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.Eli was in a whole different class.He didn’t seem to understand that kisses were supposed to be pleasant interludes: not serious, not mind-altering, not an experience to make the earth shake and the heavens tremble.How had he done that? How had he brought her to the verge of orgasm with.kissing? He knew it, too.When she remembered the way he’d looked at her, all dark, smoldering sensuality, as if he were ready to jump her right there in the vineyard.well.She was so embarrassed she could die.Which meant she should not be sitting in his truck, hands folded in her lap, both sandaled feet firmly on the floor mat, one foot crushing a paper cup, while she gazed out the front window and tried to think of something to break the silence.Something that did not include, Take me back; I don’t want to meet your grandmother; it feels like a commitment and it shouldn’t.Eli apparently felt no such compunction to speak; he drove in silence and with the same negligent efficiency he had used yesterday.How could today feel so different?The smoldering sensuality had disappeared.well, except she didn’t trust that.Yesterday she hadn’t realized he smoldered at all.Now she suspected him of constantly smoldering and concealing it so well she never even smelled the telltale smoke.He was like Clark Kent, looking exactly like Superman, yet no one suspected what powers he concealed.“Not too much farther,” he said, and glanced at her.“I like the dress.You surprised me.”She smoothed the skirt of her brightly flowered sarong dress.“Why?”“You don’t seem to be the type to wear a dress.”“What type do I seem to be?” she asked frostily.His mouth quirked.“Unpredictable—”You’re a fine one to talk.“—so I suppose I should have expected the dress.”“I’m going to meet your grandmother.I can’t wear a grass-stained shirt!”“Nonna wouldn’t care.”She narrowed her eyes at him.“I was taught to have respect for my elders.”“When you talk, I don’t usually feel the Southern influence or hear a Texas accent.But I heard it that time.” He smiled.He was smiling more often, as if he were becoming more human.as if their intimacy had softened him.Not intimacy.Just a kiss or two, and his touch on her breast.Don’t think of that.“So tell me about your grandmother.”“She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s a great cook, and she raised me.” Brief.To the point.Not exactly friendly.“Sounds like a nice lady.” Actually, Chloë now knew a lot about his grandmother and a lot about him.Last night she had surrendered to curiosity and looked him up online.She’d discovered plenty about Di Luca Wines.Their Web site was beautifully designed, a charming stroll through the vineyard, winery, and tasting room, and the family bio had shown a photo of the three Di Luca brothers with their movie-star-gorgeous father and their graciously smiling grandmother.Everything about the Web site invited the viewer to wander through Bella Valley and taste the wines—everything until she reached Eli’s bio.That was dry as dust, a mere recitation of the schools he had attended, the awards he had won, his dedication to making great wines.His photo was worse; he looked like a romance hero facing a firing squad, his back against the wall: handsome yet resistant to publicity.Then she’d found the other stuff, the nasty stuff, about his beauty-queen mother stabbing his movie-star father and going to jail.Those headlines were thirty years old, but big and easy to find.It hadn’t been so easy to figure out what happened to Eli afterward, but she’d finally decided he lived with his grandfather and grandmother until his mother got out of prison, and then went to live with her.But he didn’t give his mom any credit for raising him, which brought Chloë back to that sense that everything about him shouted, Private! and Dark secrets!So what was she doing talking to him, listening to him, kissing him? She didn’t need those kinds of complications in her life.She had a book to write.“Your light was on early this morning,” he said.“I worked late, fell asleep, and woke early with more stuff in my brain.”They turned off the main road and onto a long, paved drive lined with gracious, wide-branched oak trees and dark green rhododendrons.“So the writing is going well?” he asked.“Seeing the water tower yesterday, and the still, and the body, wrenched my mind out of the rut it was in and sent it careening in a new direction.I worked out my plot, got stuck again, went for a walk, and figured out the whole thing.” I got kissed in the vineyard.“The field trip yesterday was exactly what I needed.Thank you.” Good.Smooth finish.“Talking to Nonna will give you more grist for the mill.She’s a natural storyteller, she never forgets anything, and she loves to share the history of Bella Valley.”An old-fashioned white farmhouse with a tall porch and Craftsman-style detailing came into view, then disappeared behind the bend, then was back again [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]