by Marina Adair
Also in Marina Adair’s St. Helena Vineyard Series
Kissing Under the Mistletoe
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright ©2013 Marina Adair
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
PO Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781611099737
ISBN-10: 1611099730
For my grandmother,
who taught me that fluffy
biscuits and a flaky crust
are the true ingredients to
happily ever after.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
Sneak peek: Autumn at the Vineyard
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER 1
If there was one thing Alexis Moreau knew, it was how to make an entrance. Timing, posture, and that enchanting smile that had been passed down from Moreau mother to Moreau daughter for over five generations were key to a lasting—and impeccable—first impression.
Which was why, after driving three and a half days across the country, Lexi planned a middle-of-the-night arrival and snuck into the vacant apartment above her grandmother’s bakery. She needed a good cry, a hot shower, one of Pricilla’s famous éclairs, and at least ten hours of solid sleep before she could face the residents of St. Helena.
Unfortunately, she found a bottle of her grandmother’s Angelica stashed behind a rack of day-old pastries in the bakery kitchen, which was the only way to explain how she woke up on the bathroom floor, eyes swollen shut, wearing yesterday’s clothes and half of an éclair.
She stumbled into the bedroom to grab her things and shower, then remembered that her dress—the outrageously expensive sundress from Neiman Marcus that she’d charged on Jeffery’s account, the same one she intended to wear when she walked out onto Main Street to announce that Alexis Moreau, former prom queen and current five-star chef, was back—was sitting in the trunk of her car.
Maybe they would be so dazzled by her Moreau smile and culinary prowess that they wouldn’t notice her bare ring finger?
Yeah, right. They would take one look at her custard-stained sweats and realize that Lexi had gone from overachieving to barely surviving. And for a girl who, until recently, had received a gold star in the game of life, that didn’t sit well with her current, and rapidly depleting, average.
Lexi looked down at herself, picked a curl of chocolate from her cleavage, and groaned. “Crap.”
Her return home, much like the past six months, was turning out far differently than she’d envisioned.
Most people only got one shot at their dream. Lexi was about to get her second chance at running an acclaimed eatery, and she wasn’t going to blow it. Making the right impression felt like the first step toward her new life.
She looked at the dozen or so boxes piled in the corner of her childhood room and forced herself to breathe. The last thing she wanted to do right then was unpack what was left of her marriage to find an outfit that didn’t have melted ganache on the rear.
So, tossing her pants in the hamper and her custard-smeared tank top in the trash, she riffled through her grandmother’s closet, coming up with a handful of old concert T-shirts, an aqua pantsuit in size twenty, Lexi’s favorite pair of cutoffs from senior year, and her prom dress.
She grabbed the shorts and her grandmother’s shirt, which said Hoff This under a smiling David Hasselhoff giving the finger, and tugged them on. The shirt came down to her thighs and her shorts came up to her butt, the last in a long list of things she wished she could reverse.
Lexi looked at the clock and her heart went heavy, because erasing the past ten years wasn’t going to happen. Neither was ignoring the fact that her grandmother was expecting her in less than an hour, or that she would have to face her family and friends eventually. But when she did, it was going be on her terms. And in that damn sundress. Which meant she needed to get to her car.
Lexi grabbed her car keys and headed down the rear stairs. Cracking the door open, she glanced around, her shoulders relaxing slightly when she saw that the alley next to the bakery and the back parking lot where she’d parked her car was reassuringly empty.
She had snuck in and out of this apartment so many times as a teenager there was no reason that her heart should be pounding out of her chest right now. It was like riding a bike, right? The only difference was that back in high school, she had snuck around so that no one would know she was having sex with Jeffery, and now she was going stealth because she didn’t want people to know that Jeffery had stopped having sex with her a long time ago.
“A quick grab and dash. That’s all.”
Coast clear, Lexi took a single step toward her car, then stiffened at the sound of feet pounding the pavement, followed by the instant clang of jangling metal. Both sounds were wild and hurried. And both sounds were moving.
Toward her.
“Shit!” Lexi reached back for the doorknob, twisted—nothing.
Shit. Shit. Shit!
It was locked. In her grandmother’s mission to protect Lexi’s teenage virtue, Pricilla had installed safety measures: a doorknob that was extremely loud to open, with a lock that was always engaged.
Lexi patted down the sides of her shorts, as though expecting to find magical pockets containing a set of apartment keys. Sadly, she found neither.
“Come here, boy,” a distinctly male, and distinctly familiar, voice called out. Followed by a playful bark that sounded much closer.
Lexi froze, and last night’s pastry dinner declared war on her stomach.
“That’s it, come on. Good boy.” Claws clicked excitedly on the pavement. A dog tore around the corner. He was some kind of mastiff-Thoroughbred mix with paws the size of a polar bear’s and covered head to tail in mud. And he was headed directly toward her. “Damn it, Wingman, I said come!”
This could not be happening.
Fear had her feet moving—and fast. Lexi would rather explain to her grandmother that she had snuck into the apartment than face him. She shot around the corner of the building and, deciding that running didn’t make her a coward, made a beeline down the alley next to the bakery, hoping to slip in the delivery door without being noticed.
She got to the corner of Main Street and stopped, her stomach plummeting to her toes.
The one-lane road was backed up with a line of cars that went past the Paws and Claws Day Spa, made its way beyond Bottles and Bottles—the local pharmacy and wine retailer—and continued toward the highway and the bright-green sign that read:
WELCOME TO ST. HELENA, CALIFORNIA
POPULATION 5,814
BLENDING POETRY IN A BOTTLE SINCE 1858
The sidewalks were even worse. The brick-and-awning storefronts and lamp-lined streets were filled with tourists, tourists, and more tourists, who were
admiring the rows of old wine barrels filled with seasonal flowers and taking in the large banner advertising the St. Helena Summer Wine Showdown. Wine-tasting season was in full swing, and people were out in masses, which meant that Pricilla’s Patisserie would be overflowing with locals, weekend warriors, and Sunday shoppers.
The second she walked into the bakery, she would run into a dozen people she knew, all with a dozen inappropriate questions that would lead to a dozen or more rumors about how Lexi had come crawling home—a divorced failure.
A gentle breeze blew past her, carrying with it the smell of freshly baked choux pastry. Lexi followed the scent and found that both of the windows her grandmother used to ventilate the rear kitchen were opened a crack.
She pried the first window open, her body turning on adolescent autopilot as she hoisted herself through. She got that same old high school thrill until she realized she didn’t have the same old high school hips and found herself ass up, wedged between the window casing.
“Oh God, no.” Lexi rocked, trying to gain enough momentum to tumble to the other side of the windowsill. “Please, no.”
Seconds ticked by, and sweat beaded on her forehead. She clawed at the sill and kicked at the planter box she stood on, mentally willing her hips back to prom night—but she didn’t move, or lose, an inch. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t squeeze herself through the window.
Refusing to give up, she looked around the kitchen, hoping to find something, anything that might help. But nothing useful was in reach—except for a fresh tray of éclairs, which sat just to her right.
Her body sank, dangling like raw dough over the windowsill. It was no use. She was stuck. Trying to move forward while dodging your past was clearly impossible. So she did what any reasonable woman would do under the circumstances: she reached across the table, plucked a petit-éclair from the tray, and shoved the entire thing in her mouth, making sure to lick her fingers clean in the process.
She was reaching for her second pastry when something cold and wet poked her in the butt. She yelped. There was a bark, a sniff, and the wet again.
“Shoo,” Lexi hissed, waving her free hand even though the dog couldn’t see. “Go away.”
“He was just saying good morning.”
Lexi froze, considering her options. When she realized she had none, she snapped, “Well, you should teach him some manners.”
“Says the woman mooning half of St. Helena,” the silky smooth and way-too-amused voice behind her said, as though she wasn’t aware that her fanny was flapping in the wind. “Plus, as far as Wingman is concerned, you were offering him up a doggie high five.”
Closing her eyes, Lexi composed herself and went for enchanting—something she’d once excelled in. Hell, she’d been cheer captain and valedictorian.
But that was all before. Before the end of her marriage. Before she lost her restaurant. Before she found her husband trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey in nothing but her award-winning noix de coco brûlée and a hard-on, while her sous chef Sara used a basting brush and caramelizing torch in ways that were illegal in thirty-seven of the fifty states.
And before she turned her head, looked up through the window, and found herself staring at the one person in town who had never found Alexis Moreau enchanting. In fact, Marco DeLuca, entitled playboy and total meathead, had gone out of his way over the years to let her know just how annoying he’d believed her to be.
Ignoring Marc’s smart-ass grin and Wingman’s breath on her thighs, Lexi realized that with her new diet of cynicism and foolishness, enchanting was no longer her. So she did the next best thing. She grabbed another éclair and—
“No, he doesn’t do well with—”
—chucked it out the window. Barking and jumping ensued, accompanied by a lot of scrambling, mainly on Marc’s part.
“No, boy. Drop it. That’s right, custard’s—”
Wingman went wild at the word, barking and panting with excitement. Lexi knew how the dog felt; she felt a bond forming between her and the canine.
“Get the custard,” Lexi cooed.
“Don’t say that word.”
“What, custard?” Claws tapped the concrete as though Wingman was jumping up and down.
“Stop it,” Marc directed at her, and then, “No, very bad. Let go, it gives you…Aw, Wingman!”
The window next to her squeaked open. By the time she turned her head, Marc was leaning in, his forearms leisurely resting on the windowsill, earbuds dangling around his neck, and his alpha-male swagger stinking up the kitchen.
“Heard you were coming home.”
The way he said it, with an added little wink for extra sting, made her wonder just what else he had heard. Damn it. This was supposed to be a covert homecoming.
She grabbed the last éclair off the table and took a bite.
“I hope you brought enough to share with the class.”
She could have told him that there was another tray on the far wall, but Marc had been a permanent pain in her butt ever since she moved to St. Helena with her mom freshman year. He’d either teased her mercilessly or ignored her completely, a hard accomplishment, since Marc loved everything with boobs.
She looked down at her breasts and paused. They weren’t huge, but even in her grandmother’s baggy T-shirt, they filled out the top nicely. Jeffery had never complained.
Then again, he had also left her for a loafer-wearing vegan who—although she had a bizarre food fetish—looked more like a librarian than the “other woman.”
She took another bite and pondered. Whatever she and Marc used to have, confusing as it was, was just that—history. After she’d filed for a divorce, Lexi had gone from “pest-like friend” to “easily forgotten” in Marc’s eyes. And it had hurt.
Even worse—for Lexi—Marc was not only loved by women, respected by men, adored by the elderly, a real hometown freaking hero, but he was also her ex-husband’s best friend. Had been since preschool.
With a shrug she shoved almost the entire éclair in her mouth. Mumbling around the bits of flaky pastry and heavenly filling, she said, “Sorry, last one.”
Marc reached through the window, snatched the remaining bite—the last and best bite.
“Give it back.” Lexi’s arms shot out to stop him. Only Marc was faster, and meaner. Palming her head with his free hand, he held her down while he savored the last piece.
Lexi swatted him away. “Does everyone get such a warm welcome?”
Reaching through the opened window, he wiped a glob of filling off the side of her mouth. Licking it clean, he smiled. “Only the ones who wear their breakfast, cream puff.”
“I’ll be sure to pack a napkin next time. And it’s an éclair.”
When Marc’s hand made its way back toward her lips, she quickly wiped her mouth on her right shoulder. The white cotton came away with custard and chocolate smears.
“As great as it is to see you again, I’m kind of busy.”
All traces of humor faded, and his eyes went soft. “I can see that. Need some help?”
Yes, she was about to beg. The offer seemed genuine enough, the last seventy-two hours had left her on the brink of tears, and for some bizarre reason Lexi wanted to give in to Marc’s charm and gallantry.
Then Marc came up behind her and, pressing his body against hers, leaned over and reached around her to scrape some leftover filling off the tray. Never one to disappoint, he stepped back and ran a cream-coated finger down the back of her thigh before whistling, “Come here, boy.”
Not caring if she kicked Marc, Lexi started pumping her limbs like a teeter-totter. She might not be the most athletic girl on the planet, but she could still inflict some damage.
“Hold up, you’re going to hurt yourself.” Warm, strong, and incredibly unsettling hands rested on her upper thigh, stopping her movements and sending her heart into overdrive. Not to mention making everything below her belly button tingle.
Oh, so not good. Over the year
s she’d seen many a girl rendered downright stupid by just a single flick of his panty-melting smile. Lexi was not, and never would be, one of those girls.
His hands drifted higher so that his fingertips brushed the bottom edge of her shorts. “Now push back against me, and I will slide you out of there.”
“Nope. I’ve got it.”
“You sure, cream puff?”
Oh yeah. The last thing she needed was his help.
Marc pressed forward, close enough that she could smell his soap. “It’ll only take a minute. Then we never have to talk about it again.”
“I’ll manage.”
“Yeah, while I’d love to sit back and watch you try, it’s nearly ten, which means the Wine Train is about to disembark and its passengers will soon make their way down this alley, and your grandmother’s expecting you any minute. So stop swinging those legs at me, and I’ll help your stubborn ass out.”
When she didn’t budge, except to swing harder while aiming lower for more satisfying results, he said, “Or I can just shove you through to the other side. Either way, cream puff, I’m getting you out.”
Running into Marc with her hair in a messy knot, last night’s makeup on her face, and the unsettling feeling that he knew the truth behind her recent divorce was bad enough. Having him rescue her so he could call Jeffery later to laugh about her humiliating homecoming made her want to throw up.
But just like she’d known six months ago that she couldn’t hold together her marriage, Lexi now knew Marc was right. She couldn’t get out of the window by herself, and the Wine Train whistle was sounding closer by the minute, so she lowered her legs and reached back for his hands.
Alexis Moreau was a never-ending pain in Marc’s ass—always had been. She was smart, stubborn, and sexy as hell, exactly how Marc liked ’em. She was also his best friend’s girl, or ex-girl, which in man speak translated into hands off, something his brain had always known, but his dick had a hard time accepting.
If she hadn’t seemed close to tears a moment ago—or seemed as though she would rather ram him in the nuts than accept his help—he would have kept walking. And that was exactly what he was going to do, right after he got her out of the window, made sure she wasn’t hurt, and found the spare key to Pricilla’s apartment, which he was certain was hidden under the garden gnome.
