by Jane Graves
“Where the hell could she have gone?” he said.
Kari looked as lost as he felt. Then all at once her face brightened. “I think I know where she is.”
A few minutes later, Marc and Kari stood on the edge of Rainbow Way near the path leading down to the Overlook. Through the trees, Kari could just make out Nina sitting on the bench, staring out into the valley.
“God, I hate this,” Marc said, putting his hand to his forehead. “She’s going to cry, and then I’m going to say the wrong stupid-ass thing and make everything worse.”
“No, you won’t.”
“Oh, believe me. I will. I know this is going to come as a shock to you, but I’m not the most sensitive guy in the world.”
“Why don’t I go down there and talk to her?” Kari said.
Marc exhaled. “No. It’s my responsibility. I need to—”
“You can in a minute. Let me talk to her first.”
Marc still looked unsure.
“I promise you it’ll be okay.”
Finally he nodded. Kari turned and walked down the brick path. She’d almost reached the park bench before Nina turned around. She had a tissue clutched in her hand. Her eyes were red, and her lashes were wet with tears. Kari sat down beside her.
“Daniel told us about Manfred. I’m so sorry.”
Nina wiped beneath her eyes with her fingertips. “I didn’t want to tell anyone. I was so afraid of ruining Shannon and Luke’s wedding. But Daniel caught me crying, so I had to tell him.” She let out a shaky sigh. “It wasn’t as if it was a shock. I knew it was coming. But still…”
Kari nodded. “How are you doing now?”
“Not great.” She caught a trickle of a tear with a tissue. “As long as I had Manfred, it was like Curtis was still here. But now that he’s gone, too…”
“Curtis is waiting for him, remember? That was what he promised you. That he’d wait for both of you.”
“But I have to wait so long,” Nina said, her voice a hushed whisper. “So long. And I miss Manfred so much. It’s only been a few hours, and already I don’t know what to do without him.”
Kari didn’t really know what to say to that, so she didn’t say anything.
“I’ll be fine,” Nina said finally. “Life goes on, you know? I just have to feel sorry for myself for a little while.”
Kari slipped her arm around Nina’s shoulders. Together they looked into the valley, watching as the sun slipped below the horizon. Then Nina’s voice broke the silence.
“Marc is crazy about you, you know.”
Hearing those words made Kari want to cry herself. She was desperate to say, Do you really think so? Do you think there’s any way on this earth he’ll ever love me? But she couldn’t. The more she wished for it, the more painful it was going to be when it never happened.
“We have a good time together,” she told Nina. “But that’s all.”
“I’ve been hoping you might be able to get him to stay.”
“Actually, he thinks I ought to go with him when he leaves.”
Nina blinked with surprise. “Are you going to?”
“I don’t want to leave Rainbow Valley. I really love it here. But…” Kari sighed, feeling that impossible push-pull all over again. “I’ll follow him anywhere, Nina. Anywhere he wants to go.”
“You’re in love with him.”
Kari closed her eyes. “Please don’t tell him that.”
“But it’s true?”
“He has Angela to think about, and she’s not happy about him seeing me. He says that doesn’t bother him, but I know it does. And I know he doesn’t want anything that even looks like commitment.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
“He wants freedom.”
“I know,” Nina said. “But what we want and what we need—sometimes they’re not the same thing.”
But Kari knew how strong-minded Marc was. If he was convinced he was right about something, getting him to change his mind was damned near impossible.
“I’ll probably get another puppy soon,” Nina said.
“Yeah?” Kari said.
“I don’t feel like it now, but I know eventually I will. Shannon never has a shortage at the shelter. It’d be a shame not to adopt one.”
Kari nodded.
“But I’ll never get married again.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“I believe in soul mates. That there’s one man a woman is destined to be with. For me, Curtis was that man. I already gave my heart away to him, and I don’t ever want it back. So how could I give it away to another man?”
Kari couldn’t imagine what it would be like to love a man with all her heart and soul the way Nina loved Curtis. And all at once an image popped into Kari’s mind of her own heart slowly slipping away from her, but when she turned around, Marc was holding it in the palm of his hand.
If only that could happen someday. She and Marc. Together. If only…
Stop wishing for what you can’t have!
Nina looked past Kari to the head of the path, where Marc sat on a bench looking uncomfortable. “Poor Marc. He has no idea what to say, does he?”
“Not a clue,” Kari said. “But I don’t have to tell you how much he cares about you.”
“I know he does. And I’m sorry I went off on him like that, because he has a right to leave, you know? I just don’t know what we’re all going to do without him.”
“Would you like us to walk with you back to your car?” Kari asked.
Nina nodded. She rose and walked with Kari back up the path. Marc stood up when he saw them coming. Kari could tell he still didn’t know what to say. But when Nina drew closer, he simply stepped forward, pulled her into his arms, and gave her a heartfelt hug.
“I’m sorry for what I said,” Nina told him.
“Forget it,” Marc said.
Nina began to cry again. Tears streamed down her face and soaked into Marc’s shirt, but he just kept holding her like that, rubbing his hand up and down her back. Marc might not always say the right thing, but he always did the right thing.
By the time they got back to the vineyard, Angela had returned to college. Daniel’s car was gone, which meant he’d left the house. If history was any indication, he’d probably spend the night in some woman’s bed and wouldn’t be back until morning. They went to Marc’s bedroom, and by the time Kari came out of the bathroom, he was in bed, the light switched off, his arm resting across his forehead as he stared at the ceiling. She crawled in beside him, pulling her pillow over to lie on her side next to him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Well, let’s see. Nina is lost without Curtis and hates the thought of me leaving. Angela doesn’t like college, so she’s probably going to drop out. And Daniel wants to wait a week to harvest. I think that’s too late, but we’re stuck with that decision now, because he went behind my back and rescheduled the crew. This is harvest season in the Hill Country, and now I can’t get one out here sooner. This whole vintage could go to hell.” He exhaled. “And it’s all because I’m leaving.”
Kari could feel the tension radiating from Marc, the frustration, the sense that things were going wrong and he just didn’t know how to make them right.
“I have a right to go,” Marc said.
“I know you do,” Kari said.
“Do you have any idea how hard it was to raise a baby with everything else I had to do?”
She couldn’t even imagine.
“I used to take Angela into the vineyard with me in a carry cradle and hope she didn’t cry because I was too damned dirty to pick her up. And then I’d go to the house at night and collapse, praying she would sleep through the night because I was so bone tired I could barely get out of bed. But the next morning I shook it off and got up again, and somehow I made it through another day. I loved her, Kari. I always have, more than anything in my life. But when Nicole left, I couldn’t help feeling as if I’d gotten the short end of the st
ick. Sometimes I just wanted to scream, But what about me? I know. That sounds so selfish.”
“No! No, it doesn’t sound selfish. You’re not selfish. God, Marc, you’re the least selfish person I know.”
“My father would have told me just to knock off the whining, gut it up, and do it. So that was what I did.”
“So he was pretty tough?”
“He was a hard man. Blunt. Demanding. But he had a work ethic second to no one, and when he gave his word, it was law. Not everybody liked my father, but there wasn’t anybody anywhere who didn’t respect him.”
In the near darkness of the bedroom, Kari saw Marc’s throat convulse in a heavy swallow.
“I’ll never forget the night I told him Nicole was pregnant. He got really quiet. Really still. His eyes went cold as ice. And then he said, I counted on you to be smarter than that.”
Marc’s eyes drifted closed at the memory. Kari couldn’t have imagined a man like Marc not meeting any parent’s expectations, but she could tell by the look on his face that even if he lived to be a thousand, that feeling of inadequacy would always be there.
“A month before Angela was born,” Marc said, “he dropped dead right out there among the vines. A heart attack. He was here one second, gone the next. That fast. Gone before I could show him that even though I’d made a mistake, he could still believe in me.”
And Marc had been trying to live up to his father’s expectations ever since. Keeping this place running. Holding his family together no matter what. Raising his daughter. Being everything to everyone because there was nobody else to do it.
“I was scared to death,” Marc said. “I was just a kid, trying to make everything work. Sometimes I wanted to hide my head and pretend none of it was happening. I wanted to go off to college the way Angela did. Maybe that’s why it makes me so crazy that she’s not even sure she likes it there. She has the opportunity I never had, and she doesn’t even realize how special it is.”
He turned and put his arm around Kari, pulling her against him. He kissed her hair, then held her tightly. “You’re the only one who doesn’t ask anything of me. Whenever I’m with you, it’s because I want to be, not because I have to be. It seems as if my whole life has been have to. I didn’t even know what want to felt like until you came along.”
A wave of despair came over Kari, making her desperate to tell him how she felt about him. She loved him so much she ached with it. The words were on the tip of her tongue, fighting to get out, but she swallowed them at the last second. He loved this place. And he loved his family. But he’d never given her any indication that he loved her. That would lead to a relationship, which would involve the kind of responsibility he was telling her he wanted nothing to do with. Hadn’t he said it? She was his want to. The moment she put any restrictions on him, demanded anything from him, became one more of his have tos…
She’d lose him.
Later after Marc was asleep, Kari lay awake in the dark, worry eating away at her. He wanted so desperately to leave, but she had to agree with Nina. She wasn’t sure it would truly make him happy. But Kari hadn’t been lying. If Marc wanted to fly to the moon, she’d find a way to crawl into that space capsule with him.
But there was a problem with that. Maybe a big problem.
How could she cross this country on a motorcycle with Marc if she got sick every time she got on one? If it was all she could have of him, that was what she wanted. But if going with him wasn’t going to be an option, she’d have to say good-bye. And the thought of that was absolutely intolerable.
But speaking of sick…
Ever since dinner, she’d felt a little woozy. Maybe it was leftover motion sickness from the ride home. But how could that be? As the minutes passed, the feeling grew more intense until she felt as if she was going to throw up.
A shadow of a thought worked its way into her mind. It faded, then came back even stronger. She shook it away again, but finally she couldn’t ignore it. She put her hand to her stomach, and for a moment she couldn’t breathe. Was it possible…?
Oh, God. Maybe it wasn’t the motorcycle after all.
The next afternoon, Daniel avoided Marc, walking the other way when he saw him coming, and Marc knew it was going to take every bit of self-control he had not to grab his brother by the collar and tell him what a fool he was. Marc felt as if he wasn’t in control of anything anymore. He usually loved this time of year, when the vineyard was the most beautiful. But looking at it now, all he saw was a disaster waiting to happen.
It was only two in the afternoon, but he decided he’d go inside, take a shower, and wait for Kari to get home. She was off today, but she’d been gone all morning. Where, he didn’t know, but as soon as she came back he wanted to talk to her. He felt as if his life was crashing in on him from all sides, as if his dream was slipping away, and he didn’t know what to do to make it stop. He only knew if he could talk to her, things wouldn’t seem so insurmountable.
He took a shower, which didn’t make him feel remotely better. Then he went to his bedroom and got dressed. He sat down on the bed for a moment, dropping his head to his hands with a heavy sigh. Then he heard footsteps, and Kari appeared at the door. She paused there for a moment, then came into the bedroom, tossed her purse aside, and sat down next to him on the bed.
“I’m glad you’re home,” he said.
“I had some errands,” she said quietly. “What’s wrong?”
“Daniel is still avoiding me. If this vintage is anything but total crap, it’ll be a miracle of God.”
“He won’t listen to you?”
“He never has before. Why would I think this time would be any different?”
Kari nodded solemnly. “So are you thinking about staying?”
He wasn’t sure what he heard in her voice. Disappointment? Probably. After all, he’d promised her they were leaving there. Getting on the road, just the two of them. Feeling crazy and free without a care in the world. To her, life was one big adventure, and that was what he’d promised her. Now it sounded as if he was returning to the man he used to be, the one who took life so damned seriously to the exclusion of everything else.
Then all at once, he had a moment of clarity he hadn’t anticipated. In the past several weeks, he’d learned what it felt like to color outside the lines, and it was because of Kari. She’d taught him to be spontaneous. To look forward to tomorrow and all the fun they were going to have. She’d given herself to him in ways a woman never had before, with total and complete abandon. She’d made him realize there was another side of life he’d never experienced, one he craved now with everything he had in him. Not only was it what he’d promised her, it was what he’d promised himself. Wasn’t breaking out of that mold exactly what he’d always wanted? What he deserved after being Mr. Responsibility all these years?
“No,” he said. “No matter what happens here, we’re going anyway.”
Her face fell. “Are you sure?”
He frowned. “You sound like my family. I thought you wanted to do this.”
“I do. It’s just that…well, are you sure you want to?”
“Yes. Of course I’m sure. As soon as harvest is over, we’re getting on my motorcycle and leaving. It’s what I’ve dreamed of all these years, and now that it’s almost here, I’m not giving it up. I know I said I’m worried about the vineyard. But Daniel already rescheduled the crew, and I couldn’t get one here any earlier if I wanted to. I can’t change it, so why fight it?”
“What about Nina and Angela?”
“They’ll have to learn to stand on their own two feet.”
“I just don’t want you to regret leaving.”
“I’m not going to regret anything.”
“Maybe you should wait,” she said. “Get through harvest this year. Let things with Angela settle down. And Nina—”
“No! It has to be now. Now or never. Nothing is going to stand in our way. Once harvest is over, we’re leaving.”
“Ma
rc—”
“Isn’t that what you want? What we both want?”
“I-I don’t know.”
“Kari? Are you backing out on me?”
“No! It’s not that. It’s—”
“Good. Because it’s going to be great. Just the two of us together on the open road. We can do whatever we want, whenever we want. Nobody needing us, nobody depending on us—”
“Marc! Will you stop talking? Please. Just stop!”
Her face crumpled, as if she was on the verge of crying. He looked at her with confusion. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t say it. I just—” She dropped her head to one hand.
“Kari?”
When she looked up again, tears filled her eyes. “I’m pregnant.”
Chapter 17
The moment Kari spoke the words, Marc felt as if a frigid wind had swept across the room and knocked him flat on his back. He stared at Kari, unable to speak, unable to breathe, praying time would stop and he wouldn’t have to hear another word. Wishing he could go back in time five minutes—just five minutes—and play this all again, only this time she wouldn’t say those words and his life wouldn’t be crashing down on him.
“How do you know?” he finally managed to say. “If you’re just late—”
“I went to the doctor this morning.”
“Is there any chance she’s wrong?”
“No,” Kari said. “There’s no doubt.”
Oh, God. This could not be happening. “The baby,” he said by rote, not looking at her. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes. The doctor says everything is fine.”
“You?”
“Just a little morning sickness.”
He dropped his head to his hands. A few seconds later, he felt a surge of frustration and jerked it back up again. “How the hell did this happen?”
“The usual way.”
“We used protection.”
“It’s not a hundred percent.”
“It’s damned close if you use it right!”
“We did. You know we did. Sometimes things just…happen.”
