Page 45 of Cognac & Cornflowers

It did feel kind of premeditated to him, too. So, instead of closing his arms around her like he wanted to, he kicked his shoes off and climbed onto the bed. Once he was sitting with his back against the headboard, he patted the space beside him.

She was still standing beside the bed, looking unsure of herself.

“Want to join me? I think you’ll love the view from here.”

He had to laugh when her gaze dropped to his lap. He had to adjust his pants. His cock wasn’t happy about his plan to take his time. “I don’t mean that view.” He pointed to the window. “I mean out there. Every morning when I wake up, the vineyards are the first thing I see.”

“Oh!” Her cheeks were red as she kicked off her sneakers and climbed up beside him.

He wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she looked out at the rolling hillsides, covered in vines as far as the eye could see.

“Wow!”

“Yeah.” He nodded as he took in the view. “I love to see that.”

She looked up at him. “You grew up here, right? In this house?”

“I did.”

She smiled. “Sometimes, when you smile big, I can see the kid you were.”

He laughed. “I was a happy kid. My dad used to call me smiley.”

“Aww. I bet you were cute.”

“Xander was the cute one.”

“No! You’re way cuter than he is.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you trying to flatter me?”

“No! I’m telling you the truth. I mean, your brother’s a good-looking guy, but he’s got nothing on you. There’s something … darker about him, an edge. You’re more the All-American, good guy type.”

He had to laugh. “You think so?”

She nodded sagely. “You are. I bet you had an amazing childhood here – you, and Xander, and Hannah.”

“We did. We were lucky and we knew it. My dad always made sure that we appreciated just how well off we were. He worked hard to build Jacobs Estate, and we all had to work at different things. Our mom doted on us.” He frowned. “Well, she doted on Xander and me. Hannah didn’t have it as easy. But everything is relative. We had a great childhood. What about you? What was it like growing up on a farm?”

He loved the way she smiled. “It was awesome. I have two older brothers, then there’s my sister, then me, and our other brother is the youngest. The farm isn’t a business like yours is. Things were always tight, and we always knew that. But it was the same for most folks we knew. No one had much money, but it didn’t seem to matter too much. There was always enough to eat, and there was always enough love and laughter to go around.”

She looked up into his eyes. “That’s what I want for my life. I don’t care about money and material stuff. They don’t really matter.” She frowned. “I don’t mean to offend you or anything. I know that those things are a big part of your life, but they don’t mean that much to me. And they don’t mean anything if there’s no love and laughter to go with them.”

“I know. I hate to say it, but my mom was more like that. She cared about how things looked more than how they felt. I was talking to Hannah about it over the holidays. She reminded me how Mom always used to have the interior decorator get the house ready for Christmas. The team would come in and do the tree and all the lights and everything – and we had to be careful around them. We weren’t allowed to touch anything. It didn’t bother me. I don’t think Xander cared either, but Hannah hated it. Her friend, Molly, used to invite her over to decorate their tree – and that was her favorite thing about Christmas.”

He shook his head. He hadn’t known that until this year when Hannah had told him how much it meant to her to have Grady and Ava there at the cottage, and how much she’d loved putting up their Christmas tree as a family.

He shook his head again to clear it. Becca had asked him to take her to bed, and here he was talking about Christmas trees! What was wrong with him?

She was watching his face, and he gave her a rueful smile. “Sorry. My point was that if I have a family, I want it to be all about the love and laughter. It’s easy to say that the material things don’t matter when they really don’t matter – and I’m lucky that I’ve never had to worry about them.”

“You are – lucky, that is.” She chewed on her bottom lip, looking like there was something she wanted to say.

“Tell me?”

She looked up at him. “You saidifyou have a family. Why?”

His heart started to pound in his chest. That was a bit much to lay on her. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to spend anything more than the night with him. He swallowed. He’d told her everything he was thinking so far – and he’d promised that he wouldn’t lie to her.

---