“Oh. My.” He pulled the car to the side of the road and shut off the engine.
“Hey, you’re only supposed to say that about me.”
He leaned over and kissed her until his lips felt bruised and the catcalls of passing drivers made his ears ring. But he had to look back.
“This is incredible! It must be ten stories high.”
“Eleven. The German’s blasted the old lighthouse to smithereens when they were retreating, but the Italians rebuilt it to the original plan using all the original stone they could salvage.”
The Livorno lighthouse rose from the edge of the busy shipyard. Cargo ships, loading cranes, and railcars scuttled about its base, but the stepped cylinder soared above them all.
“Boy, these Italians really know how to build a lighthouse.”
“Isn’t it great? And the best part…”
He turned to her. She’d pushed her sunglasses up on her forehead, just as his mother had worn them. In that moment he could see the woman who would make Julia Morgan a grandmother. Cassidy Knowles-Morgan sitting on their own child’s sailboat, or whatever. The woman he wanted in his life more than was possible. The woman he loved. He never said that before. Not to her. Not to himself. Not to anyone, ever.
“The best part is that it was built in 1304, almost two hundred years before Columbus. The oldest we’ve visited was 1857, Cape Flattery and New Dungeness.”
“I’m sorry, Cassidy. I know you’re incredible and I love you, but that rates a ‘Oh. My.’ There’s just no way around it.”
He watched her closely, it took a moment for it to register. Then he saw it hit, like someone had thumped her in the solar plexus. Her jaw dropped and he heard a gasp. The next moment she’d swarmed into his lap despite the cramped cockpit and steering wheel. If he thought he’d been soundly kissed before, he was happily mistaken.
Being kissed by Cassidy was better than sex with most women.
Finally she whispered in his ear, “I love you, too.”
He held her even tighter.
# # #
They drove up to Monterosso, narrow twisty roads tunneled through mountains, often only a lane wide. In any car lesser than the Ferrari, it would have been a scary ride rather than scenic and fun. They laughed most of the way.
She told him about California and Montalcino. She’d already written a column about the food and wine at each. Several more about winemaking to intersperse over the next year.
“I don’t give away any company secrets, but it is amazing how similar and how different the processes are. It’s like the lighthouses. California is so new and slick. The gravity feeds between stainless steel tanks. Everything is temperature controlled to the degree, and staged to the hour. So long in steel, so long in oak. All scientific and you could eat off the floor in any of the mechanical rooms.”
“Exactly what I’d want to do.”
She thumped his arm playfully and he laughed for the sheer joy of teasing her. He downshifted for another hairpin turn as they climbed then descended then climbed again through the coastal range. The jagged hills broke the vistas into sharp chunks of sky, hill, and tree. Far lower than the mountains of the Cascade Range, but more dramatic in their own way.
“In California they’re actually boring caves, carving vast cavities into the mountainsides. And it’s just for show. Caves with carpeting, furniture, a wine bar, huge casks that aren’t really used. All for show because caves are the ‘in thing’ now.”
“The Montalcino wineries are done with casks that are older than their great-grandparents. Wine is processed, tanked, purified through the same steps, but nature has a bigger part in it. The same care, less technologic frenzy. And instead of fabricated caves they have real ones that have been there forever. Some of them date back to the Etruscans, they’re the ones who helped the Romans get started.”
Her excitement was so high, she was so thrilled by what she’d seen, he couldn’t ask her. At first he hadn’t because he didn’t want to spoil her wonderful welcome, then because the drive was so fun. And he was still trying to process that she loved him.
And that he’d loved her. Had he said it to anyone other than his mother? Ever? And even that had become dutiful, until their last visit. Until he’d realized that she’d put up with for the last fifteen years of his jumping to wrong conclusions about her. And Cassidy had dispelled them all with a few casual questions. Their last visit had been the best ever and it was all Cassidy’s doing. How could he spoil this for her?
He’d wait just a little longer.
# # #
It was all too perfect to be true. Cassidy had been transported by the magic of her father’s letters and the man beside her to a new world. A world of possibilities. She’d aspired to be the next Robert Parker. The first female megastar of the wine-tasting firmament. The top of a very small world.
But the vineyards, that’s where it all happened. They found the winery in Corniglia where the Sciacchetrà was made. The wine that had fooled her at their disastrous first date. It was made underneath Carla Parrano’s home, a distant cousin of Angelo’s. They entered through a narrow oak door at street level, dark with age and polished smooth by human hands.
They descended into the mountainside. Into an Italian cave turned into a wine cellar over six hundred years before. The air was cool, the floor and walls stone. The casks packed so tightly together that there was barely room to get around them. And the wine, sweet and light, a gentleness from the vat that didn’t, couldn’t survive the ten-thousand-mile journey by boat and rail in bottles. This wine wasn’t intended for export. To make this wine work, you had to bring the wine tasters to the wine and she could think of a dozen different ways to do that. Just a part of her newly expanded view of the big picture.
She led Russell up into the rock-wall terraced vineyards of Cinque Terre. Terraces barely ten feet wide, each supported a few dozen vines in a few feet of soil. For a thousand years, grapes had been cultivated here. Cultivated this way. In tiny little patches by hard labor. Ingenious, hip-wide monorail cars that climbed from one terrace to another transporting the grapes and the more daring tourists.
Russell’s camera snapped away, taking pictures of cliff-edge vineyards, restaurants, and fishing boats dragged up on the miniature beaches.
In Manarola, the fourth of the five little towns, they found a hidden ristorante. A locals’ place. They were the only tourists there despite the warm October. Russell’s Italian was rusty, but he’d learned it at his cook’s knee and it came back quickly. Hers was much worse, just enough of it left from college to make it fun rather than a struggle.
The owner bustled to their table in the middle of the meal and rattled off a flurry of Italian she had no chance of following.
“What did he say?”
“I dropped Angelo’s name, they know about him.”
“Really? That’s great. Local boy made good, huh?”
More Italian rattled back and forth, and then the owner jerked to stare at her, slapped his hands to his heart and ran back into the restaurant.
“What? What did you do to him?”
Russell just shook his head and shrugged. No grin. He didn’t appear to know. She looked away and checked again, still no grin. Okay, he was as mystified as she was.
The owner came running back, the waiter and waitress, and a woman who had to be his wife in tow. He was also waving a worn newspaper over his head.
He thumped it down on table, pointed his finger at an article then brought his fingertips to his lips and tossed the kiss into the air.
They both leaned in. It was titled “Angelo’s Tuscan Hearth” and her picture sat at the head of the column. The rest was in Italian, definitely her writing though. Her agent had told her about Italy, she’d just never imagined the translation. It was the second of her three reviews. Down at the bottom, there it was.
She wasn’t going to point it out.
She didn’t need to.
Russell’s groan filled the air
much to the consternation of the owner who she quickly reassured. She couldn’t quite read the translation, but she didn’t need to. She’d written the words herself.
Bring the person you love to this restaurant and you’ll never be forgotten for it. Ever.
“In every language,” Russell moaned.
# # #
“Why that’s terribly flattering.”
Cassidy had been saying that a lot lately. California and Italy were in a bidding war for her expertise. Even hiding away on vacation, news of increased offers trickled her direction. Germany and France had both left lengthy messages, or rather a lengthy series of messages in two-minute chunks that Russell was very familiar with.
He leaned against the stone parapet of the microscopic balcony. Barely big enough to stand in, but enough for him to stare down at the tiny harbor. Just big enough to tuck the Lady in among the fishing boats. Nutcase would love this place.
He could hear Cassidy in the bedroom checking up on the latest flurry of offers. Cassidy Knowles was in play and the games had begun. Salaries, personal villas, cars, personal assistants were being bandied about in a high stakes poker game that showed no sign of reaching its limit.
Even the Cinque Terre Consortium had anted up, though they’d been outbid before they even made the offer and they knew it. But they’d done it with style, closing the little Manarola restaurant and inviting a couple dozen chefs, vintners, and local officials to feast Italian style around a long table. There’d been far more food and wine than business. There had been impromptu singing and a lot of laughter. By the time they were done, he’d been hugged at least twice by every person there.
The Ligurian wine industry here had suffered due to the attraction of the almighty tourist dollar. Vines on cliffs were hard work. Turning your five-hundred year old cellar into a quaint restaurant or gift shop was far easier. The five-town Consortium had come up with a solution, give the terraces away before they fell into disrepair and slid into the ocean. To retain ownership, the new owners were required to farm them for at least four years. Get new blood into the industry.
Russell could already think of several different campaign ideas. And the Consortium knew that it needed a Cassidy Knowles to make it all happen. Their offer: a small house perched over the beach, with a small budget to fix it up, a survival stipend, and a marketing budget that would barely pay for the rental on the car they’d left parked at Monterosso.
The chances of her throwing it all away to go sailing with him were getting slimmer by the minute. Angelo was right. He should have asked her before she left, before they had a chance to get to her. But then he’d have trapped her. That couldn’t be right either.
He could still feel the scars on his back from his own narrow escape. The major accounts who still called him. The ones who’d spotted his work for Angelo or Perrin were hounding his cell phone with requests for “just one more spread.” It was the road to nowhere. It was the road back to a studio, living there because next door would be too far away. A series of lovers who looked like Melanie, but didn’t touch his heart.
He’d had enough of lovers, too many. He now had a girlfriend, a woman he was in love with. And he wanted more. Wouldn’t his mother laugh her ass off knowing what he was feeling right about now. Angelo sure would.
Cassidy hung up the phone.
He didn’t turn when she ran her hand up his back.
“I’m sorry. It’s overwhelming.”
He nodded. He knew the temptation was huge. It was “The Life” all over again. Except now it was Cassidy who had set her sights on it, and he wasn’t a part of the equation. He didn’t want to be a part of That Life. He’d been there and barely escaped.
“Hey, lover.”
He jolted beneath her touch. That’s exactly what he’d called Melanie, the moment before he destroyed her life by asking her to go sailing with him.
He pushed past her, off the balcony and into the pensione. It was so damn small. Caged. He was Cassidy’s captive lover while she made choices that he could never survive. He groped about the room, found the door, and was out on the streets in moments. He headed up the hill, climbing the cobbled streets, and when they gave out, the terraced fields of vines. It was only when he reached the highest terraces, those which had been abandoned first by the shrinking Cinque Terre wine industry that he ground to a halt.
Exhausted he dropped to the earth and rested his head on his arms.
“Shit! Melanie, I’m sorry. You never deserved that.” It hurt like hell to be wearing that same burden himself. He didn’t want Cassidy’s Life. No more than she wanted his. And where did that leave them?
Sure a fish can love a bird, but where would they live? Old joke. Sad joke.
# # #
“What the hell, Russell?” Her side was killing her, the stitch dug in like a knife. All her morning runs through the vast vineyards of California and Italy hadn’t prepared her for the vertical cliffs or the pace that Russell had set up the hills.
He raised his head from his arms and it was the saddest she’d ever seen him.
She dropped to the soil beside him and kneaded her side. She slid an arm around his waist but he shrugged her off.
“What did I do?” Damn it. They were in this incredibly beautiful, romantic wonderland of the Italian coast.
He shook his head, but didn’t answer.
“Is it the phone calls? I’ll stop those. I won’t check another message until we get home.”
“Home.”
“Well, that’s some response. C’mon, Russell. You know I suck at guessing games. Talk to me.” Not even a smile.
“Where’s home, Cassidy?” His voice was deep and rough. As if he was fighting for every word.
“I don’t know. Seattle I guess. Maybe Oakville in Napa soon. How the hell should I know? Where’s your home, Russell? On some damn sailboat?”
“Yes.” He finally looked at her. “Yes, it’s on some damn sailboat. My home has a cat. It has belongings. It is a place where I like myself. It is a place where I’m at my best. How about you, Cassidy? Where are you at your best?”
“In your arms.” She’d said it flippantly, but once said, it was true. It was the one place she could be where the world made sense. When the mad jangle in her head went quiet.
“C’mon, Cassie. I’m not talking about sex.”
She hadn’t been, at least not once she thought about it. But she couldn’t answer his scorn. Couldn’t face his anger.
He closed his eyes. He just sat there with his eyes closed. His arms, those nice, strong, safe arms crossed over his own knees.
The ocean lay spread out before them. Somewhere over that way Sardinia, then France, Spain, the Atlantic, the entire width of the U.S. So many miles away. But it didn’t feel so distant when she sat here with Russell.
She reached for him again, but hesitated with her fingers a scant inch from his shoulder. Finally she withdrew and dropped her hand into her lap.
Everything had been going so perfectly. California had a wonderful offer, giving her access to every aspect of the organization. Italy had a nice Old World feel that could be fun, but not as exciting. The U.S. companies, and now there were four of them, exhibited an energy, a vibrancy that egged her on. The French offers were more about status and, she had to admit, a chance to work with grand crus was tempting. The Germans were all about money, a lot of money.
“Why can’t you just be happy for me?”
He shuddered. He actually shuddered.
“What? Come on, Russell. Talk to me.”
“Where is home, Cassidy Knowles?”
# # #
He didn’t speak again except to repeat his question. No matter what she did or said.
“Where is home, Cassidy Knowles?”
When the evening settled in with a foggy chill, that raised goosebumps over her whole body, she deserted him and descended back to the hotel. Though she waited all night, there was no sign of Russell.
Some romantic vacat
ion.
She dialed for her messages. Seventeen. She hung up without listening to a one of them.
At dawn there was a knock on the door and she rushed over to open it.
Instead of Russell. Instead of throwing their arms around each other and both being sorry, a maid held out a note.
The paper crackled as she opened it. His writing, not her father’s. But it was as if they were both speaking from the same page.
Cassidy,
You are really going places. I’m happy for you. Unfortunately, they aren’t places I want to go. The car is in your name and the keys are on the bureau. I’ve taken the 6:30 train to the airport. I’ve left money and instructions with the front desk to ship my belongings. Just leave them in the room and they’ll take care of it. Though if you’d hand carry my camera to Angelo, I’d appreciate it. Don’t if it’s too weird for you.
Best of luck with your future,
Russell
The first thing she noticed was the clock. 6:45. Gone! He was gone. How could that be? What had she said? She’d gone over it a hundred times in the night. And she still didn’t know.
Maybe one of the seventeen phone messages was from him. But she knew none of them would be. He’d spent a cold, lonely night in an abandoned vineyard, come down the hill with the dawn, and left town.
“Where is home, Cassidy Knowles?” As if he were questioning a complete stranger.
Well, to hell with him. She wasn’t going to ruin her vacation because of some jerk of a man. Breakfast. She’d eat breakfast, take a walk, then she’d feel better. She was just dizzy from the cold and the long night awake in the chair.
She didn’t like leaving his camera in the room. She slung it over her shoulder as she went out.
# # #
The camera was heavy and dragged at her shoulder. She pulled it into her hand, wrapping the strap as a brace behind her elbow just as he’d taught her.
With the camera in her hand, she started to see pictures to take. A pot with a single red geranium on a narrow set of stone steps, the very stone worn by a thousand years of footsteps. A neon-bright purple door beckoned her to photograph a stone house so old it might have been quarried by Noah’s sons. A Dalmatian stuck her nose out between forest-green, wooden shutters to watch her go by. A black and gray dapple cat impossibly asleep on the narrow keel of an up-turned fishing dinghy.
Where Dreams Are Born (Angelo's Hearth) Page 28
