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In His Eyes
What if everything he thinks about her is wrong?
Hugh Lawson and Zoe Waters have a tangled history. But she left ten years ago and he’s put her behind him. Except she’s here again—just when Hugh’s ready to make an offer for her family’s legendary vineyard. And her version of those long ago events is enough to make him question everything he thought he knew.
Hugh can’t let the past destroy his plans for the future. Which means he has to unravel the truth. But as he does, he begins to realize that he may have been as responsible for what happened as Zoe. And that going back could be the only way to move forward.
Zoe studied him curiously
Hugh couldn’t bring himself to look away.
If it was possible for ten years of hurt to be conveyed in someone’s eyes, then Zoe had mastered it.
When she spoke, her voice was soft. “Hugh, it was all a long time ago. We’re both very different people now.”
He certainly hoped so. They were going to have to find a way to deal with each other without this massive lump of history coming between them every time their eyes met.
Hugh wanted to buy Waterford—that meant discussions, negotiations, meetings. Interactions he intended to conduct as an adult, not a broken-hearted seventeen-year-old.
Dear Reader,
Like many people, I really enjoy an occasional glass of wine. It’s a reward after a hard day’s work, or a way to mark a celebration—whether it’s a birthday, an achievement or simply friends coming together to enjoy each other’s company.
I’m lucky enough to have two close friends, Kim and John, who own their own boutique winery—and make a very delicious shiraz. I’ve had the opportunity to do a little work with them over the years, and have seen from the inside both the pleasures and sheer hard work that come with winemaking. I’d like to thank Kim and John for their help with the insight into winemaking and their patience with my frequent questions. Any errors I’ve made are my own.
In this story, my heroine, Zoe, says it takes people of “steely determination and unwavering passion” to succeed in the industry. She’s right. I’ve visited wine regions in various parts of the world, and I will never forget the day I visited a winery where a frost had destroyed the estate’s entire grape crop the night before. Can you imagine? I would be inconsolable. But the owner shrugged and said something like, “It happens. There’s always next year.”
In a way, writing is very similar. It is an art, but there is a little science to it, too. Things don’t always turn out the way you think—characters sometimes have their own plans for themselves. And “steely determination and unwavering passion” are pretty much prerequisites for becoming a romance author!
I hope you enjoy Zoe and Hugh’s story. They’re two people with lots of passion and determination—they just need to find a way to apply it to what their hearts are telling them!
I’d love to hear from you. Visit me at www.emmiedark.com.
Cheers,
Emmie Dark
In His Eyes
Emmie Dark
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
After years of writing press releases, employee newsletters and speeches for CEOs and politicians—none of which included any kind of kissing—Emmie Dark finally took to her laptop to write what she wanted to write. She was both amazed and delighted to discover that what came out were sexy, noble heroes who found themselves crossing paths with strong, but perhaps slightly damaged, heroines. And plenty of kissing.
Emmie lives in Melbourne, Australia, and she likes red lipstick, chardonnay, sunshine, driving fast, rose-scented soap and a really good cup of tea.
Books by Emmie Dark
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For the OC Babes, without whom none of this would have happened.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EXCERPT
CHAPTER ONE
ZOE WATERSDROVEUPTHE long, rutted drive and noted that the pale green farmhouse ahead of her desperately needed a new paint job. But then, it had needed one for as long as she could remember. Only these days—more than ten years since she’d last been here—it was beginning to seem as if the flakes of paint were what was holding the crumbling weatherboards together.
Zoe wasn’t sure whether she should feel comforted that so little had changed or disgusted by the neglect.
She pulled into the yard behind the house and climbed out of the rental car, stepping carefully to avoid the soft, squelching mud threatening her inappropriately delicate shoes.
The signs of dereliction were even more obvious here.
A strange, melancholy sense of déjà vu settled over her as she looked around. Now that she surveyed things closer up, it was clear that not only did little appear to have changed—pretty much nothing had. Everything had just decayed a touch more. The scattered car bodies near the back fence had rusted a little redder and sunk a little deeper into the overgrown grass. The door to the shed that held the tractor and her grandfather’s other old-fashioned and outdated farm equipment was crooked, the top hinge clearly broken.
Zoe sighed heavily and leaned against the car, warm from the two-hour drive from Melbourne.
The task ahead of her seemed to grow exponentially as she surveyed the ruins of Waterford Estate.
The only building that still looked in reasonable condition was the tin shed and converted refrigerated shipping container that housed the winery. Well, what passed for a winery on the Waterford estate. She wondered if all those rich people in Sydney, California and France on the Waterford mailing list who so eagerly awaited her grandfather’s vintage Shiraz each year would feel quite the same way if they could see where it came from.
She sighed again and ran a hand through her hair as the wind whipped the long strands into her eyes. Wrapping her light jacket more tightly around herself, Zoe shuddered—she’d forgotten the icy chill of the wind out here and how it could leach into your bones. Too much time in California. Too used to the endless sunshine and warm breezes, unlike the capricious weather of this part of the valley—stinking hot in summer, subject to grape-endangering frosts seemingly out of nowhere in spring. Right now—winter—the weather was at least somewhat predictable. Cold. With a side of rain and wind.
She mentally surveyed the contents of the suitcase still sitting in the boot of the car. She was going to have to buy some new clothes.
A trip into town. Yippee.
The thought sent a different kind of shiver through her.
Turning away from her survey of the ruined outbuildings, Zoe shielded her eyes from the weak sun. The Waterford vines stretched out in long, bare lines to the north and east of the house, dormant for the winter yet still visibly neglected. It was a tragic state for any viticulturist to see—some of the oldest vines in the valley, planted by Zoe’s great-great-grandfather and tended by a member of the Waters family for more than a hundred years.
Until now.
To her left, the well-tended vines of the neighboring Lawson Estate—her family’s rivals for her whole life—grew just a few feet from the property line. Zoe made an effort not to look, to pretend that across the post-and-wire fence there was just a big, empty nothing. Just as she’d always done—at least when her grandfather was watching.
The only way she could get through these next few days was to pretend Lawson Estate didn’t exist, the township of Tangawarra wasn’t there and Waterford had a protective force field around it. She snorted at the fanciful idea at the same time she wished it could be true.
Zoe pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head as the sky clouded over. Heavy, slate-gray clouds waited on the horizon. Rain was definitely on the way. More rain from the looks of the sodden ground. She shivered again. Maybe even a storm.
At least that would give her a break. A few hours to sit and catch up with everything that had happened in the past few days. Perhaps even the chance to turn her brain to the task of working out what to do next.
The very thought started a headache throbbing at the back of her neck.
Just as she made a move to dig out her belongings and find her house keys, the sound of a vehicle reached her. A white utility truck bumped along the corrugated dirt track that led from the unsurfaced road. It had prominent signage along the side—elegant black script, a flowing red ribbon—unmistakably the Lawson Estate logo.
She swore under her breath.
She couldn’t have had a day or so—a few hours maybe—to get her bearings before facing reality? It seemed the universe wasn’t going to extend even that small kindness to her.
Zoe stepped toward the ute as it pulled up beside her own bland white rental car. The driver’s face was hidden in the shadow of a straw, American-style cowboy hat. It struck her as odd—most men in the valley preferred the very Australian Akubra or a simple cap, most often embroidered with the logo of their winery.
The driver cut the engine and climbed out. Time slowed somehow, and Zoe was conscious of every moment. The scuffed R. M. Williams boots that hit the ground first. The tight-fitting jeans, worn almost white around the knees and crotch. The chambray shirt that had once been crisply ironed, but was now creased and loosened by a day’s work. The stubbled jaw—not quite bearded, but wearing more than a five-o’clock shadow—that gave his familiar face a hard, almost savage edge. And last—but never least—those blue eyes, shocking, tormenting blue. The blue eyes she’d dreamed of for ten years; the blue eyes that had been her ruin.
“Well, if it isn’t Zoe Waters,” he drawled.
Zoe’s knees turned to jelly, and as her vision began to blacken at the periphery she realized she’d stopped breathing. Through pure force of will she took in a deep lungful of air and strengthened her wobbly legs. Fainting now would be an unacceptable humiliation. From somewhere deep inside, from the core of steel that had been honed over a lifetime and never before failed her, she managed to paste a tight, unwelcoming smile on her face. She’d show him how little she cared, even if it killed her.
“Hugh Lawson, well, well,” she managed to say, pleased that her voice conveyed exactly the right tone of distaste.
“So the old man finally let you come back.” Hugh was smiling, but his eyes were cold. There was no hint of the warmth or humor she remembered from so long ago.
Was he angry with her? What on earth for? She was the one who had lost everything…her family, her reputation, the only real home she’d ever known.
She managed another grim smile. “The old man died yesterday.”
He hesitated and his cool look faded as concern creased his brow. She felt an odd satisfaction at the knowledge she’d unsettled him, but she clasped her hands tightly to hide their sudden tremor. It had been ten years, for heaven’s sake! She’d moved halfway around the world to escape from her past. She was over it. The mistakes she’d made as an infatuated sixteen-year-old little girl were not going to taint her whole life. She’d made sure of that.
“I’m…I’m sorry to hear that,” Hugh said. His eyes lost their hard edge for a moment and Zoe remembered how easy it had been to fall for him, how easy to think herself in love and to be fooled into thinking he might love her in return.
Hugh took a step forward and reached out a hand. For a moment, she thought he was going to hug her and a mess of emotion washed over her. Mostly, though, she was filled with horror at the idea that she looked as if she needed comforting. She stiffened and took a step back.
Hugh’s hand immediately dropped. Whatever he’d been thinking, whatever sympathetic gesture he’d been about to make was now hidden behind that impenetrable blue gaze.
“Yes, well…” Zoe flicked out her hands in a helpless gesture. Apart from anything else, she had no idea what to do with sympathy; it had been the same when the nurse at the hospital had expressed her condolences. Her grandfather’s death still wasn’t real. Even when it did eventually sink in—assuming that happened—she wasn’t sure how she should feel about it. Sad? Relieved? Indifferent?
She straightened her shoulders. “Why are you here?”
That laconic smile was back, warmer this time, more like the Hugh she remembered, erasing the years from his face and making him look just as he had when they’d snuck away to be together. “Neighbors look out for each other around here, Zoe, don’t you remember that?”
Irritation flared inside her at his veiled reminder. Just where had he been when she’d needed looking after?
And she was over this. Over him.
Yeah, right.
She couldn’t help raising her eyebrows in disbelief at his comment. “Neighbors might. But you know as well as I do that that never applied to the Lawson and Waters families.”
Hugh ignored her. “One of our groundskeepers saw the car,” Hugh continued, gesturing to her white sedan. “We knew Mack was in the hospital, so I thought I’d check it out in case…you were up to no good.” He grinned slyly.
Zoe swallowed her storm of emotions somewhat unsuccessfully, frustrated with herself for feeling them in the first place. The only way to deal with this was to appear as unaffected by their reunion as he seemed to be. As unaffected as she wanted to be. “Thank you so much for your concern,” she said, putting on a sarcastically polite tone. “But there’s no need. You can leave now.”
“Ah, Zoe. Still the angry little firecracker, I see.” He shook his head, then his expression softened. “Are you okay, though, really?”
His condescension made her emotions burn brighter. The fact that he could still see through her, that he remembered anger was her default defense mechanism, was the final straw. “You can leave,” she repeated. “Now.” Zoe dug her fingernails into her palms as she struggled to rein in her response. She must surely be drawing blood.
His gaze swept over her, a lingering glance that created an entirely different kind of heat. When his eyes met hers again, they were subdued, a little clouded. She’d have given anything to know what he was thinking.
“It’s…good to see you again, Zoe. To see you looking so…well.”
Well? What was that supposed to mean? Before she could ask, he turned on his heel and climbed back into the ute. With a short, salutelike wave against the brim of his hat, he was gone. Zoe let out a long, relieved breath and refused to think about the disappointment that washed over her as she watched the car disappear down the track.
At least that was over. Seeing Hugh Lawson again was the thing she’d been dreading most. Now she was just left facing a small town that had always hated the sight of her, dealing with her grandfather’s funeral and his estate, and single-handedly producing the last-ever Waterford Estate vintage. Compared to facing the love of her life who’d abandoned her when she’d needed him most, all that should be easy.
Pushing those thoughts away, Zoe headed toward the house, intent on getting started with the seemingly impossible tasks in front of her.
* * *
THEFIRSTJOBTOTACKLE was organizing her grandfather’s funeral. In comparison to her day-job of managing the production of a multi-million-dollar wine vintage, that was a snap. And not just because her grandfather’s controlling nature hadn’t receded an inch, even right at the end. She should have expected that a man like Mack Waters would have made all the arrangements himself. Especially once it had become clear that the cancer wasn’t going to let him escape.
A simple melanoma on his balding head, burned away like the many others he’d had in his life. Only this one had grown, burrowing below his epidermis, reaching out its ugly tentacles and infiltrating his skull. Once it reached his brain stem it had been only a matter of days.
Mack was too stubborn to leave his funeral to chance—or to risk someone else mucking it up. He wanted what he wanted. And at the time, he’d probably thought it unlikely that his granddaughter would come home to do it for him.
Hadn’t stopped him calling her, though. Zoe wasn’t sure who’d been more surprised—herself when she took the call, or Mack when she’d answered. She’d always made sure Mack had a phone number for her when she made one of her frequent moves, but he rarely used it.
Besides, by the time she got here—still reeling from the shock of her unexpected, and still impossible to explain, decision to take leave from work, pack a suitcase and jump on a plane—he was lucid only in short bursts. It hadn’t stopped him from loading her up with guilt and forcing her to make promises she’d had no intention of keeping. But Zoe had stayed and held his hand at the last.
Mack had opted for a church service, a shock to Zoe since she’d never known him to set foot inside one. Apart from her sightseeing visits in Europe, neither had she. Certainly not this modest, clinker-brick, slate-roofed building that sat on a grassy slope just on the outskirts of Tangawarra township.
The storm that had threatened yesterday still hung low on the horizon. For now, the sun was shining through the stained-glass windows, sending beams of colored light crisscrossing through the dusty air of the church.
As per Mack’s instructions, it was a private funeral—invitation only. And the list consisted of one person: Zoe. She couldn’t help a rueful grin as she surveyed the half-dozen mourners behind her as she sat alone on the front pew. She didn’t recognize any of the other mourners—all women, she noted. They were probably professional funeral-goers, women the minister had asked to attend against Mack’s wishes, just so the church wasn’t completely empty.
Mack wouldn’t be happy about that. His exclusive
funeral was his final joke on the town he loved to hate—and who loved to hate him. That the valley’s most prestigious wine was made by a grumpy, antisocial misanthrope wasn’t lost on the tightly knit community of Tangawarra.
The plain, dark wood coffin at the front of the church stayed silent. No more complaints from Mack. Not anymore.
Zoe swallowed a suspicious lump in her throat.
She was actually grateful for her grandfather’s unsociable wishes—no public announcement of the
funeral, no notice in the local paper. Because if they’d known, Zoe was sure that more members of the Tangawarra community would have turned up—just out of curiosity and that bizarre schadenfreude that was part of small-town life. They’d nod knowingly with superior looks on their faces. The thing of most interest to them wouldn’t be the coffin or the service, but Zoe herself, sitting alone in the front row. She could just imagine them critiquing her hairstyle, her makeup, deciding that her gray pencil skirt and beaded red-and-gray knit sweater weren’t somber enough for the occasion. The fact that she’d worn red lipstick would be a scandal talked about for weeks.
Because they knew the true reason behind Mack Waters’s sad and miserable existence. Although he’d never gone out of his way to make friends, everyone knew his life had been ruined when he’d been saddled with his hell-raiser of a granddaughter to bring up.
Zoe gave an inner shrug—she could understand why he hadn’t wanted the judgmental, gossipy town at his farewell. Neither did she.
Thankfully, the minister kept the service short. One of the anonymous churchgoers read a short passage from the bible. Again, Zoe had no idea why. The minister’s eulogy was polite and for the most part accurate—praise for Mack’s wine making, including a glowing quote from a prestigious wine reviewer, a short note about the tragic loss of his wife and then his daughter, an unexpected mention of his pride in his granddaughter’s success in the California wine industry. Zoe guessed the minister had to say something about her, since she was sitting right there.
So far, so good. The first promise she’d made to Mack—to give him a private, low-key funeral—was almost over. Pity it was the easiest promise of them all.
When she walked outside into pale sunlight, following his coffin, she realized she should have known better. Dozens of people stood around, women with grim smiles aimed at her, men with hats held to their chests.
Tangawarra was an impossible place to keep a secret—she should have learned that years ago. It was also an impossible place to tell the truth, but then that was the dichotomy of small-town life.
“Zoe?”
A woman in a pale blue fleece windbreaker stepped closer as the undertakers pushed her grandfather’s coffin into the hearse. She appeared to be in her mid-fifties, and had the sun-weathered look of someone who worked outside. Zoe frowned, searching her memory to try to put a name to the face.
“My condolences,” the woman said. “Mack was a stubborn old coot, but it’s always hard to lose a loved one.”
Loved one? She and her grandfather had tolerated each other; that was about as far as it went. Zoe just nodded. “Thank you.”
She wished, once again, that she’d thought to pack a winter-weight coat. The morning’s chill still hung in the air. She’d clearly acclimatized to the California weather far more than she’d thought. Zoe was finding the valley colder than she’d ever remembered—a deep, gnawing ache that had gone away only last night when she’d soaked herself in a steaming hot bath. Of course, she’d had to clean the tub first, which had helped warm her up a little, too.
“I’m Patricia Owens. From Long Track Estate—just up the road from Waterford.”
Zoe had seen the sign to the vineyard, neighbors to Waterford on the side opposite to the Lawson Estate, but the woman still didn’t seem familiar.
“We bought the property about eight years ago. Mack was a good neighbor. We used to chat—sometimes
shared pickers and the like. I liked to look out for him—especially in the past year or so when he was beginning to get frail.”
Zoe tried to push away a stab of unwanted guilt. Mack hadn’t phoned her until it was too late—there was no way she could have known that she needed to be home. And even if she had…
At least she’d come back in time, so he hadn’t been alone at the end. She’d given the old man that much, at least.
“Thank you,” she said, giving the other woman a genuine smile. “I really appreciate that.”
Patricia gave her arm a squeeze. “Mack talked about you—he was so proud of what you were doing. You must come by and visit us—are you staying at Waterford?”
Zoe nodded, holding her surprise inside at the unexpected repetition of the words the minister had used in the eulogy. Mack? Proud of her? Zoe was an award-winning winemaker with a reputation—spanning two continents—for quality, perfectionism and an innate talent for bringing out the best in grapes. But she’d never considered what people back in Tangawarra—including her grandfather—thought of her. She’d run so fast to get away from the tiny town, in her mind it was still just as it had been ten years ago. Complete with her own starring role as the town’s one and only teen rebel. She’d never stopped to think that they might see her differently now.
