Page 9 of Prospector's Peak

The wine was twist-off, thankfully, so I didn’t have to bother with a corkscrew. There were two glasses on the credenza. I was in the middle of pouring the wine when there was a light rap on the door.

Brooks appeared. He was wearing a pair of faded jeans and an old black cotton T-shirt.

I wished he hadn’t gotten dressed.

“I’m doomed,” I mumbled.

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said, holding out a glass of wine to him.

“I don’t drink,” he said.

“You don’t?”

“No.”

I frowned. “Then why did you accept my offer to share the bottle of wine?”

“Because you don’t want to be alone.”

I scratched my ear. “That obvious?”

He nodded.

“Chocolate?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Are you allergic?”

“No, I just don’t have a taste for it.”

I sighed. “So, you’re going to watchmedrink wine and eat chocolate?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you watch TV?” I asked.

“No. Is that what you want to do—watch TV?”

“I want to do anything except think,” I said. “So whatever remedy you have for that, I’m open to it—just as long as it’s not talking.”

He raised his brows.

“That came out completely wrong. I didn’t mean anything by it, I swear.”

Amusement stamped across his lavish mouth, but thankfully he let it go.

“Sit. Relax,” Brooks said.

Impossible with a hulking, devastatingly attractive cowboy in my feminine, chintz-draped room. But I sank onto the bed and sipped the wine. “Oh, that’s terrible.”

But then I took another drink.

He laughed. “If it’s terrible, why are you drinking it?”

“Because bad red wine and chocolate is still better than no red wine and chocolate. Get it?”