Chapter One
What the fuck.
Xander Bridges slammed on his brakes half a second before he remembered it was storming, the rain coming down in unrelenting sheets, and the road resembling a creek more than it did an actual swath of asphalt.
It would have been really fucking difficult to make him forget it was raining—the water coming down from the sky had been relentless for his entire drive home from another long day at Terroir, the Michelin-starred restaurant where he worked insane shifts as a sous chef.
But the sight before him made him forget nearly everything.
To the left, there was a vineyard, which was not the surprising part of the view.
There were vineyards everywhere you looked in the Napa Valley, some better, some worse, some merely mediocre.
Xander knew that the vineyard he was looking at now wasn’t any of those.
It was one of the first vineyards that had ever been planted by the Hess family, and therefore one of the first vineyards ever planted in Napa.
It wasn’t just good or great or anything else on that spectrum; essentially, it was priceless.
And there was a man out there, battered by the sheets of rain, yanking up the vines with his bare hands.
It wasn’t even close to the smart thing to do. Xander hit the brakes anyway, and skidded along the edge of the road, finally coming to a stop right next to the embankment.
He sat there for a moment, heart thumping with the surge of adrenaline. From the skid he’d taken or the man, who was still ripping up the vines, it was hard to say.
If Wyatt or Miles, his best friends, had been here, they would have told him to keep his ass in the car and drive away.
No good could come from him walking into the torrential downpour and confronting someone who was clearly insane.
But Wyatt and Miles weren’t here—they had moved to LA, leaving Xander behind—and he was riding a rough-edged fuck it mindset these days.
The only smart thing he did was to leave his phone in the console, charging, and to pull off the zip-up sweatshirt he’d thrown over the undershirt he generally wore under his chef whites.
It was wet, sure, but it wasn’t cold, and he didn’t need to be bogged down by extra soaking wet fabric.
He knew it was going to be miserable, but the first blast of moisture to the face still made him gasp as the rain ran down his face.
Slamming the car door shut, he struggled through the mud of the embankment, finally making it to the edge of the vineyard.
He climbed over the short, pointless wire fence, and started walking toward the man destroying hundreds of thousands of dollars of vines. Maybe even millions.
The man hadn’t seen him yet, even though Xander stopped in front of him, only a few yards away.
He was completely intent on the vines, hacking away at them with his bare fists, tearing and pulling and grasping, caught up in a rage that Xander recognized, deep down.
He’d never acted on it though, had only internalized it, and had developed a finely honed sarcasm to express it safely.
The man wasn’t internalizing jack shit.
It occurred to Xander that despite not wanting to ruin his phone, he shouldn’t have left it in the car. Now he was completely at this man’s mercy, and he didn’t seem particularly stable, with a side dish of barely leashed control.
He shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be interfering. But he was here now, increasingly soaked, and so he spoke up.
“What the fuck?” Xander asked.
The man looked up, rain pouring down his face. His hair was dark and cropped close to his head, his face a pale swath under all that water, his eyes a surprisingly light bluish-green. They stared right through Xander, as he held himself motionless.
It was something to behold; all that muscular power being held still.
And Xander knew just what was hiding under his soaked flannel shirt because it clung to every inch of him.
His jeans, too. Xander shouldn’t even be thinking it, but those were definitely the finest thighs he’d ever had the privilege of not seeing.
At least if he died, he’d have a real good view at the end.
“What are you doing here?” the man growled. “You’re trespassing.”
“And you’re basically ripping up money,” Xander challenged right back. He really should have called the cops, instead of deciding to confront this guy by himself. What he was doing was a crime, wasn’t it?
A segment of vine still hanging from the man’s hand dropped to the mud with a solid plop. “They’re mine, I can do whatever I want with them.”
“Including being stupid?” Xander asked. Really the only stupid person here was him, but it was in his nature to keep pushing and not let things go.
It was how he’d ended up sous at Terroir, and also how he’d ended up in this vineyard, past midnight, in the middle of a gigantic storm.
It was probably how he was going to end up murdered, he thought darkly.
The empty fist opened and then clenched tightly again. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
This was undeniably true. “So why don’t you tell me,” Xander suggested.
Not like they were in the middle of a storm.
Instead like they had just met at a local bar, and Xander, completely unlike himself, had approached the built and rugged man everyone kept eyeing nervously and offered to buy him a drink.
There was shock radiating out of those light eyes. Like the last thing he expected Xander to do was to ask. To care.
As far as Xander was concerned, that was his ultimate curse. He always, always, always cared too much, no matter how much he tried to hide it under layers of sarcasm and bitterness.
“You really want me to tell you.” His voice was cautious and a little gentle now, nothing like the fierce growl from only a few minutes ago. As if Xander had managed to calm him despite himself.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Xander spread his arms, the rain continuing to come down around them.
“Hell if I know why,” the man grumbled. “Let’s get out of the rain first.” He jabbed a finger quick and sharp toward a ranch-style house that sat a few hundred yards away.
Xander hesitated, and the man must have sensed it. He extended a muddy, grimy, bloody hand. “I’m Damon Hess.”
Damon Hess. Well, now it was official. Xander felt stupid as shit. Damon probably owned these vines—or his family did. And why he was out here, in the middle of the night, ripping them to shreds, really wasn’t any of Xander’s business.
Yet when he shook his hand, palm sliding wetly against Damon’s, Xander couldn’t miss a loneliness he recognized peeking out from behind the wall in his eyes.
Maybe the man really needed someone to talk to, and that was why he’d resorted to the worst-case scenario of pulling up the god damned vines. God knew, Xander hadn’t been able to talk his friend Kian out of making an enormous mistake, but maybe he could be an ear for Damon.
“Xander Bridges,” Xander said. “Sure, why not. Let’s go talk.”
The walk to the house was both short and also an eternity.
His pants were soaked through, the sodden fabric slapping against his legs, rain dripping down his chest in big, fat rivulets.
He couldn’t wait to stop getting poured on, and find a towel.
Karma, Xander supposed, for going after Damon, even though there was a god damn storm swirling around them.
It was his whole fucking problem, encapsulated into one single decision.
He always thought he could be good for people, could fix them, but the truth was, he was just as much of a disaster, if not more of one.
His meddling typically made things worse, and at the end, he was always left holding the shit end of the stick.
Damon threw open the back door of the house, glancing back at Xander. Luckily, it was the laundry room, and it was covered in a functional linoleum that they probably couldn’t ruin. Probably. Xander stayed on the concrete stoop, pretty sure his shoes and pants were both headed to the trash bin.
“I’ll go grab some towels,” Damon said. He leaned over, fingers fumbling with the muddy laces of his boots. And Xander, who was a terrible human being, couldn’t help but check his ass out.
He felt only a single pulse of guilt; it was a pretty fantastic ass, though not quite as fantastic as Damon’s thighs. But then, those were clearly a work of art, deserving of all sorts of worship that Xander would never get to perform.
Damon finally got his boots untied and toed them off.
He was only gone a moment, which made sense because it wasn’t that big of a house.
It certainly wasn’t the kind of simple, homey residence that he’d expect a Hess to own, never mind live in.
It felt more like a caretaker’s house, or a vineyard worker’s house.
When he re-appeared, he was toweling off his head, color back in his cheeks, and Xander nearly took a step back, right back into the mud.
Damon, who had looked pretty attractive in the middle of a rainstorm, was crazy hot.
Sort of loner, intense hot, with that farmer thing going on.
He unbuttoned his plaid shirt and dumped it straight into the open washing machine.
Turning toward Xander, Damon extended a towel. “Feel free to use the washer, if you’d like,” he said, and the gruff sort of edge was back in his voice. Like he’d invited Xander here on a whim, and now he was rethinking the whole thing.
Well, that made two of them. But Xander was curious now, too. Why would a Hess live here? Why would a Hess tear up his own vines? Never mind those vines?
He wiped his face off, and without a second thought pulled his white tank over his head. He was in decent shape, and despite his own inability to stop checking Damon out, there was very little chance Damon was actually interested in men.