Secretly yours, p.5
Secretly Yours, page 5
“Jesus Christ, pull it together,” he groaned, dragging a hand down his face and pushing away from his desk. He tucked in his chair and straightened the wireless keyboard before turning and striding for the front of the house. Yes, he’d lost sleep last night for more than one reason. Trying to unearth a forgotten memory was how it started. But all that thinking about the bubbly blonde and her tight T-shirt had led to something very different. Twice.
When was the last time he’d masturbated twice in one night? Had to be in high school. And even back then, he couldn’t remember being so . . . vigorous about it. While lying facedown on his stomach, no less. He’d been forced to throw the sheets into the washing machine in the middle of the night and move to one of the other bedrooms. A humiliating turn of events if he’d ever heard one. Really, calling her back here was incredibly stupid.
What if this visit didn’t give him closure? Would he try to see her again?
Back in Palo Alto, he purposefully dated women who didn’t occupy too much headspace. Women who kept tight schedules and didn’t have a problem coordinating them for things like dinner or sex or a work function. Hallie wouldn’t even ballpark her ETA. If they spent significant time together, they’d be fitting him for a straitjacket within a week. So yes, get the closure and go back to work. The plan was firm.
A lot like he’d been last night.
Disgusted with himself, Julian pried open the front door, closed it behind him, and descended the steps onto the driveway. Then he hooked a right to the yard, where Hallie sat cross-legged in front of the freshest gopher hole, shaking up something in a large plastic bottle. “Hello there, Professor,” she called, her voice echoing slightly through the vineyard.
The dogs ran over to greet him, yipping and snarfing at the air. He patted their heads, one by one, watching helplessly as they slobbered all over his pant leg. “Hello, Hallie.” One of the dogs nudged Julian’s hand until he scratched him properly. “What are their names?”
“The yellow lab is Petey. My grandmother was a big fan of the original Little Rascals.” She pointed at the schnauzer. “That’s the General. Not General. The General, because he bosses everyone around. And the boxer is Todd. I can’t explain it—he just looks like a Todd.”
Julian leaned back to study the boxer. “That’s eerily accurate.”
She breathed a laugh, as if relieved to be in agreement. He liked it, as well. Too much.
Stick to business.
He nodded at the plastic bottle. “What’s in the formula?” As if he didn’t already know.
“Peppermint and castor oil. They hate the smell.”
She shifted onto her knees and dug some cotton balls out of the pocket of her jean shorts. They were lighter today. More faded. Meaning the material clung like underpants to her backside, while the sun stroked the worn denim in burnished gold. Her top wasn’t quite as tight today—fortunately or unfortunately—but finger streaks of dirt were directly over her breasts, as if she’d wiped her hands off on them, palms chafing right over her nipples. Up and down. Feeling herself up in the front yard of some suburban hamlet, knees twisting in the dirt.
This is getting embarrassing.
While watching Hallie soak the cotton balls, he tamped down his attraction as much as possible, attempting to focus on more practical matters. Like getting himself untangled with this person. “Tell me how we know each other, Hallie.”
She’d started nodding halfway through his demand, obviously expecting it—which he didn’t love. Being predictable to her made him itchy. “I never said we knew each other. I just said it was nice to see you again.”
Yes. That was correct. They didn’t know each other at all. And they wouldn’t.
Why did that only intensify the itch?
“Where have we seen each other, then?”
A blush rode up the side of her face. For a moment, he thought the sunset was responsible, but no. The gardener was blushing. And involuntarily, he held his breath.
“Okay, do you remember—” she started.
Hell broke loose before she could finish.
As soon as Hallie dropped those fragrant cotton balls into the gopher hole, the sucker peeked his head out the other end. Just like that. A real-life game of whack-a-mole, only with a gopher. And the dogs lost their ever-loving minds. If Julian thought they were loud before, their excited barking was nothing compared to the screeches and yelps of alarm as they dashed toward the emerging gopher—who, wisely, took off running for his very life.
“Boys! No!” Hallie jumped to her feet and sprinted after all three dogs. “Come back here! Now!”
Julian watched it all happen in a semi-trance, wondering how his plan to have a bowl of soup and read the Smithsonian article he’d printed out had been so spectacularly derailed. He’d anticipated having a clear head for the rest of his stay in Napa, this blip from the past having been resolved. But, instead, he was now running toward this loud explosion of mayhem, worried Hallie might get in between dog and gopher and accidentally get bitten for her trouble.
Wow.
He really didn’t like the idea of her being bitten.
Or slipping. In the mud. Risking an injury.
Because that’s what was happening. In slow motion, she turned into a pinwheel of limbs and corkscrews, and then her butt landed soundly in the bank of dirt that skirted the front lawn.
“Hallie,” Julian barked—great, now he was barking, too—and scooped her up from behind by the armpits. “Christ, you can’t just take off half-cocked like that. What were you going to do if you caught them?”
It took him a few seconds to realize her entire body was shaking with laughter. “Of course this is when I choose to have the most embarrassing fall of my life. Of course it is.”
Frowning at that odd statement, he turned her around.
Big. Mistake.
The sun on her face made everything surrounding them—the endless sky, the rambling vineyard, and the streaks of clouds, all of it—seem inadequate. Something tugged inside of him like a thread. The shape of her mouth . . . their height difference. Was there even something familiar about her earthy scent?
A heavy object rammed into Julian’s leg, followed by a second one. Todd inserted himself between Julian and Hallie, barking in quick succession. A crunching sound came from behind Hallie—and there went the gopher again, followed by Petey and the General.
“Boys!” Hallie shouted, running after them.
They chased the damn gopher right back into the hole.
Hallie groaned and threw her hands up in the air. “He’ll probably leave sometime during the night when my beasts have gone. No way he’ll be able to stand the smell for long.”
He could still feel the smooth skin of her arms in his palms, so it took him a moment to recover enough to respond. “I’m sure you’re right . . .” he started, curling his fingers inward to capture the sensation before it fled.
But she didn’t hear him, because she was busy wrangling her three frantic dogs. In shorts caked with mud. One of her feet was slipping dangerously toward the gopher hole. If an ankle sprain wasn’t imminent, then something else anarchic would probably take its place. His whole evening would be off now. She’d done this to him for a second time, and he needed to take it as a sign to keep away. Strict schedules stopped the floor from rising up and swallowing him whole.
He wouldn’t survive the shame of that downward spiral again. The night of the fire, he’d held on to his mettle long enough to do what was necessary, but what followed had been enough to drive his family to four different corners of the earth, hadn’t it?
Julian required order. Hallie was disorder in the flesh. She seemed to shun the very method he used to cope with anxiety. Yes, she was beautiful and lively. Clever. Fascinating.
Also? So completely wrong for him that a sitcom writer couldn’t make it up.
Why was he so interested in her thoughts and actions, then?
Or if this Owen character was really just a friend or a boyfriend of some description.
It made little fucking sense.
A vein throbbed behind his eye. He longed for pencil and blank paper, something simple that he could focus on, because being near Hallie was like staring through a kaleidoscope while someone twisted it really fast.
“Julian, is everything okay?”
He opened his eyes. When had he closed them? “Yes.” He noticed the awkward way she stood, as if the mud on her shorts was beginning to harden. “Come on.” He moved past her toward the house. “We’ll get you something clean to wear.”
“Oh, no, it’s fine,” she called to his retreating back. “I more or less go home in this condition every day. I usually strip in the backyard and hose myself down.” Then, to herself, “Don’t overshare or anything, Hallie.”
Don’t think about rivulets of water coasting down her ripe body.
Don’t do it.
Setting his jaw, Julian held the door for Hallie, who ambled past awkwardly, attempting to hold the denim away from her thighs. When the dogs tried to follow her into the guesthouse with paws that looked chocolate-dipped in mud, Julian pointed a stern finger at the General. “Sit.”
The schnauzer’s butt hit the ground, tail wagging in a blur. The boxer and the lab followed their buddy’s lead, plopping down at the base of the stairs and waiting.
“How did you do that?” Hallie whispered behind him.
“Dogs crave leadership, just like humans. It’s in their DNA to obey.”
“No.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “They want to eat snails and howl at fire trucks.”
“They can be trained not to do those things, Hallie.”
“But you’re forcing them to deny their natural urges.”
“No, I’m preventing mud from being tracked into the house.”
They looked down simultaneously to find she’d left four footprints just inside the door. With a tinge of pink in her cheeks, she toed off her rubber shoes and nudged them as close as possible to the door, leaving her barefoot on his clean hardwood floor. She had sky-blue nail polish on her toes, daisies painted onto the biggest nails. “If you tell me to sit, Julian Vos, I will kick you in the shin.”
A strange lightness rose upward in his sternum, stopping just beneath his throat. A twitch of his lips caught him off guard. Did he . . . want to laugh? She seemed to think so, didn’t she? The way she watched his mouth, a sparkle appearing in her eyes at his rare show of humor. Suddenly he was a lot more aware of their location—inches apart in a house glowing with late-afternoon sun—and again he encountered a tug of recognition but couldn’t find the source.
God help him, he was too distracted, unable to look at her without his attention straying to her mouth, wondering if she kissed as wildly and without rhythm as she did everything else.
Probably.
No. Definitely. And he would hate the unpredictability of it. Of her.
Right.
“I’ll get you that shirt,” he said, turning on a heel. Though he didn’t see her move farther into the house, he sensed that she would meet him in the kitchen, the heart and focal point of a home, not that he used it for much besides preparing turkey on whole wheat, soup, and coffee. Inside the bedroom, he hesitated for a moment at the dresser, observing himself in the mirror. Hair in disarray from his fingers, tightness surrounding his eyes and mouth. He took a long breath and looked down at his watch.
6:18 p.m.
The back of his neck clenched, so he filled his lungs one more time and mapped out a new schedule. At six thirty, he would eat and read his sundial article. At seven, Jeopardy! Seven thirty, shower. Then he would make some notes about tomorrow’s writing plan, have them ready to go on his desk in the morning. If he kept to this schedule, he’d let himself have a glass of whiskey.
Feeling more in control, Julian took a folded gray shirt out of the top drawer. One with the Stanford logo silk-screened onto the pocket. As predicted, thank God, he found Hallie in the kitchen. But she didn’t lift her head when he walked in because she was frowning down at something on the granite island in the center of the room. What did she find so offensive about his stack of mail? He’d had his correspondence forwarded to the vineyard for the summer, but the postal service was slow to begin the switch, meaning he was mostly receiving junk at this point.
She pinched one such advertisement between her finger and thumb, turning it over, letting out a distressed sound at whatever was on the back. “Wild Wine Wednesday . . .” she muttered. “‘Let us blindfold your party and ply you with wine. Guess the vintage correctly and win a trip to the cheese wall.’ I hate how fun that sounds.”
“Beg pardon?”
“UNCORKED.” She blinked rapidly, as if to keep moisture from forming in her eyes, and Julian experienced an uncomfortable pinch in his chest. “The newest wine bar sensation in town.”
He set the Stanford shirt in front of her, an offering he hoped would prevent whatever was happening to her emotionally. “You don’t like this new place,” he guessed.
And then he died a little, because she used the Stanford shirt to dab at her eyes.
When there were perfectly good napkins within reach.
“Well. I’ve never been inside. I don’t know the owners personally or anything. They might be lovely people who don’t realize they are robbing a sweet old lady of her livelihood.”
“Explain what you mean.”
“Corked is right next door. A quiet little wine bar owned by Lorna. It has been there since the late fifties. My grandmother and I used to spend hours sitting at the white wrought-iron table outside. It was our spot. Lorna would give me a wineglass full of grape juice, and my grandmother and I would solve crossword puzzle clues or we’d plan gardens together.” She looked down at her fingers for a few seconds. “Anyway, the whole shop is empty now because UNCORKED moved in beside it. They have a twenty-four-hour disco ball outside and endless stunts to attract tourists. The worst part is they specifically named their shop as a play on Lorna’s bar and made a mockery of it. No one seems to mind, though. Lorna has quiet, intimate tastings without the fanfare. How is she supposed to compete with Adult Spin the Bottle?”
Her eyes took on a sheen that worried him, so he reached for a napkin and handed it to her, sighing when she used the shirt again, instead. “You’re very upset about this. Are you close with Lorna or something?”
“She was closer to my grandmother, but yes, we’re friends. And we’ve gotten a lot more friendly since I started attending daily wine tastings to offset the UNCORKED effect.”
The corner of his mouth tugged. “Day drinking is always the solution.”
“Said no one ever. Even in Napa.” For a beat, she appeared almost thoughtful. “It has definitely made me more prone to committing petty crimes.”
He waited for her to say she was joking. She didn’t.
With a big inhale, she let the shirt unfurl down onto her lap. “I’m just going to change into this outside before I hop into the truck, so I don’t get mud anywhere.” With one last glance at the wineshop advertisement, she backed out of his kitchen. “Any more mud, I should say.”
His plan had been to get Hallie out the door quickly, so he could start checking things off his to-do list for the night, but when she started to edge out of his kitchen, an anxious ripple in his stomach surprised him into saying, “Do you want a drink?” Totally normal to offer. He was just being a gracious host. “I have wine, obviously. Or whiskey.”
He might even need two whiskeys himself tonight.
Could he drop the strict limits he placed on himself enough to allow that indulgence?
The offer of a drink had visibly surprised her, too. “Oh. I don’t know.” She considered him a moment. A long moment. As if she was trying to make some important decision. About him? What was it? “I better not,” she said softly. “I’m driving.”
“Right,” he said, finding his throat was going dry. “Responsible of you.”
She hummed, nodding at the mostly full bottle of Woodford Reserve whiskey sitting by the stove. “You should have one, though. A gopher in residence might even earn you two.” She hesitated on the threshold of his kitchen, this wild-haired gardener with muddy shorts and a vendetta against a wineshop. “What would you have to do to earn two?”
His head came up quickly.
Because he’d been wondering that exact same thing.
How did she . . .
And then he remembered. Yesterday. When she’d walked into his office and read over his shoulder and asked afterward, Is it true? That you won’t let yourself have a drink at the end of the day unless you write for the full thirty minutes? He’d never answered her question, but she’d held on to it. Was she that curious about his habits?
Julian had never told anyone about his goal-setting system. It would probably sound completely idiotic out loud. But he got the sense . . . well, he couldn’t help but feel as if she were leaving for good, never to return, so what harm would it do to reveal this part of himself? She’d slipped onto her butt and cried in front of him in the space of twenty minutes. Maybe a part of him hoped admitting to his peculiar behavior would make them even. Make her . . . feel better.
Which was troublingly important to him.
“I only have two drinks at the end of a semester. The rest of the year, I allow myself the whiskey if I’ve checked the day’s boxes.” He’d been right. It did sound idiotic out loud, but it was how he remained glued together. Time had always been the stitches running through the fabric of his life, and he had nothing but gratitude for the structure it afforded him. “For instance, if I arrived everywhere on time. To class, to meetings. If I completed my workload and planned for the following day. Cleared my inbox. Showered. Then I have the drink.”
