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She did, but those sunglasses were still in place, and he couldn’t see enough of her.
He reached out and pulled her sunglasses away from her face, revealing wide, blue eyes that she immediately did her best to narrow into a hardier, more guarded expression.
“Give me my sunglasses back,” she said.
“I just want to look at you.”
“And I just want my retinas to not get scorched.”
“I think a few minutes without sunglasses will be fine.”
He looped the earpiece of the sunglasses over his shirt. He reached out and took hold of her chin, angling her face upward. “What would it take for you to be a little more impressed with me? Because let me tell you, I’ve got quite a few skills to recommend me. I might have lucked into success in the rodeo, but some of that is due to the fact that when I set out to do a task, you can be damn sure I’ll complete it, honey. If I get on for a ride, I’m not getting off till... Well, till everyone gets off.”
“You haven’t realized by now that your clever sexual innuendo doesn’t impress me?” she asked, but even as she spoke the angry words color bled into her cheeks.
“What would impress you then?” he asked again.
“Honesty. Stop trying to be clever. Stop being a jerk. Tell me what you want.”
Desire kicked him in the gut, the anger in her eyes sparking something else entirely. Whatever he had thought he’d felt for her before... It was more now. It was more dangerous, more destructive than anything else that had ever come before it.
“I don’t think you want that,” he said.
“You don’t scare me, Wyatt Dodge,” she said. “I’m a strong enough woman to stand on my own two feet even when you’re trying to sweep me off them. I was married for ten years. I know where this kind of thing ends up. That girl I told you about earlier? The one who got asked on a date in a job interview and saw that as a gift? She doesn’t exist anymore. She’s as dead as the man I thought my ex-husband was. I don’t think a nice date is a gift, not anymore. My due, maybe. But not a gift. So go ahead. Try me. Give me one ounce of sincerity, and let’s see where we get.”
She was doing what she did best. Staying in her comfort zone. Throwing down a challenge. Setting the tone. Because she thought he would falter. Because she thought...whatever she thought. That he was messing with her? That he didn’t mean it when he said he wanted her? As if the electricity between them could be faked.
“Maybe I should scare you,” he said, his voice rough. “Because this? This thing between us... I don’t know what the hell it is. If I kissed you right now, if you kissed me back... I think we would light this whole vineyard on fire. All those pine trees would go up like a lit match and dry tinder. We’d start a whole forest fire, baby. I don’t want to give you a gift. I want to burn out this thing between us until there’s nothing left but ashes. Ashes aren’t a gift. They’re evidence of destruction. That’s what I think might happen if we touch. That we may well ruin everything around us, but it might be worth it.”
Her eyes widened, and she let out a slow, shuddering breath. Her chin moved imperceptibly between his thumb and forefinger, and he tightened his hold on her, forcing her to keep on looking at him.
“Did I scare you? Good. You wanted sincerity, you’re getting it. I want you. You. Not sex. You. That’s different. And it bears mentioning, because let me tell you, usually I’m not so picky. I’m not going to pretend that I’m anything other than what I am. But you should know, I don’t care about much, but the one thing I’ve cared about in a long time is that I want the next woman I take to bed to be you.”
He released his hold on her and took a step back. “That doesn’t need to impress you,” he said. “But it’s the truth. You can do whatever you want with it. But if I can’t be the thing that keeps you up tonight, I sure as hell hope that will.”
CHAPTER SEVEN (#udf1a6109-358b-58a2-91a7-45f19f3f8bb8)
THOSE WORDS ECHOED in Lindy’s head all the way around to the end of the trail, where she dismounted from the horse and mumbled some excuse about having somewhere to be before beating a hasty retreat to the tasting room, where she barricaded herself in her office so that she didn’t have to face Wyatt again. Or anyone, for that matter.
Because every filthy thought that had flitted through her mind the moment he had spoken those words had to be clearly written across her skin.
They had to be.
She felt them, radiating from her like a beacon. It was all so clear. All of it. She couldn’t pretend that what was between herself and Wyatt was anything other than raw, sexual attraction.
Sure, she had tried. Because she felt like the woman she had become wasn’t susceptible to that kind of thing.
Not her.
She had schooled herself into becoming a sophisticate. Had made her life about her professional achievements. Had gotten rid of all that wide-eyed, hopeful newness that she’d had before her marriage.
And really, even then, she hadn’t been...
She liked sex fine enough. But it hadn’t been a driving force in her relationship with Damien. She had felt soft things for him. Fuzzy things.
Like the slow unfolding of possibilities, the easy rise of the sun over the top of the mountain. A gradual dawning of possibilities that she hadn’t felt had been open to her. A kind of relationship she had never seen before. Something caring, with two people who actually liked each other.
Nothing like that bitter, acrimonious, tumultuous relationship her parents had had.
She hadn’t wanted anything like that. Like passion.
Passion was overrated.
And she had decided very early on that it was fake anyway. An excuse for people to behave like immature children when they were well past that point. An excuse for people to behave selfishly, to go around doing nothing to control their urges or their tempers.
Passion.
An excuse to stay in an unhealthy relationship.
She frowned. Of course, her relationship had been steady, and it had still gone to hell in a particularly fiery handbasket.
She stared at the back wall of her office.
All of this was moot. She wasn’t going to do anything with Wyatt. She wasn’t. Not at all.
They were working together. She wasn’t going to risk any professional achievement that might be obtained by...distracting herself right now. Particularly with a man she was trying to get business things done with. If you were doing business things with a guy you really shouldn’t do naked things with him.
At least, that was her newfound resolution.
She thought of Liam and Sabrina, who had started out doing business things together for the winery and for Liam’s ranch, the Laughing Irish. They had certainly started doing naked things together. But that was different. Sabrina and Liam had a history with each other.
Lindy’s only history was with disappointment.
She wasn’t going to make the advances she was trying to make with Grassroots any more difficult than they needed to be.
Wasn’t going to make them any harder.
And being with Wyatt Dodge... Like that... Would definitely be...harder.
Just thinking those words made her cheeks flush with heat.
He was turning her into the ridiculous, hormonal teenager she had never been.
Another reason to find him irritating.
Yet again, she bemoaned the fact that he wasn’t hideous. And then, further still, bemoaned the fact that she couldn’t be attracted to his brother, Grant, who was a perfectly decent human being, not working directly with her, and vaguely resembled Wyatt. So, you would think, that she would be more interested in him.
Except, in part, she wondered if that was why she wasn’t. Because he was a nice guy, and there would be a chance for a relationship with him. And she didn’t want a relationship.
Other things... She was starting to want other things.
But not a relationship.
Chemistry. Maybe that was the other element of it. Something else that she hadn’t paid much heed to in her days of not acknowledging passion as a major issue.
Whatever the conclusion, it ultimately didn’t matter because her actions weren’t going to change. She knew what she wanted. She knew what was important to her. The fact that Wyatt made her feel a little bit...warm, was no reason for her to lose her head.
She was thirty-four years old. She knew who she was. She had already gone through the dissolution of a long-term relationship and had come out the other side stronger and more balanced.
She was more than able to stand up to a little ill-advised sexual attraction.
That didn’t bother her. It obsessed her a little, but didn’t bother her. The fact she’d talked to Wyatt so easily about so many things she usually kept shoved down deep...that bothered her a little.
It was weird. Sometimes she felt uneasy with him. Like he was a live electrical wire and getting too close could electrocute her. And other times he felt... Well never like an old friend. But like there was something in him she recognized.
Something like her.
And it made her want to tell him about how she’d changed herself, and about her marriage. Made her believe he might be the only person who could understand.
There was an urgent knock on her office door. “Yes?”
The door opened, and Bea appeared, looking wide-eyed. “Lindy,” she said. “My brother is here.”
“What?”
“Damien is here,” Bea said, closing the door behind her. “I don’t know why. I mean, he said something about how he missed me. But, I don’t really believe that. I don’t think he cares about me at all. He wants to see you. That’s what he said. Well, he said he needed to talk to you. I guess that’s different.”
Lindy’s mouth went dry, the moisture leaching from her body entirely. She felt like a husk. Fragile and withered, frail and easily cracked if the wind blew wrong.
Damien. Here.
She had seen him since the divorce, obviously. In court, mostly.
It had been an assault each time. To have to look at a man she’d shared a life with, a home with, a bed with, and have him stare at her like he hated her.
To feel like she hated him.
Like this space in her heart had been carved out, the love torn away, filled with all this hideous bile she hadn’t given her body permission to take on board.
Turning her emotions into strangers.
But that was two years ago. She didn’t care now. She didn’t care.
Except, Bea was right about one thing. He wasn’t there to see his sister. And if he needed to see Lindy, it wasn’t going to be anything good.
Lindy stood up, pressing her fingers down on the surface of the desk and bracing herself. “I’ll see him out there. I’m not going to invite him in here.”
“Lindy...”
“What?”
Bea was looking at her like she might regard a small, wounded animal. Which was not good at all.
“Sarabeth is with him.”
Oh great. Sarabeth. Of the mystical, magical vagina that had been just so enticing, not to mention ten years younger, that Damien had not been able to prevent himself from falling right into it.
Sarabeth, who had worked at the winery. Who Lindy had considered a friend.
She really, really didn’t want to deal with all of that. She wasn’t jealous. Far from it. But it was something she didn’t like thinking about. And this... It forced her to think about it.
She had been told, by more than one well-meaning person that she simply needed to put it all behind her. But it had been two years. She had been married to Damien for ten. Maybe when the amount of years between the marriage and where she stood matched the length of the marriage...it would be easier. But until then... Even knowing she didn’t want him back, even feeling nothing that was even remotely like jealousy...it stung.
Like an old stab wound being opened right back up.
It didn’t make her long for the person who had knifed her, but it did make her aware that it had happened. All over again.
“That’s fine,” Lindy said, squaring her shoulders. She wished that she weren’t wearing jeans. She wished that she didn’t look like she had been out for a trail ride. Wished that she didn’t have all of her Wyatt thoughts stamped all over her face.
But then again...maybe it was good.
Maybe, Damien showing up and her not looking at all like she typically did was a good thing.
She might just tell him she had been out on a trail ride with Wyatt Dodge, and see what he thought about that.
That almost made her laugh. As if he would care. Seriously, she had reverted to being a teenager.
“Lindy...” Bea was talking to her again, using that same cooing tone that she used when coaxing animals out from under a porch. But, Lindy had had enough. She wasn’t a wounded creature to be bandaged by Bea. She was a grown woman. In charge of her own thoughts, her own desires and her own life. And she would be damned if her ex-husband was going to walk into her place of business, walk onto her property, as if he had a right to be there and get into her head.
She strode out the door to her office and into the dining area. And stopped in her tracks.
Because there was Damien, tall, broad-shouldered and pleasant-looking as ever, his blond hair pushed back from his forehead, standing next to a small, dark-haired woman who was thin, petite and sporting a very obvious baby bump.
Pain exploded behind her breastbone.
Why did that hurt? Why the hell did that hurt?
I’m just really busy with my career right now...
You’re really enjoying your work at the winery...
It’s not the right time...
Dammit. Dammit. It didn’t matter. It did not matter. She didn’t want to have had a child with him. And anyway, it was later. His life was in a different place. It was completely normal that he would be having children with his child bride.
Of course, now it made perfect sense that Bea had been talking to her like she was a wretched raccoon.
She was trying to warn her.
