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“She pointed out that I’d not made room for Rae in my life when she arrived.” He finished his sentence with a visible wince.
“Made room? You put her in the guest house. Let her build a tasting room.”
“I said almost the exact same thing. But when Cameron explained, I saw her point. I ‘let’ and ‘put’…not once did I welcome or invite. And I never asked.”
“Huh.” My poor man brain hurt. Female emotional gymnastics wasn’t my strong suit. The grape harvest occupied what mental capacity I had after sleeping like shit since things went bad with Rae. I could barely see the subtle differences Wilson was going on about.
I eyed the cabinet behind Wilson’s desk and wondered if there was a bottle of whiskey in it. Not like I could have any. In a few hours, I’d be driving a two-hundred-thousand-dollar tractor to help harvest grapes. But a shot might get Wilson off this topic.
“When she got here, I peppered her with questions, then implied that my working relationship with you was more important than my blood tie to her. Shoved her in a rundown guest house and left for California.”
Ouch. That picture was getting clearer. I could see why Rae feared rocking the boat. She’d seen herself as one step away from homeless and useless when she arrived. She had thrown herself on the mercy of her brother and would take anything he offered… and I wasn’t on the menu.
“Shouldn’t you be talking to her, not me, about all this?”
“Cameron thinks I need to talk to both of you. Because she thinks that if I fix the roadblocks I constructed, a lot would change around here.”
“Understood.” No, I didn’t, but I wanted this odd touchy-feely conversation to lead somewhere and fix the aching hole that had developed in my chest over the last two weeks. I wanted to sleep through the night without waking up to stare at the ceiling thinking about Rae. Most of all, I wanted to fall asleep with her in my arms. Not for one night or even one summer or one year. I wanted more. I’d whispered the word “forever” into the dark last night like a fool wishing for the moon.
“Well then, here goes.” Wilson stood tall and smoothed his shirt, reminding me of a guy about to give a sales pitch.
“Wilson?” I was sure I looked like a deer caught in the morbid glare of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler’s high beams as I sat stiff and uncomfortable in the chair, waiting for his grand plan to unfold.
“I want you to date the hell out of my sister.”
I wasn’t sure I heard him right, but he kept going…
“Like big-time date her. Flowers. Moonlight. All the romance. Show her how totally unique Elmer is. This town is fucking magic; don’t underestimate its appeal. It’s your ace in the hole. Charm her boots off.”
“I don’t understand.” I comprehended the words. It was the why that had me confused. Why did he want me todate the hell out ofhis sister?
“I’m fixing the mess I made. Or part of it. You two did the rest of it on your own. When Rae got here, I should have encouraged you two to do what felt right. Sex. No sex. Flirting. Ignoring. Whatever. I butted in when I should have butted out. I put my needs between you two. It wasn’t the right thing, and it wasn’t how to make Rae welcome. Plus, it goes without saying, you are about a million times better than that jackass she dated, Matthew.”
“You know we are adults. We make our own choices.” Wilson didn’t screw everything up. I did, and that was why I’d apologized to Rae.
“True. But you both are… not pessimists exactly, but realists. You see the world as it is. That’s why you’re so good in a crisis. You don’t regret the situation, place blame, or try to figure out what could have been done to prevent it. You fix it. Like a force of nature.”
He’d nailed the description of me. I kind of enjoyed being labeled a realist. It fit.
“And Rae, she’s not good at asking for what she wants or deserves. She lives with the hand that life has dealt her, making lemons into almost palatable lemonade. Perfect illustration. Her ex gave her a fax machine for Christmas, and she thanked him. Any other woman would have bashed him over the head with the thing.”
The Rae I knew would bash her idiot ex over the head with the fax machine. She’d grown, made changes. She demanded more of life, and instead of a realist, she’d become determined. I liked to think our night together in Dallas had been the very beginning of Rae’s transformation. Her brother hadn’t seen the changes yet, but I had.
Wilson lived at the other end of the personality spectrum, always stepping way beyond what was expected. He moved to Texas when everything in his life should have kept him firmly rooted in LA. He went big embracing change. He invited the whole town to a Fourth of July BBQ on a whim. I’d assumed it was how he’d become a billionaire.
“And dating me is the opposite of her keeping the fax machine?” No way I could look him in the eye; this was too fucking awkward. I liked Wilson, respected him, enjoyed working for him, but he was my billionaire boss, and this conversation was surreal.
“Nope, not dating. We are talking hellish over-the-top dating. Like all the bells and whistles. I don’t think someone has ever swept her off her feet.”
I nodded. With all my heart and soul, I wanted to be the man who swept Rebecca Phillips off her feet. Wooed her. Knocked her socks off. Made her feel like the most important woman in the world. But…
Wilson pressed a hand over his heart and shrugged. “Unless I’m totally wrong about all this. And the reason you’ve been a big grouchy asshole the last couple of weeks isn’t because you and she stopped sleeping together.”
“We only slept together that night in Dallas.” As the words left my mouth, I wished I could call them back. It was a detail Wilson didn’t need to know.
The silence lasted an awkwardly long time. Another incident I could add to my list of times I regretted speaking.
“Did Cameron and I screw up? You two weren’t having sex? Jameson told me about the whole cowboy hat in the barn thing. We assumed…”
