Crazy About Cameron: The Winslow Brothers #3 (The Blueberry Lane Series -The Winslow Brothers) (8 page)

“Well, sir,” he finally began, his voice tentative, “I’m sorry it didn’t work out tonight. I hope that Margaret’s refusal won’t jeopardize my position at Story Imports.”

“
Didn’t work out
?” Douglas Story said, his voice cold and brittle. “Did I misjudge you, son?”

“Sir?”

“You surprised the girl. Made her nervous. She’ll come around eventually. I have faith in you.”

“Oh, no, sir. I don’t think that Margaret’s interested in me.”

“I’m not concerned about
Margaret’s
interests.
I’m interested in a son-in-law to take over the family business. I’m interested in grandsons to carry on the Story bloodline. If it isn’t
you
, Shane? It’ll be someone else. You’re expendable, son, unless—”

“Wait a second now. Just . . .” Shane cleared his throat. “Mr. Story—”

“—unless you can get Margaret to change her mind.”

“Sir, Margaret isn’t in love with me . . . and I’m not in love with her. We have nothing in common. She’s a lovely girl, sir, but—”

“I don’t care if she’s lovely or not. I don’t care if she’s fat or thin, fair or foul, beautiful, plain, or downright ugly. I don’t know if she’s smart or stupid, interesting or dull. I don’t know, and I don’t care. Do you know what I
do
care about? Her pedigree. She’s a Story. If you want to stay at Story Imports, Shane, well, son, you’ll need to become a Story too. By marriage
and
by having a child with Margaret. It’s imperative for my plans. It’s nonnegotiable.”

Margaret realized she was holding her breath when her lungs started to burn. She quickly bolted for the front door, racing through it and letting it slam behind her.

The sharp driveway gravel bit into her bare feet as she ran to Priscilla’s car, her breathing shaky as tears streamed down her face. Her hands were trembling so violently, she could barely get the key in the ignition, but once she did, she flew away from Forrester, driving like her hair was on fire, like the devil himself was only a step behind.

She was nothing more than a broodmare, a breeding bitch, an almost-anonymous nobody who shared DNA with her father and nothing else. For most of Margaret’s life, she’d tried to convince herself that her father’s aloof behavior stemmed from disappointment that could be assuaged if she tried harder, worked harder, somehow proved to him that she was worthy of his regard and respect and, maybe one day, his love. But he didn’t even see her as a
person
.

She stepped on the gas and cried all the way to Newtown.

She cried as she poured herself a glass of wine. And then another. And another.

She cried as she stripped out of her clothes and lay down naked in her bed.

She cried as she thought of the quiet little girl she’d been and the buttoned-up woman she’d become.

She cried because she’d spent half a lifetime being someone she wasn’t in order to please someone impossible to please.

She cried because the goddamn
ticktock
that preyed on her heart was louder than ever, and what if Shane was the best prospect she was ever going to have?

She cried until she finally closed her drunk, weary eyes and curled up in a ball, falling asleep as she pictured a version of herself who was loved and respected, cherished and valued. A woman who didn’t exist. A woman that Margaret promised herself she would unearth in the bright sun and rich soil of The Five Sisters.

Cameron hadn’t taken a Sunday off in a long time, but he had to admit, after only fifteen minutes into the drive from Philadelphia to Newtown, he was feeling more relaxed than he had in weeks. Yes, there was a stack of contracts on his coffee table at home. Yes, he had about a dozen calls to return. And yes, Alex English needed the updated numbers on the Harrison-Lowry-Rousseau shipping joint venture tomorrow morning. But Cameron was on a mission of mercy for his little sister and, just for today, C & C Winslow be damned.

As he approached the vineyard, however, he felt a pang of trepidation. It was only ten thirty in the morning. What if Margaret was still asleep? Or worse, what if Margaret and Olson were still asleep together? Or worse still, what if Olson and Margaret were doing some midmorning fucking? His fists clenched around the steering wheel as he fought to banish that repulsive image from his mind and glanced over at the white bag on the passenger seat, hoping he wouldn’t look like some ridiculous, desperate suitor.

He’d stopped at Swiss Haus on the way out of Philadelphia to pick up some blueberry cheese strudel, pineapple cheese puffs, raspberry–pecan croissants, and a couple of sticky buns. He had no idea what Margaret liked to eat for breakfast, but as long as the meal didn’t include sitting across from a smirking Olson, he couldn’t wait to find out.

Margaret had told him that the adjacent vineyard was called Harrell Reserve, so as soon as Cameron passed the ornate vineyard sign advertising tastings every Sunday, he looked for the next driveway. A rundown mailbox beside a split-rail fence signaled his destination, and he turned right, onto a bumpy dirt road flanked by dense woods. After about a quarter mile of driving, a large, rundown, barnlike building came into view with a hand-painted sign over the door: “The Five Sisters Vineyard.”

He grinned.

After parking in front of the building, Cameron grabbed the pastries and got out of the car. He stretched his legs and breathed in deeply. It had rained last night, and the smells of earth and cut grass were pungent and satisfying. He knocked on the battered door and waited a moment, but no one answered, so he wandered around the building, gravel crunching under his shoes. And suddenly, there before him, rolling up and down hillsides for acres and acres, stretched neat rows of grapes as far as the eye could see. Cameron paused, frozen in place by the weathered side of the old winery building, a sense of peace washing over him that he hadn’t felt in many, many years.

What had Margaret said when she told him about The Five Sisters?
A fully functional vineyard and winery. It’ll be heaven.
She was right. It was.

“Can I help you, sir?”

Cameron turned to see two older men standing behind him with tanned faces, T-shirts, and mud-flecked jeans. One held the handles of a wheelbarrow, and the other had a shovel leaning against his shoulder.

“Uh, yes. I’m Cameron Winslow. I’m looking for Margaret Story.”

The bigger of the two men looked at Cameron suspiciously.  “She know you?”

“She does.”

The man’s eyes slid to the pastry bag and then back to Cameron’s face. “She expecting you?”

“She’s not.”

The smaller man in front cocked his head to the side and narrowed his eyes at Cameron for a moment before nodding. “Yeah. Okay. She stays in the cottage.”

“The cottage?”

He gestured to the left with his chin. “Walk around the barrel shed. Up the path. You can’t miss it.”

He grinned. “Thank you.”

“I’m Shawn,” the larger man said. “And that there’s Owen. We’ll be around, Mr. Winslow,” he added gruffly, by way of warning. Then he and his friend continued on toward the  rows of grapes.

Cameron walked around a newly rebuilt wooden building bearing a crisp green sign that read “Barrel Shed” over the door, and continued up a gravel path, past another rebuilt building that read “Ferment Shed.” He could see where Margaret had focused her renovation efforts: on the vineyard itself and the outbuildings required to make wines. Last would be the massive winery building and tasting room because it was, functionally, the least important of the structures for making wine. But the most important, he mused, for bringing in tourist income and branding her business. He hoped she wouldn’t become so immersed in the artistic winemaking end of things that she’d neglect the potential for tourist and event business. Did she have a good business manager? If not, he would be sure to recommend one. A
female
one.

Looking up from the brambled path, he saw the cottage the old vintner had mentioned, and realized he’d been right: there was no way he would have missed it.

Tucked into the woods, it was like the cottages he’d seen in the countryside of his mother’s native England. Small and charming, with a sharply pointed thatched roof, it had window boxes under the two lower windows and one upper. A small brick pathway, flanked by wildflowers of all colors, led to the doll-like front door, which was painted robin’s-egg blue. It was like something out of a dream or a fairy tale, and Cameron stood gaping with his pastries by his side for several minutes.

Here was Margaret’s heaven.

He felt it in his bones—her signature on this magical place, the way she was coaxing all of it back to life with her passion and vision. And suddenly, Cameron wanted to be a part of it too, somehow, someway. To earn a portion of the peace she was building—to bask in it, to share it.

He knocked lightly on the door, wondering if she was home and half expecting a fairy or some other mythical creature to open the door.

“Coming, Shawn!”

He heard her voice from inside—from upstairs, he thought. He leaned to the side to peek into the window, but the room inside was dark and he couldn’t see anything.

“I know I overslept, but I hope you were able to—”

The door opened abruptly, and there, in the doorway of the enchanted cottage, stood Margaret Story, a drowsy, tousled angel, and the warm-blooded woman of Cameron Winslow’s favorite and filthiest fantasies.

Her glasses were missing, and her hair hung loose and long, falling in waves past her shoulders. His hungry eyes slipped from her hair to her neck, trailing lower to the V of a plush white terry cloth bathrobe that showcased the skin of her chest and upper neck. He lingered there for a moment before letting his eyes skate lower, to the belted knot at her tiny waist, then to her bare feet, which, he noted with a barely concealed groan, had cherry-red toenails.

Her gasp made his neck snap up, and his eyes slammed into hers. Whatever he’d long imagined about how Margaret would look if she ever loosened up? It paled mightily next to the vision before him. She was, hands down, the most unintentionally sexy woman he’d ever seen in his entire life.

“Cameron!”

“Meggie,” he choked out, the sound a twisted-up groan. He cleared his throat, willing his body to calm the fuck down. “Um, I . . . I needed to . . .”

She gathered the lapels of her robe in her hands, pulling it closed, her brown eyes searching his face with undiluted surprise. “You needed to . . .?”

“You’re fucking stunning,” he murmured, the words as shocking to him as they were to her.

“What?”
she squeaked, her eyes widening, almost impossibly, to saucers.

Get it the fuck together, Cameron.

He clenched his jaw. What the hell was she doing answering the door looking like that anyway?

“I brought breakfast,” he said gruffly, thrusting the bag toward her and wondering what she was wearing under her robe. Christ, was she wearing anything at all? What if she was naked? What if the only thing between his palm and her skin was a glorified towel? His body responded to the thought, his blood coursing hot and fast to his cock, which swelled against the zipper of his jeans.

She licked her lips and pursed them together, reaching for the bag without dropping his eyes. “Cameron, what are you doing here?”

“I need a favor,” he said in a gravelly voice, letting his eyes rest on her tangle of chestnut waves, and forcing himself not to reach for one of the thick strands to test its softness with his fingers.

“A favor? From me?”

He nodded, placing one hand flat on the doorway, as much to hold himself up as lean a little closer to the bed-messy goddess before him. “Is Olson here?”

“No.”

“Can I come in?”

She shrugged halfheartedly, looking down at her bare toes before peeking back up at him. “Last night . . .”

“I was an asshole. I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Why am I sorry?”

“Why were you an asshole?” she whispered.

Her eyes. Her fucking eyes looking at him like that. How was he supposed to lie to her?

“Because he was touching you.”

“That’s silly! He was just—”

“Doesn’t matter why, Meggie,” he muttered, lifting his chin just a touch as she stared up at him.

She dropped the hand that had been holding her robe together, and as she opened the door for him, he caught a glimpse of the warm, creamy skin just over her breasts.

“Yes,” she said gently. “You can come in.”

***

Margaret was having trouble filling her lungs completely.

From the moment she’d opened the door to see Cameron Winslow’s muscular body taking up most of the tiny doorway, the wind had been soundly knocked from her chest. The way he looked at her, like she was the most delicious morsel at a hundred-table buffet, made her toes curl.

“I thought you were Shawn,” she said, gesturing to the love seat in her snug sitting room. “Please sit.”

“I met Shawn,” said Cameron, taking a seat. “He told me where to find you.”

Cameron’s emerald eyes shone like jewels in the low light of her cottage, and she stared at him, still shocked by his unexpected visit. “Oh?”

“Yeah. But he didn’t seem that pleased about it.”

“He’s protective.”

Cameron didn’t smile at her, his face tight and intense. His eyes almost burned her, the way they stared, the way they seemed to see through her, into her. It made her feel naked.

“I understand.”

Two words that said nothing about his feelings for her, and yet they made her tremble with longing, her body clenching with need, with want, with . . . with . . .
Get ahold of yourself, Margaret!

“Be right back,” she said in a breathy voice, then hurried into the kitchen, bracing her palms on the edge of the sink and forcing herself to take a deep breath.

Because he was touching you . . . I understand.

The words circled round and round in her head, and her body, completely naked under her bathrobe, flushed from head to toe. Her thoughts from last night—the possibility that Cameron had long harbored feelings for her—edged into her mind, and she weighed them against his words, her heart fluttering with hope and desire. But common sense wouldn’t let her completely run away with herself: there was nothing said between them, nothing declared except for a tenuous truce.

She reached over her head for a small silver platter and placed the pastries on it, then peeked her head out of the kitchen doorway. “Coffee?”

“Sure.”

She poured water into the pot, then into the old-fashioned machine, measured the grounds into a filter, and pressed the On button. After taking two mugs from the hooks over the sink, she grabbed the platter and headed back into the sitting room.

It felt like Cameron took up the whole room, his massive form sitting squarely on the antique gold-upholstered love seat set across from the hearth. His thick, blackish hair begged for her touch, and she had a brief mental fantasy of climbing onto his lap and straddling him as she sank her fingers into his hair. Her robe would fall open, and her naked body would rub wantonly against the tough denim of his jeans, wetting them with the force of her desire. And he would reach for her—

“Meggie?”

“Yes!” she chirped, placing the platter and mugs on the table before him with a clatter. “Breakfast is here. Coffee’s on.”

“Thanks,” he said, grinning up at her. “Sorry for stopping by unexpectedly.”

That smile. Oh, good Lord, that smile. She needed another moment.

“Mind if I get dressed real quick?”

“Do you want an honest answer?” he rumbled, his eyes sliding from her face to the V of her robe and back again.

“No,” she said, with a nervous laugh. “Be right back.”

She hurried up the dozen steps that led from her living room, kitchen, and bathroom to her attic bedroom. Safely out of sight, she unknotted her robe with trembling fingers and let it fall to the floor with a soft whoosh. Her skin felt feverish even though she stood outside the sunbeam that streamed in from the window over her bed. What was happening to her? And why was she allowing it to happen?

For, though Cameron Winslow had recently extended an olive branch, he hadn’t proved himself worthy of her attention, and certainly not of her affection. So why wasn’t she protecting herself better? Why was she letting his sexy grins and hot, bothered words get under her skin?

Because a lifetime’s worth of infatuation doesn’t take long to turn into something more, and there was a reason her interest in him hadn’t flagged over the course of almost three decades—because Cameron Winslow would be someone worth falling hard for . . . when he stopped being such a jerk.