Chapter Sixteen
Seth looked up from his monitor when Pippa came walking into the stone barn. He checked the time on the screen, then looked back at her. “That didn’t take too long.” He tried to gauge the success of her mission by the look on her face, but she was already striding over to give Dex some love and check in on Elliott.
He hadn’t seen her since they’d gone their separate ways after dinner at Addie’s the night before, but they’d talked that morning before she left to go talk to Will. He got up and crossed the open area of the barn.
“How did it go?”
Pippa straightened from leaning over the stall gate, cooing to Elliott and laughing as he butted his head against her hand, and turned to Seth, her expression serious now. “I’m not sure. We sat out on his back porch, with that amazing view, and talked. Well, I talked. A lot. But I think he listened.” She looked up at him. “Actually, I know he did. He seems like a very kind and thoughtful man. I finally got to see that side of him, before I left.”
“He’s one of the most solid men I know. I’d trust him with my life.”
Pippa nodded. “It’s just so sad and awful, that he’s never gotten over losing his wife,” she said quietly. “I wanted to hug him.”
Seth wanted to pull her into his arms, hug her, comfort her, then remembered he didn’t have to resist that urge any longer. “Come here,” he murmured.
She went immediately into his arms, wrapped hers around his waist, and pressed her cheek against his chest. He wrapped her up closer and pressed a kiss on the top of her head. She felt good in his arms. Perfect, actually. “So, I’m guessing it was a no-go on getting him to agree to work with you on the two of you getting your music back?”
“Aye. He was pretty clear about that,” she said, disappointed.
“Do you think he’ll let Jake take lessons?”
“I honestly don’t know,” she said, then lifted her head to look up at him. “I hope so.” She leaned up then and kissed him.
She lowered her heels, but he lifted them right up again, and kissed her slowly and with great attention to detail. When he finally broke the kiss, they were both a little breathless. “Hi,” he told her, smiling.
“Hi, yourself,” she replied, and her eyes were somehow both bright with happiness and dark with desire. “Have I told you, you’re good at this whole not-pretending-anymore thing?”
He grinned. “I have to keep reminding myself I don’t have to.”
She raised her eyebrows at that. “We should probably get more practice then, until it becomes second nature.”
“Have I mentioned I’m a fan of these plans you come up with?”
She shook her head, all innocence, then batted her lashes for good measure. “How big a fan are we talking?”
If he pulled her any closer against him, she’d feel just how big, but that might be a little too much, too soon. “Your biggest,” he said, and instead made a gesture to the difference in their heights, making her giggle.
“So, why did you ask me to come up?” she asked him. “I could have told you how the meeting with Will went over the phone. I know you have a lot to do. Did you see the distributor finally?” she asked. “How did it go?”
“Yes, I saw Denton, and it went very well. Looks like we have a deal.”
“That’s fantastic.” She beamed and gently tugged the bottom of his beard so he’d lower his mouth to hers again, making him chuckle just before taking her mouth in a decidedly no-holds-barred kiss.
“Well then,” she said, quite breathlessly this time when they broke apart. “I’d say practicing is definitely the way to go. You’re making swift improvements on that second-nature thing.”
He grinned. “Full disclosure, I asked you up here mainly because we can’t do that over the phone.” He slipped her arms over his shoulders. “But also because we haven’t had the chance to spend much time alone together.”
She wiggled her eyebrows. “Have I mentioned how big a fan I am of your plans?”
He chuckled again. “Why, ma’am, I’m not sure what you’re suggesting. I just wanted to go for a little walk. Maybe have some lunch, if you’ve the time.”
She looked surprised and charmed. “Truly? What a lovely idea.”
Seth had been thinking a lot about what Mabry had said to him, about living life. Seth’s to-do list that day was longer than his arm, and both legs, for that matter. But every day was pretty much that way. And it wasn’t like the workload was going to lessen once the winery was actually, well, a winery. If he was going to have a life beyond being a vintner, then now was the time to start establishing a few ground rules and carve out some time for something other than vine and livestock tending. Now that he had a reason for wanting some time.
“I can help with the goats or the sheep later when Bailey gets here.” She smiled. “Assuming my barn privileges have been reinstated now.”
“Bailey won’t be here until tomorrow. But yes, you’re officially welcome to invade any and all parts of my world.”
She batted her eyelashes again at that, and his body reacted like she’d stripped naked. Yeah, you might want to pace yourself there, big guy.
“I can keep busy if you need to finish up,” she said, nodding toward his makeshift office. “It’s a bit early for lunch anyway.”
In response, Seth slid her arms from his shoulders and slipped his fingers through one of her hands. “That’s why I thought we’d walk first. Build up our appetite.”
The irises in her eyes bloomed wide at that, and he realized maybe he wasn’t the only one who needed to rein it in. Which helped his efforts not at all. He slipped his hand free and tucked her arm through his, leading her out the back of the barn toward the vines. Before they both ended up sprawled in the sawdust, ripping each other’s clothes off. “Shall we?” he said with a short bow.
“I believe we shall,” she said, and he finally got his curtsy.
He could have sworn she was gazing at him a bit meaningfully, but that could just be wishful thinking. “This way, then.”
The unusually high temperatures had returned that morning. The sun climbed slowly in a cloudless sky the same color as the periwinkles that grew alongside the stone path leading away from the barn. He led Pippa toward the rows of vines, thinking if only Sawyer could see him now, and grinned. He knew his best friend hadn’t meant for Seth to take his words so literally, but the image had struck him, and stayed with him. Besides, he wanted to share this part of himself with her.
“Not exactly a walk in the park,” he said, his hand laced with hers now. “But I thought you might enjoy seeing what I do up close.”
“Very much so.” She glanced up at him, her cheeks a bit pink. “Although I do have a confession to make.”
“Do you?” he asked, grinning at the naughty smile that curved her lips. “Please, tell.”
“You recall when you were trying really, really hard to be anywhere but in sight of me?”
He winced. “In my defense, well, I had no defenses around you.”
“So, purely self-defense then,” she teased.
“Purely,” he said, glancing down at her, noting the merriment in her eyes. “And what a waste of time that was.”
“Time,” she said softly, and held his hand a little more tightly. “Yes, let’s not waste any more of that.”
“Hear, hear,” he said. “So, about this confession?”
“Right,” she said, then looked a little sheepish. “The day you absented yourself entirely, I might have taken that opportunity to have a little stroll out here.” She looked up at him. “I didn’t touch so much as a single leaf, I promise.”
He was surprised by the confession, but touched as well. “Because you wanted to know more about growing grapes?”
She slowed until they stood facing each other, hands still clasped. “No, because I wanted to know more about you. Feel closer to you.”
He leaned down and kissed her, then pulled her into his arms and kissed her again.
Her eyes were filled with happiness when he finally lifted his mouth from hers, maybe a bit dazed by need. He was certain his looked much the same.
“I must say,” she said, her voice throatier than usual, “I feel much closer to you this go.”
A slow grin curved his mouth. He brushed at the strands of hair the light breeze had wisped across her face, then ran the side of his thumb across that plump bud of a lower lip. Her eyes darkened, and she gently tugged the end of his beard until his mouth was on hers once more.
“We’re not going to work up much of an appetite this way,” he murmured against her lips.
“Speak for yourself,” she said, and nudging his lips apart, took the kiss deeper still.
She was straining on her tiptoes to reach him, so it seemed the most natural thing in the world to just scoop her up so she could wrap her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, letting her match her mouth perfectly to his.
“I had all these plans,” he murmured against her mouth.
“I was thinking about a new plan,” she replied, then gasped as he kissed along her jaw, giggling when he nibbled her earlobe and his beard tickled her neck.
“I think I’m already on record as being a big fan of those,” he murmured, working his way back to her mouth, his palms sliding up her thighs so he could cup her backside, pressing her more snugly against him.
She moaned softly and began to squirm. “Aye, and I’m beginning to realize just how big.”
He let out a laugh, which ended on a groan as she wriggled against him. The mix of playfulness and seduction came naturally to them, and he thought it was the most erotic thing he’d ever experienced.
“Do you think lunch could wait?” she whispered in his ear, then nibbled his earlobe.
His fingers reflexively sank into the soft curves of her backside, urging her tighter against him. “I think we could manage that.” What he wasn’t sure he could manage was getting them all the way to the house before embarrassing himself. To that end, he nudged her legs from around his waist, letting her feet drop to the ground. Then he turned his back to her and crouched down.
She figured out his intentions without his having to ask. She hopped up on his back and wrapped her arms around his neck, nibbling at his ear again as he wrapped her legs arounds his waist until she could hook her ankles in front. Then he covered her hands with his own and pulled them down, turning his head to the side until their lips met. “Hold on,” he said, then kissed her again.
“I don’t plan on letting go,” she said softly, looking directly into his eyes.
Please don’t, he thought.
He started back down the turf strip, while Pippa nibbled at his ear and kissed the side of his neck, then giggled when he reached back and pinched her backside. They made it as far as the outside of the stone barn. Then she slipped off his back and turned him around to face her, tugging his shirt front down until they were hungrily kissing again. He lifted her up against him, then pressed her back against the gray wood slats, sliding her up so she could wrap herself around the front of him again.
He framed her face with broad palms, fitting her mouth more perfectly to his so he could take and be taken. They dueled with their tongues, as she slid her hands up and pulled his hair loose, then ran her fingers through it, raking nails against his scalp, making him shudder, testing his restraint.
“Hold on,” he growled, and kept her right where she was, wrapped around him, kissing him, nibbling his earlobe, biting the side of his neck as he all but jogged them the rest of the way to the house.
They burst through the mudroom door and he was tempted to set her on top of the dryer and take her right there. Slow your roll, he schooled himself. But that was hard when she kept moaning softly every time she shifted against him. So, very, very hard.
He carried her through the living room and down the hallway, then stopped.
“Seth,” she said, half begging, and just hearing his name like that was enough to push him right to the edge.
“Houston, we have a problem,” he murmured in her ear, then regretfully let her go.
“Who is Houston and what is his problem?” she grumbled, when he took her by the hips and turned her so her back was to him. “Oh,” she said as she looked at the set of wrought iron circular steps that led up to the loft. “That would be tricky now, wouldn’t it?”
He grinned. “You should try it with feet the size of mine.”
She giggled, and pointed up. “So, your bedroom is up there? I wondered what was in the loft.”
“I like to spread out, and the rooms down here are too small for my bed.”
Her eyes widened at that. “My room was a pretty decent size,” she said. “How big are we talking?” She craned her neck to look up through the middle of the stairs. “And how on earth did you get it up there?”
“Dismantled, pulley system over the rail, reassemble.”
“Ingenious.”
He turned her in his arms. “Would you like to see it?” Now that they’d stopped kissing and fondling each other for five seconds, he was able to take a breath and get a bit of sanity back. “I know you didn’t want things to go too quickly.” He smiled. “Hence the walk and lunch plan.”
“And we see how well that worked out for us,” she said with a grin.
“True. Perhaps we should have taken Dex along as chaperone.”
She looked up at him. “I think I’m all done needing chaperones.”
His pulse bumped right back up again. “Are you now?”
“I’m tired of being afraid, Seth. Tired of worrying about what comes next. I’m not being cavalier here,” she told him. “In case that’s what you’re thinking. I’m not just throwing caution to the wind. I can’t change myself that much.”
“Pippa, we don’t have to—”
“Speak for yourself,” she said, her tone gently teasing this time, but there was so much warmth in her eyes when she looked at him, he wasn’t sure what to do with all the feelings she evoked in him.
“So, I look at it this way,” she went on. “It’s true, I don’t know where this goes, or how we manage it, beyond this time we have right now. That’s no small thing.”
His heart slowed to that hard thump. “That’s the part I’m having a hard time with, too.”
Her eyes filled then and she reached up and stroked his face. “See, that’s why I don’t want to walk away from this, from you. You’re such a good man—honest. True. I don’t know how we go forward. What I do know, without a single doubt, is that I’ll regret it every day for the rest of my life if I don’t try.”
He pulled her into his arms. “Then try we will,” he said, and kissed her.
The kiss was different this time. The heat was there, the hunger, too, but it wasn’t simply a connection born out of passion and constrained desire held in check for far too long. Now he knew where her heart was, that she wanted what he wanted, enough to risk heartbreak. Isn’t that what love is? Reaching for the best life has to offer, even while risking the worst? He’d always thought falling in love would be the easiest thing in the world with the right person. And he’d been right. No one had ever told him, though, that it would also be the most terrifying thing.
Holding his hand behind her, Pippa led them up the spiral staircase to his bedroom. He wanted her like he wanted his next breath, and not just in his bed. He wanted her across the breakfast table, sitting cross-legged in the middle of his barn, driving Bluebell mostly on the right side of the road, cooing over Dexter, helping people close to him because she couldn’t stand to see them suffer, being willing to suffer herself in order to do so. All of it, all of her.
And yet ... at the same time, could he imagine himself in Ireland? Sitting offstage, watching her play to an arena full of screaming fans, fitting himself into the spaces of her life between her tour schedules and studio time? Being all those things for her that he so readily wanted her to be for him?
His thoughts drifted to Mabry, who still celebrated the love of his life every day, despite her being gone, and Will, who’d boarded his heart up in fear of ever letting love in again.
Who do you want to be?
He smiled to himself. How about someone who falls in love with the girl next door instead of the girl next continent? But it was too late for that.
Pippa gasped as they stepped up into the loft. It was deceptively bigger than she’d imagined looking up from below. The space covered not only the part of the living and kitchen area below, but extended back to cover both of the back bedrooms on one side and the spare office space on the other. Two of the walls were actually the eaves of the roof, steeply slanted, with exposed beams that soared all the way up to the peak. But her gaze wasn’t on that—it was on the bed.
She turned to Seth. “It’s the size of a modest playground,” she said, all but gaping. “Does it need specially tailored sheets?”
“I like to stretch out,” he told her, “but now that you mention it . . .” He took her hand and drew her over to the bed, then pulled her down on the broad platform mattress he’d had specially made for him the moment he’d left the service—and every cramped, too-short cot, bunk, and hammock—behind him for good.
She rolled to her back and splayed her arms and legs. Even with him lying next to her, her toes and fingertips didn’t reach near the edges of the bed. “It’s like being in the middle of an ocean.” She pretended to do the backstroke, making him laugh. She arched her neck and looked behind her at the louvered screen that filled most of the back wall behind the bed. “Oh,” she gasped. “Will you look up there. That’s lovely.” She rolled over and sat up. “Stained glass?”
Seth nodded. “That was already here when I moved in.”
“It’s stunning. Is the rest a window?”
He nodded. Though there was bright sunshine outside, it was dark and shadowy in the loft with the louvered blinds closed. The window just below the stained-glass triangle at the peak was an enormous, three-panel affair. “I had the blinds installed on the windows—Will custom built them for me, actually—because I can’t sleep when it’s light out, and my hours here aren’t always in sync with the sun rising and setting.” He rolled off the bed and pulled on a cord, which opened the blinds, then pressed a button and they began to rise.
Pippa got on her knees and gaped as she crawled to the wrought iron headboard. “And I thought my bedroom in the cabin had the window to the world,” she breathed. “Will you look at that.” They were well above the tree line as the ground fell away not far behind the house in a gentle downward slope. She could look down and see the round barn, and the topography of the ground around it. The top floor of the barn was level with the ground in front; then the land fell sharply away on the sides, so that the bottom of the three-story building had a ground-floor walk-out in the back. Beyond that were rows and rows of vines; then the ground rose up again, in wave after undulating wave of pine-forested ridges and peaks.
She glanced from the view, toward the railing and the soaring glass window at the front of the house. “So, the sun being on the front of the house now means you have the sunset view.” She looked at him as he sat on the edge of the bed again. “And the stars . . .” She looked back to the view. “I’ve been wanting to get a chart, so I can learn them. But if I can see a good portion of the sky from my little cabin, you must see the whole galaxy.”
Seth pulled off his boots, and shifted to the middle of the bed with her, pushing the pillows up against the open pattern of the iron headboard and resting his back on them. “The Milky Way does put on a pretty good show, most nights.”
“Oh.” She sighed in envy, then turned to him. “I don’t think I’d ever be able to close those blinds. I’d be up here all day long, staring.”
“Long about five o’clock when the sun is beaming in here like a death ray, you’ll probably change your mind,” he said with a chuckle, then reached for her, pulling her to him until she straddled his thighs. “Although far be it from me to discourage you from spending as much time up here as you’d like.”
“Be careful what you offer,” she said. “You know how easily I just move right on in and make myself at home.”
He rolled her to her back, eliciting a surprised squeal from her, and pinned her hands next to her head. “I do know,” he said, “and I’m counting on it.”
Her eyes widened in mock surprise. “So presumptuous.”
He grinned. “Let’s just say I’m hopeful.”
“Until I displease you and you banish me back to the wee cabin in the woods?” she teased.
He rolled to his back and pulled her full length on top of him. “I didn’t banish—” He broke off at her look of admonishment. “Okay, so maybe I did.” He covered her hands, pulled them up between them, and kissed her knuckles. “But don’t worry, everything you do pleases me.”
When he nipped her knuckles, she squealed, pulling her hands free and tugging on the end of his beard just hard enough to make him wince.
“You fight like a girl,” he teased her, while carefully extracting his beard from her fingers before she could tug again. “Stop gaping at me,” he said with a laugh. “As a man with four sisters, I say that with complete awe and the appropriate level of abject humility. My fellow Rangers could have learned a thing or three about hand-to-hair combat from them.”
Pippa snickered. “Hand-to-hair combat.” She giggled again. “I wish I could refute that, but I also have sisters, and you wouldn’t be wrong.” She lifted a lock of his long hair and carefully wound it around her finger, then leaned down until her lips were a breath away from his. “It’s just so tempting.”
He grinned at that, then framed her face and pulled it down to his. “Come here,” he murmured. “Let me see if my distract-and-disarm training still works.” He kissed her slowly, like a man who had all the time in the world to learn every last nuance of her mouth, her lips, her tongue. And if he was very, very lucky, he would.