night. She’s wonderful, Walker. We talked about everything from games she and Maman used to play when they were kids to songs she writes and plays in local venues. She’s a musician! Can you believe that? Here I thought I was such an oddball being the daughter of two chefs, but it all makes sense now. There’s music in my blood, you know?” Her heart beat faster as the words spilled out of her mouth. “I know it sounds silly.” She dipped her head, toeing a patch of gravel on the ground.
“Hey.” Walker tapped her shoe with his boot, and she looked up. “There’s nothing silly about feeling more like yourself. About connecting to someone you barely know. It’s closer than a pair of shoes, right?”
She wondered if he meant just her and her aunt or if it was something more.
“Did she explain her disappearing act from your folks’ life or vice versa?”
Violet shook her head. “She said it was Maman’s story to tell when she’s ready. She also said that she will do whatever she must to coordinate Maman’s treatment abroad but that she guessed I’d have a hell of a time getting her to agree to it.”
“You tell her yet?” he asked. “Your mother?”
Violet winced. “I’m sorta terrified, both of her reaction to going behind her back and to learning the story about what happened all those years ago. And don’t think I haven’t asked before. But she was always so good at brushing it off, saying the past was in the past. Somehow I think if she finds out Ines and I spoke, though, things will be different.”
He surprised her then by cupping her cheek in his hand. “Say the word on how I can help, and I will.”
Her throat tightened, and she placed a hand on his wrist. “Because we’re friends?”
He nodded. “Yeah, Teach. Because we’re friends.”
He dipped his head, and she held her breath, letting her eyes fall closed as he pressed a kiss to her forehead.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, pulling open the truck’s door. “Keep it up with the sensible shoes, okay?”
She laughed, then stepped back as he pulled the door shut and the truck’s engine roared to life.
Violet stood there for several minutes after he’d gone, lingering in the memory of his hand on her cheek and his lips on her skin, which was somehow more intimate than if he’d thrown her onto the hood of the truck like he had the first night they’d met.
She could do this—friends in Oak Bluff and pretending for the sake of her parents. At this point it seemed worse to fake the breakup than to keep up the lie, especially when she was practically living in Walker’s hometown. There was also her own selfish motivation—wanting to live in the bubble of having this amazing man in her life in whatever way she could. They were getting so good at make-believe that she could pretend there was no end in sight, even though there was.
Chapter Thirteen
Violet hummed to herself as she sat atop a bar stool while she tapped away at her laptop keyboard. For three Mondays their routine had been Violet working on something behind the scenes for the winery or Jack and Ava’s wedding and Walker outside sizing and cutting shelves. But today it was 105 degrees outside with no shade, which meant no matter what Ava said about the mess, no way in hell was he doing out there what could just as easily be done in the air-conditioned tasting room. But in here it was much harder to keep the sawdust to the drop cloth under his small work station when all his eyes wanted to do was look up and across the bar at the beautiful woman who seemed able to maintain her focus much better than he could.
“Are you singing Mary Poppins?” he finally asked, and she froze in her chair, eyes wide as she looked at him.
“You can hear me all the way across the bar?”
Her hair was wound into a messy bun on top of her head with a pencil holding it in place, and damn she looked cute when she was caught in the act.
“Loud and clear, Teach.”
She laughed. “Sometimes humming helps me concentrate. And who doesn’t love ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’?”
He brushed his hands off on his dust-covered jeans. “It’d probably be un-American not to.”
“It’d be unhuman not to,” she corrected.
He nodded toward her laptop. “Whatcha working on over there?”
She pulled the pencil from her hair, and the thick locks tumbled over her shoulder in messy spirals.
Shit. She’d gone from cute to sexy as hell in mere seconds.
Friends, asshole. Remember what’s best for both of you. You’ll get your damned kiss next Sunday and be happy with it.
“Wine pairings for the wedding menu. Ava’s more than capable of doing it herself, but she’s swamped with a course she’s taking, Owen’s baseball schedule, and—oh yeah—also planning a wedding. Your brothers are really lucky, you know? Ava and Lily are pretty amazing.”
Ava and Lily were fine. He’d even admit they were great. But amazing was staring back at him from across the bar.
“You wanna break for lunch? I’m hungry as hell.” More like distracted as hell, but food was at least a remedy for one immediate problem.
> Violet tapped a couple of keys and then slammed her laptop shut.
“Sure,” she said. “Where to? The B and B? I think Lily was making pulled chicken this week for the guests. Or we could do pizza at that little Italian place next to the market. We haven’t been there yet. Or—”
“How about my place?” he interrupted as he rounded the bar so he was now standing next to her. “If you remember, I make one hell of a sandwich.”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and he somehow felt like he’d crossed a line. After all, Violet had only been to his place when they’d had parental supervision. But he really did have all the fixins for a great lunch. He also felt like avoiding the prying eyes of their small town today. Not that there was anything for anyone to see.
“Only if you have pickles,” she finally said, and he let out a breath as she hopped off her stool. “And as long as I get to help prepare the meal. This is a working lunch, so you should put me to work.”
He grinned. “You can help, Teach—if you ask me the right way.”
Violet rolled her eyes, but he could tell she was biting back a smile of her own.
“Puis-je aider à préparer le déjeuner?” She batted her dark lashes, mocking him. “S’il vous plait, monsieur?”
Walker shrugged. “Only because I recognized a please in there, I’ll let you slice the pickles.”
Violet laughed, and they headed for the winery door just as Jack walked through it.
“Where are you two headed?” Walker’s brother asked.
Walker pointed to the non-existent watch on his wrist. “Lunch,” was all he said, but the word had enough bite to answer Jack’s accusation.
“Violet, you mind if I borrow Mr. Sunshine for a second?”
“Not at all.” She elbowed Walker in the side. “Meet you at the truck.” Then she bounded out the door, leaving Walker and Jack alone.
Walker expected the riot act—about what, though, he wasn’t sure.
“Come by the house for dinner tonight,” Jack said.