CHAPTER SIX
Leaving Taylor with nothing more than a kiss on her forehead the previous evening had been one of the hardest things Justin had ever done.
He’d woken up grouchy, but as soon as he’d eaten the incredible breakfast she made, everything turned around. The omelet, bacon, and scones were so good he could swear she was the next coming of Julia Child.
The Belmont family, with whom he’d sat at breakfast, had perked him up too. The kids reminded him of the way he and his siblings had been when they were young. Rambunctious, but not meaning any harm. The little girl in particular captivated Justin.
Now, he was helping Taylor do dishes before they headed out for the day to see the wine country’s sights. He was glad that she had found Rufus and Janet, a husband-and-wife cleaning team, to help out with the rooms every morning after her guests left to sightsee. He hated to think of her trying single-handedly to take care of everything, even though he knew she was more than capable of it.
Taylor grinned at him from her spot at the kitchen sink. “You had quite a little admirer at breakfast.”
“It’s mutual. Sophia’s going to grow up to be a heartbreaker, that’s for sure.”
“Starting with yours when they leave, if your plans to help her set up a lemonade stand on the sidewalk tomorrow afternoon are anything to go by.”
“What can I say—I’m a sucker for brown eyes and a big smile.”
If Taylor had any idea that he wasn’t just talking about the little girl now, but the beautiful woman standing beside him at the sink, she didn’t give any indication. “What do you want to do first?” she asked after they’d dried and put away all of the breakfast dishes and frying pans. “See the petrified forest? Or the geyser? Or maybe even take a mud bath?”
He’d seen the pamphlets for the famous Calistoga mud baths, all of which showed couples enjoying them together. Hoping against hope that this was what she was hinting at, he said, “I’d be up for a mud bath if you are.”
She shuddered. “No way am I getting into a vat of dirt.” She shot him a teasing look. “But I’d be happy to dunk you in one.”
“Are you still trying to get back at me for accidentally losing your clothes at the beach that day?” He hadn’t deliberately dropped her clothes into a crevasse between boulders—the wind had blown her shorts and T-shirt out of his hands before he could stop it. Though she’d had on a bikini, she’d still been mortified about making the long walk back to the car in just her bathing suit. All he’d had to give her for the drive home was his T-shirt. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t appreciated stealing glances at her completely bare legs next to him all the way home.
She made a mock-angry face, one that was so cute he almost lost the fight against leaning over and kissing her. “Trust me,” she said, “the day I get you back for that will be far worse than just dumping mud all over you. I’ve had years to plan…”
When he’d been in his lab in Germany, hunched over his computer and microscope, he’d almost forgotten how good it was to be with her, even if all they were doing was washing dishes and joking with each other. Hell, just holding her in his arms last night while they were dancing had been miles better than anything he’d ever experienced in bed with another woman.
“How about we start with the geyser?” she suggested. “And then we can grab some sandwiches on the way to the petrified forest. We should have plenty of time to see both before I have to head back to get things ready for afternoon tea.”
The hours flew by, full of laughter and inside jokes Justin had only with her. He’d barely seen the sunlight during the years he’d been holed up in the lab, but even if he’d been traveling the world nonstop, the beauty of Napa Valley would have floored him. Hills covered in pine, redwood, and oak trees rose up from sweeping plains covered in grapevines. Artisan cheese and chocolate and olive oil shops were everywhere, along with some of the best restaurants in the world. Everywhere he looked, something was in bloom, from vegetable gardens to front-yard flower gardens.
And Taylor had never looked so perfectly in her element.
Justin had thought she was happy at Stanford. She was so intelligent that biology had seemed like a good fit. But after watching her interact with her guests this morning over breakfast, and then with the locals in their stores as she bought fresh honey and cheese and sausage, he realized he hadn’t known her nearly as well as he’d thought.
Almost as though there was a part of herself that she’d always kept hidden from him. Just as he’d always kept a part of himself from her, out of fear that the depth of his desire, his emotions, would drive her away instead of bringing her closer.
He couldn’t wait much longer to tell her how he felt. After a long sunny morning and afternoon where they didn’t just reminisce about old memories, but started making new ones, he felt good. Better than he’d felt in years. Tonight, when the right moment came to confess his feelings, he would take it.
* * *
It had been a perfect day. Taylor’s first breakfast for her guests had gone smoothly, both inside of the kitchen and out. She’d booked a group of women from San Francisco who were coming to Napa for a girls’ weekend later in the month. And, best of all, she’d had a wonderful time touring the valley with Justin.
Taylor wanted to get one hundred percent well for herself, of course, and for her mother, father, and brother, who were all praying that she’d find a match who would be willing to undergo the kidney-donation procedure. But Justin was one of the biggest reasons of all. She wanted to be his friend not only for the next five years, but for the next fifty as well.
He’d helped her set out and serve afternoon tea and coffee and cookies for the Belmonts, who had just headed into town for an early dinner. Now the two of them were working together in her garden, Taylor pulling weeds while Justin deadheaded the copious rose bushes.
“I’m always terrified I’m going to screw up the roses because I don’t know what I’m doing. And I always prick myself, which is why I’ve left them so long,” she said as she watched him move efficiently from one bush to the next. “If I’d known you were this good a gardener, I would have sent you a plane ticket four months ago.”
“Come here, and I’ll show you a few tricks.”
It was perfectly natural to walk into the open curve of his arms so that her back was nearly pressed to his front. Unfortunately, it was also unavoidable that every square inch of her body would heat up from his close proximity. If only he didn’t smell so good, and have such strong, tanned arms, and be standing so close that his breath whispering over her as he spoke sent heat coursing through her, head to toe.
“First of all, you really can’t hurt a rose bush by overtrimming it.” He sounded so relaxed, while her heart was beating a million miles a minute. In fact, her heartbeat was whooshing so loudly inside her own head that she wondered how he couldn’t hear it. “Second, you need to make sure you’ve got on thick gloves.” He took the gloves she’d forgotten to put on from her gardening bucket and slid them onto her hands. Just that tiny little bit of skin touching skin, she was stunned to realize, was better than any actual sex she’d ever had. “Third, you need to make sure you’re using good, sharp hand pruners.” He gave them to her. “Now, all that’s left is finding a healthy bud and then making your cut a quarter of an inch above it.”
With his nearness searing her, she lost whatever grace she might have possessed and jerked her bare forearm toward the prickly bush. Thankfully, Justin’s reflexes were so fast that he was able to pull her back before any thorns pricked her.
“Try again.” His voice moved through her like a well-aged port—smooth and warm, with an undeniable pull at her senses. “And this time, relax. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She’d always known how lucky she was to have Justin in her life. During their years at Stanford, he had been the most steadfast of friends. It wasn’t his fault that they’d fallen so out of touch with each other. She’d thought it was better that way, that some distance would help diffuse her unrequited feelings for him.
She knew better now. Distance had only made her heart grow fonder—not to mention ratcheting up her desire for him to near-desperate levels.
But she’d done so well all day, hadn’t she? There hadn’t been any long pauses where she’d let slip her inappropriate feelings, and she hadn’t had to run away and hide to collect herself either. She’d simply let herself have fun and enjoy being with him, despite the fact that everything he did made her melt inside.
Forcing herself to relax against him, she was pleasantly surprised to see how easy it was to safely trim back her rose bushes when she followed his advice.
“See, what did I tell you?” he said once they were done and had both pulled off their gloves. “Nothing to it.”
“Thank you for showing me.” She turned her head to look up into his eyes as she spoke, and suddenly there it was—one of those long pauses she’d so triumphantly avoided. One that would be steeped in the deep emotion she’d been trying to hide from him. She spun out of his arms so fast she nearly toppled over.
“Taylor?”
She swatted at an invisible bug. “There was a bee.” Fumbling to cover her lame lie, she quickly asked, “Where did you learn how to prune roses?”
“My mom. I used to help her out in the garden. None of the others had any interest, but I was always amazed by how things grew. I was a bio geek from the start.” He was smiling as he said it, but she could see the pain that was always in his eyes when he talked about his mom.
“Sometimes,” Taylor said softly, “I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
All last night and today, she hadn’t been able to keep from looking down at the beautiful ring on her finger. Not because of the weight of it—somehow, that was strangely familiar, as if it really did belong on her hand. But because of what she wished she could say to Lisa Morrison.
Taylor wished she could let his mother know that though Justin and his siblings were still hurting from her loss, they were all doing much better now. And she wished she could make his mom a promise that she would do whatever it took to be there for Justin, to always be his friend.
Justin’s mother had always been so easy to talk to, to laugh with. Though Taylor’s family had been on the other side of the country, Lisa Morrison had made her feel she wasn’t so alone, especially those first few months of freshman year when everything had been so new and different. Taylor had been an automatic invite to every family party, every birthday, even the hotly contested family tennis tournament.
After Lisa had been diagnosed, Taylor had not only accompanied Justin to his mother’s hospital room many times, she’d also gone alone to visit with her. Sometimes, they had chatted, laughed. Other times, they simply sat quietly together, Lisa’s hand in Taylor’s, this very ring on his mother’s finger.
“She’d like knowing we’re here together in your garden,” Justin said. “Especially since she always wanted me to be with you.”
Taylor nearly dropped the clippers. “She said that?”
“Well, she always told me how much she loved you. And how she felt like you were one of the family.”
Love for his mother tangled with disappointment that Lisa hadn’t literally said she wanted Justin and Taylor to be together. “That’s a pretty big leap to make,” she said in as light a voice as she could manage. “Especially when everyone knows we’ve never been anything more than friends.”
“Haven’t we?”
This time, the clippers did fall. Nearly taking out the toes of her right foot, in fact. “Are you thirsty? Or hungry?” She didn’t wait for him to reply. “I’ll go put something together in the kitchen for us.”
But instead of letting her run from him the way she had the night before, he reached out and grabbed her hand. “I haven’t forgotten,” he said in a low voice. “Do you remember, Taylor? What happened that night before I left for Germany…”
Oh God. Of course she remembered. How could she possibly forget the night she’d made an utter, absolute fool of herself?
It had been early in senior year, the night before the lab in Frankfurt had unexpectedly whisked him off. She’d been having trouble with her Bioinformatics class all quarter. Her brain couldn’t quite connect the dots, and Justin had saved her by tutoring her. Their sessions usually went down over beer and burgers, but it was still extra work he didn’t need to take on. Wanting his time to be worth it, she’d worked twice as hard.
She’d been dreading the midterm exam, but Justin had prepared her far beyond what the professor expected. Justin had been waiting for her outside the classroom. She’d been unable to control her reaction, had literally leaped into his arms. “I aced it.” She didn’t need to get her grade back to be sure of it. He’d spun her around, grinning, as she said, “Let’s celebrate.”
She’d never been great at holding her liquor. She wasn’t much to look at on the dance floor either. But she’d been on such a high that she’d forgotten both of those things that night. She couldn’t remember how many tequila shots she’d tossed back, only that dancing made her thirsty and every shot made her want to dance more.
All the times she and Justin had gone out together, just the two of them or in a group, she’d always been careful not to behave as though they were a couple. There were no slow dances, no inappropriate touches or glances. But that night, her inhibitions finally fell. Far enough that when the other couples on the dance floor drew close, she couldn’t stop herself from doing the same with Justin.
He’d let her put her arms around him, let her drunkenly hold on and sway to the music. And then, the next thing she knew, her mouth was on his…and she was kissing him with all the passion she’d been holding back for three years.
She’d tried to tell herself she’d done it only because she was drunk, too far gone to have any self-control. But if that were actually true, then she wouldn’t have been so erotically aware of his taste, or the breathtaking feel of his lips crushed to hers, or the sensual slick of his tongue.
She hadn’t wanted to pull away, hadn’t ever wanted to stop kissing him. But when another couple bumped into them on the dance floor, jolting them apart, she knew she couldn’t get away with it twice. She hadn’t even been able to look him in the eye. She’d let her words slur and pretended to be on the verge of passing out. He’d taken her home and tucked her in, then watched over her while she’d feigned sleep.
The next morning, he’d let her make lame excuses about drinking too much, until Grant had called with the news that Justin needed to get on the next plane to Frankfurt because they wanted to fund his research and start work immediately. Everything had moved so fast after that, as she helped him with packing and hasty good-byes. Fast enough that neither of them had brought up the kiss again.
Not until today.
She scrunched her eyes shut, as mortified five years later as she’d been the morning after. “I’d hoped you had forgotten,” she whispered. “I never should have behaved that way. Never should have gotten drunk and forced myself on you.”
“You didn’t force yourself on me, Taylor. I’m the one who took advantage of you when you were drunk.”
“You didn’t!” Her eyes shot open in her shock that he could think such a thing. “You were a perfect gentleman, just like always.”
“Not that night, I wasn’t. And I’m still not. Because even though I’ve had five years to repent what I did, I still can’t help wanting to do it again. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve replayed our kiss in my head? How much I want to kiss you again?”
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Taylor knew there was more than one rational reason why they shouldn’t do this. But her desperate need for him didn’t only push all of those reasons away, it also pushed her back into his arms…and her mouth against his.