Twelve #2
He shakes his head. “I love the business from a distance. But there are too many things you can’t control—weather, vine age, fires, water issues. In medicine, the variables are different. I like knowing the outcome, at least most of the time.”
“What about Rosie’s outcome?”
His expression tightens. “If we can get her a heart in the next month or two, she’ll live a full life. If we can’t… I don’t want to think about that.”
“I get that,” I say.
His eyes meet mine again, searching. “What about you?” he asks. “Do you like the vineyard?”
“I do. I like the people. And you can’t grow up in this town and not know wine.”
With a faint smile, he looks me up and down. Then he sighs and walks away, leaving me standing in the kitchen. “Goodnight,” he calls faintly.
God help me, I want him so badly it hurts, especially because he doesn’t seem interested.
I will him to return and kiss me until my toes curl, but he doesn’t. So I turn the lights off, head to my room, and try to go to sleep. I lie there for what seems like hours, but the clock only shows twenty minutes.
I groan and shove the blankets off, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. Bare feet on cool floorboards. I pad into the kitchen, hoping water will fix the heat still simmering under my skin.
Something cold. Something simple.
I flip on the dim light—and nearly scream .
Beckett is sitting at the counter.
Shirtless.
He’s hunched slightly, reading something on his phone, looking perfectly casual, like he isn’t the cause of my sleepless night.
His hair is messy, damp at the ends from a shower, and he’s wearing soft gray pajama pants slung indecently low on his hips.
It takes all my self-control not to reach out and trace my fingers over the lines of his corded muscles.
He glances up when he hears me. “Couldn’t sleep either?”
His voice is rough, and it scrapes against something inside me.
I blink, scrambling for composure. “I—uh, yeah. Just need some water.”
He sets his phone aside and rests his forearms on the counter. “This place is too quiet.”
I nod, filling a glass at the tap, grateful for the distraction. “That’s the idea.”
He watches me, his gaze steady. I can feel it like static against my skin.
“Why did you come here?” he asks.
“I told you, I needed some water.”
“No. I mean, why did you knock on my door?”
I grip the glass. “I didn’t want Alex to find me.” I hesitate, then add softly, “I wanted to be somewhere I knew I’d be safe and no place anyone would suspect.”
He tilts his head slightly. “Except Caleb.”
“Caleb’s my brother.”
He stands, and I feel it immediately. The shift in the air. The charge.
Like lightning before a storm.
“He told me to look out for you,” Beckett says.
I turn to face him, folding my arms like armor. “Is that what this is? You playing bodyguard?”
He doesn’t hesitate. “No. That’s how it started.” He takes a step closer. “Now it’s something else.”
My throat tightens. I don’t step back. I can’t .
His hand lifts, slow and steady, giving me time to stop him, but I don’t. His fingers graze my cheek, and it sends an ache straight through me. He drags his knuckles along my jaw, and I forget how to breathe.
“You drive me crazy,” he murmurs, his voice a rasp. “You’re stubborn and sharp and impossible to ignore.”
“You’re arrogant,” I shoot back, my voice catching. “And bossy. And a total pain in my ass.”
His mouth curves slightly, but his eyes don’t leave mine. Something flickers there. Then he leans in, just enough that I can feel the whisper of his breath across my lips.
I stop breathing.
The air thickens. My heart slams against my ribs. My lips part on instinct.
But then, he freezes. Pulls back an inch. Maybe less. His gaze searches mine, like he’s reading a truth I’m afraid to say out loud.
“Not yet,” he says, barely above a whisper.
Those two words are both a promise and a punishment. I nod, though it feels like I’ve been split wide open.
He brushes his thumb across my cheek. “Goodnight, Sadie.” He turns and disappears into the hallway, leaving me alone.
Glass in hand. Heart in pieces. And the echo of something I never expected to want still buzzing against my skin.
I return to my room and lie in bed, eyes wide open, staring into the dark like it might offer clarity.
It doesn’t.
My pulse still hasn’t settled. My skin still burns where he touched me. Just a brush of his thumb, and I’m completely undone.
Not because of the almost-kiss, but because he stopped.
Beckett Paradise. Smug cardiologist. Local royalty. The man who argues just to hear himself win—he stopped.
He looked at me like I mattered. Like he didn’t want to screw this up.
And that’s worse than if he’d actually kissed me. What made him stop? I’m confused. “Not yet”? He seems to have a plan.
I roll to my side and punch the pillow, like it’ll knock loose the knot in my stomach.
This was meant to be a clean slate. A break from men—or at least from those who take and take until there’s nothing left. Beckett wasn’t supposed to see me. He wasn’t supposed to make me feel safe. He wasn’t supposed to be kind.
I drag the blanket over my head like it can block out his voice, that low whisper of “ not yet, ” like he’s giving me time. Like he knows I’m scared and he’s willing to wait.
My heart squeezes.
That wasn’t part of the plan. Not even close.