The Ashtons: Jillian, Eli & Charlotte. Bronwyn Jameson
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his cell phone the next day. He was working on another job, but he promised to take a look at the problematic fence before the weekend. Sometime. Thursday he found himself driving by Louret on his way home from a site inspection, and he decided he might as well swing by the cottage.
Three minutes, give or take, and he’d worked out a fix for the fence. He’d also worked up a decent level of irritation. Any half-handy vineyard or winery worker—or brother or stepfather—could have repaired this fence. She hadn’t needed to call in a builder any more than he’d needed to say, “Sure, no problem, I’ll take a look.”
Hell, and weren’t those the words that got him into trouble in the first place? Agreeing to take a look at her tasting room when every instinct had screamed “no” and “are you a masochist?”
Seth stalked to his truck and slapped on a tool belt. Since he was here, he might as well fix the loose screen he’d seen on one of the windows round back. While he was at it, he’d check all the latches. According to Jillian, Anna Sheridan was nervous about security.
He heard a vehicle but paid no attention until it pulled up out front. Then every disgruntled cell in his body stood up and took notice. Damn. He didn’t even know who was out there. It could be Anna or Caroline or some half-handy worker come to fix the blessed fence.
Except it wasn’t.
Instinctively he knew that before he saw her coming through the gate, her arms loaded up to her chin with God knows what. With his truck parked in clear sight, his presence here was pretty much a given. Yet Jillian pulled up short when she saw him round the corner of the veranda. Her mouth softened in a soft “oh” of surprise, and all Seth could think about was that kiss.
Four days and he could still taste her on his lips and in his blood. Four nights of shouldn’t-have-done-it recriminations and all he wanted now was to kiss her again. To simply walk right up and take that open mouth with his.
Except he didn’t.
Instead he leaned his shoulder against a veranda post, crossed his arms, and concentrated on anything but her mouth’s wet heat.
The stuff in her arms. That would do for starters.
“Moving in?” he asked, inclining his head toward her heavily laden arms.
She blinked, then glanced down. “Oh, this. No. It’s just some things for Anna, to make the place more comfortable. For Jack’s room, mostly.”
“She’s agreed to take the place?”
“She took some convincing, but yes.” With a small grimace, she readjusted her load. “This isn’t heavy, but it’s awkward. Maybe you could get the door for me…?”
The door. Right. He straightened and started to turn. Then remembered it was locked. “Keys?”
“In my hand.” She jiggled the keys in said hand, somewhere beneath the voluminous folds of what looked like a duvet. Then, with a sharp yelp of alarm, she clutched at her slipping cargo.
Seth leaped in to help—what else could he do?—and ended up with his arms full of soft duvet and his veins filled with the heat of body contact. Carefully, with a minimum of self-indulgence, he redistributed the weight.
“It’s okay, I’ve got it,” she said, her voice low and husky. They were standing close, and when he looked down into her face their eyes met and held, and the connection, her nearness, the four-day-old kiss pulsed through him with the slow, steady beat of desire.
“The door,” she said quickly. “Can you please get the door because this is starting to slip again?”
Yeah, and so was his willpower. One kiss, one taste, one fleeting contact arm-against-breast and he wanted so much more. He wanted—
With a snort of disgust, Seth swung away and strode to the door. He wanted a good hard kick to his senses. He wanted his head examined. He wanted to build a wall of aggravation to keep this insidious desire at bay.
“Any more in your car?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Mom had Lucas bring down the cot and some other bits and pieces earlier.”
“You didn’t think Lucas could have checked the fence, too? Seeing as he was here?”
She’d started fussing with the duvet and a baby blanket, folding them, smoothing them, but his snippy tone brought her head up slowly. “Yes, but I thought you’d do a better job, since you’ve probably faced the same toddler-proofing problems with Rachel.”
“It’s not rocket science.”
“If you didn’t want to help me,” she said, her tone frostier with each carefully delivered word, “you should have said so.”
She was right, but why waste her snooty mood? Why not slap a few more bricks on the wall?
“I’m not doing this to help you, Jillian.” He crossed to the living-room window and checked the catch. “I’m helping Anna. Seems like she can use all the help she can get.”
As he moved to the kitchen, he felt her gaze shadowing him every step of the way. Felt it in every tense muscle of his body, every wired nerve. In every brain cell that urged him to stop acting like a jerk and admit what he wanted, straight-up and honest.
Except what would be the point? He wanted her, but how could he have her?
“I’m glad you see it that way,” she said finally. “Anna can use a friend or two.”
“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t have felt the same way about her sister.”
“Why is that?”
Slowly he turned from the window and met her puzzled gaze. “She had an affair with a married man.”
He brushed by her on his way out of the kitchen, left her standing there in stunned silence, while he moved from room to room, systematically noting the locks that needed changing, the latches he could shore up. Work, system, routine: the props that had kept him functioning through his short and troubled marriage, and through his discovery of Karen’s infidelity.
Jason hadn’t cared that she wore a wedding band or that she was married to his own brother, but he wasn’t like his brother. He would never sleep with another man’s wife…or widow while she still wore that ring.
Why the hell did she still wear it?
Why the hell don’t you ask her?
Seth huffed out a breath. Yeah, it was time to talk. It was past time.
He walked to the last room and saw that she’d spread the brightly patterned duvet over a single bed and draped the baby’s blanket over the side of a cot. Jillian herself stood with her back to the door, holding a framed picture to the wall, and the sight of her there, amidst all the trappings of family, hit him hard.
Same as the day at the Vines when she’d taken Rachel to check out her pony collection. Same as Sunday evening, in Caroline’s garden, with Rachel’s pigtails mushed trustingly against her shoulder.
Damn, but this was supposed to be physical. The sweet ache of lust, the slow throb of sexual need. That’s all he wanted. No emotion, no happy families. None of that phony fantasy.
“You want that picture hung?” he asked, his voice as surly as his mood.
“Yes, but I can manage.” Cool, so very cool. And she didn’t even turn around. “Have you finished out there?”
“Checking the locks, yes.” He stalked over and took the picture out of her hands. “Center of this wall?”
For a second he thought she would argue—for a second he hoped she would—but then she nodded stiffly. “Where you have it is fine.”
Not a picture, he noticed after he’d positioned the small whitewood frame, but a message done in some kind of fancy stitching.