Chapter 19
MAKEPEACE (MAKEOUT) CLUB
Declan
I’m clearly not invited in as Heath trots up to the house with Ginny, but Flow and I follow anyway, dashing through the storm from the parking area to the back door.
I lie to myself and say it’s because I want to see Mabel’s reaction to the cash, but my real motivation is making sure Ginny’s okay.
She hasn’t looked at me since Heath interrupted us, and that, more than anything, is what’s killed my boner so quickly.
We’re getting past the part where we can pretend I don’t still like her.
I like her.
I shouldn’t. I’m well aware that her desire to kiss me doesn’t mean she wants to date me.
I shouldn’t want to date her either.
I shouldn’t have kissed her.
I shouldn’t fall asleep here every night wishing I was out in the fields looking at the stars with her.
I shouldn’t want to help her pick which dress to wear every morning and then help her take it off every night.
I shouldn’t contemplate how easy those sundresses of hers would make a quickie in any of the nooks and crannies here.
I shouldn’t want to be the guy helping her see that, as her mug says, she is worthy and she is loved.
Even under the guise of what happens at the winery stays at the winery.
Because this?
This isn’t just at the winery.
This is how I’ve always felt.
And now I know how right it was to keep her at a distance when Alex was dating her.
Because one taste of Ginny, and I know.
I know I’ll never want anyone else.
Even when she’ll never want me back.
“Family only,” Heath says to me, stopping me from entering the sitting room where Mabel and Pip and Olivia are all looking out the window at the storm.
I swallow hard. “I’m a witness.”
Mabel swings around. “Witness to what?”
Ginny meets her halfway across the room. “I found this envelope of cash in the gift shop.”
“I found the note,” I say.
“What note?” Samantha asks behind me.
Ginny looks past me. “There’s a bunch of cash with a note that says name a wine after me. It was in an envelope in the gift shop.”
Mabel’s watching me. “You’re not recording this.”
“I’m not recording this,” I agree.
She holds out a hand. “Your phone.”
I surrender it, happy to be agreeable to make a point.
I’m not the bad guy.
I’m not a danger.
Except possibly to myself.
What the actual fuck was I thinking, kissing Ginny?
That you loooooove her, the fucking mosquito in my head says.
Flow whimper-whines and leans into me.
“Start over,” Mabel says. “How’d you find this?”
“Who’s got a blind nip?” Pip asks.
“Find this, Aunt Pip.”
“Find what?” Dori says as she and Cricket and Lavender enter the room too.
The whole gang’s here.
“Ginny found an envelope of cash in the gift shop,” Mabel tells them.
Ginny’s hugging herself by the marble fireplace with the carved lions watching me as though they’ll come to life and defend her against me.
Pip squints at Mabel. “She found an antelope stash?”
“Do you have secret cash hidden somewhere, Aunt Pip?” Mabel asks.
“If I did, you’d be hiding it from me somewhere else.” Pip’s nude.
Good for her for being comfortable with her own body, but as far as I’m concerned, the rest of her body besides her head doesn’t exist.
“Did you leave this envelope of cash in the gift shop?” Mabel says, lifting the envelope.
Pip squints at her. “If I had an envelope of cash, I’d pay off what I owe my manicurist. Or get an ice cream. Anyone else want ice cream?”
Mabel takes the bill with the note on it from Heath, then shakes her head. “Yeah, this isn’t your style.”
“Eh? What’s not my dial?”
“Pip, I think I saw one of those ice cream cookie sandwiches you love buried in the back of the freezer,” Samantha says.
That, Pip hears just fine.
She beelines past me, down the hall toward the kitchen.
“Has anyone else been in the gift shop and tasting room since the wedding?” Mabel asks the room at large.
Everyone shakes their head.
“Lav unlocked it the day before the wedding and didn’t tell me,” Heath says with a glance at his daughter.
She stares at him with innocent hazel eyes. “Uncle Ten needed wine and he didn’t want anyone to know how much he was taking.”
Mabel presses two fingers to one of her eyes.
“Would Ten leave an envelope of cash?” Olivia asks.
Ginny blinks at her. “Are you serious?”
Olivia shrugs.
“If Ten had this kind of cash, he’d be in Vegas every weekend,” Ginny says. “Buying cars. Throwing parties. Not living in Mike’s pool house half the year and asking Caro to pay off the credit card that he used to fund our mother’s spa trip to Sedona.”
“Did you show anyone else the tasting room, Lav?” Mabel asks the little girl.
She nods. “Mr. Luckwood wanted to see where the dragons were, so I took him and Pip on a tour too. With his girlfriend. She’s nice. I showed them how to open the safe and Mr. Luckwood said the tour was over.”
Heath winces harder. “How big is that safe?” he asks Mabel as Samantha and Olivia look at each other.
“Simon Luckwood?” Samantha says. “Isn’t he friends with that billionaire who was giving away money all over the country?”
“Mm-hmm,” Olivia replies.
“Maybe it was him?”
“The safe’s too small for anyone to crawl into and hide. Also, the lock’s broken,” Mabel tells Heath before looking back at Lavender. “Lav, did you see anyone leave an envelope in the gift shop?”
“No.”
“No one at all?”
“No.”
“Mr. Luckwood didn’t leave one?”
“No. But I think he farted. He left a fart. Does that count?”
“No, anyone’s welcome to leave farts. Did you or Aunt Pip tell anyone we needed money?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Why do you need money? My daddy has a credit card. And Aunt Pip has pretty necklaces.”
“Would Simon Luckwood or his billionaire friend leave us with a note asking to have a wine named after them?” Dori asks.
Mabel’s frowning. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“Neither does getting an envelope of cash,” Olivia murmurs.
“Maybe it was Mike,” Cricket says.
Ginny shakes her head. “If Mike wanted to contribute, he’d do it outright. He wouldn’t be cryptic.”
Everyone except for Ginny looks at me.
I hold my hands up. “Not me.”
“Wasn’t it?” Mabel asks.
“It wasn’t him,” Ginny says to the wood floor. “He’d break out in hives at the idea of leaving cash unguarded in an empty room. No interest or dividends in cash.”
She’s not wrong, and I hate the warmth in my chest at how well she knows me too.
Mabel looks at me again, then back to Ginny, then back to me. “What were you doing in there?”
“I told him about the wine out there,” Cricket says. “My fault.”
“Guilty,” I say. “I was looking for the wine stash. Heard it was fantastic.”
“Would your mother—” Samantha starts, but Ginny’s already shaking her head.
“She’d want instant credit,” Ginny says. “No games.”
“How are we supposed to name a wine after someone when we don’t know who it is?” Olivia’s looking at the note now too.
“Oh, that’s easy,” Dori says. “We call it Secret Donor.”
“Not dirty enough,” Olivia says. “Our wine’s gonna have dildo in the title.”
“Anonymous Partner,” Cricket says. “That feels kinda sexy.”
Heath growls.
She grins at him. “I meant financial partner. Not…any other kind of…partner.”
“Is it real money?” Olivia asks.
“He says it is.” Heath hooks a thumb toward me.
“Spent a day at the mint,” I offer, repeating what I told Ginny and Heath in the other building. “I have one of those markers to test it.”
Mabel shakes her head. “No need. I’ll take it to the bank. Tell your producer that she’s not getting her money back, and this isn’t going on camera.”
I open my mouth, then close it.
This is something Eddie would do.
Thunder rolls outside.
Suspicion rolls inside as everyone but Ginny looks at me like I’m in on this.
I hold up my hands. “If she did it, she didn’t tell me.”
Heath growls again.
Flow whimper-whines.
Ginny finally looks at me, and—fuck.
She doesn’t believe me.
Those hurt blue eyes, the way her shoulders are hunching in—I’ve lost her.
I took one little invitation—I want to kiss you—and I selfishly grabbed what I’ve wanted for years, and I’ve lost her.
Her friendship.
Her forgiveness.
All of her.
She rips her gaze away and looks back at Mabel. “I don’t know what else to tell you about the cash, but I had a few ideas for the gift shop whenever you get a minute. I’ll be up in my room.”
She leaves through the doorway into the dining room instead of passing me to get to the staircase in the hallway.
Flow whine-howls.
“Back in the truck,” Heath says to me. “You’re going back to the apartment.”
He hustles me out of the house while the women keep talking about the money.
Message received.
I’m not welcome here.
And I don’t blame them.