“For your car and for your stove or heat.”
“Oh. So…I’d need a lot. To start a life.”
“A good amount, yes. You need to pay a guarantee as well, I think, if it’s like France. And references for the landlord.” He glanced at her. “This makes you unhappy?”
“Guess I thought…I thought I could work for you for a couple weeks and have enough to start a life.”
“It’s hard, Abby.” His eyes on her were steady and full of a new softness that she wasn’t entirely comfortable with, like he’d taken off a layer of her skin to speak to her insides.
“Blue jeans, too,” she said, forcing a touch of flippancy to her tone.
“What?”
“Jeans. I’d like to wear jeans with snaps and a zipper, like a normal person.”
“Like aslim?” The word came out with twoEs in the middle:sleem. She shook her head, not understanding. “Um, skinny jeans?” he clarified.
“Goodness, no!” She laughed. “I’d need time to adjust to just trousers first, but…” Letting her gaze rest on the valley before them, she thought of the hundreds—no, thousands—of women who walked around every day wearing practical clothing instead of these stiff cotton skirts and modest drawers she had to fight her way out of. “I’d like to look normal when I go into town, to feel free. Just a T-shirt and jeans. Those sneaker shoes to walk in. Maybe some—”
She stopped, hating how her current thought embarrassed her. It wasn’t the wish so much as the fantasy surrounding it.
“Some?”
“Boots. Cowboy boots, you know? The kind you stomp around in.” Except stomping wasn’t what she envisioned when she said it. In her mind’s eye, she pictured herself in jeans by all rights tighter than she should want to wear them; a cute shirt—maybe something sparkly, but not too fancy, since part of her just wanted a plain T-shirt; and those boots with their small heels and slightly pointed toes. And all of this dancing on the arm of a man.This man, truth be told. It was this man in her fantasy, which sent a new wash of heat prickling against the cold air, from her chest to her forehead and well into her hairline.
“I can’t imagine you stomping.”
“No? I’d be good at it.”
Their eyes met as he said, “I don’t doubt it.” The words, silly and inconsequential as they were, sent blood rushing right down her body to where it didn’t belong. Somehow that blood weighed her down, made her lids heavy, and sent her mouth to drooping in a way she was sure he could see.
And then sheknewhe could, because his eyes strayed there, lingering before one thick, rough-hewn hand followed. A single knuckle swiped her bottom lip in a gesture not so much affectionate as…curious? Compulsive? Like a baby who couldn’t help but touch a ball or stuff it in his mouth. To taste. To feel. Toknow.
It was over too soon, that swipe. And yet, somehow, it lasted forever. Suspended here on the mountain, in their thick cloud of burning vine and sparks, the cold melted away by more than just the fire.
After that long hitch in time, Abby inhaled and let the air out in hiccups—the shaky kind you couldn’t help making after a good, hard sob. But rather than the release of a big cry, his knuckle to her lip screwed everything up tight, made her insides overflow with whatever this was. She was sure she’d pop. Shehadto.
Because Lord only knew what she’d do if this pressure didn’t release sometime soon.
6
Luc was a complete and total idiot. He’d seen that lip, poking out all pink and lush and sweet. In a trance, he’d let himself touch it, had watched his hand as if it hadn’t even been his decision.
As they approached the end of the last row of the day, things awkward now that he’d gone and touched her, he wanted her in a way he couldn’t control.
It felt so terribly wrong.
“What is it you do up there? In the barn?” she asked, breaking into his tortured thoughts.
“Nothing.”
“Oh. I thought…I thought maybe you made wine with your grapes.”
“Not really.”
She looked unhappy at that answer, blinking away what might have been hurt. He’d said something wrong, as usual.
With a sigh, he explained, “I’m not a winemaker.”
