Can't Hurry Love by Christie Ridgway Read Free Book Online

mug from her hand. “What you don’t need is more caffeine,” he said, heading for the sink behind the bar.
    Grace shrank against the shelves as he passed by. Her eyes didn’t leave his massive form. “He wouldn’t hurt you,” Giuliana whispered in assurance.
    “I know.” Grace didn’t take her eyes off him as she whispered back. “He wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
    Hmm, Giuliana thought. Most people kept their distance from Kohl because of his brawler reputation and his big size. I wonder —but the idea was lost as Kohl returned to her side.
    With a hand under her chin, he lifted her face. “You need new scenery. A good meal. Go out with me tonight.”
    She hesitated. Off the top of her head, she could think of half a dozen reasons to nip Kohl’s interest in the bud. Since she’d returned to Edenville, though, he’d been the one to nurse her New Year’s Eve hangover, the one to play buffer between herself and Liam, the one who could make her smile when she was swamped by distressing financial news. “Kohl . . .”
    “Go with me,” he insisted.
    “Go with you where?” Liam asked, as he strolled into the tasting room.
    Giuliana nearly groaned aloud. The three of them had been playing out this scene over and over for months. She’d be minding her own business only to discover herself once again the muddle in the middle of the rough-cut rogue and the sleek and sophisticated society guy. Alonzo, Anne, and the original Liam had worked through this same script themselves a hundred years before, and sometimes she wondered if the Baci land really was haunted. Maybe their modern-day struggle was being forced on them by specters bent upon reliving that old romantic triangle.
    “This is none of your business, Bennett,” Kohl ground out.
    Liam slid his hands in his pockets as his mouth curved in a smile that held no warmth. “You’d be surprised.”
    “Not now,” she warned them both. She turned back to her bucket and sponge. “We open in a couple of hours and I need to finish up here.”
    “Just say you’ll let me take you to dinner later and I’ll get out of your way,” Kohl said, moving close again.
    Giuliana felt Liam’s gaze on the back of her neck. “I’m cleaning out the files in my office tonight.”
    “You hear that, Friday?” Liam drawled. “Surely you know what it means when a woman says she has to stay home to clean her files. She might as well say she needs the night off to wash her hair.”
    Giuliana shot him a glare over her shoulder. “I’m really cleaning out the files in my office tonight.” Piece by piece, she was putting the business end of the winery to rights. By the end of the Vow-Over Weekend, she’d have everything in order.
    Liam’s gaze suddenly narrowed. “Are you okay?”
    With a frustrated grunt, she threw the sponge into the bucket. “What do I have to do? Take out an ad?” Then she stopped herself, wary of protesting too much. “What are you doing back here anyway, Liam?” Surely he didn’t want to start up with the friendship thing again. The fire in her stomach flared.
    He shrugged. “Jack called and said to meet him in the tasting room.”
    “Well, he isn’t here—”
    Well, he still wasn’t, but Allie and Penn entered. “I’m telling you,” her youngest sister was saying to her husband. “I’ve looked everywhere and can’t find my watch. The one that was my mother’s.”
    “I haven’t seen it,” Penn said. As he so often did, he had his fingers tangled in Allie’s long hair, as if he couldn’t help but keep her close.
    The memory of Liam’s hand on her rose again, but Giuliana pushed it back down. “I haven’t seen your watch, either. Why are you here?” she said to her sister. “You could have just called and asked.”
    Allie glanced over, then stared. “Are you okay?”
    “I’m strangling the next person who asks me that.”
    “It’s just that—”
    “On top of the medicine cabinet,” Grace piped up. “In the washroom