AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He filled their mugs with fragrant fresh brew, knowing she preferred it black. For his, he spooned in two tablespoons of sugar, then changed it to pale khaki with a liberal splash of cream.
God, the metaphors were writing themselves.
Harry served her two of the most perfect pancakes she’dever seen. Round, fluffy, and topped with pooling pats of butter. Her plate had barely burnt bacon on it, too.
It wasn’t just the orange juice. It was theentire breakfastfrom that long-ago conversation. He may as well have written it in the sky.
Just say it.“I love you too, Harry.”
“No bacon for you?” she asked instead as he settled into the seat across from her.
“Don’t like it.”
Rowan sucked in a melodramatic breath. “Monster.”
“The piggies would disagree.”
“How did I not know this about you?”
He raised a wry brow. “You never stuck around for breakfast until now.”
“Fair.” She took a big bite of pancake and briefly closed her eyes in bliss. “God.They’re as delicious as they are pretty.”
Harry answered with a smirk and a lingering glance at her breasts. “You just made a sex noise.” He forked a big hunk into his mouth.
“Did not.”
“You did. I’m an authority on the subject. An enthusiast. I’m a Rowan’s sex-noises aficionado.”
She chewed for a moment, swallowed, and primly dabbed her mouth with a napkin. “Maybe I’m makingpancakenoises during sex, not the other way around?”
“I need to make you pancakes more often.”
They laughed. The rest of breakfast and kitchen cleanup proceeded the same—innuendo and affection, gentle laughter, and kisses in between.
Through the window, the sky burned a band of orange along the horizon. Rowan wasn’t ready for the morning to be over. She had no work in the vineyard today since Gia would be taking her to the airport in the early afternoon. Tomorrow, she’d wake up in a Texas hotel room, half a country away, preparing to convince strangers to offer her a reason to leave this place.
She wanted to linger with Harry, just this once.
Struck with impulse and urgency, she said, “I want to show you something. But we have to hurry.”
OUTSIDE, THE AIRsmelled of mineral coolness and the lingering citrus cream scent of evening primrose. Barn swallows dove and zigzagged in the half-light, and a pair of blue herons flew over them toward the lake in the valley below. Mist, everywhere. It felt like the closest a human being could ever come to breathing underwater.
“Follow,” Rowan said, leading Harry on a sprint down one of the Chardonnay rows. He followed without question or hesitation.
They ran until they reached the lower perimeter of the vineyard. Rowan climbed the short fence at the bottom of the Brady property—the latch on the gate there had rusted closed long ago.
“Trespassing? I haven’t even had my second cup of coffee,” he said.
“Get over here and stop talking,” Rowan laughed.
Harry sighed and hopped the fence. His side-eye was almost comical.
Rowan led him by the hand to a field of short grass. Beyond the field, the southern part of Lake Vesper lapped at a shoreline of sedge and cattail. They stopped in the middle of the field, where they had a better view of the gentle upward slope of the Brady vineyard.
For the past month, Rowan had reveled in this brief predawn enchantment each time she left Harry’s place, but she’d neverhad time to come down to see the lake up close. The mist drifted slowly down the rows of grapes, gathering and settling in the valley, mostly obscuring the surface of the water behind them.
She could feel Harry’s expectant attention on her. She kept her eyes straight ahead.
