Just a Taste Page 16

  She felt strangely hollow. Too tired, too brain-dead, too emotionally numb, she decided. The party would do it. When wine flowed as it should and the room sparkled with conversation, when music and laughter rose to resonate from the exposed-beam ceilings—then she would feel the satisfaction of a job well done.

  In the corner sat several boxes she’d sent up from storage, and she decided to get that job out of the way. It wouldn’t take more than an hour to unpack the various wines and souvenir items they offered for sale and display them in the boxed shelves created for that purpose.

  Caroline walked in ten minutes later, her mouth dropping in wonder as she turned in a slow circle. “Oh, Jillie, it looks better every time I come through the door!”

  Jillian smiled because it was expected. Then she noticed the large flat package under her mother’s arm. “What have you got there?”

  Gaze narrowed consideringly, Caroline continued her slow perusal of the room, wall by wall. Then she nodded decisively and walked over to a prime spot behind the tasting bar. She held up the picture. A portrait of herself, painted by Dixie for the marketing launch of the Caroline Chardonnay.

  “Here?” she asked.

  “Perfect.”

  “Isn’t it?” Caroline propped the picture against the wall, then rubbed her hands together with satisfaction. “Lucas can hang it later.”

  Her gaze lit on Jillian, paused in her task, and she came over to help. They worked together in companionable silence for several minutes before Caroline asked, “Is something troubling you, Jillie?”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Mother’s intuition.”

  Jillian sat back on her heels, looked into her mother’s caring eyes, and without any conscious thought or effort, spilled the thing uppermost in her heart. “Seth asked me to marry him.”

  To her credit, Caroline didn’t drop the crystal decanter she’d just taken from its box. However, she did place it on its shelf with very deliberate care before she spoke. “Was that as much of a surprise to you as it is to me?”

  Jillian tried to smile, but the effort felt strained and unconvincing so she gave up. “We’ve been seeing each other.”

  “And?”

  “Oh, Mom, I don’t know!”

  Instantly her mother’s hand was there, on her shoulder, a familiar comforting touch that she leaned into and rubbed her cheek against. She hadn’t realized how much emotion she had bottled up, how much she needed to talk, until this minute.

  “Do you love him?” Caroline asked.

  “I thought so. I really did, Mom, but how do you know? How do you know it’s the real thing with a man? I know what it feels like loving you and Lucas and Mercedes and, Lord knows why, my brothers. It’s this warm blanket around my heart when everything else is cold and bleak. But, Seth—” She heaved a sigh packed with frustration and anguish. “Half the time it’s this stomach-churning angst, this tightness in my temples and my chest and my throat.”

  “And the other half?”

  “The other part is pretty, well, wonderful.” She shifted uneasily, not sure she could share all the white-hot wonderful details with her mother. “But I want the kind of warm, strong, companionable love that endures. Like you and Lucas have.”

  “That’s how a good love ages.” Caroline took a forgotten bottle of merlot from Jillian’s lax hands. “Like a good wine it starts out simple in character and style, but it just keeps growing stronger and more rounded, revealing more and more layers and complex flavors as the years go by.”

  “Most wines don’t age that well.”

  “They do if they’re made right, honey. You know that.”

  Jillian shook her head and returned to unpacking the display wines. How did she know if she and Seth were right? If their relationship had the right ingredients? If together they would make the perfect blend?

  “Lucas waited for me,” Caroline said quietly. “He knew I needed time, and he waited.”

  She wanted to say but Seth isn’t Lucas, except the words wouldn’t come. Perhaps because she knew Seth was a man who would wait, a man who had waited, a man she could rely on and—

  “He lied to me, Mom.”

  Caroline’s head came up sharply. “Well, that does surprise me. Did he have good reason?”

  “It was something he thought would hurt me, but he didn’t only keep the truth from me. He straight out deceived me when he knew how I valued honesty.”

  “I suspect Seth has a very strong protective instinct,” her mother said carefully.

  “Well, I’d rather be hurt by the truth than be protected by a bald-faced lie.”

  Caroline pursed her lips, but said nothing. Not for several, long, fraught seconds. Then she said, “Only you can make up your mind about this, Jillie, but consider one thing. How much do you suppose it hurt Seth to do something so out of character? And how much is it hurting him now?”

  With the party to organize and the uncertainty over whether the renovations and redecoration would be finished, Jillian had lined up staff to cover for her in the tasting room over the weekend. Now she wished she had more to do. More than worrying over whether she’d made the biggest mistake of her life in Seth’s kitchen on Tuesday night.

  When the florist’s husband called Sunday morning to say his wife had gone into premature labor before finishing the arrangements for the party, Jillian actually thanked him. This was exactly what she needed right now. A problem she could act upon and solve. A problem with a real and tangible solution.

  Charlotte.

  Her cousin didn’t hesitate before offering to take over, even though she was preparing for a big event in the Ashton estate reception hall that afternoon. “If you can arrange to have the materials delivered from Regina’s to the estate, that would be a big help,” she said.

  Jillian could have arranged delivery, but she relished the chance to escape from the nothing-left-to-do-but-stress atmosphere at the tasting room. Instead she borrowed the winery van, picked up the semi-completed arrangements and extra flowers from Regina’s, and headed for the Ashton estate on the other side of Napa.

  The housekeeper answered her call from the security gates and let her into the huge walled compound. And although this was Jillian’s second visit, she shook her head with the same mix of anxiety and stupefaction as she circled the reflecting pool and pulled up in front of the imposing mansion. Before Spencer pilfered it all in the divorce settlement, the estate had belonged to Caroline. It had been in the Lattimer family for generations. Yet Jillian simply could not imagine her mother in such a formal and ostentatious environment.

  Nor could she imagine Charlotte fitting in here, which probably explained why she’d moved into a cottage on another part of the estate. But at the moment she was working somewhere inside, and Jillian wished she’d asked for precise directions when she had called from the gates.

  Was the reception hall in the west wing or east? Was there a delivery entrance around the back she should use? And why was she standing by her car dithering when she could walk up to the door and ask the housekeeper or whichever staff member answered?

  It had definitely been easier the first visit, with Mercedes for moral support. Together they’d marched up those steps, sisters-in-arms, joking about breaching the enemy fortress. Today Jillian took a deep breath and marched up there alone.

  She was half a knuckle away from knocking when the door swung open. She sucked in a breath and took a quick step backward. If she hadn’t, the man coming through the door would have ploughed right over her.

  Instead she faced Spencer Ashton.

  She saw a tiny glint of recognition in eyes the same green as hers, but that was all. No greeting, no acknowledgment, nothing. He glanced back over his shoulder and called for the housekeeper.

  I see you, I recognize you, I call the staff.

  The perfect snub, Jillian thought, as he made to continue on his way. He would have done so and she would have let him, except for the wave of hot indignation that
rose from deep in her mettle. Not on her own behalf, but for a redheaded cherub with those same green eyes. An innocent without the protection he needed, without the recognition he deserved, without the financial support this man should have provided.

  “Wait,” she called at his retreating back.

  Impatience tightened Spencer’s features as he glanced back over his shoulder. “You wanted to see me? I’m on my way out.”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t keep you.”

  “You already are.”

  Jillian came down to the second-from-bottom step, from where she enjoyed the slightest height advantage. “I don’t want to see you, at least not on my own behalf. But there’s a little boy who does need your help. His name’s Jack Sheridan and he’s your son, although I’m sure you’re aware of that.”

  His response? He pushed back one tailored cuff and checked his watch, as if timing the minute or thirty seconds or whatever he deemed this topic’s worth. Probably not even that long.

  “His aunt—his guardian—has been receiving threats. She’s concerned about his safety. She’s tried to see—”

  “This sounds like a matter for the police. Is that all?”

  Is that all? The cold, heartless, selfish bastard.

  “Will you see her?” she persisted. “Will you at least talk to Anna?”

  “I don’t see that it’s any of your concern, Jocelyn.”

  Was he for real? Did he not even remember her name? Or was that a deliberate ploy, a means to deflect her attention while he turned and walked away.

  Jillian released her breath in an incredulous sigh. “You are some piece of work, Spencer Ashton.”

  For all the sordid press about bigamy and multiple affairs, despite the damage inflicted on Ashton-Lattimer stock, despite her getting in his face about his youngest unacknowledged son, the man looked totally unaffected. Oblivious, or in denial, just like Jason when anything had gone awry in his world.

  And what about all the people you’ve hurt, she wanted to yell after him. Are they not my concern, either? Have you no conscience?

  She shook her head slowly, sadly, knowing the answer. The only person he cared about was Spencer Ashton and the knowledge left her oddly…untouched. His callous attitude toward Jack and Anna infuriated her, but his snub hadn’t hurt because he simply didn’t matter.

  Only someone she loved could hurt her—not Spencer, not Jason—but someone she loved deeply.

  Someone like Seth.

  The party was wonderful. Jillian knew this because everyone kept telling her so. The new tasting room, those amazing arched windows, the marble tasting bar, Dixie’s portrait of Caroline, Charlotte’s flowers. The surprise on Dixie and Cole’s faces when Mercedes wheeled out the wedding cake.

  It was all wonderful and her face ached from smiling as she graciously accepted all the acclaim. Her face ached and, as she watched Cole and Dixie dance by, so entranced with each other and in each other, her heart ached and her soul ached.

  She’d really thought Seth would come, not to celebrate the completion and accomplishment because to him this was just another job. But because Caroline had made a point of phoning and extracting an acceptance from him. She’d sounded so serenely confident that Jillian had bitten back her own need to call him when she had returned from the Ashton estate.

  Foolishly, she’d felt this sense of destiny about tonight being the place and the time to set things right between them.

  Despite the lateness, she couldn’t stop watching the door, scanning the room—she was doing it again now, dammit. But before she could stop that reflexive crowd scrutiny, her eyes connected with Caroline’s across the room and she read the sympathy, the concern, and it was too much to bear.

  She couldn’t do this anymore. Stand here smiling and acting like the party girl, when her heart was shattering like crystal under a hammer. She couldn’t run; she wouldn’t run. She had her pride and this was her night. But she needed some air, some space, and a little time to gather her composure.

  Them she would return with her smile intact.

  Seth found her in the vines, a shimmer of champagne against the leafy darkness. She’d watched him, he knew, from the second he stepped out of the tasting room door. He felt it in every tense, uptight, what-am-I-doing-here cell of his body.

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” she said when he finally stopped at her side. “It’s so late that I’d given up on you.”

  She turned her head then, and when their eyes met he knew exactly why he was here. Despite everything they’d said and wished unsaid, despite every reservation and every fear, he couldn’t not be here.

  Even if she had given up on him.

  She looked away again, back toward the tasting room and Seth closed his eyes for a brief moment, to say a silent prayer that that wasn’t so. That he hadn’t misread the quiet yearning in her eyes a moment before. That he could find the right words to explain himself and the emotions that had clawed holes in his heart ever since she’d walked out of his kitchen.

  “I never wanted to deceive you, Jillian. You’d been through so much.” He tipped back his head, released a harsh breath. “I used to look at you and wonder how much more you could take of Jason’s crap before you snapped. I thought you loved him. I didn’t want to hurt you any more.”

  “I know.” Husky-edged, her voice trembled a little as she turned to look at him. “I know the truth isn’t something you take lightly. I know that’s not the man you are.”

  “I’m not Jason. I would never—”

  “Hush.” She stretched up and put her hand to his mouth to shut him up. “No more past. No more.”

  It took a minute for the words, the message, the concentrated emotion in her eyes to take hold. Slowly her hand slid from his mouth and across his cheek in a promise-filled caress. Seth swallowed hard. “Are you saying you forgive me?”

  “Only if you forgive yourself…and me for what I said the other day.”

  “You were hurting.”

  “Badly,” she whispered. “The only people who have the power to hurt, to really hurt where it matters—” she touched her hand to her heart “—are the people you love.”

  Her words, and the way she was looking at him with that glimmer of tears in her eyes, just about brought Seth to his knees. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

  “Lord, I hope so. I love you, Seth, and I do want to marry you if you’ll still have me.”

  “If I’ll still have you? Are you crazy?”

  “Yes,” she admitted. “Will you still have me if I admit that I’m completely, certifiably loopy about you?”

  Seth laughed softly, joyously. “Oh, yes. I’ll have you.”

  “Then why are you standing over there?”

  “Good question.”

  He closed the space between them, and for several long heartbeats he just stood there looking at her, this woman he had loved for so long, scarcely believing, hardly daring to believe. “So, you’re going to marry me.”

  “Yes, I do believe I am.”

  He closed his eyes again, said a silent thank you, and then he opened them again so he could look right into her eyes while he kissed her, gently, tenderly, stroking the corners of her mouth and still smiling. “I’ve missed you, baby.”

  “I know.” She closed her eyes. “I am so, so glad you came tonight.”

  “And if I hadn’t?”

  “I was coming to see you tomorrow. I had to apologize. But this is right—you, me, here in the vines and look—” She lifted her hand to gesture at the bright arches of light that spun out from the tall winery wall. “You had to see how perfect it looks from out here at night. Your design, your execution. You knew exactly what I wanted.”

  “Yeah, well, I’d much rather see how perfect you look, out here, in the night.” He leaned back, enough that she could see all that he felt for her in his eyes. “I love you, Jillian, with all my heart. Thank you for taking a risk on me.”

  “A wise person once
told me that some risks are worth taking.”

  “He must be very wise.”

  “It’s one of the many things I love about him.” Her smile curled with pure happiness as she moved into his arms. “You want to hear some of the others?”

  Seth did but not now, not while he was busy kissing her. He figured he had plenty of years ahead for hearing them, all the way to forever.

  ISBN: 978-1-4268-4929-9

  JUST A TASTE

  Copyright © 2005 by Harlequin Books S.A.

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