Chapter One
When Grace Danvers saw Jaime Martínez for the first time since he’d rejected her advances, she almost fell out of a window.
Before her near defenestration, Grace had been having a fairly good day. It was lovely and warm for November, as two days prior it had been in the thirties, while now it was edging into the upper sixties by mid-morning. Grace had forced herself to go to the vineyard, River’s Bend, that morning to drop off a cell phone charger for her brother Adam, who was the vineyard’s owner. River’s Bend had just hosted its first wedding and was currently working to expand into events after it was hit with three bad years of harvest.
That wedding had also been the place Grace had thrown caution to the wind and had told Jaime about her feelings for him.
She winced thinking about it, standing in the open waiting room at River’s Bend. After telling Kerry, the front desk woman and Adam’s assistant, that she was here, Grace waited for her brother to come see her, as she also needed to talk to him about attending family dinner that evening. She could go back to his office to see if he were in, but Adam’s fiancée Joy McGuire tended to lurk there, and Grace had no intention of barging in on them doing…things. Just recently engaged, the two of them had a tendency to exhibit more PDA than any sister wanted to see.
So Grace waited. She stared out one of the windows. The screens were currently gone, as Adam wanted to replace a number of them after summer had ended. She was glad of his timing, otherwise she’d be standing in a swarm of mosquitoes. Grace inhaled the fresh air, trying not to dwell on who else was here at River’s Bend right this second—like Jaime.
Jaime Martínez: River’s Bend executive chef and the most beautifully striking man in the history of the universe. Well, at least to Grace. When she’d been eighteen years old, newly arrived Jaime had let her share his umbrella when a summer storm had suddenly moved in, walking with her to her house. It was only after they’d arrived that she’d realized he’d gotten soaking wet while she’d stayed dry under his umbrella. But he’d just grinned and had said goodbye on her front porch, his dark hair plastered to his head as he had gone back out into the storm.
She’d loved him ever since.
For five years, she’d loved him from afar. Until the wedding, when she’d ruined all of it by asking him to kiss her. He’d told her that he wasn’t the man for her and had walked off. After that, Grace had avoided Jaime as best as she could.
“Grace.”
She froze. She was turned away from the source of the voice, and she wondered—rather wildly—if she could act like she hadn’t heard. But then she heard the person step toward her, and she knew the reckoning had come.
Turning, she looked at Jaime for the first time in a week, and her heart almost burst from her chest. He wore his usual jeans and t-shirt with an apron tied around his waist, although unlike his sous chefs, few stains marred the bright white. His hair had grown overlong, and the ends curled slightly. His eyes, dark and usually full of mischief, were now looking at her with an expression of discomfort that filled her with guilt.
“Your brother wanted me to tell you he was out giving a tour but will be here soon. Or you can give me whatever it is you brought for him.” Jaime sounded normal, except for when he’d said “your brother.” His voice had grated on the phrase, like it was painful to pronounce.
Grace stepped backward. She couldn’t speak; her throat closed. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
Jaime stepped toward her, and she stepped back. She didn’t even realize she was doing it.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice quiet.
She almost laughed. No, my heart’s broken and I’m an idiot, but what’s new? She wanted to tell him that seeing him made her want to crawl into a hole and die. She wanted to apologize. She wanted to go back in time and tell that Grace to keep her mouth shut.
She stepped back. Then back again. And then she realized too late that her heel had hit the wall, and she was pitching backward, falling through the open window into some shrubbery below.
But she didn’t fall into the shrubbery. Jaime moved with more speed than she thought possible, and then his arm was around her waist, keeping her from tumbling headlong out the window.
He hadn’t let her go yet—that was the first thing she noticed. The second thing she noticed was how warm his arm was around her waist. And the third thing was that he gazed at her with such naked longing that her skin prickled.
Her voice finally returned. She whispered, “I’ve wanted to tell you. I just, I’m…”
His gaze roved over her face. She could feel his fist clenching against her back. He opened his mouth to speak—
“Jaime,” Adam asked as he approached them, “why exactly are you holding my sister out a window?”
Grace squeaked. Jaime yanked her upward and then let go, so quickly that Grace felt dizzy. Had he almost kissed her? But now he wouldn’t even look at her, so was that just some kind of fluke?
Then she realized they hadn’t responded to Adam’s question. Her brother stood, his arms crossed, looking at them suspiciously.
“I almost fell out of the window,” Grace blurted. At Adam’s eyebrow raise, she explained, “I wasn’t paying attention and tripped. Jaime kept me from falling, that’s all.”
Jaime stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Yep, I didn’t want her falling into some prickle bush.”
“Uh huh,” Adam said. He kept glancing back and forth between the pair, and Grace could feel a blush climbing up her cheeks. Did he know that she’d thrown herself at Jaime? Her blush grew brighter. She couldn’t look at Jaime. She was sure her guilt was written all over her face.
“Well, I’m going back to my office. Jaime, could you give me the next week’s menu whenever you get a chance?” Adam uncrossed his arms, but he still kept watching them.
“Sure, I’ll get it to you within the hour.”
If Grace didn’t know any better, she’d say that Jaime’s voice was forced. If she strained her own eyes, she could make out how stiff his shoulders were and how he looked like he’d rather be anywhere else than in front of his boss and friend, Adam Danvers.
“Okay…I’ll see you two later. Be careful, Grace.”
As Adam left them alone, Grace let out a soft sigh of relief. She really, really, really didn’t want her older brother to know she’d confessed her feelings to his executive chef.
“I need to get to work.” Jaime didn’t even give her a chance to respond before stalking off to the kitchen. Grace watched him, his shoulders still stiff, his hands in his pockets, and all she could think about was how dark his eyes had gotten when she’d told him how she felt.
Guilt coiled in her gut, along with the desire and the emotions and the love that made Grace Danvers’s inner life more interesting than her outward life. Jaime obviously wasn’t happy about what had happened between them, and she’d instigated it.
Grace hated when people were upset with her; her family called her the queen of apologies, even when an apology wasn’t necessarily warranted. But she had a feeling she needed to apologize this time because she made things uncomfortable between them. Jaime wouldn’t be feeling so awkward if she’d kept silent.