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He ignored the whisper in his head that suggested he might be every bit as susceptible as his brother had been; that Alyssa Blake had him tied up in knots. He narrowed his eyes. This crazy wanting had never happened before. Why now? Why her?
How was he supposed to deal with the fallout when she reduced him to this damn idiotic state of constant arousal? He fought to get his thoughts in order.
While she knew there was a problem with the judging, it didn’t appear that she knew much more, otherwise she wouldn’t be here, digging for a story.
The story she insisted she wasn’t doing.
Maybe there was still time for damage control. He gave her a grim smile. “There will always be some variations between batches—it’s only the small vineyards with small outputs that can almost guarantee that every bottle will taste the same. We bottle thousands of cases of Chardonnay. There’s going to be a little variation—”
She gave a snort of disgust. “I’m not talking about a small amount. I’m talking about a huge difference—enough to make it taste like two completely different wines. Please don’t take me for a total idiot.”
Joshua held on to his temper with difficulty. “What you’re suggesting is not possible. When we have a batch that comes out so much better, we bottle it as a reserve selection. Why would we pretend it’s the same? Especially when we can command a higher price?”
“To garner awards? To deliberately entice the public to come out in droves and buy an award-winning wine when the one they get is vastly inferior to what they’re expecting? Not that they’d ever find that out.”
His brows drew together at the accusation. “We would never do that.”
“Maybe I should ask Caitlyn that question, since she makes the wines.” Alyssa started to turn away.
She was going to confront Caitlyn? After he’d told her not to question his staff? She was challenging him, walking away from him, after all but calling him a liar. He glared at her shapely back, irate that he noticed how her hips flared in the snug jeans. “It’s not necessary. I am the boss. I speak for Saxon’s Folly. We don’t indulge in questionable practices designed to mislead the consumer. You can quote me on that in your damned article.”
Looking past her he saw that a new group of tasters were heading in their direction. “We’ve got company. Better behave yourself,” he said softly, and he knew by the sudden tension between her shoulder blades that she’d heard.
Arranging his features in a pleasant, welcoming smile, he added, “You leave tomorrow. My final word is that you’re not to go to the winery … or try to interview my staff without me present.”
She threw him a searing look over her shoulder. “I’ve no reason not to behave. I’m telling you the truth, Joshua. I’ve no intention of writing this story. I’m too close to … everything.”
But instead of feeling relief at her revelation, Joshua felt annoyance because it underlined how much his brother had meant to her. Too close to … everything. His irritation was exacerbated as Alyssa flashed the wide smile that caused his body to snap to attention. Even more irritating was the fact that it wasn’t directed at him, but at the approaching enthusiasts.
He couldn’t trust her for a moment. She would do exactly what was best for Alyssa Blake, as always. He started to seethe.
Mata Hari indeed.
When Alyssa stirred on Monday morning, an appalling sense of dislocation rocked her at the thought of leaving Saxon’s Folly later today.
The end had come before the beginning had started. She still had so much to learn about Roland. Grief eroded to a raw ache as she walked down to the stables for the last time with an unusually silent Joshua beside her.
Earlier, she’d considered calling off the ride, given Joshua’s annoyance with her yesterday. But now as Alyssa watched Joshua saddle the two horses, she found she was looking forward to visiting a place that Roland had loved.
It would give her a chance to say goodbye. Closure. That’s what she was looking for.
Then she could put Roland finally to rest. She wished that she could tell the Saxon siblings the truth. She’d come to like them all very much. She watched Joshua tighten the girth. With him the connection went deeper than fondness. The last thing she wanted was to leave him with the wrong impression of her relationship with Roland.
But she’d promised Kay ….
In return for her silence she’d gotten a week to trace Roland’s footsteps, learn about his life. And that week of time had a high price: her secrecy. She’d given her word and she could not go back on that. End of story.
Joshua led Breeze toward her, his expression unreadable. “Come, I’ll give you a leg up.”
She approached a little nervously. Breeze turned her head, pricked her ears and gave Alyssa an enquiring look.
“Bend your leg.”
Alyssa obliged. The next moment Joshua hoisted her through the air. She landed in the English saddle and picked up the reins, while he adjusted the stirrups.
She stared down at his dark head. His hand brushed the inside of her jean-clad thigh, causing a frisson of heat. Her breath caught. She hated this tense awkwardness that yawned between them like a chasm and craved a return of the Joshua who had shown her around the vineyards. The Joshua with love for the land and passion in his eyes.
Even though she’d told David she couldn’t do the article, Alyssa couldn’t help wishing that Joshua would cooperate on the story. That way he’d have a chance to air his side of the situation to the public and she’d be able to do the article that David wanted so badly—and even clear up the damage she’d done to Joshua’s reputation last time.
The end result would be win-win all round. Then she and Joshua might be able to resolve this friction between them. Become colleagues or even—
“How does that feel?”
At the question she abandoned her wishful thinking and stood up in the stirrups. Both legs felt even. She pulled a face. “Wobbly. Like I haven’t been on a horse in a very long time.”
Joshua’s head tilted back and his black-as-midnight eyes clashed with hers. Her heart flopped over.
“Your stirrup leathers … are they even?”
“They’ll do.” Alyssa made a pretence of fiddling with the reins—anything to avoid looking at Joshua, not to feel that shameless heart-stopping surge of want that simply glancing at him aroused.
“Okay.” With economy of movement, Joshua swung himself easily up onto the bay’s back. Alyssa watched furtively through lowered lashes as he settled himself. He sat straight, totally at one with the horse beneath him; the broad shoulders tapering down beneath his blue-and-cream-striped shirt to where his faded jeans rode low on his hips. She didn’t even see the command he gave to make the bay move. No doubt he’d been riding all his life.
As they rode out of the stable block, a black horse trotted poker-legged along the length of the fence, neck arched, his head held high. Beautiful but defiant.
“I’m glad you’re not riding him.” Alyssa tipped her head in the stallion’s direction.
“I want to enjoy the ride.” Joshua turned his head to look at the horse. “And I won’t if I ride that animal. It takes hours to catch Ladykiller.”
Alyssa gave the stallion a look of sympathy. But the horse belonged here. She didn’t—and never would.
Joshua had made that very clear.
An hour later the rolling grasslands ended. The trail entered dense, overgrown bush and narrowed dramatically. They rode in single file with Joshua ahead.
Alyssa looked around with interest. Roland would’ve taken the same path and passed beneath the same trees. She called out, “So how much farther to go?”
Joshua turned in the saddle. “Not long now. We’re nearly there.”
Birds chirruped in the canopy overhead and bits of sunlight dappled the lush green ferns under the trees. Alyssa’s heart lifted. She banked the scents and sounds to remember later, when she was back in the rat race of Auckland amidst the hurly-burly of deadlines and rush-hour traffic.
“Hold tight,” Joshua said a few minutes later.
Alyssa’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the incline that he planned to ride down.
She tugged on the reins to slow Breeze down. “I can’t go down there!”
“Yes, you can. Believe in yourself. Lean back a little, hold the pommel of the saddle and try to relax. Come, follow me. You can do it.”
Already he was descending. Alyssa could hear the scrabble of loose stones under his mount’s hooves, could see his back swaying in time to the horse’s stride. Rigid with apprehension, she let the reins slide through her fingers as Breeze extended her neck, lowered her head and pricked her ears forward. Alyssa grabbed at the pommel, and stared through the space between the mare’s ears and hoped frantically for the best.
At the bottom of the incline she let out a whoop of triumph that caused Breeze’s ears to flicker back. “I did it!”
She couldn’t believe the sense of achievement she felt.
Joshua was waiting. He shot her the first grin he’d given her for what felt like a century. “Of course you did. Did you think I would’ve let you get hurt while you were in my care?”
As she heard the words, a penny dropped. Joshua was the boss. The final responsibility always stopped with him. Shielding a female worker from ugly gossip after she’d been harassed, making sure his mother wasn’t upset while she mourned her dead son, protecting Amy from any sexual indiscretion that Roland might have committed. How many more burdens did he assume?
The boss. The guy who carried all the weight. Didn’t he ever tire of it?
“Don’t you ever want to share the load a little?”
“What load?” The grin disappeared and he stared at her blankly.
Alyssa wanted the grin back, wanted to see the flash of white teeth and the way his eyes lit up and crinkled at the corners. “The load of taking care of everyone around you. It must grow exhausting.”
“Not really. I like to see people grow and achieve things that they doubted they could.” He nodded at the incline. “Like you did there.” He wheeled the big bay around and moved forward.
And that was the quality that made him such a great boss. She’d watched him at work in the winery. He had the ability to encourage people to try new things, to strive to do their best. Alyssa was thinking so hard about Joshua, she almost missed the first view of the waterfall as they rode into a sunlit clearing, and Joshua reined in ahead of her.
Her breath caught at the sight of the water tumbling down the sheer rock face, frothing into a lazy pool at the bottom. Roland must have spent hours here. A perfect swimming hole for a hot summer’s day.
Breeze stopped alongside Joshua’s bay.
“I didn’t bring togs to swim in,” Alyssa said.
“The water is icy this time of the year. In a month or so it will be warmer. We can eat instead.”
Hunger rumbled in her stomach. “I didn’t even think of food.”
“I brought some lunch,” Joshua revealed, dismounting. “We can eat that beside the waterfall.”
“You made food?”
“Not me, Ivy made it.”
But he’d remembered to organise it. Alyssa had always considered herself organised, but Joshua’s attention to detail was overwhelming.
He helped her off the horse, his hands firm at her waist. Alyssa suppressed the flare of awareness. Relief overtook her when Joshua moved away to tether the horses. She sat down on a soft mound of grass above the water’s edge. From here the view of the waterfall was spectacular. It bubbled over a ledge of rock and plummeted over the drop into the dark green pool below, the sound oddly soothing. A sense of peace stole over her.
“It’s beautiful. I can see why Roland loved it here.”
Joshua flung himself down beside her and started to unzip the saddle pack he held. “It wasn’t the beauty that Roland loved. It was the danger the place represented.”
“Danger?” Alyssa stared at him. “Where?”
“See those rocks?” He pointed to boulders at the side of the ledge over which the waterfall flowed. “Roland liked nothing more than challenging a friend to dive from there.”
Alyssa’s heart sank like a stone as she took in the sheer height of the drop. “Was he insane?” The words burst from her.
“He loved the adrenaline rush. Roland never felt fear.”
She had to ask. “Didn’t anyone get hurt?”
Joshua nodded. “Roland had a friend who slipped and broke a leg climbing up there—of course, the parents never knew the full story. Once, I cut my head on a rock in the pool when I hit the water headfirst.”
Alyssa swallowed at the thought. He could’ve drowned! “You were equally reckless.”
“I did it to stop Heath. Roland bet him that he couldn’t, that he was too chicken to dive in. I took Heath’s place. Although if I hadn’t been hurt, Heath would probably still have dived in. He was as mad as a snake that I’d taken his turn. So my big gesture was probably for nothing,” Joshua said wryly. “The joys of being sixteen—and impatient to be a man.”
And the man had become every bit as responsible as the boy had striven to be. She eyed him furtively. Gorgeous, too. And loyal to the point of fault.
Alyssa remembered his mother saying she hadn’t known how he’d been hurt. So he’d never dobbed his brother in. She didn’t know if the loyalty was stupid or admirable.
“Here, have a bagel.” He held out a paper bag.
“Thank you.” It was perfect. Fresh and slightly chewy, filled with smoked salmon, avocado and cream cheese. Eating distracted Alyssa from what she’d been going to say next. But at least Joshua was talking to her again. She’d had enough of the silent treatment to last her a lifetime.
Next he produced a bottle of Pinot Gris and two glasses out of the pack. Once he’d filled the glasses, Alyssa took a sip. The slightly sweet, well-rounded sturdiness of the wine took her by surprise.
“Very nice,” she said appreciatively, squinting at the label. “I didn’t realise Saxon’s Folly produced Pinot Gris.”
“Not in large amounts,” Joshua said. “You need to be on our loyal client mailing list to even get a chance of snapping it up. We hold the grapes on the vine until early May, so it’s essentially a late-harvest wine.” He swallowed a mouthful. “Mmm, the really special thing about this wine is that we sourced the vines from an ancient Alsace clone.”
Alyssa dusted her fingers of the last of the crumbs from her bagel. “Alsace? In France?”
“Yes, imported into New Zealand in 1886.”
“That is ancient.”
Joshua topped up her glass. “And to complement fine wine …” His voice trailed away and he dug into the pack again. With a flourish he drew a punnet of strawberries and a container of chocolate dipping sauce.
“Oh my, this is decadent.” There was something incredibly sexy about a man who provided food. A primitive leftover from ages past when the male had been the hunter. It was disgusting to be so impressed. There should be no need to feel so nurtured. She was a modern woman, totally able to take care of herself. Self-sufficient and sensible enough to be able to forage for herself.
Alyssa glanced around the clearing but couldn’t see anything in the surrounding bush that would’ve appeased the appetite that the fresh air and ride had whetted. Not even the birds that called from the treetops.
Then there would be the little problem of catching them, cooking them. She slid a glance at the man beside her, his fingers long and tanned against the bright red berries. Okay, so he’d probably make a plan to find food in the bush. While she’d only poison them both.
City girl.
Fast lane….
Joshua’s words came back to haunt her. So what if she was out of her comfort zone? This was Joshua’s world. He’d been born and raised here.
“Try this.” He held out a strawberry that had been lightly dipped in the chocolate.
She took it and bit into the ripe red fruit. Juice leaked over her fingers, her lips. She gave a little self-conscious laugh as she licked them. “Juicy, aren’t they?”
