by Lili Valente
To say my father was pissed would be the understatement of the past several millennia.
He was a devastating mixture of disappointed and enraged. We didn’t speak a word to each other for two years. He hated me for betraying him, I hated him for refusing to let me choose my own path, and we both hated apologizing too much to make any meaningful effort to mend the rift between us.
We might have stayed estranged forever—or at least a decade or two—if Julie hadn’t been diagnosed with breast cancer. Being faced with the possibility of losing someone we both loved is what it took for us to pull our heads out of our asses and get back to being family. I was there for him, he was there for Julie, and a new normal—a normal where we enjoy each other’s company without ever discussing coopering or tattooing—was established.
Which reminds me…
“Just FYI, my dad and I never talk about my work or his work,” I say, pulling to the side of the road to make room for a bus packed with drunk tourists. “It’s part of our truce agreement. So if talk turns to professional stuff, don’t be surprised if I don’t chime in.”
“Got it.” She nods, leaning farther out the window and inhaling deeply. “It smells so good here.”
“It does.” I study her blissed-out expression, not certain she’s understood me. “But I’m serious, Red. I don’t talk work with my father. Ever. It gets ugly if we even start.”
She nods again. “I get it. My dad and I never discussed religion, gays in the military, Ronald Reagan, my mother, my father’s family on his dad’s side, sex, gun control, pot, feminine hygiene, or Elvis Presley. I’m very good at avoiding family trigger topics.”
“Why Elvis? What did he ever do?” I pull back onto the road, satisfied that she does indeed get me. I should never have doubted her.
“I had a crush on him when I was little,” she says, letting her fingers play through the wind as we drive. “I made Dad perform a wedding at sea between me and my teddy bear, who was playing the part of Elvis in Blue Hawaii. Dad had one of his friends film it and brought the video out every Christmas to torture me.” Her tone grows wistful. “It was actually one of our favorite times of the year, but I pretended to hate it because I was a teenager and that’s what teenagers do, you know.”
“I do,” I say. “I pretended to hate the winery when we first moved, but it’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived. Hell, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ll say.” Cat’s jaw drops as we turn the corner and the money shot comes into view. “Wow, Aidan, it’s gorgeous. It’s paradise with a side of Tuscan countryside.”
And even though I’ve seen it a hundred times before, the panorama of the rolling hills with the lake far below and the neat, ordered rows of vines spiraling away from the big red barn that serves as the tasting room, pings pleasure centers deep in my brain. But it isn’t the landscape that takes my breath away. It’s the redhead leaning forward with her hands on the dash to get a better look, an awed expression on her face that makes me want to arrange to surprise her with wonderful things at least once a week.
Her gaze is still glued to the scene unfolding before us as we wind down toward the tasting barn, and she reaches over to take my hand. “Thanks for bringing me here. I love it already.”
“My pleasure,” I say, threading my fingers through hers. “Hopefully my parents won’t change your mind.”
“No worries. I love parents and parents love me. I know how to put on my best manners. I was raised by a general, remember?”
“Just know that my stepmom talks all the time, and my dad hardly ever talks at all. It’s nothing personal. She never listens to what other people have to say, and Dad gives everyone the cold shoulder. That’s just business as usual.”
She tilts her head, staring at the entrance to the barn, where my father’s mounted fish trophies and my stepmom’s collection of antique road signs serve as eclectic decorations. “I’m not worried.”
“Good. You shouldn’t be,” I say, trying to hide the fact that I’m worried for her. The closer we get to my father, the more certain I am that he’ll be a cranky bastard to Cat and make me want to smash a fist into his grouchy face for the first time in years. I’ve come to terms with the grouch factor, but Cat has been through enough. She doesn’t deserve to be forced to humor a fractious old fart on top of it.
But there’s no turning back now. As we circle the barn and pull up into the driveway in front of the Mediterranean style villa overlooking the lake, Julie and Dad are already out in the flowerbeds, up to their elbows in dirt.
Julie stands immediately, waving an enthusiastic arm. She’s talking before Cat and I can shut off the engine.
“There you are!” She pulls off her gloves and tosses them onto the sun-warmed driveway, the skin around her blue eyes crinkling as she smiles. “Oh look at you! Aidan, I swear you’re even taller than I remember! And you must be Cat. Look at that hair! Oh my God, you’re like a pre-Raphaelite model from a painting. Isn’t she, Jim?”
My father, predictably, says nothing, but he does stand and step out of the flowerbed with a semi-civil nod in Cat’s direction. He’s wearing khaki pants and a button-up shirt because Jim Knight refuses to wear jeans, even to garden, because jeans are undignified.
“Just gorgeous, and such beautiful skin.” Julie floats toward Cat with her arms outstretched. “I’m so glad you’re here, love. You are so welcome and warmly received.” She pulls Cat in for a hug that lasts a little too long because Julie’s hugs always last too long, but thankfully Cat doesn’t seem to mind.
She returns the embrace with a smile. “Thank you so much for having me. I can’t wait to see where Aidan lived as an angsty teen.”
Julie chuckles, releasing Cat from her embrace, but still clinging to her hand. “Did you hear that, Jim?”
My dad grunts in response, which is actually a lot from him. But then he always enjoys it when other people give me shit.
“He was angsty, especially at first,” Julie whispers to Cat with a wink for me. “But sweet, too. There’s a heart of gold in that big furry body. I’ll tell you all the embarrassing stories over a glass of wine or three. You drink?”
“Yes,” Cat says, grinning. “The sooner the better. I can’t wait to hear embarrassing Aidan stories. I’ll tell you mine, and you can tell me yours.”
Julie laughs. “Oh good! Finally someone willing to tell on you, Aidan! I love this girl already.”
“Now, come on, Red,” I say, popping the trunk to grab our bags. “I’ve never told your embarrassing stories to anyone.”
“That’s because you’re a gentleman.” Cat detaches herself from my stepmother and crosses to claim the small roller suitcase Shane loaned her this morning. “And I really do like that about you.”
“Yeah, well, just remember how much dirt I have on you, Panties,” I murmur as we start toward the front door. “Push me too far and I might forget my manners.”
“I hope so,” she says for my ears only. “I like that side of you, too.”
The sexy, suggestive lilt in her voice would usually have been enough to get my blood pumping faster, but at that moment we draw even with my old man, who falls in beside us.
“How’s the garden?” I ask, nodding toward the decorative cabbages, one of the many weird things my father collects. “Cabbages are looking good.”
He grunts again. “Good enough.”
“Are those your fish mounted above the door to the barn?” Cat asks pleasantly, kindly ignoring the fact that my father is a terrible host and hasn’t said so much as hello to her. Lucky for him, Julie handles everything to do with the guest cottages on the other side of the property, or the business would have failed years ago. “That tiger fish is impressive. I pulled a three-footer out of Lake Tanganyika on a fish safari with my dad, but I’ve never seen one that big.”
As the words leave her mouth, my father lights up. He literally turns a lighter shade of tan as some cranky-old-man filter is lifted
from his features by the pure joy of meeting a fellow angler and fish aficionado. Of all the things Cat could have said to this man, she picked the absolute perfect thing, the one guaranteed to un-mudgeon the curmudgeon.
“Four feet, ten inches, and eighty-eight pounds,” Dad says, his barrel chest puffing out. “And that’s no fish story. Biggest striped waterdog our safari guide had ever seen that wasn’t a goliath.”
“Jesus,” Cat breathes, the proper degree of awe in her tone. “That must have been one hell of a fish fight. What kind of tackle were you using?”
My father launches into the war story of Jim versus the Striped Waterdog with Teeth as long as a Man’s Finger, one of his favorite stories in the world, and by the time we’ve dropped our bags inside the door and joined Julie on the back patio for wine, my father has arranged to steal the seat next to Cat’s. But I don’t mind.
I’ve only brought three women home in my entire life, and never in the course of my dating career have I given two shits what my father thought about the girl I’m with. My father doesn’t care much for me, his own son, and I’ve learned not to have feelings about that. I’m so far beyond caring what my father thinks of my taste in romantic partners it’s laughable.
Or so I’d thought…
But as I watch my father smile—smile, like a normal human being capable of being amused and not grunty and scary—at Red, I can’t help hoping the spell won’t wear off. I like that Jim realizes that she’s something special. I like hearing Cat talk fish and African safaris and old cars with my father and realizing that this is the way she must have talked to her own dad. It’s a part of her I’ve never seen, and it makes me like her even more.
“Good job, big guy,” Julie whispers as she refills my glass with her latest pinot noir. “I’m so happy for you, sweetheart. You deserve love with a wonderful girl.”
She squeezes my shoulder and moves away to refill the other glasses before I can respond.
And I’m glad. Because I don’t know what to say.
I’m not ready to name what I feel for Cat—certainly not something as big as love—but as she meets my eyes across the table with a smugly triumphant look that clearly says “see there, Curve, told you I’d make them love me,” I can’t help but smile.
She’s a pain in my ass.
She’s always been a pain in my ass.
But I’m beginning to think it’s a pain it would be terrible to live without.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
By the time we drink wine, eat dinner, and drink some more wine while watching the sun set over Lake Cayuga, it’s almost nine o’clock, I’m feeling no pain, and Cat is flushed and giggly.
“I’m fading fast,” I finally whisper just after nine-thirty. “If we don’t find our way to the cabin soon, I’m going to pass out on a lounge chair.”
“Oh, thank God.” She laughs again, a rich, round sound that sends happiness bubbling through my blood. “I’m so drunk and soooo tired. I’m going to pass out the second my head hits the pillow. I don’t see how you’re still awake. At least I had a nap in the car.”
“Awesomeness,” I say, or try to. The word is so badly slurred it inspires another giggle from Cat, attracting Julie’s attention.
“Are you two ready to turn in?” she asks. “I made up the guest room for you upstairs.”
“I thought you had a cottage free,” I say. The thought of sleeping down the hall from my father and stepmother, where they will be able to hear everything I say or do to Cat, is enough to sober me up pretty quickly.
“I do.” Julie stands, stretching her arms over her head. “But that was before I knew the friend you were bringing home was a girlfriend. I had you two in one of the kid cabins, the ones with the bunk beds. It’s the only one I have free.”
“Oh, that’s fine,” Cat says, clearly not liking the thought of being under the same roof with my parents any more than I do. “We love bunk beds. It will be like the hostels we stayed at back in college.”
“Yeah. It will be great.” I nod enthusiastically, glad my father headed up to shower an hour ago. As smitten as he is with Cat, I’m sure he’d lobby to have us stay here so he could talk fish with her over coffee in the morning.
Julie shakes her head. “Are you sure? I mean, those mattresses are narrow and you’re—”
“We’re sure,” Cat and I both say at the same time, before she adds, “Yes, ma’am, we’re sure. And if it isn’t too rude I would love to head over to the cottage now. I’m starting to feel like the walking dead.”
“Of course.” Julie sets her glass of water on the deck table—the wise woman stopped after two glasses of wine, like the professional she is. “I’ll give you a ride over in the golf cart. It’s on the far side of the glen, so you should have privacy. The other cabins are full, but it’s a quiet crew. They turn in early, but they’ll be up early, too, so you two should get your rest.”
I pull her in for a hug, giving her an extra squeeze of thanks. “Will do.”
Fifteen minutes later, after driving Cat and I over and giving us a brief guided tour of our cottage—a kitchenette, sitting area, bathroom, and a bedroom with two sets of bunk beds on either side of the cozy space—Julie waves good-bye and zips away up the hill.
Cat and I stand in the doorway, watching her go, silent for a moment.
A moment in which my exhaustion vanishes in the wake of the knowledge that I am alone. With Cat. And there’s a bed less than ten feet away.
She glances up at me, her eyes glittering in the dim light. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
I pull her inside, locking the door to the cottage before bracing my hands on either side of her face. “If you’re thinking you’re not ready to go straight to sleep anymore, then yes. I am.”
“Right?” Her lips part as her hands come to my waist, trailing up under my shirt. The second her cool fingers brush across my hot skin, I’m hard. Hard, aching, and desperate to have her. “How could I even think about sleeping without taking a shower first?”
“A shower?” I bite my lip as her hands drift higher, molding to my chest. “You’re sure a shower is all you want?”
“I haven’t showered in over a day, Aidan,” she says in mock horror as she brushes a thumb across my nipple, adding another item to the list of things on my body that are hard because of her. “That’s disgusting. I’m a disgusting person.”
“That’s not the word I would have used.” I move in closer, dropping my hands to her waist.
Her eyes darken, and her fingers curl until her nails dig into my chest. “It’s not?”
I lower my head, bringing my lips inches from hers. “I was thinking…delicious. That’s the word that comes to mind when I think of you.”
“Which makes you disgusting,” she whispers in a husky voice I can feel in all the places I desperately want her to touch. “Can’t you smell me?”
“I can.” I inhale, humming in appreciation as her hands smooth around to my back, urging me closer. “You smell like sunshine and that sweet white wine you spilled on your shirt and…buttered popcorn.” My lips curve in surprise. “When did you eat buttered popcorn?”
“I didn’t.” Her palms find my ass, and I flex my muscles beneath her grip, loving the way she touches me—without hesitation, without any doubt that every part of me is hers to explore. “That’s what my sweat smells like at first, before it transforms into a more funky popcorn smell.”
“That’s amazing.” I smooth my hand up her ribs, cupping her breast in my hand and finding her tight nipple through her tank top. “Your body is a fucking miracle of sexy evolution.”
“So, buttered popcorn turns you on.” Her breath rushes across my mouth as I intensify the pressure on her nipple. “Good to know. I’ll invest in a popcorn machine for my living room and crank it up before you come over.”
“Fuck buttered popcorn. You turn me on. Everything about you.” I curl my fingers into the top of her shirt, tugging it low enough to bare her breast, drawi
ng a soft gasp from her lips. “I need to get my mouth on you, Red. I need every part of you pressed against me.”
She arches into my fingers as I find her nipple again, this time with nothing between us to mute the electricity that leaps between bare skin and bare skin. “Then you’re going to have to get what you need in the shower, Mr. Knight.”
“I’ll fuck you in the shower.” I reach for the bottom of her tank top, ripping her shirt and bra over her head in one smooth motion before pulling her back into my arms. “I’ll fuck you anywhere, anytime. Dirty or clean, sweet or kinky, any way you want it, as long as I get to feel you come on my cock.”
“How about sweet and dirty?” she asks, as I lift her up and turn to carry her into the bathroom, my hands braced beneath her fantastic ass and her legs wrapped tight around my waist. “I don’t want too kinky tonight. I just want to make love to you.”
My heart does a hard flip in my chest. I pause in the doorway to the bathroom, staring deep into her eyes. “I want to make love to you, too. So don’t hide from me, okay?”
She blinks, but she doesn’t tell me I’m crazy.
Instead she leans in, kissing me softly, deeply. Kissing me until my pulse races and I start feeling drunk all over again. But this time, I’m drunk on her, this woman who makes me feel things I’ve never felt with anyone else, who makes me want to stand still and dig deep and tell the truth.
“I mean it,” I mumble against her lips as I set her down by the shower. “You ran away too fast last night.”
“I was just taking precautionary measures,” she says, working her words in between kisses as we dispose of the rest of our clothes as quickly as possible. “Running before you could beat me to it.”
