Crazy about Cameron: The Winslow Brothers #3(23)

Cameron walked around a newly rebuilt wooden building bearing a crisp green sign that read “Barrel Shed” over the door, and continued up a gravel path, past another rebuilt building that read “Ferment Shed.” He could see where Margaret had focused her renovation efforts: on the vineyard itself and the outbuildings required to make wines. Last would be the massive winery building and tasting room because it was, functionally, the least important of the structures for making wine. But the most important, he mused, for bringing in tourist income and branding her business. He hoped she wouldn’t become so immersed in the artistic winemaking end of things that she’d neglect the potential for tourist and event business. Did she have a good business manager? If not, he would be sure to recommend one. A female one.

Looking up from the brambled path, he saw the cottage the old vintner had mentioned, and realized he’d been right: there was no way he would have missed it.

Tucked into the woods, it was like the cottages he’d seen in the countryside of his mother’s native England. Small and charming, with a sharply pointed thatched roof, it had window boxes under the two lower windows and one upper. A small brick pathway, flanked by wildflowers of all colors, led to the doll-like front door, which was painted robin’s-egg blue. It was like something out of a dream or a fairy tale, and Cameron stood gaping with his pastries by his side for several minutes.

Here was Margaret’s heaven.

He felt it in his bones—her signature on this magical place, the way she was coaxing all of it back to life with her passion and vision. And suddenly, Cameron wanted to be a part of it too, somehow, someway. To earn a portion of the peace she was building—to bask in it, to share it.

He knocked lightly on the door, wondering if she was home and half expecting a fairy or some other mythical creature to open the door.

“Coming, Shawn!”

He heard her voice from inside—from upstairs, he thought. He leaned to the side to peek into the window, but the room inside was dark and he couldn’t see anything.

“I know I overslept, but I hope you were able to—”

The door opened abruptly, and there, in the doorway of the enchanted cottage, stood Margaret Story, a drowsy, tousled angel, and the warm-blooded woman of Cameron Winslow’s favorite and filthiest fantasies.

Her glasses were missing, and her hair hung loose and long, falling in waves past her shoulders. His hungry eyes slipped from her hair to her neck, trailing lower to the V of a plush white terry cloth bathrobe that showcased the skin of her chest and upper neck. He lingered there for a moment before letting his eyes skate lower, to the belted knot at her tiny waist, then to her bare feet, which, he noted with a barely concealed groan, had cherry-red toenails.

Her gasp made his neck snap up, and his eyes slammed into hers. Whatever he’d long imagined about how Margaret would look if she ever loosened up? It paled mightily next to the vision before him. She was, hands down, the most unintentionally sexy woman he’d ever seen in his entire life.

“Cameron!”

“Meggie,” he choked out, the sound a twisted-up groan. He cleared his throat, willing his body to calm the f*ck down. “Um, I . . . I needed to . . .”

She gathered the lapels of her robe in her hands, pulling it closed, her brown eyes searching his face with undiluted surprise. “You needed to . . .?”

“You’re f*cking stunning,” he murmured, the words as shocking to him as they were to her.

“What?” she squeaked, her eyes widening, almost impossibly, to saucers.

Get it the f*ck together, Cameron.

He clenched his jaw. What the hell was she doing answering the door looking like that anyway?

“I brought breakfast,” he said gruffly, thrusting the bag toward her and wondering what she was wearing under her robe. Christ, was she wearing anything at all? What if she was naked? What if the only thing between his palm and her skin was a glorified towel? His body responded to the thought, his blood coursing hot and fast to his cock, which swelled against the zipper of his jeans.

She licked her lips and pursed them together, reaching for the bag without dropping his eyes. “Cameron, what are you doing here?”

“I need a favor,” he said in a gravelly voice, letting his eyes rest on her tangle of chestnut waves, and forcing himself not to reach for one of the thick strands to test its softness with his fingers.

“A favor? From me?”

He nodded, placing one hand flat on the doorway, as much to hold himself up as lean a little closer to the bed-messy goddess before him. “Is Olson here?”

“No.”

“Can I come in?”

She shrugged halfheartedly, looking down at her bare toes before peeking back up at him. “Last night . . .”

“I was an *. I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“Why am I sorry?”

“Why were you an *?” she whispered.

Her eyes. Her f*cking eyes looking at him like that. How was he supposed to lie to her?

“Because he was touching you.”

“That’s silly! He was just—”

“Doesn’t matter why, Meggie,” he muttered, lifting his chin just a touch as she stared up at him.

She dropped the hand that had been holding her robe together, and as she opened the door for him, he caught a glimpse of the warm, creamy skin just over her breasts.