I’m not necessarily always anxious. I’m just extremely well educated about all the things that can and will go catastrophically wrong.
Sleep that night was not Lanie’s friend. She kept seeing Mark’s face when she’d asked how much she owed him for the tire fix. He’d been frustrated with her, and maybe hurt. Thinking about the ways she might make it up to him had led to a series of fantasies that had her giving up on finding any zzz’s. Hot and bothered, she slipped out of bed.
It was a warm, moonless night, and restless, she slipped a pair of baggy sweats over her PJs and stepped outside. She walked to the end of the row of the cottages and around to the back of the big house where the real view of the valley was. Hoping to stay out of sight and just be alone to think, she slipped onto one of the plush lounge chairs at the very far edge of the patio.
There, she stretched out and tipped her head back to stare at the sky. She hadn’t missed much about Wildstone, but she had missed this night sky. It didn’t disappoint tonight, looking like a blanket of black velvet strewn with diamonds.
She heard the sound of water and followed it past the house, down the trail that led to the small, hidden lake. Someone was swimming, someone long and leanly muscled who, though she didn’t want to admit it, was already in possession of a small corner of her heart.
Mark finished a lap and met her gaze, his dark eyes and dark smile promising to take her places.
She sat on the towel he’d clearly left for himself and returned his long look.
Rising effortlessly out of the water, he came toward her. At her feet, he shook his head and sent water drops spiraling all over her, making her shiver. Water ran off his body in rivulets.
He took her breath away.
He stood over her for a moment before sprawling that big body of his out at her side for her viewing pleasure.
And it was a pleasure. She’d seen it all the night they’d gone boogie boarding, but she still looked her fill. Anyone with warm blood in their veins would’ve done the same thing—
“So just what kind of an asshole was your husband?” he asked.
She froze. Not exactly what she wanted to talk about. She looked away from his all-seeing gaze and went back to stargazing. Discussing Kyle and what he’d done to her life—not to mention her confidence—was the last thing she wanted to do. “Why does it matter?” she asked warily. “He’s dead. It’s not relevant.”
He waited for her to look at him again, and when she did, he simply raised a brow, making her sigh. “Okay, fine, it’s relevant, but to be fair, it’s not just you. I’ve got a chip on my shoulder for everyone. I’m an equal-opportunity chip-holder.”
His mouth curved slightly. “Good to know.”
She closed her eyes. “Have you ever wanted to believe in something so badly that you make it happen, except you’re the only one in it?”
He was quiet for a long moment. Then his big hand reached for hers. “Yes.”
She leaned into him, getting wet and not caring because he felt so good.
“It hurts like hell,” he said, twisting to face her. “It’s why I’m not looking for love.”
“Ever?” she asked before she could stop herself. He’d already told her this.
Mark was quiet for a moment as his fingers ran along her temple at her hairline. “You’re definitely the exception on making me want more,” he said quietly. “But I’m not ready for love again, Lanie. My kids, they have to come first right now. I’m sorry.”
This didn’t surprise her. Nor did it stop her from wanting him. “What are you willing to give?”
“Everything but my heart. I’ve dated here and there, but I can’t be pushed to go where I don’t want to go.”
She nodded. She got it. She did. He’d been hurt too and he had his girls to consider, but she couldn’t help but feel the very tiniest bit of disappointment. But it didn’t change anything for her. She wanted him. And the truth was, she wasn’t ready for love either. Not even close.
“Is that enough for you?” he asked.
Yeah. It was, and she gave a slow nod.
He stood and pulled her up with him, giving her a chance to move away if she wanted. But apparently her body wasn’t at all as conflicted as her brain because she leaned into him. Then those big, warm hands of his were on her hips, pulling her in closer. He lowered his head so that his jaw rubbed against her cheek, like a big, wild cat approaching a possible mate.
When she sighed in pleasure, he closed the nearly nonexistent gap between them and kissed her long and hard, lifting her up against him. She wound her arms around his neck and held him to her as they both dove in. When he pulled back, his eyes were dark, his voice so low as to be nearly inaudible. “Last chance,” he said quietly. “Go back to bed alone or stay here with me.”
She didn’t go back. Instead she leaned in and licked a drop of water off his neck. When he stilled and closed his eyes, she took a nibble out of the same spot, sucking a patch of his skin into her mouth, smiling against him when he groaned. And then she tugged him down to the towel.
He kneeled over her, his hands running up her spine, taking her sweatshirt with him. When he’d pulled it off, he took in her baby-blue camisole PJ top and said her name hoarsely.
A few low clouds had slid over the moon, making the night even darker, causing a sense of isolation and intimacy. The water lapped softly near their feet, the only other sound being the pounding of her heart and the sound of her whispering his name on the wind.
He buried his fingers in her hair, tugging lightly, exposing her neck. She could feel him, hot and hard against her, and her eyes fluttered closed as he played her like a fiddle. “Here, Lanie?” he murmured, voice husky and thick.
She looked up and found herself staring into twin pools of dark desire. He wanted her, and she wanted him even if he had stupid rules about love, even if it was only for the moment. “Yes,” she whispered against his mouth, “here,” and he slid the camisole straps down her arms, nudging the thin material southbound until it caught on the very tips of her breasts. She sucked in a breath at the sensation and then he gave another nudge and she was bared to him.
With a groan, he lowered his head, his mouth taking over for his fingers. And then he headed south, divesting her of all her armor as he went. Around them, the water continued to hit the rocky beach, a dissonant symphony of sound that mixed with her soft, desperate moans as he took her to head-spinning and heart-stopping heights. She came shockingly fast, and she might’ve been embarrassed about that if he hadn’t lifted his head and looked at her with eyes so hot she felt scorched. Wanting to give him some of what he’d just given her, she reached for him, but his fingers lightly circled her wrists, stopping her progress.
She looked up at him and saw him smile in the darkness. He then rose to his feet and took a small step back as he untied his still-damp board shorts and pushed them off his lean hips. In the dim recesses of her mind she registered the wet thud as the shorts hit the ground behind him. Dropping to his knees between her legs, he braced himself over her, dipping his head to lick the skin of her collarbone, making her arch up off the towel. Reaching for him, she tried to tug him down to her, needing this. She expected him to be cool from the water, but he radiated heat and power and strength, and she craved more. “Please,” she breathed.
With a groan, he dropped his head to her shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut tight. Then he rolled them so that she had the top all to herself. His hands went to her hips and rocked her against a most impressive erection and she started to lift up to take him inside her when he stopped her.
“I don’t have a condom with me,” he said, voice strained.
“Oh. Oh . . .” she murmured as understanding finally dawned. Looking down into his heated, hungry eyes, she realized that though she’d nearly forgotten to protect herself, he hadn’t, and some of the cold deep inside her warmed. “It’s okay,” she whispered and bent low to kiss his chest, stopping to lave first one nipple and then his other like he’d done to her.
He groaned and tightened his grip on her, but she wriggled free to kiss his ridged ab muscles one by one as she too headed south.
“Lanie, you don’t have to—”
She drew him into her mouth and he stopped talking, switching to muttered oaths and groans and fractured gasped phrases that made her feel like the sexiest woman alive as she took him to the same place he’d taken her . . .
THE NEXT MORNING, Lanie lay in her bed for a few extra moments, trying to decipher through her emotions to see how she felt about the incredible, erotically charged events of the night before.
She smiled a little smugly and decided she felt good. Very good.
An hour later she was at work, absolutely not reliving it all in her mind, like when he’d had his mouth on her—
“Good morning,” Cora said and put a cup of coffee and a muffin on Lanie’s desk. “You busy? You look like you’re thinking very hard.”
She felt herself blush and went with a distraction. “You’re bearing bribes. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Just the day before she’d sent Cora the draft design for the new wine labels she’d been working on, and now she felt the anxiety grip her. Mark’s mouth forgotten—mostly—she stood up. “You hate them.”
“What?” Cora looked baffled and then horrified. “No, oh my God, Lanie. I love the designs. I buried my lede, I’m sorry. I’ve passed all of it on to Owen and the others to see what they think, but you’re onto something, they’re gorgeous.” Then she hesitated. “But I guess I am trying to bribe you in some way.”
“How?” she asked warily.
“It’s been a week and I’m wondering if you’ve given any thought to staying longer and extending your contract.”
Lanie inhaled a deep breath. “I don’t think I can.”
“Are you . . . unhappy here?”
“Actually, I love it here.” That also escaped before she could think. Dammit. She shut her mouth and drew in a careful, deep breath. “I mean, thank you. It’s incredibly kind that you’d offer me more work, but I need to get back eventually.”
“To Santa Barbara.”
“Yes,” Lanie said. “To Santa Barbara.” Where her life was. Well, her old life. The one she needed to work on.
“You know what?” Cora said. “Let’s pretend this conversation didn’t happen, okay? So don’t say no now. You can keep thinking about it.”
Lanie nodded, grateful. Because she did need to think. Santa Barbara was her home, it was where her life was, her friends. The friends she’d made with Kyle, which meant in the end they’d been no friends at all, disappearing almost as fast as everything else had. It was as if her life had been a fresh painting and then it’d rained, smearing that old life away to nothing but a soggy canvas.
A soggy blank canvas.
Cora left and Lanie returned to work. But several hours later, Cora was back.
“Ready?” she asked Lanie.
How was it noon already? But if she’d learned one thing at Capriotti Winery, it was that everyone, from the winemaker down to the last ranch hand in the fields, took lunch incredibly seriously. “I’ve got a lot I’m working on—”
“I know. I also know by how you’re holding yourself that your neck and shoulders are sore, and I’d bet you my very last cork that you haven’t budged since you first sat down at your desk this morning.”
Lanie sighed. “No, but—”
“Come on. I’m not going to have you die of starvation on my watch. Besides, today’s Anna’s birthday and there will be extra family members to introduce you to.”
Lanie had no idea who Anna was. For all she knew, Anna was the housekeeper. It didn’t matter. To Cora, everyone was family, and that word held a whole different definition here than it ever had to Lanie. She thought about resistance but knew it was futile. Cora, she’d learned, was soft and sweet on the outside, but tough as nails on the inside. She was a mom, a grandma, and a CEO of a multimillion-dollar corporation, and she had the spine and spark to prove it.
Lanie stood up from her desk and stretched her aching bones. Cora was right—she’d been hyper-focused and hadn’t budged.
Cora’s cell phone buzzed on her hip. She took the call and Lanie watched the good mood vanish from her face. “No can do,” she said. “But we can offer something else in Marcus’s place—” She listened politely, her eyes ice. “No, I realize that he’s quite the prize, believe me. I made him. He’s the king of all prizes and I’ll not see him auctioned off like a prime piece of USDA Choice. I will come up with something else and you won’t be disappointed.” She disconnected.
“Problem?” Lanie asked.
“That was the Wildstone Summer Festival chairwoman. It’s an annual event that raises money for the local women’s shelter, and we hold it out here on our property, donating the space, the wine, and the serving staff.”
“That’s generous.”
Cora shrugged. “It’s a good cause and it’s good publicity. It’s also on your list of things to do. We need logos for that as well. The problem is the auction. It raises a lot of money every year and I usually donate a few prizes. Last year I auctioned off a weekend working here at the winery.” She smiled. “Made a mint and got some extra labor for the weekend.”
“Nice. And not seeing the problem,” Lanie said.
“This year they want me to put Marcus up on the auction block, said he’d make another mint.”
Lanie had a flash of Mark towering over her, his mouth at her ear whispering all the wickedly naughty things he planned to do to her. He’d kept his word too. Hell yeah, he’d bring in a mint.
“You don’t agree?” asked a deep, unbearably familiar voice.
She turned and yep, Mark stood in the doorway, propping up the jamb with a broad shoulder. He was smiling and her gaze went straight to his mouth, remembering exactly what it could do, and she felt heat rush to her face.
And her good parts.
His smile said he knew what she was thinking about, which didn’t help.
“It doesn’t matter,” Cora said. “Because you’re not doing it. I won’t have it. We don’t abuse our own here.”
“And yet you have your grandnieces working in the barn with their hands tied together.”
Cora didn’t smile. “That’s different. You . . .”
“What?” he asked.
Lanie tried to slip out of the room, but Mark didn’t budge from the doorway.
“You’re still adjusting to civilian life,” Cora said, softer now. “When you didn’t even want to be here.”
Mark let out a breath. “Mom, you’ve got to stop saying that. If the girls hear you and—”
“They’re playing outside.”
Lanie tried to become invisible, but her superpowers failed her. She moved to the far side of her L-shaped desk and looked around for something to do with herself.
“I think you’re holding back,” Cora told Mark. “Another reason I wasn’t about to let you be a part of this auction. That’s not how I want to push you back to the land of the living, though I do want you to be free to date.”
“Not happening,” Mark said firmly.
Lanie tried really hard not to let that bother her. She didn’t want to date either, so she had no idea what was wrong with her.
“You can’t just shut off that part of your life,” Cora said. “You need companionship. Eventually you’re going to want to be in a relationship—”
Lanie couldn’t quite catch Mark’s response to that, but whatever he muttered had Cora’s temper igniting.
“I know you’re not about to tell me that you have no intention of falling in love again, because I raised you to be more sensible than that,” she said.
He didn’t sigh, but he looked like he wanted to. “I’m going to do this on my own time, Mom. And not even you can rush me.”
“But you are going to eventually do it?”
His gaze flicked to Lanie. “We’re done with this conversation.”
Cora threw up her hands. “Fine. Go. They need help setting the lunch tables. I’ll be right there.”
Given the fact that she’d just ordered around the biggest alpha male Lanie had ever met, she was thinking it was pretty optimistic of Cora to expect Mark to actually go. Which was why she was surprised at the indulgent crinkle at the corners of his eyes and found herself actually floored when he turned and did as he was told.
Cora was amused when Lanie just gaped at her. “How did you do that?” she asked. “That was like magic!”
“No, honey, not magic. A man’ll do almost anything for a woman he loves, but it’s not the big gestures that mean the most. It’s the small ones, if you see what I’m saying.”
“Like setting the table.”
She smiled bright as the sun. “Yes, like the setting the table.” She took Lanie’s hand and squeezed it. “Don’t give up on him just yet.”
“Oh. Um, I think you’re mistaken because Mark and I aren’t—”
“You sure about that?”
Lanie grimaced and zipped her mouth.
Cora smiled and patted her on the arm. “You don’t owe me any explanations, honey. You’re both grown-ups.”
“Then what was that about wanting him to feel free to date . . . ?”
A smug light came into Cora’s gaze.
“Oh,” Lanie breathed. “You just wanted confirmation that he and I . . .”
Cora smiled.
“You’re brilliant,” Lanie marveled. “And a little scary.”
“I know,” Cora said.
Lanie moved to the door and then stopped and turned back. “But really, there isn’t anything going on between us, at least nothing permanent.”
“I understand. And it’s none of my business.”
No, but Lanie wanted to make sure there was no mistake. “Neither of us are in a place for it. I’m only telling you this because I don’t want to get your hopes up. In my experience, hope is the first step toward disappointment.”
“I understand,” Cora repeated gently, but she wasn’t looking discouraged in the slightest.
Lanie left, hoping that Cora was human and not some sort of a secret guardian angel who granted wishes that were made in the deep dark of the night.