The venture he had in mind had nothing to do with restaurants. “Why don’t you give your friends a call,” he said, his smile as polite as hers. “Tell them you’ll be a little late.”

She sucked in her breath. Obviously, she’d been in the convent too long when she was interpreting bland statements like that as sexually explicit invitations. He was probably just talking about wine tasting.

“Stay awhile,” he murmured, holding her gaze for a provocative moment, her little sucked-in breath having kicked his libido into overdrive. “Fill me in on the local scene or”-his voice lowered-“say… your vineyard… or whatever.”

Okaaay-that wasn’t about wine tasting or, for that matter, about actual conversation. It was pretty much about sex.

So now what?

It wasn’t as though she was completely averse to impulsive sexual encounters. And it wasn’t as though Jake Chambers was a complete stranger. Although she didn’t know how much that mattered in her current lecherous mood.

So-cool reason or rash impulse? What would it be?

“I’d better not,” she said, telling herself that self-denial was a virtue. “But thanks for the invitation.” Then, turning, she walked away while she still could.

Four

As the kitchen door shut behind her, Jake offered up a small prayer of thanks to whatever Zen spirits had saved him from his own stupidity. A couple of hours from now he would have been wondering how the hell to get some woman he didn’t know out of his bed.

Remember dude, you’re the guy who is going to live a hermit’s life for a while.

After years in the celebrity glare that included the usual celebrity groupies, he was on a self-imposed rest cure, looking for that something different in his life. And let’s face it, a woman like Liv Bell, ex-model and vineyard owner in a state that had snow on the ground five months of the year, did not exactly qualify. She would have been more of the same-just another beautiful blonde. And sometimes too much of a good thing was too much of a good thing.