by Darcy Burke
“What are you smiling about?” Alaina asked. Her eyes had narrowed almost imperceptibly, but Crystal knew her as well as she knew herself practically. She was scrutinizing—and trying to draw conclusions.
“Nothing, knock it off.”
Alaina didn’t look convinced, but she returned her attention to her salad.
Crystal looked over at Jamie and saw that he was eating too. She suddenly felt bad for not inviting him to join them. “Hey, you guys mind if I go join Jamie at the bar?”
All three women pinned her with an inquisitive stare.
She felt as though she had to clarify. “To advance our objective.”
“Right,” Brooke said. “Are you sure you might not be a little interested? He’s a really nice guy. And he comes from a great family.”
Crystal gave her a side-eye. “Except for that whole KKK thing.”
Brooke huffed out a breath. “Yeah, except for that. But that’s not them—not now anyway.”
“Hell no,” Kelsey said vehemently. “The Westcotts are the nicest people, and they do a lot for the community. Their dad, Sam, is the principal at the middle school. He runs a summer school for the children of migrant workers. A lot of them get pulled out of school in the winter to go home to Mexico and they fall behind. He makes sure they catch up in the summer. And their mom, Angie, helps with that. She’s the head secretary at the elementary school.”
“That’s pretty cool,” Crystal said. She could’ve used a summer school. “But really, you don’t need to sell Jamie to me. He is a nice guy. I’m just not interested. In anyone. Besides, I don’t even live here.”
“You’re here a lot, though,” Alaina pointed out.
“Just because of you and this research. When that project is over, I will likely be here a little less.” She arched a brow at Alaina. “Someone has to hold things down in LA.”
Alaina exhaled. “I suppose. Go on, then. Go sit with Jamie and ask him if he’s aware his ancestors burned down a brothel.”
“I wonder why,” Kelsey mused, staring at her plate for a moment. She looked up, focusing on the rest of them. “I mean, I wonder why they targeted the brothel. Was it just because it was a house of ill repute, or was there some racial motivation?”
“You saw the photograph of Dorinda,” Crystal said. “She was definitely Caucasian.”
“Sure, but maybe not all the women there were.” Kelsey picked up her fork and speared a cucumber in her salad. “Just thinking out loud.”
Crystal scooped up her plate with its half-eaten burger and stood. “Okay, then, wish me luck.”
She trekked across the restaurant to the bar. Jamie looked up as she approached.
She offered a tentative smile. “Hey. Mind if I join you?”
He stared at her for a second before blinking. “Sure.”
She set her plate on the bar and took the stool to his left. “Great.”
“I’m, uh, surprised. I thought you were ignoring me.”
She winced. “Yeah, I sort of was. I’m sorry.” She brushed her hair back from her face. “That was some night. I wasn’t sure what to say. I’m still not.” She felt the heat in her cheeks and wished she hadn’t pushed her hair back.
“It was an incredible night. I know exactly what to say: thank you.”
“Uh, you’re welcome?” She laughed softly. “And thank you.”
“Actually, what I really wanted to say is, when can we do it again?” He flashed her a wicked smile that curled her toes.
She chuckled, but when she looked into his eyes, she immediately sobered. He was serious. Her body reacted, pulling toward him as if they were magnetized. “Hey, George,” she called to the bartender. “Can I get another cider?”
He waved at her from down the bar where he stood pulling a beer from the tap. “Sure thing, Crystal.”
Feeling a bit nervous, she took another bite of her burger but promptly decided she wasn’t really hungry anymore.
Jamie took the last bite of his burger and pushed his plate a couple of inches away from him. “So you came over here to apologize, or was there something else?”
George brought her cider but didn’t linger since things were busy. She took a sip and scooted her plate away too. “Mostly to apologize. I didn’t want things to be weird. Or weirder anyway.”
“I didn’t think things were weird. Well, until you didn’t respond to my texts. Then I started to worry that I’d screwed up somehow. But that didn’t make sense because we hadn’t talked since the other night when I thought things had been anything but weird. Did I miss something?”
Damn, it was hard to sit here this close to him with his spicy, herbal scent and memories of the other night swirling around her. “The other night wasn’t weird. My not responding to your texts maybe created an awkward…thing. I didn’t want that.” She really didn’t. “I was just being a coward. Like I said, it was some night. I don’t usually behave like that.” Flashes of all the things they’d done zipped through her mind, and heat rose up her neck again.
“Me neither. That’s what made it so awesome.”
Okay, this conversation was going nowhere. At least nowhere she wanted it to go. She was supposed to be talking to him about his family, and yet all she could think about was jumping his bones again.
Focus, Crystal.
“I actually did come over to talk to you about something.” She turned on the stool, her hand gripped around her pint glass, and froze. He’d pivoted toward her too, his hazel eyes—with their long, dark, way-too-sexy lashes framing them perfectly—locking on her with laser precision. She’d looked into those eyes the other night as he’d stroked into her, driving her to a mind-melting orgasm. Her breasts felt suddenly heavy, and her core throbbed.
“What did you want to talk about?” he asked, breaking through her lust-addled haze.
“Sex.”
5
Jamie’s cock roared to life, stiffening in his jeans and causing him to shift on the barstool. “I beg your pardon?”
She turned her head from him and picked up her cider, downing a good, long drink before setting it back on the bar. When she looked at him again, her eyes only met his briefly and her cheeks were stained a light pink. “Um, never mind. I did not mean to say that.” She ran her hand through her hair, tousling it so that several strands fell rather haphazardly against her cheeks.
“Um, okay.” What else could he say? He turned back toward the bar and drank from his pint. Almost time for another. Or not. He’d been thinking of inviting her back to his place—it was a short walk—but he was very confused. And since he didn’t always have the best filter… “I’m confused.”
She peered at him askance, her hair still partly blocking her face from him. “Yeah, I would be too.” She exhaled and turned, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Look, I like you. And I had an amazing time the other night. But I’m not looking for anything.”
“Me neither,” he said cautiously because while he didn’t want a girlfriend, he certainly wouldn’t mind hooking up with her again.
“No, I mean, anything. At all. Not even sex.”
He didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure, because your subconscious just said you were.” She cocked her head to the side and stared at him, causing him to chuckle. “You just said you wanted to talk to me about sex.”
She looked a bit flustered, the color rising in her face again. “But I didn’t mean to say that.”
He shrugged. “Sure, but you did. Something inside you was thinking about it anyway. And out it came. Despite that, I hear what you’re saying. I definitely do not want to pressure you or be annoying in any way. So was there anything you actually wanted to talk to me about?”
She stared at him a moment, and he had the sense she was trying to figure out what to say. At last, she widened her eyes briefly and gave her head a shake, as if she were trying to wake herself up or something. “Yes, I do have something to talk to you about. I wanted to ask you about your family. More specifically, y
our mother’s family.”
Of all the things he’d thought she would ask, that was decidedly not one of them. “Okay. Shoot.”
She laughed softly. “You’re confused again—and I don’t blame you. I’m really effing things up here. Sorry. You’re just very…attractive. And I can’t look at you without thinking of the other night.”
The desire he’d felt a few minutes ago had faded but now ratcheted up again. “I feel the same. But, we aren’t doing anything about that, so please continue.”
“Right.” She sounded a bit disappointed, which gave him hope. Maybe she was fighting a losing battle here. He’d let her figure it out and reach her own conclusion. He just hoped it was the one that involved him. And her. Getting horizontal. Or vertical. Honestly, he didn’t have a preference.
“So you know I’ve been working on the Ribbon Ridge history project with Kelsey and the original house that used to be on your vineyard.”
“Your passion project. Anything you’re passionate about is at the top of things I want to know.”
“Flirtatious again, I see,” she said with a bit of sexy sass.
“Only with you.”
She laughed. “I doubt that, but whatever. I’ve been trying to find out why it burned down and what happened to the women who lived and worked at the brothel. I’m especially curious about Dorinda. When Kelsey said I was obsessed, she was maybe only exaggerating a little.” Her gaze turned sheepish, which he found endearing.
“Why do you care about this woman?”
“That is a good question. I guess I, uh, I connect with her on some level. Life dealt her a crummy blow when her husband died, and she had to make some tough choices. Since she was married, I have to assume prostitution wasn’t really in her wheelhouse.”
“You could assume that, but really, you don’t know. Have you tried researching her background or her family?”
Her brow furrowed for a moment. “We’ve tried a lot of different avenues, but I don’t think we tried to find the Fosters—that was her maiden name. I’ll talk to Darryl about that, thanks.”
“So you said you connect with her and that she’d been dealt a crummy blow. Did that happen to you?”
She looked at her cider before taking another drink and kept her gaze averted as she answered him. “Somewhat, I guess. I’m sure I had more choices than her. And I didn’t always make very good ones.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and presume you didn’t open a brothel.”
Her gaze met his now—in amusement, which was what he’d intended. “You presume right.”
“How does my family fit into all this?” he asked.
“Darryl found that the mayor of Ribbon Ridge at the time of the fire was Hoyt Stowe.”
The back of Jamie’s neck pricked. “Whoa. And he’s my ancestor?”
Crystal nodded. “Yes, we’d love to see any family documents you might have—anything at all.”
He polished off his beer and thought for a minute. “I really don’t know if we have anything like that. My mom would know, probably. There are some albums that my grandmother used to like to pull out. She died about four years ago, though.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks, she was fun.” Jamie had loved her banana bread and her library. Grandma had been a big reader and was the reason for his intellectual curiosity. “She lived less than a mile from us when I was growing up. I used to ride my bike over there on Sunday mornings so we could do the New York Times crossword puzzle together.”
Her lips curved into a soft, warm smile. “That’s so cool.”
“I still think of her every Sunday when I do it.”
She picked up her cider. “I don’t think I’ve ever even tried. Too intimidating.”
“Bah, it’s not that bad. Just take it one word at a time.”
She let out a dark laugh. “Spoken like a guy with multiple master’s degrees from a prestigious school. Anyway, back to the reason for my being here—could I maybe talk to your mom?”
“I don’t see why not. She likes to have people over for dinner. That okay with you?”
“Sure.” She set her cider back down after taking a drink. “She’s not going to think it’s a date, is she?”
“Not unless I tell her it is.” He peered at her closely. “Is it?”
“No.” She answered rather quickly, but he wasn’t disappointed. Still, he wondered why she’d brought it up. Along with the inadvertent sex answer, she seemed to have a hell of a subtext going on.
The three women she’d been sitting with earlier came toward them.
“Hey, you left these at the table,” Alaina said, handing Crystal her coat and purse. “We took care of the bill with your credit card.” She laughed, and Crystal joined her. Jamie realized she’d been joking. Alaina looked over at Jamie. “Hi, how’s it going?”
“Good, thanks.”
Jamie also said hello to Brooke and Kelsey, both of whom he’d come to know well since they were engaged to his brothers.
Alaina turned to Crystal. “We’re taking off. You coming?”
Crystal hung her purse on the back of her chair and draped her coat over it. “Nah, I need to finish my cider.” She tipped her head toward her glass. “I’ll see you later. Or tomorrow.”
Alaina nodded, and the three left. Jamie leaned his elbow on the bar. “You live at Alaina’s, right?”
“I don’t live there. I stay in her guesthouse when I’m in town.”
“And how often is that?”
She rested her hand on the bar near her pint glass. “Maybe once a month—sometimes more, sometimes less. I live in LA, so it’s not far.”
“Do you like it there?”
She nodded enthusiastically. “I do. It’s bright and hot and loud—completely different from where I grew up.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
Her gaze was warm and held a rich satisfaction that he’d glimpsed the other night. “The best.”
“London was loud, but not bright or hot.” He chuckled. “Try gray and cool, but I loved it. I’m an Oregonian through and through. Which is why I came home, I guess. As much as I loved living in London, it always felt temporary to me. I knew I’d come home at some point, and starting the winery up with Cam and Luke and Hayden presented the perfect opportunity. Even if it did practically bankrupt me.” There went his faulty filter again.
Her expression darkened with concern. “I thought the winery was doing well.”
“Oh, it is. It was a start-up, though, and we all poured a lot of money into it.” Some more than others. They’d tried to make it a four-way equal partnership, but Hayden, with his trust fund, had a lot more money than Jamie and his brothers. And of the three of them, Cam and Luke had more than Jamie, who’d been fresh out of school with a mountain of debt. He’d scraped what he could together, but he’d been—and still was—leveraged to the hilt. “I’m good with numbers, though, so it’s all working out.” More or less—he’d started day trading a few months ago to try to dig out of his hole. He was gaining steadily, but very slowly.
She finished her cider and pulled her purse out from beneath her coat. “Can I get your dinner since I acted like a moron?”
“I must’ve missed that.”
She rolled her eyes as she extracted her wallet. “I don’t return your texts and then I come over here and send you a bunch of mixed messages. If not moronic, definitely graceless. That’s what my mother used to call me—Grace is my middle name.”
“Why on earth would she call you graceless?”
Unzipping her wallet, she pulled a card out and tossed it on the bar. “Because I was clumsy as hell, and remember what I told you about making poor choices? Yeah, that’s pretty much been a lifelong thing.”
“You really don’t have to pay for dinner.”
“Can I do it anyway?”
Some guys might say no because of their ego, but Jamie didn’t let that nonsense get in the way. Crystal was the personal assistant of a majo
r A-list actor. She could probably pay off Jamie’s debt ten times over without breaking a sweat. “Sure.”
She smiled, and George came over to pick up the card. He chatted with them for a moment before taking off again. “He’s so cute,” Crystal said. “Especially since he and Kelsey’s grandma got engaged.”
“Yeah, that’s going to be the wedding of the summer.” He glanced over both shoulders and whispered. “Don’t tell Cam and Brooke.”
Crystal laughed. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
George brought the receipt back for her to sign, and when she finished, she stood to put on her coat. Jamie jumped up and helped her, holding the garment while she slipped it on.
“Aren’t you a gentleman?”
He winked at her. “I try to be. Can I walk you to your car?”
She hesitated but ultimately said, “Sure.”
He grabbed his coat and tugged it on before following her from the pub. She looked sleek and sophisticated with over-the-knee black boots with a killer heel and a fitted wool coat that belted at her waist. “I can’t imagine you have much use for that coat in LA.”
She turned on the sidewalk, a frigid breeze tousling her hair. “No, I leave it here—in the closet at the guesthouse.” She tipped her head to the side. “Hmm, I guess you could make an argument for me living here!” She meant it as a joke, but intellectually, he agreed that one could definitely make that argument. Not that he planned to.
“Where’s your car?” he asked.
She gestured across the street. “Down there and over on Second.”
He lived on Second. “You’re either in front of my loft or just past it.”
They crossed Main and headed to the right toward Second.
“I forgot you lived there,” she said. “I’m a bit past it. You don’t have to walk me all the way.”
“I am a gentleman.” He had another idea but weighed whether to say it. Fuck it, maybe her subconscious had decided to take over. “This is only a suggestion, but you’re welcome to come up to my loft for a drink. Or whatever.”
They turned the corner, and she slid him a hooded look as another stiff breeze rustled her hair. “Damn, it’s cold. Would this drink be hot?”
