“Evenin’,” Dmitri said in greeting. The big guy didn’t smile; he walked up to the driver’s door, waited for the window to finish its roll down and cocked his head to the side. An unfinished hand rolled cigarette hung out of one side of his mouth and smoke swirled around the black Stetson on his head.
“Can I help you with somethin’?” The tall man gripped the edge of the window with both large hands as he looked down menacingly at Dmitri seated inside the truck.
Dmitri didn’t like the look on the guy’s stubbled chin. It wasn’t a bad looking face up close; it was just as unfriendly as could be. He looked the guy up and down…, well more like up from where he sat in the cab of the Bronco. The cowboy looked all of that and more, a rugged, masculine well proportioned man who smelled vaguely of sweat and leather, Dmitri’s two favorite things. The first thought in Dmitri’s head was just how tall the man was. He had to be at least six five or six six with the boots he wore and he filled out the low slung, loose fitting jeans perfectly, bulges in all the right places. Dmitri’s mouth went dry and it took two throat clearings to answer the cowboy.
“Yeah, I’m Dmitri Hernandez, your new vintner,” Dmitri said slowly, lifting his chin. The man cracked a sideways smile, his cigarette balanced between the shapely lips.
“Ya ain’t my vintner,” he drawled before turning away. “Park it and come along,” he barked over his shoulder as he took off back down the drive in the direction that Dmitri had just come.
Dmitri grumbled to himself at the gruff man’s greeting and stomped on the emergency brake before opening the door and sliding out. He shut the door with a bang and stuffed the keys down into his jeans before noting that the man had turned the corner of a tall hedge and was no longer in sight.
