12
Why hadn’t Brooke thought of this before? Giancarlo would be the perfect date for Eileen. Even with all the distractions tonight, Brooke couldn’t ignore the obvious.
Giancarlo was a family man, a kind man, a generous man, and a man who should be the spokesperson for handsome older men. Maybe she should have told Billy the entire truth. She hadn’t just given him her personal cell phone number for business purposes, but so that she could arrange a meeting between him and Eileen. The rest would be up to them.
Of course, eventually she’d tell Billy, but the timing had to be right. First it was up to Eileen to share that information with her son. She couldn’t wait to call Eileen and talk up Giancarlo. She’d been patient, and now Brooke had a winner behind door number one.
“What are you thinking about? Not still thinking about the blog?” Billy asked as he slid the key in the ignition.
Well, she hadn’t been but now her attention was right back on that subject. So many hurdles to overcome. Life should be easier. “What will Gigi do when she finds out about it?”
“Who cares?”
“I do. She’ll get to be right. She didn’t believe it when we told her we weren’t interested in each other.”
“And now?”
She’d walked right into that one. Was he going to make her say it out loud? Make her say how she thought about making love to him every night and sometimes during the day? What it would feel like to be under, or on top of, Billy Turlock? Not that she was picky about the position.
But she didn’t want to be another one in his long list of conquests. No, it didn’t matter to her what anyone else thought any longer. It mattered what she thought. And she didn’t want to be added to the list. Period.
“I think it’s pretty obvious we’re attracted to each other.” She folded her arms across her chest and tried not to look at him as she said the words. Didn’t want to see his smug little grin.
“I agree.”
“But I’m not going to sleep with you, Billy. I don’t want to be one of your many female conquests.” There. She’d said it, and let the chips fly where they may.
The car veered off the highway so quickly she thought they’d had a flat tire. Billy turned to her. “Dammit, Brooke, is that what you think of me?”
Fantastic. Pissed off Billy was even sexier than always-smiling Billy. She knew this, and still she’d poked the bear. “C’mon, I—”
“I thought I told you not to believe what you read. I didn’t date half of the women who claimed I did.”
“But even if you dated half of them—”
“Look, I have a past. It’s not nearly as illustrious as the rumors. But this is different, you and me.”
“No, it’s not. I’m just someone you want now because you never had me.” Back in high school, there’d been that undercurrent between them. That nameless something that led to the first and only time they’d kissed in the school parking lot. If they’d been any older, and she’d been any more experienced, she was certain it would have led to the back seat. And she’d have been one of many.
“Are you telling me what I want?” He asked through gritted teeth.
She was pretty sure the answer should be no, so she went for the safety of a non-answer. “I’m not an idiot.”
Billy didn’t say another word as he veered back on the road. They drove in a tense silence all the way to the vineyard, and Brooke jumped out of the car before he could open the door for her. She nearly ran to her cottage and opened the door.
She didn’t need this. Another pissed off man. Turned out she had a certain talent for it with Billy. Still, she hadn’t seen him this angry in a while. Or ever.
And now she’d had an argument with her employer, or non-employer as he was calling himself these days. Regardless, he owned this place and she’d insulted him. Might as well have called him a man-whore playboy.
Crap.
She went to the fridge and poured herself a chilled glass of Mirassu Chardonnay, her guilty pleasure. Maybe she should apologize, but she’d wait until tomorrow when he’d cooled down. Then she’d calmly explain her position. What they both needed was a few hours to calm down, and see reason. This thing between them couldn’t happen for a lot of reasons, the main one being that they were both too explosive, and this thing between them, whatever it was, far too out of control.
The sudden raucous banging on her front door startled her enough to spill a little wine. “Brooke! Open the door! We need to talk.”
Great. Talk now? She didn’t want to get in a yelling match, but she opened the door and moved aside to let Alpha Boy in.
“Can we talk tomorrow when we’re both calmer?” She was now apparently the voice of reason, a frightening fact.
“No. We’re going to talk now.” He reached for his wallet, pulled it out of his back pocket and handed her a weathered card.
She glanced down to see Billy Turlock’s official membership card to the Save the Whales Foundation. A long expired membership. She held it up. “This is expired.”
“Yeah, no kidding.”
“Don’t you ever clean your wallet out? Why would you carry an expired card around in it?”
“Brooke.” He said her name on the edge of a breath, sounding a little exasperated.
She met his eyes, now so warm and with no hint of anger left in them. A sudden thought rose to the surface, but it couldn’t be true. “Is this the same—?”
“The one you gave me when I made the donation.”
“Ten years ago? And you still have it?” She remembered that day. One more cause, one additional signature. Most of the jocks and cheerleaders had passed by and ignored her table and banner at lunch time. But not Billy. He’d stopped and signed the petition. It had entitled him a year’s free membership. She still remembered the smile on his face when she’d handed him the card.
“Why do you think I still have it?” He asked softly.
He was talking with his eyes again, this time telling her things she was afraid to believe. “I don’t know.”
“If you think about it, you know the answer.”
Instead of believing what she wanted to believe, her mind took her back to a bad memory. “You made me believe for once that maybe we could be friends, and left, like I was nothing. You never even said goodbye.”
He reached and pulled her into his arms, that crushing, bone melting feeling coming back to her in waves. “I didn’t say goodbye because I couldn’t look in your eyes and tell you I wasn’t going to take the scholarship to Chicago. I was a chicken shit kid, and I was running in the other direction of all the things you made me feel. It was easier to leave without saying goodbye to you. I’m sorry.”
Her arms came up around his neck. “Why is it you always do this to me? I’m shaking. You’re scaring me.”
“You’re not afraid of anything but the dark, and we can keep all the lights on if you’d like.” He bent down to kiss the softness under her earlobe, and she shivered.
She was afraid of a lot more than the dark right now. Afraid she was going to lose even more than her heart to this man. Maybe even her soul.
“I want you so much, and I don’t know how to stop wanting you.” She’d tried and failed miserably every time.
On the outside, they didn’t match. But their hearts, somehow, fit together.
“Stop trying.” His mouth came down on hers and she welcomed him inside, opening up to him like a flower.
After all this time, they would finally be together. The teenage jock and the decidedly teenage un-jock. But she didn’t want to think about that now. Best not to think at all. There was only Billy, and his beautiful eyes and smile. His warm skin and strong heartbeat thudding against the pads of her fingers as she touched him. Everywhere.
They were connecting the dots again. He was the map and she was the road. She hoped she would survive the ride.
* * *
They’d left a trail of clothes from the kitchen to her bedroom, and Brook
e discovered jocks didn’t limit their stamina to the playing field. Even with all her disdain for organized sports, she couldn’t deny this was a nice perk.
After all the years dreaming and fantasizing the reality managed to top her wildest fantasies. Billy could be rough and gentle, fast and slow— no wonder her head was spinning. She’d gripped his shoulders as every deep and powerful thrust seemed to drill deeper into her heart.
Lying next to him now Brooke slept fitfully, and not only because of Billy’s naked proximity. But simply because everything had changed.
She glanced at Billy, still asleep, his long eyelashes and peaceful expression making him look achingly vulnerable. He lay on his side, one arm splayed over her. Billy Turlock, in her bed. Billy, the man she couldn’t help but want even if her head knew better. She softly traced the edges of a large scar on his left shoulder, and wondered exactly how many surgeries had taken place in the name of baseball. She’d heard many people suffer for their art, but she hadn’t realized that a jock could suffer for his sport. The scar made it clear some amount of suffering had occurred.
How is it that she hadn’t noticed the man’s level of hotness before last night? Well, okay, she had because she wasn’t blind. She could appreciate a red sunset, but it didn’t mean she wanted to make love to it.
Long-haired guys with scruffy beards? Definitely the way to go. She should have switched types a long time ago. Washboard abs? Check. Strong and defined biceps? Uh-huh, check. Well, no point in staring. She’d already taking a full accounting and any more ogling was plain indulgent. She should let the man sleep. She’d definitely worked him out.
Brooke managed to slip out from under his arm and out of bed, throw her good robe on this time and not the ratty one. She softly closed the door to her bedroom and padded into the kitchen to check the time. It was eight o’clock in the morning. She and Billy had made love on and off for hours. Like they were trying to make up for lost time.
The coffee had started to percolate when she heard the bedroom door open and turned to find Billy framed in the doorway to the bedroom. Wearing nothing but a smile.
“Come here.” His morning voice sounded low and throaty, and the gaze in his eyes left no doubt as to what he wanted.
“I’m making coffee.”
“That can wait. I can’t.”
From the looks of a particular part of his anatomy, that much was obvious. Resistance was futile. She took his outstretched hand and followed him back to bed where he disposed of her robe like a magician. She let him push her back on the bed and he rolled on top of her.
“Billy, you’re in my bed.” This moment seemed surreal, as though she were walking around in a living and breathing fantasy.
His long dark hair fell around his face as he looked down at her. “Brooke, you’re in my arms.”
She reached up and threaded her fingers into that silky long hair. Funny thing, the beard hadn’t even itched her at all. It only seemed to heighten her sensations. “You better not think I’m easy.”
“Ten years isn’t easy.” He kissed the hollow of her neck.
“Ten years and two months.”
“I stand corrected.”
“And yes, I will go out on a date with you.”
Billy’s face split with a grin. “Thanks, babe.”
“No, thank you.”
“Mmmmm. You taste so good,” Billy said, his lips grazing her nipple.
“Like what?” Brooke moaned.
“Like a woman. My woman.”
Brooke drew in a sharp breath. Not only because of the words that hit her heart with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, but also because of what Billy could do with his mouth.
She heard the knock before Billy seemed to, since he was otherwise occupied. “Did you hear that?”
More rapping at her front door.
Billy raised up on one elbow. “We should punish that person’s lousy sense of timing by ignoring them.”
“Billy? Brooke? Are you in there?” There was no mistaking the shrill voice of Gigi. “Billy! Did you forget our meeting?”
Brooke froze. “Shit. It’s Cruella.”
“Calm down,” Billy said, palming her ass. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll get rid of her.”
“No you won’t. You have a meeting.” Brooke closed her legs, and everything inside of her rolled and dried up. She was pretty sure her ovaries had just shriveled up and died.
“And it isn’t for another two hours.” Billy got out of bed and started picking up his clothes. Unfortunately some of them were still in the kitchen where she’d ripped them off him.
Brooke laid her head in both hands. “This does not look good. What are you going to tell her?”
Billy smiled. “That it’s none of her business?”
“Good plan. I’ll stay in here,” Brooke said, and pulled the covers over her head.
“Chicken.” She heard Billy’s soft laugh as he left the bedroom, and a few seconds later heard him at the front door opening it.
“Your timing is spot on, as usual,” Billy said.
Brooke didn’t hear Gigi say anything but, “For crying out loud, put your shirt on.”
Then they were both gone.
Guess he was going to that meeting after all. Well, that was fine. She’d use this alone time to gather her thoughts, and maybe get her sanity back.
She flounced out of bed, naked again, because Billy had a way of doing that to her. The robe went back on and she went back to the kitchen and her coffee.
So he’d stormed the castle after all. All because he’d kept a membership card she’d given him ten years ago. He was good. No denying that. Unless it was all real, and the odds of that were probably not in her favor. How good was he at cleaning out his wallet? Maybe he’d had a good game the day he’d found the card again. Refused to get rid of it after that. Superstitions, nothing more.
Wait. How pathetic could one woman be? Why couldn’t she believe he wanted her? That just maybe they’d had something special between them, that unidentifiable spark even ten years ago?
Brooke picked up her cell phone and dialed the one person who might understand. “Are you busy?”
Ivey sounded groggy. “Just getting up. I had a delivery yesterday.”
“How did it go?”
“Poor Jessie was in labor for twenty-two hours. She actually begged me to go find a gun and shoot her.”
Brooke gulped her coffee. “Great. And you still want to have a baby?”
“Are you kidding me? I can’t wait. She had a beautiful baby boy. All’s well that ends well.”
“If you say so.”
One more baby boy brought into the world. In those rash moments when the moon was full and Brooke allowed herself to even think about having a child someday, all she’d ever wanted was a baby girl. A tough little girl who would kick ass everywhere she went. A girl she could teach not to be afraid of anything, certainly not something as stupid as the dark.
“What’s up? Everything okay with opening night?”
“Everything’s on schedule for December 5th. A very Christmassy opening, white garlands of light hung in the trees. I’m even thinking about getting a horse and buggy for old fashioned rides. Not sure about that yet, but either way it’s going to be great. And I slept with Billy.”
“Wait. Did I hear you right? There at the end. It sounded like you said—”
“Yes! You heard right.”
“Wow. Okay, just wow. You slept with your high school crush.”
“No! He was never a crush. He was my enemy.”
“Your frenemy, you mean.” Ivey giggled.
“We were friendly, when he wasn’t annoying the hell out of me. When he signed my petitions.”
“Stop trying to distract me with petitions. Tell me what it was like and don’t spare me any details. You owe me!”
But Brooke found that she couldn’t kiss and tell. Not this time. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but this was new. Different. Tender somehow. Strange b
ecause she didn’t think guys could be tender. And he’d certainly been rough and strong too, when he needed to be. And stamina. Yeah, there was that.
“Well?” Ivey was on the other end of the line, waiting.
“What do you want from me? I’m not a poet.”
“Oh, so it’s like that? You can’t even speak of it. Wow.”
“No! It’s not like that.”
“All right, then, give me something here. I haven’t seen Jeff in 24 hours. Remember, he started a new rotation? I’m the wife of a resident. Give me a break.”
“I’ll give you one word: stamina.”
Ivey sighed. “Oh yeah, that. That’s important.”
Brooke laughed. “I should go.”
“No, wait.” Ivey said. “What you going to do about this? I mean, he’s your boss.”
Whether he’d officially signed ownership over to Pop didn’t really matter in the end. Billy had been the one to hire her, like it or not. “I don’t know.”
Brooke said goodbye to Ivey and put her phone down. It promptly buzzed across the Formica counter top. A short text from Billy read only: dinner tonight, 6 PM my place.
Not a question. This time, his confidence didn’t piss her off. He’d have to be crazy not to realize she wanted to see him again. And again. It took all of a second for Brooke to type in her reply: sure.
Brooke spent the rest of the morning working in the small office next to the tasting rooms. Her staff was finally coming together. George, Eric told her, had been apoplectic at Eric’s resignation. She still had plenty of more resumes to go through, though, and maybe even more of George’s employees to hire. Not to mention spreadsheets the accountant had sent and a forecast budget for spending. She’d start out with a small crew, which was fine since this was a small family operation.
She’d already hired Genevieve from Sweet Southern Buns to cater on opening night. Her beautifully decorated Bundt cakes were becoming a legend in town. They tasted like they’d been dipped in a mixture of milk and heaven. Sooner or later she’d tell Eileen that the menu was set, and by then she’d likely be too preoccupied with her new dating life to give it a second thought. That was the plan, anyway.
THE STARLIGHT HILL COMPLETE COLLECTION: 1-8 Page 30