Waking Up to You: Overexposed (8 page)

“San Diego. I was born and raised there.”

“Big family?”

“Parents, two sisters, one brother-in-law, one niece.”

“All in Southern California?”

“Yes.”

“So why aren’t you there with them?”

“I was close, in Orange County, until four months ago.”

Finally she was getting somewhere. “What on earth made you come up here?” she couldn’t help asking. “I’d normally guess one of the three biggies—romance, legal trouble or job. But you appear to be single and don’t look like the law-breaking type.”

“I am. And I’m not.”

She went over the answer in her mind, realizing he was admitting he was single—hallelujah—and an honest guy.

“Okay. So, number three. Job? I don’t mean to offend you, but it seems to me your field isn’t necessarily one that would require you to move so far away.”

He sipped his beer again, not meeting her eye. She didn’t push, sensing he was trying to reach a decision about how much to say. Finally, with a sigh, as if he realized she wasn’t going to back off and would be around long enough to wear him down if she chose to, he admitted, “I was with the district attorney’s office in L.A. until earlier this year.”

“With...wait, you mean you’re a
lawyer?
”

She shouldn’t have been surprised, considering she’d already seen evidence of his intelligence, his memory and his darned interrogation skills. But it was just so strange to think of a big Los Angeles attorney moving up here to work as a laborer for her grandfather.

“It’s a long story.”

She merely stared.

“I don’t want to get into it.”

“Come on, you’ve got to give me more than,
I was a lawyer, quit and came up here to plant grapes.
” She suddenly remembered what he’d said the night they met, about feeling cleaner digging in the dirt here than he had in his previous life. Then she thought about the kinds of cases he must have been involved in. Los Angeles was a glitzy haven to starry-eyed actors and actresses. But anyone who actually lived there knew it could be incredibly seedy. Ugly, violent, with crimes and murders happening often enough to immunize its residents to the shock of them, unless they involved a movie star.

“One crappy case too many?” she speculated.

“Yes,” he replied, staring straight into her eyes, looking a little surprised she’d understood so easily.

“I can see why you’d want to come here, then, if you needed a change. Better hard manual labor than a mental breakdown.”

A smile appeared. “I don’t know that I was near that point, but I was definitely feeling on the verge of a moral one.”

“Oh?” Now he had her really curious.

He idly rubbed the tip of his finger on the rim of his beer mug. “You might not believe it, but criminal law is one hell of a competitive place.”

“Well of course I believe it. I read John Grisham.”

“Multiply that by a hundred and you might have an idea of how brutal the atmosphere can be, especially in a place like Hollywood, with the money and the star factor added in. There’s a winner-take-all attitude, a score-points-on-the-other-guy mentality. It’s not about guilt or innocence, not about finding the truth, not even always about justice. More than anything it’s about winning.”

That surprised her. She’d always been one of those idealists who believed in the justice system. But it sounded like Oliver no longer did.

“Oh, my God,” she whispered, suddenly remembering some of the news coverage she’d seen last winter, about corruption uncovered in the district attorney’s office. She didn’t remember seeing Oliver’s picture, or hearing his name, but she hadn’t really been paying attention, and the timing certainly made sense. “Were you the whistle-blower?”

He stared into her eyes, not looking surprised she’d remembered the story. She didn’t recall any of the details; she just knew the media had had a field day with the previous D.A., whose own employee had accused him of judicial misconduct, including hiding evidence of innocence in a high-profile murder case.

“Yeah,” he said, lifting his mug and downing his beer.

“You were involved in that case where the kid in the gang was accused of murdering the pregnant mother?”

“It was my case. I was all set to go to trial when I found proof that he hadn’t done it.”

“And your boss buried it,” she murmured, remembering more.

“Tried to.” He leaned back, dropping his napkin onto his plate. “The kid was a punk, but it was mostly swagger. Maybe the close call will make him clean up his act.” He frowned. “Or he could get worse and end up killing somebody after all.”

“But he didn’t kill that woman?”

“No, he didn’t. I’d let myself go along with some of the crap you have to do to score convictions. Did stuff I’m not proud of. But I couldn’t be a part of convicting an innocent young man of murder, no matter what he might do in the future.”

Stepping forward and doing the right thing had been noble and admirable. But it had also probably cost him his job.

“Were you blackballed?”

“Blackballed, dumped by the woman I’d been seeing, shunned by people I’d thought were friends,” he said with a harsh laugh.

“That’s awful,” she muttered, focused more on the dumping than anything else. How could any woman do that to this gorgeous, amazing man?

He went on. “I can never go back to any D.A.’s office in California, and I’m not ready to switch sides just yet.”

“Defense attorney, you mean?”

“Right. I’m too jaded, too quick to see the bad side of humanity to start defending people I automatically assume are guilty. So for now, I dig, I shovel, I fertilize, I test pH, I till, I haul, I study. And I drink wine.”

“I think that last one’s my favorite.”

This time, his laugh wasn’t angry...it was soft and genuine.

Candace sat there and let the masculine sound wash over her. She’d seen him angry and tense, seen him sexy and aroused, seen him concerned. This was the first moment, though, that she truly believed she was seeing the real man, with his guard completely down. Seeing the Oliver he had been before his world had fallen apart last fall. She liked this man. Liked him a lot.

And oh, God, did she ever wish she had met him before she’d agreed to marry her best friend.

7

O
LIVER
WASN
’
T
CERTAIN
what had caused that warm, tender look to appear in Candace’s lovely eyes, but he figured it was bad news. He liked it better—felt safer—when she was snapping at him, taunting him, even flirting with him. This softness, this sweetness, this emotion he saw in her now, was way outside of his comfort zone.

He should have kept his fat trap shut. He should never have told her anything about himself—his past, his regrets, his shame. Because now, he greatly feared, he’d opened up a window through which she could climb, going around his instinctive defenses.

So let her.

Huh. Maybe he should. He still wasn’t ready for a relationship, still hated the idea of messing around with Buddy’s granddaughter while the old man was laid up. But he had to admit, he found Candace incredibly easy to talk to. She had heart and brains to go with that boatload of sex appeal, which made her a triple threat. He couldn’t deny he was tempted to take what she’d offered yesterday morning and last night. Maybe hooking up with someone who would be leaving in a week or so was exactly the right way to get back in the game of life.

Unfortunately, now that he’d realized he liked her as much as he wanted her, hooking up seemed less appetizing than it had before. He sensed it would satisfy him physically, but would just make the emotional strings that much harder to untangle. And emotions were still not his strong point.

“Will you excuse me a minute? I need to run to the ladies’ room,” she said.

He pushed his plate to the edge of the table so the overly flirtatious waitress, who’d come on to him every single time he walked into this joint, could pick it up. “Sure. I’ll ask for the check.”

She reached into her purse.

He waved a hand. “Forget it. It’s on me.”

“No way. You don’t bring down the big bucks anymore.”

He lifted a brow in challenge, remembering she’d said she was between jobs right now. “At least I’m employed.”

“Good point. But I think I can spring for one hamburger.”

Frankly, it was worth every penny to pay for her meal, if only for the pleasure of watching her eat that cursed ice cream.

He watched her walk away, again noting the changes in her wardrobe since she’d stopped wearing her sister’s more loose, casual ensembles in favor of stylish, extremely colorful and bright stuff. Her jeans were fire-engine red. She wore them with spike-heeled black ankle boots, and a silky blouse that fell off one shoulder. Every guy in the place watched her go, Oliver included.

He would bet every other guy in the place would give his left nut to have kissed her, and touched her the way he’d touched her twenty-four hours ago.

You’re a brainless bastard to have walked out on her like that.

If he had the day to do over again, he sensed yesterday would have ended up very differently. He only wondered if it was too late to change things.

After she’d left, Oliver signaled for the waitress, cutting her off when she tried to engage in small talk. It had been fine that she’d flirted when Candace was around to see and get a little tight-lipped, but now that she was gone, he couldn’t be bothered to play along. He hadn’t been interested in this woman, or any of the others he’d met since coming here four months ago. Only one interested him.

So what are you going to do about it?

He honestly didn’t know. But the more he got to know Candace, the more he wanted to do something.

“Hey, dude, you better watch it. She’s toxic.”

Startled, he looked up to see one of the jocks from the next table leaning over the back of his booth. He gave Oliver a look of manly commiseration that looked a little fake, as if he enjoyed spreading tales. “She’s messing around on you.”

“What?”

“Your girl. I heard her on the phone before you got here. She was all into whoever she was talking to. Just sayin’, you should watch your back, man.”

His muscles contracting, he realized he should tell the guy to go screw himself, that he and Candace weren’t a couple and if she had been on the phone with anyone else, that was her business. Not his.

Instead, he simply ignored the jock, tossed some bills on the table and got up. No, he had no business questioning who Candace talked to. But she’d sure made it sound like she was single, and she’d certainly acted that way yesterday during their erotic encounters.

Could she really have a lover somewhere? Was she the type who got bored easily and was simply killing time with Oliver while she was stuck up here in Sonoma?

The thought bothered him more than he cared to admit. So much so that he couldn’t even force a tight smile when she got back and walked over to him.

She spied the bills on the table. “I told you I’d pay for mine.”

“Forget it,” he insisted, his tone brusque to match his attitude. “Are you ready to go? Because I’m leaving.”

He didn’t plan to walk out and leave her here, not now that he knew just how closely the table full of men had been watching her. But he didn’t need her to know that.

“Sure,” she said, blinking in surprise at his here’s-your-hat-what’s-your-hurry attitude.

He didn’t enlighten her. Telling her what the nosy softball player at the next table had said would only open up a conversation he really didn’t want to have. The only reason he’d need to know if she was available was if he intended to sleep with her.

He didn’t.

Right?

They walked outside to the parking lot. While they’d been inside, the early signs of a storm had blown in. This area didn’t get a whole lot of rain, and what it got usually came in the winter. But sometimes the spring brought wicked storms and it looked like they would have one tonight. The air was wildly alive, with gusts that had the trees bouncing and a whistling sound coming from under the eaves of the building.

Instead of tightening her jacket, ducking against the weather and racing to her car, Candace tilted her head back, smiled and closed her eyes. She apparently liked the feel of the wind battering her body. Liking it, too, he understood. There was something freeing about being in a climate so variable and elemental. L.A. and San Diego were pretty standard all year round—sunny, warm, beautiful. In the winter and spring months he’d been up here, he’d realized you couldn’t really count on anything. You never knew when the winds would change and the air would crackle with electric excitement.

“I love this,” she said, raising her voice to be heard.

“I can tell.”

The gusts kept catching wispy strands of her honey-brown hair, blowing them across her face. She didn’t even try tucking them behind her ears or restraining the long curls. The longer they stood outside, the more primal and tangled it became. She was beautiful, sultry, exotic...he had a sudden image of being back at the estate with her, outside, naked, letting the wind batter them as they came together in an explosion as powerful as a spring storm.

Unable to take it anymore, he looked away, not wanting to be utterly entranced by the wild, erotic picture she presented, all windblown and sexy, with her lips moist and parted in exhilaration as she breathed in the cool night air.

“It’s going to break over us pretty soon,” he said. “And it won’t be a fun drive once it starts pouring. We should go.”

Her shoulders slumped. “All right.”

When they reached her rental car, she said, “It seems like a good night to stay inside. Maybe I could pay you back for dinner by picking up some candy and popcorn for our home movie night?”

He frowned. “It’s late.” It wasn’t that late, maybe ten o’clock. Ten minutes ago he might have leaped at the chance. But the fact that he didn’t know enough about her had been hammered home by the jock inside.

“Tomorrow maybe?”

“I don’t know if I’ll have time for that before you leave.”

Disappointment flashed across her face. “Oh.”

Part of him wanted to take it back, especially seeing the flash of hurt in her eyes. But it was better this way. Better that he put the walls firmly in place again. She’d be gone in a week, returning to her life and her...whoever the guy on the phone had been. Buddy would be home. Oliver would descend back into his self-imposed purgatory. Everything would be as it should. Hell, maybe once he’d gotten his shit together, he’d go back to L.A. and look her up. Find out if she was single or not. But who knew when that would be?

“Well, thanks for dinner,” she said as she got into her car. She wasn’t meeting his eyes. Embarrassed? Angry? He wasn’t sure.

Muttering, “You’re welcome,” he pushed the door shut. He strode to his own truck, not turning around as she revved up her car’s engine, threw it in gear and tore out of the parking lot like she had a dragon on her tail.

Okay, so she was angry.

Hell.

It’s better this way,
he reminded himself.

Somehow, though, he didn’t feel better. In fact, he felt like crap. Crappy enough that, rather than heading right for the Sonoma Highway and home, he stopped at a liquor store and bought a six-pack. Not just because he had the feeling he could use a second beer, but because he didn’t want to get back to the estate until he knew she would be safely tucked inside Buddy’s house.

But after his stop, as he began driving home, leaving the highway and hitting some of the twisty back roads, he couldn’t get the image of her standing there, enjoying the wind in her face, out of his mind. Especially because that wind threatened to take the steering wheel out of his hands a couple of times. And now it had started to rain.

“Shit. You should have followed her home.”

Candace wasn’t used to driving in this area, with hilly roads full of dangerous switchbacks and steep drop-offs. The bad weather made it even worse. If he hadn’t been such an ass, he could have made sure she was safe, and he practically held his breath until he got to the estate and saw her rental car in front of the main house.

He parked his truck outside the cottage, breathing a deep sigh of relief that she’d made it, too. Replaying their conversation back at the bar, he knew he’d behaved badly. So much for the smooth gentleman he’d always been praised as being in his old life. He’d been a total dick to Candace half the time. He’d been like a kid who knew he couldn’t play with the toy he most wanted, so he’d pretended he didn’t want it at all.

Tonight, he’d reacted like a prosecutor instead of like a man who was getting to know an honest, refreshing, bright and sexy woman. He hadn’t given her the benefit of the doubt. Was he so jaded, so used to being lied to and manipulated that he no longer had the capacity to give someone a chance?

He owed her an apology. And if all the lights hadn’t been off in the main house—the place utterly pitch-black in the windy night—he would have gone over and offered it up, even though he’d have had to run through the driving rain. But the building was obviously shut down. She’d come home, turned off every light and gone to bed, probably sending him a silent message to stay away from her.

“Message received,” he said as he hurried to the door of his cottage, getting soaked along the way, and pulled out his key.

Buddy always laughed at him for locking the door since they were out in the middle of nowhere, but the big-city habit was too ingrained. He found himself wondering, though, if he’d really been out of it when he’d left earlier this evening for the hospital. Because the knob twisted easily in his hand. He must have forgotten to lock it.

Letting himself in, he reached for the switch on the wall and flipped it up. Nothing.

“Oh, God,” he mumbled, suddenly realizing why the world was so dark. The power was notoriously unreliable in high winds, and his was probably out.

He waited for his eyes to adjust, before making his way across the big room that dominated the main floor of the cottage. It served as both living room and kitchen, the two separated by a stone fireplace that opened on either side. It was a great feature and he’d used it and nothing else to heat the place during the winter. Looked like it was going to come in handy tonight, too, both for heat and for illumination.

Before he moved to light it, he thought about Candace. She was alone in that huge house. That huge drafty house with its spiders, crickets, cracked window casings and frigid tile floors. No lights, no heat, no hot water—which was pretty well par for the course—and he’d bet the phones were out.

“Better go check on her,” he mumbled.

Grabbing the coat he’d just placed on the hook, he began to put it on. But he hadn’t even gotten one arm in a sleeve when he heard a soft, feminine voice coming from the sofa on the other side of the room.

“You don’t have to check on her. She’s right here.”

* * *

C
ANDACE
HAD
ONLY
been waiting for Oliver for a few minutes—since just after she’d gotten back, realized the power was out and decided his cozy cottage with the fireplace would be a better place to ride out the storm. But that had been long enough for her to decide she’d made a mistake.

Sitting here in the dark, in his space, had been more disturbing than comforting. The whole place smelled like him—all musky, spicy and hot. Utterly masculine. Her body reacted to the scent even before her mind could put it together and figure out it wasn’t just the cold making her nipples hard.

She also worried how he would react to finding her there, in the dark, and what he would make of her presence. He was a private person; it had taken him days to even admit to her that he was really an attorney. He probably wouldn’t take kindly to her using Buddy’s keys to let herself in and make herself at home. She suddenly felt a little like Goldilocks. Add a broken chair and a few bowls of porridge and she might come face-to-face with an angry bear.

She’d decided to leave, to brave the cold and the darkness in the main house, when she heard him pull up outside. Her chance to escape was gone. She had to stay and brazen it out.

“Candace?”

“It sure isn’t Goldilocks,” she muttered.

He hung his coat back up and approached, moving carefully in the darkness. She’d been here longer; her eyes had adjusted, so she could easily see him moving toward her. His hair was wet, dark strands sticking to his unsmiling face.