Southern Hotshot (North Carolina Highlands 2)

“Sit.” I point at a stool. “I decanted some Screaming Eagle. Sound good?”

With her hand on the back of the stool, Emma cocks her head. “And here I thought I was winning you over with small producers and their stories of lushes who happen to be nuns.”

I set the empty bottle and full decanter on the counter in front of her. Her eyes light up as she gives the decanter a sniff and inspects the label.

“I appreciate the nun lushes.” I cross my arms over my chest, but even my biceps on full display don’t distract her from the wine. “Just like I appreciate a solid bottle from my BSD collection.”

“Solid? Samuel, you have a better chance of meeting the real Santa Claus than you do of finding a bottle of 2016 Screaming Eagle. Do you always open thousand-dollar bottles of wine on your nights off?”

“Yes.” I fill the gigantic bowls of a pair of Cabernet glasses. “I woke up this morning thinking there was a very real possibility I’d end up in a shallow grave by dinner, so…yeah. The fact that I’m alive is kind of a miracle. If that isn’t something to celebrate, I don’t know what is.”

“I’m not that scary.”

“Yes, you are. You know it, and you like it.”

Holding up her glass, she smiles at me, unguarded and warm, and damn if my heart doesn’t turn over in my chest. “A toast to the truth. You’re finally telling it, and I’m pretty sure you learned that from me.”

I sip. “What makes you say that?”

“You’re surrounded exclusively by yes men. Women. Yes people, I should say. Everyone but Beau.”

Emma came here to apologize. And still she’s unapologetically, brutally, titillatingly honest.

I tap my glass to hers. Keyed up and curious and why is my heart doing that aching thing? “What’s wrong with being surrounded by yes people if they helped you build the best restaurant at the best resort in the South?”

“Chef Eli would beg to differ on the best restaurant bit. But I digress. What’s wrong with surrounding yourself with people who never challenge you is that you never grow. You’re not being pushed the way you need to be.”

She’s right. Deep down, I know she’s right, and she’s giving me something else to think about.

The girl’s always making me think and making me question. I want to hate it, but I don’t.

Looking away, I sniff my wine. I don’t miss how Emma grins as she watches me dip my nose deep into the glass, just like she does. Whatever. It really does help you tease out the more subtle elements of the wine’s flavor profile.

Case in point: I’ve had this same bottle several times over the past year (when you’re able to get your hands on the Holy Grail of California Cabs, you buy it by the case). But tasting it Emma’s way makes it a whole new experience. I pick up on notes of wet stone. Grass. Earth.

“Petrichor,” she says, sniffing her own glass.

I snap my eyebrows together. “What the fuck is that?”

“What the world smells like after it rains.”

The ache intensifies. “Yeah. Yes. I get that too. A little nutmeg on the nose?”

She smiles, the kind that touches her eyes, and my heart is doing full-on backflips now. “Yes. Nice way to liven up those earthy notes.”

She sips. I sip. Our eyes lock as the flavors explode on my tongue. Watching her watching me, I feel joy rise inside me. Same as it did when I tasted her Riesling.

From the stunned look on her face, she’s feeling it too.

It’s autumn afternoons. The smell in the air on Sunday right before a game. Leaves and nerves and the feeling of carrying on a tradition that’s gone unbroken for generations.

A tradition that broke me.

The joy that’s flooded me all day dims. A prick of fear, familiar and hard, punctures the soft stuff inside my chest.

“Good God,” Emma says, smacking her lips. “That’s just…wow…no words…”

She sips again, this dreamy look coming over her expression. My skin tightens.

I like beautiful women. The curvier and flirtier, the sexier.

But a thinking woman? A girl who honestly and openly engages with the truth?

She might be the sexiest of all.

Also the most dangerous.

Clearing my throat, I give the wine in my glass a swirl. “I thought you didn’t like my BSD wine.”

She swallows and shakes her head. “I never said that. I did say most of it was uninteresting. But this—it’s a cult wine for a reason. I get it, Beauregard.”

“Look at us, proving each other wrong.”

“Are you admitting that Riesling was the best fucking thing you’ve had this year?”

I swirl again. “Maybe.”

She’s smiling again, and Jesus Christ, so am I.

Danger.

Chapter Fifteen

Samuel

“So.” I sip, the first stirrings of that red wine buzz I love so much tingling along my spine. “Didn’t you come here to clear the air?”