Drew parked at the curb in front of the quaint, powder-blue bungalow with a gabled roof, white decorative beams, and matching white window shutters. It was dark when he’d last come here, so this was his first good look at London’s home. The right side featured a porch with green vines growing along the railing. Neat flower beds with perfectly trimmed hedges lined either side of the stone steps that led up to the front door.
It surprised the hell out of him.
He’d first pictured London living in a high-rise condo with sleek lines and ultramodern furnishings, like the corporate apartment he’d rented, only nicer. When he found out that she owned a single-family home, he’d expected lots of steel, stucco, and glass. Something with an open-concept floor plan and not a window shutter in sight.
This was…cute. It was cozy and welcoming and so unlike anything he’d expected from no-nonsense London Kelley. The woman continued to be a fascinating conundrum, and Drew was enjoying every aspect of peeling back her layers and learning more about her.
He wanted more of that this weekend. He’d decided this trip to the Hill Country would be his best opportunity to convince London to see him as something other than a temporary hookup partner. He still wasn’t sure how to properly define what they were—something between being friends with benefits and an official couple.
They were much closer to being the latter, and it was his goal to continue steering them in that direction.
Drew slid from behind the wheel of the black Porsche Cayenne he’d rented for the weekend. It had taken a minute to acclimate himself to being behind the wheel, it having been over a year since he’d driven a car. He used a car service to take him where he had to go in New York.
He walked up to the short wooden gate just as a postal worker arrived carrying a collection of envelopes and glossy mailers. The man tipped his wide-brimmed hat to Drew.
“Good morning,” Drew said, following him up the stone-paver walkway to the porch.
London opened the front door before either of them could knock.
“Hey!” she directed at Drew. She reached out a hand to the mailman and smiled. “Thank you.”
Another delivery van pulled up to the curb as the mailman started down the steps.
“You’re popular this morning,” Drew said.
“I wasn’t all that popular in high school. I’m making up for lost time,” she answered. She accepted this second package with a curious frown. “I don’t remember ordering anything, but who knows. I probably did.” She gestured for Drew to follow her inside as she tore into the padded yellow envelope.
Drew entered the house and was once again surprised by the homey feel of it. The flowered patterns, the cool blues and yellows and soft peach colors, the warm oak furniture—it was hard to reconcile this coziness with the woman he knew.
Yet another reminder that he didn’t know her as well as he wanted to.
Drew turned at the sound of London’s laugh. She held up a journal of some type, again in a flowered pattern, along with stickers, glittery pens, and rolls of colorful tape.
He lifted a brow in question. “Not something you ordered?”
“No. It’s a self-care journal,” she explained. “My friend Samiah had this overnighted because she thinks it will help me to decompress.”
Drew shrugged. “From what I hear, journaling does help some people. To me, it just seems like more work.”
“I’ll indulge her once I return home,” she said. She stuffed everything back in the padded envelope and placed it on the oak console table in the entryway, next to her mail. Then she lifted a set of keys from a ceramic dish along with her purse.
“Okay, Mr. Sullivan. Take me to the Hill Country. I’m ready to drink all the wine.” She motioned to a camel-colored duffel with leather straps that sat next to the door. “You mind bringing that to the car for me while I lock up?”
She told him that she was going to take one last glance around to make sure she’d turned off everything. Drew waited at the passenger-side door for her, opening it as she made her way down the front steps.
“Nice car,” she said as she slid in.
He stowed her bag with his on the back seat, then got in on his side and pulled his seat belt across his chest.
“Maybe I’ll consider one like this when my Mini gives out on me,” London said.
“You know, between your Mini Cooper and this house, I realize that you really are full of surprises.”
“What’s wrong with my house?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it. It’s just not what I expected. You have chintz wallpaper,” he said, putting the car in drive. “I pegged you as more of a sleek-gray-and-black-with-splotches-of-red kind of person.”
“You sound like someone who watches way too much HGTV in your spare time.” She laughed. “And you never got the chance to see my bedroom last week. Red velvet walls. Whips. Chains.”
Drew slammed on the brakes and immediately put the car in reverse. London burst out laughing and covered his hand on the gearshift.
“I’m joking,” she said.
“Don’t put that visual in my head if you don’t plan on making the fantasy a reality, London.”
“That’s a fantasy of yours?”
He looked at her as if she’d lost every single bit of her mind. “The Dominatrix Doctor? Fuck yeah.”
Laughing again, she nudged his hand, which was still covered with her own. “Take me to that winery. There’s a glass of Cabernet with my name on it.”
There were well over three dozen wineries between Austin and the small town of Hye, Texas, where his mom had lived out the last ten years of her life, but Drew had chosen the one in Dripping Springs because of its spectacular views. They headed south on I-35 and then west on highway 290, toward the foothills of the Texas Hill Country.
“Do you know the last time I was outside of the greater Austin area?” London asked.
“When?” Drew asked.
“No, I’m asking you. It’s been so long since I’ve traveled outside the city that I can’t even remember.” She released a satisfied sigh as she nestled her head against the soft leather headrest. “Thanks for inviting me, Drew. I needed this.”
“Thanks for accepting the invitation,” he said. “And, yeah, you did need this. I could tell.”
“I should bring Dr. Renault a bottle of wine as a thank-you gift. If he hadn’t forced me to take the week off, I’d be prepping for a tonsillectomy right now.”
“No, you would have been taking your sister out for that all-important talk.”
She shook her head. “That was supposed to happen this afternoon. I still had the surgery scheduled for this morning.”
“Damn, London. Do you do anything besides work?”
“I do,” she said defensively. “I get together with two of my girlfriends every Friday night for drinks and girl talk. And I have my crocheting,” she added.
“I forgot about that,” Drew laughed. “Maybe because you haven’t offered to crochet anything for me yet. What’s a man gotta do to get a beanie?”
She gave his arm a playful tap. “You make fun of my crochet and then demand a beanie? I think not.”
There was amusement in her voice, but when Drew glanced over, he caught a hint of uneasiness tightening the edges of her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“Huh?” She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just…six months ago, I didn’t have either of those things,” she admitted. “My crocheting. My friends, Taylor and Samiah. It’s only been six months since I found them. Before that, I didn’t take any time off. Craig Johnson—the asshole I thought I’d bring to the reunion—was the first guy to pop up on the dating app I joined. I was too busy to take the time to swipe through to anyone else.”
London huffed out a small laugh. “The morning after I met Taylor and Samiah, we came up with this idea—our boyfriend project—where we were going to work on goals that each of us had pushed off to the side. Samiah used her time to develop a phone app. Taylor worked on building her fitness brand and is now on her way to getting a college degree. You want to know what my goal was? To find a hobby. That’s how the crocheting came about.”
“You had to actively search for a hobby? Like, just a regular hobby?” Drew asked as he swerved into the left lane to pass a semi.
“It sounds even more pathetic when you say it out loud, but yeah, I did.”
“So you had no interests outside of the hospital?”
Her shoulders hiked up to her ears. “I’m in the final year of my residency. Where am I supposed to find the time to have interests outside of the hospital?”
Drew could tell by how quickly she’d unleashed that excuse that she used it for everything. He had to admit it was a good line. There was only a select group of people on this earth who could end their workday saying they gave parents decades more time with their children.
Yet…
“You know, London. As a doctor, it’s easy to convince yourself that being a workaholic is noble—necessary even. But you can’t allow your job to cannibalize all of your time.”
She rested her head against the headrest again and tilted her chin up to the sky. Sucking in a deep breath, she said, “I’m learning. This weekend will be a major lesson in how to let go of my work duties and just relax.” She lolled her head toward him and scrunched up the side of her mouth. “Don’t let me work on the charts I brought along with me.”
“My God, woman.” Drew shook his head. “You need this wine tour and massage even more than I thought.”
“Are we really going for massages?” she asked. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”
Drew glanced over at her and frowned. “What do you have against massages?”
“A stranger’s hands all over me? Not my usual thing.” She leveled him with a stare. “You were not a total stranger the night of the reunion, so shut up. And what happened that night wasn’t usual for me either.”
Drew laughed. “I’d offer to give you the massage if you’re opposed to a stranger touching you, but I highly recommend letting the professionals handle it. At least the first one. I can take over tonight.”
“You sound like a pro,” she said with a laugh. “Just how many massages have you had?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t kept count. But I try to get one every week.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Are you serious?”
“Stressful career, remember? Massages reduce stress.”
“For a workaholic, it sure sounds like you treat yourself to a lot of me time,” she said, making finger quotes.
“I didn’t always,” Drew admitted. “And I learned the hard way what can happen when you don’t take the time to slow down and…well…live.”
“The burnout you mentioned?”
Among other things. But he wasn’t ready to talk about his mom and the regrets over time lost with her that were carved into his very soul. It was going to be hard enough to step into her house tomorrow. Drew wanted to steer clear of any of those thoughts until avoidance was no longer an option.
“I made a promise to myself that I would take the time to stop and smell the roses, because roses aren’t always guaranteed in this life, and neither is time,” Drew said. “As you will discover later this afternoon, having a trained professional’s hands massage the kinks out of your muscles is one of life’s true pleasures.”
“This is after wine, right? I have a feeling I’ll need to get myself liquored up so that I don’t freak out.”
“I’ll be right there with you,” he said. “It’s a couples massage, remember?”
“A threesome,” she murmured. “I figured you were into that kind of stuff.”
His shoulders shook with his laugh.
As they continued toward the winery, Drew found himself wishing it were a little closer to spring. In a couple of months the highway would be flanked by millions of Texas bluebonnets. Drew had usually tried to time his occasional visits to his mom so that he’d be in San Antonio during wildflower season. He smiled, thinking of how he would pull onto the side of the road and pick a few bluebonnets and yellow daisies for her.
A familiar ache settled in his chest. He should have prepared himself for this. Even though he’d vowed not to let these memories take up space in his head until tomorrow, he should have known better than to think he could travel this road and not be pummeled by a cascade of mixed emotions.
Why hadn’t he brought his mother more flowers while she was still alive? Why hadn’t he visited her more often? The unmitigated arrogance in assuming that he would always have time with her still took Drew’s breath away. There was not a single thing on this earth that was promised. It was a brutal lesson, but a lesson learned nonetheless.
His phone’s navigation app indicated that their destination was three miles away. Though highway 290 wasn’t nearly as clogged as the city’s roadways, traffic had thickened the closer they approached the turnoff to the winery.
“Oh!” London pointed straight ahead. “It’s the party bus. My girlfriends and I were supposed to take one of those wine tours. They bring you to about a half-dozen wineries, and you don’t have to worry about not getting drunk because you don’t have to drive back. It’s perfect.”
“Well, I never get drunk, so you don’t have to worry about that,” Drew said.
She shifted slightly in her seat, turning to look at him. “I noticed that you never have more than two glasses of wine. And, don’t take this the wrong way, but your pour is pretty stingy, so it’s more like one and a half glasses.”
“I thrive on being in control,” he answered with a shrug. “The more alcohol I consume, the less in control I feel. So I tend to back off after a drink or two.”
At least that was part of it. The truth was that he trusted the science behind alcoholism and heredity, and he was determined to never turn out like the man who’d sired him. Elias had shared stories of how scary Drew’s biological dad was when he drank, how he would sit at the kitchen table and consume beer after beer after beer until he either passed out or unleashed his drunken fury on Drew’s mother.
Even as his hand tightened on the steering wheel, Drew banished those thoughts from his head. He wouldn’t allow that faceless bastard to ruin his weekend with London.
“If you want to drink more than usual, you’re more than welcome,” Drew said. “It sounds as if you can use it.”
“I’ll enjoy myself, but I promise not to get too wild.”
“Go for it,” Drew said. “You’ve earned it.”
Five minutes later, they turned in to the gravel parking lot in front of a limestone building.
“I already know I’m going to like this,” London said. They got out and met at the front of the car.
“I booked a tour at this one because the views are amazing, and they allow you to wander through the groves on your own.”
London peered at him through narrowed eyes. “You didn’t bring me out here to live out some kind of kinky vineyard fantasy, did you?”
“Now that you mention it, that sounds like a good way to spend an afternoon.” He took her by the hand and leaned over to whisper in her ear. “We can save the kinky stuff for later. For now, let’s go find that glass of Cabernet that has your name on it.”