by Lori Wilde
This was nuts. Stop thinking about her legs.
Wyatt shifted his attention to the ladder. “Your ladder looks precarious. How old is it?”
“It’s older than I am, but it’s fine. Don’t worry about me. I don’t need you worrying about me.”
“How about if I just hold—” He stepped closer.
“I said I’m fine,” she barked.
He raised both palms and backed off. Sheesh, if she were an animal, she’d be a pit bull. “Are you always this testy?”
“When there’s an annoying intern who can’t show up on time buzzing around me, asking irritating questions, yes, I’m always this testy.”
Wyatt chortled.
Kiara snorted and leaned over too far in order to reach the smoke detector.
“Look out.” Wyatt rushed over to steady the ladder.
But it was too late. Gravity already had ahold of her, and momentum took her down. The ladder stayed secure in Wyatt’s grip, but Kiara lurched sideways.
He grabbed for her and felt his own equilibrium shift.
The ladder scooted across the terrazzo tile. Kiara tumbled free, falling into his arms and knocking him flat onto his backside.
Reflexively, he curled his arms around her waist, folding her protectively to his chest. She knocked the pins out from under him. Literally. He was smack on his butt, Kiara cradled against him.
Gotcha.
Their gazes met.
Glued.
Her eyes rounded wide, and she started to draw back, but he wasn’t about to let her go. He saw on her face the same baffled attraction that seized him like a sudden chokehold.
“The ground moved,” she said.
Hallelujah to that.
Good God, but she was a showstopper. Beyond that overgrowth of unruly curls were the most intelligent eyes he’d ever had the pleasure of falling into, and Wyatt had fallen into the pool of many an attractive woman’s gaze. Not to mention that she smelled really good too— like cotton and soap and strawberries.
For a long second, it seemed they were frozen in place, their bodies plastered together. His arms wrapped around her. Her gaze grafted to his. Their lips so damned close it ought to be illegal.
If he kissed her, what would she taste like? Grapes? Or something deeper, more exotic?
He didn’t remember that they were sitting on the floor of her lab, that she was his boss, he her employee. He didn’t recall that he was supposed to be spying for his brothers.
Wyatt moistened his lips, dipped his head and...
Kiara uttered an impatient noise of utter irritation, slapped a palm against his chest, then sprang away and scrambled to her feet. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Um, I thought I was catching you, so you didn’t bust your butt on the floor.”
“Not that.”
“What?” He got to his feet. Okay, intriguing she might be, but the woman was damn contentious.
“You were about to kiss me.”
“In your dreams,” he lied.
He had been thinking about it.
No, that wasn’t true. He’d done more than think about it. He’d been about to kiss her. Why had he been about to kiss her?
He was skating on thin ice, borrowing trouble and a dozen other clichés that threatened to get him tossed out of Bella Notte’s internship program.
Stop thinking about kissing her. Stop thinking about her as a woman. That should be easy to do. She didn’t try to be attractive—no makeup, baggy clothes. Not in the least. But hell, even the fact that she didn’t try to attract him attracted him.
How messed up was that? He deserved to get booted. He was acting like a hound dog.
“You licked your lips,” she said.
His mind was whirling so fast that it took him a second to remember what they were talking about. “They were dry.”
“And you had that look in your eye.”
“Look? What look?” He tried to sound innocent but at the same time splayed a hand over his stomach. Was it pitching because of the full body contact with Kiara or because she’d read his mind?
“You know what look.”
“No, honestly, I don’t know what look.”
“That guy look.”
“Oh, like you’re so sexy I can’t control myself? Like I have to kiss you or die?” Wyatt slapped a palm over his mouth. Crap, had he actually said that out loud?
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Her cheeks pinked. “I…didn’t say that.”
He stepped closer. “You think it’s all I can do to keep from ripping your clothes off you and making love to you?”
For the first time since he’d met her, she looked rattled, uncertain. “Forget I said anything. It was a dumb thing to say.”
“Think a lot of yourself, do you?” He loved that the shoe was on the other foot and he had her on the run. “You think you’re so tempting that you stir the animal in me?”
She backed up. “I don’t think I’m tempting.”
“Really?” He couldn’t stop looking into those green eyes. He took another step. “Isn’t that why you hide behind frumpy clothes and granny glasses? Precisely because you are beautiful and you’re afraid your assets will get in the way of professional relationships.”
“Yes...no... You’re twisting my words.” She was on the ropes. “I know I’m not beautiful, but I also know that men really don’t need much to get charged up.”
“Just because you fell on me doesn’t mean you rev my engines,” he lied. “You did fall on me.”
“I told you not to steady my ladder.”
“If I hadn’t been there, no one would have broken your fall.”
“Good.” She notched her chin up. “That’s the way I like it. If I fall and break myself, I take full responsibility.”
“You like taking full responsibility, don’t you?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“You can’t be fully responsible for everything. The world doesn’t work that way.”
“I can try.”
“What are you so afraid of?”
“I’m not afraid of anything.”
“No?”
“No,” she said firmly.
“Why are you resistant to help?”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I don’t like you.” She took another step backward and ran into the door. She looked scared.
That wasn’t good. He didn’t want her to be scared of him. He couldn’t ever remember a woman being scared of him. He wasn’t a scary guy. Why was she scared of him?
“I don’t like you,” she repeated.
“Well, what do you know, we have something in common, I don’t like you very much either. You’re way too cranky.”
What was wrong with him? What had happened to the filter from his brain to his mouth? Why was he provoking her? Did he want to get kicked out of Bella Notte?
Did he want to live down to his brothers’ expectations? Was he that self-destructive? Maybe he was just defective. Aw, ouch. Raw nerve.
“You’re way too glib.” Her jaw hardened.
“I was simply trying to help you. If you had let me help you, none of this would have happened.” He walked closer.
This time, she held her ground, balling her delicate hands into tight little fists. “I like to do things on my own.”
He clucked his tongue, then covered the last step between them until once again they were face to face. “Everyone needs help now and then.”
Wyatt lowered his head.
Kiara swallowed audibly. “Not me.”
“Liar,” he said, and then he did kiss her.
He really intended only to tease. A quick brushing of their lips to show her that kissing him wasn’t such a terrible thing. But what he didn’t expect was for her to sag against his chest and open her pretty mouth to him.
Sweet.
Wyatt closed his eyes. She was soft and warm and pliant and, hey, maybe Steve was
right after all. Maybe she was looking for an intern hookup. She tasted tangy, like spearmint, crisp and cool, sharp and authentic. He was feeling off balance, and he could have sworn he felt the earth shift.
Kiara pulled away.
“Mr. Jordan,” she said primly.
“Yes, Ms. Romano?” He opened his eyes.
“I don’t think this relationship is going to work out in a satisfactory manner for either of us.”
“Yeah?” So why she was looking at him with lust-glazed eyes?
“Yes.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying, Mr. Jordan, that you’re fired.”
“You can’t fire me. You’re not paying me.”
She looked taken aback. “Then I’m uninterning you. You’re no longer my intern.”
“Just because I caught you when you fell?”
She notched her chin up. “Yes.”
“So if I’d just let you fall and break a leg, that would have been cool.”
Her mouth twitched. “You’re an impossible person, Mr. Jordan.”
“This whole supertaster thing, I thought you’d been searching years for my particular skill. Don’t you need my tongue?” Okay, he went too far with that one; he knew it the minute he said it, but it was so much fun watching figurative steam smoke from her ears.
“Not if you were the last supertaster on the face of the earth. I’d turn to making vinegar instead. There’s a ferry leaving for the mainland in three hours. Be on it.”
4
Kiara’s mind was in turmoil.
She couldn’t believe Wyatt Jordan’s sheer audacity. She spent her days in a lab or in the vineyard. She was unaccustomed to men like him, charming cads who didn’t take no for an answer, brash fellows who called her on her opinions, sexy guys who heated her up from the inside out with one sizzling glance.
It unnerved her. Irritated her. Scared her.
And when Kiara got scared, she got tough.
“Just like that?” Wyatt murmured. “No second chances?” He shot her a hangdog look.
No more strays. One black kitty was enough.
“Look, Mr. Jordan, I run a tight ship. It has to be this way. This winery supports my entire family. The quality of our product rests on my shoulders. I can’t have some glib guy making a joke of my livelihood.”
“I wasn’t making a joke.”
“Be that as it may, I simply don’t think you’re Bella Notte intern material.”
“There’s nothing I can do to convince you otherwise?”
“No—” Kiara only got out one word before a sharp jolting sensation rocked the earth. A stronger version of the faint tremor she’d felt on the ladder. Felt and had assumed was her own weak-kneed silliness over Wyatt.
Beakers rattled. Pipettes rolled over the counter and crashed to the floor, scattering splinters of glass. The ground shook, trembling for several long seconds that felt more like hours.
Kiara and Wyatt lurched into each other. He slipped an arm around her waist. She didn’t protest. She was too stunned. She should have drawn back. She would have drawn back except his warm touch instantly soothed and oriented her dizzy head.
They stared into each other’s eyes and simultaneously breathed. “Earthquake.”
“At least a five-pointer,” Wyatt said.
“Probably a six.” Kiara pulled away from him and placed a hand to the wall to steady herself against the faint tremors still vibrating through the ground.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
Her gaze rested on his face. Her breath stilled in her lungs.
His smile, quick and ready, sent her head reeling.
“Kiara,” he repeated, her name coming out low and husky in the quiet room. “You’re bleeding.”
“What?” She startled and glanced down, acknowledging now, a sliver of flying glass had embedded in the pad of her thumb. “Oh.”
“Let me,” Wyatt said, reaching for a tissue from the box that had fallen on the floor. Before she could protest, he took her hand in his warm palm, hooked his fingers around her wrist and with his other hand, wrapped the tissue around the shard and deftly removed it.
Fresh blood bloomed. He dabbed it with the corner of the other end of the tissue until the bleeding stopped.
Kiara stood there, acutely aware of the heat and scent of this man invading her personal space, but she did not feel threatened. In fact, his proximity made her feel strangely safe.
He looked her in the eyes, then lowered his head and raised their joined hands and gently kissed the pad of her wounded thumb.
It was the simplest kiss in the world. Light, tender, and over so quickly she wasn’t sure he’d done it.
For a moment, she stared at him, transfixed, her thumb tingling from his touch.
From outside the lab came the sounds of people spilling from the buildings, chattering in excited tones. There were guests on the premises. She had to make sure everyone was okay, and she had to put some distance between herself and Wyatt.
“I have to go check on things.”
“I’ll go with you.” Wyatt was already heading for the door.
She wanted to tell him no, to just leave, but he was already leading the way from the lab, opening the side door and standing aside for her to exit.
His dark eyes gleamed as if he were enjoying himself. What was that all about? An earthquake turned him on? Some people got an adrenaline high from natural phenomena like tornadoes and earthquakes.
Was he one of them?
Maybe it’s not the earthquake that turned him on.
Kiara shoved that thought aside. She didn’t have time for Wyatt Jordan and the strange, unwanted attraction she felt for him.
The first person she saw was Grandfather Romano. His shock of thick white hair was mussed, but he did not look alarmed. He’d come from the visitor center with a trail of bug-eyed tourists following behind him.
“It was not such a big one,” he said. “A few broken bottles. Some cracks in the walls. Not like the quake of ’89. We lost half our vineyard in that one.”
“Felt pretty big to me,” mumbled a pale elderly woman leaning heavily on a cane.
“How can these people live in a place where the earth shakes willy-nilly?” asked her companion.
“We live here,” Grandfather Romano said, sweeping his hand grandly, “because there is no more beautiful place on earth to grow grapes.”
“There’s Napa,” Wyatt said to Kiara.
Kiara snorted. “Idyll is far superior to Napa.”
“According to the Romanos.”
“You like Napa so much, go intern there.”
At that moment, Maurice appeared from the main house, his wife Trudy coming up behind him. “We’ll round up the interns, enlist their help inspecting the vineyards,” he said.
“I’ll check out the refrigeration unit,” Kiara offered. “Grandfather, please take our guests into the tasting room. Have Grandmamma put out a cheese tray and open some wine. Free samples for everyone.”
A cheer went up from the crowd.
The earthquake wasn’t her fault, but the guests would remember how she’d turned their negative experience into a positive one. Yes, it would cost some money, but good PR went a long way, especially when the bulk of their profits came from onsite sales.
Kiara strode across the well-landscaped grounds, alert and searching for signs of damage. Wyatt kept up with her, stride for stride. The guy was about as easy to get rid of as bedbugs, but what surprised her was the warm rush of gratitude that winnowed through her. It felt nice, having someone at her side.
Are you freaking kidding me? Nice? Since when have you ever needed nice?
Right. What was she thinking? She’d just fired the guy for being too forward. Kiara grimaced.
The minute they stepped into the refrigeration room, it became immediately clear that something was amiss. A horrible rattling noise was coming from one of the machines.
“Oh, dear.” Kiara rushed
forward.
“Sounds like the compressor,” Wyatt said.
Kiara groaned. “That’s going to be expensive.”
Wyatt stepped to the back of the unit, bent over, and inspected the undercarriage. She shouldn’t have been staring at his butt. She had far more important things to be thinking about, but she couldn’t seem to stop her gaze from tracking up the length of his long legs to where his backside was cradled snugly in his jeans.
Enchanted, Kiara caught her bottom lip up between her teeth. She was so focused on his gorgeous ass that when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket, she jumped.
Wyatt raised his head. “You okay?”
“My phone.” She pulled the cell phone from the pocket of her apron.
Wyatt went back to inspecting the refrigeration unit.
“Hello,” she said, her gaze still trained on Wyatt. There ought to be a law against looking so damned sexy.
“Kiara, it’s your mother.”
“Did you feel the quake in the city?”
“We did. It was a little unsettling. Flashbacks to 1989.” Her mother chuckled. “But really not that bad. We heard on the news that there were some minor mishaps. Nothing major. How’s Bella Notte?”
Kiara cast a glance at the refrigeration unit. She didn’t want to upset her parents. They were in San Francisco for her father’s checkup following a rigorous course of chemotherapy. Besides, this was nothing. A minor blip in the grand scheme of things.
“Great,” she said. “Hardly worth noting. How’s Dad?”
“He got a clean bill of health.” Her mother’s voice was heavy with relief. “The PET scan showed no reoccurrence of the cancer.”
Kiara let out a deep breath, only just then realizing she’d been holding it. “Mom, that’s so great.”
“It is good news. But we’re stuck here for another night at least. It’s breaking news, but the earthquake did some minor damage to the ferry dock, and it looks like there’ll be no ferries to or from the island until they get it repaired. One of the workers I talked to seemed optimistic that it could be repaired in a day or two.”
