Crazy about Cameron: The Winslow Brothers #3(67)
(Turn the page for a sneak peek at Campaigning for Christopher!!)
(Excerpt from Campaigning for Christopher, The Winslow Brothers #4 by Katy Regnery. All rights reserved.)
Chapter 1
Julianne Crow’s feet hurt.
No, not hurt.
Burned like they were on fire.
And no wonder…she’d been on them for almost six straight hours, out in the middle of nowhere at some vineyard, waitressing at a wedding for a bunch of entitled, elitist asses. Speaking of the gluteus maximus, hers had been pinched about three dozen times, she’d been leered at fairly consistently since her arrival and twice she’d been propositioned outright about having a “quickie.”
But worst of all was the blonde moron in the Brooks Brothers suit and fraternity tie who’d had the gall to ask her “Dot or feather?” after staring at her face with narrowed eyes and licking his lips suggestively.
“Excuse me?” she’d responded, dumbstruck that he’d be so glibly insulting.
“Dot or feather?” he’d asked again, grinning at his cohort, who took his scotch on the rocks and cocktail napkin from her proffered hand.
His friend sipped his drink, having the decency to look embarrassed. Though not enough decency, apparently, to intervene, she thought acidly.
“I’m sorry,” she’d said, barely able to keep from snarling at his overtly racist inquiry and determined not to entertain it, “but I don’t understand the question.”
“What kind of Indian are you?” Brooks Brothers snickered, his blue eyes sharp, his smile mean. When she didn’t answer, he shrugged. “Dot would’ve at least gotten the joke. Feather it is.”
Her eyes blazed with fury and embarrassment and frankly, if she had a feather with her, she would’ve liked to shove it up his ass. Instead, with all the dignity she could muster, she offered him a brittle smile and turned to walk away. She refused to sink to his level, but he had inadvertently made her mission tonight that much easier.
As she walked back to the bar inside the massive tasting room of The Five Sisters vineyard, she reviewed the instructions she’d been given before the reception: find the youngest of the bride’s four brothers—a tall, blonde man named Christopher Winslow—slip the Rohypnol in his drink, and then she’d have about twenty minutes to get him somewhere private before the drug kicked in completely.
Still upset about the mean-spirited joke courtesy of Brooks Brothers, she slammed her empty silver tray down on the copper wine bar, making it clatter loudly.
“Whoa,” said Joe, the gray-haired bartender whom Julianne knew from previous waitressing gigs. “That bad?”
“Worse,” she said. “These guys are total *s. White, rich, entitled, arrogant *s.”
“You just gotta shake it off.” Joe chuckled softly, setting two shot glasses on the bar and pouring two whiskeys. He nudged one over to her and picked up the other, holding it at eye level between them. “To you, Jules. Remember me when you make it big, huh, kid?”
She huffed softly, her anger slowly ebbing away as she picked up the other shot glass and rolled her eyes at Joe. “Yeah, right.”
He knocked back the shot and placed the glass directly in the soapy sink before him, washing it out and rinsing it quickly. “You don’t have enough faith in yourself. You’re a beautiful girl, Jules. Young and smart, too. You’re gonna go all the way.”
Julianne lifted her glass in a short salute, then leaned back and pressed the cool glass to her lips, letting the whiskey burn a trail down her throat before placing the shot glass back on the copper bar gently. “Thanks, Joe.”
“Alrighty now. What can I get you?”
“Two vodka martinis straight up, a Seven and Seven on the rocks, and…” She thought about Christopher Winslow, whom she’d been watching steadily, yet covertly, throughout the evening. “…a Dewar’s. Neat.”
“You got it, kid.”
He shuffled down the bar, grabbing a bottle of Seagram’s, and Julianne turned around, slipping out of her torturous black heels and leaning back against the bar for a few moments. Reaching up, she grabbed her long, straight black hair in her fist and lifted it from her neck, sighing as the cool evening air touched on her damp skin.
She frowned at the pretty barn-like room before her. Overhead rafters were wrapped with white tulle and twinkle lights, which gave the entire space a soft, romantic glow. Over three hundred white chairs in mostly-neat rows sat forgotten as wedding guests ate, drank and danced at the tented reception outdoors.
Joe was wrong. Julianne did have faith in herself.
She wouldn’t have left her home in South Dakota and traveled all the way to Philadelphia if she didn’t faith in herself. She wouldn’t have signed a contract with Reingold if she didn’t have faith in herself. She wouldn’t be working these godawful catering gigs to make ends meet if she didn’t have faith in herself. She absolutely had faith in herself. She just didn’t have much faith in the rest of the world.
“You wanted that Dewar’s neat, right? No ice?”
Julianne let her thick hair fall onto her neck and turned back to Joe, wincing as she slipped her feet into the tight, hot heels, making every blister scream in protest.
“Neat,” she confirmed, thinking about Christopher Winslow sipping the amber liquid with no ice and hoping it was Dewar’s and not something fancier. By now, however, at his fourth or fifth drink, perhaps he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway.