Secretly yours, p.10
Secretly Yours, page 10
Thinking of the gardener, he immediately caught a whiff of her soil and sunshine scent. Had it been lingering in the kitchen since Friday night or was that his imagination? What had that impulsive, curly-haired bundle of energy done to him?
Why couldn’t he stop thinking about her?
Julian ordered himself back to the present, where his mother and sister were eyeballing each other across the kitchen. Yes, the Vos family had their share of issues—and he was far from the exception.
“Was there anything else either of you needed?” Julian asked, tight-lipped. “I need to shower and get to work.” He glanced at his watch and felt his pulse accelerate. “I’m already forty minutes behind schedule.”
Natalie staggered dramatically, gripping the handle of her suitcase. “The keeper of time hath spoken! To be idle is to smite his holy name.”
Julian gave her a dead-eyed stare. His sister smiled back, which was odd and unexpected. All because he’d intervened with their mother?
Corinne cleared her throat. “I only came down to let Julian know the gardener will be back tomorrow.”
The dueling spikes of relief and alarm in his chest were disturbing to say the least. “She’s coming back here, then.”
“Yes, I spoke with her on my walk over.” Oblivious to his imminent coronary, Corinne gestured to the side of the house facing the vineyard. “I like what she did with the begonias. The guesthouse is visible on the vineyard walking tour, you know. I should have made more of an effort to give it some exterior charm before now.”
“Is there no one else you can hire to plant some flowers?” Even as Julian posed the question, he wanted to take it back. Badly. Didn’t they agree to be friends, despite the sour taste the word put in his mouth? Someone else digging in the front yard would just be . . . wrong. Very wrong. But the thought of Hallie coming back and taking a Weedwacker to his itinerary unnerved him a great deal. Unnerved and excited him. Made tomorrow seem far away.
In other words, nothing made sense anymore.
“There is one other gardener in St. Helena. Owen something, I believe?” Corinne checked the screen of her phone. “But I’ve already hired the girl.”
So Owen was also a gardener?
Someone with her exact interests. Were they really friends? Or friends with benefits? Or had Hallie simply referred to Owen as her friend to be professional, when the man was actually her boyfriend?
Jesus Christ.
A few brief meetings and she’d already put him in a tailspin.
“Fine. I’ll deal with her,” he growled, a surprising wave of jealousy curdling the coffee in his stomach. “Is there anything else? Would you perhaps like to send the high school marching band over to practice outside my window?”
“That’s all,” Corinne said simply. Then to Natalie, “Welcome home.”
Natalie inspected her nails. “Thank you.” She wheeled her suitcase out of the room toward the guest room on the opposite side of the kitchen from Julian’s. “See you two around.”
“Good-bye,” Corinne called breezily on her way out of the house.
Leaving Julian standing alone at the counter with a ruined schedule and another visit from the ultimate distraction on the horizon. Why couldn’t he wait? “Fuck.”
Chapter Eight
Hallie shifted the truck into park in Julian’s driveway, heartbeat wild as a jackrabbit’s. There he was, stretching in the front yard. Deep, long movements that had her head tilting to the right unconsciously before she realized it. Wow. She’d never seen those kind of shorts before. They were gray. Loose sweatpants material that stopped just above the knee, a drawstring hanging down over the crotch. Which had to be why her eye was continually drawn there. Among other places. He could have cracked walnuts with those thigh muscles. Squeezed grapes in those butt cheeks. They were on a vineyard, after all.
“You should be locked up,” Hallie muttered, forcibly closing her eyes.
A full day had passed since she’d last seen him and—good news—she hadn’t been slapped with a restraining order yet. Which was generous of Julian, assuming he’d even found the letter in the first place. But that was the thing—she had no idea. And as the queen of avoidance, she would rather not know. Sneaking around for the rest of her life sounded so much easier.
Why did he have to be standing outside? She’d timed her arrival with the end of his run, hoping she could do her planting while he was in the shower and skedaddle again before he ever knew she was there. Now he was watching her through the windshield with that impeccably raised eyebrow. Because he knew she’d written the letter and found her cutely pathetic, like a puppy? Because he couldn’t believe the audacity of her, to show up after such a humiliating display of drunken affection? Or had the Napa winds been in her favor yesterday morning and the letter was halfway to Mexico by now?
Act natural.
Stop smiling like you just got your tax return.
You’re still waving. It’s been, like, fifteen seconds of gesticulation.
In her defense, Julian was sweaty—and that would turn a nun’s head. His white shirt was sodden, straight down the middle, plastering the material to his chest. With the sun beating down on him, she could see through the white cotton to his black chest hair and the hills and valleys of muscles it decorated. God almighty, celibacy was no longer working out for her. At all. A virgin in heat is what she’d become.
She could no longer delay getting out of the truck to face her fate. The dogs were in doggy daycare today, so she couldn’t even use them as a diversion. A few words out of his mouth and she would know whether or not he’d found and read the letter, right? Maybe he was even accustomed to women professing their admiration of him and this would be no big deal. They could laugh about it! And then she could go home, curl up, and die.
Hallie alighted from the truck on shaky legs, lowering the rear gate.
“Need some help?” he called.
Did he mean the psychiatric kind? If so, that would indicate he’d read her confession.
Hallie peeked over her shoulder to find him coming toward her with his usual commanding grace, expression inscrutable. Even in her nervous state, every step this man took in her direction turned a screw in a different location. Deep, deep in her belly. Between her legs. Just above the notch at the center of her collarbone. Was her distress obvious to the naked eye? It didn’t appear so, since he continued to come closer instead of calling an ambulance.
As soon as she was alone with her phone, she would google, How Horny is Too Horny? Those search results ought to be interesting.
“Hi, Julian,” she sang. Too loudly.
“Hello, Hallie,” Julian said seriously, scrutinizing her closely. Wondering if she was the secret admirer? Or perhaps being fully aware of it already? For all she knew, she’d signed her actual name at the bottom. “What are you planting today?”
Oh. Oh, sweet relief. The wind blew the letter away.
Either that or he was being extremely kind.
Those were the only two options. Obviously he wasn’t interested in her now, thanks to the sloppy admission. This man would only respond to a sophisticated approach to romance. A colleague introducing him to a young professional at a gala. Something like that. Not a spewing of infatuation scrawled in the back of a spiral notebook. And that was fine, because they’d agreed to be friends, right? Yes. Friends. So thank God for the Napa winds.
“Your mother asked for color, so we’re going with some flannel bush,” Hallie said. “Those are the yellow flowered plants you see in the bed of my truck. I’m going to come back tomorrow with some Blackbeard Penstemon, too.”
“This is going to be an ongoing, long-term project.” He nodded once. “I see.”
“Yes.” The tightness at the corners of his mouth made her heart sink down to her knees. “I know you’re working. I won’t make a lot of noise.”
He nodded again. The wind tripped around them, blowing a curl across her mouth, and he surprised Hallie by reaching for it. She held her breath, lungs seizing almost painfully, but he stopped, drawing his hand back at the last second and shoving it into his pocket with a low curse. “And what are we going to do about you?”
Breathe before you pass out. “Me?”
“Yes.” That word hung so long in the air, she swore she could see the outline of those three letters. Y-E-S. “You’re more . . . disruptive to me than the dogs,” he said, almost so quietly that she didn’t hear him. “Hallie.”
That grinding snap of her name was the equivalent of fingertips raking downward over her breasts. Was he admitting to being attracted to her? Like, out loud? Between that and him almost touching one of her curls, she was in imminent danger of passing out from sheer shock and happiness. “I can’t do anything about that. Sorry,” she whispered. “However, I am not sorry that I spent last night watching Time Martians On. So, you really believe the government is hiding an entire extraterrestrial colony in New Mexico?”
“I do not believe any such thing,” he murmured, leaning closer. So close she was beginning to grow dizzy. “As I said, they were very liberal with the editing button.”
“You’re definitely on a watch list, nonetheless,” she breathed.
He hummed in his throat. “Did it . . . make you smile? Watching the documentary?”
How could one man be so magnetic? “So much that my face hurt afterward.”
A muscle popped in the history professor’s cheek. His right hand flexed at his side. And then he forcibly withdrew from the intimacy of their conversation. So abruptly that she almost staggered under the sudden absence of it. “Good.” He looked back toward the house, speaking after a few beats of silence. “I apologize for my mood. My sister, Natalie, has become my new roommate. At this rate, maybe it would be better if I rented office space in town.”
She swallowed her disappointment. “Maybe it would be.”
His attention slid down to her mouth and away, leaving her pulse rapping in her temples. Drunk or not, she’d meant every word of her letter. Her attraction to Julian Vos was twice as potent as before, when he’d been just a memory. A two-dimensional person on the internet. Then he’d gone and delivered a top-notch prank call and saved her from the Tweed Twit. Now she couldn’t stop wondering what else he was hiding under the surface.
She wanted to know.
Unfortunately, he found her presence disruptive.
Where was the lie? But did he find her distracting in a sexy way? If so, he clearly didn’t want the distraction. Or perhaps . . . the temptation.
Lord, to be a temptation to Julian Vos. She’d throw out her entire bucket list.
As soon as she got around to making one.
Was it possible she did tempt him? The way he continued to catalogue different regions of her body, seeming to get stuck on the area just above her knees, made her wonder if the answer was yes. Unless this burdensome horniness was playing tricks on her. Entirely possible. Lately she’d been finding the angles of her gardening hoe more and more charming.
Flirtatious, even.
A gardening tool could never make her heart race like this, though. The way it had done when he stood up for her at the scene of her—totally justified—UNCORKED crime.
If she’s upset, I’m upset.
Hallie found herself staring into space at the oddest times, repeating those words. Wondering how seriously he’d meant them or if he’d just been trying to defuse the situation as quickly as possible. It scared her how much she wished for the former. Wished for a man this good and honest and valiant to care about her feelings. Enough to not want them hurt.
She waited for Julian to leave, to go back into the house—and he seemed on the verge of doing so at any second, but he never made the move. Simply continuing to study her as if she were a riddle. “So . . .” Hallie cleared the rust from her throat. “Natalie’s visit wasn’t planned?”
He scoffed, crossed his wrists at his back. “No. God forbid anyone have a plan.”
Ouch. She was definitely not a sexy distraction to him.
“Hey, look at me,” she said with determined sunniness. “Here before the kickoff of your fanatical writing sessions.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Did you plan that?”
“Uh . . . no.” That would mean she’d been paying way too close attention. Heh. “My day just kind of started . . . earlier than usual. A squirrel in the backyard set off a howling event before the crack of dawn, and I figured since I was already awake, might as well plant some things.”
“And so,” he said in a very professorial tone, “without the squirrel’s intervention . . .”
“I’d have been here around dinnertime.” She hefted one of the larger bushes, taking a moment to smell a yellow bloom. “Between noon and seven, at least.”
“You’re a menace.” He took the bush from her hands, jerked his chin at the rest of the lot, as if to say, I can take another one. “No, Natalie showed up out of the blue. We didn’t know she was coming in from New York.” Grooves formed on either side of his mouth as he glanced back toward the house. “She didn’t seem to know she was coming.”
“Didn’t say why?”
“A break from work. No further details.”
Hallie hid a smile, but he caught it and raised a questioning eyebrow. “Is it gnawing at you?” she asked. “The vagueness of it all.”
“That smile suggests you’ve answered your own question.” Again, his gaze dipped to her mouth, but this time it lingered twice as long. “Then again, you’re usually smiling.”
He’d noticed her smile?
“Unless I’m masterminding a cheese heist,” she responded, breathless.
“Yes, unless that,” he said quietly, brows pulling together. “That man hasn’t gone near you again, has he?”
His dangerous—almost protective?—tone of voice made her fingers dig into her palms. In a way, he’d claimed her as a responsibility. Someone to look out for. Because that was just so totally Julian Vos, wasn’t it? Everyone’s hero. Champion of men. “No. I haven’t seen him.”
“Good.”
Trying and failing not to feel flustered, Hallie picked up the other bush, and they walked toward the front yard, side by side, their shadows stretching on the grass to highlight their difference in height. The companionable feeling of carrying plants with Julian made fizz pop in Hallie’s bloodstream. Man, oh man, she had it so bad. For a split second, she even felt a niggle of regret that he wouldn’t see the letter. God knew she’d never have the courage to say those words in person.
“Um.” She swallowed. “Your mother must be thrilled to have both of her children home, though.”
A humorless laugh. “I guess you could say it’s complicated.”
“I know a little about complicated relationships with mothers.”
Her gait faltered slightly. Did she just bring up her mother? Out loud? Maybe because she’d been having digital, one-sided conversations with Julian’s face on YouTube for so long, she’d forgotten this one was real? Or perhaps talking to him in person seemed surprisingly easier than it was when she fantasized about them riding through a misty vineyard on horseback. Whatever the cause, she’d said the words. It was done. And she certainly didn’t expect him to turn with such rapt attention. As if she’d shocked him with something less than teasing or small talk about flowers.
“How do you know?” he asked, setting down the bushes. He took hers and put it on the ground, as well. “Does your mother live in St. Helena?”
“She grew up here. After high school, she ran away to Los Angeles. That’s where I was . . .” Her face heated, definitely turned red, and he watched it all happen with a small, fascinated smile. “I was conceived there. Apparently. No further details.”
“The vagueness of it all,” he said, echoing her earlier words.
“Yes,” she said on a big breath. “She tried raising me on her own. We came here, from time to time, when she needed to recharge. Or long enough to soften up my grandmother into loaning her some money. Then we’d be off again. But by the time I reached high school, she finally admitted I would be better off here. I still see her every couple of years. And I love her.” Hallie wished she could rub at the discomfort in her throat but didn’t want him interpreting the action. Or chalking it up to pain that had been building over a lifetime. “But it’s complicated.”
A low grunt from Julian. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve given me the CliffsNotes?”
“Maybe I have. Maybe I haven’t.” Hallie tried to smile, but it wobbled. “The vagueness of it all,” she tacked on in an almost whisper.
Julian stared at her long enough that she started to fidget.
“What?” she finally prompted.
He shifted, drawing those long fingers through his hair, still sweaty and windswept from his run. “I was thinking, in order to make this an even exchange, maybe I should give you the CliffsNotes version of why the Vos family, or what’s left of it in Napa, is complicated.”
“What’s stopping you?”
Mystified eyes flickered over her face, her hair. “The fact that I’ve completely lost track of time. And I don’t do that. Not around anyone but you, apparently.”
Hallie had no idea how to respond. Could only stand there and savor the information that she made this man forget the most important component of his world. And how . . . that could either be a great thing or literally the worst possible thing.
“Makes me wonder how long you could make me . . .” He dragged that bottom lip through his teeth while seemingly transfixed by the pulse on her neck. “Lose track of time.”
That pulse sped up like a sports car on an open road. “I have no idea,” she murmured.
He took a step closer, then another, a muscle bunching in his cheek. “Hours, Hallie? Days?” A raw sound ground up from his throat, one hand lifting to run a single finger down the side of her neck. “Weeks.”
Do I just jump him now? What was the alternate option? Because her thighs were actually trembling under the onslaught of his full intensity. That exploring gaze. His deep, frustrated tone of voice. Before she could fully convince herself they were talking about the same thing—sex, right?—behind her, a shout went up from the vineyard and they both turned, watching the tops of several heads move down the horizontal rows, all gathering in one place.
