Налини Сингх – The Ashtons: Jillian, Eli & Charlotte: Just a Taste / Awaken the Senses / Estate Affair (страница 6)

“You’ll take a look at my plans? Now?”

“I’m not agreeing to take on the job or even to quote. But I’ll take a look and help you work out a solution.”

“I understand.” She huffed out a rueful-sounding breath. “And I’m not about to look that gift horse in the mouth a second time.”

Seth’s gaze dipped to her mouth, to the relieved smile that itched around its corners, and he couldn’t for the life of him think of a suitably light and witty response. Kissing her was out of the question, he supposed, but that was all he could think about doing, just bending forward and tasting the warmth of that smile in the quiet morning air…

“Seth Bennedict?”

Jillian started backward. Seth turned slowly and realized he’d—they’d both—been so engrossed that they hadn’t heard Caroline Sheppard’s approach. She entered the stable yard on a considerably smaller horse and at a much more sedate pace than her daughter.

And she smiled at Seth with a mixture of surprise and pleasure. “It is you!”

“How are you doing, Mrs. Sheppard?”

“I would be doing much better if you called me Caroline. ” She started to dismount, waving away Seth’s offer to help. “I have all morning to lever myself out of this saddle, and I’d be much happier doing so without an audience, thank you all the same.”

Given his recent experience helping with the out-of-saddle procedure, Seth conceded her point. Which prompted him to turn and seek out Jillian.

In the process of dragging the saddle from her monster horse, she met his eyes with a surprising note of humor. “Don’t even think about helping me again, Seth. I can handle this myself.”

“We know you can,” Caroline interceded, her gaze flicking from one to the other with carefully contained curiosity. “But if you two have business to attend to, I’ll look after the horses and finish up here.”

“That would be great, Mom. Seth’s agreed to take a look at my plans after all.”

“I’m pleased to hear that. Why don’t you join us for breakfast, Seth, once you’re done?”

“Thanks for the offer, but I promised I’d be home to take Rachel to day care. I don’t have a lot of time.”

“Then we’ll catch up another day.”

“I’d like that.” He turned to Jillian. “Ready?”

“Once I get rid of this saddle.”

She hurried off into the depths of the barn. So, okay, she didn’t want his help toting saddles but he couldn’t just stand here and watch, right? Not when watching took in the quick left-right hitch of her backside.

Funny, but he’d always thought those beige riding pants a bit starched and prissy. Not anymore. He followed those fast-moving pants inside—in case there was a door to open. Or something.

Off to his right he heard Mini Ed snicker. Probably at him. Seth Bennedict, unable to say no to the lady, despite his promise to keep a healthy distance and save himself this torture of seeing and wanting and not touching.

He knew he would lament this morning, from his foolhardy charge out here to save her from the mistake that was Travis Carmody, to his offer to look at her plans and help her find a workable solution. Then he remembered how she’d stood tall and looked into his eyes and all but admitted she needed his help.

And he couldn’t for the life of him summon up one scrap of regret.

Three

Two days later, Seth swung his truck into the parking lot beside the Louret Winery building and cast his eyes over the assembled vehicles. Besides the staff cars, he counted one minibus, two rental cars and several out-of-state plates. More than enough, he figured, to keep Jillian busy in the tasting room. Excellent.

The rushed Monday morning run-through hadn’t been nearly enough, not done cold, not with him mindful of getting back for Rachel. He needed to see Jillian at work, to see how she worked, before he could be satisfied with her ideas for the remodel. Structurally, the job would be simple enough, but this type of renovation was about more than knocking down a wall or two.

Inside the tasting room he paused while his vision adjusted from strong afternoon sunlight to the muted interior. Too dark, he decided, despite the number of light fixtures and the one floor-to-ceiling window.

His narrowed gaze swept the room, taking it all in, assessing, seeking…and taking too long to find Jillian. Standing behind one of two tasting bars situated along the side walls, she poured for a group of women who, curiously, all wore red hats. She didn’t give any sign of noticing his arrival.

Bad positioning, bad space planning, bad for business.

Jillian’s design with one bigger bar running smack down the center improved all of the above. Seth, the architect/ builder, needed assurance she’d optimized them. He strolled farther inside, circling around, sensing the instant she saw him.

He waited at the end of the long bar while she excused herself to the tasting group and came to meet him.

“Hello, Seth. I wasn’t expecting you.” Her smile was warm and welcoming. If his unexpected arrival flustered her, she didn’t let it show. “You’ve caught me in the middle of a tasting.”

He tilted his head toward the group at the bar. “Seems like a decent number for midweek.”

“Shannon has another half dozen or so looking through the winery so, yes, it is busy enough. It has been since opening, actually.”

She did this cute little wince, a token complaint since her face glowed with busy-is-good contentment. Man, he liked that. The hint of warmth he wasn’t accustomed to seeing in the cool and restrained lady. The absence of those haunted shadows he was too used to seeing.

And the knowledge that she got off on both galloping her horse and her work.

Work. He stopped staring into her eyes and straightened off the bar. “I’m just here to check on a few things. Don’t let me interrupt.”

“You should have called. I’d have said to come later, after I close at four.”

“I wanted to watch you work.” Seth met her eyes, saw them cloud with…circumspection?…and decided he hadn’t worded that so great. “I need to see how your tasting room operates. I’ll just be wandering around. You won’t even know I’m here.”

She didn’t look convinced. “Wandering around, doing what?”

“Some measuring—”

“You don’t need to check my measurements,” she interrupted with a spark of her trademark pride.

“Yeah, I do. That’s my job.” To illustrate that that’s why he was here—work, his job, nothing personal beyond a favor to his brother’s widow—he gestured toward the women in the wine-tasting group. “We’d both better get back to it.”

He went to work, starting down at back, taking measurements for the repositioned doorway between the tasting room and the winery, checking out the storage room she wanted gone, then working his way back down the room. Checking against her—detailed and accurate, he conceded—draft plan, making notations, setting up a work schedule in his mind.

And all the while aware of her voice, like the soft, rich melody of background music, as she went about her business. As he worked nearer, the hum of that voice took on the shape of words, then sentences, then the full commentary, and Seth reached three fundamental conclusions.

She knew her wines. She knew her audience. Her job in this tasting room married the two.

Oh, and yeah—if he took on this job, he was a masochist.

Squatting on his haunches to check the cypress flooring—it was making way for slate tiles and although well-worn, it might be salvageable for resale—he felt the passion for her work and for her wines play over him in warm, velvet notes. Not a good position with all that wine-talk flaring through his body.

Shaking his head, he stood. But being a masochist, he decided to observe for a few minutes, out of her line of vision but close enough to listen in as she finished up the current wine and selected another bottle.

She poured a small measure into each glass as one of the red-hatted crew—who were all dressed in various shades of purple—expounded her knowledge of big California reds.

“I think you’ll appreciate this cabernet sauvignon,” Jillian interjected smoothly when the expert paused to draw breath. “It’s our ninety-eight reserve.”

“My husband says cabernet is a man’s wine,” a woman commented. “And we don’t have the palate to appreciate it.”

“Carol, isn’t it?”

The fiftyish-looking woman nodded.

“Well, Carol, your husband might be interested in the Human Genome Project which showed that women, in fact, have finer palates. As a gender—” she paused to smile conspiratorially at the all-female group “—we’re better at sensory evaluation.”

“No kidding?” Carol grinned back. “I told Jim he was talking horse-spit.”

He watched Jillian temper her smile. “The ‘man’s wine’ comment is interesting since cabernet sauvignon is regarded as the king of red grapes. They make into wines that are big and bold and full-bodied. Some might say those are masculine attributes—others might think that’s a sexist viewpoint. Or simply horse-spit.”

They all laughed, Carol longest and loudest.

“And there are some women who prefer those qualities in their wine,” Jillian continued. “What about you ladies?”

“I like my men big and bold and full-bodied. Does that count?”

More laughter, and since the joker looked prim and ladylike and had to be pushing eighty, Seth grinned, too. Amused by the interplay, intrigued by Jillian’s easy rapport with the group—another facet he’d never been privy to—he leaned himself against a thick vertical support beam, crossed his arms and settled in to enjoy the show.