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I felt certain he’d come by my house to finish what he started last night, but maybe I got it wrong. Maybe he was just motivated by the wine we drank in the theater and the moment under the twinkling lights.
In the light of day, maybe he was glad Archer interrupted us.
All these thoughts swirl in my head as I decide what to wear to dinner. Normally, I don’t give it a thought. Dinners with my family are slightly more fun than business meetings. In fact, we usually talk business for about half the time, then bicker the other half of the time. Sometimes, we do both at once.
Dash is hosting the dinner at his house, which means we’re having tacos. He only makes tacos with the help of a few of the guys who work at the vineyard. They roast chilis we grow in the food garden, and Dash makes a killer salsa. In his mind, the food he cooks is just a vehicle to get salsa into his mouth. Doesn’t matter if it’s a taco or a quesadilla.
After staring into my closet for ten minutes, I pull on a short black dress with spaghetti straps. It’s still warm in the evenings, especially under the heat lamps on Dash’s deck, but I grab a rose-colored sweater off the chair in my bedroom and tie it around my waist.
Surveying the look in the full-length mirror, I decide I look too college co-ed and not enough intriguing twenty-something woman. If Colin does show up, I want to err on the side of cute, but not little sister cute.
Instead of the sweater, I opt for a sheer black short-sleeved shirt, which I put on over the dress and leave unbuttoned like a jacket. Cuter, and with a pair of slides with a chunky heel, my legs look longer and I feel good.
I leave my hair down but go easy on the makeup. Nothing to suggest to my siblings that I’m trying too hard.
Then I wander over to the industrial kitchen behind the big brown barn and get to work baking a batch of brownies. Dash asked me to bring dessert, and I knew he meant the brownies I bake in a special S-shaped tin that ensures that every brownie comes out with edges. My family doesn’t like the middle pieces.
Mixing the batter, I gaze out the window at the long rows of grapes, all ripening in the late afternoon sun before the fallharvest. It’s my favorite time of day here, when the sharp yellow rays cut through the vines in an almost-blinding kaleidoscope.
“I smell brownies.” The voice behind me makes me smile, and I turn to hug Marissa, our head gardener. She takes care of all the crops on the property that aren’t grapes, which means she’s in charge of several dozen acres of plants.
“You can’t smell them when I haven’t baked them yet.”
“True. I saw you walk in here a few minutes ago when I was checking the soil on the fruit trees.”
“Everything look okay?” We had a dry summer, which doesn’t always bode well for the stone fruit.
“Yeah. Peaches are ripening early, cherries late. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I can roll with it.” Marissa tucks the purple-dyed ends of her dark ponytail into a bun beneath a lavender bandanna tied over her hair.
Shoving her hands into the pockets of her usual work outfit of denim overalls, she regards the brownie pan and shakes her head. “I don’t get you Corbetts. The middle is the best part.”
“Next time, I’ll bake a regular batch, and you can have all the middles,” I promise, putting the tray of brownies into the hot oven.
She pumps a fist. “Cool.” Marissa and I have been friends since Dash hired her three years ago. We’re close in age, and she’s one of the few people who can convince me to go into town for a night out every so often. “Hey, so I heard you were out with some hottie McHotpants at the movie theater.”
It shouldn’t surprise me that even after my thorough scan of the theater, someone saw me and reported back to Marissa in record time.
“Yeah, that’s Archer’s friend. He’s staying here for a couple weeks. I was being neighborly.” I hear the lie in my voice and wonder if Marissa picks up on just how unneighborly I’d like to be.
She crosses her arms and regards me suspiciously. The tiny diamond nose piercing glints in the overhead light, mirroring the sparkles in her dark eyes. She doesn’t believe me for one second.
“Archer’s friend. Yet, you went out with him.”
“I went to a movie with him.” I try my denial on for size once more in preparation for any ribbing my family plans to give me later, assuming Colin mentions anything to them
She shakes her head. “You’re so full of it. Tell me the truth.”
I check my watch. Brownies won’t be ready for thirty minutes, so I pull out a chair and gesture for Marissa to sit. “I need help, Mare.” My shoulders fall, and I slump over the table, grateful she’s here so I can vent. “At first, I couldn’t stand the guy, but now…”
I tell her everything. The chess matches. His publicity problems. The late nights and almost kisses. “It’s not just that he’s hot and conveniently situated outside my front door. He kinda gets me. He sees me as an individual person, not just the youngest of five overachieving siblings.”
It feels good to get it off my chest, even if saying the words makes me realize I want Colin much more than I let myself believe.
She nods. “Well, I’m gladsomeonefinally gave you a little perspective on yourself. You don’t give yourself enough credit.” Marissa plays with a salt and pepper set on the table, spinning them and somehow managing not to spill a single granule.
“That’s not the point. The point is…I like him, Mare. And that’s pretty inconvenient considering I haven’t even kissed him, and he’s leaving in a week.”
But I almost kissed him. And the memory of how much I want that has pushed all other thoughts from my brain.
