Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 60864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 304(@200wpm)___ 243(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60864 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 304(@200wpm)___ 243(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
We’d had a good time, but it wasn’t like it could happen again. I’d rather just put it behind us and move forward.
Since going into work at the same time as Derek just made sense even if I didn’t technically have to be there that early, I offered to help the kitchen staff get things prepared for the first service of the day. As we were working our way through the prep list, I had a question for Derek but realized he wasn’t in the kitchen.
“Has anyone seen Derek?” I asked.
Most of the heads in the kitchen stayed ducked down over their work and shook, but one lifted up to meet my eyes.
“Try the tasting room,” one of the prep cooks said. “Most of the time if he’s not here in the kitchen, he’s down there with his brothers.”
I nodded and made my way the short distance to the tasting room. This was the space where guests could come and try samples of the wine being offered at the vineyard. Sometimes the tastings even included new wines that hadn’t been released yet or that were just being experimented with so the King brothers could get opinions about them.
Ally told me the tasting room was also one of the venues on the vineyard offered for private events. They were still very much in the process of building up attention for the vineyard and getting public attention for it, but they hoped in the coming months and years it would become even more of a destination.
As I was approaching the tasting room, I heard voices and knew I’d found him. The heavy wooden door to the room was propped open, so I took one step through the doorway and waited until Derek noticed I was standing there.
“Hey,” he said, gesturing to me. “Come on in. Meet the guys.”
It was the first time I’d seen all five of the brothers in the same space together at one time. In fact, it was the first time I’d met two of them. At that point, I’d been around long enough it struck me as odd I still hadn’t met two of the five, Cameron or Alex. I’d heard about them, and now that I saw them standing there, I knew I’d seen them walking by in the distance or having dinner in the back corner of the restaurant after they finished up work for the day.
“I just had a quick question for you,” I said, walking toward him. “I don’t mean to interrupt.”
Derek shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.” He gestured at me. “This is Jodi. She came into the restaurant and saved my ass. Jodi, these are my brothers. You’ve already met Kane and Noah. This is Cameron, and this is Alex.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said.
Derek looked at Cameron. “Jodi here is also a twin.”
As soon as he said it, a flicker of regret went across his expression. I could tell he wished he hadn’t brought that up. After our conversation about my past and what I had run from, invoking thoughts of my brother wasn’t exactly the most comfortable move, but I pushed past it. He was just trying to bring up common ground and offer bits of information about me so the other men could get to know me.
“My twin is a brother too,” I pointed out.
Cameron nodded, a serious look on his face. “So, the two of you are super identical.”
“No one can ever tell us apart,” I said without missing a beat. “Especially when I go a few days without shaving.”
That made a smile stretch across his face, and the others laughed. When I glanced over at Derek, he gave me an apologetic look, but I quickly shook my head to dismiss it. The truth was, I’d worried that not meeting these two brothers meant there was something terrible about them. But the banter put me at ease, and I realized I really liked them. The King brothers were proving to be great guys all around. It was a surprise there were any of them left on the market, especially two of them.
As we continued to chat a little, I couldn’t help but check them all out. Derek was certainly the oddball. His light hair and piercing blue eyes stood out against the much darker coloration of his brothers. But as a group, the five of them were all extremely attractive. Most families with multiple attractive children also had that one who didn’t seem to fully get the memo.
Not an issue with the King brothers. There wasn’t a single ugly duckling in sight.
After a few minutes of batting around stories about the vineyard and my first couple of weeks on the job, Noah’s head lifted like he’d noticed someone at the door. I looked over and saw Ally coming in. She hadn’t been in the kitchen that morning, so I was glad to see her.