Once Tasted: A Silver Creek Novel (41 page)
Read Once Tasted: A Silver Creek Novel Online
Authors: Laura Moore
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
Reid and Sirrus stood beside her as the patrol cars backed up, turned around, and headed down the drive. “Come sit down on the porch, Mia, so I can tie Sirrus and he can nibble on your grass.”
Rounding the house, they reached the porch. Reid looped his rope around the top rail and then knotted Sirrus’s reins so they wouldn’t drag on the ground.
The gelding happily set to grazing.
“I wish I had an entire field of clover and timothy for Sirrus. Or at least a bag of carrots.”
“We’ll raid Quinn’s stash later, don’t you worry.”
“He was magnificent. You were, too, Reid.”
“We’re a family that protects our own. You’re mine, Mia.” He clasped her chin and brought his lips to hers, kissing her lingeringly. “I love you.”
“Oh, Reid.” She looked up at him. “I love you, too. I have for so long. It’s just that I’ve been scared of admitting my feelings. And then Jay—”
“Jay was the reason you told me it was over between us, wasn’t he?”
She could see the hurt in his eyes. “Yes. He’s always been really good at preying on my fears and insecurities and the stupid garbage I’ve carried around inside me for years. On that day of the artists’ weekend, he did it again, making me think that you could never love me, because of my background—”
“Mia, for all I care you could be Queen Elizabeth’s grand-niece.”
“Unlikely.” Mia smiled sadly. “It’s hard not having an identity, the way others do, the way you do, Reid, with a family that’s loving and supportive. Jay always knew how to twist that particular knife in his attacks against me. Then, after the winery, when we lost so much, I convinced myself that if I told you I loved you, it would sound as if I was trying to tie you to me. I couldn’t bear the thought of taking more from you when you’d already done and given me so much.”
He caught her hand and laced his fingers with hers. “It wasn’t you who took, Mia. It was Jay. He tried to poison you with his words as surely as he poisoned
Bruno and destroyed the wine you and Thomas made. He wanted to destroy everything you cared about.”
“I know.” Mia nodded. “This morning I woke up and realized I couldn’t let him or my fears control me anymore. I was going to find a way to tell you how much you mean to me”—rising on her toes, she pressed her lips to his—“which is everything.”
With a ragged groan, Reid wrapped his arms about her, pulling her close and deepening the kiss. “I’ve missed you so much,” he whispered. “You’re mine forever, Mia. Tell me I’m yours.”
Tears slipped down her face as she replied, “Yes, yes. Always.”
“Marry me, Mia. The vows say ‘for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.’ Judging from what we’ve been through in the past forty-eight hours, I’d say we can weather anything. We’ll figure out a way to save the winery, too.”
“Jay thought Thomas would sell the winery. I bet he even thought he’d be able to persuade Thomas to hand over a share after the sale went through.”
“The bastard. We’ll talk to Thomas. I have some ideas that will allow us to keep the winery and give Thomas enough to live his life with Pascale. We can discuss them later, after we’ve gone and picked up Bruno.”
“I want him back home so much,” she murmured. “He was so weak yesterday.”
“We’ll make him better. And we’ll make this winery one of the best.”
“Oh, Reid. I was so afraid I’d lost you—”
“Never fear that.”
And when he touched his lips to hers, Mia tasted something infinitely sweet and rare: She tasted love.
To Elaine Markson, my friend and agent,
who has guided me so wisely these many years.
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I
N MATTERS OF
wine I am woefully ignorant. Like my character Quinn Knowles, I frequently buy a wine based on how pretty its label is. Fortunately I have friends who are far more discriminating and who helped me when it came to writing about winemaking. My thanks go to Carolyn Swayze and Howard Benedict for their careful reading and corrections concerning all things wine-related, and to John Hoskins, Master of Wine, who recounted hair-raising stories of sabotage perpetrated in wineries. Should any wine connoisseurs find inaccuracies in my descriptions, the mistakes are mine alone.
Brave indeed are those willing to read a first draft of mine. As ever, my thanks go to Marilyn Brant, my critique partner, for her comments on the manuscript and her unfailing encouragement. To Sally Zierler, friend and fellow dog-lover, my gratitude for her insights when I was consumed by doubts.
I consider myself endlessly lucky to have the friendship and support of the brilliant team of editors and publishers at Random House. My deepest thanks go to Linda Marrow, Gina Wachtel, and Junessa Villoria. I am indebted to Janet Wygal and her sharp-eyed copyeditors who caught more errors than I will ever admit to making. And to Lynn Andreozzi, my thanks and admiration for the amazing covers she has designed for the Silver Creek series.
No acknowledgment would be complete without mentioning my family’s support and patience—even when I’m at my most doubt-riddled and preoccupied. I love you. To Charles, forever.
Y
L
AURA
M
OORE
Once Tasted
Once Tempted
Trouble Me
Believe in Me
Remember Me
In Your Eyes
Night Swimming
Chance Meeting
Ride a Dark Horse
Read on for a sneak peek of the next book in Laura Moore’s Silver Creek series
O
NCE
T
OUCHED
W
HEN
Q
UINN
K
NOWLES
needed to talk, she turned to her goats.
Human beings were all right to talk to now and again. But her friends and family were unsuitable for the present topic, for the simple reason that they were part of the problem.
“Okay, so I admit it’s not exactly fair to call love a problem,” she said. Shifting on her perch on the goat pen’s top railing, she leaned forward to scratch Hennie’s furry chin. “And I know you’ve all been feeling the love big time with Romeo—” Last week, Quinn had driven her four does, Hennie, Alberta, Gertrude, and Maybelle, for their annual tryst with Romeo, a fine and randy buck who stood stud at a Sonoma farm. They’d returned yesterday, mellow as warm cream.
“—But for me, it’s all a bit much. These days I feel like I can’t take two steps without tripping over some blissed-out pair.” When Maybelle gave a bleat that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, Quinn looked at her sternly. “I’m not exaggerating. The situation is seriously annoying.”
In reply, Maybelle stuck her nose in the feeder and withdrew a mouthful of timothy hay.
The couples who stayed at her family’s guest ranch
were a given and thus exempt. Silver Creek Ranch, located on two thousand secluded acres in a bucolic Northern California setting, encouraged amorous play. The guest ranch’s menus offered delicious food to set the mood. And the cabins, stocked with luxury comforts—cloud soft beds, organically combed cotton bed linens, and bathtubs big enough to accommodate two—provided the sensual nest where guests could relax, indulge, and, in the true spirit of Marvin Gaye, get it on.
It would be one thing if the hum of love and romance were confined to strangers passing through the guest ranch. But that wasn’t the case. Thanks to her family, the love vibe was closing in on Quinn and only increasing in volume and intensity.
“I tell you, it’s spooky as all get out,” she confided in Albertina who was nibbling on Gertrude’s neck in some communal morning grooming.
Her oldest brother, Ward, was engaged to be married, his and Tess’s wedding scheduled for January, a mere three months away. Quinn preferred not to think about how fast the date was approaching. She was fairly sure she was allergic to weddings and that no EpiPen would alleviate her reaction.
Reid, her other brother—her better and wiser by four years as he liked to claim—had also succumbed to love. He and Mia Bodell, their neighbor and one of Quinn’s good friends, had announced their engagement last night at Sunday dinner. Mia had looked beautiful, radiant with happiness, and Reid couldn’t stop grinning. Quinn’s mother—equestrian by vocation, hotelier by profession, and matchmaker by some twisted impulse—had wept tears of joy and bone-deep satisfaction. Her two sons were destined for a happy-ever-after with great women.
Of course, Quinn was thrilled for the four of them.
But just because she was happy for her brothers and friends didn’t mean she wanted to keep running into the lovers with their lips locked and their hands clutching and stroking, or to listen to their besotted cooing.
Even her parents, who were certainly old enough to know better and had been married for thirty years and counting, were afflicted, infected, behaving like newlyweds.
Whatever was going around the Knowles family, Quinn had no intention of succumbing. The whole point of being a twenty-four-year-old woman in the twenty-first century was that she could be single and totally absorbed in her own thing. She had neither time nor desire to deal with guys with all their neediness and expectations.
But now Quinn was the last progeny standing. She couldn’t avoid the sneaking suspicion that her mother was at it again, the compulsive matchmaking business. Couldn’t the woman leave well enough alone? It was embarrassing. Uncomfortable, too.
It wasn’t that she had anything against love. Love beat in her breast just like in any other reasonably well-adjusted and decent human being’s. She adored her friends and family—maybe her mother a little less on this chilly November morning, but Quinn planned on at least ten more years of freedom before tying herself down. She had too much to accomplish to have a man hanging around and slowing her down. End of story.
The question was how to outwit a mother who was as wily as they came.
“So, any suggestions, ladies?”
“You often talk to your goats, Quinn?” Josh Yates, the new ranch hand asked.
She started, nearly falling off the rail and onto Hennie. She clutched the metal bar, which felt cold after stroking her nanny goat’s light gray coat.
Just then she noticed that Hennie’s ears were sticking straight out and her almond-shaped eyes were closed. She doubted that the rollicking sex fest Hennie and the other does had enjoyed during their visit with Romeo was solely to blame for the animal’s present stupor. Nope, she’d gone and talked her favorite goat to sleep.
Swinging her legs over the rail, she jumped down to the ground next to Josh Yates and brushed off the back of her jeans, refusing to feel self-conscious about either her goat-talking habits or her appearance.
After all, Josh Yates was unwittingly part of Quinn’s current dilemma. The cowboy had arrived three weeks ago, hired by her parents to help with the fall sale of the cattle and to take up the slack when Ward’s wedding and honeymoon came around.
Josh’s presence was also a boon to her. It would allow Quinn to avoid having to witness the steers being herded and loaded into the trucks and then hauled away to the market to be sold and processed. It didn’t matter how humanely and painlessly the animals’ lives ended—the sight of the russet and black Angus steer entering the trucks tormented her.
Quinn was happy to work on the guest ranch in practically all capacities—waiting tables, leading trail rides, herding the sheep and cattle, helping train the horses, tending the dairy goats, planting the kitchen’s vegetable garden, heck, even helping out with wedding events—but she couldn’t willingly participate in the slaughter of the cattle.
That her family cared enough to hire an extra ranch hand so that she could go off and be distracted from her horror and guilt was just one more reason she loved them. They understood and accepted her limitations.
And her gratitude extended to Josh.
But did her parents really need to hire a wrangler who was jaw-droppingly good looking? Quinn usually
couldn’t care less about a guy’s looks, but Josh was just a bit too dreamy with his thick, curling blond hair, caramel brown eyes, engaging smile, and square, cleft chin. He was tall and leanly muscled, too. His good looks made Quinn wonder whether her mother had asked all the job applicants to include a headshot with their résumé.
She really was fine with the hire. She liked the ranch hands who worked for her family. They were like extra brothers and uncles. Josh Yates was no different.…
Except that her mother was dangling him as bait.
“I was just catching up with the girls,” Quinn said. “Hey, is that for me?” she asked, eyeing the second cup of coffee in his hand. “Or did you have a really late night?”
“Well,” he drew the word out as if he enjoyed the feel of his rich drawl in his mouth. “It’s true I accompanied Jim to The Drop last night. Shot a couple rounds of pool with two ladies—” he paused, searching his memory. “Nancy and Maebeth—”
“Regulars,” Quinn provided. “They work at the Luncheonette.”
“That’s right,” he said, nodding. “Fun place. Fun ladies. It would have been even more fun if you’d been there, Quinn. And yeah, the coffee’s for you. I remembered you take it black.” Josh’s quick, bracket-shaped grin appeared, it and his flattery as easy as everything else he did.
Unnerved as she was at the prospect of a too-good-looking cowboy bothering to bring her a cup of coffee, let alone indulging in an early morning flirtation, she nonetheless accepted the ceramic mug. Quinn was not the type of woman to turn down caffeine.
“Thanks.” Together they began walking toward the horse barn. Keeping her tone light, she continued. “So, you’re coffee-ing me up, huh? What’s the angle?”
“Waylon’s thrown a shoe. I was wondering whether you’d let me ride Domino today until the farrier can get here.”
She shook her head in mock despair. “That kind of bribe should have been accompanied by a pecan and pumpkin muffin at least. I mean, you’re an okay rider and all, but Domino, he’s—”
“Special. Royalty. A prince.”
“Well, yeah.” His Texas twang and the dimple in his chin were awfully cute, but it was his excellent eye in judging horses that was damned near irresistible. “He’s all that and more. So you’re leading the guests on the morning ride?” Josh had been here only a couple of weeks and Pete Williams, the ranch’s foreman, was already letting him lead trail rides, an embossed stamp of approval in case there were any doubts about how well Josh was fitting in. The safety of Silver Creek’s guests was paramount.
“It’s a small group, only six riders. Afterward Pete wants me to ride the fence line.”
She nodded. There’d been more coyote sightings in the area. Any gap in the wood-and-wire fence that encircled Silver Creek’s two thousand acres could leave the sheep exposed. The cattle were less vulnerable. By now even the calves born in the spring were large enough to fend for themselves. “Well, I have to be at the staff meeting, so—”
“Yeah, Pete mentioned that.”
She raised her brow.
His grin was unabashed. “I thought you’d be happy knowing Domino was enjoying the morning while you’re stuck sitting inside talking business.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Neatly planned.”
Josh tipped his cowboy hat in acknowledgment. “Planning’s important. I like to get what I want.”
Quinn was okay with that—she liked getting her way,
too. Josh could make plans all day long if that’s what he wanted, just as long as he didn’t include her in his list. Cleft chin, Texas twang, and appreciation for fine horseflesh notwithstanding.
And when a little voice teased that if Quinn kept rejecting every man she met, she’d end up being the oldest virgin in California, she stubbornly ignored it.
