Love Brewing (Love Brothers #3) (15 page)

“Don’t you dare run from this, Dominic Love. I’ll never
respect you if you bolt, do you get me? I should make you sleep in the house,
but I won’t because you’re too much of a temptation to me.”

“You, and my mama, and…and Kent, can’t manipulate me like
this.”

“No one is manipulating you. Get a grip and think about it.
Kent knew you had to meet your son. He moved to New York once he figured out
you wouldn’t communicate with him, after the wedding….”

Dominic held up a hand as if to halt her words, but she
smacked it away. “He found Jace. He had to get the kid out of some crappy
flophouse he’d been living in. After Gina died, her sister’s boyfriend beat him
nearly to death, Dominic, he cut the boy’s face with a broken bottle.” She
gripped his arms when he tried to get out of the truck. “This is
your
son.
Your
responsibility. And you are by God gonna take it now.” When
she let him go, he jumped out and ran for the barn.

She stayed awake all night wrapped in blankets and dogs,
keeping a vigil on the side porch. But he didn’t emerge and in the morning he
showed up ready to work, looking completely wrung out. They didn’t discuss it
all day long, but at four o’clock, she walked out to where he’d just finished
with the building inspection, tapped his shoulder and held out her phone.

“It’s him.” She handed over the device and walked away
before she lost her nerve, leaving Dominic standing there, slack-jawed, with
the tinny sound of Kent Lowery’s voice still ringing in her ears.

A week later, a solid three-and-a-half after their original
scheduled opening, Diana woke at her usual 5 a.m. and came downstairs to find
Jen sitting the kitchen, drinking coffee.

“What’re you doing here so early?” She reached for a mug,
but Jen grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into a tight hug.

“You did it! We did it, I mean. Come and see.”

Her sister shoved Diana out the door and toward what used to
be their family’s barn. The past three weeks of inspections and finalizing
idiotic details like switch plate colors had turned her into a raving bitch on
wheels. She knew it. But the loans she and Jen had taken out to do this thing
wouldn’t allow her to feel anything but a low-lying, ongoing, daily panic. Even
though she’d let Dale convince her they owed it to themselves and to their
parents’ slightly soiled legacy to have their own party venue that matched the
top quality of their food and, now, their funky, fermented teas.

She took a long breath and opened her eyes. From the
outside, the place looked more or less the same, spruced up with a fresh coat
of red paint. But when she walked into what once served as the paddock and
shoved open the huge door, she knew they’d made the right call.

“Surprise!” The sound of hundreds of tiny explosions brought
a shriek of surprise to her lips, while tiny confetti fluttered in front of
her, giving the whole scene the air of a New Year’s Eve party. The newly-hired
staff were all in a line, wearing their Brantley Farms-branded red-and-white
checked shirts and light blue jeans. The construction crew, with Dominic in
front of them, was behind the staff, opening bottles of champagne. She took in
the long tables, the huge new windows, the steps up to the smaller room that
used to be the haymow, all of it.

Jen squeezed her shoulders. “You did this, you crazy bitch,”
she said. “I never thought you’d make it happen.”

“
We
did it, Jen.” Diana swiped at her eyes and met
Jen’s equally emotional gaze.

“All right, cut the waterworks. Jesus, you’ll have everybody
crying. Here.” Dom shoved sloshing-over glasses at them and held his up. “To
the Brantley sisters. I always did know you gals were something special.”

Diana tried to frown at him. Jen laughed and they all
clinked. All six bottles were gone inside an hour. Once she sent the staff home
with the two who’d agreed not to drink, telling them she’d see them tomorrow
for their first big event—a bridal tea for fifty—she froze in the middle of the
space she’d always felt the most comfortable in her entire life. Taking a deep
breath, she caught the scents she remembered, lingering underneath the drywall,
paint, varnish and sawdust.

When Dominic dropped his arm over her shoulders she hugged
him, gripping his shirt. He held onto her, doing nothing more than soothing by
his presence.

“So, um, I’m meeting him tomorrow,” he whispered. She held
on tighter. “At my parents’ house.”

“I know. Your Mama told me.”

“I owe it to you.” He shook his head. “Don’t know whether to
thank you or smack you, but…I’m shittin’ bricks-scared, I won’t kid you.”

“Over what? Meeting your son? Or seeing Kent again.” She
felt him tense, so on ages-old reflex, she kissed him softly, with nothing more
behind it than the urge to comfort.

He smiled at her. “Both, I guess.”

At the sound of the barn door sliding open and her fiancé’s
voice, she cursed and jumped away from Dominic.

“Hey, honey…uh, I mean….” Lee stood there in dark jeans,
cowboy boots and a crinkly dress shirt, holding the biggest bouquet of flowers
she’d ever seen. He blinked at her, then at Dom, his expression unhappier by
the second. She took another step away, horrified. “Sorry to interrupt.” Lee
put the bouquet on the nearest table and walked back out the door.

“Wait, Lee!” she called, but her feet wouldn’t move.

“I’ve got this.” Dom ran out the door into the morning
sunlight. She bit her lip, listened for the sounds of voices, heard them, then
the distinct sound of flesh striking flesh. That unfroze her. By the time she
got to him, Lee was staring down at the ground. She grabbed his arm as he
hauled back to punch Dominic again.

“Stop.”

He whirled to face her. “Sounds like I should be saying that
to you.” His words cut through her fog.

“If either of you honestly think I’m the kind of woman who
wants to see two grown men fighting over her like cavemen, you’re both idiots.”

Dominic struggled to his feet and tried to lunge for Lee,
but she held her ground between them, arms outstretched.

“I mean I knew you were a fool, Dominic. But you.” She
turned to her fiancé, her heart pounding so fast it scared her. “
You
I
had figured for the one grown-up in this bunch.”

Lee dropped his arms to his sides. “I’m over this, Diana.”
His voice dipped low. “I put up with it for as a long as I could. I left you
here, with him, for nearly four months, figuring I could trust you. I see now I
was wrong about that.”

“What did he tell you?” She glared at Dom, who had his palm
over his jaw.

“God, do you think I’m blind? Or maybe just stupid?” Lee
moved her aside. But instead of pounding Dom again, he opened his truck door.

“You’ve got quite a punch,” Dom muttered.

“How do you think I tranquilize horses?” Lee sat gripping
the steering wheel. Diana stepped to his open window. “I’m gonna go now. I have
to think…about stuff. Get off the door, Diana.”

She stepped away, gripping her elbows, watching as he
sprayed some of the newly poured driveway pebbles as he made his exit. Dom put
an arm around her.

“We sure are good at fucking things up, aren’t we, Lady Di?”

“Go to hell.” She stomped into the barn to clean up the mess.
“Oh wait, right, you’re already there. I forgot. Do me a favor and
stop
dragging me into it with you.”

He gave her a half-smile and they worked side by side for an
hour, tidying up and readying the place for its debut event. Afterward they sat
on the side porch in companionable silence, drinking coffee.

She bumped his shoulder. “Do you want me to be there
tomorrow?”

“Yes, actually, I do.”

“All right. But I’m going to Lee’s now. I have to make it
right with him if it’s not too late.” She twisted the ring on her finger,
realizing she may very well have shed her Dominic addiction. The memory of Lee
driving away, furious at her for catching them in nothing more than an innocent
hug had clinched it for her. “I’m over you, I think.”

He kept his gaze out over the lawn. “Lucky you. I’m gonna go
mow the grass.” He rose and pulled her up. “Go on, make things good with the
horse whisperer. He’s probably better in bed than me anyway.”

She punched his shoulder. “Maybe he is.”

He winced. “Was doing a little compliment fishing there,
hon. Ya missed your cue.”

“No, I didn’t. Go mow the grass. I’ll see you at your
parents’ tomorrow.” She pushed open the screen door, anxious to be with Lee and
so grateful for that fact she wanted to weep. Before getting into her truck,
she glanced over her shoulder and spotted Dominic in the doorway, shoulders
slumped. Instead of reverting to her own type, she got in the truck and drove
away from him, toward her future.

Lee lived in a huge log cabin nearly forty miles west of
town, closer to Louisville than Lexington. He had eight acres with a small
lake, and twenty more behind the house and barns. He’d sold his thriving small
animal practice ten years ago and gone with his original love—farm animals,
specializing in horses, and served as a consulting vet to the Kentucky Horse
Park, Keeneland, and Churchill Downs. His reputation with horses had netted him
several trips out west to huge ranches, and to the Santa Anita track.

Heart pounding, she pulled up his long, tree-lined drive,
smiling at his rambunctious pack of mutts racing out to meet her car. She
craned her neck, hoping to spot him on the long front porch waiting for her.
The place seemed deserted, but his truck was parked in the garage. He’d
forgotten to close the door. As she climbed out, she practiced a few
explanations and apologies under her breath.

“Hey, hey, calm down.” She patted the swarming mass of
canines. “Where’s Lee?” she asked, as she walked toward the house. The dogs
broke from her and ran toward the barn. She followed them, and spotted Lee
grooming his horse in the first barn stall.

They’d met under similar circumstances. She’d desperately
needed to get his opinion on Pepper, who’d been acting up, gnawing on fence
rows and flat out jumping over them to escape several times. His answering
service indicated he only took new clients by referral, which had pissed her
off. Who did he think he was? Freaking Sigmund Freud? So busy he couldn’t be
bothered by problems regular people had with their animals versus the fancy
animals at the track?

So she’d driven out to him, Pepper in the trailer,
determined to at least get a diagnosis or a referral to someone slightly less
important. “I’ll pay you,” she’d insisted, trying not to stare at his striking
face after sneaking up on him and finding him here, grooming the huge black
saddle bred.

“That’s okay,” he’d insisted, taking Pepper’s lead and
setting him loose inside the huge paddock. “Let’s go get some lemonade.”

She’d been shocked. “I’m, uh, here for my horse.”

“I know, but he should acclimate. Besides, it’s not every
day a beautiful woman drives up to my barn without an appointment to demand I
diagnose her animal. C’mon, I make it from scratch.”

She smiled, reliving their first date the very next weekend,
which had resulted in some pretty amazing sex. After shocking her with his
age—forty-six, although he could easily pass for thirty-two—he’d plied her with
expensive wine and seduced her in a slow, easygoing, utterly perfect way, right
on the soft rug in front of his giant fireplace. The memory made her squeeze
her eyes shut a split second, as real terror at the thought of losing him
coated her nerve endings.

He stood, running his palms across the animal’s glistening coat.

“You’re gonna brush him bald you know.”

He didn’t acknowledge that she’d spoken.

She leaned against the doorjamb, admiring his butt, the
spread of his shoulders, and wondering why she ever took him for granted even
for a second, much less how she’d acted for the past months. After he checked
all four hooves and gave the horse a final whack on the flank, he faced her.

“You can leave the ring inside.”

She started toward him. He took a corresponding three steps
away from her. “I can’t do this anymore,” he insisted, picking up the bucket
he’d been sitting on and heading farther into the darkened barn.

“I know. I’m…I won’t…I’ll make him leave.”

“It’s more than that, Diana.”

“No, actually, Lee, it’s not. It’s exactly that—it’s
Dominic. But I’m done with him, I swear it.” Her temples pounded and her legs
shook with anxiety. “Please, honey, I love you.”

He stepped out from a stall and glared at her through the
gloom. She started to move closer but he stiff-armed her. “No, don’t. Just give
me some space right now.”

She took a ragged breath. “I don’t want to give you space. I
want to go inside, make love, fall asleep in your arms, wake up, have sex then
eat dinner together. Then I want to stay here all night.”

“Well, I guess you’ll have to make other plans. I’m going
inside. You should leave.”

“But….” She touched his arm, terrified she’d ruined
something that had such potential for her future. She kept her grip on his
biceps, sensing every bit of his tension through her fingertips. When he met
her eyes, his gaze was midnight-dark with fury. She flinched, suddenly wary and
unsure. He’d never looked at her like this, not that she didn’t deserve it. But
this was what she wanted and she would not leave here without some kind of
resolution.

“Oh,” she gasped when he yanked her to him, holding both her
arms tight. She didn’t move, squirm or protest. He hovered over her, his lips
pressed together. When he finally did speak, it came out a low, throaty growl
and sent a shock of desire from her head to her toes.

“You’re mine, goddamn it. As much as you don’t want to be,
you bloody well are.”

She closed her eyes, willing him to kiss her. “Open your
eyes, Diana.” He walked her backward, shoving her none to gently up against the
barn wall. She sucked in a breath when he pressed against her, releasing her
ponytail and burying his fingers in her hair. “Mine,” he whispered before he
forced her lips open with his and shoved his hand under her shirt.

She met him halfway, practically faint with relief. His
mouth left hers and he grabbed her wrists, pinning them over her head, keeping
his body pressed close, the only sound the loud rip of shirt and bra fabric.

He reached down to shove her jeans down and off, and
unzipped his without a word. When he kissed her again, he grabbed one of her
legs, hiked it up to his waist and shoved into her without preamble. But it
didn’t matter. She was more than ready for him. She grabbed his ass and met
every thrust of his with her own, eager and breathless, desperate and relieved.

“Yes,” she hissed in his ear, tasting his sweat and feeling
every inch of him possessing her as he shoved harder and faster. Desperate to
prove something, she let go of his ass and grabbed one of his arms he had
propped on the wall beside her head, hanging on so she could shift her hips and
take him deeper.

“Goddamn it.” He groaned. “You feel so…good.” His breathing
came in short gasps as his thrusts took on a familiar urgency. She held on
tight, clenching her muscles, getting the friction she required thanks to the
angle.

“Diana,” he gasped, sweat beading on his forehead.
“Diana…I…oh, God….” He groaned low and long, as she held onto him, determined
not to cry anymore and ruin the moment.