Christmastime Cowboy. Maisey Yates

been working at the winery?” he asked.

      “It’s been thirteen years since you were back in town, Liam. Did you really think I was only going to have one job for my entire life?”

      “Hell no. Not for one second. But I also figured that you would go to some big East Coast school. And I certainly didn’t think you would have come back to the winery after it had passed out of your parents’ control. What does your dad think of that?”

      “He thinks poorly of it,” she said stiffly. “But that’s fine. He thinks poorly of me.”

      Liam huffed out a laugh. “Now that isn’t true. Your dad thinks you’re everything. Believe me.”

      “Right. Is that some coded reference to the fact that he paid you to leave?”

      Liam felt as though he had been punched in the stomach. “You...”

      “I know. I know why you left. I know that my father offered you money to leave. You didn’t just run away because my naked breasts offended you. In hindsight, I was never sure if it was better or worse that you had an incentive.” She swallowed hard. “I have to say, it’s actually good to know that you did something with that.”

      “That I did something with what your father gave to me?”

      “Yes. Because whatever we were about... Our friendship, whatever you want to call it... If you were going to sell it, Liam, I’m glad that you got something out of it. I’m glad you went to school. Not because I’m happy for you, but because at least I know I got traded for something bigger than a really fast car that you were just going to crash in the end, or something.”

      “I already told you that what I did was a kindness to you. You were seventeen years old, Sabrina.” He crossed his arms and watched her. She was agitated, her shoulders twitching, her lips pressed into a thin line.

      “Right. Right. And you were protecting me from your big bad penis. I know. And you know what? Maybe if you had just left I would believe that. But you took a payoff, and then you left. Mostly, I think that my virginity wasn’t worth however many thousands of dollars my father paid you. I think that for you sex was cheap, so you might as well go have it with someone else with a flush bank account. Why not? But you know what, it doesn’t matter anymore. Because I don’t regret that we didn’t...you know. I just don’t. But I don’t need you up on any high horses about it.”

      “Why did I end up at the big university and you didn’t? I swear to God, if that bastard gave me your money...”

      She looked stunned. By his anger, but he didn’t know why. As if he didn’t have any conscience at all? Yeah, he hadn’t been the nicest guy where she was concerned. Or in general, but he didn’t think he was entitled to money that had been earmarked for her education. No way in hell. If he had been told that, he wouldn’t have taken it. Bottom line.

      “No. That’s not what happened. My family had more than enough money to send you, me and a few Dickensian street urchins to the university of our choosing. My father and I had a falling-out after you left.”

      She looked so arch, so stiff when she said the words. And at the same time, so immeasurably fragile. He wanted to reach out and touch her. Not the way that he had done earlier in the day, unthinkingly placing his hand on her lower back. Even if he wasn’t in the habit of doing that with women, it was still something of a generic touch.

      No. He wanted to trace the line of her high cheekbones, down the edge of her jaw, to explore the changes in her face.

      The new hollows in her cheeks, the slight little crinkles at the corners of her eyes. To learn the thirteen years he’d missed through touch, as well as through talking to her.

      She had always made him want things like that. Things he didn’t understand. Things he had certainly never wanted with anyone else.

      Liam had not been...chaste. Not in the last decade, and certainly not before. But Sabrina had never been about sex. At least, not entirely.

      “What happened?”

      “It doesn’t matter,” she said.

      “The hell it doesn’t. Your father is a puppet master,” he said. “If he can’t control it, he doesn’t like it.”

      She shook her head. “No. What I did wasn’t okay.”

      “What did you do?” he repeated the question.

      She closed her eyes, looking pained. “I got drunk and shouted something... Something I shouldn’t have. In front of the most influential people in the county.”

      “What did you say?”

      She met his gaze, looking somewhat defeated. “Oh. I just revealed to all in attendance that my mother was having an affair.”