Page 26 of A Taste of Chardonnay

Jack nudged my leg, and I bent to give the pup some love. I laughed at the headless horseman attached to his back. My eyes roamed the crowd and stopped at the front door. The sheriff had driven off, and I waited for Brady to come back in, but he didn’t. Maybe he stopped to talk to someone. I placed my barely touched drink on the table and stepped outside.

Like me, Brady was alone, staring into the night sky.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

He ran a hand over his face. The cape slipped off his shoulder, and his shirt sleeve tightened around his bicep. “I don’t know.”

“Want to talk about it?” I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, trying to ward off the chill, but it was freezing, and my arms were no match against the October air.

He laughed, his head shaking before he met my eyes. “We haven’t had an actual conversation in years. Why start now?”

“Because you look like you could use a friend.”

“Thanks, but I prefer friends who don’t wield knives.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing,” he said. “Sorry. I’m just…” He held his hands up and closed his eyes before lowering his hands to his sides. “Let’s just get back to the party.”

“I’m actually going to go home.” Most of my family was here, so Sherry could hitch a ride with any of them.

“You just got here.”

“Yeah, well, not exactly my scene.” I tugged at the hem of the dress, hoping my ass cheeks weren’t hanging out in the back.

“Sorry, we don’t have a bunch of men dressed up like accountants.” And there he was. The Brady I knew. The Brady I loved to hate. It was easier this way. Better.

“Maybe next year,” I said and walked off to my car, feeling his eyes on me the entire way.

Days later, and I couldn’t get Chardonnay’s costume out of my damn head. Every time I closed my eyes or had a moment of peace, there she was in that skimpy pirate costume, showing off more leg and cleavage than she ever had before. It was why she’d kept fidgeting with the hemline, as if that would have helped her. As she’d walked to her car, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Each step, the skirt had risen, revealing the cups of her ass cheeks.

I probably should have offered her my cape. It had been fucking freezing, and I’d just let her stand there, talking to me in that skimpy outfit.

I took a deep breath and threw my truck into park. I killed the engine, and the snow coated the window as soon as the windshield wipers stopped.

A storm was moving in, and everything was closing earlier. I had to drop this shit off. Then I was out of here. If I was lucky, I wouldn’t see Chardonnay. Wouldn’t have to smell that combination of lemon, rose, and musk that lingered in my nose long after she was gone. Nero told me he closed the tasting room already and to just go in, but that didn’t mean Chardonnay wasn’t lingering. That woman exited the womb working.

I didn’t see her car, so I relaxed slightly as I put on my hood and grabbed the fold up chairs I had borrowed for the Halloween party. I was able to carry eight at a time but would have to come back for the rest. Luckily, Jack was at home, so I wouldn’t have to worry about the spiteful bastard blowing my horn and telling me to hurry.

The lights were off, and the rest of the tension left my body. No one was here. I put the chairs in the rear office and went back for the others. Snow coated the stairs and came down in a thick wall. I could barely see two feet in front of me as the winds kicked up and swirled in a tornado of white.

I grabbed the other chairs and hurried my ass into the building, shaking off the snow and stomping my feet on the welcome mat before continuing.

“Whose there?” Chardonnay’s voice drifted down the stairs to the main offices.

Being the dick I was, I didn’t say anything. I placed the chairs with the others and spun around just in time to catch Chardonnay’s arm and to keep her from smashing me over the face with a wine bottle.

“Jesus!” I exclaimed.

“Brady!” She heaved a sigh and dropped her arms. “You asshole. Why didn’t you answer me?”

I removed my hood and shrugged. “Didn’t think I had to.”

Her damn scent wrapped around me, strangling my senses and making me want to kiss her neck to see if she tasted as good as she smelled. I blamed that damn Halloween costume and the way she asked me if I was okay when she could have just walked away. She should have just walked away.

“Didn’t think you had to? What kind of idiotic reasoning is that?”

“Are you calling me an idiot?” I tried to keep the smirk off my face.

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