You're Still the One (14 page)

Kyle stood then leaned over Hayden and patted Liam's knee in a thoroughly patronizing fashion. “Yeah, well, next time you work for a multimillion-dollar corporation, start up a restaurant, and appear on multiple television shows, let me know.”

“Burn!” Derek said, laughing. Others joined in. Liam shook his head, but smiled widely.

Jamie joined them then, but the group was breaking up. Which was fine since Hayden didn't want to talk to Cam and Jamie with his siblings around.

Sara and Dylan took off, while Kyle and Maggie headed back to the food booth.

“We should head back up to The Alex,” Tori said to Sean. They said good-bye and left.

Aubrey and Liam took off next, holding hands as they threaded their way out through the tables.

Once they were alone, Cam stepped toward Hayden. “Did you see that Butter Creek Cellars is here? They have wine from Amos's grapes.”

Hayden's interest was instantly piqued. “Do they? Lead the way.”

Cam took them to the booth where they were pouring. They each paid the tasting fee—five bucks for three wines, only one of which was from Amos's land. Hayden asked for a pour of just that and studied it before tasting, letting the wine linger on his tongue. He thought of what he'd do differently, of how he would've left it in the cask a few weeks longer.

They walked off to the side, and Jamie tasted the same variety. “This is good.” He looked at Hayden expectantly. “Is it, or do I have no idea what I'm talking about?”

Hayden smiled at him. “Everyone is the arbiter of their own taste. You like what you like. Period.”

Cam had tried the pinot blanc and just finished it. “Sure, but you've got the nose and the palette to understand what's really good and what's not. You tell schmucks like us what to drink so we don't waste our money on crap.”

“Like you can't tell for yourself. You've spent enough time shilling wines that you know good from bad from phenomenal.”

Cam grinned. “True. Guess that makes me qualified to be your assistant winemaker or something.”

Hayden laughed. “Don't push it. You market, I craft, remember?”

“So what are we thinking?” Jamie asked, looking between his brother and Hayden. “Amos wants to list the property next week.”

Cam nodded. “I know. We need to make a decision. What's your money situation, little brother?”

Jamie tossed his tasting cup into a nearby trashcan. Actual glasses would've been a disaster at an event like this. “I'm short, but I can get a loan. I'm in.”

“I could maybe spot you—as a loan,” Hayden offered. “If you're open to that.”

Jamie exhaled. “It'd be a hell of a lot easier than going through a bank. Yeah, let me think about it.”

Cam pulled his sunglasses off and looked at Hayden. “Does that mean you're in?”

“I want to be . . . I'm not sure yet. It's a huge commitment. I sort of like being free at the moment.” His voice had trailed off as he'd finished his statement.

Jamie's cell phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket and looked at the screen. “Excuse me, guys, I need to take this.” He answered the call and strolled a little ways away from them.

Cam moved closer to Hayden. “What gives? What's holding you back?”

Hayden shrugged. “There's no need to be dramatic.”

Cam rolled his eyes. “Dude, I've known you forever. I can see how excited you are about this, how much of your mind it's occupying. You sent me an e-mail at two a.m. the other night.”

That was true. “I don't know. I'm just . . . unsettled.”

Cam's mouth turned down into a sort of grimace. “Is it Bex?”

“No, why would you think that?”

“Because she lives here now. She works with your family. She's currently more attached to Ribbon Ridge than you are.”

That needled him. And Cam knew it. He wanted Hayden to commit to this idea. “That's not going to work, so knock it off.”

“This is the chance of a lifetime. It's a great vineyard, we have all the right people together, the timing's great—”

“Is it? Luke's not free right now, and neither am I, really.”

Cam's mouth dove into a full-on frown now. “Luke
will
be free, and you could be, too.” He pivoted and took a step then went back to where he was standing. Sometimes he had a hard time keeping still. “What can I say to convince you?”

Hayden stared at his best friend. “You really want this.”

“I really do. What I don't understand is why you don't.”

But he did. He wanted it like crazy. So yeah, what the hell was his problem? Bex? His family? Did he feel like he was letting Antoine down if he didn't take the job in France? Yeah, that was part of it. Antoine was depending on him, and Hayden hated disappointing people.

“I do want it. Just give me some time to figure things out, okay?”

Cam turned his head toward the hills surrounding the town before looking back to Hayden. “That's the problem—we're running out of time.”

O
N
S
ATURDAY
, B
EX
worked in the brewhouse in the morning and then helped Maggie in the garden in the afternoon. They'd taken an all-hands-on-deck approach to get everything ready for the soft open. She'd more than earned the quiet dinner by herself followed by a long soak in the tub. Exhausted as she was, she decided she needed a nightcap.

She slipped downstairs to the daylight basement, intending to grab a glass of whiskey from Rob's collection. The bar was in the party room, where they also had a foosball table, pool table, and card table. So many tables. Plus couches, TVs on which to watch sports, and a killer bar.

The TV was on when she walked in, and there sprawled on one of the couches was Hayden. He was dressed in athletic shorts and an Archer beer T-shirt. And she was immediately transported to five years ago . . . She shoved the thought away even as her stomach did little flips.

He looked over at her. “Hey, Bex.” He turned the volume down on the TV a few notches. He was watching a rerun of
Saturday Night Live
.
So
five years ago.

Bex forced her mind back to the present and made her way to the bar. “Who's the host?”

“Amy Schumer.”

Bex opened the glass door behind which Rob kept a variety of liquors. “Love her. That's a great episode.”

“I wouldn't know since I was abroad.”

She selected a single malt whiskey and pulled a glass down from the cabinet. “There's this thing called the interwebs.”

He paused the show and sat up, swinging his legs around to the floor. “There's also a thing called spare time, of which I have very little.”

She poured the whiskey into the glass. “You're really that busy?”

He got up and joined her at the bar. “Where's my glass?”

“Oops, my bad. Sorry.” She turned back to the cabinet and grabbed another glass. “Still neat?”

“Of course.”

After splashing whiskey into his glass, she slid it across the bar to him and raised her own. “To being busy?”

“Sure, why not?” He tapped his glass to hers and took a sip. “Yes, I'm really that busy. Not just with work, but with life. I've taken a lot of weekend trips. If I'm going to live in France, I might as well make the most of it, right?”

Bex blamed the whiskey lighting a fire in her belly for the warmth spreading through her. It couldn't be Hayden's presence. Except the heat had started the moment she'd seen him laid out on the couch. How many times had they snuggled in that very spot watching
Saturday Night Live
of all things? Ugh, she had to stop dwelling on the past. It was over.
They
were over. “You have to. What's been your favorite place to visit?”

Bex had been to Europe once in high school with her mother on a guilt trip—as in her mother had felt guilty after not seeing her for almost a year. It had been an odd vacation, with Bex spending most of her days doing touristy stuff while her mom worked. Looking back, she had to wonder what her mother had been thinking allowing a sixteen-year-old girl to wander around European cities by herself.

He sat on one of the stools at the bar. “Florence. It reminds me a lot of home, actually. Just a gorgeous place.”

Bex's only stop in Italy had been Rome. “It's on my bucket list.”

“It should be. Barcelona's pretty amazing, too.”

“Wow, you
have
been all over. Where haven't you gone?”

He chuckled. “I'd really like to visit Copenhagen. That's next on the list. And the UK, but that's a longer trip.”

“And did you do all of this alone?” She hoped she didn't sound too nosy.

“Occasionally, but sometimes I go with a friend—a gal I work with.”

Jealousy snaked through her, and she took another sip of whiskey. “How fun to see it with a local. Or at least a European.” She set her glass down, realizing she was white-knuckling it with her annoyance. “Are you looking forward to getting back?”

Hayden took a longer sip of whiskey and kept his gaze on the glass after he set it back down on the bar. “I was. I
am
. It's just . . . I feel like I've got a foot in both places, if that makes sense.”

She could see why he'd feel that way. For her, she'd be able to make the break. When her parents had divorced, she'd gone to live with her dad without a backward glance. Then when she'd left home to go to college, she'd done the same. Home wasn't related to a place in her mind. It was a feeling. A state of mind. “It does. Just remember that Ribbon Ridge—your family—will always be here.”

A slight smile played about his lips, and even that small thing was enough to make her chest tighten with emotion. “Yep. There will always be Archers in Ribbon Ridge.”

It seemed like he wanted to talk to someone, or maybe that was just her wishful thinking. She picked up her glass and walked around the bar, taking the stool next to him. “You can tell me to butt out, but I've known you a long time and we're friends now, I think.” She hoped. “Your family is tough.”

He tipped his head up to look at her. “Tough?”

“It's just . . . big. Complicated. Competitive.”

His brow furrowed. “Is that how you see us?”

“That's how I see
them
. How do you see them?”

He smiled. “Complicated. Competitive.” He looked at her with appreciation in his gaze, which wasn't helping her campaign to shelve her feelings for him. “It feels off being back now. I've always been the one to be here—you know that.”

He'd felt it was his responsibility to stay. Except maybe responsibility wasn't what he'd felt. Maybe it was the desire to be the one who was necessary. Not martyrdom—nothing that self-serving—but a true need to feel . . . needed. Why had she never seen that before?

“I did know that, but I don't think I really understood it until now. I shouldn't have asked you to leave.”

He sat up and pivoted the stool so he was facing her. His knee brushed hers as he turned, and she felt the connection everywhere. He, on the other hand, didn't seem to notice.

“Whoa,” he said. “This is a total one-eighty. I'm not sure I can wrap my head around this.” There were lines of humor around his eyes, so she knew he was at least half-joking.

“I know, right?” She brought the whiskey to her lips and drank.

“What happened?” he asked softly, his gaze intense. “Why do you say that now?”

Oh, this was dangerous territory. This intimate conversation, the dimness of the room, the familiarity and its pull—at least for her. “You seem out of sorts now, like you maybe can't find your place, whereas before you knew what it was. You were Hayden the Dependable, the one everyone counted on.”

His stare pierced her. There was a bit of admiration there. She fidgeted with her glass, unsure where this was going.

“You get it. No one gets it.”

She wasn't sure that was true, but maybe it was just that he hadn't talked to them about it. And maybe he didn't want to. Maybe his place
wasn't
here. “I get it
now
,” she said, smiling. “But I didn't before. And I'm sorry.”

“You said you shouldn't have asked me to leave. Do you . . . do you regret leaving?”

Damn, that was the worst question ever. Yes and no. “Until I'd come back here, I would've said no. Now . . . I'm not sure. It's hard to regret things, isn't it? Because we are who we are today because of the choices we made. And I like who I am.” For the most part.

He hadn't broken eye contact with her the entire time she'd spoken, and she wondered if he felt this connection, this bone-deep longing that she'd truly never experienced before. Then he leaned in, and she did the same. Did he realize how close they were? If they both leaned just a bit more, their lips would touch.

“Maybe that's it.” His voice was soft, sexy, but dark, too. “Maybe I don't like who I am.”

That shocked her. He'd always been the most affable, the most generous, the most
likeable
person. Her fingers itched to caress the day's worth of stubble along his chin.

He shook his head, and she blinked. “Never mind, that was a dumb thing to say.” And there went any chance she had of figuring out what he'd meant. Or of kissing him.

He finished off his whiskey. “It doesn't matter if you'd wanted to stay or go five years ago. Once we lost the baby, all bets were off.” The look he gave her then was the most bare and vulnerable she'd seen him. He blinked and dropped his gaze to the empty glass in his hand. When his eyes found hers again, the intensity had lessened, but she still felt a connection and wondered if he did, too. “It was a terrible situation. I'm not sure if . . . at that age . . . we could've recovered from that.”

His words opened all of the old wounds, not horribly, but enough that she felt the pain of that loss, of then losing him. But that had been her choice, for better or worse.