Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,30

“Ryder will take care of her when you’re not around to do so. He’s a good boy. He’s turning into a great man. Maybe he already is one.” I almost choked on tears at the end of it, but I managed to sip on wine instead.

“Your husband, was he a good man?”

The question came out of nowhere, was spoken so normally that it hit me in the chest. Zeke didn’t mean harm by it. There was no menace, just curiosity.

I liked it. The nakedness of it. People were tiptoeing around me, either pretending David didn’t exist at all or going out of their way to say how sorry they were he was dead, as if I hadn’t noticed.

“Yes,” I replied. “He was a great man. He was an amazing father. Shitty poker player, which I think is deplorable considering his blue blood. He was an excellent cook which boded well for me because I’ve never had the knack for it. He worked hard, set a good example, and he was good to me. Made me happy.”

I was planning on only going with the one-word answer. Not giving too much away. As much as I would like to say it was because I was mindful of giving this man too much of me, it was more out of self-preservation. Because spilling too much about my husband was like taking a knife to my stomach, tearing through the flesh, and ripping out my innards. It was emptying myself of things I needed to keep inside in order to survive.

Was it the wine? Was it the cool, easy night—one I hadn’t had in over a year—or was it the man? The man with the midnight eyes, with the murderous air, that fucking jaw.

“You’re not happy now.” This wasn’t a question. Again, it was a naked statement, free of all the social constructs and niceties you were supposed to abide by.

“No,” I replied honestly. I searched his face. “Neither are you.”

His lip twitched. I didn’t know if it was because he was amused or pissed off, but I liked it. That I had to give away pieces of me, dripping in blood and wine in order to get it.

“Right now?” he replied. “I could say I’m the happiest I’ve been in a while.” He paused. “Good wine. Company that’s about as miserable in life as I am, maybe even more. Beautiful company at that. Yeah. It’ll do.”

I kept expecting this man to grunt responses, to live up to every alpha male stereotype. Because on the surface, he fit the bill.

There was so much more to him than surface.

“What made you come here?” I asked. “To this town? This place? Enroll Luna in Black Mountain?”

He leaned forward to pour us more wine. I watched him do it because my eyes didn’t give me much other choice. He was magnetic. Captivating. Fluid, graceful, and delicate.

“Because it’s the opposite of everything I’ve ever known,” he replied. “Opposite of everything Luna’s ever known. And everything that she deserves.”

I swallowed my reaction to this, to the pain in his voice. “You get hit on yet?”

He jerked ever so slightly. I surprised him. I was calling that a win since I didn’t think Zeke was the type to get surprised.

“By the moms at Black Mountain,” I clarified. “A lot of them married for money, status, or because they got knocked up young. Most of them are stay-at-home moms, which is a real job unless you wear four-hundred-dollar sneakers and spend half your life at the spa or hair salon. Almost all of them are unhappy and you look like the cure to that unhappiness since you’re dangerous, beautiful, and look like you’d give them the best sex they’ve had in a while.”

Holy crap.

I’d said all of that.

I’d meant to say some of it.

But not that last part. And not in the dreamy, almost husky tone in which I’d said it.

I glanced down at my glass. Zeke was a heavy pour considering the bottle in front of us was empty and this was our second glass.

But a widow trying to keep herself sane wasn’t exactly a cheap drunk. Fuck, I regularly polished off a bottle of wine on my own and was able to keep control of all of my motor functions, especially my mouth.

But give me this man and expensive wine a stone’s throw away from my home, and I was a fucking mess.

Even worse, Zeke didn’t look offended. No, he looked much more dangerous than that.

He looked like sex.

Another