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Alyssa helped herself to toast, scooped on homemade marmalade, and let out the breath she’d unconsciously been holding, “So, what are you going to show me today?” She tilted her head to one side. With Joshua, attack was probably the best line of defence. “More etchings?”
“I’m a pretty straightforward kind of guy. I say what I want. I don’t need those kind of ploys—if I wanted you, I’d tell you.” His grim smile held little humour.
So he didn’t want her anymore. Alyssa withered a little inside and bit into her toast. Discovering her identity had killed his interest. After a few minutes of eating in silence, wishing she’d resisted the temptation to provoke him with the etchings dig, Alyssa followed him out to the Range Rover.
He took her to the vineyards first. “The vines are the heart of Saxon’s Folly.” Leaping down from the vehicle, he opened the passenger door for her to alight, then bent and picked up a handful of red soil and let it trickle through his fingers. “And this is the lifeblood.”
Some hidden place deep within her responded to the passion in his voice. Standing a little distance from him, she fought it as she’d fought the hold he wielded over her senses. But she suspected this ability that Joshua Saxon possessed to get under her defences, deep into the heart of her, was more dangerous than the way her body responded so wantonly to his.
What was it about this man?
She examined him. Sure, he was tall, dark and dangerously gorgeous. But she’d never been one for looks alone. And, yes, the slanting morning sun struck his almost-perfect features giving his skin a rich, golden glow as he dusted his hands off. But it wasn’t that alone that made her heart leap.
“This block was originally planted in 1916. Strange to think about it, isn’t it?” He glanced at her. “Men from Napier, a few miles away were going off to fight in Europe during the Great War, and here, on this piece of land a world away from the war, a dozen Spanish monks planted vines. Even during times of death, life must go on.”
And just like that he held her captive. Alyssa knew Joshua was talking about more than the vines that he touched with careful fingers. He was talking about Roland. About grief. About life continuing on the other side.
She resented him for it. Resented him bitterly for this uncanny ability to get through to her on the most elemental level, to hold her in his thrall.
In an attempt to break the sudden tension that snapped like a pulled string between them, she said, “What cultivar is that?”
“The monks thought they were planting Cabernet Sauvignon. Only years later when the grapes were ready to harvest did they discover their mistake. They’re Cabernet Franc. Too late then to pull them out. They made their wine.”
She assessed him. The way his Driza-Bone hat tipped over his forehead, the way he stood with his legs planted hip-width apart on the soil. Master of all he surveyed. “You love it out here, don’t you?”
“Who wouldn’t?” Pleasure lit up his eyes. A flash of white teeth transformed his face into breathtaking sexiness. Her stomach dropped as desire swept her. “Before Dad decided he wanted to step down as CEO of Saxon’s Folly, I managed the vineyards. I never wanted to make the wine. I wanted to grow the fruit that winemakers like Heath and Caitlyn so magically transform into a nectar fit for the ancient gods.”
The sheer beauty of the picture he painted touched Alyssa on a primal level. Here was a man with roots, who knew who he was. A man so solid, so confident in his own skin that she couldn’t help but admire him … and want him.
Alyssa suppressed the yearning. She couldn’t afford the distraction that Joshua presented. Drawing a shuddering breath, she said, “So you miss it?”
He nodded. “I still keep an eye on the vineyards. But I’ve appointed two vineyard managers. One here, and one for the blocks over at Gimblett’s Gravels where most of the grapes for our reds are grown.”
After an instant of hesitation, she asked daringly, “Do you miss having Heath to work with since he walked out?”
A frenetic buzz caused Alyssa to pull a vibrating cell phone out of her handbag. She glanced at the caller ID. David. She killed the call.
“Sorry.” She smiled sunnily at Joshua. “You were about to say?”
His face expressionless, he said, “That last question sounded a little too much like an inquisition. Alyssa Blake in journalist mode. You should’ve taken your call.”
Heavens, he was perceptive. Thank goodness he had no idea who had been calling. “I’ll ring back later.” Changing the subject, Alyssa gestured to the rolling vineyards around them. “And how did all this end up in your family’s hands?”
“After the Great War the monks decided to move on. The land was sold. My Saxon forefather won it three years later in a poker game. The monks had planted vines for sacramental purposes—everyone laughed when Joseph Saxon said he was going to grow wine in commercial quantities. The land was barren, people told him. But he was determined to prove them wrong.” Joshua’s mouth slanted wryly. “Stubborn old bastard. The locals called it Saxon’s Folly. The name stuck.”
“So that’s who you get it from.”
He raised an eyebrow. “The name Saxon?”
She laughed appreciatively. “The stubbornness. The hard-nosed streak.”
He touched his nose. “Soft as butter.”
“Sure,” she said, smiling up at him. And warmth rose within her as he smiled back at her.
But Alyssa was no longer smiling when, back in her bedroom, she managed to sneak a call back to her editor later that afternoon.
“I’ve been hearing things about Saxon’s Folly … rumbles in the jungle,” David said without preamble. “Let me see what more I can find out. I’ll get back to you to see if there’s enough for a story.”
A story about Saxon’s Folly?
Alyssa’s heart sank. “I haven’t heard anything … and I don’t want to do a story now. Isn’t there anyone else available?” She was no longer certain she could guarantee an impartial perspective. “I’m on leave, David.”
“Maybe you won’t need to use up your leave,” he said cryptically. “I’ll call you once I know more. And don’t forget to send that obituary through by tomorrow.”
Alyssa killed the phone. Oh, heavens, Joshua would have conniptions if he discovered David was considering assigning her a story about his precious vineyard and family. It would be best to say nothing. After all, David’s rumbles might turn out to be nothing more than unsubstantiated rumours.
With that conclusion, Alyssa’s step lightened. For now, she would put it out of her mind and concentrate on learning about her brother’s life for her own satisfaction. Nothing more.
“Jump in,” Joshua called to Alyssa late the following afternoon as he throttled back the engine of the Range Rover and drew up behind her.
A quick hello and she clambered into the cab, slinging her handbag at her feet. His rapid sideways glance showed long, feminine legs encased in dark blue denim and a purple T-shirt moulding curves that caused his chest to constrict and heat to shoot downward.
He forced his gaze away from her. “My meeting was unavoidable.” His voice was suddenly husky. He cleared his throat. “What have you been doing?” Better, Joshua decided.
“Nothing much.” Alyssa paused, pulling a notebook and pencil from her bag. “After you left I took a walk around the winery—Caitlyn kindly showed me around.”
Joshua relaxed a fraction. He’d been uneasy about leaving Alyssa alone, uncertain what mischief she might wreak left untended. But he’d had no choice. Work came first. He risked another glance at her. Her hair was blowing around her face and her rosy lips tilted up.
Another surge of lust hit him. Shaken by the force of it, he tightened his fists around the steering wheel and focused on the track leading up the hill ahead.
“That’s all?”
“And your mother showed me some family photo albums and told me about the stories behind Roland’s trophies.” The words sounded torn from her.
All feeling of relaxation vanished. He shot her a brooding look. “I don’t want you upsetting my mother.”
“I didn’t. I promise. She wanted to do it. I think she found it therapeutic.”
Was he overreacting? His innate distrust of the woman had him wanting to keep her in his view all the time. But his mother had invited Alyssa to stay at Saxon’s Folly. He could hardly forbid his mother to talk to a houseguest. It might even be good for her to talk about Roland to a stranger. God knows he wasn’t ready to talk about his brother yet. Certainly not to Alyssa.
They were climbing to the west, the sea behind them.
“Where are we going?” Alyssa broke the silence.
A sudden foreboding closed around Joshua. Perhaps this was not a good idea. “There’s something I want to show you over on the other side of The Divide.”
“The Divide?”
Joshua pointed through the windshield to where a winding pass cut into the hills ahead, which had they been higher might have earned the label of mountain range.
As they crested the summit of The Divide, he heard her breath catch. He flicked her a look and caught the entranced expression on her face.
Ahead of them lay a valley so beautiful it never failed to take his own breath away. But this time all his senses were focused on the woman seated beside him, a pencil gripped in her fist as she took in the vista of rolling hills, the wide plain, the river running through.
“So, what do you think?” Holding his breath, Joshua waited for her response.
“My God, it’s beautiful,” she said softly. “Too beautiful to describe in words.” She tapped her pencil against her shorthand notebook.
Joshua started to smile inwardly. Satisfaction spread through him. Maybe it hadn’t been a mistake to bring her here after all. “On a warm summer’s day this is the best place in the world. See that river?”
Alyssa nodded.
“Chosen Valley Vineyard—Heath’s home—lies on the other side. There are trout in the river. They lurk under the rocks. It takes time to coax them out.”
“What a lovely picture. It’s absolutely idyllic. Clearly you love it here and Heath must, too, otherwise he wouldn’t live here.” Alyssa fell silent for a moment. “What about Roland, did he love it, too?”
Joshua forced himself not to react to the way his brother’s name fell so easily from her lips. Yet he couldn’t stop the tension that settled between them, destroying the bond that had been forged in the last few minutes.
He gave a short laugh. “Roland didn’t have the patience to land a trout. He was drawn to dangerous sports, fast cars …” he cast her a derisive glance “… and equally fast women.”
She rose like one of the trout that lived in the stream to a particularly tempting lure. “You’re saying that I’m fast?”
Joshua pulled the vehicle off the road and turned his head. “Fast lane? Fast tracked for success? Maybe. When last did you take time to reflect a little? To go hiking? To stand on the edge of a hill and wait for the sunset?”
Then he turned his back on her wide eyes and silky hair and the womanly fragrance that tangled him up in knots. Swinging out of the driver’s seat, he slammed the door behind him, and walked to the road’s edge, his back to her, his hands on his hips.
He heard a door slam, heard her footsteps crossing the hard ground. She stopped behind him.
His every muscle went rigid.
“You’re right.” She sighed, a soft, breathy sound that only served to ratchet up the tension inside him. “I’ve been working so damn hard.”
“Why?” He stared blindly ahead, for once not seeing the beauty of the valley. “What drives you?”
“It’s so hard to explain.”
He swivelled to face her, his eyes searching her features. Her eyes were troubled, her mouth soft. “Try me.”
For a moment he thought Alyssa might refuse. Then she said, “I was raised an only child …” Her voice trailed away.
Raised an only child? That was a peculiar way to phrase it. Joshua let it pass. She was clearly unhappy about the subject matter. And waited.
Eventually she spoke and the words were so soft that he had to strain his ears before the wind carried them away. “I was brought up to excel. Special tutoring. Piano. Drama. Art. Tennis lessons.”
“Because you were an only child?” He eyed her profile. It would explain some of her hard edges, the ambition that drove her.
She didn’t answer immediately. “My parents thought of me as their protégée … their chosen child. Eventually all their expectations became my own. I was expected to become someone. Don’t think I was a cipher—I wanted that, too. For a long time I wanted success so much, even though my version was a little different from my parents’. My father was a judge and he wanted me to become a lawyer. It took a while for him to come to terms with my choice of career. I worked like a dog.”
“But you got your success.” Joshua couldn’t help wondering if some of her father had rubbed off on her. “Maybe you’re a chip off the old block after all.”
Her lips curved into a sad smile. “I was always a bit of a crusader. And my father made sure I had firm ideas about right and wrong from the time I was very young. Believe me, it’s not easy being a judge’s daughter. Especially when you’re a teen. You can never win.” Her eyes had regained a hint of sparkle. “But once I grew up, I realised he was right. The world needs people who stand up for what they believe in. For truth and honesty and all those old-fashioned values.”
Joshua decided that this was not the best moment to remind her that trying to break up his brother’s engagement was hardly honourable behaviour. But he didn’t want to see the desolation return to her eyes.
“At least my mother lived long enough to see me become an award-winning wine journalist,” Alyssa was saying. “A television personality instantly recognizable. But it cost me time I should have spent with her—though I never knew she was ill. Cancer,” she added as she read the question he didn’t ask.
“That would’ve been hard.” There was compassion in his eyes. “She must have been proud of you.”
“Oh, she was.”
“I’ve never thought of what it might be like being an only child. About the pressures that go with it,” Joshua mused, tilting his head to one side to study her. “We’ve shared all the responsibilities that go with Saxon’s Folly. My life would have been empty without Roland and Heath to fight with, without Megan always wanting her own way.”
“You’re lucky.” There was a wistful light in her eyes.
“Think so?” He gave a chuckle. “Sometimes I want to murder them. But I love them,” he added hurriedly when he saw the horrified expression on her face.
“Maybe I was too driven,” Alyssa conceded. “But that changed around three years ago.”
“When your mother died?”
Alyssa’s eyes were bleak. “I missed her.” Her gaze focused on him. Direct. Disconcerting. “I wanted siblings … a brother. More than anything in the world, I wanted a family.”
Maybe death did that to a person. He knew he would give anything to have Roland back. Pity for Alyssa stirred inside Joshua. Carefully he said, “I’m sorry that you lost your mother. Death is so final.”
Emotion flared in her eyes. “I grieved for her.”
“And your father?”
“He grieved, too. He remarried last year … He was lonely, I think.”
She turned her head and gestured to where the sun had sunk a little more. “Somewhere along the line, I stopped looking for sunsets.”
Joshua stood quietly beside her, staring out over the distant western hills at the orange-and-gold streaked sky as uneasiness filled him. He wished that her story had not moved him so much. He wished that the senseless attraction to her would cease.
He should have more sense than to want Alyssa Blake.
“You know, Joshua, I never thought that every splendid sunset means the death of another day—and that time is passing by at an alarming rate.” She looked up at him, her eyes a haunting purple that would seduce him if he let them. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe my life has become too fast.”
A long-waited sense of satisfaction curled inside him. The impulsive words escaped him before he could curb them. “I didn’t think I’d see the day that Alyssa Blake might admit that she was wrong.”
Her eyes narrowed, the purple depths no longer soft as they shot sparks at him. “You’re pretty fast, too. Vineyard manager of a sizeable estate. CEO of Saxon’s Folly. Mentor to a full staff. Architect of employment practices that business schools studied,” she reeled off his successes. “Are you any better? Saxon’s Folly is a big business. You’re the boss where the buck stops. Surely you’re driven to achieve? Surely you set goals?”
He should’ve know she’d come back fighting. “Touché. Sure I do. But I’m not obsessed by goals.”
“You’re implying that I am?”
He shrugged. “You know my philosophy. Here at Saxon’s Folly enjoyment is fundamental to the wines we make. How can people enjoy our wines, if the people who work with the wine don’t have fun making it?”
