actually went dry.
If it was shallow to respond in a purely sexual manner to such a well-toned physique, well, then, she was shallow. She was also very close to whimpering.
She swallowed a mouthful of wine instead. “I, uh, thought you were sleeping.”
“I was,” he told her. “Until I heard the patio door slide open.”
His protective instincts were obviously very finely honed—or at least a lot more so than her father’s. Philip Wilder had never noticed when his fourteen-year-old daughter snuck out of the house, or maybe he’d just never cared.
Regardless, she should have remembered that she wasn’t alone in the house and put on a robe. Of course, it was Zach’s presence that had kept her awake—and while she might have excused her inability to sleep as a result of her concerns over Emma’s custody, she knew that was only part of the reason for her restlessness. The other—and maybe even the bigger part—was her awareness of this man.
She was definitely aware of him now. Aware and wanting and fervently cursing her hormones for not having the sense to realize how perilous wanting him could be.
She set down her glass and tucked her legs up against her chest so he couldn’t see the hard peaks of her nipples pressing against the thin cotton of her shirt, so he wouldn’t guess how desperately she wanted him to touch her, kiss her, take her.
She ignored the heat that coursed through her veins and said, “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
He dropped down onto the lounger beside hers but sat so that he was facing her. “You definitely disturb me.”
Paige thought it was probably wiser not to respond to the blatant innuendo, and so she said nothing. Not even when he reached for the wineglass she’d set down.
He lifted it to his nose, sniffed. His brows rose and he tipped the glass to his lips. There was something strangely intimate about him drinking from her glass, putting his mouth where hers had been.
He swallowed, and his lips curved again. “Stonechurch Vineyards merlot. The silver label Special Reserve.”
“You saw the bottle on the counter,” she guessed.
He shook his head. “My parents run the winery. Or maybe I should say that they used to run the winery. My sister, Hayden, took over most of the operations a few years back.”
The revelation that she was drinking wine his family had made was as surprising as the realization that he had a family. It just wasn’t something she’d thought about until he’d mentioned wanting to take Emma to California.
It was difficult enough to admit that this man might be the little girl’s father, that he would have a legitimate legal claim to custody of the child who had taken complete hold of her heart, but she’d never considered that he might be able to offer her so much more than his name. That he had parents who could be Emma’s grandparents, a sister who could be her aunt and maybe even an extended family who would want to be part of her life.
But all she said was, “I didn’t know you had a sister.”
“Three of them, actually,” he told her.
“You’re one of four kids?” She thought about how busy she was just chasing around after Emma. “Wow, that must have kept your parents busy.”
“I always tease Hayden—she’s the youngest—that they didn’t have more than they could handle until she was born because that’s when they finally quit.”
“What is her response to that?”
“That the real reason they stopped having children was that they’d finally had the perfect one.”
It was the affection she heard in his voice as much as his response that made her smile. “She’s the one who works at the winery?”
He nodded.
“What do your other sisters do?” she asked, genuinely curious about the siblings she’d only just realized he had.
“Lauryn is a doctor and Jocelyn is a college professor.”
“And you fly planes,” she noted, thinking that his parents definitely hadn’t raised any slackers.
He nodded. “It’s all I ever wanted to do.”
“Why the military?”
“I heard a rumor that chicks dig a guy in uniform.”
She smiled because she knew it was the response he expected. And because she didn’t doubt for a minute that he’d found himself the object of countless affections, though she wouldn’t assume that had anything to do with the uniform. Because even out of uniform, in only a pair of unzipped jeans, he was all too appealing.
She took back her glass of wine and swallowed a long, bracing gulp.
“What about you?” he asked. “Did you always know you were going to be a lawyer?”
“No,” she said. “In fact, I was in my second year studying geology when I had to vacate the apartment I was renting because it flooded. I ended up staying with a friend and the landlord took me to small-claims court to sue for nonpayment of rent.
“Of course, there was no way I could afford a lawyer to defend against the claim, so I started researching the law myself. In the end, I countersued for breach of contract, pointing out that I couldn’t be expected to live in an apartment that was eighteen inches underwater.”
“And you won,” he guessed.
She nodded. “That’s when I decided to go to law school.”
He shifted so that his knees were almost touching the side of her chair. The denim looked faded and worn and a lot softer than the rock-hard muscle that flexed beneath the fabric. Good Lord, just looking at the man’s quads had her heart pounding inside her chest and her fingers itching to touch. Instead, she curled them tighter around the glass.
She finished off her wine and stood up so that the lounger was between them. “And that’s where I met Olivia,” she reminded him—reminding both of them—of her close friendship with the woman who had been his lover and had likely given birth to his child.
“I cared about Olivia,” Zach told her, standing to block her access to the door. “I wouldn’t have been involved with her otherwise. But I wasn’t in love with her, and she wasn’t in love with me.”
She lifted a shoulder. “Your relationship with Olivia really isn’t any of my business.”
“And yet you keep throwing her name out whenever the topic of conversation touches on anything remotely personal, as if you’re deliberately putting up barriers between us.”
“She was one of my best friends.”
“Are you afraid that she would disapprove of my being here?”
She shook her head. “According to the letter you showed me, she wanted you to have the chance to get to know Emma.”
“I’m
