St. Helena Vineyard Series

by Lulu M. Sylvian

  “I like having you here. It makes this place finally feel like home.”

  Lysia put her hand against his cheek. A scratch of stubble tickled her palm. She hadn’t given him time to shave this morning. She smiled. This place did feel like home, and that made her nervous. She shouldn’t get too comfortable here, but then again, why not? Craig was here, and she was falling for him, hard. Correction, had already fallen. If she didn’t pay attention, she would slip with the L-word. Something she hadn’t even felt with the last few boyfriends.

  “I’ll cook for you because I’m your girlfriend. But I expect you to cook for me from time to time ‘cause you’re my boyfriend.”

  “God, you’re smart.”

  “That’s why you love me.” Her eyes went wide. She hadn’t meant to say that.

  Craig laughed. “Internal editor failure again?”

  Lysia bit the insides of her lips and nodded.

  “I do love you.” Craig stroked the side of her face. “I’m sorry, it’s not fair of me. I want you here but you want to go to your own home, be with your stuff, and have some space.”

  “It just happens when it’s supposed to, doesn’t it?”

  “What does?”

  “Love. I love you, too, and it just happened, and yet we still have to talk about schedules, and cooking and—”

  Craig slid his mouth across hers, catching her breath. Lysia responded and snaked her tongue between his lips.

  He moaned and pulled away. “I think we need to get naked and explore this love thing a bit more.”

  “Yeah, we do.”

  She made him moan. He made her scream. Love seemed to make something that was already spectacular indefinably awesome. Lysia shivered with the intensity of it as Craig held her.

  “Please add soundproofing to whatever you do to this room.”

  Chapter Six

  Damn it. Lysia pressed end call. She was never going to get anywhere without a decorator’s license. All she wanted was some flooring samples. Everything had been going great until they asked for her license number. They couldn’t help her. They wouldn’t let her buy the samples. They actually had said they couldn’t do business with her unless she had a license

  And the problem was, they weren’t the only ones. There was an entire décor industry that she had found out about, like getting the inside scoop on a secret club. But all the doors were being shut in her face. It was stupid too. Better quality products at better prices were available, but sorry you don’t have the secret password to play with us.

  Craig had been more than generous with his decorating budget, but it was stupid to pay full retail when she knew exactly what she wanted and where to order it. Well, Craig was always saying how smart she was. Time to live up to that standard.

  She flipped open her tablet. She had protested about Craig spending so much on it right up until the moment it was in her hands. Instant technology love.

  A few taps later and Lysia read that she needed to become certified to get the license, and it was not a simple test away. She would need to enroll in specific classes that fed straight into a Certified Interior Decorator program.

  So much for being smart. Craig was paying her well, but not enough to cover that many classes. With her luck the closest program would be hours away, putting more strain on her car, something she was barely maintaining as it was. And she needed to be here for the puppies, at least until they were older.

  Sure, she was smart. She’d figured out what needed to happen so that she could do this job for Craig properly. But smart didn’t trump money when it came to access. Without money she was too limited in access, and it wasn’t fair.

  She gazed around her make-shift office in the formal dining room. She had been so excited, so hopeful. For once she had a goal. She really wanted to do this decorator thing, not just play one in Craig’s house. She figured she could leverage her work here into other jobs or hire on at one of the local firms as a junior designer or something. But they probably wouldn’t talk to her, either, not without out the certification. The posters with pasted-on ideas of perfect sofas mocked her. The image of the chest of drawers she wanted for the guest room taunted her. The paint chips from the home improvement store pointed and laughed.

  The stupid tears snuck up on her. She wiped at her face. Her brusque movement grazed her hand across her chin “Ow, crap!“ She’d hit the evil zit from another dimension, the one that wouldn’t heal. She pushed a finger into the spot hoping pressure might calm down. Instead, it began throbbing. Everything just turned into a bad joke at her expense.

  The blow to her ego hurt. She accepted that she would never be one of those people who weren’t surviving paycheck to paycheck. She accepted that the perfect combination of hard work, good luck, and circumstances would not ever happen for her, and she would forever be stuck barely making ends meet. But it didn’t make the reality of it hurt any less. It didn’t mean that finding what she wanted was beyond her reach all because of money was an easy pill to swallow.

  She needed a hug. She needed puppy therapy to feel better.

  Craig found Lysia curled up on the floor, asleep with cuddle puppies. She sat up and ground the sleep from her eyes, which felt scratchy from all the crying. With her luck, they were red and puffy, too. She was a mess, and she knew it. She couldn’t tell if Craig was watching her with concern or with horror that he had ever said he loved her, now that he’d seen her with swollen eyes and a monster blemish.

  He held a hand out to her and helped her up. Without a word he scooped her up and lifted her over the side of the puppy gate. He carried her all the way to the couch. Lysia’s nerves danced somewhere between fear of being dropped and loving being held.

  Craig seemed to instinctively know what she needed. He placed her gently on the couch before sitting and pulling her into his embrace. He stroked her hair and made low, comforting humming sounds. The same noises he used when he comforted the puppies. There must be magic in that frequency, because it worked on her. The feeling of being a complete loser drifted away, and Lysia was left mostly numb. She just wanted to be wrapped in Craig.

  “Bad day?” His voice rumbled through his chest.

  Lysia sighed and pressed closer as if she could merge into his rib cage. She nodded.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  She shook her head.

  “That bad?”

  “That bad,” she whispered.

  ***

  Craig handed her a pint of her favorite gelato. He knew she was going through a hard time, even though he didn’t know what had shattered her this afternoon.

  She said she would be all right long enough for him to make a quick run to Picker’s Produce Meats and More and grab a few easy things for dinner. Smart man that he was, he also bought ice cream and cookies. He was already winning how to deal with a moody girlfriend.

  “Ice cream for dinner?” She gave him a weak smile from her cocoon of blankets on the couch.

  “You had a need. Feeling better?” He sat with a thud, his own pint in his hands.

  She nodded and spooned in the creamy goodness.

  “I’m getting ready to, you know.” She shrugged.

  Craig looked at her quizzically for a moment. His eyebrows lifted and his eyes widened. “Oh right.” He nodded in understanding.

  “So I took what should have been a reasonable disappointment a little harder than usual.” She glanced up at him. He wasn’t calling her out for PMSing, he considered her for a moment before continuing to eat his ice cream. . No wonder she was in love with him.

  “I can’t get into some shops without being a Certified Interior Decorator. I can’t get samples, and I can’t get the good prices. And I can’t afford the classes to get the certification,” she explained.

  “How much it is?” Craig asked between bites.

  “It doesn’t matter. I can’t afford to go to school. If I scrape for the tuition, I’m hosed if something happens to my car, and I can’t get to class. That’s as
suming I can find a program for interior decorating in this area. Odds are that classes will be during the day when I need to take care of Fortran and Cobol. It’s just not something I can afford. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to afford it. And…” She took in an unsteady breath, trying to keep from crying again. It didn’t work. Tears slid down her cheeks. “I finally found something I want to do with my life, and I’m stuck because I didn’t end up with the right combination of luck and opportunity, and now I’m poor and never going to be able to get out.”

  Craig slid his ice cream onto the table. He shifted Lysia so that he could wrap his arms around her. “If you really want this, I can help you find a program that is close. There are ways you can pay for it. Hell, I’ll pay for it.”

  “Craig, I really want this, but no. I’m not your girlfriend so that you can pay for everything. You can’t keep throwing money at my problems. You’re already doing enough by turning this project into a job, so I don’t have to panic about not having work.”

  “But your problems can be solved by me throwing money at them. I can do that for you if you let me.”

  “I know you can, and I love you for that. But, no.” She shook her head.

  “I’m used to my girlfriends expecting me to pay for stuff they need. You are doing wonderful things for me, like cooking and taking care of the girls. Why don’t you let me do something nice for you?”

  “You already do. You love me.”

  “Is that really enough? In my experience I love you is followed with buy this for me.”

  “I’m not like that. You don’t have to spend money for me to be in love with you.” Lysia sighed he didn’t get it. She needed him, and she needed money. But she didn’t need him for his money.

  “What about student loans?” he suggested.

  “They need to be paid back eventually, and what happens if I don’t get a job? Then I’m stuck earning interest on loans I’ll never be able to afford. It’s too risky.”

  “Parents? You could ask for it as a Christmas present.”

  Lysia squirmed out of his lap. “No, they’re covering rent for my present.”

  Craig’s brow furrowed.

  “Aren’t I paying you enough to cover rent for this month?”

  Lysia shook her head. She looked down at him, he comfortably sat there eating his ice cream as if they were discussing what to watch on TV, not the fact that she was broke and he sweated money out of his technological pores. “Not really. I’ve been perpetually behind for a year, so I have some catching up to do. Plus I haven’t paid my share of the cable bill in something like three months.”

  Craig closed his eyes and breathed loudly through his nose. “Lysia.”

  “I’m broke. Craig. I’m doing my best.” Tears stung her eyes. This wasn’t the conversation she needed to be having right now. Her nerves were still too raw from this afternoon’s reality meltdown. Trying to explain what the lack of money was like to someone who had never had to deal with it was always frustrating at best. At worst, it plunged Lysia into a depressive state. She already was teetering on the brink of that precipice.

  He chuckled. “Lysia, it’s no big deal.”

  She tossed the blanket that had been her security for the past hour onto the couch. “Only because you have money. For me it’s huge. I might struggle, but I’m doing this on my own. And I don’t ever want you to think I’m with you because you have a really big wallet.”

  “Why are you with me?” He quirked an eyebrow up at her. His expression told her what she needed to know—he didn’t take this conversation seriously. To him it was a matter of not getting designer coffee every day to save a few extra dollars. To her there was no money for designer coffee in the first place, so how could she save something that wasn’t even there?

  She sniffed and wiped at her face. “I really liked your shoes.”

  Lysia didn’t even stop to pet the puppies on her way out the door.

  Chapter Seven

  Craig let the puppies climb over him. Lysia was right; this was good for stress relief. Of course his stress was self-induced. He needed to do things right for Lysia, but she didn’t want him to. She wanted to stand on her own.

  He played the conversation over and over again in his head. How had he missed it? She didn’t once ask him to solve her problem. She didn’t once ask him for money. All she had done was ask him to understand she was broke and hold her. He wanted to solve her problem, because that’s what he did. He fixed things. He never accepted that there wasn’t a solution, and that was why he had done well in tech.

  Lysia could not see past the wall that was in front of her, boxing her in. No matter where she turned, she was faced with the same problem over and over again. From his perspective, it was an easy solution that required a little financial grease. But stubborn Lysia was determined to do it herself.

  Didn’t she realize that was exactly why he wanted to help her? If she had been expecting him to pay for everything, he wouldn’t be so willing to hand over the money. Especially not after Miranda had broken up with him so dramatically. Miranda had been a hard lesson to learn. He had been so stupid, giving her everything she hinted at wanting, just because he was afraid she would walk away. She had anyway.

  He had moved on with his life. And because of her little fit at the dress shop, he’d had the perfect excuse to take Lysia out. And now Lysia was on the verge of walking out of his life, and that was something he didn’t want to face.

  He picked Fortran up and stared into her dark eyes. “What are we going to do? You miss her too, don’t you? She should be here playing on the floor with us.” Fortran wiggled and licked his nose. He put her down, and she and Cobol started gnawing at his clothes again.

  Barely a week, and he didn’t know what he would do without these two. They had indeed moved into his heart, right next to Lysia. Lysia who was spending her evening someplace not here. Lysia who was making this house a home, and not because she was picking out paint chips and new furniture, but because she brought love in the door. Lysia who had walked out on him last night.

  “Okay, girls, time to eat and potty. I have some Christmas shopping to do.”

  ***

  Lysia “oohed” as the waiter set the bright green margarita down in front of her. She took a sip. Perfect. Not quite, but good enough for now, and now for some nachos, and then home. She sank back into the cushions of the booth and picked up her phone.

  “Leave a message at the beep,” the tone sounded, and Lysia sighed, she left another message. “I’m sorry about last night. I took care of the puppies today, and I’ll be back tomorrow as long as I still have the job.”

  “What do you mean by still have a job?” Kathleen asked as Lysia ended the call. “You didn’t get fired again already?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But I may have accidentally quit. How have you been? I haven’t seen you in forever.” Lysia asked as Kathleen slipped into the booth.

  “It’s barely been two weeks. I’m the one who should be asking you that. How’s the job hunt, or should I say job?” Kathleen countered.

  “If you had asked me yesterday I would have said bagged and tagged and getting mounted for a trophy over the fireplace.” Lysia waggled her eyebrows.

  “But today?”

  “I had a little disagreement with my boss. It wasn’t horrible, but I’ve been fired over worse. He hasn’t called me back yet.”

  “That’s tough. Is there another manager you can ask?”

  Lysia shook her head. “I’m like a personal assistant. It’s only him.”

  “I hope he calls you back soon. The shop has been a mess since Patrice fired you. She’s still spitting mad over how you waltzed in and left a pile of body parts in the middle of Prom and Tux.”

  “Well, she shouldn’t have told the police I was driving around with stolen mannequins.”

  “She didn’t?” Kathleen leaned closer to Lysia. “No way.”

  Lysia nodded enthusiastically.

  Kat
hleen ordered a margarita and lunch combination number four. “You have been relegated to the title of ‘that girl.’ Patrice frequently wonders why you ever worked there, and, of course, how you quitting has been so inconvenient. Now she has to run Prom and Tux and doesn’t get to play dress up with the brides. What new gig have you landed?”

  “You’re never going to believe this.” Lysia told Kathleen how the tall, geeky man who’d triggered the whole blow up at work had ended up offering her the job of decorating his house. “He said he felt guilty that he caused it, and when he asked how he could help, I basically threw my resumé at him and told him to help me find a job.”

  “So he made one up for you instead?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “And that’s why you need him to call you back?”

  Lysia nodded at Kathleen’s question. She hadn’t mentioned that they were dating. She hadn’t mentioned that one sideways conversation had lost her a boyfriend and a job all in one smooth move. Even though there were distinct similarities, this was so much worse than being fired and dumped on the same day. So much worse. She loved him.

  “When he does call, and if you’re still his assistant, you should warn him that Miranda woman came back.”

  “Did she buy the dress?”

  “Oh, yeah. She even did the whole ‘I’m going to say yes to the dress.’ schtick. Totally predictable. She did complain that she had to drive all the way back up here for it, but what did she expect? To be able to find it at a local shop? Not likely. We have exclusive regional rights. You want a dress from the Par Parisian Atlantis line, you come to us. I now get my big fat commission, and Miranda has a beautiful, overpriced gown.” Kathleen’s perfectly manicured nails emphasized her words as she pointed and gesticulated. “And one hell of a henpecked fiancé. Her hoo-ha must be made out of spun gold for him to put up with her treating him the way she did. All she did was gripe and nag at the man. He wasn’t allowed to see the dress. She made him wait in the car while she tried it on again, and preened like a peacock. But then she called him to come inside to pay for it. I guess that’s why she was with geek guy. He had the money.”