I’m propped up on one elbow, looking down on her. She’s still pale, but she’s smiling. And sheisthe most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Her beauty is outside and inside, too—in her spirit, and in her courage. Not many people would openly admit to feeling jealous like she just has. I’m finding it hard enough to get this story out and I haven’t even got to the bad part.
“I’m not good at this communication thing,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not good at sharing,” says Ava. “I was competitive right out of the womb. Used to scream the place down if I saw Nate with something I wanted. Didn’t matter what the thing was. The fact that Nate had it and not me was enough.”
“You won’t have to share me with Lee,” I say.
And then I wonder how true that really is. Lee is my friend, after all. But friends are different from lovers, right?
Ava’s still smiling, but it has a knowing twist to it.
“Short of locking you in this place and never letting you out again, I’ll have to share you with everyone. Shelby, Nate, the whole Flora Valley Wines team, my family.” She pauses. “And Lee…”
She reaches a hand behind my neck and pulls me down to her for a kiss. Her mouth against mine is hungry and urgent, her tongue sending pulses of lust down my body until I’m groaning with need.
And then she pushes me off.
“But I’m the only one you do this with, comprende?” she says.
I can only nod. The blood hasn’t come all the way back up to my brain yet.
In one fluid movement, Ava converts from prone into a cross-legged sitting position. How does shedothat?
“And now,” she says, “on with the story. We were up to the part where you met the most beautiful woman you’d ever seen in your life—”
“—until I met you.” Better late than never.
“Noted.” Ava flips her hand in a shooing motion. “Move along.”
I’m aware that a portion of the blood supply that should be back in my brain hasn’t made it. It’s still down south and sending signals that it wants attention. I know I promised to tell the whole story, but I think I’ll stick to the edited highlights. Or lowlights. Definitely more of those.
“So, I finally had dinner with Billy, Lee, Shelby, and Frankie. Lee made me have a shower first and gave me some of her sons’ old clothes, Shelby’s older brothers. Fair enough, I was rank. Frankie was fourteen and so I was of no interest to her whatsoever. But Shelby kept staring at me across the table until Lee told her to stop. Shelby apologized but said it was because I reminded her of an old dog they’d had who was part Irish Wolfhound, part Leonberger, basically a huge, hairy mutt. Billy laughed and told me this was a compliment. If I reminded Shelby of one of their beloved pets, that meant she thought I was okay. Once I got to know Shelby, I realized this was true, but all I could hear at the time was that I was no better than a mongrel dog.”
“You were in a bad place,” says Ava. “Hard to see straight.”
“Billy asked if I wanted handyman work round the property. Flora Valley Wines ran on a shoestring budget, so he couldn’t pay me much, but I was welcome to stay rent-free in the old workshop. The wood burner stove could be fixed up. He could get a loan of a bar fridge.”
“Your very own doghouse,” says Ava gently.
“How I saw it, too. My first instinct was to run a mile and get away from these nice, deluded people. But there must have been one last grain of common sense lodged in my head because I said yes.”
There was also a grain of masculine pride. Even feeling like a mongrel dog, I’d been taken enough by Lee to want to impress her. To want to know her better. But that’s probably not an admission for right now.
“Plus, you had a crush on Lee,” says Ava matter-of-factly.
“How did you—?”
“Most beautiful woman? Remember?”
Jesus, all right, got it. No point in tiptoeing around.
“First few weeks, I barely said a word to anyone. Did what Billy asked me. Pretty simple work, kind I’d been used to back home and on Blair’s farm. Shelby was busy learning the ropes of the winery from Billy. Frankie was at school, and Lee was doing arty stuff and looking after the garden. They’d say hi in passing but otherwise left me alone. They could see I wasn’t starving to death, that I’d bought some clothes and was relatively clean. Looked like I was managing okay, so they left me to it.”
“But you weren’t managing okay.”
“Not even close,” I acknowledge.
“Cam, you had PTSD,” says Ava. “Didn’t anyone tell you that?”