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“I’m not.”
“Then why are you down here?” she demanded, poking a finger at his chest. “Why are you in a room in my house? Why didn’t your father send someone else—someone with more experience—down here to check out possible vineyard sites? You know, this whole thing has been bogus from the start!”
“Have you ever thought that I might be here because I couldn’t stay away?”
“From what? Me?” She shook her head and reached for the handle of the door again. “Oh, come on, Jay, it’s been months since Philip died. Months. If you really cared, you would have—Ooh!” He pulled her close and kissed her so hard she couldn’t breathe for a second, couldn’t think. Strong arms wrapped around her, preventing her escape.
Fire screamed through her blood. Desire shot through her insides, turning her liquid. Oh, why was it always like this with him? He groaned as his kiss deepened, and erotic images flashed through her mind.
“Tiffany,” he said and his voice cracked a bit. He lifted his head, and she saw in his eyes a raw pain she didn’t understand. “I do care, Tiffany,” he admitted, though he seemed to hate the words. His arms, strong and warm, were still wrapped around her. “I care too much. Way too much.”
Her heart pounded for a small second. Oh, God, how she wanted to believe him, to drown in his words, to trust in the concern in his eyes; but she couldn’t. This was J.D. Santini, her brother-in-law, a man who felt some kind of obligation, a duty to his dead brother’s memory and widow. “Then don’t, Jay,” she said, tamping down that stupid little romantic part of her heart that cried out to give him a chance. “Just don’t care. I…we… The kids and I are doing fine.” She kept her voice devoid of emotion. “We don’t need you.”
The lie hovered between them for a second. He stared deep into her eyes as if in so doing he could search her soul. She wanted to kiss him, to hold him, to tell him that she loved him—Dear God, she loved him?
That thought scared her to the bone, turning her blood to ice. Of all the men in the world, she couldn’t fall in love with J.D. Santini.
Never.
Before he could guess the turn of her thoughts, she fumbled for the door latch, scrambled out of her seat and raced across the lawn as fast as if Lucifer himself were on her heels. She only hoped that she could run away from the awful truth. She couldn’t love J.D. Santini. Wouldn’t!
Behind her she heard the Jeep’s engine fire again. With a screech of tires, J.D. backed out of the drive. Tiffany didn’t turn around, just dashed up the two steps of the porch and propelled herself through the front door. He was leaving. Good. The more distance between his body and hers, the better. But it was only temporary. He’d signed a lease for six months.
Six months!
Inside, she slammed the door shut and sagged against the wall. She was perspiring and gasping for breath, her mind spinning in restless, unending circles. She’d never make it. Never. She couldn’t face living in the same house with him for the next two days, let alone half a year.
She couldn’t see J.D. again. Not now. Not ever.
Unfortunately, she didn’t have a choice.
CHAPTER TEN
“Write up an offer. Five percent less than the owners are asking. Make it contingent on the soil analysis and water report.” J.D. eyed the surrounding acres of the Zalinski farm and told himself that he wasn’t making a hasty decision, that these three hundred acres were the right piece of property, that he wasn’t grasping at straws just to leave Bittersweet and Tiffany in his dust.
It had been days since the wedding, and he’d barely seen her since. The tension between them was stretched to the breaking point; it was time to leave.
Max Crenshaw tugged at his tie and grinned widely. Beads of sweat slid down from his bald pate, over his fleshy cheeks and along his neck to disappear beneath his collar. “This is a good choice,” he said with a wink. “And the sellers are motivated. The offer shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Good.” J.D. liked what he saw. The farm consisted of a stone house, barn and outbuildings set in rolling hills with a creek that zigzagged through the fields. Pine and oak trees offered shade around the buildings as well as fringed the neat acres now planted in grass. A few head of cattle grazed on dry stubble while sheep and goats occupied pens closer to the barn, and a tractor with a trailer hitched behind was parked on the knoll of one grassy field. The exposure and drainage looked right, the soil was known to produce high-quality grapes for Santini Brothers’ Sémillon, a white Bordeaux wine. The cabernet sauvignon and merlots would be perfect for a new blend of red wine his father wanted to try. As far as J.D. could see, this place would be perfect.
And he could leave.
Before he got too entangled in Tiffany’s life.
Before his heart was involved.
“I’ll stop by your office later today and sign the offer, then fax a copy to my father in Portland,” J.D. told the Realtor. “He’ll want to see all the information you’ve got on this place. If there is any problem with water rights or the property being sublet or rented, he’ll need to know about it.”
“Shouldn’t be a concern. The Zalinskis have already moved, and the acres are being used by a cousin who lives near Ashland, but he knows that they’re trying to sell. He’ll move his animals and equipment on the spot. Not a problem,” Max said with a congenial nod. J.D. could almost see the wheels turning in the real estate agent’s mind as he mentally calculated his commission on this place. “I’ve done some digging with the title company, and I think we’re all right. Aside from a small mortgage with a local bank, the property is free and clear. But I’ll get a title report and see that all the paperwork is done.”
“Fair enough.” J.D. slid into Max’s car and told himself that this was the first step. Soon he’d be able to extricate himself from this little town and return to Portland where he could start working for his father in earnest.
The thought made his jaw tighten. He’d never been one who pursued his own happiness or worried much about it. He considered life a challenge, one with rewards as well as disappointments, and he’d prided himself on being his own man, not his father’s flunky as Philip had been.
But he’d changed. Absently J.D. rubbed his thigh, the old pain from his accident returning with a twinge of conscience.
Max turned the car around in the dry grass by the garage and headed down the long, winding lane to the main road. He was still going on and on about the location of the property, resale value and such, but J.D. wasn’t paying much attention because as they drove toward town, the dry acres of Isaac Wells’s ranch came into view. “Let’s stop here,” he said suddenly, and Max shot him a glance.
