He stared at her. Shocked.
Somewhere above them a floorboard creaked and a girl giggled. Outside, a dog barked in the distance. Then everything fell silent.
“It’s not like that.” Christine wasn’t even sure what that was. “There’s this...whatever it is between us. And I need to conduct an experiment.” To determine if he was worth risking her dreams for.
No man was worth compromising her dreams for.
Except...maybe...this one.
She wasn’t going to get caught up in any silly fling, not when everyone in this small town would take note. Not when everyone she knew in the wine industry would talk and speculate.
“I’m not a lab specimen.” He crossed his arms over his chest, clearly ruffled.
“No. You’re a man. A very attractive man. With a dark past.” She grinned at him. “Don’t tell me you were brave enough to show me your scar and you’re too chicken to kiss me.”
“Why?” he rasped, still bound up tight behind those crossed arms.
“Because I don’t care about the scar. But I care about why you showed me. What if you showed me for nothing? What if we kiss and there are no sparks? You know how it is. Sometimes you see someone or you talk to them for a few minutes and you wonder, Are they for me?” She risked a hand on his forearm. He tensed, but didn’t jerk away. “If we kiss and it falls flat, there’s no harm. This tension between us will settle into something...different.”
They could finally be more comfortable at work. She wouldn’t dream about him at night or admire his physique as he walked away. She’d laugh at the idea of them as a couple. She’d prod him to stop wearing those beautiful ties. At least not every day.
He was looking at her as if she’d just landed on Mars and asked him to return with her to Venus.
She moved her hand to his knee. “You’re afraid.”
“You don’t know what you’re asking.” His voice lacked his usual self-confidence. “It freaked Evy out. She couldn’t take not knowing if I’d crack again and hurt myself. Or hurt Faith and Grace.”
“You won’t try it again.” She knew that with a certainty. He kept talking about the future—for the winery, for his budget, for the town, and the girls, and a dozen other things she couldn’t remember right now. Because she was looking into those green eyes in wonder. “You’d never hurt the twins. I don’t know what she was thinking or why you believed her.”
He may not have believed he’d try again or hurt the girls, but he put a lot of stock in the lack of trust a woman was willing to give him. He couldn’t take being rejected again, that much was clear in his rigid spine and folded arms.
The girls pounded back down the stairs.
“You’re not off the hook,” Christine whispered to him, telling herself this was just a test, telling herself it was the fastest way to clear the air.
She could prove she was good friend material and a great employee with a simple kiss that fizzled.
She just had to make sure it fizzled.
* * *
DRESS-UP TIME was over.
While Slade cleaned up the kitchen, Christine showed the girls different hairstyles they could try. Although their conversation wasn’t racing, they’d progressed beyond one-or two-word sentences. Slade’s ability to speak seemed to have regressed. His racing mind seemed to have put his speech function on mute.