“I did.”
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense. What were his parents like? I’ve only talked to them on the phone so far. I can’t wait to meet them.”
A sudden stab of jealousy, her first ever toward Rachel, hit her. Soon Rachel would have those wonderful people for in-laws. Soon Rachel could call this vineyard home. Soon Rachel would belong here, with this family, and Livia never would.
“They were great. You’ll love them.”
“And what about Hunter? What’s he like?”
Hunter.
Even the sound of his name hurt right now.
“He’s a great guy,” Livia said, fighting a mighty battle to keep her voice even and her sudden tears from falling. Blinking furiously, she got control of herself, but only just. “You’ll love him.”
I love him.
The words were right there on the tip of her tongue, waiting to be said, but she bit them back. Love. She couldn’t be in love with a man she’d known for only a few days. That was impossible. Ridiculous. Over-the-top romantic nonsense.
Wasn’t it?
“What’s he like?”
Lord almighty—what was with the questions? She was coming out of her skin here and Rachel wanted Hunter’s personality profile? Was this a cosmic joke on her?
“I don’t know, Rach,” she said, the strain breaking through in her voice. “You’ll have to see for yourself—”
Someone knocked at her door and her heart, foolish to the point of recklessness, leapt with renewed excitement and hope like a tongue-dangling retriever going after a ball.
Hunter? Was that Hunter? Did he care about her after all? Hunter? Hunter?
Pathetic.
“Hey, Rach,” she said, already leaping from the sofa and making another futile effort to smooth her hair as she raced for the front door. “Someone’s here. I gotta go, okay? Call you back.”
“But—” Rachel spluttered.
Livia clicked the phone off and tossed it back on the side table as she went past. Slowing down on the last couple of steps, she swung the door open and held her breath as—
“Kendra,” she cried. “What’re you doing here?”
*
The girl looked up at her, those big brown eyes filled with tragic despair, her chin trembling. Today she wore a green Future Paleontologist T-shirt with her shorts and carried a small square makeup suitcase circa 1960 or earlier in her hand. When Willard raced over to greet her, she patted his neck and gave his furry face a lingering kiss. Then she looked up at Livia, gathered all her courage around her with one dramatic breath and spoke in a heartbroken voice that would do a blues singer proud.
“Can I come in?” she asked.
“What are you doing here?” Livia asked again.
“I ran away.”
“Oh,” Livia said, trying not to laugh at this solemn moment. “Is that why you have the suitcase?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s in there, anyway?”
“My dragons and dinosaurs. Oh, and I packed a granola bar in case I got hungry, but I ate it already.”
This child was too precious for words. “What about a change of clothes, underwear, a toothbrush and some money?”
Kendra’s face fell. “I forgot those.”
“I see.”
Apparently tired of waiting for permission, she edged past Livia and headed into the living room, making herself at home on the sofa. There was nothing for Livia to do but shut the door, follow her and sit on the coffee table facing her. Willard, who wouldn’t let his pack go anywhere without him, trotted along and settled at their feet.
“What happened?”
“Daddy was mean to me.”
“Oh, no.”
“He yelled at me. And he wouldn’t let me come see you.”
Oh, really? Wasn’t that interesting?
“Well,” Livia said carefully, knowing it wasn’t cool to interrogate a six-year-old, “daddies yell sometimes. Did you not clean your room, or—”
“No.” Kendra’s voice was adamant, her outrage absolute. “He was grouchy when I got home from school. I didn’t do anything. Even Grandma said he needed to get his act together or leave her kitchen.”
Livia gaped at her, overwhelming hope making her head spin. “What do you think was wrong with him?”
Kendra shrugged, looking bewildered and victimized. “And then,” she said with the rising excitement that told Livia she was getting to the juicy stuff, her father’s worst offense against her, “I asked if I could come see you, and he yelled at me and shook his finger and said—” Kendra puffed herself up, wagged her finger and deepened her voice in a remarkably good imitation of Hunter “‘—Miss Livia is on vacation and she’ll be leaving tomorrow, so there’s no point getting too attached to her!’ And then he marched out and slammed the door! Really hard!”
“Hunter slammed the door?” Livia tried to get her mind around the image of Mr. Calm, Cool and Collected having a meltdown, but it was as incomprehensible as a hippopotamus being a principal dancer in Swan Lake. “Maybe he’s just, you know, having a bad day, honey. I’m sure he didn’t mean it.”
“I can’t live like that!”
“Ah…” Livia kept her lips pressed tightly together, fighting that urge to laugh again, because Kendra was clearly embracing her inner diva with this dramatic performance. “You can’t just run away when—”
Moving in for the kill, Kendra hopped down from the sofa and scrambled into Livia’s lap, where her solid weight and fruity-fresh little girl’s fragrance were much too wonderful for Livia’s overwrought nerves. Livia tried to brace herself against all this cuteness but that was no use, especially when Willard, who hated to be excluded from any nearby affection, rose up, rested his snout in the girl’s lap and gave them both the soulful eye.
“Can I live here with you, Miss Livia?” Kendra begged. “Pleeeeeeeaaaaase?”
Allowing herself one precious minute of fantasies, Livia hugged her and kissed her fat cheeks. Both of them. What would it be like to have a child like this in her life, playing and giggling, whining and just sitting, like this, in quiet moments that were only special because they were together? What would it be like to tuck an angel like this into bed and wake up to her bleary smile in the mornings? What would she give to have a family of her own, with a husband and a child and a home that was really a home and not just the place where she landed in between shoots all over the world?
Would a million dollars cover it? Done. Ten million? No problem. And if her career interfered with the proper raising of a bright girl like this, the career would have to go, no question. Much as she’d worked and bled to get where she was right now, one of the top models in the world, she was coming to a painful realization that she should have known all along, just like Dorothy should’ve known, there was no place like home.
Money didn’t do you a damn bit of good when you had a yawning ache inside you that only a family of your own could fill.
But she didn’t have a family of her own and this child, meanwhile, was waiting for an answer. So she gave Kendra’s forehead a kiss, because she’d missed it on the first round of kisses, swallowed the growing tightness in her throat and gave the kind of understanding but regretful smile she imagined a good mother would give in this kind of situation.
“You can’t live here with me, honey—”
“Pleeeeeeeaaaaase?” Kendra clasped her hands together, ramping up the enthusiasm. “I promise I’ll—”
Livia held up a finger to silence her. “But…” she said.
Kendra snapped her jaws shut.
“If you’re finished begging and whining…”
Kendra nodded violently.
“Then you can call your grandma to tell her where you are and apologize for scaring her, because I’m sure she’s wondering if you’ve been kidnapped or eaten by cougars or something.”
More nodding.
“And we can have snacks and give each other pedicures with this pretty pink p
olish I brought with me. How would that be?”
“Great! Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Here’s the phone.”
Livia watched her dial and then chatter with her grandmother, certain that when she left Napa tomorrow, she’d be leaving a big chunk of her heart right here with Kendra.
*
The rain was relentless, pounding against Livia’s windows until late in the evening and doing nothing to lift her spirits.
After the impromptu but delightful pedicures with Kendra, she’d walked her and Willard back to the big house and then, thoroughly sick of her own company and disgusted with her pity party of one, which had gone on long enough, she bundled up, had a quick sandwich at the winery’s bistro (no sign of any of the Chambers family, thank goodness) and came back to finish her Jackie Robinson biography, which was excellent.
The Dog Wrangler marathon was still on at that point (they were now up to the episode with the nonretrieving golden retriever, a canine who also didn’t know he could swim), so she watched it for a while and then decided to call it a night at eleven-thirty. She was making a last lap around the cottage, clicking off the lamps, when someone knocked on the door.
Hunter.
It was him; no one else would disturb her at this hour, not unless it was the local authorities trying to evacuate everyone at the winery on account of an impending flood or mudslide. Indecision nailed her feet to the floor while an excited hope made her lungs heave like giant bellows.
Her brain was just pissed.
Recovering just as the second round of knocks began, she marched through the foyer and flung the door open for the simple pleasure of telling him to go to hell. But then their gazes connected and her thoughts scattered like rioters being fire hosed.
The overhead porch light was bright enough for her to see that he looked drowned-rat terrible. His clothes and jacket were soaked, and the idiot didn’t even have the sense to wear the baseball hat he’d had glued to his head the other day. Rivulets of rain ran down his forehead and dripped into eyes that were flashing dark and ferocious but otherwise unreadable. His jaw was tight, his lips thin. And she was so relieved, so unbelievably and unspeakably happy to see him after today’s long hours without him, that it absolutely infuriated her.
He was the jerk, yeah, but she was the fool.
“Livia,” he began.
She slammed the door in his face.
Better to cool off and deal with him later—or never—than risk letting him see what he’d done to her today and how she’d unraveled at the loss of his attention after their glorious night together. He’d either come because his guilty conscience was forcing him to put a nice period at the end of their little fling—his parents were decent folks, after all, and they’d probably taught him to treat women the way he’d want to be treated—or he’d come to stammer out some lame excuse in the hopes that he could have a nostrings-attached booty call.
Either way, it wasn’t happening.
A sharp curse came from the other side of the door, and then pounding. “Livia,” he said, and the husky aggravation in his voice made her want to break into a few joyous steps of the Electric Slide. “We need to talk. Please.”
She flicked off the porch light and bolted the door.
Is that a clear enough message for you, Hunter?
Filled with a savage satisfaction, she dusted off her hands—buh-bye, jackass!—took her time about folding the throw and draping it over the sofa’s arm and turned off the last couple of living room lights before heading down the hall.
So he thought he could just play her, did he? Thought he could rock her world last night, kiss her off this morning, ignore her all day and then reappear tonight to a warm reception and her open legs?
No way, buddy. No. Freaking. Way.
She swept her sweater off over her head, thinking maybe she needed a shower to decompress before bed. The steam would help soothe her raw nerves and the water—
“Oh, my God,” she shrieked, backing into the nearest wall with a thunk.
Hunter stood in the middle of the bedroom, looking grim.
Chapter 11
A tense second passed, during which Livia tried to catch her breath and settle back into her skin. She opened her mouth to demand to know how he’d gotten in there, but the open window and displaced screen behind the fluttering curtains said it all so she snapped her jaws shut.
Who’d’ve thought her love of Napa’s cool nighttime air would bite her in the ass in such a big way?
Since she hated being outflanked and outmaneuvered, she let both her temper and her sweater fly, hurling the latter at him. Naturally he deflected it with a casual swipe of his arm, the bastard.
“Don’t scare me like that, you son of a—”
“Kindly don’t slam the door in my face again.”
That quiet calm of his was more than she could take at the end of this long day of feeling abandoned and strung out. “Are we talking about manners here? Because I don’t take kindly to being blown off, and I don’t do booty calls. So you can get out right now.”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
Too late she regretted the rashness of throwing her sweater at him, which left her both half-naked and vulnerable to the quiet pain in his eyes. It was more than that, actually. Those harsh facial lines, tight lips and the flashing brown turbulence all added up to one thing.
He’d spent his day every bit as tormented as she had.
That mattered to her but that didn’t mean she was a marshmallow.
“What do you want?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her lacy white bra and praying he couldn’t see the way her breasts swelled and her nipples tightened for him or the goose bumps rising all over her skin.
“Thanks for taking care of Kendra earlier.”
“My pleasure.”
“I hope she wasn’t too much trouble.”
“She was no trouble. I’m crazy about her.”
“We’re crazy about you.”
Whoa. Something shifted just then, charging the air with enough electricity to power the Vegas strip for a month or so. She told herself that physical chemistry didn’t amount to much, that keeping this roller-coaster ride going with him would lead to inevitable heartbreak for her, but none of that mattered when her skin was starved for his.
“‘We’?” she echoed.
“I,” he said softly. “I am crazy about you.”
That raw ache in his voice went a long way toward soothing her bruised feelings and reassuring her. It was terrifying to fall, yeah, but how bad could it be if they both fell together? And he was falling, even if he didn’t say it. She had eyes; she could see his fear.
Still. A reminder of recent events seemed like a good idea. “You didn’t seem that crazy about me this morning. You couldn’t leave me fast enough.”
“This morning it was all I could do to remember that I have grapes to harvest and a winery to run.” He swallowed hard, making his Adam’s apple dip in a rough bob, and then confessed something else that made her knees weaken and her heart pound. “It was all I could do not to lose it when you told me you’re leaving tomorrow.”
The words came before she could think about the wisdom of telling him. “I don’t… I don’t have to leave tomorrow. Rachel and Ethan have been delayed again—”
“How long?” he demanded urgently, cutting her off.
“Three weeks.”
His face twisted, although whether it was with a sob or a grin, she couldn’t quite tell at first. “Three weeks,” he repeated, and he said it with the wonder of a man who’d been gifted with a room full of beer, pizza and a recliner parked in front of a theater-sized TV tuned to ESPN. “Three weeks.”
Much as she wanted to fall into his arms right now, they had to get some things straight. She couldn’t spend another day like this one. No one had died, true, but another day like this one just might kill her.
“You hurt me this morning,” she told him.
“So why come back now?”
“I can’t stay away from you,” he said simply. “It’s out of my control.”
That did it. She was now, officially, in love with this man.
With a glad sob, she launched herself into his arms.
*
They came together hard and fast, with a grappling urgency that bordered on violence. Hunter caught her face between his hands and angled it way back, imprisoning her and using aggressive licks and nips to possess her mouth. She opened up for him, a flower unfolding her petals for her sun, sucking him deeper, needing him more, needing it all.
In this world full of frightening new feelings between them, this was the scariest: he had her. She couldn’t seem to give herself over to him fast enough. Not her body, certainly, and not her heart, either. They were his. All of her growing whimpers and cries belonged to him, and her swelling breasts and weeping sex were his, too. Did he know that she’d never lost herself like this before? That his presence sparked a fever in her and his smile made her head light?
Could he see this terrible weakness in her?
The words came and kept coming because he’d unlocked a hidden mechanism that wouldn’t let her hold things back from him; everything she had and was belonged to him and she gave it freely. It wasn’t enough that her shaking hands shoved aside his jacket and dove under his sweater, hungry for the hot skin underneath. She had to narrate everything, paint him a picture and draw him a map.
“I missed you.” It was hard to kiss him and talk at the same time, but she somehow made it work, brushing her lips against his and tasting him with her tongue even as she rubbed her breasts against his unyielding chest and raked her nails up his back. “I missed you so much. I couldn’t breathe with it.”
“I missed you, too.” Beneath all that smooth skin, she felt the flex of his tightening muscles, the vibrations as he tried to hold himself in check. He ran his hands all over her torso, zeroing in on her breasts and freeing them from her bra with a flick of his fingers. “You were all I could think about. This was all I could think about.”
Love in the Limelight Volume Two: Seduced on the Red CarpetLovers Premiere Page 11
