“Let go,” he finally says.

“Of the grapes?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck off, Dale. If you think I’d hurt these grapes, these vines—”

“No,” he says. “Let go, so I can kiss you.”

I drop my jaw open and move my hand back to my side. “Are you kidding me? After you left me alone at your house? You think you can—”

His lips come down on mine. Hard.

Hard and feral and perfectly beautiful.

I open. How can I not? I just confessed to him that making love with him was better than the peaceful beauty of these vineyards.

I wasn’t lying.

He probes me with his tongue, and I respond, melting into him. It’s a primal kiss, a kiss born solely of nature, and it’s fitting that we’re surrounded by nature’s own beauty.

Yes, he left me again.

But God, I love this man. His kisses, his arms around me, his hands caressing my shoulders, my neck, my cheeks. I love all of that. But mostly I love him. His good heart and his tortured soul.

Why can’t he be with me? Why can’t he get past whatever boundary he’s built within himself?

I may never know the answer.

Still, I’ve promised myself that I’ll take what he’s willing to give, and at the moment, that’s a passionate kiss. I urge him on with my own desire. My body responded to his presence the second he arrived, and now I’m as ripe as the grapes I was holding mere moments ago. My legs weaken, but Dale’s strong and muscular body steadies me.

I never want this kiss to end, but like all good things, it does.

But I don’t end it.

He does. He breaks away from me and gasps in a breath.

I stare at his face. His beautifully masculine face with his structured jawline and high cheekbones. His clear green eyes that are heavy-lidded and smoldering. And that mouth, those full lips that are even fuller from the kiss.

Last night, I asked him to make love to me here. Among these vines.

I now realize that can never happen.

To Dale, these vines are sacred, and making love here would taint them in some way.

To me? It would make them all the more sacred. But that’s because I’m in love with Dale. He won’t feel that way because he’s not in love with me. Does he even understand love? I’ve never been in love before, but I understand what I’m feeling. How can you mistake the feeling of passion and wonder and all-encompassing desire and yearning?

“Dale?”

“Yeah?”

I swallow, gaining courage. “Have you ever been in love?”

He widens his eyes. No longer are they heavy-lidded, but still they smolder. Nothing for a moment. A moment that seems like a decade. He’s not going to answer. Can I blame him? It’s a very personal question.

“Only once,” he finally says.

This time I widen my eyes. Definitely not the answer I was expecting. Dale Steel has been in love? When? And with whom? But I don’t ask. He won’t tell me, and part of me doesn’t want to know, anyway.

“Same here,” I say.

With you. How I long to say the words. But I can’t. He won’t return them, and that will be too painful to bear.

He clears his throat. “Ashley, the tasting…”

I whip my hand to my mouth. How could I have forgotten? “I’m so sorry! What time is it?”

“It’s ten thirty.”

“Oh, good. We have time. I can’t believe I forgot. I’m not usually like this.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not, though.” Sure, he left me alone in his house after we made love, but it’s no excuse to slack off on my work. We talked about this tasting all yesterday.

“Come on,” he says gruffly. “I’ll drive you back.”

I nod and walk next to him as we leave the vineyard. He opens the passenger door of his truck, and I climb in.

To the tasting.

I’ll kill it like I did the last one.

I won’t let myself think about the woman Dale Steel was once in love with.

I enjoy the lunch part of the tasting immensely. The tasters are all good-natured and ask a lot of questions, and not a one is young enough to drool over Dale like last time. All are middle-aged couples and a few are in their golden years. All lovely people.

Older couples probably also have more money to spend on wine. It should be a good tasting businesswise.

That part doesn’t matter to me, but Dale will be pleased.

Dale pastes on his “tasting face” and responds to the customers as well. The smile—the smile I long to see more often—plays on his lips as though it’s more natural than I know it to be.

The tasting proceeds without consequence, and as I predicted, we sell a lot of wine, mostly Dale’s table blend, which pleases him.

“You can go on home,” he says to me afterward. “It’s been a long day.”

“I’m fine.”

“Please, Ashley. Go. I’ve got this.”

He looks away from me, seeming to focus on the order forms while employees shuffle cases of wine to the tasters’ cars in the lot.

Does our time together truly mean so little to him? He wants me. That much is obvious. But he doesn’t seem to have any genuine need for me, and he certainly doesn’t love me. Relationships have been built on less.

I bring as much courage as I can to the surface and meet his gaze. “Dale, are we going to even try?”

“Try what?” He continues scanning the papers in front of him.

“To…” I swallow. “To be together?”

He looks up. “Ashley…you don’t want to be with me.”

I lift my eyebrows. “What?”

“You heard me.” He drops his gaze back to the matter in front of him.

Yeah, I heard him, but I didn’t expect those words. I expected something snide or douchey or, more likely, no answer at all.

You don’t want to be with me.

He’s so wrong.

“Isn’t that my choice to make?” I reply.

He scoffs. “Last I heard, I have a choice in the matter as well. You’re not the only one in this relationship.”

A tiny sliver of hope dances in my heart. Relationship. He used the word relationship. Of course, he could simply be talking about our working relationship. He probably is. But maybe not. Maybe, in his eyes, we have something more.