Love You Always (Buttercup Hill #5)

Chapter 3

CHAPTER 3

A rcher

I start for the door of my office, forcing my sister to trail after me if she wants to keep nagging. Her legs are shorter than mine, and I hear her heels click-clack down the hallway as she tries to keep up.

“Beatrix will murder you if you’re not nice to Ella Fieldstone,” she calls after me. Her phone rings and she stops following before I make it to the bottom of the stairs. “Hi, yes, put her through.” She pantomimes that she has to take her call and points toward the driveway where Ella parked her car. Then she puts her palms together like she’s thanking me.

I mime flipping her the bird.

Her voice recedes as I cross the main floor of the barn, which has exposed ceiling beams, pale gray walls, and open shelves containing Buttercup Hill memorabilia—vintage wine labels, old photos of the property, vintner awards. In the time since I took over as winemaker, we haven’t been within shouting distance of an award, but I plan to change that.

As I stride past weathered oak tables and leather chairs, the double doors fly open, and there, aglow in the morning sunlight, is Ella Fieldstone. Her untamed hair forms its own halo. Her cheeks flush naturally, no makeup needed. Clear blue eyes open wide like inviting mountain lakes.

Blood floods my veins and my skin tingles. I don’t understand why or how, but her presence slams into me like an addiction I won’t want to quit. One part irritating, one part extra strength magnet.

This sensation has only come once before. Back in LA. I couldn’t explain it then, either.

Same girl, different circumstances. I buried the memory back then, just like I will now.

I can’t believe the feeling dares rear up again when I know better. But here it is. Unwelcome, but here. If I doubted it was possible to feel something deeply for a woman I don’t even know, now I have double proof.

The air feels like it’s been sucked from the room. Sucked from my lungs. I stand there feeling unsure of whether my legs can support my six-foot frame.

I assume it’s not just me who feels it because she’s built a career as America’s sweetheart, making people fall in love with her on a screen. But it’s an illusion. It has to be.

It’s not just that she’s beautiful. I wish it was that because then I could accuse myself of being shallow and get over it. No. She’s an impossibly brilliant light. And I’m the unwitting moth, desperate to get closer, even if I burn.

Goddamn.

Just beyond Ella’s form in the doorway lies the most beautiful view in all of Napa Valley, acres of cabernet grapevines catching the yellow sun and hills just beyond the miles of rolling land that make up our property. I gaze out there every day and remind myself why I’m working to the bone to save our family business.

But that view—all of it—simply falls away, pale as an ugly fog behind the woman standing there.

Light kisses the bare skin of her arms, hanging gracefully by her sides like a ballet dancer. She tilts her head to the side as her eyes squint and adjust to the dim light indoors. She looks softer and more vulnerable than I expect. Less…sure of herself? Well, she is an actress after all. She owns the goddamn room, even one with a lone man in it.

It’s almost like someone ran ahead and adjusted the lighting just so. Arranged the breeze to hit her so that her tangle of wild hair would fly around the soft features of her face, making me strain harder to stare at her pale pink lips.

And I am staring, no doubt about that.

Sixteen inches of paper , I remind myself. I don’t have time for nonsense like pitter-pattering hearts. Or celebrities who show up at the wrong time.

I expect to see a bevy of handlers rush through the double doors. Someone carrying her purse or holding her jacket on a hanger so it doesn’t wrinkle. Someone asking for an outlet to plug in her blow-dryer or charge her phone. That was my experience with actresses during my stint in Los Angeles.

But she’s alone, her pale pink skirt swishing around her legs and making a soft rustle that my ears strain to take in. When the doors finally close behind her, Ella stops a few feet away, regarding me from head to toe before looking down, almost like she’s embarrassed.

Ella takes a step closer, and I feel my skin flame hotter. I ignore the sudden urge to wipe a hand over the back of my neck, which feels sweaty. My pulse quickens as she takes the final step closer and extends her hand. I don’t want to shake it. I don’t want contact with her skin. A warning signal from my brain tells me that if I touch her, life will never be the same .

“Hi, I’m Ella.”

I ignore my brain’s warning, enveloping her small hand in mine. I expect a soft, breakable grip, but she gives my hand a firm shake like we’re closing a business deal. I already know that a business deal is the last thing I want from her, and I swallow hard.

“Archer.” My voice is a choked rumble, and I try to repair it by barking out a few more words. “You okay? I saw you fall.”

Her cheeks flush like twin red apples. She grimaces and looks down. “Oh, um, yeah. It looked worse than it was.”

I notice a few dots of blood seeping through the sheer fabric of her skirt and realize her knee is grazed. “Come. Sit here.” I point to one of the brown leather armchairs.

“What? Why?”

“Just…please. Can’t have you bleeding all over the vineyards,” I grumble, put out about the chore of dealing with her until my sister arrives.

I walk to the staff kitchen behind the tasting room and grab a first aid kit with some antibacterial spray and a bandage. Kneeling in front of her, I tip my head up to indicate she should move the fabric of her skirt. When she does, I swallow hard at the sight of her pale skin, all smooth and perfect except for a bleeding gash on the knee.

I don’t want to touch her—can’t afford to touch her, given how my heart is thudding in my chest—so I drop the first aid stuff in her lap. “I’m sure you can handle putting on a Band-Aid.”

Her brow furrows, but she takes the supplies and quickly plasters on the bandage before standing back up. “Thank you.” She looks down at her skirt and dusts it off, but what I’m staring at is the wild disobedient curls, the heart-shaped mouth, the curves that she’s trying to hide under an oversized peach sweater. I don’t know how to look away, even though I know she’s wearing another man’s engagement ring. I don’t know why she has me so unnerved, and it bugs me .

She clears her throat, but her voice comes out raspy. “I…um, was hoping to find Beatrix Corbett. It’s the wrong day, but I was in the area, so…”

“So, you don’t have an appointment today? Yeah, that’s not gonna work. My sister is probably booked all day, so I’d just come back at the right time. Or call her on the phone.” I sound irritable, which is better than dick-whipped.

“Oh. Well, shoot.” She looks at the floor again. “Yeah, I guess I should have expected that. I don’t know what I was thinking, coming today. I guess…honestly, I wasn’t even in the area. I drove up from San Francisco just because I needed some time in the car, you know?”

She trains her eyes on me, and I feel myself flinch. Something in her gaze unnerves me. It’s not just the pure deep blue of her eyes, though they conjure impossibly calm waters. There’s a playful challenge, daring me to look at her longer. Like some vital question about the universe might be revealed if I do.

And despite myself, I want the answer to that question.

“Yeah. We all need a road trip now and then.”

Her gaze softens and I earn the barest hint of a smile. “True.”

“Anyhow, sorry I can’t help you.” I turn to go back to my office, but her hand on my shoulder makes me flinch once more. Only this time, it’s because her palm leaves a shock of goosebumps in its wake. Turning, I see determination in her eyes.

“But you do work here,” she affirms.

“Yes, but I have nothing to do with weddings.”

She doesn’t budge.

“Beatrix is your sister.”

I exhale a twinge of annoyance at myself for giving up that information a moment ago. “Yeah.”

“Interesting.”

I cross my arms and take a step back so I’m outside of touching distance. “Really? I see nothing interesting about the fact that she and I are siblings. Nothing.” Her eyes widen at the unwarranted irritation in my voice, but it’s my only possible defense against this woman who I should have sent on her way ten minutes ago. I need to be every bit the asshole I have a reputation for being, if only so my brain gets the message— no good can come to this moth from standing close to her .

“Regardless, you’re the brother I’ve been dying to meet.”

My pulse quickens at that idea, and I forget to take the next breath. I recover and roll my eyes at her overstatement. “No one is ever dying to meet me, and once they do, they generally wish they hadn’t.”

“Why? Your personality?” She smiles, and my traitorous heart starts beating faster. My throat feels thick when I try to swallow.

“I have two other brothers,” I desperately choke out, reminding myself that I do not like this woman or anything about her celebrity.

“Is one of them a winemaker?”

“No.”

“So, she meant you.” She taps a finger against my chest, and I bristle at the ripple of heat that shoots out in all directions from the barest hint of her touch. Then I take a step back and her hand falls. She watches it sink through the air before her eyes return to mine, accusingly. She shrugs, as though my disinterest is irrelevant. “I was hoping…” She twists her fingers and half-smiles like I’ve made her nervous. “Look, I know I need to pick wines for the reception and all that, but between you and me, I’m a science nerd and I was really hoping to learn about viniculture.”

“I—” I shake my head, having no idea what she’s talking about. “You want…what?”

“When I come here, I’m so gaga over the vineyards that I can’t focus…my brain is dying to know how you turn those beautiful grapes into wine that people talk about a thousand miles from here.” Her eyes dance and sparkle, and I want to write her off as an entitled celebrity who wants something we don’t provide. And yet…in the time since I took over the wine operations, not a sing le wedding client has taken an interest in viniculture. Something I love.

A new flutter blooms in my chest. It both pisses me off and rattles my nerves because my heart doesn’t flutter at women anymore. Quite the opposite. I need to focus all my attention on keeping the family business going for the sake of my siblings. I need to be the man my father asked me to be, end of story. I can’t indulge the whims of a woman who will distract me from everything that’s important.

I’m the one who goes gaga over the vineyards. Not her.

“That’s not how it works. My job is to run the place, produce the wine we ship all over the country. I’m not a teacher or a performer.”

She nodding. “I get that. I don’t mean to be a bother. But maybe…I could quietly shadow you sometime? You wouldn’t even notice me.”

I look at her with her sun-kissed cheeks and rosebud mouth and try to imagine how she could go anywhere without notice. A part of me wants to do whatever she’s asking, purely as an excuse to keep looking at her. But my boundaries are there for a reason. I need to stay within them.

“I don’t fuck around when it comes to our wine. These are hundred-year-old vines. We grow cabernet in a sought-after appellation that’s known around the world. Wine making is a science. It’s not an excuse to get drunk and post selfies. I’m not doing some dog-and-pony show for your social media feed.”

The barn echoes as my harsh words bounce around in the otherwise silent space. The high ceilings eventually absorb the bark I expected to scare her away, but she doesn’t move.

Jutting her hip out to the side, she taps a finger against her lips like she’s considering how to answer. Her other hand flexes and balls into a fist as though she might slug me instead. I’m oddly intrigued by the power she seems to wield in her pint-sized frame against a guy who’s six-three .

“Okay, then.” She wrings her hands and then wipes them on her skirt like they might be sweating. Like I make her a little nervous, which seems impossible. Ella Fieldstone emotes on camera in front of a huge crew for a living. Nothing about this situation compares to that. “Sorry to have bothered you.”

She turns to go, the whisp of a skirt flapping behind her as she spins on her heel. Her unruly hair trails down her back and catches whatever light spills into the room through the windows. I feel a sense of relief to be rid of her combined with a near-desperate urge to pull her back that I can’t understand.

“Ella!”

We both turn to find Beatrix striding in from the tasting room in her customary dark suit and high heels, which make a staccato sound on the wood floor that feels like nails poking my skin. From the glare she shoots in my direction, I can tell she heard at least part of the conversation, and she’s not happy with me.

Ella’s skirt swishes as she walks over to my sister and they hug. “I’m sorry I showed up a day early.”

“Aw, no worries. Happy to see you.”

“That makes one of you,” Ella says, shooting me a look.

“Oh, don’t mind Archer. He’s our resident grump, but he’s the key to everything we do here, so we cut him some slack.” She’s speaking in an upbeat, cheery way that makes her sound like Mary Poppins dosing kids with sugar. Ella laughs, and I roll my eyes, eager to be done with both of them, now that they have each other.

“I’ve been trying to convince Archer here to teach me about wine making.”

I shoot Trix a warning look, a scowl meant to communicate that she should not entertain this bad idea.

“Really?” Beatrix ignores me and flashes a smile at Ella. It bugs me that she’s buying into the whole celebrity thing and treating this woman like anything other than what she is—a royal pain. “ I’m sure we could arrange that. Archer knows more than any of us about what we’re growing and how that translates into the wines we’ll sell all over the world. He’s your guy.”

I close my eyes in the face of the two-against-one battle and shake my head.

“A lot of what I do is more or less chemistry lab work. It’s not wine tasting, if that’s what you’re thinking.” I shrug, ready to see her eyes glaze over at the mention of science. Most visitors to Buttercup Hill are more interested in drinking the wine than looking at it under a microscope.

Her eyes go wide and she starts nodding. “Sounds amazing.” She bites down on her bottom lip almost shyly when she smiles. It’s the kind of smile that melts solids into liquid and sets fire to entire cities. The woman is good at her job.

Actresses. I shake my head.

“I read all this cool stuff on your website about viticulture and viniculture and the history of the vines here. I guess I just wanted to go further down the rabbit hole,” Ella explains, wiping sweat from her hands on her skirt. It’s the way I imagine people feel when they meet her.

“I’d venture to guess that very few people read that part of our website,” I say. It’s one more challenge, daring her to look at the floor and admit she only gave it a passing glance. I spent weeks writing and rewriting that part of our website even though PJ told me I’d drive our guests to drink from sheer boredom with all my farming details.

“I read it all.”

I raise an eyebrow, and somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain, I accept that Buttercup Hill needs this wedding, which means I need to toe the line. It’s what I vowed to do when I took over from my dad, so if that means letting Ella Fieldstone traipse behind me for an hour, I’ll do it. We need the publicity and the money, and I’m out of energy to fight everything and everyone all the time .

“Sounds like you two will have a lot to talk about, then,” Trix says, her stern look telling me I’d better not screw this up. “After Ella and I are done with our meeting, why don’t I bring her back and you can ply her with wine knowledge?”

“I can’t today. I have meetings with a grower off-site, and my day is packed.”

“I can come back another time. Whatever suits your schedule,” Ella offers, eyes wide and willing. Beatrix taps the toe of her pump on the wood impatiently, and I exhale the last bit of fight.

“Fine. Next week. Same time, same place,” I grumble, dreading it and looking forward to it despite myself.

“Great,” my sister says, beckoning Ella to follow her out of the barn toward the restaurant where she has her office. I watch as Ella looks down to navigate her way out the door without landing on her ass again. She and Trix move to the door, where there are two steps down to the gravel path.

Slipping past them, I stand next to the door and unobtrusively lift the hem of Ella’s skirt so she can walk down without stepping on it. She walks beside my sister, seeming not to notice my interference, which is a relief. Last thing I need is her thinking I care one bit about her.