Back To Us (Shore Secrets 3) by Christi Barth Read Free Book Online Page A

shown up fifteen minutes before the rest of her staff, just as she did every morning. She’d paired her crisp white shirt and shamrock-green cardigan with wide-legged pants and platform pumps. If only she felt as good as she hoped she looked.
    She wiped her hands on a towel and tossed it to the skinny man retying the half apron at his waist. “Jeffrey, I’m going to head back into my office for a few minutes. You’ll hold down the fort out here?”
    “No problem, boss.” His eyes twinkled as he slid a folded paper out from beneath the stack of tasting slips. “I’ve got a sudoku to fill the time until the next tour bus comes.”
    “As long as no one sees—”
    “Sees me working on it. I know. My job is to give all my attention to our guests. I
know.
”
    “Guess I trained you well,” she teased.
    The door swung open, and Piper bit back a sigh. If it was more than just two people, she should really stay out here and help Jeffrey. But oh, it’d be wonderful to sit in her wing chair and close her eyes for exactly ten minutes. She let her lids flutter shut, in the faint hope that when she opened them her luck would’ve turned around.
    “Hey, Piper.”
    That voice. Raspy and dark, like the constant
two days past scruff
he kept on his chin. Two words were all it took to recognize him without so much as opening her eyes. But she couldn’t hide from his hotness forever. Piper sighed and blinked. There he stood, looking as bad-boy sexy as ever. Black jeans. Black tee. Thick hair that always looked like some woman had just tousled it in bed. Or so she imagined, never having gotten to experience that particular fantasy when they’d dated.
    “Hello, Ward.”
    “You busy?”
    Piper gestured with both hands at the empty tasting counter. “Lunchtime lull,” she said with a laugh.
    “Right. We’ve got the same thing going on over at the distillery.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows. Officially, they provided a view of a portion of Morrissey Vineyard’s prized grapevines, with the blue expanse of Seneca Lake beyond. But Piper knew it was possible to see the tall white tower of Lakeside Distillery. If you stood exactly six paces from the end of the counter and looked left.
    “What brings you here in the middle of the day? Did you come to grab a bottle of our pinot noir for a hot date tonight?”
    “I wanted to talk to you.”
    That was...unusual. The two of them didn’t chat alone. Not anymore. Not in years. “Just me?”
    “Yeah.” His eyes crinkled at the corners, as though his face was thinking about pulling itself into a smile. “No blood was spilled the other night when it was just the two of us. Figured I’d press my luck.”
    He could press anything he wanted against her. On her. Whatever. Piper untied her own apron and tucked it on the shelf beneath the counter. “Okay. I’ll live dangerously. What’s up?”
    Ward’s gaze shifted to Jeffrey, then back. “Not here. Is there someplace else we can talk? Someplace private?”
    “Oh. Sure. Follow me.” Piper led him down the hallway lined with framed medals. Gave a passing thought to how glad she was the tasting room didn’t actually connect to the winery, where her dad kept an office. Because he’d be less than thrilled to see Ward in his business. Then she remembered that it was Wednesday. Her father would be busy with golf at the club all day. Still, it felt somewhat akin to the times she’d snuck Ward into her bedroom in high school. Very illicit.
    “Here we are.” Now his visit had even more of the secret boyfriend vibe. Because she was showing him her intensely personal office for the first time. The place she poured her heart and soul into. The place he’d never set foot, never asked to see even after they fell back into their tight four-way friendship with Ella and Casey.
    Would he approve of the comfortable wing chair tucked into a corner? The glass-topped wine barrel she used as a desk? Would