Page 12 of Gone With the Wine

“Sounds yummy.”

I walk a little farther and now it’s my turn to drool in front of Lavender Lingerie. This is a new store in Oak Creek Canyon, and wow, it’s hitting my weakness for anything purple. “Oh my God, look at that slip dress!” I gaze at the pansy purple silk garment with embroidered bra cups. It’s my favorite color and so luxe looking. “Wouldn’t I look sexy in that?”

A noise beside me has my head turning. I’m face to face with a man I do not know.

Almostface to face—he’s tall. And he’s eyeing me with a startled expression.

Heat rushes up into my face. Where are Ana and Millie? “Uh. Sorry. I thought you were my friends. I mean, I thought I was talking to them.”

Deep-set hazel eyes stare at me, his thick eyebrows drawn together above them.

Whoa. This is one attractive man.

I blink, in a flash taking in his firm jaw, carved cheekbones, and strong nose that’s just a bit uneven. Also wide, wide shoulders and lots of hard-packed muscle. “Uh…” I say again. “Sorry.”

This would be a good time for a big sinkhole to open up in the ground beneath me and swallow me up.

Millie and Ana appear next to me. “Oh hey, Jansen,” Millie says. “How are you?”

Wait. They know him?

His closed expression relaxes when he looks at them. “Hi. I’m good, thanks.”

Millie looks back and forth between us. “You’ve met Bianca?”

Now his lips twitch. “Sort of.”

“Oh my God, I thought it was you two beside me and I started talking to him,” I babble with a nervous laugh. “Oops!”

“Bee, this is Jansen Beck. He bought Take Flight.”

“Oh.” My scrutiny of him turns chilly, despite the pleasing width of his shoulders, the drape of his T-shirt over flat abs, the veins running down strong forearms to the backs of his hands.

“Bianca is an amazing winemaker,” Ana tells Jansen. “You two should talk! Jansen’s going to need help. He’s never owned a winery before.”

I blink at that. “Wow. That’s…amazing. What happened to Randall?” He was the winemaker at Take Flight for decades.

“Retired,” Jansen says.

“Ah.”

“Bianca Martinelli,” Millie finishes the introduction. “She owns Caparelli Vineyard.”

“Part of it,” I mumble.

“The competition, then,” Jansen says.

I lift my eyebrows. “You must be new here.”

He frowns. “Well, yeah. Why?”

“We’re not all competitors. In Napa, we all help each other.” I ignore the resentment that pushed to the surface when I learned who he is. He’s an outsider. The one who took over Jake’s heritage.

“Ah.”

“I mean, we all help each other and learn from each other. A rising tide floats all boats. That kind of thing.” More blabbing.

“Liftsall boats,” he says.

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