Chapter 12
CHAPTER 12
E lla
Callum has the patience of a gnat. Once he’d checked out the honeymoon suite, he had no interest in seeing anything else at Buttercup Hill and took an Uber back to the city. It took a lot of pleading to get him up here today, so maybe I should count myself lucky that he saw the venue at all. I guess guys aren’t as into all the wedding details—or maybe just this guy.
After confirming that I want to rent the entire inn for the wedding weekend, I leave Beatrix’s office and walk back to my car. At least, that’s what I should do.
I should not wander over to the winery and see if Archer will make good on his willingness to show me the rest of the wine-making process.
I shouldn’t.
But I do.
Archer is standing outside the wine cave deep in conversation with two men in wide-brimmed straw hats. As I draw near, I overhear that they’re speaking in Spanish, but I only recognize every third word or so from my rudimentary high school classes. I don’t know why it surprises me that Archer seems fluent.
It’s so freaking hot hearing him roll his Rs that I feel a searing flash of heat shoot through my body. Which absolutely should not be happening. Not when I’m engaged to another man. Even if it’s fake, we have a deal, and I’m not about to jeopardize the adoption process by letting my lady parts run the show. But oh, how they want just a taste of Archer Corbett.
Before Archer notices me, I take him in from a distance. He has that rugged strength that doesn’t come from hours in a gym—or at least not only from that. He works with his hands, hefting bins of grapes from his truck, just as easily as he handles delicate glass beakers and looks at minute differences in sugar levels.
He pushes his hair back from his face with strong fingers and his muscles flex—all of them, from the bicep I can see to the shoulder muscles under his worn tee. The sun hits his face, kissing the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the hard line of his jaw. Nothing about him helps stop the ripple of desire I feel spreading from my chest to my limbs. And lower, to my aching core, where it has no business going.
I’m engaged , I remind my parts.
Archer turns and catches me gawking. The corner of his mouth quirks up into a half grin, the closest thing I’ve seen to a smile thus far.
Finishing up his conversation with a few quick directives, he leaves the men behind and strides over to where I feel rooted to the earth. “You’re still here.”
“Yeah,” I say, dizzy at the nearness of him. I blink and let out a long breath, mentally talking myself down. “I thought if the offer for a tour still stood…but you’re probably busy.”
Glancing back at the men working forklifts outside the cellars, he shakes his head. “No, I’m good. ”
“Really? I don’t want to be a waste of time when you have a winery to run.”
The blue of his eyes deepens, and he looks almost angry. “Nothing about you is a waste of time.” The intensity of his words seems to surprise him, and he looks away.
I want to just roll with it. I’m used to people who are awkward around celebrities and it’s easy enough to flash the America’s sweetheart side of my personality to put them at ease. But a part of me doesn’t want to put Archer Corbett at ease. I like his intensity, especially when it’s directed at me.
“Okay, then. Show me what you’ve got, slugger.” I flash him a smile and take two exaggerated steps toward the cellar before his expression relaxes and he catches up.
“You’re trouble, you know that? I really should be working, but this is more fun,” he admits.
I nod. “How often do you allow yourself to have fun?”
“Almost never,” he admits.
“Shocking. Okay, I feel better about distracting you, then.”
On our way into the cellar, we pass a shed full of buckets and tools. Archer grabs two clean glasses from a tray on a metal countertop similar to the one in the lab. I follow him up a set of stairs to a massive cellar, where the air temperature drops a good twenty degrees from outside. A narrow wooden plank floor runs between rows of giant round metal vats under the slanted roof of the cellar.
Archer opens one of the vats, its lid lifting to reveal a swirl of dark red grapes fermenting in their own juices. He waves some of the vapors toward us with one hand. “Have a sniff, but don’t get too close because there’s a lot of gas in there and you’ll get a face full.”
I don’t back far enough away, so I’m assaulted by the intense scent of something between ripe and rotten fruit. It takes effort not to gag. “Smells…good.”
Archer’s low chuckle echoes under the bare beams of the ceiling. “ Not yet it doesn’t. At least to most people, and I’m sorry to say, darlin’, you don’t have much of a poker face.”
“Fine. It’s awful. Do you disagree?”
“I’m just used to it. Smells like bacterial progress to me, and this one with the high intensity and heat coming off the top is nice and ripe.”
“Yeah, it’s ripe all right.”
Archer closes that vat and opens a few more as we make our way down the row. Each one smells slightly different, or maybe I’m just getting used to the smell of fermenting grapes. When we reach the far end of the room, another staircase takes us down to the cellar, where massive metal tanks stand floor-to-ceiling. Each one has a tiny spout on the front, and Archer wastes no time opening a tap and pouring some wine into each of our glasses.
He waits as I take a large sip. I immediately wince at the sickly sweet liquid and can’t force myself to swallow it. I stand there, cheeks inflated with the too-large sip of awfulness. His eyes dance in amusement as I decide whether it’s appropriate to pour what’s left of my wine on his head. “You can spit it into the glass. It’s okay.”
I let the wine dribble from my mouth indelicately. “What was that?” I ask.
“Very young wine. Nearly all sugar.”
“You think?” I wince at the layer of sugar still coating my tongue. Archer walks to one end of the room and comes back with a bottle of water, twisting off the cap before handing it to me. I gratefully slug down a gulp of water, then another, but it’s not lost on me that he bothered to loosen the cap. Something Callum would never do. Then I admonish myself for comparing them.
“Sorry. I should’ve warned you before you tasted that one, but the look on your face was priceless.” He takes the bottle from my hand and shoves it into the front pocket of his jeans.
“I will find a way to exact revenge.” I stand tall, but that still puts me at a foot shorter than his muscled frame, and I doubt I look very imposing.
He smirks. “The rest of these are more mature, taste like the wine you’re used to.” We walk to the next tank and Archer pours out the wine that was in our glasses without sipping the vile sweet wine himself.
When he puts them aside and pulls out two fresh glasses, I stop him. “You don’t need to waste two glasses. I’m happy to share to save someone washing them, I mean, if you’re okay sharing a glass with me.”
A muscle ticks in his jaw, and he nods, putting one glass down and pouring a few ounces of white wine into one glass. He swirls it around and lifts it up to what little light beams down from the bare overhead bulbs. “I think you’ll like this one better.”
He holds it out to me, and our fingers brush as I take the glass by the stem. A jolt of awareness hits my skin at the contact with his, and when I lift my eyes to his, it’s clear he felt it too.
“Oh no, you don’t. Not falling for that. You drink it first.” I put the glass down so there’s no chance of additional hand interaction.
He picks the glass up and takes a sip, rolling the liquid around on his tongue before swallowing. My insides nearly melt watching him. All thought is funneled to the image of his tongue sweeping across my skin, and it’s all I can do to suppress a moan. My eyes briefly drift shut, and I find him watching me intently when they open. “You okay there?”
I nod, unable to find words, and carefully take the glass from him. I move it to my lips, pressing them to the exact spot where his were only moments before. I don’t know what possessed me to do that, but I don’t regret it. I also don’t regret that I’m suddenly sweating in a chilly room. I take a sip, then another one. “I like this one. It’s the opposite, very alcoholic, not at all sweet.”
Archer takes the glass back from me and takes a sip. I stare as he swishes the liquid inside his mouth, moving his tongue around. It’s the most sensual thing I’ve ever experienced. I feel the urge to videotape him to preserve this erotic moment. Then I come to my senses, remind myself I’m here to taste wine before my wedding , and talk my hormones down. It’s just wedding jitters, surely.
Right. Keep telling yourself that.
While it’s true that Callum has never made me feel even a smidgeon of the heat that’s radiating from Archer, I tell myself that’s unimportant in a future husband. What I need is rationality, a partner who doesn’t make my skin heat, my pulse pound, or other parts of my body flood with a tsunami of pheromones.
Again, keep on perpetuating lies.
I look longingly as Archer pours the remains of his wine into a trough beneath the vats. I need something to cool me down, and almost like he senses that, Archer takes the bottle of water from his pocket and hands it to me. I accept it gratefully and drink down about half of it.
“Better?” he asks.
“Parched,” I say lamely, listing to the side. His hand reaches out to prop me up as though we’re mentally connected and he knows where my body is headed before I do. I feel a zing of electricity along the surface of my skin where he’s touching me, and my eyes drop to his hand.
“I think I’m steady now,” I say. My throat suddenly is dry, despite the ample flow of wine. “It’s a little warm in here is all.”
He looks down as well but doesn’t move his hand. Pulling out his phone and tapping the screen, he nods. “Yeah. It’s a toasty forty-eight, princess.” His chuckle lodges inside my bones. This is where I get myself into trouble—not reading the signs of what men want, not having a firm enough grasp on what I want. I wobble again and he holds tight.
“I’m good. Really.” I take a step back, forcing him to let go. I immediately wish he hadn’t.
“Want to try another? ”
I nod enthusiastically. I can’t possibly be drunk from the little tastes of wine, so maybe it’s the proximity to this lumberjack winemaker making me feel like I’m walking on clouds.
We taste a few more, some sweeter, some more acidic, none ready for bottling. “How do you decide when it’s ready?” I ask, leaning against a cool metal tank for its cooling properties. I also need it to hold me up because of all the wine.
He taps on the side of a tank. “It’s like a watermelon. If it sounds hollow, it’s good.”
“Seriously?”
He studies me, maybe gauging whether I’m a serious enough wine student to merit information. “Why are you so interested in this?” His deep voice reverberates in the cavernous space.
It also reverberates in me, and I wish it didn’t.
It can’t.
It still does.
This is why my reputation was in shambles when I met Callum. Flitting from one man to the next, never finding what I wanted, letting one relationship die after a few dates and picking up with the next tempting man a few weeks later. None of it spelled stability. None of it made it seem like I was holding out for love. None of it made anyone think I’d make a very good mother.
But that is all in the past. Now I have goals, real goals, that stretch far beyond a fling with a hot guy. I want to raise a child and pour everything I have into the health and happiness of someone else. There’s no room for distractions that will take me off course.
Distractions like Archer.
And despite my vague suspicions about Callum’s fidelity, they’re just suspicions. Things have been good between us, and my adoption lawyer seems optimistic that we’ll find a match sooner rather than later.
I need to stay focused on that .
Archer guides me to a different building that’s filled with what look like big green eggs. And by “guides,” I mean that he holds on to my elbow and I hold on to his forearm as I totter across the gravel and focus on not falling. I cock my head, unsure what I’m looking at, even though stacks of wine barrels throughout the space should give me a clue.
“The eggs are a different look but same process. They lend a different flavor profile—we mostly use them for the small-batch, higher-end wines we produce.”
“Ah, and now we’ve come full circle. Maybe those are the ones I should serve at the wedding. With a bespoke label. Is that at all doable?”
At the mention of the wedding, Archer’s eyes narrow and his mouth flattens into a hard line. “Sure.”
I say nothing, waiting for him to explain what has his bloomers in a bunch all of a sudden, but he doesn’t elaborate. “Okay, great.”
“Great.”
“You might want to at least taste them before you decide. We could do that now or set up another time, maybe when you’re deciding on the menu. I can have Beatrix take it from here.”
It feels like a dismissal, and even though I just told myself to stay focused on Callum and my future, I can’t help but feel like he’s shutting me down. And I know why—the mention of my wedding to another man.
It sends a warm flood of emotion through my heart that he’s honorable and has enough integrity to control himself around someone who’s supposedly taken.
“I ought to get back to work,” Archer says, his tone flat. Despite what I thought felt like flirtation a few minutes ago, he’s all business now.
“Of course. Thank you so much for showing me everything.”
“My pleasure.” He hesitates, his eyes roaming slowly over my face, tracing every contour with such intensity that I feel it in my bones. Then he extends his hand. It’s awkward.
“Oh, come on. I think we’re at least at the hug stage,” I say, flashing him my America’s sweetheart grin, cute but meaningless. I reach my arms toward him, but he hesitates before taking a step closer to me.
I’m expecting the kind of hug I get daily from guys I work with on set or husbands of friends—one step up from a handshake, friendly, easy.
Archer’s hug is nothing like that. He envelops me in a hug that I feel in every part of my body. It’s warm, protective, off the charts with sensory overload. I find myself unable to let go.
In each place that his hard planes of muscle meet my softer curves, we fit like the lost puzzle piece in a picture that’s been sitting unfinished.
Holy shit.
This was not a good idea. If this is what it feels like to get a gentle hug from Archer Corbett, all I can think about is what it would feel like to have more of him. All of him.
I push him away with both hands, which land on his abs, and my brain does a quick calculation that there is indeed a six-pack under his soft shirt. Dammit.
“Thanks for…just thanks,” I sputter, backing away as though I’m touching lava. He cocks an eyebrow quizzically, but I don’t have an explanation for what I just experienced. I only know I need to get out of here before I launch myself at him and climb him like a tree.
You are engaged.
“I know!”
Realizing I’ve just answered my subconscious out loud, I blink hard. If I didn’t already seem like a loon, I’m a lost cause now.
“I mean…” I fumble, turning toward where I think the exit is. “I need to go.” I practically run from the room. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
I don’t give him a chance to answer.