Stirring Up Trouble (10 page)

Like any red-blooded guy hiring a romance novelist to watch his sister, Gavin had Googled Sloane the first day she’d spent at the cottage. Her writing credentials were as impressive as she’d claimed; in fact, she’d left out the little tidbit about her last book hitting the
USA Today
bestseller list. How could her parents not be proud of that?

“Yeah, my mother missed the news flash on that one. According to her, my business cards should read
Sloane Russo, black sheep of the family
.” Sloane’s smile stayed firmly attached to her face, but her jaw ticked ever so slightly, betraying the effort she was making.

“Because you’re a writer?” Something about it just didn’t compute. “What does your father think?”

The hitch in Sloane’s movement was noticeable, but she answered softly, “I don’t know. He died of colon cancer when I was nineteen.”

The words punched him right in the gut. “I’m sorry.” Somehow, the default answer didn’t feel like it was enough. Especially now that he knew first-hand how hollow it could be.

“Thanks.” She measured out a tiny smile. “Anyway, embarrassment notwithstanding, Bree’s still a little hard on you, huh?”

The observation prompted a sharp tug from deep in his belly that hollered at him not to share. “I’m getting used to it.”

Desperate to shift the focus of the conversation, Gavin plucked a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing server and pressed the flute into her hand. “Sorry, I’m not really doing a good job here. I’m supposed to be your date, right?”

“Now
you’re
being hard on you, too. And for the record, I’m supposed to be yours.” Sloane grinned, taking a healthy sip from her glass. Her dark brows popped in surprise. “Wow, I was too nervous when I made my toast to actually taste this. It’s really good.”

His lips tingled with the urge to break into a satisfied smile at her approval. “I know. I chose it.”

“You took it off the tray, Gavin. Let’s not get crazy.” Sloane’s laughter folded around him like sun-bleached laundry, fresh from the line, and for the first time, he didn’t fight the streak of goodness it left in its wake.

“No, I really chose it. As in, Carly asked my advice on the best champagne to serve, and this is what I picked.”

“Huh. Guess she hired you for more than just your chiseled jawline.”

Gavin cocked his head, a little bit surprised and a whole lot intrigued. “My what?”

Sloane clamped down on her bottom lip in a move he swore would undo him, but before he could prompt a more detailed answer, an unfamiliar voice uttering Sloane’s name snagged his attention.

“Sorry to interrupt your conversation,” the woman said, smiling pointedly at both of them. “But I thought I should come over and say hi.”

“Hey, Jeannie! You’re not interrupting at all,” Sloane chirped, a little too eagerly. “Actually, I guess I should’ve introduced you two before.”

Remorse flickered over Sloane’s face while Gavin was certain that confusion covered his. The petite blonde snuffed out both with her all-American smile.

“Oh, honey, please. You’ve been a little busy tonight, don’t you think? Plus, it’s my job to annoy the girls and go around introducing myself to their friends’ parents.” She swung her attention to Gavin and extended a slender hand. “Jeannie Carter. I’m Sadie and Caitlin’s mom.”

Realization trickled in as he followed her gaze to the spot where Bree stood with the two blond girls, along with a grateful rush. At least he wasn’t the only person who wondered about other kids’ parents. “Gavin Carmichael.”

“Nice to meet you, Gavin.” Jeannie flashed her pearly whites again, making her look more like a former cheerleader than the mother of two preteen daughters. “Though I hate to admit, I’m not without ulterior motive.”

“That sounds kind of ominous,” Sloane said, lifting a glossy brow.

The back of Gavin’s neck prickled. “Is everything okay?” He turned to scan the restaurant again for Bree, but Jeannie shook her head, her sleek ponytail swaying emphatically.

“Oh, nothing’s wrong. I just promised Sadie and Caitlin that I’d take them to the Main Street diner tonight. Apparently, it’s
the
place for middle schoolers to hang out. Now that dessert is over, they’re raring to go. We thought we’d ask Bree to come along.”

Well. It looked like he and Bree were even in the putting-each-other-on-the-spot department.

“I’d hate to put you out,” he said, in an effort to ease into a polite decline. After all, letting Bree roam Main Street on a Saturday night wasn’t high up on the list of things he felt comfortable with. Even if Main Street was less than six blocks long.

“Are you kidding? There’s plenty of room in our car. And, as stodgy as I am, I only let them stay an hour or so. One milkshake and a handful of songs on the jukebox are about all this lady can handle anymore,” Jeannie said with a genuine laugh. “I can even drop her back home when we’re done, if that’s easier for you.”

Gavin shot a quick glance across the dining room, zeroing in on the spot where he’d last seen Bree. She hadn’t budged, and neither had her smile. She wiggled her fingers at one of Jeannie’s daughters, taking one of the earbuds attached to the girl’s iPod and popping it into place on her own ear. They leaned in, joining their heads together at the free ear, and started bobbing in perfect unison.

Something Gavin had no name for turned over in his chest.

“Why don’t you have her give me a call when you’re ready to leave? I’ll swing by the diner and pick her up on my way home.”

They spent a few minutes exchanging cell phone numbers, and although Bree’s cheeks flushed a shade when he gave her some money and reminded her to call him for a ride home, the frown that had etched her face all evening didn’t make a single appearance as they parted ways.

“So it looks like you’ve got some time to kill,” Sloane ventured as soon as they were alone at the table.

“Guess it’s a good thing I have a date.” He tipped his glass of water at her in a grateful gesture, and she tilted her flute toward him in return.

The fluid lilt of her wrist made the bubbles dance like lazy sparks against the crystal. “So the wine thing, I take it that’s more pleasure than business.”

A safe topic if ever there was one. He could talk wine all day without getting bored, and it would keep his emotional family life firmly in the shadows.

Gavin nodded. “Mostly, although I’ve created the wine lists for almost every restaurant I’ve managed.”

“I bet the chefs love that.” Sarcasm rang clearly through Sloane’s reply, reminding him that while she wasn’t immersed in the restaurant world firsthand, she knew a thing or two about how it worked. Most head chefs had egos the size of ocean liners, and he’d tangled with more than a few at the idea of taking their restaurants’ wine lists into his hands.

“Some are more receptive than others. But pairing the right wine with a dish can take the whole experience from good to great. And in the end, they all want to be great.” He broke off with a shrug. “We usually start on the same page, or at least in the same ballpark. It doesn’t take much convincing once I put everything together, since good chefs have excellent palates and can taste all the nuances the wine adds.”

“Yeah, Carly can wax poetic about the ‘toothsome complexity’ of plain old apple pie.” She cradled her champagne flute between her pinky and ring finger to crook air quotes around the phrase. “All the fancy terminology is enough to blow a civilian’s mind. I mean, it’s
pie,
for God’s sake.”

Sloane crinkled her nose, although not with disdain, and Gavin’s sudden good mood prompted him to take the thread and pull.

He faked a serious expression. “Actually, you might be on to something there with deconstructing one of America’s most revered desserts. Apple pie is full of different flavor profiles, not to mention the varying textures in the crust versus the filling. If you consider the—”

“Oh my God, you’re worse than a chef! I love dessert as much as the next girl, but come on. You don’t deconstruct pie, you eat it!” she cried, swatting at him with her free hand. The contact of her fingers, even over the wool of his suit jacket, sent a snap of heat up his arm, leaving a definite trail of want behind it. It made his next words taste even more delicious as he cracked a smile, lifted his brows and said, “Sloane, I’m kidding.”

Her eyes, nearly navy blue in the ambient light of La Dolce Vita’s dining room, went wide. “Wait . . . what?”

The look on her face, so caught up in confusion, was priceless, and he started to laugh. “I’m kidding. You know, giving you a hard time?”

Whatever impulse had dared him to turn the tables and tease her for a change had been right on the money. With her Cupid’s bow mouth parted in surprise, she was damn near irresistible, and the sheer pleasure of catching her off guard drew out his well-meaning chuckle.

“You’re kidding. As in, making light of things, ha-ha, very funny, kidding?” Sloane looped her arms over the daring neckline of her dress, but there was no hiding the smile brewing on her lips like rich, warm French roast.

“Yeah. How’d I do?” he asked, although her cat-in-cream smile was all the answer he needed.

“Not bad, although I’m compelled to ask if you’re feeling okay.” She leaned her glass of champagne against her lips, but didn’t take her eyes from his as she sipped. “I mean, that whole lighthearted laughter thing didn’t hurt, did it? You didn’t strain anything? Because I could see if there’s a doctor in the house.”

Oh, come on. He wasn’t that serious.

Was he?

“Just because I don’t go stirring up trouble all the time doesn’t mean I’m incapable of having fun,” he said, but the words were so measured with caution that they snagged in his ears. Okay, so he’d never been a social spotlight kind of guy, but he knew how to have a good time.

“Really? When was the last time you stayed in your pajamas and watched movies all day?”

He wrinkled his brow in confusion. “What?”

“You heard me. When?” The cluster of tiny candles on the table between them cast a shimmery glow on Sloane’s face, emphasizing her mischievous smile.

He hesitated, but after a minute he was forced to admit the truth. “I don’t know.”

“Mmm hmm. And when was the last time you ate breakfast for dinner?”

Gavin laughed, releasing some of his pent-up tension. “Okay, now you’re getting weird.”

“I’m not getting weird. I’d be willing to bet next week’s paycheck you can’t remember the last time you laughed so hard you could barely breathe. Or that you’ve never taken a trip without planning it in advance, or run out into the middle of a rainstorm instead of running away from it.”

His gut plucked with unease, but he swallowed hard to cover it. “How is getting purposely drenched fun?”

Sloane raised an inky brow. “If you tried it, you’d know.”

Somewhere between the sexy curve of her mouth and the half dare coming out of it, Gavin flung his stalwart caution to the wind. He knew how to live life, dammit. Losing his mother with barely any warning had taught him just how quickly things could slip away.

This moment wasn’t going to be one of them.

Gavin rounded the bistro table in a purposeful stride, stopping only when he was close enough to feel the rise of Sloane’s chest over her sharp inhale of surprise. “I know how to have fun, and I don’t have to run around in the rain to do it.”

“You don’t?” Sloane squeaked, but she didn’t take a step back. Instead, she lifted her gaze to meet his head-on, and there was no mistaking the want in her eyes.

“I don’t. Let’s go.”

Chapter Ten

“This is your idea of stirring up trouble?” Sloane asked, certain she was missing a crucial piece to the cool yet sexy-as-hell puzzle that was Gavin Carmichael.

“Yes. Now watch and learn.”

Gavin rolled up his sleeves with precise, even turns, either unaware or uncaring that she was watching him. The corded muscles of his forearms stood out in lean relief under the light spilling down from the cozy half kitchen in her hotel suite. He shot her a quick glance before starting to rummage through one of the well-stocked drawers.

She chewed her bottom lip, torn between guilt and rampant curiosity. She’d been kidding when she’d given him a hard time about being so serious, and anyway, he’d been the one to start teasing her first. No way had she thought he’d actually
do
anything about it. Even though grabbing two glasses and a dusty old bottle of wine from La Dolce Vita’s wine cellar and finding a quiet place to indulge didn’t exactly qualify as wild and crazy.

“Technically, Bordeaux is supposed to breathe for a while before you drink it, but this one is old enough that we’ll be fine with a shorter breathing time.” Gavin stopped to examine the bottle, then the glasses, with careful precision. The reverent attention to detail in his liquid brown stare made her wonder what it would feel like to be the crystal in his hands.

Sloane cleared her throat and eyed the plain-Jane bottle. “How old is it, exactly?”

“1999.”

She should’ve known that Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected wouldn’t get squirrely enough to pop open a vintage that was too old.

“So, how come you took glasses from downstairs? Aren’t they all the same?” Sloane gestured to the narrow shelf above the sink that housed assorted glassware.

“Not even close. We use these downstairs when customers buy a bottle of nicer red.” He unearthed a no-frills manual corkscrew from a drawer with a wry smile. “Guess we’re going old school here, though. Good. I’m not really a fan of those fancy wine keys for something like this.”

“Does it really matter how you get the cork out?” Sloane watched him uncork the wine, unable to ignore the flutter in her belly at the way he held the bottle so gently, yet maneuvered the corkscrew with such efficient, purposeful strokes.

She squirmed, trying with all her might to disperse the heat in her body to someplace other than between her legs. The cork slid from the slender neck of the bottle with a soft murmur, and Gavin paused for just a fraction of a second before starting to pour.

“No. But I’m a traditional kind of guy.”

“Shocking, that,” Sloane said with lighthearted sarcasm. It was already hard enough to keep her mind from flashing back to the dark, openly seductive look he’d laid on her when they’d left the restaurant. If she didn’t keep it light, the suggestive twinge working through her was going to rip loose and have its way with him.

“I hate to break it to you, but you’re no stranger to tradition yourself.” Gavin set the bottle carefully on the counter and cast a glance at the clock on the microwave. “Five minutes should be good, and then we can drink.”

She laughed, and it scattered the odd tension building under her skin. “Oh, goodie. That’s plenty of time for me to tell you you’re nuts.”

Sloane had been called a lot of things in her thirty-one years. This was definitely the maiden voyage for the word
traditional
.

“Why am I nuts?”

Her laugh came out with a heavy edge of disbelief. “Gavin, I change my mind like most people change their pants. As quaint as traditions are, they’re so not my speed.”

He crossed his arms, a note of satisfaction creeping over his face. “What about your writing hat?”

Sloane froze. “What about it?”

“You wear it every time you write, don’t you?”

The satisfied smile kicking up at the corners of Gavin’s mouth did nothing to cool the unmitigated want swishing around in her nether region. She hauled in a breath both to relax and argue with him at the same time.

“Technically, yes. But that doesn’t make it a tradition.” Sloane traced an imaginary circle on the countertop, picking at the flecks in the swirled granite.

“Really? I thought a tradition was something a person did without fail, time after time.” He picked up his wineglass by the stem, and although his eyes focused on the deep, plum-colored liquid in front of him, she got the distinct feeling that the grin on his face was solely at her expense.

No way. No
way
was she going to let him use her hat against her.

She narrowed her eyes and scraped the toe of her shoe over the marble tile beneath it. “I wear my hat every time I write because I like it. It feels like me. Real traditions seem more . . . I don’t know, constricting. Like eating the same sweet potato casserole on Thanksgiving year after year. How boring is that? I just don’t want to be stuck with the same old stuff and no chance of trying something new, that’s all.”

Gavin leaned silently against the counter for a minute. “So have you always had the same writer’s hat? Or do you swap it out whenever you feel like it?”

Her laughter popped out in a burst. “I’ve written all my books with that thing firmly on my noodle. No way am I swapping it out for a new model.”

“Same thing, time after time. Sounds like a tradition to me.” He shrugged, but his nonchalance only kicked Sloane into high gear.

“That’s different. My hat is more like a superstition. I wear it because it brings me good luck. I could still change it at any time and that would be okay.”

“And yet you don’t. Hmm.” His chuckle teased her ears, and Sloane’s skin prickled involuntarily. Damn, and she’d thought the I-told-you-so
smile
was bad! This rumbly laugh was going to send her over the edge.

“Can we drink now?” Sloane did her best not to scowl as she snatched up her glass and raised it to her lips.

“Wait!” Gavin’s hand was on hers in a flash, staying her from tipping the glass toward her mouth. “If you want to really savor it, you have to do it right.” His voice turned to gravel, but was far from harsh.

“O-okay.” Suddenly, she realized how close his effort to stop her from taking that sip had brought their bodies. Only a sliver of space separated them, but he didn’t take a step as he lifted his glass next to hers.

“If you give it a gentle swirl, you can see the depth of the color. It’s opaque, but not too thick. And see how it clings to the glass? It’s a good sign for this vintage.”

Sloane blinked, examining her glass. “Oh, yeah! That’s pretty cool. Do all wines make those streaky marks like that?” She peered at the thin layer of amethyst liquid sliding down the interior slope and back toward the center of the rounded goblet.

Gavin nodded. “Those are the legs. All wines leave them to some degree or another. But with a lot of reds, like this Bordeaux, they’re really noticeable.” He lifted his glass, but not to his lips. “Now we breathe it in, to check the aroma.”

“For . . . what?” She had a sneaking suspicion it was a far cry from sniffing the milk in her fridge to make sure it wasn’t spoiled, but hell if she could think of any other reason to smell something you were going to drink.

Gavin answered her patiently. “Your nose and your palate work together. Breathing in the bouquet primes your taste buds, which heightens the flavors once you start to drink. It’s why your mouth waters when you smell good food.”

“Huh! And here I thought breathing in wine was just a snobby maneuver designed to draw out the inevitable.” She lifted her glass and mirrored Gavin’s serious expression as she gave it another look.

He cracked a wry smile. “You can’t just throw this stuff back like Jell-O shots.”

“You’ve done Jell-O shots?” She lifted a doubtful brow, totally unable to picture it.

“I went to U Penn before culinary school, Sloane. I’ve done a lot worse than Jell-O shots.” His smile darkened with suggestion, and her pulse did a perfect imitation of a hummingbird stuck in a small space.

Gavin continued. “The idea is to draw out the experience to enhance the enjoyment, not get it over with before you know what hit you.”

“For you, maybe. But I don’t have a clue what the bouquet is, or what it’s supposed to smell like,” she said with a laugh. “Most of the wine I drink comes packaged in a box, you know.”

His shudder was probably visible from the moon. “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, boss.”

“Anyway.” He drew the word out, his voice teasing each syllable. “You don’t have to know what a bouquet is in order to enjoy it. Proper wine tasting is an evocative experience, completely unique to each person. You might not recognize the bouquet for what it is when you experience it, but it will affect you just the same.”

Sloane bit her lip, searching her mind for a parallel. “How can something affect me if I don’t even know what it is?”

“You’re a romance writer. Think of it in terms of sex.”

A nervous bubble of laughter rose from her chest. “Excuse me?”

“The journey is the pleasurable part. Not the destination.” Gavin pinned her with one of his seductively serious looks, leaving her to wonder who had hijacked her knees.

“Oh.” The word escaped her on a breathy sigh, and she cleared her throat in an effort to cover it. “Well, I don’t know. Isn’t the whole point to get to the destination?”

“Let’s find out.” He motioned toward her glass, gaze unwavering. “Now breathe.”

Sloane’s inhale got partway in at best.

“Yeah. Perfect,” he murmured, his eyes lowered over the glass so his spice-colored lashes left just a hint of sexy shadow over his face.

Her exhale fared poorly too.

“So now do we drink?” It took Sloane a minute to comprehend that the trembly voice asking the question belonged to her, and she forced herself to even out her nerves. After all, it was a measly bottle of wine, plus, they were adults. She could do this, no big deal.

“Now we toast,” Gavin corrected, but then fell silent.

After a silence that lasted just a breath too long, Sloane understood that he was waiting for her to say something.

“Oh! I’ve already made one of those tonight, and anyway, this is your moment, isn’t it? You go ahead,” she said.

“Okay. To traditions.” He guided his glass to hers, the flawless ring of crystal tickling the silence.

“Touché,”
Sloane said, unable to reel in her smile. She pressed her glass to her lips.

“Salut,”
he answered, his glass unable to hide either the perfectly cultured accent of his French or the mischievous smirk on his face.

It was the last thing she saw before every one of her taste buds wept with joy.

A rich, seductive taste filled not just her mouth, but all her senses with a rush of something so intense, she was tempted to moan. Far from syrupy, the wine was smooth velvet. She tilted the rim to her mouth again, and although the flavors sliding over her tongue were familiar, they scattered through her brain like a deck of cards spilled on the floor, just out of reach. They lingered even after she swallowed, as if to give her another chance to figure them out, but she couldn’t.

“Oh my God.” Fine, so any hope she might’ve had for eloquence had gone out the window as soon as the glass had left her lips. But please. This wine was making a flavor playground out of taste buds she never knew existed. Even if she didn’t have a clue what she was tasting.

“You like it?”

Although she didn’t remember closing them, her eyes fluttered open to reveal a picture as seductive as the wine in her glass. Gavin stared at her, wearing a smile of dark satisfaction that said he was just beginning.

“It’s incredible,” she admitted, pressing her lips together so as not to let the last of the taste escape before taking another sip.

“What do you taste?” he asked, nodding down at the glass in his hand.

“I have no idea.” Sloane didn’t waste her energy blushing at the admission. She’d never claimed to know anything about wine, and she didn’t need a bunch of fancy terms to say what she liked. “I mean, there are all these different flavors, and they’re all amazing. But I don’t have a clue what they are. I just know they’re good.”

Gavin chuckled. “Let’s give this a try, then. Take another sip.”

She did, and damn if it wasn’t just as good as the first.

“Now close your eyes and picture the flavors.”

Sloane couldn’t help it. She started to giggle. “
Picture
the flavors?” She cracked one eye open, just in time to catch the hint of warmth in his gaze as he took a taste from his own glass.

“Just tell me what you see when you think of the way the wine tastes,” he said, and the sexy smile playing on his lips made her close her eyes.

“Okay. I see . . . summertime.” She sipped her wine and pressed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, making a slow circle to capture the flavors before swallowing them down. “Plums in August. The jam Carly used to get at Greenmarket in the city.”

“Anything else?”

Pictures swirled over her mind’s eye, taking shape with bright colors. An image flickered in the deep recesses of her brain, barely a faded scrap of thought, but she didn’t let it go. She swallowed again, catching a hint of something smoky and sweet and so familiar . . .

“Oh! Licorice!” Her eyes flew open, heart hammering with pure excitement. “When I was a kid, there was a candy shop by our house in Brooklyn. It was one of those old-fashioned places that made everything from scratch; right there in the front where you could watch. My father used to buy licorice and sneak it to me before dinner when my mom wasn’t looking. But then she always caught us, because it turned our teeth blue.”

She raised her fingers to her mouth as if it could keep the sudden memory locked in place forever. “Nobody else in our family could ever stand the stuff, but he and I always loved it.”