Bronwyn Jameson - The Ashtons - Jillian, Eli & Charlotte

“Do you trust me, Jillian?”

“Yes,” she admitted. “I do.”

He nodded, just once. Then he stacked three boxes together and picked them up. “Good. While we’re taking these down to your cellar, you can tell me what was going on with you yesterday evening.”

Jillian blinked at the rapid change in mood, in pace, in topic. “What do you mean?”

“You promised to tell me why you were out riding so late. And why you were so distracted that you fell off.”

“Was unseated,” she muttered. Then, when he looked askance, she waved her nit-picking comment aside and slipped out from behind the bar. “I imagine you’ve heard the latest about Spencer Ashton?”

“There’s talk your family’s taking him to court.”

She picked up one box of bottles from the bar and headed toward the winery. “I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that. For Mom’s sake.”

“From what I’ve heard, the Ashton estate should have been hers.” Seth nudged the swinging door open with his hip and elbow and motioned for her to go first. “Seems like she has cause to sue.”

“That’s what Eli says, and I know it’s not right that she lost all the Lattimer assets, but she hates what could happen in the backlash. To our family and to his other family. Families ,” she amended on a note of disgust. “Lord knows how many more of those he has hidden away!”

They kept moving, down the narrow hallway, through another door and into the winery. Just talking and thinking about Anna Sheridan’s story—and Grant Ashton’s beforehand—tied her stomach in knots.

She bore Spencer Ashton’s genes. This unprincipled, unfaithful, cheating bastard was her birth father. In the mirror every morning and every night she saw his eyes, his nose, his height and his long, lean bones. And at least once every day she thanked the Lord for her mother’s steady, loving influence that had balanced the brew.

Her mother, who now had so much to deal with, all over again.

“When I got home from work yesterday afternoon, we had a visitor,” she said. “At least, Mom had a visitor.”

“Anna Sheridan?”

Jillian stopped dead in her tracks, eyes widening as she rounded on him. “You know Anna?”

“I met her back at the house just now.”

Well, of course he had. If her brain weren’t so addled she would have worked that out herself. “Did you happen to meet Jack?”

“Yeah. Cute kid.” Steady, perceptive eyes fixed on hers. “I’m guessing this is one of those hidden families you mentioned.”

“Nice guess.” She exhaled heavily. “The cute kid’s mother was Spencer’s secretary. She died not long after having the baby.”

“Anna’s not his mother?”

“His aunt. She’s had custody ever since her sister died. She was doing just fine without Spencer’s help until the news about Jack’s paternity hit the tabloids. Then she had the pleasure of a raft of photographers staking out her doorstep.

“Oh, and some nutso is sending her threatening letters.”

With a box of glassware occupying her hands, Jillian couldn’t throw them in the air to illustrate her frustrated impotence. So she growled instead. Growled and swung away, stalking off toward the cellar entrance.

Seth caught up in three long-legged strides.

“And she came to Caroline for help? Why not the police?”

His puzzlement echoed her own reaction the previous day, when Mercedes dropped the clanger on her. “Apparently the police investigated and came up with zip. She thought Spencer might be able to use his influence, to get the police to take the threats more seriously or something, except she couldn’t get to see him and she had to get out of San Francisco.”

“Did she try his estate?”

“Yes and his wife all but ran her off. I gather she either didn’t believe Anna or didn’t want to believe her, and Megan—one of her daughters—overheard and suggested she come and see Mom.”

“This was yesterday afternoon and she’s still here?” he asked slowly. “That’s some visit.”

“And it’s going to get a whole lot longer!”

Jillian stopped. It was either that, slam into the cellar door, or turn and stride back from where she’d come. She exhaled harshly, and discovered she’d spent enough aggravation to continue in a more reasonable tone. “When Mom heard that Anna and Jack were living in a sleazy motel room, she insisted they move into a guest room at the Vines.”

“And you have a problem with this stranger moving in?”

“No, that’s not it. You met Anna. She’s gutsy, she’s genuine, and she dotes on little Jack. She only agreed to stay after Mom played the guilt card over what’s best for him.”

Jillian’s brows drew together in concentration as she tried to settle on what, exactly, disturbed her most. There was so much to choose from.

“I’m worried about how this whole situation will affect Mom,” she decided finally.

“She didn’t look worried or upset today.”

Trust him—a man—to sound so reasonable. “I know, but she stews over things. At night, when she’s not sleeping. How could she not be affected by this? Spencer’s current wife was his secretary, too, you know. When Mom was married to the bastard.”

“History repeats,” Seth said evenly.

“In Spencer’s case, over and over again.”

She felt his gaze on her face, lingering on the tired circles beneath her eyes, touching her with that same velvetedged tenderness as last night. “Sounds like you need to do something more positive and less dangerous than stewing and losing sleep.”

Her reflexes kicked in before her brain, stiffening her shoulders, framing the automatic objection. What about the family celebration she and Mercedes were planning for the new tasting room? That was positive, wasn’t it?

Or was it only a cosmetic fix? Like a fancy label plastered on a bottle of poor wine—nice effect, but unlikely to fool anyone once the cork came out.

Jillian inhaled deeply through her nose, and the familiar layers of fruit and oak that pervaded the winery air steadied her churning emotions. The man at her elbow might unsteady her senses but talking to him was no hardship, she realized. Not even when the topic itself was.

“You’re right,” she admitted softly.

“I usually am.”

That response startled a snort of laughter from Jillian, and with it an easing of the tension in her shoulders and neck and head. Seth was more right than he knew, she decided in a moment of absolute clarity. This renovation project was only step one in building her future. Steps two through ten involved clearing away the rubble of her past, starting with Spencer Ashton and working her way up.

And once you clear away that rubble, will you be ready for a man like Seth Bennedict?

A wild little rhythm beat in her chest as she cast a sideways glance at her companion and found him watching her, all serious and intense for three rapid heartbeats before he jerked his head toward the door and eased the mood with a dry comment.

“I don’t know about you, but if I don’t dump these boxes my arms are gonna be permanently curled.”

Jillian breathed a sigh of relief and cut him a look through her lashes. “Your fault for going all macho and taking three boxes.”

“I can handle ‘em.”

And to illustrate, he shifted the entire load into one arm—Jillian’s breath hitched with shattered-glass fear and, yes, because of how his biceps flexed as it took the extra weight. Vaguely she registered him reaching out to open the cellar door. Mostly she registered the heat and scent of his body as she ducked under his arm and started down the stairs.

“Steady,” he cautioned from behind.