He wasn’t used to being out of control. Not of his movements, not of his feelings, not of any aspect of his life. Tension tightened the muscles in his neck and he felt his gut tighten too—all familiar sensations from those months when he’d thrown himself into work after his father passed away.
He didn’t like it one damn bit, and decided then and there that the love thing was effing ridiculous. He was done with it.
There was a brief pause, then the limo turned down a narrow lane and bounced gently on a rutted track. It was dark now, and the tinted windows made it darker, so John Henry didn’t know much about their location except that they appeared to be surrounded by rolling hills. Then the limo came to a stop.
He tossed back the rest of the
cerveza
, expecting his door to open immediately, but it was several minutes before he heard the distinctive click. Then Zin was there, her shirt gleaming in the darkness. “If you’d follow me . . .”
Scrambling out of the car, John Henry ascertained they were in the middle of a vineyard. The other limo was circling a gravel parking lot that was adjacent to what looked like a wine cave. The headlights brushed over a sign, and he discovered they were near the Tanti Baci winery tasting room. Stevie’s family’s place, Zin had told him.
“Over here,” Zinnia said.
He turned his head. A short distance away, under the spreading arms of an old oak tree, was a wreck of an adobe cottage. The splintered front door was propped open, and he could see flickering flames of candlelight inside.
“Wait . . . What . . .”
But Zinnia was already moving up the shallow steps and into the place. He found himself hurrying after her, all the while keeping one eye open for falling roof tiles and the other for scurrying rats. “Why can’t we talk in the limo?” he complained, as he ducked to clear the low lintel.
His feet stuttered to a halt as he took in the sight inside. On an old quilt, surrounded by votive candles, sat Zinnia. Her jacket and tie were gone, and she’d unbuttoned her shirt at her throat. So there were her gleaming skin, her fairy hair, her luminous eyes. Like the first time they’d met, like every time they’d been together, he felt this inexplicable, undeniable tug. It took him toward her now.
She patted the quilt beside her. “Be with me, John Henry.”
But he didn’t want to be with her! Hadn’t he just decided that? It was too damn painful to put his hopes, his frickin’ heart, in another’s hands.
And remember, she’d already refused it. “I’ll stand, thanks.”
The back of her hand pressed her lips. Then she nodded. “I know how to work hard, John Henry.”
“We’ve been through this before,” he said, weary. “Let’s let it go, Zin.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m cool with it. You win, you’re right, I’m done.” He hauled in a breath and cursed himself, because even in this musty old room it tasted a little bit like Zin. “I’ll pretend I don’t know you, and you can pretend you don’t know me.”
“I didn’t know
myself
,” Zin whispered. “I’m sorry, John Henry. I didn’t know myself or what I was missing when I walked away from you.”
He stilled.
“It took your father’s death and your bout with pneumonia and seven days pretending to like wine for you to get your priorities straight. Surely you can forgive me for lagging a little behind on this love deal?”
No. He wasn’t going to do it. He wasn’t going to unroll all his feelings for her to stomp over them like a red carpet to heartache. But damn, he couldn’t help clarifying. “This . . . ‘love deal’?”
“I’m in love with you too.”
For sure he’d misheard, so he sank to the quilt. “Say that again?”
“It’s crazy and certainly not businesslike and maybe—oh, definitely—flaky, but in almost no time at all I fell in love with a man who tossed some bills at me and asked for a beer and a babe.”
“A
willing
babe.” His chest tightened, his pulse going wild. He took a moment to inhale a breath and blow it out, still uncertain of what he was hearing. “It does seem a bit fast.”
“My father says he fell in love with my mother on a field in upstate New York while Janis Joplin sang ‘A Piece of My Heart.’ They’ve lasted forty years.”
“Those hippies had all the luck,” he said, keeping his tone mild. “Imagine it: Joplin, Hendrix, The Dead . . . Then there’s that whole Summer of Love thing.”
She scooted closer to him and put her hand on his knee. His blood rushed toward her touch, and then was waylaid by another part of his anatomy. “John Henry,” she said.
“Sweet Zin,” he whispered, his voice husky. His palm cupped her face; he couldn’t help himself.
“Maybe we could do a ‘Lifetime of Love’ thing,” Zinnia said.
He was out of defenses. For just that sweet offer, she was welcome to all he had. He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “Definitely we could.”
Then she was in his lap, in his arms, laughing and crying and giving him the kind of Zinnia kisses that made him happy and horny . . . and all hers.
It was a long time before he could look around him and see more than her lovely, loving face. But finally, with his woman snuggled against him the way she always should be, he could ask. “What the hell are we doing here, Zin? In this old place, I mean.”
“It’s symbolic.”
“It’s a wreck.”
“Take that back. I had Stevie unlock the gate for us especially. This is the original home of Alonzo and Anne Baci, who founded the Tanti Baci—which means Many Kisses, by the way—winery almost one hundred years ago. It’s a very special place for lovers, since Alonzo and Anne had a legendarily long and happy marriage, even though he was a scrappy Italian immigrant and she was a San Francisco society girl. Everybody in Edenville comes here with their sweetheart at least once in their life.”
John Henry stiffened in alarm. “Are you telling me . . .” He looked down at their naked, entwined bodies, barely covered by a quilt. “If this place is so popular, maybe we’d better get moving.”
“Not yet. Don’t be so stuffy, John Henry.”
“I can’t help it,” he said, settling back. “It’s the name. It makes me stuffy by default. So we’re going to call our kids normal things like Bill and Jane, okay?”
She rolled on top of him to stare in his face. “We’re going to have kids?” she asked, a little break in her voice.
God, she was beautiful. He pulled her up for a kiss. “Anything. Everything. Always.”
She lifted her mouth from his, her gaze searching the room. “Do you see them?”
He pushed her hair off her face, no longer alarmed. The mayor of Edenville and the board of directors of River Pharmaceuticals could be in the room, but he wasn’t about to interrupt this moment with the woman he adored. “See who?”
“Alonzo and Anne. They’re supposed to appear if they approve of my true love.”
“Well, I hope they enjoy the show,” John Henry said, rolling over so that he was between her warm, welcoming thighs. “Because, Zin-as-in-Zinnia, I’m about to approve you all the way to heaven.”