Starlight Hill: Complete collection 1-8

by Heatherly Bell

  He looked genuinely puzzled. “Can I ask? Why did you marry this guy when you’d just met him?”

  She hadn’t expected this— how could she answer that question and not sound crazy? Her stomach dropped to her toes. “He had his redeeming qualities.”

  “He must have, to get you to marry him after one month. The reason I’m asking— you probably heard my mother is engaged to Giancarlo.”

  “She already asked me to make the wedding cake.” They were such a cute couple. Nice to see that people could fall in love at their age.

  “Of course she did.” Wallace sighed, unhappily— she guessed— by the scowl on his face.

  “You don’t like Giancarlo?”

  “He’s fine. I don’t see what the big rush is— they barely know each other. Maybe you could talk to her, tell her how your marriage didn’t work out. Maybe because you didn’t know him well enough.”

  “That’s not why,” Gen said and then regretted it.

  “Then why?”

  “I— I fooled myself into thinking he was someone that he just— wasn’t.” There. How was that for a load of honesty? Every word was true.

  “Exactly. And what if my mother thinks Giancarlo is someone he isn’t?”

  She shook her head. “I’m pretty sure it’s not the same thing.”

  Wallace threw her a look again. “How do you know?”

  She squirmed in her chair. “I just do. Okay?”

  “Fine. But would you talk to her anyway?” His green eyes locked gazes with her.

  She fantasized that he’d just asked, ‘Would you strip naked and feed me chocolate covered strawberries?’

  “Oh, yes,” Gen answered, maybe a little too enthusiastically.

  “Thanks, Gen.” He stood up. “Why don’t we go over there tomorrow? I’ll be done with the floors by then and you can open the shop back up the day after that.”

  “Uh, sure.” She rose and started to carry their plates to her kitchen. “So you probably want to take a shower. I was going to, but you can go ahead. I’ll clean up.”

  Wallace intercepted her. “No way. I’ll do that since you cooked.”

  She smiled in what she hoped was a sexy come-hither way. Perfect. This way she could get naked, take a shower and seduce him when he wasn’t looking. Shock and awe, like Desiree said. And sure, maybe it wasn’t fair but who said anything in love and war was fair? She had an opportunity to get Wallace, and get him good. Desiree was right. Joe would deal with it. Or not deal with it, but that wasn’t her problem right now.

  The shower was warm and quick. She toweled off and stared at herself in the mirror. All the mascara had smeared off, naturally, and she looked like a drowned raccoon. She removed the black smudges from her eyes, and re-applied the mascara. Not that he would be looking at her eyes for long if she did this right.

  She blow-dried her wavy hair, straightened it and then curled it at the ends. Beauty was such torture. Finally, she wrapped the towel loosely around her naked body and stepped outside her bathroom door.

  She could hear the football game still going. Wallace didn’t even turn around when he said, “About time. Did you leave any hot water for me? You were in there forever.”

  She was going to block his line of vision and she didn’t want to compete with a damn ball game. “There’s plenty of hot water left.”

  She waited a beat for a commercial to come on, then walked right in front of the television set and dropped her towel. “Ooops!”

  One might have thought she was on fire from the way Wallace sprang from the couch, picked up the towel and threw it on her. “You dropped this.”

  She wrapped the towel around herself, realizing she’d succeeded in shock and awe, all right. Just not on the right person. The whole ordeal had boomeranged on her.

  “Thank you.” She dared to glance at Wallace, who was not looking at her. His mouth was set in a grim straight line, arms folded across his chest, and he looked pissed off.

  This was not going well.

  But this might be her only chance alone with Wallace, so she retreated to the bedroom to re-evaluate. She went through her thongs and lingerie, tossing the offending ones out. The trick was to find something alluring but not too obvious. Somewhere between sex kitten and slut. She chose her red satin cami short set. A little cold, but that’s why the heater had been invented.

  “You can do this,” she whispered to herself in the mirror as a little pick-me-up. She needed it after the towel fiasco.

  When she walked out Wallace was standing up in front of the TV. “Dammit! There’s no way he should have missed that pass.”

  Oh good, maybe he’d welcome a distraction from the men dressed in tights. “What happened?”

  “The Niners lost, and—” He turned in her direction and this time she didn’t miss the way his sexy jaw dropped ever so slightly and he stopped talking like he’d lost the power of speech.

  Bingo! “Oh, damn. That’s too bad.”

  She sat down on the couch next to him and pretended to be interested in what was sure to be fifty hours of after-game analysis. She could feel the heat coming off of Wallace in waves. Either the heat of anger or passion, and she was almost afraid to know which.

  “You look cold,” Wallace said, throwing the blanket she kept on the couch over her.

  “I’m not.” She kicked it off.

  “You know, if you wore some clothes around here you wouldn’t have to keep the thermostat to eighty degrees.”

  Uh-oh. The heat was anger, not passion. Strike two.

  He flicked the TV set off. “I’m going to bed. And so are you.”

  “But it’s eight o’clock.” Was that a whine in her voice?

  “And you’ve exhausted me.”

  “Well, too bad, I’m not tired. It’s my house and you can’t tell me what to do, Mister. I’m going to have some of my brownies now.” She got up and headed towards the kitchen when suddenly her legs were off the ground and she was airborne.

  Oh, Holy Victoria’s Secret! Thank you! At last! She was in Wallace’s strong arms and it felt too good to be legal. Finally, finally she’d make sweet love to the man. Better that he find out this way than when he got a look at Not Wallace. This way she’d get to show him herself how crazy she was about him.

  He kicked open the door to her bedroom and unceremoniously dropped her on the bed. Then he turned and shut the door behind him. Except he was on the wrong side of her bedroom door.

  “And stay in there!” She could hear him say.

  “But Wallace!” she yelled from her bed.

  “I mean it! Go to bed.”

  “But I was going to rock his world,” Gen whispered to her bedroom furniture.

  Gen reached for her pillow and screamed into it. Then she pounded it into submission and draped it across her face.

  Back to fantasyland.

  4

  What fresh hell had Wallace landed in? Curse Joe with the white heat of a thousand suns for making him watch out for Gen! Curse Victoria’s Secret and lingerie designers all over the world! He hoped they all perished in a fiery furnace.

  Might as well curse himself while he was at it. He was a horrible person, and a bad friend. When Genevieve had dropped her towel and displayed the sweetest ass he’d ever laid eyes on, he’d been seconds away from bending her over the couch. She may have acted like that was what she wanted, but she clearly wasn’t herself. And if he hadn’t thrown her in her bedroom and yelled at her to stay, he couldn’t have been responsible for what happened next.

  That’s how weak he felt, which was pretty pathetic. Nothing made sense when it came to Gen. Women had a way of doing that to him, sure, but Gen wasn’t just any woman. He loved Gen, and he’d always been maybe too over protective of her and tried to shield her from all the guys who eyed her on a regular basis. All the guys who wanted to screw her silly.

  Never in his life did he think he’d be one of them.

  He got up at five the next morning hoping to avoid Gen, showe
red, then drove to her shop as dawn broke over the horizon. He worked hard all morning getting the floors in between answering knocks on the front door. He’d put up a sign, Shop Closed, but why read it when they could bother him instead and slow down his progress?

  “She’s reopening tomorrow!” He yelled for the tenth time. “Read the sign!”

  “You’re a cruel man, Wallace Turlock!” Ophelia shouted, peeking through the plate glass window.

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Finally by noon he’d put her display cabinet back in its place, and all the tables and chairs. He could declare this job complete, and once Joe was back he could head on up to the cabin and screw his head back on straight.

  He drove to Gen’s. She’d put him through hell last night, and he fully expected her to come through with her promise to talk some sense into his mother. But he hadn’t been in her house two minutes when he recognized the freeze-out. She sat on the couch and gave him the stink eye. She was pissed, of course. But thankfully she was fully dressed and that was enough for him right now.

  “Ready?”

  “That’s right, I’m supposed to go over and tell your Mom she shouldn’t marry the man she loves.” She rose and walked to the kitchen. “And I’m taking her the brownies you wouldn’t eat, or let me eat.”

  “You’re supposed to tell her to slow down, and take her time. She can love him all she wants.”

  “Oh, can she, Wallace? Is that okay with you? So good to know.” She ripped a piece of Saran Wrap off its roll with gusto.

  He sighed and dragged a hand through his hair. “Look, Gen—”

  She turned on him, pointing. “No, you look! Do you know what your problem is? Do you?”

  “I’m pretty sure you’re about to tell me.”

  “You’re not romantic!”

  “Ouch. Take it easy, Gen. There’s no need to be cruel.”

  She might have noticed his twitching lips. “You’re not funny!”

  “Listen, I didn’t want you to make a mistake last night. I can see that you’re upset about your ex, and you’re not acting like yourself. But I’m not going to be your rebound guy. Joe’s my best friend and he’d kick my ass for taking advantage of you, as well he should.”

  She stared at him, jaw gaping.

  “But it’s not like I wasn’t tempted.” He hoped she heard the warning in his voice.

  “Okay.” She looked a little dazed.

  They rode in blessed silence to see his mother. “We’re going to the vineyard because my mother’s been working in the tasting room to help out. Since Brooke broke her arm.”

  Gen stared out the window. “Poor Brooke, but at least she’s marrying the man she loves.”

  Great. Break out the violins. Maybe he wasn’t a romantic, but he could be. He was almost sure of it. “Yeah, maybe we can have a double wedding and be done with it.”

  That earned him another glare so it wasn’t the right comment. Within a few minutes he and Genevieve were in the tasting room where his mother and Pop, Wallace’s grandfather, were pouring for a small group.

  “Wallace! Have you come to help out?” Mom came around from behind the bar and embraced him.

  “Genevieve and I just dropped by to say hello.”

  “Here, Mrs. Turlock, I brought you some of my brownies with caramel sauce.” Gen set them down on the bar.

  Wallace looked over her shoulder and met his mother’s eyes. He didn’t want Mom to refuse Gen now, even if Mom had come to think of sugar as the Devil’s snow. “Gen worked hard on these.”

  “Darling, of course you did. And they look delicious.”

  Wallace felt his shoulders lower and unkink. Now to leave the women alone. “Well, I’m going to go check on Billy.”

  He gave a significant look to Gen, who nodded almost imperceptibly.

  Please tell her to think twice. Tell her not to make the mistake you made. Seems to have messed with your head a bit, Gen.

  He found Billy in the fields with the vineyard crew. Probably something to do with the recent cold snap in the valley. Not that Wallace had a clue about grapes. He was more of a scotch man, and one of the few that wished Billy had started a sports bar instead of buying a vineyard.

  Billy walked up the hill to meet Wallace. “Hey. I thought you’d be at the cabin by now.”

  He stuffed his hands in his jacket pockets. “I got waylaid.”

  “Ah. Genevieve change her mind again?”

  “It’s more than that. Joe asked me to keep an eye out, because her ex-husband is going to be in town sniffing around.”

  “Great, ‘cause I’d like to take a good look at the man who could convince Genevieve Hannigan to get married. A girl who never dated anyone for longer than three months.”

  From Billy’s hip came a squawking sound followed by the sound of a female’s voice Wallace recognized all too well. “Billy, are they pruning like I asked? They have to be evenly spaced on the cordons. Don’t let them get away with cutting corners. Over.”

  Billy smiled, the goofy grin of a man in love. He removed the device from his pocket and spoke into it. “It’s all good, Bungee. No cutting corners. Over.”

  Wallace rolled his eyes. Walkie-talkie love. How nauseating. “Is this the best you can do?”

  “She’d be down here otherwise. I’m trying to get her to rest for a few days.”

  “It’s just a broken arm.” Wallace rocked back on his heels, and tried to ignore Billy’s stare. He never could hide much from his younger brother.

  “Yeah, I know. Hey, what’s bugging you?”

  “Besides the fact that I’m not at the cabin? Gen’s acting loopy. I’m guessing it’s the ex. Anyway, I’ve got her up in the tasting room with Ma right now, trying to talk some sense into her. Maybe Ma can learn a little something from Gen. No one should rush into marriage.” He quirked an eyebrow at Billy.

  If not for Billy’s fiancée, the lovely general manager, their mother might not have fallen for Giancarlo. Maybe she’d still be fiddling around on the Internet, trying to figure out the chat rooms and all the acronyms. That would have taken her a good ten years.

  “Slowing down is fine,” Billy said sheepishly. “Brooke and I are in no rush. All I know is she’s not getting away from me again.”

  Like she’d heard him, Brooke’s voice was over the walkie-talkie. “Babe? Can you come up here? I want to take a shower. Over.”

  “Be right up. Over.” He smiled. “Gotta go. Duty calls.”

  Wallace scowled. “You do realize she can take a shower by herself without any help from you. She has a broken arm, not a broken leg.”

  Billy was already halfway to the owner’s suite. “Where’s the fun in that?”

  Indeed. He didn’t know why an image of Gen popped into this head, naked and soapy wet. He shook his head. He desperately needed to get up to his cabin and chop about two or three hundred cords of wood. Maybe then he’d get these thoughts out of his head. Or at least collapse in a heap at the end of the day, too exhausted to think at all.

  His phone rang and he yanked it out of his pocket. His Realtor. “Hey, Jean. What’s up?”

  “What’s up, you ask? I haven’t heard from you, that’s what’s up. Are you interested in the property or not?”

  He shut his eyes. The land she’d told him about a week ago. With all the goings-on he’d forgotten to drive by and check it out. “I might be. It’s still available?”

  “It won’t be for much longer. The old man finally decided to let go of the land he’d clung to for half his life. It’s not worth the quadrillion dollars he thought it might be, but pretty close.” She cackled. “You know how tough it is to find acreage in the valley.”

  Yeah, yeah. He’d heard all about the land they weren’t making any more. But he’d never rushed into a decision in his life and he wouldn’t start now. “I’ll go take a look at it this week and get back to you.”

  “You do that.”

  He hung up. It wasn’t Jean’s fault she kept bugging him. He�
��d asked her some time ago to keep her eyes out for a few acres of land in the valley. At thirty-two, he’d begun to feel it was time to own a home, and not just a vacation cabin. And he’d outgrown the apartment he rented in Napa.

  Living in that apartment only reminded him of the temporary nature of all of his relationships. It was time to make a change. Time to grow up. Maybe find a good woman who loved him for more than his money or the fact that she could get close to his brother Billy, who had a lot more of it than Wallace did.

  He walked back up to the top of the hill and the tasting room, where he found his mother and Genevieve embracing. They were both crying. Fantastic. When would he learn that delegate might as well be a four letter word for him?

  He cleared his throat.

  “We’ve had a wonderful talk,” Mom said. “You come by anytime, sweetheart. Say hello to that brother of yours.”

  “T-thank you, Mrs. Turlock. I’m going to bake you the best organic coconut flour and agave sweetened wedding cake you’ve ever tasted.”

  “Oh, I know you will, sweetie,” Mom said.

  “So— yeah. Thanks, Mom, for this.” He put an arm around Gen, who was sniffling into a tissue.

  They walked to his truck and he opened the passenger door for Gen. When she didn’t move, he lifted her and her quivering shoulders into the seat. Then he buckled her in, and went around to the driver’s seat.

  He slid the key into the ignition. “I’m going to assume it didn’t go well.”

  “She’s in love,” Gen sniffled. “And it’s such a beautiful thing.”

  Of course it was, and he wouldn’t expect Gen to think anything less. Which meant his idea to have her talk to his mother was insane to begin with. “Yeah.”

  Gen hit his shoulder. “What’s wrong with you? Why would you want me to talk her out of getting married? Don’t you get it? You can fall in love with someone after you’ve known them for a few days, or you can love someone for half of your life without them ever knowing it.”

  She killed him, as certain as if she’d put the knife in his heart. “Aw, Gen.”

  He slid over, unclicked her seatbelt and yanked her into his arms because he couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t take those tears slicing through his heart. She was hurt, broken, her marriage in ruins.