Once Upon a Wine

by Beth Kendrick

  “Wow.” She offered the half-eaten fruit to Ian. “Taste this. Is it really this good, or do I just think it’s this good because I’ve been working on it every day for a month?”

  He tasted it, deliberating. “Does it matter?”

  She decided it didn’t and plucked another berry. “These can’t possibly get any better.”

  “Yeah, they can,” he promised. “Just wait.”

  She hated to say these words because she knew it would ruin the moment. But she couldn’t lie—not to him and not to herself. “I can’t wait. I can’t stay.”

  “You can—but you won’t.” He turned his whole body away from her.

  “I have to go, Ian. I’ll regret it for the rest of my life if I don’t.” She waited for the tension in his back to soften, and when it didn’t, she rested her palm next to his shoulder blade. “You can visit me. Call me. Wait for me.” Her voice was high and light, and she knew that she shouldn’t try to appease him like this. She shouldn’t explain or apologize, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.

  He finally shifted his body so he was facing her. “How long do you expect me to wait?”

  She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. “Two years, maybe three. We can take turns flying cross-country. I’ll have Christmas and spring break and summers. Long-distance relationships can work.”

  “Delaware to California is pretty damn far,” he said.

  She desperately hoped he would say that she was worth the wait, that he’d never met anybody else like her. But he didn’t. He stared at her with that cool, assessing look in his eyes.

  So often when she’d dated boys in college, she’d wished she could find a guy who knew what he wanted. A guy with confidence and unwavering conviction. Now that she’d finally found that in Ian, it had backfired. He knew what he wanted most, and it wasn’t her.

  She forced herself to meet his gaze without speaking. No more cajoling. No more hopeful propositions for long-distance relationships. They’d met only two months ago. What did she really know about him, other than what he’d told her? What made her think that they could be happy if they stayed together?

  She got to her feet and dusted the dirt off her hands. “You know what? Don’t worry about it. This was just a summer fling, anyway.”

  He followed her, took her hand. “Hey. This isn’t just a fling.” He paused. “Not for me. I asked you to stay here forever and I meant it.”

  She stared down at the rich, dark soil that kept him rooted forever to this life and this town.

  “This is it.” His voice hardened as he let go of her hand. “Stay, Cammie. I’m not going to ask again.”

  • • •

  She hadn’t stayed. She flew to California, and she didn’t hear from Ian. She didn’t contact him, either. She moved on with her life and assumed he’d moved on with his. But for years, she associated the smell and taste of strawberries with the summer they’d spent together. Every now and then, after a grueling night on the restaurant floor, she checked the weather blogs he’d recommended. Eventually she’d come to see their romance as sweet and poignant puppy love, a moment of her youth that could never be recaptured.

  But now she was back in Black Dog Bay. And he was still here. The strawberries she’d been hulling brought back a flood of feelings.

  While the sugar water cooled, Cammie found a lemon in the refrigerator, rolled it hard against the counter to make juicing easier, then squeezed the juice into a little glass dish. She added the strawberries, lemon juice, and grated lemon peel to the water.

  “What are you doing?” came a sleepy voice from the doorway.

  Cammie turned to find Kat, bleary-eyed and blinking against the overhead light.

  “I’m making my mom’s strawberry wine.” Cammie glanced at the big metal pot. “Trying to, anyway.”

  “The strawberry wine they would never let us have?” Kat asked.

  “Yeah.” Cammie frowned down at the faded handwriting on the recipe card, which she was viewing via her phone screen. “It says to mash the strawberries and lemon juice gently. How do you mash gently?”

  “Step aside.” Ginger appeared next to Kat in the shadowed doorway. “Let an expert take over.”

  Cammie obliged. Ginger muttered to herself while she rummaged through the kitchen drawers.

  “Why are you up?” Kat asked.

  “How could I sleep with you girls yelling and carrying on down here?” Ginger retorted.

  “We were barely whispering,” Kat said.

  Ginger harrumphed, and Cammie suspected that she wasn’t the only one battling stress-induced insomnia. They were all freaking out but they refused to admit it. Everyone was putting on a good face, holding the line. And maybe that was the right thing to do. Maybe that would get them through to the grape harvest and beyond.

  Speaking of which . . . “I have to get up really early and walk the fields tomorrow.” Cammie stifled a yawn and sat down at the kitchen table. “Plants never sleep, you know.”

  “Worry about that tomorrow.” Ginger located a potato masher. “Right now, watch and learn.”

  Cammie and Kat watched Ginger muddle the berries with warm water and sugar, then drape a dishcloth over the pot.

  “Now what?” Kat eyed the faded red gingham.

  “Now we wait for two days. In the meantime, don’t touch.” Ginger slid the pot on top of the refrigerator with Kat’s help. “Cammie, what on earth possessed you to start making strawberry wine in the middle of the night?”

  “You and Mom always said I could try it when I grew up.” Cammie rested her bare feet on the edge of the chair and hugged her knees to her chest. “I think I finally qualify.”

  The three of them stayed up late into the night, chatting and snacking and playing a cutthroat game of Uno with a deck of cards Kat found in a kitchen drawer. Everyone straggled off to bed as the first light of dawn crept over the dark horizon.

  “I’m only going to get like an hour of sleep,” Cammie warned. “There’s weeding and fertilizing and watering and pruning to be done.”

  “We’re with you,” Kat vowed. “Bright and early.”

  “Up and at ’em,” Ginger agreed. “Just need a little catnap.”

  With the whole house smelling faintly of strawberries and lemon, they all went to bed.

  The next thing Cammie knew, it was noon and someone was pounding on the front door.

  chapter 8

  Cammie startled awake, glanced at the clock, and tumbled out of bed. She felt disoriented and desperate for a shower and a cup of high-octane coffee.

  The doorbell rang, followed by the rapping of knuckles against the window.

  “Coming,” Cammie yelled, her voice hoarse, as she threw on a robe and hustled downstairs. She smoothed back her hair and opened the door.

  “Josh.” She was shocked to see Kat’s husband. “Hey. What are you doing here?”

  Even in jeans and a baseball cap, Josh Milner looked like the philosophy professor that he was. Placid and thoughtful, he was the counterbalance to Kat’s constant, frenetic adrenaline.

  “I thought I’d have breakfast with my wife. Yesterday was the last day of classes.” He shifted, revealing a small brown-and-white dog in the crook of his arm. “Is she here?”

  Cammie rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. She felt like she should hug him or something, but she wasn’t wearing a bra and she hadn’t brushed her teeth. They could hug later. “Hang on a second. I’ll go wake her up.”

  “She’s still asleep?” He looked surprised, which was understandable, considering Kat’s energy level. “Was she out late last night?”

  “We all hung out in the kitchen, making strawberry wine and playing Uno.” Cammie smiled. “We’re officially old.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Kat keeps saying.”

  She invited him into the fron
t room, where he took in the makeshift bar and upended barrels.

  “I like what you’ve done with the place,” he said.

  “Yeah, we’re kind of in transition.” Cammie looked at the dog. “Who’s this little guy?”

  Josh shuffled his feet, clearly self-conscious. “This is Jacques. Listen, Cammie . . .”

  Something in his tone made her snap to attention.

  “I know we haven’t talked much, but I have to ask: Does Kat seem different to you?”

  Cammie edged toward the staircase. “Different how?”

  “I don’t know.” He took off his cap. “Something’s going on with her. She won’t talk about it. She used to tell me everything, but then she moves out of the house and won’t answer my texts.”

  “I’ll . . . go see if she’s up.” Cammie put her foot on the bottom stair tread.

  “And since when does she play Uno?” His dark brows snapped together. “She hates card games.”

  Cammie moseyed up to the landing, then sprinted the rest of the way to Kat’s tiny room at the end of the hallway. Before she could knock, the door swung inward. Kat gripped the doorknob, her eyes wild. “Is that Josh down there?”

  “Yes.” Cammie pointed toward the stairs. “He wants to take you to breakfast.”

  “What the hell? What is he doing here?” Kat clutched the doorframe for support.

  “I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him.”

  Kat hugged the frame even closer. “What am I going to do?”

  Ginger cleared her throat, startling both of them. “Are you aware that Josh is downstairs?”

  “Yes,” Cammie and Kat chorused.

  “Then why are you up here, ignoring him?”

  “I’m not ignoring him,” Kat hissed.

  “They’re going to breakfast,” Cammie said helpfully.

  Kat panicked. She turned to Cammie and commanded, “Tell him I’m sick. Tell him I’m throwing up and supercontagious. Tell him—”

  “Tell him nothing of the sort.” Ginger pursed her lips. “Kat, you’re a grown woman with a marriage and responsibilities. Whatever is going on between you and Josh, running away to the Delaware beach is not going to solve it.”

  “I ran here for you, Mother. And this is none of your business!” Kat went from panicked to enraged in a split second. “You have no idea what’s going on with us.”

  “That’s right.” Ginger matched Kat’s steely glare. “Because you won’t tell me.”

  Josh ahemed downstairs. Everyone jumped.

  “He’s waiting for you,” Cammie whispered.

  Kat closed her eyes. “What am I going to do?”

  “I thought you were all about confrontation,” Cammie said. “I thought it made you feel alive.”

  “Yeah, with you guys; not with my husband.”

  Cammie studied her cousin’s expression. “You did something bad, didn’t you?”

  “What?” Kat’s eyes snapped open. “Why would you say that?”

  Ginger started nodding along with Cammie. “If Josh had done something wrong, you’d already be down there, ripping him apart. But the fact that you’re still here, cowering in your room . . . You screwed up.”

  Kat pulled her giant Quartersnacks skateboarding T-shirt closer around her torso. “Nobody screwed up. That’s not what’s happening here.”

  “Then what is happening?” Ginger asked. “Enlighten us, please.”

  They all fell silent, casting looks of reproach and suspicion at one another. Then they heard a high-pitched yelp from the vicinity of the front door.

  Kat furrowed her brow. “What was that?”

  “I think it was Jacques,” Cammie said.

  “Who’s Jacques?”

  “Your dog?” Cammie described the brown-and-white dog Josh had been carrying.

  Kat looked mystified. “We don’t have a dog.”

  Another yelp.

  Kat finally released her death grip on the doorjamb and started down the stairs. Ginger prepared to follow, but Cammie stopped her with a hand on her arm.

  “We should probably give them their privacy.”

  “You give them their privacy.” Ginger shook off her hand and crept toward the stairs. “I intend to find out what’s going on.”

  “Eavesdropping is wrong.” But Cammie tiptoed behind her aunt. “If Kat catches us, I’m blaming you.”

  “Go ahead,” Ginger whispered over her shoulder. “I’ll play the cancer card.”

  “For the last time—you don’t have cancer.”

  “But I did.”

  They huddled on the landing. Cammie could hear Kat’s voice, soft but strained:

  “I wasn’t expecting to see you. What . . . ?”

  Josh answered, “Here, I brought you this.”

  There was a rustling of cloth and excited canine yips.

  “Josh.” Kat didn’t sound excited. “What is this?”

  “It’s a French bulldog. His name is Jacques.”

  “But why?”

  Josh started to sound a wee bit testy. “When we first met, you told me you always wanted a French bulldog.”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah, on our first date.”

  Kat paused. “Huh. I don’t remember that.”

  “Well, I do.”

  “Where did you get him?” Kat asked.

  “The dean of students’ sister is a breeder, it turns out. She trains them and shows them in those fancy dog shows. Jacques here was one of her champions.”

  “Then why is he here with you?”

  “He’s retired,” Josh said. “She said he did great until he was about four years old, and he hasn’t won anything since. He went after a garden hose, broke his tooth on the metal, and that was it. He’s out of the ring.”

  “Forever?”

  “Yeah. I guess dog shows are serious business.”

  “So, that’s it?” Kat sounded upset, almost tearful. “He’s not physically perfect anymore, and they just throw him out into the cold?”

  “They re-homed him with loving new owners,” Josh pointed out. “Us.”

  But Kat wasn’t listening. “He didn’t turn out exactly the way they expected, so they got rid of him. No blue ribbons, no love.”

  Cammie and Ginger abandoned all pretense of stealth and tromped down the stairs to meet Jacques.

  “He’s adorable.” Cammie scratched the little dog behind the ears. Jacques licked her wrist.

  Kat reached for the dog, then pulled her hand back. She took a deep breath and folded her arms. “I’m already taking care of my mother and a field full of grapes. This is not a good time to get a dog.”

  Ginger elbowed Cammie in the rib cage. “Did you hear that? She lumped me in with a dog.” She scooped Jacques out of Josh’s hands and gave him a thorough snuggling. “You did always used to say you wanted a French bulldog, Kat.”

  “So I hear.” Kat slumped her shoulders, clearly not enjoying her role as the killjoy. “But I can’t deal with one more thing to worry about right now.”

  “Ooh, that reminds me.” Cammie looked out the window at the gentle green slopes. “I’ve got to figure out the irrigation system today.”

  “Katherine, you’re being ridiculous,” Ginger admonished. “Dogs and grapes are two entirely different things.”

  “Yeah, but shouldn’t we pace ourselves here? Limit ourselves to one challenge at a time?” Kat glanced guiltily at Josh.

  “He won’t be much trouble,” Josh said mildly. “He’s already socialized and house-trained. He’s a good boy.”

  “Every vineyard needs a dog,” Ginger said. “I read that somewhere.”

  “I can’t believe this.” Kat was regressing into a sullen preteen right before their eyes. “How are you so breezy about this? You never let me have a dog. Not ev
en when I begged.”

  “But now your wish is granted,” Ginger put down Jacques, who started sniffing the wine barrels. “Thanks to your doting husband. Now, who wants breakfast?”

  Josh looked at Kat. “I’m taking you to breakfast.” This was not a request.

  Ginger kissed her son-in-law on the cheek. “Good idea. You two lovebirds go have some alone time. I’ll babysit my little grandpuppy while you’re out. So glad you came, Josh.”

  “I’ll get dressed.” Kat practically dragged Cammie up the stairs with her. Jacques followed them, surprisingly nimble for such a short, stout creature.

  Kat made it to the top of the stairs before she collapsed against the wall and dropped her face into her palms. “What is he doing?”

  “What are you doing?” Cammie countered. “The man shows up to take you to breakfast, with the dog you always wanted, and you’re hiding up here, freaking out?”

  Kat’s head sank even lower.

  “Tell me,” Cammie urged. “What happened? What’d he do?”

  “Nothing.” Kat’s voice was muffled. “Nothing happened. He didn’t do anything. That’s the problem.”

  Cammie ushered Kat into the bedroom, closed the door, and waited.

  “The problem isn’t Josh.” Kat sank down on the whitewashed wood floor. “The problem is me.”

  “Okay.”

  Kat addressed the ceiling beams. “When he first asked me out, I almost said no because, let’s face it, he wasn’t really my type.”

  “That’s true,” Cammie agreed. “I remember that. We had a three-hour text debate about it.”

  “But you told me to give him a chance, and I did. I made a conscious decision to be with a guy who was nice and smart and trustworthy.”

  “An excellent decision,” Cammie said.

  “It was.” Kat looked more pallid by the second. “Even though the spark wasn’t there in the beginning, I told myself that it would come. I told myself that eventually my heart would catch up with my head, and I would fall in love with him.”

  Cammie sat down next to her cousin.

  “And I did,” Kat finished. “By the time we got married, I was madly in love.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”