Crazy about Cameron: The Winslow Brothers #3(10)

“Oh God!” she whimpered, cringing as she raced back to the front door. She swung it open, and Cameron, who was about to knock again, fell forward, just as he had the other morning, catching her around the waist and hauling her against his chest.

His eyes were bright green and wide as they stared down into hers, and his body pressed against hers with every quick, shallow breath he took. Leaning her neck back to look up into his eyes, she felt her body light up like it had just been screwed into a three-hundred-watt socket, every nerve ending on high alert. The heat of his hand against her hip. The steel of his arm pressing against her back. His belt buckle flush against her belly. His eyes boring into hers like he was helpless to look away.

“Meggie,” he murmured. “I—”

“Sorry,” she said, daring a quick glance at his lips as she wet her own, “for slamming the door in your face.”

“Not that I don’t deserve it,” he said gently, his lips quirking up just a little.

“Do you?” she asked breathlessly.

“Sure,” he said, loosening his arm around her. “For all those times I was such a jerk to you in the elevator.”

And just like that, the spell was broken. Because he was right. He was a jerk to her—she had no business mooning over him like a lovesick teenager. He didn’t deserve her regard, and as for her attraction? Muster a little dignity, Margaret! She could try her best to ignore it.

Not a date. A meeting.

Margaret stepped back, smoothing her hair and lifting her chin. “Yes, well . . .”

“Really, Meggie.” He shook his head, grinning down at the floor before looking back up at her. “Margaret. I owe you an apology. It’s been a stressful time at work, and every time I run into you, I’ve been boorish. I’m sorry.”

She searched his face, wanting to believe in his sincerity, but cautious too. This was the same boy who’d gone out of his way to exasperate her as a child, who’d been, in his own words, boorish for months. Trusting him was out of the question. But could she open her heart enough to accept his apology and give him a chance to change her opinion of him?

Margaret. I owe you an apology.

Stranger than Cameron Winslow offering her an olive branch? The way her heart had clenched with sorrow when he corrected himself and called her Margaret. How wrong it sounded slipping from his lips. How unaccountably sad it made her feel.

“Meggie.”

“What?” he asked, crinkling his forehead. “But you hate—”

“Meggie,” she said again, her voice quiet but firm. She didn’t attempt to explain why. Honestly, she wasn’t sure she could.

“Okay. Meggie,” he said, a grin spreading his lips and making his eyes shine and sparkle. “Good thing, because I would have slipped, you know.”

“I know,” she said, sighing like it bothered her even though it didn’t—not even a little bit, which was so surprising, she couldn’t help giving him a small, bemused smile. “What I don’t know is whether or not you like Pinot Noir.”

He winked at her. “I do, in fact.”

She gestured to the living room with an open palm, looking at him from under her long lashes. “Then make yourself comfortable, and I’ll pour you a glass while we wait for Geraldo.”

As she poured the glasses, her hand trembled a little, and she rested her palms on the kitchen counter for a moment to catch her breath.

What had just happened? Had she just willingly made amends with her lifelong tormentor and triple-secret crush? Her heart raced as she wondered what this meant. She’d reached the ripe old age of twenty-nine perennially at odds with Cameron Winslow. She didn’t even know what a truce between them would look like.

But it felt . . . like flying. Like soaring. Like something worth hoping for.

Reaching for the wineglasses, she pushed through the door to the dining room, her boots across the parquet floor warning him of her approach. She found him standing in front of her sofa, looking at an oversize picture book entitled Grapes, which had a gorgeous cover picture of a Tuscan vineyard at misty dawn.

“Nice book,” said Cameron, placing it back on her coffee table.

“It’s my favorite,” she confessed, handing him his glass.

“That’s what you did, isn’t it? When you were in Europe? Didn’t I hear somewhere that you studied wines?”

She nodded, swirling the dark red goodness in her glass, ridiculously pleased when he unconsciously did the same. If he’d guzzled a giant sip without showing any respect, it would have told her something important about him and crushed something delicate and hopeful.

“I loved learning about wine—drinking it, making it. Almost more than anything. I think I’m more at home at a vineyard than I am anywhere else. In fact, I have a, well . . .” Her excited voice trailed off. She was about to tell him about The Five Sisters, but she didn’t know what he’d think about her owning her own vineyard, and it would hurt her feelings if he laughed at her dreams of becoming a local vintner.

“What do you have? Tell me.”

“Promise you won’t make fun?”

He nodded, his eyes almost tender. “I promise, Meggie.”

A new warmth sluiced through her from his use of her nickname: now that he had permission to use it, she found she savored the sound of it. She grinned up at him. “I have a vineyard. That is, I own one.”