Crush on You (16 page)

“You can stop it. You can tell her no.”

“Oh, don’t go rational on me, please. I’m in no mood for it.”

“Clare . . .”

“How can I, Gil? Losing my brother messed up our family, and if this is what it takes to make Mom feel better, why should I complain?”

“What’s the ‘this’ you’re referring to, Clare? The moment of silence or the marriage itself?”

She squeezed her eyes shut, as if she could lose herself in the darkness.

“Clare. Honey . . .”

Her lids popped open to see Gil hunkered in front of her. When she hadn’t been looking, he’d slid from beneath the car. There was a streak of grease on his whiskered cheek and she ached to scrub it away, but she didn’t feel free to touch him like she would have in the past.

“You look like hell,” he said.

She made a face. “Just what any almost-bride wants to hear.”

“You been staying up late reading the dictionary again?”

“I should have never told you that,” she complained. No matter that it was true at the time of her confession—ninth grade if she recalled correctly—that she’d made a plan to get through the entire
Webster’s Collegiate
by the end of the school year.

Gil, already wearing a varsity letter on his jacket for football, hadn’t laughed his butt off. Instead, he’d only smiled and advised her to keep the goal to herself. How kind he’d been, she realized, another flush of awkwardness rolling over her skin. “I
was
a girl geek. You
were
my bodyguard.”

He shrugged. “Went both ways.”

“You were never a geek.”

“But you were my bodyguard, too. Remember kindergarten?” When she started to protest, he put his hand on her bare knee, right over her softball scar.

The shivery response of her skin shocked her into silence. She just stared at him.

“And remember when my mom got sick? You were there for me, Clare. And when Anita Lopez dumped me, too.”

“Anita Lopez was afraid her father would find out she was dating the bad boy of Edenville and lock her up for life. That’s the only reason she passed you that ‘Dear John’ note.”

He shrugged again. “So you say. I only know that when I’ve been down, you’ve been there for me every time.”

“That’s not going to change,” she declared, her chest aching right over her heart. That’s what she didn’t want to change, despite these weird dreams that were messing with her head.

His smile was sad. “I don’t know, Clare. You being another guy’s wife might alter things between us.”

“It won’t! You’ll see!” She hated how he was expecting—and accepting—that their friendship would take a permanent hit with her wedding. “You’re still my best friend, Gil,” she announced, her voice fierce.

He glanced at her. “Okay.”

Clearly he still had doubts. “I haven’t been sleeping,” she said, to prove to him she would tell him little things as she always had.

“I can see that.”

Oh, yeah, the “look like hell” thing. “I’ve been having these dreams.”

“What kind?”

“What kind?” She hadn’t planned on getting specific. She’d just planned on coming here tonight, and fixing things by seeing Gil as her good ol’ buddy, her BFF, instead of her erotic dream lover. “About kissing.” The words burst out.

He looked over again. He looked at
her mouth
.

Her skin heated once more, and she felt a pulse start to throb everywhere she’d put on perfume before coming to the shop—something she’d never done before.

Gil’s gaze dropped. “One of my cousins said that before she got married she dreamed of every boy she’d ever kissed. First to last. Is it like that?”

Clare grabbed at the idea. “Yeah. Like that.” She swallowed. “Exactly like that.”

“Then you must be dreaming of me.”

“Huh?” She jolted back. How had he guessed? Her fascination with him must be written all over her face. “What are you talking about?”

“Silly woman. You’ve forgotten I gave you your first kiss?”

Oh, God. She had. At fifteen she’d begged him one slow summer afternoon to show her what it was like, certain she was the only teenager in America at risk of making it to sixteen without a single kiss. After much eye-rolling, he’d finally complied with a pretty boring laying on of lips to lips.

Recalling the moment, she frowned at him. “Wait a minute. I paid you ten bucks for that and only had a twenty. I think you still owe me the change.”

He froze, then spoke slowly. “Or maybe I just owe you another kiss.”

Edenville’s sidewalks were crowded on Thursday late afternoons. Tourists and Edenvillians gathered alike for “Market Day” when local wineries, restaurants, farms, and other businesses set up booths in and around the town square. Handmade soap was available to sniff then buy, as well as fresh bunches of basil and clusters of cut flowers. Small cheese squares anchored toothpicks, Overpriced Ollie’s offered up samples of their crème brûlée in table-spoons, and behind the booth headlined with the Tanti Baci logo, Alessandra smiled as she and her sisters poured tastes of their chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon.

Stevie sent her a sidelong look. “What’s with the smile? You get lucky or something?”

Alessandra’s stream of wine faltered, and some splashed onto the tablecloth instead of into the glass. “Oops,” she said, then nudged the wine toward the woman wearing an I BRAKE FOR GRAPES T-shirt. Still wearing her beaming grin, she spoke through her teeth and under her breath. “I’m projecting financial stability.” It was the whole point of having the sisters pour today, rather than the interns and cellar rats who usually manned the booth. They’d decided Edenville needed to see the sisters out in force, united and strong under the Tanti Baci banner.

“Financial stability with a touch of senility thrown in,” Giuliana added. “Really, Allie, you look a bit loony.”

“I’m still thinking lucky,” Stevie said.

Allie poured a smidge of cab into a clean glass and sipped. The dark plum flavor burst on her tongue, changing to blueberry as she swallowed it down. Fortified, she glanced from the jewel-colored liquid to her sisters. “Lucky to have you both beside me,” she told them honestly. “I’ve missed this.”

“The Three Mousketeers,” Stevie said. “Remember when we’d run around with our Disneyland ears on and Mom’s aprons or tablecloths tied around our necks like capes?”

Giuliana looked away, and if Alessandra didn’t hold the position as family crier, she might have thought her usually strong sister was on the verge of tears. She reached out to touch one slender shoulder. “We should go through the linens, Jules. We’ll split them up and you can take your share back with you to L.A. You can make your place feel more like home that way.”

“Or you can just stay home,” Stevie said, uncorking another bottle with expert moves. “You’re working in the wine business down south when you should be doing your thing here, near to us.”

Giuliana stared across the street, as if the display window at the deli held a special fascination. “Near to other people as well.”

Their taller sister groaned. “I swear to God, I can’t believe how long you hold a grudge. What’s it been? How many years since you and Liam went to Tuscany together for the summer and came home bitter enemies?”

“Ten. And I can hold a grudge until the day I die.”

Yeeks.
Alessandra and Stevie shared a look. Alessandra knew she could be temperamental and Stevie’s mad came on like a wildfire, but Giuliana’s anger burned with a blue-white eternal flame.

“Jules . . .” she ventured. “Liam . . . he didn’t, you know, actually hurt you, did he?” Their sister had always remained mum about the source of their feud.

Giuliana’s straight, silky hair swished around her shoulders as she shook her head. “Liam will never hurt me.”

Never
again
, Alessandra thought to herself.

“Then move back home,” Stevie urged, “instead of hiding from the man.”

Alessandra took a hasty step back, thinking once again of Giuliana’s icy temper. “She’s not hiding,” she hurried to say. “She—”

“Even agreed to meet him tonight,” Giuliana finished. “All of us are going to be there . . . a partners’ meeting at the farmhouse.”

Alessandra’s house. “All of us?” she echoed, dismayed. Please, that wouldn’t mean—

“The three of us,” Giuliana clarified. “Then Liam, Seth, and Penn, of course.”

“Of course,” Alessandra repeated, her mouth drying. This was going to be awkward. She’d never made it to the cottage yesterday after their, uh, encounter in her office. Today, she’d busied herself elsewhere with a thousand tasks that didn’t really need doing.

Penn hadn’t come looking for her.

She’d been glad about it, she’d told herself. It made it easier not to recall what had happened on her desk. She didn’t want to think about that, or him, because the whole episode had not only been scandalous—her office! her desk!—but it had also been one-sided.

Which made it more embarrassing, more confusing, and put Alessandra more completely out of her element. She wasn’t practiced at how to handle a situation like this—or a man like Penn who had barreled right through her defenses. One minute she’d been annoyed with him, and the next . . .

A broad chest covered with a blue shirt bearing the words
Build Me Up!
walked into Alessandra’s line of sight. Oh, God,
Penn.
Her stomach jumped and heat blossomed on her nape as her gaze leaped to the man who . . .

. . . wasn’t the one she expected.

“Kohl,” she said in relief. It was the Tanti Baci vineyard manager, dark and silent Kohl Friday, a veteran of the Iraq War. His somber expression usually spooked her a little, but today she found herself giddy to see him. She’d rather face a dozen taciturn ex-soldiers than the man who’d made her come with hardly more than a kiss.

She hastily closed down the screen of her memory and sent him a smile. “Is there something you need?” she asked.

He grunted in answer, standing in the position of parade rest in jeans, battered straw cowboy hat, and that T-shirt. Handsome, huge, and nearly wordless. The silence between them strung out.

“Are you a fan of the show?” she asked finally, gesturing to the big
Build Me Up!

“Fan of Penn,” Kohl said.

Stevie’s elbow poked her ribs. She looked over at her sister, eyebrows raised. They shared the silent thought that Kohl had never appeared to be the fan of anything besides bar brawls and busty women.

“Does work with a vet organization,” Kohl continued. “For amputees. Revamps their homes. Ramps, resizes countertops. You know.”

“Uh, sure.” It was the most she’d ever heard the man speak at one time, though she didn’t know if his usual quiet was due to his time as a soldier or because of childhood misery. It couldn’t have been easy growing up with the name his hippie parents had given him—Kohlrabi. His sisters, Marigold and Zinnia, had fared only slightly better. “Penn’s a real prince.”

Stevie passed behind Alessandra, whispering. “Get Kohl out of here. He’s scaring the customers away.”

Peeking around his big shoulders, Alessandra saw her sister was right. Though the large man was good-looking, people were hanging back, as if he might be a ticking explosive. That wasn’t the impression they wanted to project. Tanti Baci was a stable, family winery, not something ready to blow apart.

With quick footsteps, she came around the corner of the booth and delivered to Kohl her most winning smile. “Hey, shall we tour a bit and see what the competition’s doing?”

Frowning, he shuffled his feet. “I don’t know . . .”

Lifting her chin, she stared into his eyes and lowered her voice. “Please, Kohl.”

His harsh expression softened around the edges. “Uh . . . okay.”

She heard Stevie’s snicker as they started off. “Bad little sister,” she called after them.

Alessandra pretended not to hear, chatting with the near-silent Kohl as they walked among the booths and tables, pausing to sample a wine or two. They even ventured down a couple of side streets, where people were selling homemade jewelry and hawking cellophane-wrapped baked goods. The short block of Fir Street dead-ended, but a crowd was gathered there. As they neared, a big splash sounded and the audience roared.

Alessandra glanced at Kohl, who was tall enough to see over everyone’s heads.

“Penn,” he said.

“Huh?” She wanted to avoid that man, but how could she avoid this? Curious, she hurried forward to discover that the kids from the high school marching band had set up a dunking booth for the afternoon, complete with a celebrity climbing into the hot seat. He’d obviously fallen into the tank at least once before.

Could Penn sense her presence? Because as he settled onto the platform, hair dripping, shirt—another
Build Me Up!
of course—plastered to his body, his gaze found her at the back of the crowd. One brow lifted in challenge.