Original Zin

Christie Ridgway

One

Double Vision

John Henry Hudson tripped on his way out of the icy-cool wine-tasting room. The October Indian summer everyone in Napa was talking about felt more like “dry sauna” to him and the shock of the temperature change made his head spin. It was either that, or the goddamn pneumonia that had nearly taken him under in August was tugging on his shirttails again.

Through the heat shimmering from the asphalt parking lot, he spied the limo that he, his sister, and her friends had taken on their tasting tour. Actually, he spied two identical black limos, but he chalked up the double vision to another bout of dizziness until he remembered Ellen ordering a second limo from the car service in case some of their party wanted to skip the last three wineries on their planned circuit.

Yeah. That would be him.

Squinting against the late-afternoon light, he headed for the first stretch vehicle. His black hair felt like a sun magnet, and the chrome handle of the limo’s back door burned his palm as he yanked it open. Diving into the cool interior, he breathed in the scent of leather and a faint trace of tantalizing perfume that must be left over from the eight twenty-one-year-olds who had been touring with him.

Up front, the privacy shield was half lowered, and through it he saw the driver’s cap jerk into view, as if he’d been bent over. “It’s me, Carl,” he called out to the man who had captained the car all afternoon. “And just between us guys, let me tell you the company of half-drunk sorority girls is not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Before the chauffeur could respond, John Henry continued. “Yeah, I’m sure you’re more of an expert on the subject than me, so let’s save both of us and get out of here. Ellen and the rest of the Sigma Woo Hoos or whatever it is they call themselves can stick together for three more rounds of swish, sniff, and slurp.”

Wine tasting boiled down to just that, and he was done with it. He gazed out the side window at the surrounding hills and their orderly rows of fruited vines. The view was nice. Relaxing. He was supposed to be doing that, he remembered. “Drive me around for a while, then take me back to the Valley Ridge Resort, would you?”

The darkened privacy window rose as the limo pulled away from the curb. He thought about telling Carl to leave it down, but the trill of his BlackBerry redirected his attention. Recognizing his sister’s number on the screen, he grimaced, but took the call.

“Yo.”

Her voice sounded a tad put out. “Yo ho ho—”

“And a bottle of merlot,” he finished for her, hoping to tease her out of her mood. “Hey, I’m funny.”

Her sigh wasn’t a happy one. Obviously she wasn’t pleased that he’d left her birthday wine-tasting tour a few stops early. “John Henry, you’re never funny.”

“Wait a min—”

“You’re uptight, overwound, and against relaxation in any form.”

“Gee, don’t bother pulling your punches.”

“Tell me you aren’t going back to the resort to pore over papers or check for incoming faxes instead of having fun with me and my friends.”

John Henry could have defended himself. He could have told her the Sigma Woo Hoos were giving him a headache. And hadn’t he told Carl not to go straight back? But the truth was, he had been itching to look over some reports stacked on the desk in his room. “What’s this? You turn twenty-one and you’re suddenly a critic?”

“I’m the woman who loves you. The only woman besides Mom, I’m guessing, who puts up with you and your workaholic ways.”

He winced, despite the fact that he’d heard it before. And not only from his much-younger sister and much-exasperated mother. There’d been several beautiful ladies who had thrown up their hands and then thrown in the towel when he canceled yet another date or just flat-out forgot one.

“John Henry,” his sister continued. “You—”

He coughed. God forgive him, he did it on purpose. Then he did it again.

Ellen’s tone instantly changed from annoyance to alarm. “You’re not feeling well?”

“Um . . .”

“You’re not feeling well. Why didn’t you say anything?”

Pious wasn’t a natural fit for him, but he tried it on anyway. “I didn’t want to ruin your birthday celebration.”

“John Henry,” she scolded, “you’re supposed to be taking care of yourself. Two weeks of vacation, you promised Mom and me. The first week of it you spent on the resort’s golf course doing business from dawn to dusk.”

“Yeah, but—”

“There are only seven days left. You’d better take it easy. Isn’t that what Mark prescribed?”

Mark Richards, his undergrad roommate at Stanford who was now Doctor Mark Richards and the one whom John Henry had entrusted with his health care when he’d come down with the dangerous case of pneumonia. “I believe Mark actually said I should take some time off and get drunk and get laid.”

Ellen huffed, “In that case, you better stay away from my friends.”

“The Sigma Woo Hoos are too young for me,” he assured her.

“You’re too boring for them.”

He frowned. Uptight. Overwound. Workaholic. Those all sounded about right and, to his mind, not really derogatory. But boring?

The frown was still on his face and the word was still rattling around in his head as he ended the call with Ellen. He’d always been focused. A Type-A personality, and what was wrong with that? Sure, after his father’s sudden death a year and a half ago, he’d doubled down on his hours and his concentration as he stepped into his father’s shoes in the family business.

But did that really mean he was dull?

Mark had suggested he get some balance in his life, or else his health was going to suffer the way it had over the summer. He’d never mentioned that John Henry was at risk of becoming boring.

Go away somewhere, Mark had said.

So John Henry had thought of Napa, where they were relocating River Pharmaceuticals. Okay, maybe it wasn’t “away” from the business, but since he’d yet to find a new house, he was staying at a five-star resort.

John Henry, do yourself a favor. Mark’s voice echoed in his head. Go away, get drunk, and get laid.

His best friend should also have told him he was getting boring! Since he hadn’t, John Henry had wasted one week of his vacation not seriously pursuing the prescription his doctor had ordered, damn it. There were only seven nights left, and John Henry decided he better do something with them.

Boring!

And, a quiet voice reminded him, life was too damn short for boring.

The limo slowed, then stopped due to the traffic ahead. Suddenly galvanized, John Henry slid along the black leather seat toward the front of the vehicle, at the same time reaching into his pocket to withdraw some bills. His knuckles rat-a-tatted against the smoky privacy shield. As it slowly lowered, he gave the driver new orders.

“Sorry, but there’s a change of plans,” he said, tossing the money onto the front passenger seat. “I need you to find me a beer. Find me a beer and a willing babe.”

The chauffeur’s head whipped around.

John Henry found himself staring at a pair of round blue eyes under the stiff brim of the black cap. Feathery, fairy blond hair escaped its confines to frame golden brown eyebrows and almost tangle in long eyelashes. A short nose was sprinkled with seven gold freckles. Next came a soft, pink mouth.

He wasn’t Carl.

Moreover, “he” was a “she.”

Zin Friday glanced at the bills on the seat beside her, then back at the man who’d thrown them there. Dark-haired, dark-eyed, with an expensive haircut that said he normally spent his days at an executive’s desk and a new tan that told her he’d traded the desk for a few days in the wine-country sunshine.

In an uncharacteristic flight of fancy, Zin found herself wondering what, exactly, he wanted in a “babe.” Then she remembered the single qualifying adjective he’d uttered. Her gaze slid again to the bills on the leather beside her. “Uh, that’s a lot of willingness you’re looking for.”

He groaned. “That was supposed to be a tip for taking the driver—who I thought was Carl—off plan. Please believe me when I say I wasn’t paying for . . . for . . .”

“A procurement?”

He groaned again. “My sister just accused me of being boring. You probably think I’m merely a boor, huh?”

His embarrassed expression looked sincere, and Zin had to admit his wordplay tickled her a little. “Boring, boor. You’re funny.”

A quick smile slashed a dimple into his lean cheek. “That’s what I think.”

Behind them, a horn tapped, and Zin faced forward again. The traffic in front of them had cleared, so she eased her foot onto the accelerator and continued along the rural road that led to her nearby hometown of Edenville, in northern Napa County. The Valley Ridge Resort was located on its outskirts, but it would still be slow-and-go progress as visitors leaving the wineries turned onto the main, oak-shaded route.

She checked out her passenger in the rearview mirror. He was looking out a side window, which gave her a good view of his chiseled profile. Thirtyish, she’d guess, and not only was there a nice quantity of cash lying beside her, but there was money evident in the cut and quality of the lightweight sport shirt he was wearing. His hand lifted to smooth his hair, and she couldn’t miss the expensive-looking gold watch wrapped around his wrist.

As if he could feel her looking at him, his head shifted and their gazes met. She jolted, uncomfortable with getting caught staring and uncomfortable with . . . with something else she couldn’t put her finger on. Reaching out, she nudged up the air-conditioning and cleared her throat.

“Are you really interested in stopping for that drink?” she asked.

“As long as it isn’t a grape product—or is it taboo to want any other kind of beverage around here?”

She shook her head. “You’d be surprised how many people in Napa aren’t into what we’re famous for. The most celebrated vintages are out of the price range of many of the ‘regular’ folk, and it’s a poorly kept secret that the succeeding generations of the big wine-making families often prefer a yeasty lager to a robust cabernet.”

The car in front of them slowed again, causing Zin to tap the brakes. She glanced in the rearview mirror. “There’s a decent tavern just ahead.”

John Henry hesitated.

“You’re this vehicle’s last customer of the day,” she added, “so you can stay as long as you like. I know for a fact they’ve got cold brew on tap.”

Why not give the little nudge? The Napa Princess Limousine Service was owned by her friend Stephania Baci, and the business could use the extra cash that a longer booking would bring in. Zin would welcome a larger paycheck, too, of course.

The man shrugged. “Okay, then.”

In less than five minutes she was pulling into the parking lot of the tavern that called itself Dave’s Feed Shop. It actually had been a feed shop at one time, which explained the barnlike exterior and the straw bales stacked by the entrance. To lend an even more authentic feel, Dave and his wife, Marti, kept a few chickens on the property.

The limo scattered a couple of them as Zin braked at the rear of the gravel parking area. Then she popped into the waning heat and opened the door for her passenger. Casual loafers, followed by long legs encased in expensive jeans emerged from the car. He was over six feet, towering above her five-foot-and-hardly-anything height.

She shut the door and then turned to him. “I’ll be right here whenever you’re ready to leave.”

“You’re not coming in?”

Puzzled, she shook her head.

“Have you forgotten? I asked for a beer and a willing woman.”

That charming dimple of his was showing, but she was beginning to think it rendered him only deceptively harmless, so she frowned. “A willing ‘babe’ is what you said. Sorry, that lets me out.”

His eyebrows rose as his gaze shifted from her face to slide down her figure. Besides the black chauffeur’s cap, she was dressed in a white shirt covered with a short black jacket, and black pants. Only a slight film of red Napa dust covered the obsidian-colored leather of her man-styled wingtip shoes. It wasn’t babe wear.

But the way her skin prickled in the wake of his roving eyes made her feel as if she were wearing strappy sandals, a mini halter dress, and shoulder-skimming chandelier earrings. Her feet backed up until her butt met the warm side of the limousine.

Her retreat seemed to amuse him, because he smiled again and took her hand. Though he held it like a lover, he shook it like a busi nessman. “I’m John Henry,” he said. “Nice to meet you . . . ?”

“Zin. Zin Friday.” She was staring at their joined hands. His thumb rested lightly on the burn scar on top, and his long, tan fingers, a little thinner than she thought they should be, tangled with hers. A skitter of goose bumps shot up her arm.

“Zin? As in zinfandel?”

She shook her head, though that wasn’t any weirder, really, than what her oddball parents had actually named her. “Zin, as in Zinnia.”

“The flower?” He blinked, then laughed. “It must be a sign, Zin-as-in-Zinnia.”

“What sort of sign?” They’d been holding hands for too long, so she freed herself, tucking her fingers into the pockets of her pants.

“Doctor’s orders. The words might have been slightly different, but the point’s the same. I’m supposed to stop and smell the flowers.”

Before she could protest, he’d popped the cap from her head. The long mass of curly hair she’d stuffed beneath the crown flowed free. Reaching out, he wrapped a fist with a swath of the stuff and lifted it to his nose. “Sweet,” he said, and breathed deep.

She couldn’t breathe in any air at all.

“Does the rest of you smell this good?” he asked, letting her hair fall free from his hold. The soft tone of his voice beguiled her; the admiring light in his dark eyes sent another frisson—like a puff of breath over heated skin—thrilling through her. She had a red birthmark on the nape of her neck, at the very edge of her hairline. The size and the shape of a kiss, it burned like a brand now, as if real lips had touched her there.

John Henry wasn’t touching her at all.

She couldn’t think what to answer—she couldn’t remember the question!—and from the look of that dimple now digging into his cheek again, she thought her inability to articulate amused him. But then he hung his head, shaking it a little, and she thought he might be laughing at himself.

“I’ve never had this happen before,” he said. “Maybe there’s more to this relaxation thing than I realized.”

She wasn’t following him again, but this time she found her voice. “More what?”

“I—” The ring of a cell phone interrupted.

They both patted their pockets, but John Henry’s hand came up first. His BlackBerry screen was lit, and he cast her a swift glance, then answered the call. “I’m here.”

Zin used the moment of reprieve to take in a steadying breath. Though her mind was clearing a bit, her skin still felt supersensi tized, and the throbbing at the back of her neck wasn’t dissipating. It was this man’s fault, with his distracting dimple and his long fingers and his glossy hair.

“Yeah,” she heard him say. “I’ll check the numbers right away and get back to you.” He returned his phone to his front pocket.

His gaze met hers, and he grimaced. “There’s this report I promised someone from work I’d look over.”

“Work is important.” Zin took another breath and then opened the back door for him. “I understand work.”

He ducked inside the limo, then caught her hand before she had a chance to shut him safely away from her. “Zin.”

“Y-yes?” Why did their twined fingers fascinate her so?

“What do you say, sweet Zinnia? Let’s you and me make another attempt to get acquainted. We can do something fun tomorrow.”

“I can’t,” she said, grateful that she had an honest excuse. Though she hadn’t dated in a million years, and never at the spontaneous request of a stranger, this man presented an unsettling temptation. She tugged her hand free of his. “I don’t have time.”

His laugh was rueful. “That used to be my line.”

“I really don’t have time,” Zin said once more. But it unsettled her again to realize that she actually wished she did.

Two

Double Take

Zin swallowed her yawn and passed over the customer’s change and a paper bag containing her cinnamon scone. “Thank you for stopping by Bradley’s Bakery,” she told the gray-haired woman.

As the older lady dropped coins into the tip jar, Zin tightened the bow on the butcher-style apron she wore over her jeans and long-sleeved cotton turtleneck. It was going to be another hot autumn day, which meant long hours under the icy blast of frigid air-conditioning, even during the breakfast rush.

The customer moved off, allowing the next person to step up to the counter. “Hello, Zinnia,” he said. “How’s the youngest Flaky Friday today?”

“Alan,” she replied, her jaw instantly clenching so the name came through gritted teeth. Flaky Friday. It echoed in her head as a too-f amiliar wave of shame washed over her. It seemed like she’d spent her whole life trying to live down that elementary school nickname. She hated to be thought of that way.

How much more she hated the two words coming from this particular man. A contemporary of her older brother and a neighbor of her parents, Alan Prescott wore his auburn hair in a brush cut and his smile was, as always, more snide than friendly. Without turning her head, she called his order to the barista. “Large coffee, extra shot of espresso.” Extra black, like the jerk’s soul. “Is that all you want?”

“Why, Flaky Friday . . .” He was distracted by someone he knew walking up to grab a napkin.

As the two men exchanged a few words, Zin tried loosening the muscles knotted in her shoulders. It wouldn’t do for Alan to detect her tension. The bully thrived on discomfort, and it was a point of pride for her that neither he nor anyone else would see how much his needling—and that nickname—bothered her.

So she hoped she looked relaxed as he turned back to the counter. “Now where were we?”

Zin pasted on a polite smile. “I asked if there was something you wanted besides your coffee.”

“Yeah, there is,” Alan said, leaning close, as if to seek a measure of privacy. But the volume of his voice didn’t lessen. “I want the hundred bucks that Bobby and June borrowed from me last week. They said they needed groceries.”

Zin stiffened, more shame pouring like a hot river down her spine. The bakery was busy this morning, and she was supremely aware of the many people who could easily overhear the conversation. “I . . . I . . .”

“If you don’t have the cash, Zin, maybe you have something else to barter.”

Surprised by the smarmy suggestion in his voice, she felt heat flare on her face. She should have seen it coming, she told herself. It wasn’t as if today was the first time Alan had played this particular game. Her older sister, Mari, had said he’d once threatened to call the police on the code violations at their parents’ property unless she let him take her to dinner and a movie. As if that was the only thing “All Hands” Alan, as he’d been known in high school, had in mind.

Mari had told him in the crudest of terms where he could stuff his threats, but Zinnia was on the job . . . and maybe not as tough as her sister. “I don’t have that much cash on me right now,” she told Alan, keeping her voice low and level. “I’ll get you the money as soon as I can.”

“But I want it now,” he insisted, that ugly smile still on his face.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Maybe I’ll call Kohl to take care of it.”

Something flickered in Alan’s eyes, but he didn’t move. “Kohl’s a loose cannon, that’s true, but if you run to big brother, he could end up in worse shape than me, don’t you think? I hear the cops have a special set of heavy-duty handcuffs set aside for the next time he gets in a brawl.”

And wouldn’t Kohl locked behind bars once again serve only to remind people just how unhinged the Flaky Fridays could be? The barista slid Alan’s paper cup onto the counter in front of Zin, and she shoved it in his direction, setting a plastic top beside it. “I’ve got this,” she told him, digging in her jeans for the cash she was carrying. She put the cost of the drink in the till, then handed everything else she had over to the man. “There’s twenty bucks, counting the beverage. You’ll wait for the rest.”

Alan pocketed the money and picked up his drink, though didn’t immediately move off. “But Zin . . . baby . . .” he started, his voice cajoling. Then he jolted forward as a hand clapped him on the back, sending hot coffee sloshing over his fingers. He yelped, cursed, then reeled around to face . . .

Zin gaped. “John Henry.”

“Hey, Zin,” he said easily, then directed his attention to Alan. “Sorry, man, about that boisterous greeting. I thought you were someone I liked.” He handed over a napkin, then stuffed a roll of bills in the breast pocket of Alan’s shirt.

The bully frowned down at his chest while wiping at the dripping coffee. “What’s this?”

“The eighty dollars I owe Zin.”

She protested. “You—”

“—know how I am, Zin. Get an idea in my head and can’t give it up.”

Zin didn’t know anything about him except that he was somehow managing to draw Alan away from her. In a manner she could only describe as smoothly masterful, he had the other man ushered out the bakery door within thirty seconds, without another veiled threat or annoying suggestion.

And without a debt to hold over Zin’s head any longer.

There was a short line at the counter by the time her Good Samaritan turned around. Without complaint, he took his place at the back, shuffling forward as she waited on each successive customer until once again they were face-to-f ace.

“Um . . . uh . . .” Her voice drifted off, and her cheeks flared again with heat as the whole unpleasant exchange with Alan replayed in her head. How much of it had this man overheard? Obviously that Alan thought she owed him money. That her brother was not a favorite of law enforcement.

That she was one of the Flaky Fridays?

“I don’t know what to say,” she said.

“‘Good morning’ will work. And you could get me a medium coffee. Decaf.” He smiled. “Or better yet, you could make a mistake and give me one that’s fully caffeine-loaded so that I feel virtuous, but in actuality am getting the real substance I crave.”

She found herself smiling too. “Would that make me your enabler?”

“My goddess.”

It was suddenly easy to laugh. “I’m a flower, remember?”

“I did.” His voice lowered. “All night long.”

Zin stilled, her smile sliding off her face. She’d been thinking of him, too, ever since dropping him off at the resort the night before. It was entirely unwelcome, she’d decided in the wee hours, the little fixation she had on him, and she’d been determined to dismiss it. She had items on her agenda, work to do, a reputation to live down, and that left no room for a handsome man with dark eyes who could send a sexy shiver through her with just five simple words.

I did. All night long.

She gripped the edge of the countertop instead of fisting his shirt in one hand and yanking him toward her for the kiss she’d been wondering about for approximately fourteen hours and fifteen minutes. She didn’t want to be thinking about kissing some man she’d just met—it seemed an especially flaky thing to have in the forefront of one’s mind. It was hard to know whether he thought it was flaky, though clearly he knew what was in her head, because his gaze was focused on her lips. They tingled.

“We don’t want to do this,” she murmured.

One of his dark eyebrows winged up, and that dimple showed itself again. His BlackBerry rang, and as he reached for his front pocket, he leaned close. “Sweet Zin,” he whispered, “speak for yourself.”

John Henry decided he wasn’t surprised to find Zin Friday on the terrace at the Valley Ridge Resort, pouring wine during the complimentary nightcap tasting late that evening. After waving good-bye to his sister and her sorority friends—they were returning to San Francisco—he’d decided on a stroll around the grounds. Catching sight of Zin’s distinctive fairy curls, he’d instantly changed course. Fate had been putting her in his way, and he didn’t see a reason to duck the encounter.

She seemed even less surprised to be facing him again so soon. “Hello, Mr. Henry,” she said.

“It’s John Henry,” he replied. “The whole thing’s my first name.”

She blinked those otherworldly baby blues of hers. “Oh.”

From his back pocket, he withdrew the envelope that had been waiting for him at the front desk. It contained four twenty-dollar bills. He waggled it. “You could have asked for me instead of leaving it with the receptionist.”

Her gaze skittered away to focus on the cabernet in front of her. “Had to get to work.”

“I see that.” He wondered how many uniforms hung in the woman’s closet. Tonight it was the black pants and manly black shoes, but this time they were topped by a white blouse decorated with a chestful of ruffles. A black band held her hair away from her pretty face. “When you claimed a busy schedule, it wasn’t just an excuse to let me down easy.”

She glanced up, then returned to studying the label on a wine bottle as if it were a calculus textbook. “No.”

It was almost an admission that she liked him, or that she at least felt a little of the same pull that he did, and he was stupidly pleased by the small concession. He ran his hand over his hair, only to discover he was still holding the envelope, and felt stupid all over again. Frowning, he shoved it back in his pocket. John Henry had never been stupid in his life. “You didn’t need to return the money.”

“Of course I needed to return the money.” A line dug between her eyebrows. “I hope you didn’t think—”

“I hope you didn’t think I’d hold it over you like that ass in the bakery.” Just the thought of the leering SOB made John Henry see red.

“You’re nothing like Alan,” Zin assured him.

Their eyes met, and now all he saw was blue. He fell into it, like a lead-bearing fishing line dropping into the Mediterranean . . . or maybe it was more like a sky diver leaping from a plane into a free fall. There was a moment of helpless weightlessness, seconds of stunned panic, and then he jerked down his gaze, at the last second saving himself by changing his focus to the soft surface of her lips.

Still, his blood surged toward his cock, but this was something he understood. Lust was easy to comprehend. Simple to slake. “Go out with me, Zin,” he said.

She shook her head. “I don’t have time.”

That same story, he thought, impatient with it, though he’d delivered it himself on any number of occasions to any number of women. “Listen—” His BlackBerry’s ring intruded once again.

Without thinking, he fished it out of his pocket and strode off to answer the call, for the first time noticing the scattering of tables on the terrace and the people sitting at them while enjoying wine and snacks. “What?” he barked into the phone, moving even farther away from the small crowd.

“Your so-called vacation doesn’t sound as if it’s relaxed you any,” his best friend said. “And if I recall correctly, that’s what your personal physician ordered.”

“I didn’t think doctors made house calls anymore,” John Henry said to Mark Richards, meddling M.D.

“Dude, this is a phone call,” Mark replied, “and if you don’t know the difference, you need a vacation from your vacation.”

Maybe that would be best, John Henry thought. He was getting fixated on a woman, and that couldn’t be good. “Tahiti might be nice.”

Mark laughed. “I’ll eat my stethoscope if you can remove yourself more than a hundred miles from River Pharmaceuticals.”

“I—”

“Ellen called and ratted you out. She said you couldn’t keep still or even keep your hands off your BlackBerry for a mere three hours of wine tasting.”

“It was three hours with the Sigma Woo Hoos! It might as well have been three years. I needed to check in with the office a couple of times just to make sure I remembered how to start a sentence with something other than ‘I took a magazine quiz’ or ‘Can you believe he flirted with my cousin.’”

“I feel for you, John Henry, but honest to God, you need to focus your attention on something other than what’s going on at the company.”

He leaned on the stone balustrade surrounding the terrace and looked out over the quiet golf course. “I was on the links every day last week,” he mumbled.

“Ellen told me about that too. Those foursomes were made up of your dad’s old buddies, directors from the board, competitors you might want to get into bed with someday.”

“Believe me, I don’t want to snuggle with some old guy in plaid pants and white shoes.” His gaze swung around to Zin, who was smiling prettily at just such a one as she poured straw-colored liquid into a glass. “These are all Dad’s juggling balls, and I’m just trying to keep them in the air like he did.”

“Which is why he died at fifty-five, John Henry. And it’s why you almost bought the farm, too, in August.”

He closed his eyes. He knew it had been damn close, and truth to tell, he’d scared the hell out of himself with that dance with death. But he couldn’t seem to figure out how to retrain his mind. Nothing distracted him from thoughts of this project, that report, those new plans. “I’m working on it,” he told Mark.

“Jesus, John Henry, that’s the whole point. You’re not supposed to be working. You’re supposed to be—”

“Getting drunk and getting laid,” he finished for his friend.

“Is that so difficult? Figure out your priorities, man!”

John Henry didn’t know how to respond, so he ended the call and stood where he was, gazing on the eighteenth hole as the terrace tables emptied. When he heard the crickets chirping instead of people’s conversations, he turned around.

In his line of sight, under the golden glow of a hanging light, stood Zin Friday, folding the cloth that had covered the table where she’d been pouring. The remaining glasses were being wheeled away in a cart piloted by a busboy. They were alone, John Henry realized as he walked toward her. Stilling, she looked up.

His feet halted. She’d unbuttoned that white blouse she wore to a modest, midchest level, and it was the first time he’d seen the smooth, velvety skin of her throat. It got him moving forward again, wanting to see it from closer up, and then he realized that because of his height and her smaller stature he could detect a hint of cleavage from his new perspective.

Blood surged southward again, stiffening his cock, and he didn’t feel the least bit guilty for getting off on this slight glimpse of her breasts. It felt good, it felt alive, it felt pretty damn amazing that though he had no real idea if she was a slight A cup or a more flashy C, it didn’t matter.

Once again, Zin was turning him on.

He saw her swallow as he came to a stop in front of her. The narrow, bare table stood between them. “I don’t have any wine left to offer,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter.”

Her hands gathered the folds of the tablecloth to her chest, as if for protection. He frowned. “Are you afraid of me, Zin?”

“No . . . Yes. No.”

He tried interpreting that as the busboy returned and deftly turned the table, released the folding legs, then walked it back inside the resort. The door shut behind the young man, and the light over Zin’s head winked out. The two of them were left alone on the terrace again, with only the flickering candles on the small tables alleviating the darkness.

It felt thick as syrup as he stepped through it, stepping up to Zin to slide his hand beneath her hair and around her neck. She jolted, emitting a small, surprised sound from the back of her throat. Her hold on the tablecloth didn’t ease up.

He didn’t ease up either. Instead he moved in, moved closer, his head bending so he could brush his mouth against her temple and breathe in the fragrant scent of her hair. Sweet.

The skin of her cheek was warm beneath his lips. Soft.

His mouth met hers, felt it open. Hot.

He’d meant to be gentle, to sneak up on her with a soothing touch. But this turned passionate the instant she breathed into his mouth. His tongue plunged into the wet, smooth confines of her mouth, his fingers twisted in the tendrils of her curly hair, his other palm found the small of her back and urged her body against his.

His cock went rock hard, and fire shot through his veins as her belly brushed against the throbbing weight of him. With his forearms at her hips, he lifted her to him, groaning against her mouth as she writhed against his erection. Without letting up on a succession of hot and needy kisses, his fingers loosened from her hair and he drew them along her jaw, down her throat, and then under her blouse. Another button popped as his hand found its way to her breast.

A, B, C, what the hell did the alphabet matter? All he knew was that she moaned as his palm brushed her nipple. It tightened against his caress.

He hardened more—impossibly, painfully—at the sensation. And in sweet retaliation, he tweaked the little nub between his thumb and forefinger.

Zin shuddered, then jerked back.

Breathing hard, they stared at each other. The tablecloth was tangled at their feet, her shirttail was half out of her pants, and even in the darkness he could see her mouth was swollen. Reaching out, he ran his thumb over her lower lip.

Her tongue darted out for a quick taste, and it was his turn to shudder. “Zin . . .”

She took another step back.

He let her have her small escape. It was only temporary, he told himself. There was no way this wasn’t going forward. “What are you doing now? Next?”

“I . . . I have to finish cleaning up and then clock out.” She pressed her palm to her forehead as if trying to think. “And then . . . I’ve been up since four A.M. I’ve got to get home and wash my uniforms and manage some sleep.”

He nodded, knowing he could push, aware the Type A in him was clamoring for action, pressure, persistence. But he also knew what it was like to work too much and the consequences of running on empty. He wanted her rested.

“Zin,” he said, keeping his voice soft, “come play with me tomorrow.”

“I . . .” She put her hand to her forehead again. “I have work. I’m at the bakery until after lunch, then if there’s a booking, I’m on tap to drive the limo all late afternoon and into the evening.”

He nodded again, deciding to let that go as well. She has work and I have mine cut out for me. But, he thought, this was exactly the kind of labor that the doctor would approve of. His BlackBerry chose that moment to ring, but without even glancing at the number on the screen, he powered it off.

That kiss had turned the tide. John Henry Hudson had found himself a new priority.

Three

Double-T eamed

With her toe, Zin tapped the work boots sticking out from under a late-model Mercedes. “Afternoon, Gil,” she said to the owner of Edenville Motor Repair.

His reply was lost in the blast of an air compressor, but she didn’t hesitate as she made her way around the building to the back parking lot that was home to four shiny stretch vehicles and led to the headquarters of Napa Princess Limousine Service. Like her, Gil worked hard, and she doubted he’d let any romantic dreams get in the way of his professional life. She wasn’t going to let that happen either.

She pushed the half-opened door to Stephania Baci’s duplex—aka Napa Princess Limousine Service HQ—and hung her uniform on a coatrack before moving into the kitchen. There, tall, gorgeous, and golden-skinned, her boss and best friend, dressed in a pair of cutoff jeans and a T-shirt that read Kiss Me Cuz That’s My Name, sat at the table.

Looking up from her coffee, Stevie caught the direction of Zin’s gaze. “Last year’s Christmas present from my little sister,” she said, plucking at the pink cotton. “I’ve hit the bottom of the drawer, which means it’s past time to do laundry.”

“Baci does mean ‘kiss’ in Italian,” Zin pointed out.

“As if I didn’t know and suffer for it already,” Stevie said, rolling her eyes. “But at least it’s not Zinnia.”

“Ouch,” Zin said, pausing in the act of pouring herself a cup of coffee from the carafe. “Is that what friends are for?”

“If you dislike it so much, you should change it,” Stevie suggested.

Zin shook her head. Changing her name would be trying to take the easy way out. Altering people’s perceptions of her could be done only through actions. Through work, which was why she was after a good job to offset all the flaky freakiness of her parents.

“I’m serious,” Stevie continued. “Your parents picked Zinnia—”

“And Friday,” Zin reminded her friend. “For the day they met, since my dad’s real last name, Smith, made them feel too closely aligned with the military-industrial complex.”

Stevie blinked. “I don’t think I’ve heard that bit before.”

“Try to follow me, then,” Zin said, pulling out a chair and sitting across the table. “Smith and Wesson makes firearms.”

“Any relation—”

“None. But they said if they used Smith, they automatically thought of Wesson, which reminded them of war. Not to mention the fuzz.”

Stevie nearly snorted up her coffee. Zin reached over to thump her on the back. “Are you okay?”

The other woman nodded, even as she wheezed a few more times. “The fuzz?” she finally questioned.

“You see, the fuzz—the police—use Smith and Wesson firearms.”

“Do your folks really use that term?”

“Is my name Zinnia? Is my sister Marigold? Yes, Mom and Dad still refer to the police as ‘the fuzz.’ I think they’ve watched too many Mod Squad reruns.”

“I don’t think I spent enough time at your house,” Stevie said, shaking her head.

Zin had never let Stevie spend a lot of time at her house, which was actually a rusting double-wide on a plot of mostly uncultivated land. Their childhood hangout had been the Bacis’ unpretentious farmhouse on the Tanti Baci winery property. While the Bacis were a wine-making family,they weren’t a wealthy one,although their standard of living had been staircases above what the Fridays managed.

But Zin didn’t want to think about the past. Not her childhood as one of the Flaky Fridays and not last night either. Last night . . . She dropped her head to her hand to rub away the memory of that kiss. Trying to forget it—and trying to forget him—had been the occupation of yet more sleepless hours. More dreams.

“Uh-oh, one of your stress headaches?” Stevie asked. “You need to cut out a job or two.”

“I hope to,” Zin answered, looking up. “I’ve got a job interview—for a real job using my brand-new MBA—set up for the end of the week.”

“Congratulations,” Stevie said, presenting her curled fingers to Zin so they could exchange a triumphant fist bump.

“I don’t have the position yet.” But she wanted it so damn bad. It would be as good as—better than—a name change. Finally the people in her hometown would take her seriously and would see her as something other than one of those flaky, freaky Fridays. She swallowed the rest of her coffee, then slapped the tabletop. “So tell me who I’m driving around this afternoon.”

“I’d rather hear about what happened last night.”

John Henry’s image popped immediately into Zin’s head. She tried shoving it away, but it was there, replaying in high def: his mouth approaching hers, his dark eyes intent, that masculine dimple flirting with the taut skin of his cheek.

Closing her eyes, she cleared her throat. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Looks like you have a headache. I could spend three weeks in Tuscany with the bags under your eyes. Something’s up.”

“I kissed him.” The words popped out a second before her palm clamped over her mouth. “Forget I said that,” came out sounding like “Vogut ee ed dat.”

Hooting, Stevie peeled Zin’s hand away from her face. “What’s wrong with kissing someone? As long as you’re not related or it’s not that ugly Alan ‘All Hands’ Prescott.”

“Ew.” Zin frowned. A kiss from John Henry wasn’t remotely like what she expected a kiss from nasty Alan would be. “He’s disgusting.”

“You’re telling me,” Stevie agreed. “When I was sixteen, he caught me at midnight on New Year’s Eve. Do the words ‘lizard tongue’ call up a pleasant image for you?”

“Really ew.” Zin drew back. “You never told me that.”

“We all have our secrets. I know you do.”

Zin squirmed on her seat. “I would tell you if I kissed Alan.”

“So who did you kiss?”

Maybe she could banish him from her brain if she talked about him. “A gorgeous guy. He’s staying at the Valley Ridge Resort and . . . I don’t know. There’s just something about him.” What was she thinking? She couldn’t explain what happened with John Henry to herself, let alone to Stevie. She didn’t date men she didn’t know, and she certainly didn’t kiss one like that. Her nipple had burned at his touch, and she’d been ready to spread the tablecloth somewhere in the surrounding vineyards or even on the lucky seventh green, and go at it right there and then.

“He’s a sweeper,” Stevie declared.

“What?” Zin frowned. “I think he’s some sort of business guy. His BlackBerry goes off all the time.”

“No, remember? We used to dream about the sweepers. The ones who would sweep us off our feet.”

“We were twelve. We weren’t reading Seventeen magazine yet, so we didn’t know that being swept off our feet could lead to STDs and unwanted pregnancy. Not to mention irreparable damage to our prom dresses.”

Stevie was staring at her. “Has the hot weather dried the romance right out of you? Don’t you remember our campouts in Alonzo and Anne’s cottage?”

Zin squirmed in her chair again. Of course she remembered their campouts in the cottage. Alonzo Baci, an Italian immigrant, had built the cottage on the winery property something like a hundred years ago for the high-society bride it was said he’d stolen from his partner, Liam Bennett.

The place held a kind of cult status for lovers in the area, due to the legendary long and blissful marriage of Alonzo and Anne, two people from such different worlds. Stevie and Zin had more than once spent the night there, staying awake until dawn talking about the men they would someday meet and marry. Silly little girls, who didn’t know there was so much more to life than love.

“I think you should take him by the cottage,” Stevie suggested. “Remember how we were sure we’d see the ghosts of Alonzo and Anne if the man we brought there was ‘The One’?”

“Who, as I recall, we thought was Joey Lawrence.”

Stevie smiled. “And I’ll have my prince all to myself if you’ve found your one and only in this guy from the limousine.”

“Wait.” Zin frowned. “Did I say anything about finding the guy in the limousine?”

Stevie jumped to her feet. “No, I did. And you’ll be late for the booking unless we get moving. You need lipstick.”

“And my uniform,” Zin said, standing.

“No. He said, um, the client asked that you not be in uniform. What you have on is fine.”

Zin glanced down at her faded jeans and spaghetti-strapped tank top. On her feet was her oldest pair of running shoes. “Really, Stevie, I don’t think this looks professional.”

The sound of footsteps came from the direction of the front door. The door she’d found half open and left that way too. And then John Henry was there, looking as good as he had last night, and the morning before and the day before that. His smile dug that dimple into his cheek, and her heart fluttered. Her heart never fluttered. She was too busy for fluttering.

“Sweet Zin,” he said. “This afternoon and evening aren’t about work.”

John Henry might have claimed they weren’t together for “work,” but Stevie had guilted her into going along with him by reminding Zin she was on the Napa Princess Limousine Service clock and that she had a job to do. John Henry had booked her services for a few hours. She’d shot her friend a dark look at the s-word but Stevie had played the wide-eyed innocent.

And then whispered in her ear as she walked out the door. “It’s not a ‘service’ if it’s your own idea to take off your clothes.”

As if she was going to get naked with John Henry. So not going to happen.

Except they couldn’t help but get close, because John Henry was going to be doing the driving himself . . . He’d rented a Harley motorcycle for the occasion. It was one of the standard wine-country offerings along with wine tasting and hot-air ballooning. Almost every town in Napa County had a place where a guy—or girl—could get five hundred pounds of muscled machine between their thighs.

Before climbing onto the seat behind the client, Zin turned and raised her eyebrows at her best friend. I’m in trouble. Help!

Shaking her head, Stevie shooed Zin on her way . . . and for the next couple of hours she was so glad she’d complied. As they rode over the rural routes of the wine country, she enjoyed the sights with the special appreciation of someone on a busman’s holiday—everything familiar was new and beautiful again.

The oak-dotted hills, the rows and rows of grapes, the homes here and there peeking over a ridge or hunkered deep in a valley. The leaves on the vines were turning gold, and everything smelled toasty and warm, as only autumn could.

Or maybe that was the strong, solid form of the man she was wrapped around. When was the last time she’d embraced someone? It might have alarmed her to be so connected, except this was the best of all possible embraces. Holding on was a necessity and didn’t commit her to any other kind of closeness.

Even off the motorcycle, John Henry kept her near. When they stopped at a small roadside grocery to pick up an early-evening snack of bread, cheese, wine, and beer, he sat beside her on the bench at one of the convenient picnic tables adjacent to the parking area. Though she’d borrowed a thick hoodie from Stevie, he detected her shiver as she sipped the chilled chardonnay. In an instant, he’d draped his leather jacket over her shoulders. It was butter-soft and smelled like him, which made her shiver all over again.

He glanced down at her. “Okay?”

“Sure,” she said. “The sun going down takes the temperature with it . . . or maybe it’s just a goose walking over my grave.”

He seemed to still for a moment, and then he smiled a little and clinked his beer bottle against her plastic, stemmed glass. “A reminder to seize the day.”

“And smell the flowers?” Zin’s eyes widened at her own husky, flirtatious tone. Where was that coming from? And why? She glanced away, heat climbing her cheeks.

“Oh, Zinnia.”

The laugh in John Henry’s voice made her look at him again. “What?”

His smile widened, and he toasted her a second time. “How you make me want to pluck your petals.”

Embarrassed again—oh, who was she kidding?—incredibly aroused by the sexy sound of those words, Zin dropped her gaze to their small spread of food. She toyed with a plump grape, but its lusciousness suddenly seemed too suggestive, and she dropped it in favor of a crust of crunchy bread.

John Henry picked up the abandoned morsel of fruit and popped it into his mouth. Fascinated, Zin watched him chew and swallow, then hastily redirected her attention. She ran her right forefinger over the scar on the top of her left hand. “So, um, what is it you do for a living?”

“Shuffle papers. Sit in on meetings. Return phone calls. It’s a family business that I’ve been accused of taking too seriously.”

“You can’t take work too seriously!”

“I think I’ve made that argument myself. But my mother and sister—to name two—aren’t swallowing it whole.”

“You have a sister?”

“Yep. Ellen, who just turned twenty-one. It’s why I was wine tasting a couple of days ago. A celebration for her birthday.” He tugged her hair from beneath the collar of his coat. “You have siblings?”

The birthmark on her neck started throbbing again. “My older sister, Mari—Marigold. And then there’s Kohl.” She remembered he’d probably overheard All-Hands Alan talk about her big brother. “He’s a great guy,” she said quickly. “A tour in Afghanistan and then one in Iraq.” So his war experiences had left him a bit . . . edgy. Who could blame him? “Now he works at the Tanti Baci winery—that’s Stevie’s family’s place.”

“Okay,” John Henry said. “So you and your sister were named for flowers. But why did your brother get stuck with an energy source like coal?”

She grimaced. “Not coal. K-o-h-l . The fact is, the long version of his name is actually . . . brace yourself . . . Kohlrabi.”

He laughed, then sobered. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Poor Kohlrabi. I thought having the whole John Henry thing was cruel and unusual.”

“Bet both of you had to stand tough sometimes.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, then skimmed a knuckle along her jawline. “I had to prove I wasn’t any sissy, while your brother had to show he wasn’t a . . . vegetable? Herb? What the hell is kohlrabi?”

“You’d have to meet my brother to find out.”

John Henry traced her bottom lip with his thumb. “I’d like that, Zin. I’d like to meet your brother and your sister the marigold and the parents who saddled you three with such names in the first place. Can you make that happen?”

No! What had she been thinking? He was so easy to talk to and sitting so close that she’d been distracted enough to reveal more than she’d intended. Now he knew about Kohlrabi and Marigold. Could the whole truth about the flaky, freaky Fridays be far behind?

Then he wouldn’t look at her with that warm regard in his eyes.

“We should start back,” she said, gathering up the remains of their picnic. “I have the late pouring at Valley Ridge again tonight.”

But as they traveled southward toward Edenville, Zin’s senses suddenly went on alert, and she was forced to ask John Henry to make an unexpected detour. “There,” she said, raising her voice over the thrum of the Harley and pointing toward a narrow dirt road. “I need you to turn right there.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her, but did as directed, steering them along a quarter mile of powdery ruts. Zin’s nose itched, but she clutched John Henry with both hands and kept her eyes on the plume of smoke that shouldn’t be there.

They emerged into a clearing and her gaze took it in, relief warring with shame. It was all as it always was, intact despite the smoke she’d spied: the rusting truck, its partner in ugliness a dilapidated ride-on lawnmower, the trashy double-wide and the detritus of the Friday lifestyle that included broken appliances, stacks of warped cardboard, and a metal, barrel-shaped trash can that was being used to burn something.

Home sweet home, Zin thought, hopping off the Harley as soon as it came to a stop. She jogged over to the trash can and peered inside.

“Everything all right?” John Henry said from beside her.

All right? “As expected,” she answered. “This is my parents’ place, and though it’s against the law to burn leaves, Dad’s a self-proclaimed rebel.” Nearby she found a pail full of slimy water and started lugging it toward the smoking can.

John Henry lifted it out of her arms and doused the smoldering fire. Smoke belched, and he stepped back, almost plowing over Zin. He caught her before she could stumble, and held her tight against his side. “Do you want to knock on the door and say hello?” he asked, indicating the double-wide with his free hand. “I don’t mind.”

I do. “There’s no one home, or they would have come out when we drove up. Anyway, you’d have nothing in common.” Though everyone in the world thought Zin was cut from the same cloth.

That’s going to change, she told herself. I swear that Edenville will learn to see me differently.

“Zinnia . . .” John Henry turned, taking her face between his hands and touching his forehead to hers. “You look upset. Let me make things better.”

Their lips were inches apart, and all she could think about was the passion of last night’s kiss and the solid strength of his body. She’d been leaning against him all day, and it would be so lovely to keep on doing it. But you couldn’t count on anyone like that, at least one of the Flaky Fridays couldn’t. So she steeled her spine and stepped away from him.

“Look, what I am is the progeny of a beauty-queen-turned-reality-dropout and an on-again, off-again organic farmer,” she told John Henry, and though she still had her clothes on, just the words made her feel naked. “Which means we have nothing in common either.”

Four

Double Whammy

When it came to Zin, John Henry didn’t believe virtue was its own reward—he wasn’t feeling the least bit virtuous when it came to Zin—but he thought patience had its benefits. The night before, after that impromptu visit to her parents’ place, he’d left her back at the office of Napa Princess Limousine Service . . . and then left her alone. He’d stayed away from the Valley Ridge Resort’s late-night wine tasting.

He’d let her believe he bought into her “We have nothing in common” speech.

So tonight, he could tell his presence at a table on the terrace surprised her. And made her nervous in a way that might rock her enough to rattle her preconceived notions about him right out of her head. She’d thought he’d be put off by what he’d seen in that clearing, which pretty much said that she’d pegged him as a shallow, you-are-where-you-come-f rom kind of man.

John Henry was no snob.

Except he wasn’t one to work so hard to get a woman either. He’d tried deciphering that on and off all day, and now he thought that maybe it was the vulnerability on her face yesterday, or perhaps it was even simpler—perhaps it was her body and the way she’d looked in those formfitting jeans and rib-hugging tank top. She had a narrow waist and rounded hips, and her breasts were just as he’d expected . . . perfect at any size. It was the combo, he decided: the face, the body, and the way the chemistry sizzled between them when they were together.

So how had she so easily turned away from it?

It had been both heaven and hell to have her plastered to his back as they rode the Harley through the countryside. A dozen times he’d considered pulling off the road to kiss her senseless . . . to kiss her until her scent surrounded him again, and he could cup her breasts in his hands and then slide one palm down her belly and beneath those tight jeans to cup her sex . . .

Closing his eyes at the torturous thought, he groaned.

“Is something wrong?”

His eyes popped open. There she was, buttoned into her uniform, reminding him he’d been preoccupied with the woman when she was wearing man’s shoes and a starchy shirt. The body wasn’t what had caught his attention first.

It was the hair, the scent, the big blue eyes . . . It was Zin.

“We’ve closed up shop, but I saved this for you.” She placed a glass of red wine in front of him, a tentative smile flashing across her face. “I . . . I didn’t thank you for the motorcycle ride yesterday and . . . and everything else.”

He didn’t grab her around the waist and drag her onto his lap, though he wanted to, because he was so surprised that she’d made the first move. Maybe Zin felt the pull between them stronger than he’d supposed.

He toyed with the stem of the glass. “What’s this?”

“It’s a pretty good cab. And it offers health benefits too.”

“Yeah?” He glanced up at her. “Is that part of the Napa Valley propaganda?”

“No, really. It contains antioxidants.”

“So what do I have against oxidants?”

She blinked, the flickering candle on his table reflected in her eyes. Her smiled flashed on and off again. “To be honest, I’m not really sure.”

“Ah, well, I’m certain my doctor will be happy.” He picked up the glass and tasted the wine.

She pulled out the chair beside him and sat down. The sudden move caused him to swallow wrong, which started a fit of coughing. Zin began to rise again—probably to perform the Heimlich or make a 911 call—but he managed to latch onto her wrist and control his breathing at the same time.

“Sorry . . . about . . . that,” he said, then hauled in a huge breath that ended in another couple of coughs.

Two lines had formed between her eyebrows. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Sure I’m sure.” He squeezed her slender arm, and left his hand around it. “I just—”

“You’ve mentioned a doctor more than once.” Was that worry in her voice? “Are you ill?”

“I . . .” John Henry hesitated. “It’s nothing contagious, I promise.”

Her free hand covered his. It was small and butterfly-light, yet he felt the touch all the way to his groin. “But you’ve been sick?”

Okay, it was weeks ago. And while he still had a few pounds to gain back, Mark had pronounced John Henry hale and hearty . . . though with the added advice, of course, that he had to find some balance or he was going to find himself in the hospital again. It gave him an idea . . . a sinful idea. Though if it was in the pursuit of balance—as prescribed by his M.D.!—was it really so criminal?

Remembering how it had softened Ellen when he bugged out of her wine-tasting tour, he couldn’t talk himself out of the impulse. Instead, he coughed a few more times, letting the last one die out weakly. In response, Zin again squeezed his hand in sympathy, and her chair scooted closer. He might be uptight and overwound, but he sure as hell didn’t feel guilty—or not much anyway.

“Tell me the truth, John Henry.”

I’m not above stretching the truth if it might get you stretched out under me in my bed. “This summer I was pretty sick.”

“Define ‘pretty sick.’”

“Pneumonia. It was touch and go for a few days, I guess.”

Zin’s other hand landed on his thigh. Hallelujah.

“You guess? You don’t remember?”

“It’s foggy in my memory.” Which was true, so he didn’t need to feel anything but gratified as Zin shifted even closer. He turned the hand she covered so he could grasp hers in reassurance.

“So you’re still under a doctor’s care?”

Mark was his best friend. John Henry figured he’d be under his “care” for the rest of his life—and the man had exhorted him just two days before to get his priorities straight. Right now, strict truth wasn’t at the top of John Henry’s list. “Yeah.”

Zin frowned. “Then you shouldn’t be out here. It’s getting chilly.”

But it would be downright cold if he had to return to his room alone. “Why don’t we go inside, then? You could join me for a nightcap at the bar.”

“No.” She made a face. “The last thing I need is the other staff members seeing me fraternizing with one of the guests. I don’t need to add that to my rep as a Friday.”

John Henry stilled as the next natural suggestion popped into his head. It couldn’t be that easy. Right? He’d been willing to work much harder than this to get her where he wanted. He cleared his throat, then remembered to cough instead. It came out sounding pathetic, if you asked him, but Zin rubbed his thigh at the sound, distracting him for ten too-long seconds.

Follow up, man! the devil on his shoulder urged.

“So, Zin . . .” He kept his voice casual. “If you don’t want to be seen in public, I have a well-stocked minibar in my room. Care to join me?”

Her head tilted to the side in consideration. He held his breath.

“I can do that,” she said.

The red-caped dude with the pitchfork and horns cheered. John Henry tried to keep any whiff of the triumph out of his smile. But surely he was smiling, because Zin responded with her own.

“You have the most amazing dimple,” she said. “Right here.” A small forefinger brushed his cheek.

All the better to seduce you with. And damn, he felt like a wolf as he led her away from the terrace and toward his room. In deference to her concerns about the staff seeing them socializing, he kept his hands to himself until they reached the deserted outdoor pathway that led to his suite.

At his door, he reached for his card key with one hand and twined the fingers of his other with hers. As he glanced back to gauge her mood, her face froze him.

It was so damn arresting in the starlight—that magical hair, those delicate features, the mouth with its soft and tempting lower lip.

A beautiful package, this woman, and he’d lied to her.

“Sweet Zin,” he said, as the devil on his shoulder groaned, “I wasn’t altogether up-front with you.”

John Henry Hudson: uptight, overwound, and such a Boy Scout.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I’m not really under a doctor’s care anymore. I just said that in hopes of . . . well, you know.”

There was a moment of silence between them. Then Zinnia Friday’s tempting mouth curved. “I do know, John Henry. And I knew out on the terrace too.”

Busted! Yet . . . yet she’d still followed him back to his suite! Hmmm. Didn’t that imply . . . ?

He pulled her close, gratified—hell, happy as the proverbial clam—when she didn’t resist. Her body molded to him, and he knew that Zinnia Friday was going to be his lover tonight. Lowering his head, he kissed her. “I’m a very, very bad man,” he said against her lips.

But he was determined to make sure Zin reaped the benefits of his sin.

Zin had decided that if John Henry showed up during the wine tasting, she would take it as a sign that she should kiss him again. And more than just kiss, if the opportunity presented itself.

The bargain had seemed a sensible one following yet another sleepless night thinking about the man while also worrying over the warning Stevie had dispensed after John Henry left her at Napa Princess Limousine Service. “Your sexual parts are going to shrivel like raisins unless you do something with them!”

To be honest, Zin hadn’t been certain she knew what to do with those sexual parts anymore, but that seemed a baseless concern now that she was pressed so close to John Henry’s large frame. Anchoring her to him with a hand on each of her hips, he delivered a sequence of luscious, passionate kisses.

And in response she felt as swollen and juicy as autumn’s un-harvested fruit.

Maybe even more so, knowing he’d been willing to lie to get her in his arms again—and then couldn’t go through with the fib after all. An honest man.

Tucking her closer against him, he groaned, then lifted his head. His gaze on hers, he fumbled with the door behind him, so he could pull her over the threshold. His brows came together as he drew her into the dimly lit room. “Why are you smiling like that?”

She put her fingers to her mouth, and yes, there it was. “I don’t know, exactly,” she answered, laughing. A giddy euphoria was bubbling through her blood, a feeling she’d never before experienced. “Maybe because this is easier than I thought.”

“How so?”

“I don’t do this often, and I never do it with near strangers,” Zin admitted. “I usually put a lot more thinking time into a decision like this. It’s kind of, well . . . freeing just to go for it.”

John Henry stepped closer. “I think, Zinnia, that ‘freeing’ is something we’re both definitely in need of. So let’s say I ‘free’ you from this shirt you’re wearing, and then those pants, and then . . .”

His nimble fingers went to work.

As each fastening loosened, Zin felt her inhibitions ease too. Sex had always made her self-conscious—Am I making funny faces? What if he notices the freckles on my breasts?—but with John Henry the only thing she was conscious of was the delicious sweep of his long fingers against her skin as he removed the last of her clothing.

Naked as a baby, she faced him—still fully dressed—and could only smile again at the smug expression on his face. His fingertip touched just to the right of her nipple. “The pixies sprinkled you with their dust,” he said. “I’m going to taste every one of your freckles.”

He managed to put his tongue to only three of them before Zin’s knees gave out. Kneeling on the plush carpet, now it was her turn to free John Henry. Her heart slamming in her chest, she opened his jeans and found him with her fingers, hot and hard, and more exciting than she’d ever considered any man.

She wasn’t thinking of her freckles or her face, not of anything but what he would feel like in her mouth and against her tongue. He made a tortured sound as she stroked him wetly, and the sound rippled through her, ratcheting up her arousal. When her mouth closed over him, his hand tangled in her hair and goose bumps raced from the point of contact in woozy circles across the surface of her skin. The birthmark on the back of her neck throbbed.

John Henry was talking to her in a low voice, but she ignored the whispered words to indulge her senses in her exploration. She’d never been comfortable enough with a man to play like this, and she didn’t question why it was so easy with someone she’d known for such a short duration.

Instead, she turned off her usually busy thoughts and cupped him in one hand while she used the other to steady him for the suction of her mouth. His fingers tightened in her hair and she glanced up, the greedy look in his eyes sending more champagne bubbles coursing through her bloodstream.

One of his big hands stroked down her cheek, and she closed her eyes, reveling in the soft touch on her skin as her tongue circled him again and ag—

Suddenly, he had her up on her feet and she found herself on his bed. “Hey,” she protested, wiggling against the sheets. “I wasn’t done.”

His gaze on her nakedness, he quickly shucked the rest of his clothes. “I was almost done.” Then he knelt on the bed to prowl his way to her body.

She giggled—Zin, giggling during sex!—and scrambled away from him.

He caught her ankle and drew her back, her bottom gliding against soft cotton. She laughed again, and slid her hands under her hips. “Be careful, I’ll get a bed burn.”

“Then I’ll kiss it and make it better.” He didn’t smile. “Open your legs, sweet Zin.”

Which meant she wouldn’t, of course, until he crawled to the pillows and kissed away the last of her playful protests. His head lowered to her breast, and he took her nipple in his mouth, sucking and tonguing it until she felt his hand between her thighs and realized they’d parted in unconscious invitation.

Silly to have put up even token resistance, because the man knew what to do with his fingers. Gentle strokes drew forth a slippery wetness that he spread over all her folds. Through half-closed eyes, she watched John Henry, propped on one elbow, seemingly fascinated with the movement of his hand and the reaction of her body. He nudged her clitoris, and she drew a sharp breath, her hips jerking against the sweet pleasure of the touch.

A satisfied smile curled the corners of his mouth, and then he touched her there again, rubbing small circles that made corresponding spirals of tension tighten inside her. “John Henry,” she whispered, “you’re really good at this.”

“We Type A’s,” he murmured, his dimple cutting deep, “always apply ourselves.”

She gasped as one finger slid inside her. Pleasure coiled, ready to strike. “Maybe you should . . .”

His thumb played her as another finger found its way inside her. Her breath caught in her lungs; her hips chased his touch, wanting more, more, more. “John Henry” was all she managed, trying to warn him.

He bent down to take her mouth, his hand still working its magic. “Go free, Zin,” he whispered.

And she did, breaking the bonds of the tightening sexual helix in wild bursts of pulsing bliss.

He didn’t give her time to gather the pieces of herself. Instead, he was at her mouth, her breasts, her sex, kissing, stroking, tasting, until she threw back her head and reveled, giddy again, liberated and lustful.

He lifted the backs of her knees in his hands, and knelt between her legs to enter her, one delicious inch at a time. When she was full, full of John Henry, he rocked his body against hers, and she rose to meet each thrust. Unfettered again, reaching for her peak without awkwardness.

Their breaths sounded loud in the dim room, and she loved the passionate sound. Her thighs tightened on either side of his hips, and he thrust harder, deeper, causing her to tighten around him. Causing him to reach between them for more of those Type-A touches.

This climax rose from her toes, rolling over her body like the sun rising over the earth to heat the air and light the sky and ripen fruit.

She burst again, and the waves of sensation pushed him over. John Henry groaned, his hips jerking against the cradle of her body. Then he was still, leaving her to pulse around him in waning aftershocks.

With a softer groan, he withdrew and fell to the pillow beside hers. “You about killed me, Zin.”

She laughed.

“Hey, is murder that funny?” He rolled his head to look at her.

“I’ve never had so much fun in bed,” she confessed.

His thumb brushed the edge of her cheekbone, the gesture tender. “Then why, sweet Zin, are you crying?”

Five

Double-Edged

Zin touched her face, surprised and then embarrassed to find John Henry was right. There were tears on her cheeks. She quickly wiped them away with the edge of her hand. The room was dim, with only the light from the foyer weakly reaching them, so she went with the cover. “You are so wrong. I am not crying.”

He chuckled and rolled from the bed, padding to the bathroom, where she assumed he was tending to the condom business. She’d noticed how smooth he was about that, and wasn’t surprised by it. It seemed like everything John Henry did was done well and done thoroughly. She wiggled against the sheets. All hail the Type A.

He called to her from the bathroom. “It’s a fact that girls cry, Zinnia. You don’t have to hide it.”

A laugh was in his voice now, and she appreciated him for smoothing over the moment. Really, she was flummoxed by the whole wet-cheeks thing. “No fact, John Henry, believe me.”

“You’re wrong.” He emerged from the bathroom and, buck naked, strolled to the minibar. She watched him pour her a glass of wine and pop the top off a beer for himself. Then he turned and walked toward the bed.

She tried to keep her gaze on his face.

“I have a sister, Zin.” He slid back into bed and handed her the wineglass. “I know a lot of Sigma Woo Hoos.”

Frowning, she scooted up on the pillows. “The Who Woos?”

“Not Who Woos, Zin. Woo Hoos. Sorority girls, but that’s neither here nor there.”

He was making her smile again. Really, she should have listened sooner to Stevie about this sex thing.

“I just want you to know,” he went on, “that I don’t mind about the crying. It’s a cute girl thing. Like . . . I don’t know. Hair bands. Thong panties. Choke chains.”

What could have been postcoital uneasiness was now turning into postcoital entertainment. “Chokers, John Henry. At least that’s what I hope you mean. Choke chains are for dogs.”

“Maybe that’s what I need,” he mused, leaning back against the pillows. “I’m supposed to be looking for balance, and a dog might just do the trick. You ever had one?”

“I did.” She smiled, remembering McMichael, the ebony-and-ivory terrier her dad had found somewhere and brought back to the trailer. Her parents had allowed him to sleep in her bed with her, and he’d been better than any teddy bear. “He lived a long, happy life.” And given her plenty of happy times, too, now that she thought about it.

“Are you crying again?”

“No!” She frowned at him. “Honest, John Henry, I am not a crier.”

His beer bottle tilted, and she watched him take a healthy swallow. For some reason she didn’t think he believed her, and it rankled. Maybe every woman he had bedded had cried in ecstasy afterward. It sort of soured her mood to think of them, and it made her certain she didn’t want to be just another in their ranks.

“I haven’t cried since second grade.”

“No way,” he said, putting the beer bottle on the bedside table.

“Yes.” She sipped at her wine, because she was feeling a little mad and wanted it to cool her down.

“Not even when that one guy wasn’t the American Idol winner? Because the Woo Hoos cried their little hearts out over that and then circulated a petition on the Internet.”

“John Henry, you need to stop hanging around sorority girls and start getting to know some grown-up women.”

His smile expanded slowly as he took her wineglass out of her hand and set it beside the beer bottle. Then he drew her close to him so that they were snuggled together. “You read my mind, Zinnia.”

Without her permission, her leg crept over his thigh. Amazing how natural that felt. Also amazing how her cheek found the comfortable resting place on his chest. His heart beat beneath her ear, and his hand sifted through her hair. It was as if they’d been lovers for a long time.

“So what made you cry in second grade, sweetheart?”

Zin breathed in the scent of him; it was warm and male and edged with an expensive cologne. Delicious. Distracting. “What?”

“Second grade. Tears.”

It must have been the uncommon closeness that motivated her to confess. Or perhaps it was because the story didn’t seem so dreadful within the haven of his arms. “It was because of the school field trip.”

His fingers continued combing through her hair. “Pumpkin patch? Petting zoo?”

“We’re country kids, for all intents and purposes, here in Edenville, John Henry. Plenty of experience with four-legged creatures and things growing in fields. In May, the second grade gets on buses and goes to the big city. Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. Ghirardelli Square.”

“I didn’t think children cried about chocolate.”

“I cried because I didn’t get to go.”

“Ah, sweetheart—”

“But that’s not really true,” Zin said, correcting herself. “I wouldn’t have minded so much missing the event, if the why of it hadn’t been so humiliating.” Poor little Zinnia, she thought, thinking back to the skinny-legged, fuzzy-headed girl she’d been.

“Why didn’t you go, Zin?”

“I tried saying it was because I’d burned my hand. I told my friends that’s why I couldn’t get on the bus.” She couldn’t see the scar in the dark, but the memory was indelible.

“The truth was, my parents didn’t sign the permission slip and pay the trip fee. I don’t know if they didn’t have the money or if they forgot or . . .” It had been the first of many such incidents.

John Henry stroked her bare shoulder, and she closed her eyes, relishing the tender touch. “Poor Zin.”

“Poor Flaky Friday, more like. One of the parent chaperones coined the phrase as the rest of the class tromped out toward the bus. It stuck. Transferred to Mari and Kohl, too, sorry to say. We’ve been the Flaky Fridays going on twenty years.”

And that name had been motivating her for that long too. To do better, to overcome more missed field trips and other times when her parents’ oddities made everyone in town look at her oddly.

John Henry lifted her over his body. She looked up, their gazes meeting. “No tears now,” he murmured.

He hardened against her belly, and she made a little circle with her pelvis, thoughts of the past flying away. “John Henry, you are nothing to cry about.”

The following night the clock read eleven twenty-two when John Henry heard a knock on the door of his suite. As he strolled toward it, he called out, “Who is it?”

“Room service.”

With a half frown, he turned the knob. “I didn’t . . .” His voice trailed off as he took in Zinnia, swathed in a white terry spa robe and carrying a bucket of icy Mexican beers with lime wedges poking from two that were uncapped.

“Well, well, well . . .” he said. “I didn’t realize the resort had a service that knew my every wish.”

“Is that right?” She smiled.

It did something to him, that smile, and he rubbed at the little crimp it put in his chest. “That’s right.”

Zinnia strolled past him into the room and set the beer bucket on the minibar. Taking her sweet fragrance into his lungs, he shut the door and followed in her wake. What had she done to him? Since the day they’d met, he’d been sleeping more, breathing deeper, thinking of ways to please Zin instead of ways to up the bottom line of River Pharmaceuticals.

“I took a shower in the staff lounge after my shift pouring wine. And right before I had a quick conference with the bartender in the lobby.”

“That’s what I mean,” John Henry said. “Because here I was, just wishing I had a beer and a babe.”

“A beer and a willing babe,” she amended, turning to face him. Her hands went to the belt of the robe and loosened the knot. “And, John Henry, I’m very willing.” With a shrug, the terrycloth fell, leaving her bare.

And him barely breathing.

He dropped to the floor, flat on his back.

Zin gasped, rushing to his side. She fell to her knees and leaned over him. “John—”

His name choked off as he caught her tempting nipple in his mouth. Sucking on the stiffening jut of it, he ran his hand along her naked flank. She moaned, and his cock hardened in an instant rush. It went even harder when he slid his hand down her belly and curled his fingers between her thighs, discovering she was already soft and wet.

“Hot,” he said against her breast. “You are so damn hot.”

He needed to taste the heat. She made little squeaks of protest as he positioned her over his mouth, but he was a man driven by lust. “Zin,” he said, urging her hips lower. “This is the kind of service I’m needing right now.”

His tongue swiped over her, and her taste was as intoxicating as the moan she made. His hands tightened on the hot skin of her pretty rear end as he took her flavor into his mouth. She wiggled, drawing out his name in the sweetest little wail of need, and again John Henry felt that cramp in his chest. It made him want to work harder—but more subtly than in his usual manner.

He eased up, teasing her with flicks of his tongue followed by long licks that had her trembling, and then he turned his head and nipped the inside of her thigh. She jerked, bringing that little kernel at the top of her sex to just the right spot for him to gently latch on and so take her tenderly but ruthlessly into ecstasy.

When her tremors had tapered off, he pulled her to the bed, gentle gone and urgent in its place. He threw off his clothes and then climbed up her body, sliding deep inside her with one single stroke. They groaned in unison.

It wasn’t long until the explosive finish.

But the aftermath was just as explosive, John Henry thought, because it was like a bombshell going off for him to realize that holding her in his arms was becoming as addictive as the sex.

He nuzzled the top of her curly blond head, gratified when she snuggled closer against him. He’d never been a hugger, but this was so satisfying that it couldn’t compare to any embrace before. “Talk to me, Zin,” he whispered.

“Hmm?”

“I just want to hear your voice.” He couldn’t figure out why, but it was the truth. “Tell me about your day. Which of your fourteen jobs didn’t—thank God—wear you out?”

He felt her smile against his chest. He smiled, too, as she told him about her shift at the bakery and her two hours driving an anniversary couple around the local wineries. “I like this place,” he told her. Napa Valley, and particularly Edenville, made just the right combination of small town and sophistication. You’d know your neighbors here, relax with them, whether they were the high school sweethearts who ran the local deli or the film-producer turned-wine maker next door.

More warmth curled through him as he congratulated himself for relocating the pharmaceutical company away from the city to this semirural enclave. The best of both worlds, he thought again. Balance.

His mood faltered when Zin went on to tell him about the mature man who had hit on her during the nightcap wine tasting.

John Henry frowned. “You told him you were taken, I hope.” The idea that it was he who was claiming rights to her didn’t even make him blink.

“Of course not.”

He startled to bristle at that. “Zin—”

“I told him it was against the rules to fraternize with the guests.”

It made him relax again to realize that she’d broken the rules— and he knew Zinnia was no rulebreaker—for him. The girl who was trying to live past being a “Flaky Friday” wouldn’t allow herself more than a very few infractions.

She yawned, and rubbed her cheek against his heart.

“You’re tired,” he said.

“Mmm.”

“You work too hard, Zinnia. Can you cut the job count down to thirteen?”

“I have to help out my folks when I can, and I have grad school loans to pay off,” she said sleepily. “I just earned my MBA degree in June, and I’m hoping to find the perfect job soon.”

Wow. He blinked, not surprised that she held an advanced degree, but taken aback to realize that he was so out of the all-about-business loop that he hadn’t been wondering about her career goals or long-term plans.

“Still, Zin, you shouldn’t burn yourself out in the meantime.” The words sounded weird coming out of his mouth. Maybe because they were the same ones people had been saying to him for months. But he thought it was probably because he had never let himself get close enough to be concerned for someone the way he was for Zin. He’d never found the time.

Or the inclination, really.

“That perfect job might be right around the corner. There’s a new company in town, and I’d sell my soul to work there,” Zin said.

He barely heard her, because he was grappling with the truth that he was changed. This time—no, this thing—with Zin had changed him. And it felt like a permanent shake-up of his priorities.

There was another odd sensation in his chest, and he realized it came from his heart. Opening up? Closing its door to keep Zin safely inside? He couldn’t say which. He knew only that he was a different—better—man.

He took a breath in preparation to tell her—Type A’s didn’t like wasting time—Zin, you’re the balance I’ve been needing all my life.

Instead, she spoke first. “It’s called River Pharmaceuticals, and I have an interview there tomorrow.”

And John Henry discovered he couldn’t speak at all.

Six

Double Cross

Zin would have danced out the front door of River Pharmaceuticals if she hadn’t thought her new boss might spy her out one of the windows and rescind the offer because of her excess exhilaration. Risking this job, this perfect job for her, wasn’t going to happen.

Located in a new industrial park on the outskirts of Edenville, the company’s parking lot was only one quarter full. The business was relocating from its East Bay site to Napa, and the transition team had shown up only that day. Zin was going to join their ranks ASAP. She’d even told the woman in HR that she could be there for new employee orientation the very next day. Nobody would consider this Friday flaky any longer.

With effort, she restrained herself from skipping, but ducked behind a behemoth of a truck in order to beam a great giant grin at the sky. When she lowered her head and emerged from behind the extended cab, she saw John Henry climbing out of a dark sedan just a few spaces away.

Her heart jumped. He looked like Mr. Business in a suit and tie, and for a moment it was hard to reconcile him with the naked lover who could lick his lips and make her limp with desire. Last night he’d held her over him and tasted her like a treat, and she didn’t think she’d recovered yet.

Her pulse was dashing about like a happy puppy, and just looking at him made her mouth dry. “John Henry,” she croaked, and she rushed toward him, calling it out louder. “John Henry!”

He started, and what looked almost like guilt crossed his features. “Zin! That was a long interview. I thought you’d already be gone—”

She stopped the rest of his words with a quick but exuberant kiss, then darted a cautious look at the office building. “You’re so sweet to have worried about me and come looking. It’s good news! They offered me the job, and I accepted . . .”

Her words trailed off as he dragged her to his car. “Let me take you out for a celebratory drink, then,” he said. “It’s almost five.”

“Um, okay,” she answered, as he stuffed her into the passenger seat. With a little frown, she watched him run around to the other side. “Are we in a hurry?” she asked, as he slid in and started the engine.

“Yes. No.” There was a knock on the driver’s window, and he glanced over. Grimaced. “Too late,” he muttered, and pressed the switch to lower the glass.

It was the guard from the reception area. “I saw you through the windows,” the man said to John Henry. “Is anything wrong, Mr. Hudson?”

“I’ll let you know later,” John Henry replied, and with a salute to the man, put the car into reverse.

As the sedan pulled out of the spot, Zin noticed that it was a reserved space and marked with a discreet sign like the one that designated the place where she’d parked. But while hers had read Visitor, this one said J. H. Hudson, President.

Her breath evaporated in her lungs and she went hot, even though she could feel the cold blast from the air-conditioning against her skin. J. H. Hudson, President. Could this be true?

The man beside her had kissed her good-bye that morning as she left his suite and wished her good luck, all the time knowing that her most fervent wish was to get a position at River Pharmaceuticals. The company that called him “President.”

She felt foolish. Played. Angry and confused.

Desperate to get away from him.

What should she do now?

She glanced around, realizing they were already nearing the quaint downtown area that served both locals and tourists. A block away was the bakery where she worked. Her bank was on the corner. Across the street was the highly rated restaurant where she often dropped off visitors when she drove the limousine. Her town. Her town she’d wanted to prove something to—and now her best opportunity to do that was gone.

“I want out of the car,” she said.

He glanced over. “We’re going for a drink.”

“I don’t want to drink with you, Mr. President.”

“Zin . . .” He sighed. “We need to talk.”

“I feel too stupid to talk.”

“You’re not stupid.” With a grimace, he pulled into a tree-shaded spot in front of Edenville Hardware. When her hand went to the door handle, she heard the snap of the door locks. “And you’re not going anywhere until we have a conversation.”

She folded her arms over her chest and sent him a steely glare. Her skin still felt hot, and her words burned her throat. “We could have had this conversation last night. I had no idea you’re the president of River Pharmaceuticals.”

“I realize that.” He forked his hand through his shor thair. “We can blame my father for choosing to call it River instead of Hudson.”

Names had been the bane of her life. She transferred her gaze out the windshield, not wanting to look at John Henry’s handsome face. Focusing on the front of the hardware store, she asked the obvious: “So why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because . . .” He hesitated.

“Did I—” The question stuck in her throat. “Did I get the job because I’ve been sleeping with you?”

“No! Damn it, Zin, that’s exactly why I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want you to think that we . . .” His hand went through his hair again. “I wanted you to go in and have your interview without us influencing your attitude or your decision.”

She didn’t know whether or not to believe him. She tried to remember if the two women she’d interviewed with had looked at her with anything beyond sincere interest. “Do Marilyn and Holly know there is an ‘us’?”

“No.” He sighed. “The thing is, Zin, I didn’t know what the hell to do when you told me about the job last night. I couldn’t decide if I should put in a good word or not say anything at all.”

The door to the hardware store opened, and two people emerged onto the sidewalk. Zin stiffened. There was her father, wearing his beat-up jeans, a Grateful Dead T-shirt, and a safari-style hat that appeared to have been stomped on by an elephant. Her mother was next to him, in her floating Stevie Nicks wear, her curly silver hair reaching her elbows. They’d met as teenagers at Woodstock, and it looked as if they’d never changed clothes since 1969. A pair of passing tourists did a double take, then shared a smile.

Zin could imagine what the well-dressed couple was whispering to each other: Hippies. Weirdos. Oddballs.

Flakes.

The Flaky Fridays.

“But now I can tell you I’m so pleased you’ll be working for us,” John Henry went on. “When you called it the perfect job for you, I really hoped that would be true.”

She didn’t respond. Her attention was focused on her parents, because another person came out of the hardware store to talk with them on the sidewalk. It was one of the elderly twins who owned the place—either Ed or Jed, in a uniform of lightweight khaki coveralls. Zin tried to read his lips, wondering what business he would have with Bobby and June Friday that caused an expression of concern on his face.

“Who’s that?” John Henry asked. “Why are you staring at them?”

“My parents,” she said, watching as Ed or Jed pulled out a slender roll of bills held together with a rubber band. Shame snaked down her spine as the store owner peeled a few free. The Fridays were chronically short of cash. They’d asked Alan not long ago for grocery money . . . Were they now moving on to the two old men who ran Edenville Hardware?

“Take me back to my car,” she said urgently. She couldn’t witness any more of this, but short of leaping from John Henry’s sedan to cause a scene on the sidewalk—and wouldn’t that just improve the Friday rep?—she didn’t know how to put a stop to it.

“Zin ...”

“John Henry, please.”

With another sigh, he started the ignition. “Fine. But tell me you understand why I didn’t say anything about owning River Pharmaceuticals. I wanted you to know you got the job fair and square.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” she said, her tone flat. River Pharmaceuticals had looked like her way out, but she’d messed that up by messing around with John Henry. You’d think she’d remember that there was more to life than love . . . but of course she didn’t love John Henry! She just loved the way he made her feel in bed.

He pulled into the company parking lot. “Follow me back to the resort, Zin. We’ll have champagne and caviar at the restaurant.”

“I can’t be seen with a guest,” she reminded him.

C’mon. You’re going to give them notice, right?”

“Can’t. Still have those student loans.” Without looking at him, she reached for the briefcase at her feet.

“Zin . . .” There was a warning in his voice, then a dawning knowledge. “No, Zin.”

“I’m not taking the job at your company, John Henry. Shall I call HR, or is telling you good enough?”

He groaned. “Why? It’s the perfect job, you said.”

“I’m sleeping with the company’s owner!”

“That’s our business—”

“Do you think anyone will respect me once it gets out?” The town of Edenville would surely dismiss her accomplishment, and her, with Oh, there’s that Flaky Friday who’s messing around with her boss.

“Zinnia, let’s think here. We can figure out a way to make you happy with this.”

He sounded unhappy and impatient. She glanced over, and saw that he looked unhappy and impatient, as well as sexy and rumpled, with his hair sticking up everywhere. It had looked like that last night in bed, and she’d smoothed it with her palms until he’d drawn down her hands and kissed her fingers.

Her heart had turned in her chest then. It turned again now. John Henry: steady, sexy, successful. Everything she couldn’t have. Somewhere in the past few days she’d not only forgotten that there were more important things in life than love; she’d forgotten other ramifications of being a Flaky Friday. She might get into John Henry Hudson’s bed, but a man like him wouldn’t want a woman like her in his life for long. So now she came to her senses and made a new decision.

He must have seen something of it on her face, because his eyes narrowed. “Damn it, I’m not letting you give up the job at River Pharmaceuticals,” he said.

“Okay, I won’t.”

He blinked.

She didn’t have to give up the job. “Because, John Henry, I’m giving up you instead.”

John Henry sat behind his desk in his new office at River Pharmaceuticals and stared out the window at the distant view of rolling vineyards, replaying the stubborn expression on Zin’s face and the sting of her words. I’m giving up you. They still hurt like hell.

In the past, John Henry could have lost himself in work. By diving into a financial report or a product analysis, he could wrap himself in enough data and numbers to nullify negative feelings or troubling events. He’d been able to do it with a vengeance after his father died.

Of course, then John Henry had almost followed his dad down that dark path by working himself into a hospital bed.

He didn’t want to do that again. And anyway, it seemed impossible to put anything between himself and thoughts of Zin. Sweet Zinnia, he thought with a sigh. Who knew you could be so obstinate?

After yesterday’s pronouncement—I’m giving up you—he’d lost his breath and nearly lost his mind trying to reason with her. Finally, frustrated and red in the face, he’d driven off.

He was still frustrated. But what’s the big deal, man? he asked himself. Following through on Mark’s prescription, he’d gotten laid. Drunk, too: drunk on the scent of Zin. On her taste . . . So he should be ready to get back to work now, and if it was female company he was missing, well, there were other women out there.

Starting with his secretary, Pamela. He looked at her as he passed her desk. She was a lanky, lovely brunette who’d worked with him for two years and who . . . didn’t do a thing for him. Which was fine, because workplace romances obviously were not in his cards.

“I’m going for a walk,” he told her.

She stared at him. “What?”

“A walk.”

“You never take a walk during business hours,” Pamela said, looking dumbfounded.

“Yeah? Well I need to make a change. Get up from my desk once in a while to get some exercise and clear my head. I’ll be back in a while.”

He felt her concerned gaze on his back as he walked away, and then pushed through the front door of the building and into the warm sunshine. The sauna heat had subsided, but it was still warm enough for shirtsleeves. He’d left his jacket back in his office, and now he unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled them up.

A car pulled into the parking lot.

John Henry watched Zinnia step onto the blacktop. Dressed in a fitted blue blouse, pencil-slim black skirt, and needle-nosed black high heels, she was businesslike perfection. Just another uniform. Armor, maybe.

But underneath all that, he knew she was funny and warm and sweet.

She should be his.

He couldn’t shake the certainty as he approached her. She watched him with wary eyes, holding her sleek briefcase against her chest. When he was within speaking distance, she swallowed, then said in a quiet voice, “I’m here for the new employee orientation.”

“You have an appointment?”

She shook her head, her blond hair floating over her shoulders. “HR said to come in anytime today.”

“So we can talk for a few minutes.”

Her eyes darted toward the office building. “John Henry, please.”

“Please what?”

“Please pretend you don’t know me.”

The words went deep, like a knife to the chest. “Jesus, Zin.” It felt like those days in the hospital, when every breath hurt like hell.

“Is that what you’re going to do?” he asked, his voice harsh. “Pretend you don’t know me? Pretend you’ve never been in my bed?”

“John Henry—”

“Pretend you’ve never touched my heart?”

She blinked rapidly, but he told himself those couldn’t be tears in her eyes. Hadn’t she sworn to him that she didn’t cry? “John Henry, you had to know that you and I . . . you and I were only temporary.”

“Why do I have to know that?”

She gestured between them. “Because you’re you, and I’m . . .”

“A Flaky Friday.” He knew that childhood nickname still bothered her, but perhaps he’d underestimated how much it motivated her actions. Yesterday, when they’d seen her offbeat parents in downtown Edenville, he’d noted the hot color of her cheeks and the embarrassed aversion of her eyes.

Obviously she was ashamed of them.

But now he saw that she felt shame for herself, too, as their daughter.

Do you think anyone will respect me? she’d asked him. She’d thought people would think less of her if she worked for the company run by the man she was seeing. She’d thought that meant they wouldn’t acknowledge her accomplishments or understand her value.

John Henry rubbed at his aching chest. “Zin, listen to me. Here’s the thing. No one will respect you, value you, until you respect and value yourself.”

She cuddled her briefcase tighter. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about how you see yourself, Zin. You don’t want people to think of you as being like your parents. But that’s got to come from you. You have to give yourself your own value, and to hell with what the rest of the world thinks. The minute you know who you are and what you want, your priorities straighten out too.”

“Where is this coming from?” Pink color suffused her face. “You don’t know what it’s like to be me.”

“I know more than you might think. You look at me and make assumptions—just like you think Edenville does because you’re a Friday.”

She shook her head. “I’m not like the people in town.”

“Yes, yes, you are. And I’m like you, with a twist. When my father died, tragically, frighteningly young, I tried stepping into his shoes. I worked as hard to be him as you’ve worked hard not to be your mother and father. I downplayed it before, but the truth is, I almost killed myself that way, Zin.”

Her eyes were glinting again. “John Henry,” she whispered.

“But I’m banking on the fact that you’re way smarter than me. I still didn’t learn my lesson. It wasn’t until I met a beautiful blonde who made me slow down and breathe in, that I realized the kind of balance I should be aiming for in my life. Finally I know exactly what I need.”

She stared at him.

Brat! She wasn’t going to ask the question he was fishing for. It meant John Henry was going to have to lay it out for her.

“I want to make time for someone like you in my life. For you, Zin.”

When her gaze didn’t waver, he was forced to try again. “Don’t you get it? I’m in love with you.”

Seconds ticked by with sickening slowness. Her arms dropped from her chest to hang at her sides, and she held her briefcase handle in a white-knuckled grip. “No.”

He groaned. “Zin . . .”

“I’m sorry, John Henry, but here’s what’s true: I need this job more than I need love.”

Seven

Double or Nothing

Zin trudged from her car to the front door of her apartment, her gaze on her feet. Her head pounded like her footsteps against the cement. Filling out four hundred and eleven forms had made her eyes cross and her stomach burn. Remembering John Henry saying I’m in love with you still made her want to scream.

He was in love with her for now! she’d wanted to shout back at him. For the moment! He was rich and successful, and what did she know about that? Soon he would realize she was not on his level, and their affair would be over. She would be kicked out of his playground, and it was better to walk off of it by herself now.

“All Hands” Alan, the bully of Edenville Elementary, had proven there were times when going home was the most prudent action.

“Oh, darling,” a soft voice said. “Bobby, our girl doesn’t look as happy as she should.”

Zin’s head popped up. There were her parents on her doorstep, Dad in his Lynyrd Skynyrd Lives T-shirt, Mom in a dress made out of an Indian bedspread. Her mother clasped her hands around Zin’s cheeks and kissed her brow chakra, scenting the air with patchouli.

Her thoughts and that fragrance sent Zin back to the past. She remembered coming home from school, smarting from another round of teasing on the school bus. Her mother had gathered Zin onto her lap and held her, humming an old Pete Seeger song. Now, as then, she found herself wanting to sink into that accepting embrace and let everything else fade away.

She’d forgotten the comfort of those arms.

“Hi, Mom,” she whispered. She tried on a smile for her father, who was looking at her with a frown in his eyes. “How’s it going, Dad?”

Without saying anything, he lifted a clay pot, putting it into her line of vision. She stared at the growing flowers, her eyes stinging. “Zinnias.”

“See how happy and beautiful they are,” her mother said, touching a reverent fingertip to a cheery pink petal. “That’s what we wanted for you. That’s why we gave you that name.”

Her dad urged the pot into Zin’s arms, and she curled a hand around it, feeling the clay’s solid warmth. “Thanks, Dad,” she said, and he smiled. A man of few words and some admittedly out-of-the-mainstream tastes, in his own way he tried. “Come on in, you two.”

Her tiny front room was brightened by the pot of living flowers set on the middle of the coffee table. Zinnia dropped her briefcase on the kitchen counter and kicked off her high heels with a sigh of relief. “Can I get you something?” she asked her parents.

Her mom and dad were sitting on the couch, their hands clasped. Zinnia stared at their entwined fingers, realizing that it was often like that when Bobby and June Friday were together. They stayed close, holding hands or at least keeping near enough to touch, even when they were working together in their garden. What she’d overlooked before fascinated her now.

“Your father and I came over to talk.”

Zinnia felt a little sigh go through her. “What is it, Mom? I saw you outside Edenville Hardware yesterday. I really don’t think it’s a good idea to borrow money from Ed and Jed.”

Her dad glanced at her mother. “We didn’t borrow money from them.”

“I saw you—”

“Ed asked me to deliver some firewood for him today. He was paying for the job in advance.”

“Oh.”

“But about money . . .” her mom started.

Zinnia swallowed her second sigh. “I know we’re getting close to property tax time. I’ll be able to help out, I promise. Please don’t get Alan Prescott involved . . .”

“Alan Prescott!” Her normally mellow father looked angry. “I’m done giving him free vegetables from the garden. I heard he was shaking you down at the bakery, even though I’d promised to pay him back by the end of the week.”

“It was nothing, Dad.”

“It was something. I should have realized . . .” He looked at his wife, then back at her. “We’re not going to let that happen again, kiddo.”

“Okay.” Zin was pretty sure it would happen again, but hu moring her folks was easier than injecting reality into their yellow submarine.

“Because we’re selling those acres we don’t use behind the trailer,” June said.

Zinnia stared at her. “Huh?” Her parents had been holding on to those for longer than she’d been alive, with the hope of someday establishing a little village where people would live and work communally. Zinnia had always thought the idea was forty years past its prime, but her parents clung to it as tenaciously as they did to their original Dylan recordings on vinyl.

“The neighbors to the north want to build one of those toy vineyards, and they’ll pay us top dollar.” Her dad said “top dollar” as if it was a phrase in a foreign language.

“What . . . what about your own plans for the acreage?”

His grin was sheepish. “We’re just not that driven. We’ve come to realize that we’re perfectly happy with our garden, and anything bigger would only cause us stress.”

“Can’t have stress,” Zin murmured.

“And the money from the sale will take your stress away. Yours and Marigold’s and Kohl’s. I know you worry about how we’re situated. With that cash we’ll be comfortable for the rest of our lives.”

If what Zinnia knew about Napa farmland was right, they would be comfortable. Still . . . “You’ll let me look at any paperwork before you finalize the deal?”

“Of course,” her mom said. “You’re our business girl.”

“I’m good at business,” Zin said.

“We know,” her father answered. He gathered his wife closer to his side. “That’s why we came to congratulate you on your new job. Marigold told us about it, and it sounds perfect for you.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Like the work in our garden is perfect for Dad and me.” June Friday leaned up to kiss her husband on the cheek, and he looked down at her fondly, his gaze seeming to communicate that in his mind she was still the girl who’d danced half naked to Iron Butterfly’s“In-A -Gadda-Da-Vita.”

Bemused, Zin watched them. For forty years they’d lived and worked together, and yet it remained undeniable: they still enjoyed each other.

Her father rose to his feet. “Well, we’ve got to go. Your mom wants to try out this new recipe she found for homemade incense sticks.”

Her mother stood, too, and wrapped her arm around her husband’s waist. “You take care of yourself, sweetie. If you tell your troubles to those zinnias, be sure to give them an extra vitamin boost afterward. Dad will call you tomorrow and see how they’re doing.”

Smiling despite her low mood, Zinnia followed them to the door. “Good-bye. I think you’ve made the right decision about the property.”

Her dad nodded, and hugged her with his free arm. Her mother’s arm came about Zin, too, and they stood, a little cluster of family. Flaky Fridays, but a family.

“Make sure you’ve made the right decision, too, Zin,” her mother said with a final squeeze. “I’ll light a lavender candle for you tonight.”

“Be sure not to leave it unattended,” Zin cautioned as they strolled down the pathway. “Not like those leaves . . .” But she let her voice fall, because she could tell they weren’t listening. Instead, they’d paused at the end of her walk to give each other a sweet, soulful kiss.

It was beautiful, really.

And that was when Zin saw something new about them. Sure, they were flaky. Sure, they ran out of money from time to time. But they knew how to love. They truly knew how to love.

Which meant that until now, she hadn’t learned the best lesson the Flaky Fridays had to offer.

She glanced back at the pot of flowers sitting on her coffee table. “I hope you have a couple of hours of free time,” she told them. “And at least one good idea.”

John Henry experienced déjà vu as he walked out the door of River Pharmaceuticals. Idling at the curb in front of the entrance were two limousines, both with the discreet Napa Princess Limousine Service logos on the right corners of the windshields.

“Double vision?” he murmured. But he knew better this time.

Which meant he had to make a choice. Surely Zin was in one of the two vehicles.

How much of a masochist did a man have to be? Soon he’d be spending his days with her just down the hall, pretending they’d never met, pretending they’d never kissed or made each other come, and he didn’t feel the least bit like hashing all that out again.

He headed for the second car, determined to avoid the confrontation. He’d make his point to the other driver—who could later pass it along to Zin—while hitching a four-space ride to his Mercedes. He was ready to get away that fast.

But he must have some kind of misery wish, because he wasn’t smart enough to take a breath before shutting the door behind him. When he did, it was Zin’s fragrance he hauled into his lungs. It was she who was in the driver’s seat—of the second limo, this time.

“I don’t want to do this,” he told her.

But the privacy window rose and she pulled away, the locks clicking into place as she slowly followed in the wake of the other vehicle. He pressed the intercom that communicated with the driver. “Zinnia, I have nothing more to say to you.”

She ignored him.

So he fumed silently, leaning on the leather cushions with his arms folded over his chest. Then he moved, unable to sit still, and found the refrigerator. His favorite beer was chilling there.

With a dark look at the front of the limo, he popped the top, and squeezed in one of the quartered limes he’d also found. A few swallows didn’t lighten his mood.

He wasn’t used to being out of control. Not of his movements, not of his feelings, not of any aspect of his life. Tension tightened the muscles in his neck and he felt his gut tighten too—all familiar sensations from those months when he’d thrown himself into work after his father passed away.

He didn’t like it one damn bit, and decided then and there that the love thing was effing ridiculous. He was done with it.

There was a brief pause, then the limo turned down a narrow lane and bounced gently on a rutted track. It was dark now, and the tinted windows made it darker, so John Henry didn’t know much about their location except that they appeared to be surrounded by rolling hills. Then the limo came to a stop.

He tossed back the rest of the cerveza, expecting his door to open immediately, but it was several minutes before he heard the distinctive click. Then Zin was there, her shirt gleaming in the darkness. “If you’d follow me . . .”

Scrambling out of the car, John Henry ascertained they were in the middle of a vineyard. The other limo was circling a gravel parking lot that was adjacent to what looked like a wine cave. The headlights brushed over a sign, and he discovered they were near the Tanti Baci winery tasting room. Stevie’s family’s place, Zin had told him.

“Over here,” Zinnia said.

He turned his head. A short distance away, under the spreading arms of an old oak tree, was a wreck of an adobe cottage. The splintered front door was propped open, and he could see flickering flames of candlelight inside.

“Wait . . . What . . .”

But Zinnia was already moving up the shallow steps and into the place. He found himself hurrying after her, all the while keeping one eye open for falling roof tiles and the other for scurrying rats. “Why can’t we talk in the limo?” he complained, as he ducked to clear the low lintel.

His feet stuttered to a halt as he took in the sight inside. On an old quilt, surrounded by votive candles, sat Zinnia. Her jacket and tie were gone, and she’d unbuttoned her shirt at her throat. So there were her gleaming skin, her fairy hair, her luminous eyes. Like the first time they’d met, like every time they’d been together, he felt this inexplicable, undeniable tug. It took him toward her now.

She patted the quilt beside her. “Be with me, John Henry.”

But he didn’t want to be with her! Hadn’t he just decided that? It was too damn painful to put his hopes, his frickin’ heart, in another’s hands.

And remember, she’d already refused it. “I’ll stand, thanks.”

The back of her hand pressed her lips. Then she nodded. “I know how to work hard, John Henry.”

“We’ve been through this before,” he said, weary. “Let’s let it go, Zin.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m cool with it. You win, you’re right, I’m done.” He hauled in a breath and cursed himself, because even in this musty old room it tasted a little bit like Zin. “I’ll pretend I don’t know you, and you can pretend you don’t know me.”

“I didn’t know myself,” Zin whispered. “I’m sorry, John Henry. I didn’t know myself or what I was missing when I walked away from you.”

He stilled.

“It took your father’s death and your bout with pneumonia and seven days pretending to like wine for you to get your priorities straight. Surely you can forgive me for lagging a little behind on this love deal?”

No. He wasn’t going to do it. He wasn’t going to unroll all his feelings for her to stomp over them like a red carpet to heartache. But damn, he couldn’t help clarifying. “This . . . ‘love deal’?”

“I’m in love with you too.”

For sure he’d misheard, so he sank to the quilt. “Say that again?”

“It’s crazy and certainly not businesslike and maybe—oh, definitely—flaky, but in almost no time at all I fell in love with a man who tossed some bills at me and asked for a beer and a babe.”

“A willing babe.” His chest tightened, his pulse going wild. He took a moment to inhale a breath and blow it out, still uncertain of what he was hearing. “It does seem a bit fast.”

“My father says he fell in love with my mother on a field in upstate New York while Janis Joplin sang ‘A Piece of My Heart.’ They’ve lasted forty years.”

“Those hippies had all the luck,” he said, keeping his tone mild. “Imagine it: Joplin, Hendrix, The Dead . . . Then there’s that whole Summer of Love thing.”

She scooted closer to him and put her hand on his knee. His blood rushed toward her touch, and then was waylaid by another part of his anatomy. “John Henry,” she said.

“Sweet Zin,” he whispered, his voice husky. His palm cupped her face; he couldn’t help himself.

“Maybe we could do a ‘Lifetime of Love’ thing,” Zinnia said.

He was out of defenses. For just that sweet offer, she was welcome to all he had. He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “Definitely we could.”

Then she was in his lap, in his arms, laughing and crying and giving him the kind of Zinnia kisses that made him happy and horny . . . and all hers.

It was a long time before he could look around him and see more than her lovely, loving face. But finally, with his woman snuggled against him the way she always should be, he could ask. “What the hell are we doing here, Zin? In this old place, I mean.”

“It’s symbolic.”

“It’s a wreck.”

“Take that back. I had Stevie unlock the gate for us especially. This is the original home of Alonzo and Anne Baci, who founded the Tanti Baci—which means Many Kisses, by the way—winery almost one hundred years ago. It’s a very special place for lovers, since Alonzo and Anne had a legendarily long and happy marriage, even though he was a scrappy Italian immigrant and she was a San Francisco society girl. Everybody in Edenville comes here with their sweetheart at least once in their life.”

John Henry stiffened in alarm. “Are you telling me . . .” He looked down at their naked, entwined bodies, barely covered by a quilt. “If this place is so popular, maybe we’d better get moving.”

“Not yet. Don’t be so stuffy, John Henry.”

“I can’t help it,” he said, settling back. “It’s the name. It makes me stuffy by default. So we’re going to call our kids normal things like Bill and Jane, okay?”

She rolled on top of him to stare in his face. “We’re going to have kids?” she asked, a little break in her voice.

God, she was beautiful. He pulled her up for a kiss. “Anything. Everything. Always.”

She lifted her mouth from his, her gaze searching the room. “Do you see them?”

He pushed her hair off her face, no longer alarmed. The mayor of Edenville and the board of directors of River Pharmaceuticals could be in the room, but he wasn’t about to interrupt this moment with the woman he adored. “See who?”

“Alonzo and Anne. They’re supposed to appear if they approve of my true love.”

“Well, I hope they enjoy the show,” John Henry said, rolling over so that he was between her warm, welcoming thighs. “Because, Zin-as-in-Zinnia, I’m about to approve you all the way to heaven.”