by Jane Graves
He opened the door and left the cottage without looking back. He knew if he didn’t, he’d be sunk. It wasn’t fair to walk out on Kari like this without another word. In fact, he was being the jerk of the century for doing it. But nothing—absolutely nothing—was going to keep him in this town now that he finally had the opportunity to leave.
Kari could stay in his cottage until they were both old and gray, but what had just happened between them was never going to happen again.
A few days later, Kari was leaning against the wall in the kitchen at Rosie’s for five breath-catching seconds when Gloria came through the door.
“Bad morning?” she asked.
“No. I’m okay.”
“You’re such a liar,” Gloria said with a smile. “But don’t worry. It’ll get easier.”
But so far, that hadn’t been true. It wasn’t getting easier. The morning rush had been unholy. Marla had triple seated her because people hated to wait at the front of the restaurant when they could see empty tables. Sit them down and bring them coffee, Rosie said, but even that was a challenge for Kari to do in a decent amount of time, much less take their orders. She wore Angela’s old sneakers, which helped, but even two pairs of socks and Band-Aids didn’t keep her blisters from hurting. Bobbie took one look at the shoes, made a face, and asked her if she’d been cleaning out horse stalls.
And Marc. She couldn’t stop thinking about Marc.
She’d had rugs pulled out from under her a time or two, but this time she’d been dumped squarely on her ass, and it had hurt ten times worse than her back pain and blisters. Ever since he’d walked out the door a few nights ago, the only time she saw him was at dusk every evening when he sat out on his deck with Brandy, drinking a glass of wine and staring at the setting sun. She understood the expired condom thing, even though she didn’t think it was as big a deal as Marc did. What were the odds of that being a problem?
“Come on, Kari,” Rosie said. “Get moving. The place is packed.”
Kari sighed and pushed away from the wall, telling herself she had to concentrate on her job. She knew part of the equation that added up to success was smiling at everybody all the time. She tried that. She really tried. She’d go to a table and look all happy, but the moment she returned to the kitchen and realized she hadn’t written down what kind of dressing somebody wanted on their salad, she’d worry that maybe there was something else she’d forgotten, and she could feel that smile wilting like a daisy in the desert.
She watched Bobbie flirt with a couple of guys in a booth by the window. If she leaned over any farther to take their order, her breasts were going to fall right out of her shirt and tumble onto the table. Kari had never been particularly good at flirting. It always came off sounding stilted and stupid, so if she had to practically disrobe to make a few tips, she was screwed.
As the morning rush edged into the lunch rush, Kari ran to the kitchen to pick up two orders of chicken fried steak. Bobbie was standing beside the warming lights, her fists on her hips, shouting at one of Rosie’s newer cooks who had started working there only a few days before Kari had, a fifty-something Mexican man who just stared back at Bobbie blankly.
“Come on, Carlos!” she said. “Ándale! Ándale!”
But Carlos was acting as if his hands weighed three thousand pounds each. Finally he put the sandwich under the warming lights.
“That’s wheat bread!” Bobbie said. “The order was for white! Will you get it right?”
When Carlos gave her a helpless shrug, Bobbie narrowed her eyes. “You understand every bit of what I’m saying.”
“No hablo inglés.”
“Wrong. Rosie wouldn’t have hired you if you couldn’t speak halfway decent English. You hablo all the inglés you feel like habloing!”
Carlos gave her a wide-eyed look and another shrug.
“Blanco bread!” Bobbie said. “Blanco! And you’d better have it ready the next time I come in here!”
Bobbie headed for the cooler to grab a couple of premade house salads. Carlos frowned at her, then turned to Kari and gave her a smile and a wink. He dipped his ladle into a big pot on the stove.
“Extra gravy,” Carlos said, plopping an extra-huge serving onto the top of the chicken fried steaks. “Your customers—they like.”
Carlos put the plates on the warming ledge.
“Gracias,” Kari said as she grabbed them, giving Carlos a grateful smile at the same time. It wasn’t the first time he’d given her customers a little extra, and she really appreciated it. In fact, all the other people there tried to help her every way they could, even though sometimes it seemed like a lost cause.
Everybody except Bobbie.
Bobbie knew Carlos liked Kari and didn’t like her. All the cooks in the kitchen felt the same, mostly because Kari was polite to them rather than demanding. But since most of them were half scared of Bobbie, they didn’t generally cross her.
Kari started toward the kitchen door, chicken fried steaks in hand, telling herself she was okay. She could do this. She could fill her brain with all kinds of things and still remember all of it and in the right order. All it took was a little practice.
Then Bobbie stuck her head back into the kitchen. “Table six wants you.”
Kari stopped short, slumping with frustration. “What for?”
“They’re asking about their food. And they’ve decided they need a high chair for the kid after all. And crackers. And extra napkins. And more water.”
Kari closed her eyes with frustration.
Bobbie sighed, and for maybe the first time, a look of sympathy came over her face. “Which table are those chicken fried steaks going to?”
“Nine,” Kari said. “Why?”
She held out her hands. “Give them to me.”
Kari narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Why?”
“Will you just give them to me? I’ll deliver them, and you take care of table six.”
Kari didn’t like this. Not one little bit.
“Hey, I’m offering to help you,” Bobbie said. “It’d be pretty ungrateful if you didn’t take me up on it.”
Kari still didn’t like it, but she was in a bind. Finally she handed her the plates.
“Now, get out there,” Bobbie said. “Or you can kiss your tip good-bye.”
Kari left the kitchen, swinging by to grab a high chair, only to go to table six and be told they’d never asked for one.
Then she heard the crash.
She set the high chair down and hurried back to the kitchen. Bobbie stood over two broken plates on the floor, their shards mingling with lumps of chicken fried steak and gravy. She put her hands to her face. “Oh, my! I’m sorry, Kari. I can’t believe I was so clumsy. They slipped right out of my hands.”
Kari looked down in horror. No, no, no! This meant the order had to be put in again, and it was going to be ages before those people got their food. And her tip would go right out the window.
As she stood there staring at the carnage, Bobbie said, “I have an idea. Why don’t you ask your friend Carlos to fix you two new chicken fried steaks? Oh, wait. Silly me. He doesn’t hablo inglés.”
As she flounced out of the kitchen, Kari wanted to cry. Just start boohooing at the top of her lungs. But then she pictured herself crawling back to her father and asking for her money back. He’d give it to her. She knew he would. The question was, what would she have to do to make that happen?
And Marc. No matter how frustrated she was with him right then, his words of encouragement still rang inside her head. Trust me. You’re tougher than you think you are.
And that meant she had to keep going.
She put in an order for two more chicken fried steaks, and Carlos said he’d move them to the front of the queue. Then she went back out to the dining room to deal with demanding customers and her own aching feet.
That afternoon, Marc walked the sloping landscape of the vineyard, where row after row of grapes hung heavily on their vines. The green
of their ragged leaves was edging into gold, signaling the last few weeks of ripening. This morning he’d felt a breath of cool air in spite of the heat, like a gentle tap on his shoulder, a whisper in his ear: Autumn is coming. Then harvest. Pay attention. Read the signs. Be ready. He could almost feel life bursting from the grape clusters as they ripened on the vine, tiny globes of potential energy that would become a kinetic explosion at harvest.
He stopped beside Ramon, who was examining one of the vines and the clusters of grapes it held. His face was deeply tanned and fissured, a product of long summers working in the Texas sun. His hands were growing gnarled, with enlarged joints that were the first indication of the arthritis he tried so hard to hide. It wouldn’t be long before pruning vines and picking grapes would be out of the question for him, but Marc knew he’d crawl out to the vines before he finally admitted he couldn’t do it any longer.
“Looking good,” Ramon said. “But I did see half a dozen wasps this morning.”
Marc’s heart skipped with apprehension. “Any nests?”
“One.”
This wasn’t good. Wasps were generally almost nonexistent through most of the growing season, but when the sugar content increased in the last days of ripening, the pests could descend on a vineyard and destroy the fruit.
“Set the traps and keep watch for damaged fruit. If you see it, get it out of the field. And be on the lookout for more nests. And pray we don’t get another hard rain in the next few weeks.”
“I think we’re in the clear from this last one,” Ramon said. “There’s still plenty of time for the grapes to settle and the sugar to stabilize.”
Soon that magical moment would come when the acidity decreased, the sugar content rose, and a perfect equilibrium was reached. Then it was time for harvest. Determining that moment began with lab tests, but it ended with much more objective things. Taste, weather conditions, plus something that couldn’t be quantified—the intuition of an experienced vintner.
Marc’s grandfather had begun this vineyard in 1948, and his father had grown it to the size and quality it was today. The outbreak of Pierce’s disease in 1996 had damned near wiped them out, but they’d come back, planting new vines and rejuvenating the ones they’d been able to salvage.
Marc remembered his father taking him out into the vineyard when he was a boy, showing him the vines, pointing out mold or pests and telling him what to do about them. As the grapes ripened, he demonstrated how they should look and feel and taste. Then came harvest, which was some of the hardest, dirtiest work a man could possibly do. But the harvest party made it all worth it, when they opened a bottle from a prior year’s vintage and his father toasted their success. Those times were written across Marc’s memory in indelible ink, memories that would stay with him for the rest of his life.
His father had tried to instill those same feelings for the family business in Daniel, but he was always immersed in computers and video games and anything else that didn’t involve the day-to-day operations. Working in the vineyard was Daniel’s definition of hell on earth.
“It looks as if we’ll be harvesting a little sooner than last year,” Marc said. “They’re moving fast.”
“When will Daniel be here?”
“He said sometime next week, but with Daniel you can never be too sure.”
Ramon just nodded.
“I know how you feel about him running the place.”
Ramon held up his palm. “None of my business.”
“No, it is your business. You’ve been part of this vineyard for the past twenty years. You know your opinion is important to me.”
“Daniel…” Ramon shook his head. “I’m just not sure about him. That’s all.”
“He knows what it takes. He grew up at this vineyard.”
“You know it’s nothing personal. I couldn’t love him more if he was my own kid. But he’s just not cut out for this. Not like you are.”
It didn’t matter whether Daniel was cut out for it or not. Three years. That was their deal. He could certainly keep the place going that long, particularly if Ramon was there with his steadying hand. But Daniel was also impulsive. Prone to coming up with ideas he was dying to implement whether they made sense or not. More distractible than a kitten who’d spied a string. Focused on cars and women and the next big deal. But they had a bargain, and Marc intended to hold him to it.
“I have to get out of here for a while,” Marc said. “Just for a few years. I’ll be back.”
“So you’re keeping the vineyard after that?”
For a long time, Marc didn’t respond. Couldn’t respond. He didn’t know what the next three years would bring. What would he see out there in the world that was more enticing than running a vineyard for the rest of his life? He, Nina, and Daniel would all have a say in the decision, but when it got right down to it, the vineyard was Marc’s to keep.
Or his to sell.
“I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with it,” he said. “But it’ll be a few years before we make a decision.”
“A lot can happen in a few years.”
Marc knew just how true that was. A poorly timed harvest. A too-cold summer. Birds and bugs and rabbits and mold. Any one of those things could turn a potential banner year into a subpar vintage that would screw up the reputation Marc had tried so hard to maintain.
“What happens happens,” Marc said.
“I wonder what your dad might say about that,” Ramon said.
Marc turned away, hating the sound of those words.
Ramon sighed. “I’m sorry. That was out of line.”
“No. It’s okay. It’s not as if I haven’t done a little thinking about that myself.” He looked at Ramon. “You’ll stay, won’t you?”
“I’ve been here a long time. Seen this place through the good times and the bad. I can’t imagine being anywhere else.” He paused. “I can’t imagine you being anywhere else.”
Sometimes Marc couldn’t, either. But he knew that was only because he’d never lived anywhere else. The moment he got the chance to see what was out there for him, Rainbow Valley wouldn’t seem so important anymore.
It was the perfect time to leave. Curtis had been gone almost a year now. Nina was getting over the shock of his death, and she had plenty of money from the settlement the company had provided after the accident to live comfortably even if she didn’t work. Angela intended to become a veterinarian, and since there was room in Rainbow Valley for only one vet and that post was occupied, she’d probably never live there again. And Daniel had enough money to last him for the rest of his life, so taking three years out to run the vineyard wasn’t interfering with his livelihood.
But until then…
Marc thought about Kari, her stunning green eyes, her beautiful breasts, her gorgeous naked body lying on that sofa. It had been as if dormant cells inside him had suddenly come to life, making him want her with an intensity that bordered on insanity. Being with her was like getting a head start on the life he’d envisioned all these years, a chance to get a little crazy, have a little fun. What could possibly be wrong with that?
Maybe she was right. Maybe he had overreacted. Manufacturers didn’t cut it that close on the quality of their products versus expiration dates. He needed to ease up. Relax. Take precautions, of course, but let logic and reason rule. In spite of everything, he needed to stop worrying about it. He was a logical man, and it just wasn’t logical to get uptight about those kinds of odds.
He wanted her again, no matter how out-of-bounds it seemed for the man he’d been all these years. But after the way he’d acted, what were the chances that she’d want him?
Chapter 9
When the waitresses at Rosie’s got to the end of their shift that afternoon, Bobbie did what she always did. She asked the rest of them how their day had gone, then proceeded to tell them how much she’d made in tips. Most of the time she blew everybody else out of the water. But if somebody happened to make more than she did, there was
always an excuse. She’d had six tables with nothing but women, and women were terrible tippers. The air conditioner was acting up, and the customers in her section complained about being hot. The cooks couldn’t get a steak right to save their lives. But when she outperformed the rest of them, it was because she was next in line for induction to the Waitress Hall of Fame.
For Kari, that day had gone pretty much like the past ones had. She’d made so little in the way of tips that if things didn’t change, she was never going to be able to support herself. She was just about ready to take her meager earnings and call it quits for the day when Nina came through the door.
“I’m meeting a friend,” she said to Kari. “Why don’t you keep me company until she gets here?”
Kari sat down at a table across from Nina, relishing the chance to rest for the first time that day.
“So how’s the job?” Nina asked.
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s a little hard because I’ve never waited tables before. But I’ll get the hang of it.”
Nina leaned in and spoke softly. “So how are you getting along with Bobbie?”
Uh-oh. In spite of what Marc had said about her, it made Kari nervous to say what she really thought. That could be dangerous in a small town like this. “Oh. Just fine.”
“Well, that must mean hell finally froze over,” Nina said quietly. “Bobbie Arnette doesn’t get along with anybody. You wouldn’t be telling me a fib now, would you?”
Kari sighed. “Well, sometimes she is a little hard to deal with.”
“There you go. Now, that’s the Bobbie I know.”
“I don’t think she likes me.”
“Bobbie doesn’t like anybody.”
“But I didn’t do anything to her. All I did was show up.”
“Oh, no,” Nina said. “You did way more than that.”
