Page 26 of A Sip of Sherry
“Berry is quite creative.Plus, they can be sweet like me and tart like—”
I held my hand up.“If you know what’s good for you, you won’t finish that sentence.”
“I think she loves it,” Steve chimed in.
“Just like she’s starting to love me,” Ben said.“I can feel it.”
“What you’re going to feel is my foot implanted in your ass.”
Steve let out a low, “Ohhhhh.”I spun on my foot and headed toward the back, trying not to smile, but damn it, I couldn’t stop it.
Chapter 9
Ben
It was hard to work when Sherry was giving a tour of the vineyard, dressed in tan pants that hugged her hips just enough to be distracting, paired with a white blouse tucked in neatly and opened at the collar.She looked like a woman who gave tours to millionaires on the daily.She stopped, pointing toward the vines that would be turning green and filling in more and more as the warmer days lingered.The sun lit her up, hair in a loose twist, delicate gold hoop earrings catching the light as she moved.
My eyes followed her as she spun toward the barn.
“What are you looking at?”Wyatt asked, smacking a hand onto my shoulder with a little moreumphthan I thought he was capable of.
“Nothing,” I muttered, not thrilled I was caught gawking at the woman who was practically a sister to him.
“You’re a terrible liar,” he said.“But I can’t fault you for looking.Those Grasso women are special.Take my Rose, for example.Fiery, brilliant, hilarious yet terrifying when provoked, and somehow the only person on earth I want to spend every waking moment with.”
The pride he said it with made me almost jealous.The love he had was a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing, and here I was, unable to get Sherry to do anything but sleep with me and blow me off.
I imagined having someone like Sherry in my corner.To wake up to her in my bed every morning, and to fall asleep beside her every night..To have her in my life, period.I turned to the clipboard in my hands, trying to remember what the hell I was even supposed to be checking.“You’re a lucky bastard, Wyatt.”
His smile was as big as his sense of humor.“Trust me.I know.”He nodded toward the warehouse.“I came by to check in with you, make sure everything is running smoothly.”
“So what you’re saying is you missed the real work and wanted to step down from your cozy new office?”
“It is quite cozy.Though Chardonnay vetoed me putting a fireplace in the corner.Something about having to reconfigure the entire heating system and not wanting me to burn the place down.He shrugged, completely unfazed.“I think she was jealous she didn’t think of it first.”
“You do strike me as the leather armchair and a decanter of whiskey kind of guy.A fireplace fits the image.”
“Thank you!Next time you see Char, tell her that.”
“That is a line I will not cross.”Chardonnay was a good boss, a great human, but she scared the shit out of me.
“Understood.She doesn’t just have bark… She bites.It hurts.The more it hurts, the happier she is.”
I shook my head.“I’ll take your word for it.But to answer your question, everything’s good down here.Orders are packed, inventory’s logged, and I haven’t set anything on fire.Yet.”
“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”He gave me a satisfied nod, then his gaze wandered toward the vines where Sherry’s laugh carried on a breeze.“You sure you’re not going to make a move?”
“I’ve tried.She doesn’t date people she works with.”
“And you believe her?”
“Yes, I tend to believe what woman tell me are their boundaries.”
“Yes, respect boundaries, of course.But the only reason she even follows that stupid rule is because Nero couldn’t keep it in his pants, and because of that, there were times when the women would not let bygones be bygones.”Wyatt leaned against the warehouse door like he didn’t have a never-ending workload waiting for him.“Sherry doesn’t like drama, especially when that drama affects the family name or the business.And especially not when their grandfather built all of this from a single vine back in the seventies.She will always put that legacy above everything else.If you can accept that, then you’re already better than any of the guys she’s dated.”
A knot twisted in my stomach, thinking about the guys that came before me.I wanted to ask him to elaborate, tell me what exactly they did to mess up so badly that they lost someone as special as Shery, so I could avoid making those same mistakes.But I shouldn’t have to ask.Sherry deserved a guy who didn’t need a roadmap of her past to secure her in his future.She needed a guy who would respect her, appreciate her, and who could bring out that laugh as often as possible.
The sound was a warm calm to my eardrums.
