The wine was twist-off, thankfully, so I didn’t have to bother with a corkscrew. There were two glasses on the credenza. I was in the middle of pouring the wine when there was a light rap on the door.
Brooks appeared. He was wearing a pair of faded jeans and an old black cotton T-shirt.
I wished he hadn’t gotten dressed.
“I’m doomed,” I mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said, holding out a glass of wine to him.
“I don’t drink,” he said.
“You don’t?”
“No.”
I frowned. “Then why did you accept my offer to share the bottle of wine?”
“Because you don’t want to be alone.”
I scratched my ear. “That obvious?”
He nodded.
“Chocolate?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Are you allergic?”
“No, I just don’t have a taste for it.”
I sighed. “So, you’re going to watchmedrink wine and eat chocolate?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you watch TV?” I asked.
“No. Is that what you want to do—watch TV?”
“I want to do anything except think,” I said. “So whatever remedy you have for that, I’m open to it—just as long as it’s not talking.”
He raised his brows.
“That came out completely wrong. I didn’t mean anything by it, I swear.”
Amusement stamped across his lavish mouth, but thankfully he let it go.
“Sit. Relax,” Brooks said.
Impossible with a hulking, devastatingly attractive cowboy in my feminine, chintz-draped room. But I sank onto the bed and sipped the wine. “Oh, that’s terrible.”
But then I took another drink.
He laughed. “If it’s terrible, why are you drinking it?”
“Because bad red wine and chocolate is still better than no red wine and chocolate. Get it?”
