The Ashtons - Cole, Abigail & Megan

degrees. “You know how you hate to get wet. Time to come in.” No sign of him.
    It was probably just as well Cole had taken off. The reminder of his priorities could only be good for her, even if, like a lot of things that are good for you, it tasted nasty going down. But dammit, when a man announces his intention of inspecting a woman’s tattoo, he ought to stay around long enough for her to turn him down.
    Funny how alike she and Cole were in some ways, she thought, crossing to the next row. Most people don’t take their pets with them on business trips. Yet in other ways, they stood on opposite sides of a chasm.
    Of course, it wouldn’t be odd for Tilly to go with him if it wasn’t really business that had taken him away.
    No. She shook her head. Cole had faults—huge, heaping bunches of them. But unless he’d changed beyond all recognition, he played fair. No lies, no tricks. Besides, she couldn’t picture his mother fibbing for him.
    Dixie smiled. She liked Caroline Ashton Sheppard, even if the woman was the source of some of Cole’s more irritating assumptions about the female half of the gender divide. Had Caroline been born a couple thousand miles to the east, she would have made a great Southern belle—gentle, soft-spoken, with an innate sense of style and a will of iron.
    She liked Cole’s stepfather, too. Lucas Sheppard was one of those salt-of-the-earth types who serve as a reminder to cynics like her that not all men are cads, little boys or idiots.
    Another thing she and Cole had in common, she thought wryly. They both had father issues.
    Of course, his went a lot deeper. Dixie’s father hadn’t meant to die and leave her, while Cole’s father had abandoned him intentionally. Not that Cole had told Dixie about it, not Mr. I-Don’t-Talk-About-Personal-Stuff. But Mercedes had. When Cole was eight, Spencer Ashton had walked out on his family to marry his secretary, somehow swindling his wife out of most of her inheritance. He’d never looked back.
    There was no sign of Hulk. Dixie called again, but she didn’t expect him to answer. Hulk would show up when he darned well pleased.
    Ah, well. She’d felt duty bound to try. Shaking her head, she turned and headed back. Even in winter the vineyards were a pleasant place to stroll, with the aisles between the rows of vines green with a cover crop of legumes and barley. Russ had told her the plants would be tilled under in the spring, adding nitrogen to the soil.
    Sure didn’t seem like winter, though. The grass was green, for one thing. Most people grew cool-season grasses here, and that’s what she’d grown up with…but she’d been away a long time. Long enough for it to seem both strange and strangely familiar to wander around outside in January without bundling up.
    Which led to the subject of clothes. She had a winter wardrobe she’d not be able to…
    Who was that? Dixie stopped, frowning. Therewas a man standing in front of The Vines. Not one of the vineyard workers, she thought, though he was dressed casually, in jeans and a plain shirt. But she’d met all of the workers now, hadn’t she?
    Maybe not. She’d have remembered this one—a tall, rugged sort, he looked as if he’d just ridden in off the range. Though there was something vaguely familiar about him…intrigued, she headed his way.
    “Hello,” she said as she drew near. “You looking for someone?”
    He turned. There was gray in his dark hair and interesting crinkles around his eyes—from squinting as he rode off into the sunset, she decided, amused by herself. “Not really. Just curious.”
    “The winery loves curious tourists,” she assured him, “but not until ten o’clock, when the tasting room opens. This area is private property.” She cocked her head. “You look familiar.”
    “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said politely. “Are you one of the owners? The, ah, Ashtons?”
    “No, just a temporary employee and a friend. It’s the head shape,” she said, pleased to have figured it out. “And something about the set of the eyes. If I could line your skull up next to Cole’s and Eli’s, I’ll bet the occipital surfaces and zygomatic arches would be identical.”
    He looked faintly alarmed. “I hope you don’t plan to make the attempt. You’re a doctor? Or an anthropologist?”
    She laughed. “None of the above. An artist. Youwouldn’t be some long-lost Ashton cousin, would you?”
    He shook his head and studied her a moment longer, a