Layla tried to give her a withering look, but she was having a hard time biting back a laugh. Well, what? There were so many reasons.
Not least of which was that he made her pulse race with anticipation at the thought of walking up to him.
Not least of which was that he had no idea who she was and, ironically, he made her feel really intrigued to just be…her.
Burlap slid against Matt’s shoulder, rough and clinging to the dampness of his skin as he dumped the sack onto the truck bed. The rose scent puffed up thickly, like a silk sheet thrown over his face. He took a step back from the truck, flexing, trying to clear his pounding head and sick stomach.
The sounds of the workers and of his cousins and grandfather rode against his skin, easing him. Raoul was back. That meant they were all here but Lucien, and Pépé was still stubborn and strong enough to insist on overseeing part of the harvest himself before he went to sit under a tree. Meaning Matt still had a few more years before he had to be the family patriarch all by himself, thank God. He’d copied every technique in his grandfather’s book, then layered on his own when those failed him, but that whole job of taking charge of his cousins and getting them to listen to him was still not working out for him.
But his grandfather was still here for now. His cousins were here, held by Pépé and this valley at their heart, and not scattered to the four winds as they might be one day soon, when Matt became the heart and that heart just couldn’t hold them.
All that loss was for later. Today was a good day. It could be. Matt had a hangover, and he had made an utter fool of himself the night before, but this could still be a good day. The rose harvest. The valley spreading around him.
J’y suis. J’y reste.
I am here and here I’ll stay.
He stretched, easing his body into the good of this day, and even though it wasn’t that hot yet, went ahead and reached for the hem of his shirt, so he could feel the scent of roses all over his skin.
“Show-off,” Allegra’s voice said, teasingly, and he grinned into the shirt as it passed his head, flexing his muscles a little more, because it would be pretty damn fun if Allegra was ogling him enough to piss Raoul off.
He turned so he could see the expression on Raoul’s face as he bundled the T-shirt, half-tempted to toss it to Allegra and see what Raoul did—
And looked straight into the leaf-green eyes of Bouclettes.
Oh, shit. He jerked the T-shirt back over his head, tangling himself in the bundle of it as the holes proved impossible to find, and then he stuck his arm through the neck hole and his head didn’t fit and he wrenched it around and tried to get himself straight and dressed somehow and—oh, fuck.
He stared at her, all the blood cells in his body rushing to his cheeks.
Damn you, stop, stop, stop, he tried to tell the blood cells, but as usual they ignored him. Thank God for dark Mediterranean skin. It had to help hide some of the color, right? Right? As he remembered carrying her around the party the night before, heat beat in his cheeks until he felt sunburned from the inside out.
Bouclettes was staring at him, mouth open as if he had punched her. Or as if he needed to kiss her again and—behave! She was probably thinking what a total jerk he was, first slobbering all over her drunk and now so full of himself he was stripping for her. And getting stuck in his own damn T-shirt.
Somewhere beyond her, between the rows of pink, Raoul had a fist stuffed into his mouth and was trying so hard not to laugh out loud that his body was bending into it, going into convulsions. Tristan was grinning, all right with his world. And Damien had his eyebrows up, making him look all controlled and princely, like someone who would never make a fool of himself in front of a woman.
Damn T-shirt. Matt yanked it off his head and threw it. But, of course, the air friction stopped it, so that instead of sailing gloriously across the field, it fell across the rose bush not too far from Bouclettes, a humiliated flag of surrender.
Could his introduction to this woman conceivably get any worse?
He glared at her, about ready to hit one of his damn cousins.
She stared back, her eyes enormous.
“Well, what?” he growled. “What do you want now? Why are you still here?” I was drunk. I’m sorry. Just shoot me now, all right?
She blinked and took a step back, frowning.
“Matt,” Allegra said reproachfully, but with a ripple disturbing his name, as if she was trying not to laugh. “She was curious about the rose harvest. And she needs directions.”
Directions. Hey, really? He was good with directions. He could get an ant across this valley and tell it the best route, too. He could crouch down with bunnies and have conversations about the best way to get their petits through the hills for a little day at the beach.