Even with Billy gone, Pop and Eileen still dropped by every day for a few hours. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as horrible as Brooke had thought it might be. Thankfully Pop was just as against the tofu menu appetizers, and he kept trying to talk some sense into his daughter. To Brooke, hope still sprang eternal. She might be able to eventually talk some sense into Eileen.
Meanwhile, Eileen had looked up the definition of cougar, and confided in Brooke that she thought she had the goods to be one. Unfortunately, the search for the perfect man for Eileen moved slowly. Forty-something-year-old eligible gentlemen didn’t just grow on trees.
Eric had now officially come on board and Brooke made him head of Marketing. It was through Eric that Brooke had finally been updated on the inner happenings at Serrano Winery. Chelsea was a disaster as interim general manager, the VP of Sales position wasn’t even mentioned any longer, and George wasn’t happy. So unhappy he was already cheating on Chelsea, to hear Eric tell the story. Not that he wouldn’t have done that eventually, happy or not.
Brooke sighed, stretched, and rose from her laptop. She’d been at it for four hours this morning, had a planning meeting with Eric, and then spent another four hours at the laptop this afternoon. She’d written another list of goals to accomplish before the Grand Opening, which they’d slated for December fifth, but she still had to discuss all of it with Billy.
Brooke’s cell phone rang, and when the caller ID showed Billy’s name, she didn’t know why her chest expanded like that of a kid on Christmas morning. “Hey. Are you back yet?”
“Just got in about a half-hour ago. I need to shower and change, but meet me down by the Chardonnay row in about an hour. There’s something I have to talk to you about, and it’s important.”
“O-kay,” Brooke said. She didn’t like the sound of his voice, short, clipped, and to the point. Was there something wrong on the Chardonnay row that she didn’t know about? Maybe he only sounded short because of the plane ride. Or maybe Gigi had finally convinced him he should get rid of Brooke now rather than later. Maybe he wanted the privacy of the Chardonnay row because he thought she’d have a temper tantrum.
For reasons she decided not to examine too closely, Brooke took a shower again, reapplied her make-up and fluffed her hair into submission. A nippy early November air had settled into Starlight Hill seemingly overnight, and it was serious sweater time. That didn’t mean she couldn’t find a nice one. Brooke dug through her closet and found her tight camel cashmere sweater and paired it with her sleekest pair of jeans. She then stuffed her pant legs into the long black leather boots that reached her knees. Ivey called them Ms. Dominatrix boots.
If Billy was going to fire her, at least he’d do it while she looked smoking hot. She gave once last assessment in her full length mirror. It would have to do.
But he wouldn’t fire her. He couldn’t. Her legs were shaking just a bit as she walked up the hill to the row. In the middle of the row, a sight surprised her. Someone had laid a blanket on the ground and a bottle of wine stood in the middle. There were two glasses of wine, and a picnic basket.
This was so unacceptable. People couldn’t just come on to private property and have themselves a picnic. And now they were hiding, because they’d been caught.
Suddenly she heard Billy’s voice behind her. “You’re a little early.”
She turned to see his perfect grin. He wore jeans and a leather jacket that did all kinds of badass things for him. It made him look equal parts bad boy and jock.
She was early, true, because she’d been so nervous. But something split down the middle inside of her, because Billy had put together this spread for her. Now he took her hand and led her to the blanket.
“You made a picnic.” Stating the obvious always worked for her when she had no words.
“You’ve been working so hard. I wanted you to take a break.” Billy went to work on the corkscrew.
This wasn’t a date. He was simply taking care of a hard working employee. Brooke sat down on the blanket.
Billy handed Brooke the cork. Most people didn’t know its importance. Even less of them had appreciated the fact that Brook knew what to look for in one. But Billy did. “This looks fine. Is it from the cellar?”
“Yep. It’s a 2000 Mirassu Merlot.” Billy poured, sniffed and handed the glass to Brooke. “It was a good year, right?”
The irony wasn’t lost on Brooke. That was the year they’d both started at Starlight High. The year they’d met. “You should have saved this for a special occasion.”
“You’re more than deserving,” Billy said, sitting across from her and raising his glass. “To the start of a great partnership.”
Brooke clinked her wine glass with his. This was so much better than what she’d been worried about. “I’m glad you’re back. We need to talk about the Grand Opening.”
“Sure, but we should eat first.” He reached inside the picnic basket. “In case you still don’t eat meat, I bought some vegetarian sandwiches. There’s fruit and cheese in here, too.”
“I’m not a vegetarian anymore,” Brooke admitted. That had been one of many causes in her pent-up angst youth. When every other week there was a new animal or a new country that required saving. Now she left all the earth saving to Mom. The earth was covered.
“You’re not a lot of things anymore,” Billy stared at her. “Not a brunette or a vegetarian.”
“Not a virgin,” she added, and immediately regretted it. Why she would bring that up right now only the much younger and sexually frustrated Brooke would know.
It didn’t seem to faze Billy. “I didn’t think so.”
Subject change. Quick. “So how was LA?”
“Predictable.” Billy popped a grape in his mouth. “Gigi says hello.”
Brooke raised an eyebrow. “For real?”
He nodded and grinned. “That’s not all she said, but that’s the only part you want to hear about.”
“That I believe.” Brooke played with the frayed edges of the blanket, while she tried not to imagine how many other women had sat on it. It didn’t matter because this wasn’t a date.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Billy said because he did always have that annoying way of hearing her thoughts.
“No.”
Billy laughed out loud. “You do enjoy saying that word to me, don’t you?”
Brooke couldn’t help but smile, maybe because of the wine, both a bit stout and smooth. “Actually, no.”
“Nice. You’re going to have a hard time convincing me of that.”
Brooke laughed out loud. “Yes. You’re probably right.”
Somehow it would seem that she and Billy were holding hands now. It hardly seemed possible, but it was also the most natural thing in the world. Billy played with her hand, raising it up, bringing it back down again. Leave it to him to actively hold her hand. She wished he would sit still for a minute. But when he brought her hand to his lips and brushed a kiss on it, everything in the vineyard did seem to still for a moment. He could be serious too, when he wanted to be, and she’d almost forgotten that. He could be heart-attack serious.
And suddenly this felt a little bit like a date.
She wanted to kiss him more than she wanted another sunrise tomorrow morning. His kisses were like crack and she probably should have just said no the first time. Forgetting herself, Brooke straddled his lap and her legs came around his back.
She threaded her fingers through his thick hair. “Oh, Hotshot, why do you always do this to me?”
Then she kissed him softly, his only answer a ravaging kiss that seemed to reach inside her chest and take her heart for ransom. For the next few minutes every cell in Brooke’s body was one long cord of need that only Billy could fill.
“Brooke,” Billy rasped near her ear, and then trailed a line of kisses down her neck.
Brooke didn’t want to think anymore, but only feel. That’s what Billy did to her. He woke her up. She didn’t know why, but he’d been the only
one ever able to do it. From the first time he’d kissed her, and she’d understood why girls behaved like fools over him.
She thought she heard a sound coming from behind them and froze. Billy did too.
“Did you hear that?” Brooke scrambled off his lap, something she seemed to forever be doing these days.
Billy rose and walked to the end of the row, his head turning in each direction. “No one here. We’re alone.”
“I know I heard something.” She wasn’t paranoid. It was a distinctive clicking sound. But the reporters and photographers had finally made themselves scarce. Still, what if one of them had sneaked up here to spy on them?
Billy walked back towards her. “Where were we?”
“I think we were at the point where I regain my senses.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
She almost laughed. “When Gigi thought I might be interested in you, she suggested I move. I like living here.”
Billy reached for her arm and whirled her around. “You don’t have to go anywhere.”
“Maybe it’s a good thing this happened. Gives us a chance to put the brakes on. For some reason, when I’m around you I stop thinking.”
“Ditto.”
“Well, see, that’s not good. One of us should be thinking.”
He looked at the ground, and rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re right.”
“Damn you. Stop agreeing with me.”
He seemed to be biting his lip, like he wanted to smile. “What do you want?”
“I like that we’re friends. We never got to be that when we were younger. Now we can be, and I don’t want to ruin that.”
Brooke walked back up to her cottage, Billy following.
When she was just inches from her door, Billy twirled her around and she wound up back in his arms. “If you ever want to be more than friends, you know where I am.”
She had her palms against his chest, but this time she wouldn’t raise them to his neck. Billy scared her a little, and for a girl who liked a thrill, saying no to him was beginning to take on a Herculean effort beyond mere mortal capabilities.
She hadn’t answered him for several seconds, only stood in his arms staring at his chest. He raised her chin and brushed his lips across hers. “Brooke?”
“I need some time to think.” Yes, you idiot. Let the hot man go so you can go inside and stare at the ceiling.
Billy’s arms slipped from around her waist, and he let her go. The man understood ‘no’ better than any man she’d ever met before. “Take all the time you need.”
Just like that, he’d gone, taking all his seething male hotness with him. Brooke slipped inside the front door of her cottage, and took off her Ms. Dominatrix boots. They wouldn’t see any action tonight. When she placed them beside her bed, the top half flopped over the bottom half and they looked as deflated as Brooke felt.
A few hours later, after yet another frozen dinner alone, she undressed and put on her flimsy satin pink baby doll nightie. The one Billy wouldn’t be taking off her tonight. That one.
Why couldn’t she just let go and make love to Billy? Why was she making it such a big deal? Was it because Billy had taken her back to the days when she was pickier, choosier, and when even he wouldn’t have been able to storm the castle?
They could be discreet, and Billy wouldn’t kiss and tell. That was obvious. But while she’d bounced back from George throwing her over, she didn’t think she could when Billy got tired of her.
Brooke cuddled up on the couch with a book. She’d just gotten to the good part, where the hero finally confesses his love for the heroine, when all the lights went out. Every. Single. One.
No, not this. It hadn’t happened in years. The power was out, and in the pitch black darkness Brooke couldn’t take in a solid breath. She was prepared for this eventuality. With a phobia like this, the doctor had suggested it. That is, after he couldn’t talk her into the full immersion therapy. No way would she spend fifteen minutes in a dark room voluntarily. Was the man crazy?
She crawled along the floor and felt her way to the kitchen drawer where she kept the flashlights. As luck would have it, tonight there was a sliver of a moon outside. It wasn’t shining through the window closest to the kitchen, so she had to fumble her way.
I’m not going to die, this can’t kill me. It’s just the dark. The dark can’t hurt me. The dark can’t kill me.
Brooke repeated her mantra, but as usual it didn’t help. She still couldn’t draw in a real solid breath. Please don’t let me pass out here all alone. She found the flashlight and pulled it out. Turned it on. Nothing. It had been so long since she’d used it the batteries had died. Should have checked the batteries. The moon would have to do. She started to crawl towards the door.
* * *
The power went out in the middle of an ESPN’s commentator’s opinion on the new 49er line up. All things considered, very good timing since the man didn’t know what he was talking about. This was turning out to be some day. He’d been shut down twice. Once by Brooke, and now by PG&E.
He dialed PG&E and listened to the recording that there had been an outage in the area and they were ‘working on it’. Right. Using his cell phone for a light, he searched for his flashlight. He thought of Brooke, and aimed the flashlight in the direction of her cottage. He couldn’t see a single light on in there. Had she already gone to sleep? Doubtful. Maybe Brooke needed a hand finding a flashlight or some candles. As he walked out his door, he told himself this was the only reason he was going back to the cottage to check up on her, and nothing more.
It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that being with her was beginning to be a drive he couldn’t ignore. Not that he wanted to. The kind of woman that cared about their friendship was exactly the kind of woman he needed in his life. Someone like Brooke. Well, not someone like her. It had to be her. She just didn’t know it yet.
He’d been hit on no fewer than six times before getting a taxi cab home, and none of them had done a thing for him. Beautiful women who’d hardly registered a blip on his radar. Brooke was in his head 24/7. He didn’t know how she’d done that when he’d only occasionally thought of her over the past ten years. Okay, about once a year. But seeing her again, right in front of him, had brought all those memories back to slam into him like a freight train on steroids.
He found Brooke lying on her back outside her front door, staring up at the dark night. Odd. When he approached with the flashlight, she turned her head in his direction.
“Thank God, your batteries work!” She said from the ground.
Billy shined the light directly on her. This was especially cruel, and he began to wonder if Brooke secretly hated him. She wore some kind of barely there lingerie that showed her milky white shoulders. The thing barely covered her thighs and her long curvy legs were bare, feet covered by fuzzy dog slippers.
“Any particular reason you’re on the floor?” He squatted down next to her.
“I have the best view right here,” she said with a completely straight face.
“The best view of —?”
“The moon, you ninny!”
He looked over his shoulder. “Ah, yeah. The moon. It’s just a sliver tonight. But it can be enjoyed in a standing position as well.”
“That’s easy for you to say.”
He offered her his hand, and she took it and rose. “Yeah.”
“My flashlight’s batteries were dead, so I came outside for the moonlight.”
“What about your cell phone?” He held open the front door for her, shining the light into the dark room.
She slapped her forehead. “Great idea. Where is it? I’ll need to hold it until the lights come back on. Help me find it.”
They found it next to her purse on the table, and she used it to light her way to the couch. “I hope the charge holds. How long will the lights be out? Do you have any idea? How long till morning? Do you know what time the sun rises? I’m not 100% sure since
the time change.”
She sounded like a wind-up doll someone had pulled repeatedly. All at once, he understood. “Brooke? Are you afraid of the dark?”
She looked like a sex siren advertising a new cell phone plan as she held it up in her hand like a display and kept glancing at it. “Define afraid. If by afraid you mean that I feel like I’m going to die when it’s pitch dark, that I can’t take in a solid breath of air, okay then, I guess I’m a little afraid of the dark.”
A little? Sounded like a full blown phobia to him. Brooke Miller, finally afraid of something. He’d never imagined for a moment it would be the dark. He joined her on the couch. “Want me to stay with you? Until the lights come on.”
“Sure, but only if you want to. That’s a nice big flashlight.” She said this with the same tone of reverence in her voice a teenaged boy might bestow on his first sweet ride.
He slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her closer. She was trembling. “Would you like to hold my big flashlight?”
“Okay,” she said and put her cell phone on the couch’s arm rest. “This all probably seems silly to you.”
“Nah. You’re talking to a guy who used to shower three times for good luck on game day, and before my first batter up I made sure to look right, then left, then right again. And of course, make sure to have bananas for breakfast the morning of the game.”
“Bananas?”
He nodded. “It would help if I could rub Scott’s head twice for good luck, but he couldn’t come to every game so that had to stop. And then of course I had to put on my socks before my boxers. The order was vital.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t laugh. The night I did that particular ritual for the first time I pitched my first no-hitter. It all seemed to contribute to whether or not I had a good game. Don’t ask me why. Baseball is full of superstition.”
“You jocks are weird.” Brooke snuggled into him, laying her head on his chest.
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