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And yet what Dixie’s pencil had captured was a calm, determined woman. She turned back to the finished sketch, then reversed her pad to show Caroline. “Here’s what I see—strength, kindness, grace.”
“Oh, my,” Caroline said softly, taking the pad. “You’ve made it difficult for me to pry the way I’d intended. May I have this?”
“Of course.” Dixie accepted the return of her sketch pad with a silent, fervent wish that Caroline would continue to find it difficult to pry.
“I don’t know what you charge, but—”
“You’ll insult me if you offer to pay. The paintings are business. This isn’t.”
“Then I’ll just thank you. I’d like to frame it and give it to Lucas for our anniversary.” Her cheeks were a little pinker than usual. “Perhaps it’s vain, giving him a likeness of myself, but I think he’d like it.”
Dixie smiled. “You’ll be giving him a picture of someone at the center of his life. Of course he’ll like it.” She closed the pad. “I’ll need to hang on to it until I’ve finished the painting, though.”
“Our anniversary isn’t for another two months. No rush.” Caroline stood. “I take it you’re through with me?”
“For now,” Dixie said cheerfully. “I’ll be starting the paintings soon, and I may need to stare at you some more then. Or not. First I’m going to pester your vineyard foreman for a day or two.”
“I suspect Russ won’t mind,” Caroline said dryly. “Dixie?”
She slid her pad into her tote. “Yes?”
“My son was deeply hurt when you left him. I’m concerned about your reappearance in his life.”
Dixie froze. Déjà vu, all over again, she thought. First Eli, now Caroline.
And what could she say? That Cole was the one doing the pursuing? It was true, but if she was honest, she’d have to admit she enjoyed the game they were playing. “I don’t know what to tell you. He isn’t serious.”
“Isn’t he?” Caroline let that question dangle a moment, then smiled. “You probably want to suggest I mind my own business. I understand. We’ll change the subject. I’m having a small dinner party Friday, mostly family. I’d like it if you could join us.”
“Thank you,” Dixie said, wary.
Caroline shook her head ruefully. “I’m not usually so maladroit. The dinner invitation has nothing to do with the question I didn’t quite ask you. Truly, I would like to have you join us.”
“And I’m not usually so prickly.” Dixie’s smile warmed. “I’d love to come.”
“Head over any time after six, then. Casual dress. We’ll eat around seven-thirty.”
Dixie was frowning as she headed for the carriage house. She didn’t resent Caroline’s delicate prying. Mothers were allowed to worry—it was in the contract. They were also entitled to think the best of their offspring. Dixie couldn’t very well tell Cole’s mother that all he was after was a quick roll in the hay.
Well…maybe not quick. Her lips curved. That had never been one of Cole’s faults.
Her smile didn’t last. She suspected his pursuit rose, in part, from the desire to prove that he was over her. If that thought pinched a bit, she could understand it. Because Caroline had been right about the other. Dixie was sure she’d hurt Cole.
He’d hurt her, too. But his had been sins of omission, not commission. He hadn’t lied or cheated. He just hadn’t been there enough. Business had come first, second and sometimes third with Cole. All too often, Dixie had been an afterthought.
She’d been so desperately in love. And he…he’d been halfway in love. In the end, she hadn’t been able to handle that.
Dixie rounded the corner of the house—and almost walked right into Cole. And her cat, who was purring madly in Cole’s arms.
“Good grief.” She shook her head, disgusted. “He got out again?”
“I was working on a budget projection and turned away to get a file. When I turned back, there he was, sitting on top of a stack of quarterly reports, cleaning his face and looking smug. Tilly’s still hiding under my desk. Hey.” He touched her arm lightly with his free hand. “Is something wrong?”
“Just thinking deep, philosophical thoughts. It interferes with my digestion.” She started walking again. He fell into step beside her. “Is Tilly okay?”
“She’s fine, now that I removed her tormenter.” He smiled. “That’s three, Dixie. And still two days to go.”
“I know, I know.” She and Cole had a bet on. Cole had bet that Hulk would escape at least half a dozen times before Friday.
It should have been an easy win for her. Not because she fooled herself that she controlled Hulk, but she did know his ways. She’d figured her cat would escape once a day, no matter what she did—but if she let him stay out long enough to get his outside fix, he’d be content to stay in the rest of the time.
She hadn’t counted on his obsession with Cole’s dog. “I think you’re sneaking him out,” she said darkly.
“Would I do that? He may be teleporting. Here.” Cole dumped the cat into her arms. “Where did you find Cattila the Hun, anyway?”
Had Cole always had this deliciously wry sense of humor, and she’d forgotten? “He just showed up one day, sitting outside my apartment as if he’d been waiting for me. I opened the door and he strolled in, demanded dinner, then curled up in my lap and informed me it was time to pet him.”
Cole nodded. “I can see where you wouldn’t want to argue with him.”
“He was half-starved.”
“He’s made up for it.” There was a hint of the devil in his sidelong glance. “Maybe I should borrow his technique. As I recall, you’re a great cook. If I show up demanding dinner—”
She laughed. “You won’t get in the door. I suspect your priorities are different from Hulk’s.”
“You’re right.” His voice dropped as he stroked her arm. “I’d want to go straight to the petting.”
Just that light touch, and her system hummed happily. She wanted more, and there was no one around but herself to warn her of the dangers. “Hands off. I can’t defend myself with my arms full of Hulk.”
“I know. I like you helpless.”
“You’ve never seen me helpless,” she retorted. They’d reached the carriage house. “Open the door, will you, so I can put my monster back where he belongs.”
Instead he leaned against the door, smiling. “Bribe me.”
“Oh, come on, Cole—”
“Just a kiss. I’ll even promise to keep my hands to myself.” But he wasn’t. He’d reached for a strand of her hair and was tickling her with it—under her chin, along her throat. “One kiss…or don’t you dare?”
She raised an eyebrow even as a shiver touched her spine. “You think I’m juvenile enough to jump at that bait?”
“I can hope.” He moved even closer, stopping with scant inches between them. The heat of his body seemed to set the air between them ashimmer with possibilities. “Why not, Dixie? It’s not as if you don’t want to kiss me.”
Her heart was pounding. “Your neck ever get tired from holding up that swollen head of yours?”
He just smiled. “It’s only a kiss. What could it hurt?”
All kinds of things—me, you…but apparently she wasn’t very good at listening to herself, because she went up on tiptoe, pausing with her lips a breath away from his. “No hands,” she murmured. And she kissed him. Slowly. Just a skimming of lips at first…
“Uh-uh,” she said when he tried to take over. “This one’s mine.”
Hulk was between them, so their bodies didn’t touch. Just their mouths. The scent of him was a heady intimacy as she tickled his bottom lip with her tongue, then touched it to each corner of his mouth, and arousal was pure pleasure. The ache grew, gradually focusing like a perspective drawing, when all lines lead to a single point.
Dixie opened her mouth over his and took his breath inside her—which was just as well, for she didn’t seem to have enough of her own. For a moment they met fully, lips, tongues, breath.
Then she eased back, smiling. And was pleased by the stunned look on his face.
He reached for her. She stepped back, shaking her head. “No hands, remember? Open the door, Cole.”
“The door.” He blinked. “Right. Anything you say. Sure you wouldn’t like all my worldly goods instead?”
“Not just now, thanks.” She sauntered inside, still holding her cat…with her heart pounding and pounding, and a little voice inside asking if she’d lost her mind.
This had to be about the stupidest thing he’d ever done, Grant thought as he gunned his pickup in order to keep up with the shiny blue Mercedes half a block ahead on the busy highway. He was acting like some two-bit private eye, for crying out loud.
But Grant didn’t give up easily. Some called him pigheaded. He preferred to think of himself as determined. And so far, Spencer Ashton had refused to see him, leaving Grant only two options: give up and go home, or somehow force the bastard to talk to him.
The bastard who’d fathered him. His father. Grant forced himself to use the word, though it went down about as well as ground glass.
Looked as if they were heading out of the city. Spencer owned a big, fancy mansion near Napa. If that’s where he was going, Grant was out of luck. He’d already been turned away from that door. From the high-rise office building here in San Francisco where Spencer went most mornings, too.
Which is why Grant was playing P.I. Sooner or later the man would go someplace where none of his servants or employees manned the gates.
Sooner or later his father would have to speak to him.
Grant scowled. More than once he’d wished he’d never seen that damn TV show. He’d come in from working on the older of his two tractors, showered and settled down with a cold beer. The game hadn’t started yet, so he’d been thinking about the weather while some documentary about winemaking finished up. A perky young reporter had been interviewing Spencer Ashton of Ashton-Lattimer, a corporation that owned vineyards and a large commercial winery.
Ashton Estate Winery. The name had snagged Grant’s attention, naturally, since it matched his own surname. But it was the face that had riveted him.
Spencer Ashton’s face looked like the one he saw in the mirror every day. Not in any one feature, maybe, but something about the way they were grouped. That had been spooky, but it hadn’t occurred to Grant the man might be his father. Even though the names were the same, he’d known it was impossible. His father had died when he was barely a year old.
Then the interviewer had mentioned Spencer’s Nebraska upbringing. They’d flashed a picture of him as a young man—and the man in that photo had been identical to the one standing beside Grant’s mother in the yellowed wedding photo she’d kept by her bed until the day she died.
Two weeks later, Grant had climbed in his pickup and started for San Francisco, leaving Ford in charge at the farm.
Ford had asked what he expected to accomplish. Grant had told his nephew he wanted to meet the half brothers and half sisters he’d never known existed. That was true, if only a partial truth.
So far he hadn’t mustered the nerve. He’d driven out to The Vines one morning, but hadn’t been able to bring himself to ring the doorbell. It was weird to walk up to a bunch of strangers and say, “Hi, I’m your brother.” Their money complicated matters. They were likely to think he wanted something from them.
He did, but it had nothing to do with money. Family mattered. These strangers were family. He needed to know what they were like.
What he hadn’t told Ford was that he also needed to look the man who’d fathered him in the eye and say, “You can’t pretend I don’t exist. I do.”
What good that would do, he couldn’t say. But he was going to do it. Maybe today, maybe later, but he wasn’t leaving California until he did.
On Friday, Cole took Dixie to Charley’s restaurant in Yountville for lunch.
“I can’t believe I let you finagle me into this,” Dixie said, sliding out of Cole’s suvvy.
“You lost the bet.” Cole was entirely too pleased with himself.
“That part I understand. How I let you talk me into making such a dumb bet, I don’t.”
“Maybe you didn’t really want to win.” He held the door for her.
“I knew you were going to say that. The fact is, Hulk’s gone over to the Dark Side. He conspired with you.”
“You’re talking about a cat, Dixie.”
“I’m talking about Hulk.”
“I get your point. Table for two,” he told the hostess. “I have a reservation.”
“Of course, Mr. Ashton. This way.”
Dixie raised her eyebrows. “They know you here.”
“We sell them wine.”
She nodded. “And just when did you make that reservation?”
“The same day we made the bet, of course.”
Dixie wouldn’t have admitted it for anything, but she was glad she’d lost the bet. Charley’s had been around awhile, but she couldn’t afford the place back when she lived here before and somehow she’d never made it here on her visits home.
The restaurant was set on twelve acres of olive groves, vineyards and gardens brimming with seasonal flowers, herbs and vegetables. Most of the herbs and produce used in their dishes came out of the ground the same day it was cooked. Plus they had an exhibition kitchen.
Dixie considered cooking every bit as much of an art as painting. She was looking forward to watching the pros at work.
“I’ve been thinking,” Cole said after the manager stopped by to welcome them. “If I’d lost the bet, I would have had to donate money to a charity of your choice. Having won the bet, I’m still spending money. What’s wrong with this picture?”
She chuckled. “You set the terms, not me.”
He shook his head. “What was I thinking?”
As they debated their selections, Dixie admitted to herself that she wasn’t just enjoying the place. She was enjoying the man. Had she had this much pure fun with Cole before?
All week, the present had been poking holes in the preconceptions of the past. Dixie remembered an ambitious, rather grim young man who’d had little time to spare for anything except business. This Cole was intense, yes, but he possessed a keen sense of the ridiculous. Even his pursuit of her had been flavored with humor.
And that, she told herself as she placed her order, was more dangerous than a sexual buzz, however potent. She had to be on her guard…because she was beginning to hope. She was trying not to define that hope, but it fizzed around inside, a giddy effervescence that bubbled up into smiles and easy laughter.
Cole selected the wine—one from another vineyard, so he could see what the competition was up to, he said. She picked the entrées. They argued about home schooling, sushi and a recent action movie, and found themselves agreeing about reality TV, garlic and childproof safety caps.
Dixie had a wonderful time until the waiter took their desert orders and left. All at once, Cole’s face froze.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He was staring over her shoulder in a way that should have turned whoever he was looking at into a Popsicle.
