Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 107710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107710 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 539(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
An idea occurred to her and she stepped back from the window once more, turning, hesitating for a moment, then striding into the kitchen and throwing open cabinets. Searching for a bottle of wine. Maybe an answer to the riddle would be included on the label, which she’d never bothered to read very closely.
Nothing. Not a single bottle of August’s wine in the house—he’d given them all away.
She pulled out her phone and performed a Google search with the name of August’s winery. Several critical reviews popped up. Her gaze snagged on the words undrinkable, fermented in a dumpster, kill it with fire. But of course he didn’t have a website. She’d just moved on to the second page of search results when the front door of the house opened and August stood outlined in the frame, his thick body nearly blocking out all of the sun.
His throat appeared to be stuck in the middle of a swallow.
Natalie couldn’t seem to move, could only watch him as he took a few absent steps into the house and closed the door behind him, his heavy footfalls making the floorboards groan. In the distance was the sound of a car engine starting and moving out of earshot. His commanding officer was leaving already?
“Did the . . . meeting not go well?”
August paused in the hallway leading toward the bedroom. “It went fine.” Briefly, he glanced back at her over his shoulder and she hurriedly cataloged the trench between his brows. “Thanks for going along with the whole fiancée thing in front of him. He’s going to tell everyone back on base that I’m marrying a knockout.”
When he kept walking, leaving that knee-weakening compliment in his wake, Natalie started to shiver. He wasn’t being himself. It reminded her of the afternoon of the wine tasting competition. How he’d retreated deep into that big, goofy head and couldn’t seem to find his way out. So she followed him. All the way to the bathroom. When she opened the door, he was standing with his hands braced on the sink, his head bowed forward.
“August, who is Sam?”
After a moment, his head came up, and he turned toward her, his expression weary. “He was my best friend. He . . . died in combat. Killed during a raid. Last one in. He was the last one in. I’m still not sure how we missed the target coming down the staircase. Faulty intel, they said, as if it helps.” While she digested that awful and jarring information without being able to take a breath, August’s fingers drummed on the side of the vanity. “Sam had this dream to be a winemaker. We all laughed about it. Called him Napa Daddy. But he was serious about doing it. Leaving the teams one day and buying a small vineyard, like this one. This is his dream, not mine. I’m just the one fucking it up.”
Natalie’s stomach hung down somewhere in the vicinity of her ankles. Every terrible thing she’d ever said to him came roaring back in perfect clarity, making her throat feel like it had been cut to ribbons. “August . . .”
“You’re right.” He pushed off the sink abruptly, his hoarse laugh filling the small bathroom. “I smell god-awful. I’ll take a quick shower and then we can talk about wedding stuff, huh?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Just leaned into the shower stall and twisted the handle, the sound of water pelting the tile wall filling the silence. Feeling numb down to her toes, Natalie backed out of the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Guilt burned inside every one of her organs. Made her limbs feel like dead weight. All this time, he’d been trying to fulfill this dream for his late best friend and everyone had been ridiculing him for it?
The reality of that was too much to bear.
Natalie’s hand still rested on the bathroom doorknob and she watched through gritty eyes as it turned in her grip, letting her back into the now-fogged-up space. What am I doing? No idea. But she knew that she’d been extremely unfair to the man on the other side of the shower curtain. He was clearly hurting after having painful memories dredged up . . . and she wanted very badly to comfort him. In any way she could.
Maybe the only way she could in this exact moment?
Natalie untucked her T-shirt from the waistband of her skirt, pulling it off over her head. Her skirt dropped to the floor, followed by her sandals. Her fingers hesitated for only a moment on the front clasp of her bra before releasing it. Baring her breasts to the hot, foggy room. Too eager to touch him to realize she still wore her mint green panties, she walked slowly to the curtain and drew it back, stepping into the stall.