Claiming the Rancher's Heir Read online

  You don’t know?

  Okay. Maybe she had a fair enough idea. But she didn’t want to marinate on it. Not at all.

  “Just to me?” he asked. “Aren’t I special.”

  He moved away from the door and allowed her entry into the tasting room. There, he had several bottles of wine out on the table. They were already uncorked, glasses sitting next to them.

  “Isn’t this nice?” she asked.

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “You’re certainly something,” she responded. The answer seemed to settle between them, rather than striking immediate sparks. But that left an odd note lingering in the air. They just stared at each other for a long moment. And it was like everything in the air around them went elastic, stretched, then held tight.

  “Nice to know.”

  She had hoped that his voice, his words, might banish that strange threat of tension. But it didn’t. No. If anything, it felt worse. Because there was something about that voice that seemed to shiver over her skin, leaving goose bumps behind.

  “Don’t let it go to your...head.” His eyes dipped down, to her lips, then lower.

  “Let’s drink wine,” she said, far too bright and crisp and obviously trying to move them along from whatever was happening now.

  “Did you bring some for me to try?”

  “Yes. I have a crate in the car...”

  “I’ve got it.” He extended his hand.

  “What?”

  “Keys?”

  “Oh.” She dug in her purse for her key fob, and clicked it twice. “It’s open.”

  He went outside and returned a moment later with a crate full of wine bottles slung up over his shoulder.

  And it was... Well, it was impossible for her not to admire all that raw male beauty. His strength.

  He had big hands. The muscles on his forearms shifted as he slung the crate down with ease onto the table, beginning to take the wine bottles out. They looked small in those hands. For some reason, she had an immediate image of those hands on her hips. All that strength, all that...largeness...

  That was another thing.

  She felt outside a lot of experiences here. And she had never... Well. Not with a man like him.

  All of her past relationships had been based on having things in common. Liking each other. Being able to see a potential future, where she served as the appropriate ornament, and they served as the appropriate accessory.

  The kinds of people who fit into each other’s lives with ease, and because of that decided to make a go at fitting into bed with each other.

  As a result, she hadn’t had the most exciting sex life. It had been fine.

  But she never had a wild...well, a wild anything.

  She hadn’t gone out to bars and hooked up.

  Creed Cooper was a bar-hookup kind of guy. She just had that feeling.

  That he was the kind of man women saw from across the room, all warm with whiskey and the promise of bad decisions, and thought... He looks like a terrible choice.

  Before gleefully climbing on.

  She had never done anything like that and there was something about him that made her think of those things. If she was honest, made her yearn for those things. A rough, bad decision like the kind she’d never made before.

  “Let’s get to pouring,” he said.

  And so they did. Portioning out samples for each other to try.

  Infinitely safer and better than her standing there pondering the potential badness of climbing on top of Creed.

  “Should we start here?” He picked up a glass of Maxfield Chardonnay.

  “It’s as good as any as far as I’m concerned,” she said. Though, now she was feeling fragile and like maybe she shouldn’t be drinking around the man. Her thoughts were doing weird things. But she’d been in a weird space since she had driven away from the house today. Or maybe, since even before then.

  She was familiar with this wine, and it was one of her favorites. Citrusy, with notes of white peach and apricot. It was a decent wine for her mood because of the tartness.

  “Nice,” he said. “Very nice.”

  “I thought it might pain you to admit that,” she said.

  “Not at all. Actually, I would be disappointed if I didn’t like your wine. Because I would hate to be in competition with somebody who was terrible.”

  “I suppose that’s a fair call,” she said.

  “Us next.”

  He offered her Cabernet Sauvignon, and the notes were completely different from the Chardonnay. Smoky oak and rich espresso. It reminded her of him. Full-bodied and rich. Tempting, but a very bad idea to overindulge in.

  “Nice,” she said.

  “A compliment from you,” he said dryly. “What an achievement.”

  “Not one I would think you’d care about.”

  “I didn’t say I cared. I was just remarking.”

  “You’re irritating,” she said, taking another sip of the wine. They moved through the wines, and she felt a looseness in her limbs. Relaxation pouring through her. She knew how to taste wine without getting drunk. So she had to assume the feeling had something to do with him. Which was honestly more disturbing than thinking she might have overindulged.

  “Why shouldn’t I be irritating? You’re no better.”

  The smug male arrogance in those words rankled. He tipped his too handsome face backward and took another sip of wine. “You know, this event might also need a bouncy castle.”

  “No,” she said.

  He wasn’t serious. She knew that. That was ridiculous. This was not going to be some family Sunday picnic. He knew her well enough to know that, whether he agreed or not.

  “A dunk tank.”

  “Absolutely not,” she responded. “It’s happening in October.”

  “This is your problem, Wren. You can’t think outside the box. You want to bring two labels together that historically have never had anything to do with each other. You want to bring together two very different types of people.”

  “The kinds of people that are at my winery do not want bouncy castles. Or children running around anywhere.”

  “Oh, they want perfect little Stepford children just like all of you were?”

  Irritation twisted in her stomach. “You don’t know me. You don’t know us.”

  “Don’t I? You’re proving that I do. You’re all worried about appearances here, like you always have been, when this whole thing with your daddy should have taught you appearances don’t mean much of anything.”

  “How dare you?” She was trembling now, irritation turning to total outrage. “How dare you bring my father into this?”

  “It was too easy.”

  “I’ve been through enough. We’ve been through enough. I don’t need you flinging things at me about my family that I can’t control. You want to talk about living in a box... You’ve never even left here, have you?”

  “We both know that’s not true. A fair amount of travel is required to do this job.”

  “Did you even go to college?” she asked.

  “No,” he responded. “I was too busy working to build the family label. I guess you think attending college makes you smarter than me, but all it means is you were from a different sort of family. You see, we are not from money. Not like you. You think that makes you better, but it doesn’t. Because you know what else? My dad never sexually harassed a woman either. Unlike yours.”

  Raged poured through her and she fought to keep from showing just how mad he’d made her. He was doing it on purpose. He didn’t deserve the satisfaction of knowing he’d succeeded in getting to her.

  “Where is your damn wine cellar?” she asked. “I want to go look at what else you have.”

  “You don’t want to keep having this conversation?”

/>   “I never wanted to start having it,” she said, each word coming out in a monotone. Because if she allowed her voice to amp up, she was going to say something she would regret.

  Not that there was much she could say in anger that she would regret having spat out at Creed. It wasn’t the anger that scared her. It was everything that hummed underneath it. That it could still hum underneath when she was so infuriated with him. When he was being such a...such an unrepentant asshole.

  “Wine cellar’s this way,” he said.

  He led the way to the back of the barn, where there was a staircase that led straight down.

  She was reluctantly charmed by it. By the uneven rock walls that gave it the vague feel of a French country home. The thick, uneven slabs of wood that made up the staircase, making it feel old-world and resonant.

  She was irritated she didn’t hate it. She was irritated that he had homed in on the exact thing about herself that was bothering her at the moment.

  That he had managed to poke at her exact point of insecurity. All the things she had been thinking of when she had driven into town. About how there was this whole other life here—a whole other life in general—that she had never even considered living because she was a...a Stepford child. It was exactly what she had been.

  Going where her father had chosen for her to go, growing into exactly what he had wanted her to grow into. Taking the job he had given her. And she was still doing it all. All of the exact same things she had done before her father had gone away. Before he had stepped down from the company in disgrace.

  And it did make her wonder... What creature had she been fashioned into?

  And for whom?

  She didn’t think there was an alternative reality where she would be in favor of a bouncy castle at her event, but she truly didn’t know. She could only speculate.

  Everyone is a product of their circumstances. Don’t be so hard on yourself.

  She nearly nodded at the affirmation she gave herself. The problem was, she couldn’t agree. Because she wasn’t actually ever all that hard on herself.

  She never made any mistakes. Not in the way that she thought of mistakes. Because she had always, without fail, done exactly what she had been charged with.

  By your father.

  And still, her father had never been effusive about his pride in her. But she had lived for that praise. Because who didn’t? Who didn’t want to make their father happy? And her father was... He was a monster.

  All these thoughts had her feeling absolutely and completely off-kilter. And that was only serving to make her even angrier at Creed. How could she handle all of this stuff and him? And how dare he cut her so close to the bone?

  He didn’t know her. He didn’t have the right to say the things he’d said. To say things that made her feel more seen than anything anyone in her family had ever said. That was for sure.

  “So, the Cooper family is just all rainbows and butterflies?” she asked as they made their way through the aisles of wine.

  “And horseshit,” he said. “Which wine were you thinking?”

  “I don’t know. Pick something good.”

  “The array of wine upstairs is good,” he said. “That’s why I picked them.”

  “Something different.” She felt difficult and she didn’t care.

  “Rainbows and butterflies,” he reiterated. “And my dad’s not a criminal.”

  “And all of you work here at the family winery because you just love each other so much.”

  “Is that difficult for you to believe?”

  It wasn’t. Not really. There was a reason she was choosing to stay at the Maxfield winery, after all.

  A reason that went beyond just being afraid to start over, or not knowing what else she would do.

  Emerson was her rock, and Cricket needed her.

  “I’m close with my sisters,” Wren said. “I love them.”

  “And I love my family. You ought to love your family.”

  “I’m just saying. I’m not in a box. I just know who I am.” Those words had never felt less true. Not that she loved her family. She did love her family. It was just that right now she felt like she was wearing a Wren suit and somewhere inside was a different creature. She felt like she was inhabiting the wrong body. The wrong space.

  “Honestly, Wren, if you believed that, you wouldn’t be so bound and determined to try to convince me.”

  “You don’t know me,” she said. “You’re not my friend.”

  “Something we can agree on.”

  “You don’t get to say what I know or don’t know. You just don’t.”

  “Too late. I did.”

  “You’re such a... You’re ridiculous.”

  “Just take a bottle of wine so we can get on with this. I will feel a lot better dealing with you if I’m drunker.”

  “This isn’t exactly a picnic for me either,” she said. “You are without a doubt the most insufferable man I’ve ever known.”

  “You don’t like me, Wren?” he asked, taking a step toward her. “However will I survive?”

  “The same as you always do, I imagine,” she said. “High on an unearned sense of self-confidence and a little testosterone poisoning.”

  He huffed. “You like it,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “You like it. My testosterone. You’d like to be poisoned by it, admit it.”

  “There’s that sense of unearned self-confidence,” she said, her heart hammering steadily against her chest. “Right on time.”

  “It’s not unearned. I watch you. When we fight. Your face gets all flushed.”

  “That’s called anger.”

  “Why? What is it about me that makes you so damned angry?”

  “You... You are just...a useless, base ape.”

  “Base?” He asked the question with a dangerous sort of softness to his voice, and it made her tremble. “That’s what you think? That I’m like an animal who can’t control himself?”

  “Yes,” she spat. “I know all about you and your reputation. You get drunk at the bar, you pick up women every night of the week.”

  “I don’t get drunk,” he said. “That’s not me.”

  “Maybe that’s how you see yourself, but it’s not what I hear. I hear that you’re just a big, dumb, blunt instrument. You might go on and on about how you pulled yourself up by your bootstraps, but your daddy made all this happen. You might wear a cowboy hat, but there’s a silver spoon in your mouth the same as mine. So don’t you dare go acting like you’re better than me just because you can’t be bothered to put on an ounce of refinement. Because you don’t have the manners to leave my dad out of a conversation. Just because you can’t be bothered to try to be a...a civilized human being.”

  “You think I’m an animal, Wren?” he asked again, his voice low and rough. “You think I don’t control my baser instincts? I have, Princess. You don’t even know. Maybe it’s time you saw what it looks like when I don’t.”

  And that was how she found herself being backed up against one of the stone walls in the wine cellar, six-foot-plus of angry man staring down at her, his green eyes blazing. “You want an animal?” He put his hand on her hip, and she nearly combusted. “I’ve half a mind to give you one.”

  Her heart was thundering so hard she felt like it might rattle the buttons clean off the front of her blouse. And if it did, it would leave her top open. And then he would be able to...

  She was throbbing between her thighs, her throat utterly and completely dry. This couldn’t be happening. This had to be some kind of fever dream. The kind of dream she had every other night when she had to deal with Creed.

  When anger turned into something much hotter, and much more naked.

  But it couldn’t be real. Anger couldn’t really turn into this seething, hot w
ell of need, could it? This couldn’t really be what was beneath all of their fighting. That was... That was her being confused.

  Her having some kind of fantasy that allowed her to take control of him.

  That was just what she told herself whenever she had sex dreams about him.

  That sure, he might be hot, but she didn’t actually want to have sex with him. It was just that the idea of manipulating him with her body appealed to her subconscious, because it was always such a sparring contest in real life.

  And the idea that maybe her breasts could reduce him slightly was tempting.

  But that wasn’t real. People didn’t really do this.

  She didn’t really do this.

  You’re just trapped in a box...

  And suddenly, she wondered what it might be like if she did really do this. If she dared. If she returned his volley right now.

  If she let herself be the animal she’d accused him of being.

  She’d gotten to him. Really and truly. Something about her accusing him of lacking civility and control clearly irritated him. And she wanted to keep on doing it. She wanted to push him.

  She arched her hips forward, and her pelvis came into contact with the evidence of just what he was feeling, there in the front of his jeans. He was hard. He might be mad, but he was hard. For her.

  “Oh, I see,” she said. “So that’s your real problem. Pulling my pigtails on the playground because you like me?” She rolled her hips forward, and she nearly gasped at the sensation. She might be taunting him, but she was on the verge of overheating. Spontaneously combusting. “If you want me to lift up my skirt so you can see my panties, you should’ve just asked.”

  “You’re infuriating,” he bit out.

  “No more so than you.”

  “You know what, I’m tired of that smart mouth of yours. Maybe it’s time you found something else to occupy it with.”

  And before she could say anything else, those lips had crashed down on hers. He was kissing her, hard and deep. And he was so... Hot and strong and male. So far and beyond any man she had ever touched before. She was used to civilized men. And he might be angry that she’d called him uncivilized, but the fact remained that he was. Dangerously so.