Hallie running away from him into the rain, feelings hurt.
“The hell with it,” he muttered, tilting the flask to nearly a ninety degree angle, letting the river of whiskey warm a path down his throat and hit his empty stomach like a boulder. “I can already tell that was a terrible decision,” he said, handing the whiskey back to Natalie.
She took another rip of the drink, then stuffed it back into her purse. “Evidently I’m rubbing off on you.”
Normally, he would let that cryptic statement go without comment. Letting someone’s bad mood go unaddressed was the standard. None of his business. Only, it was, wasn’t it? “Why do you say that? Have you . . . made any bad decisions lately?”
“What?” Natalie did a double take. “Why are you asking me that?”
Apparently communing with one’s family was harder than he thought. “For one, you slept until four o’clock in the afternoon. Now you’re dressed like you’re going to deliver a eulogy instead of shaking hands at something called Wine Down Napa.”
“Maybe I’m eulogizing the grapes. Do you know how many of them had to die so people from Oklahoma can pretend they’re getting an oaky aftertaste?”
She would get along great with Hallie.
That thought came out of nowhere and stuck like an arrow in his jugular.
Well, he might as well let that possibility go right now. Natalie and Hallie would probably never spend time together, unless one of these days Natalie actually went outside and introduced herself in the yard. After all, Hallie probably never wanted to see him again—and rightly so. How could one woman draw him in so intensely, while throwing him so far outside his comfort zone?
He rubbed at the throb in the center of his forehead. “I just wish you would tell me what has brought you back to St. Helena, Natalie.”
“You go first.”
Julian frowned. “I’m writing a book.”
“‘I’m writing a book,’” she mimicked. “If all you wanted was to write a book, you could have done it back at Stanford.” Her fingers fiddled with the air. “Subtract two hours of gym time per week, eat your meals five minutes faster. There’s your writing time. You didn’t have to come to Napa to write Wexler’s adventures.”
He blinked. Shifted against the island. “How did you know my hero’s name is Wexler? Have you been reading my manuscript?”
Did her color deepen? “I might have skimmed a page or two.” She looked like she was considering reaching for her flask again. Instead, she threw out a frustrated hand. “How long are you going to leave him dangling over that stupid cliff?”
“You seem oddly invested,” he sputtered, kind of . . . touched that his sister seemed concerned about old Wexler?
“I’m not,” she said, waving him off. “Just, like . . . he has a grappling hook attached to his belt. In case you forgot.”
He’d totally forgotten. “I didn’t.”
“No, of course not.” She sighed, pursing her lips. Then: “Why did you make him blond?” His expression must have betrayed his utter puzzlement, because she elaborated. “Blond men are unrelatable.”
A laugh came very close to sneaking out of him. That was happening more and more frequently lately, wasn’t it? He couldn’t remember his chest ever having felt this loose. But then why, around Hallie, did it get so tight again? “That sounds like theory, not fact.”
“Nope. It’s fact. Have you ever stood there talking to a man with white-blond hair and not speculated on his lifestyle? You can’t not do it. It’s impossible. You don’t hear a single word coming out of his mouth.”
“So you’re saying I should make Wexler a brunette.”
“Obviously, yes. Look. Blond men say things like ‘hot tubbing’ and they go hiking in Yosemite with the cool girl. I want to root for a guy who is unlikely to go on an adventure.” She gave him a wry look. “Like you.”
Julian made a sound. “I’ll take the hair-color change under advisement.”
“Great.” She waited a beat. “So you are just going to own the unadventurous label?”
“No arguments there,” he said briskly, nudging the brass mallard on the kitchen island. “Unless you count having a secret admirer as adventurous.”
“What?” Natalie slapped a hand down on the marble. “No way. What? You are lying.”
“Nope. They’ve been sitting right here. Maybe if I’d kept them in the wine refrigerator, you’d have found them.” He grinned at her middle finger. “At first I thought you wrote it as a prank, but they’re too . . .”
“There’s sex stuff in them?”
“No. Nothing like that.” Lines from the second letter drifted through his head. “They’re just . . . more personal than one would get when pulling a prank, I suppose.”
She raked both hands down her face, dragging the skin beneath her eyes farther than seemed wise. “Oh my God. I need to know everything.”
“There is nothing important to share.” Saying that made his stomach sour. Why did he have such a loyalty to this unknown person? Perhaps because, although he knew Hallie hadn’t written those letters, some part of him secretly wished she had. Out of sheer masochism, he’d imagined her penning those words on the pages, and he’d sort of gotten stuck picturing her as the admirer. Which was nothing short of ridiculous and yet another way for the gardener to occupy his brain day and night. “I’m not going to write back.”