A curse sounded from the bathroom and the sound of splashing.
He hustled back to the more immediate problem.
# # #
Russell sat on the balcony off Cassidy’s bedroom and watched the stars slowly turn over Puget Sound. Once she’d finished emptying the contents of her stomach into the toilet, he’d showered her as well as he could and managed to get her to spit after he brushed her teeth for her. He’d tucked her into bed after forcing her to drink some water and take a B12 vitamin he found in her medicine cabinet. It was the best hangover cure he had to offer, though she was still going to have a doozy.
The cleanup had taken a while—handwashing thirty-seven glasses. Hard to believe she even had that many or the room to store them in the small kitchen. Dinner for eight and four wines for a meal; maybe not that hard to imagine, but it was still a lot of washing. The red wine stain answered fairly well to the old trick of club soda and salt, but she’d still need a professional carpet cleaner.
Now he sat with a glass of the Bordeaux and some crackers and cheese. It was somewhere before dawn. Stars could still be seen, despite the waterfront lights below and some vague twinkling on the distant shore that was Bainbridge Island. What perversity had led her to get a condo facing what her father had lost?
Well, nothing to do but wait.
Wait for what? He must be more tired than he thought. He rubbed a hand over his face. There’d been something so urgent that he’d rushed over.
The future. Their future. Right.
Well, it was hard to go a whole lot further without knowing what Cassidy was thinking. That in itself was kind of funny. He’d done a lot of growing this last year. His mom had pointed it out when he went back to New York for a visit last week; Julia Morgan approved of Cassidy with all her heart—that much was clear.
Russell had walked out on Melanie with little thought for her and no awareness of her feelings. When their intensity surprised him, he’d gone to the West Coast anyway. Now? Now he was in limbo while Cassidy considered her destiny in California and Italy for Christ’s sake.
For the hundredth time he looked at the waterlogged letter on the little wrought iron table. He had found it crammed into her jean’s pocket.
If I could wish anything, it was that you had stayed in the vineyards with me. Then I wouldn’t have had to sell my life’s work to strangers.
“Good thing you’re dead, old man. Or we’d be having some words right about now.” Hell of a burden for a dead man to place on his living daughter. As if we don’t have enough problems making our own decisions.
“Russell?” Cassidy’s voice trembled out into the darkness. He hadn’t heard her get up, even though he’d left the sliding glass door open for that purpose. The late night lull was past and the first sounds of the waking city had begun: street cleaners, service trucks, the crazy, hyper-driven corporates, restaurant owners. It probably wasn’t all that long until Angelo would be awake and down at the market visiting the fish, produce, and meat vendors.
“Right here, Cassie.”
She came to him in the faint glow of the city lights. She lowered herself into the chair beside him with a hesitancy of movement that he knew well from past experience. Once she was settled, she took his hand. He held it lightly, knowing that everything must be hurting.
“I feel…”
“Shh. I know.”
“I don’t remember you coming in.”
“Good. Then you won’t remember that I splintered the frame of your door as I did so. My shoulder appreciates that you locked only the handle and not the dead bolt.”
“You busted down my door?”
“I panicked when you wouldn’t answer, but I could hear you groan. Sorry, I’ll fix it tomorrow.” He looked up at the sky. There was no light yet, but there soon would be. “Later today.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Don’t remember my tossing you in the tub? Helping you puke? Brushing your teeth for you?”
“I didn’t! Not really?”
“How I had my wanton way with you?”
“While I was drunk?” She sat up at that, though she froze and he felt sorry for what the sudden motion must have done to the inside of her head.
“Well, not the last, but all the other stuff, yes. I did shower you and towel you down. Though it wasn’t as much fun as usual.”
He reached his hand to stroke her cheek, marveling as he did every time how soft it was and how personal it felt. To be so close to someone he wanted to touch so much ranked beyond marvelous.
“What do you remember?”
“I sat down to write my column. It was going fine. I was working on a little section about the effect of climate between California temperate, Washington temperate, and the new Piedmont vineyards that are opening up in the foothills of the Italian Alps. But I couldn’t remember the taste of a Bainbridge Island Pinot Noir. I grew up with that wine, probably the first one I ever tasted.”
She was rubbing her forehead as if she could pull the memory out with her fingertips.
“I checked my notes, but I never wrote it down. Who could forget their first wine?”
Russell didn’t even remember his last wine the way she did though the dregs were still in the glass. It was far and away the best Bordeaux he’d ever had.
“So I opened a bottle—and I couldn’t taste it,” her hand started to shake in his hand as the memory returned.
“My palate is gone,” her voice grew shaky. “I opened a California Pinot, then a French Chardonnay. Nothing. None of them…” Her voice trailed off on a catch of breath. Her thoughts had finally caught up with her words.
“My palate is gone,” her silence was echoing, punctuated by the sound of a Metro bus’ diesel roaring far below.
“Kiss me.”
“What?”
“Kiss me.”
“I’m telling you my life is ruined. That it’s over. My gift is gone after twenty painstaking years of study and practice and you want me to kiss you?”
Russell nodded, knowing she could see the outlines of his face in the growing light.
She huffed a few times and finally leaned forward to give him a quick peck on the lips.
“Um, thanks for helping me out.”
“You’re welcome. Now kiss me.”
She practically growled when she did so. She leaned in and really kissed him—kissed him so hard that his body went electric. What had started as an attack quickly turned so sensual that it was hard not to drag her through the doors to the bed waiting only a few feet away.
He broke it off before she did.
“Now. Tell me what you tasted.”
“The ocean and the sky. You always taste like that.” News to him. He considered a moment and decided he could live with that, especially if Cassidy liked it.
“What else?”
She tipped her head sideways, in the way she always did when analyzing a flavor, whether a wine or a chocolate truffle. It was the moment when she was most quiet and most stunning.
“Plum and eucalyptus. Bitter cherry... You inveterate bastard!” She punched his arm hard enough to hurt. To really hurt.
“Am not,” he rubbed at his wound as she shook her hand in pain.
“Are too. You didn’t ravage me. You ravaged my 1969 Bordeaux. That was a graduation gift from my dad. I was saving it.”
“Yup. You were. For last night.”
That dropped her back in her chair. “Last night?”
“Most of it was in your carpet when I arrived. I got out the worst of the stain, so I guess it’s in your sink now. I had a half glass while watching over you. I saved the last half glass for you.”
Her voice was very small. “I don’t think I could drink any wine now if my life depended on it.”
“How about kissing me again? To make up for punchin
g my arm so hard.”
She leaned over just far enough to kiss him on the arm. “What else did I open?”
“I don’t know. I lost track somewhere after thirty bottles.”
“Thirty?” Little more than a squeak.
“Kiss me again.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he rose and helped her to her feet. He swung her up into his arms and headed back into the bedroom.
“I like proving that your palate is still just fine.”
Point Robinson Lighthouse
Maury Island
First lit: 1887
Automated: 1978
47.3881 -122.3746
The Point Robinson light and foghorn is the principle guiding beacon between Seattle and Tacoma. Fog is an especial problem on this point of Maury Island. In 1897, the sole keeper, who had been asking for an assistant for years, had to run the whistle for 528 straight hours on his own. In those twenty-two long days he shoveled thirty-five tons of coal by hand to power the whistle.
His request for assistance was granted. But it was 1903, six years later, before one was assigned to the light.
OCTOBER 1
“You didn’t ask her? Mama mia, you’re an idiota!”
Russell was, but that didn’t mean Angelo was going to get away with it. He dug around in the fridge for a couple Cokes.
“And have you called Jo Thompson yet?” He called out the hatchway to Angelo up at the tiller.
“Low blow, my man. Low blow.”
“Have you?”
“Shit, no. What’s a classy, hot-shot lawyer gonna see in a lousy, Eye-talian servant’s son?”
Russell came on deck and shook the bottle hard before handing it to Angelo. Angelo groaned and slipped it into a cup holder unopened.
“She may be a big-time lawyer, but you’re a big-time restaurateur.”
“Oh, yeah. One whole restaurant. That’ll really impress a lady like that.”
“Got news for you, buddy boy.”
Angelo just glared at him.
“Fisherman’s daughter.” Russell turned away and peeked under the sail as the light finally dawned over Angelo’s face.
“Lighthouse ho.”
There it was, right on cue. Point Robinson was a windy, god-forsaken spot known for its shrouds of fog and today didn’t disappoint. They’d spent much of the morning creeping through fog banks and dead-reckoning from one channel buoy to the next. A little sunlight broke through around the lighthouse itself, enough to make a pretty picture of the light wrapped in a foggy, surreal landscape of mystery.
He pulled out his camera and starting snapping photos for Cassidy. It didn’t feel right though. Without her here, the purpose was gone. He wanted to see the lady on the beach in her ridiculous, knee-length parka. Or spend a lazy afternoon teasing the sassy wine-connoisseur lying back in his dinghy. Hell, he’d be glad just watch her as she cranked on a winch or played with the cat. Even Nutcase seemed despondent without her, curled up in the cockpit rather than out on the boom.
“Did you know that some poor chump shoveled thirty-five tons of coal in three weeks to run the fog whistle here.” He ran the telephoto out and searched the beach. Not a single woman walked on the beach.
No point in even looking; Cassidy was at thirty-five thousand feet zooming from California to Italy. The wineries were really courting her hard. She’d had a half dozen offers in the last fifteen days, sight unseen. They both knew that she was going to end up in California; the Italy trip was only because she’d committed to go in the initial flush of excitement.
Angelo steered up into the wind a bit making him reset the sails. “Why are you changing the subject?”
“What subject?” Russell didn’t want to talk about this with Angelo.
“Why didn’t you ask her to marry you?”
He really, really didn’t want to talk about this.
# # #
Cassidy held the letter in her lap.
She’d promised Russell that she wouldn’t read it without him, but it was the first of the month and here it was in her lap. He’d insisted that she wait a week. He would come over after her interviews were done and they’d go and play along the Amalfi coast for a week. He’d bring photos of the lighthouse and be there while she read the letter.
She knew he wanted to protect her from whatever the next letter held. And he’d been kind enough to insist without throwing her last debacle in her face—forty-three bottles, almost six thousand dollars in wine, some of it irreplaceable. Worst of all, it had been days before she could face drinking any wine at all. By the time she could, everything she’d opened that night had gone bad.
No, she was strong enough to do this on her own. She didn’t need to depend on Mr. Russell Morgan for strength, no matter how sweet he was about it.
She checked her watch—ten a.m. west coast time. Just about right for Russell to be sailing by the lighthouse.
She tore open the letter. The scrawled hand was weaker and her heart twisted to imagine her father’s efforts to scribe even these few words. It was shorter than any prior letter. Even the sentences were shorter. As if he had to rest between each thought.
Dearest Ice Sweet,
There is a truth that I have learned. Be true to your passion. Your mother was true to her great love for family. I loved the vines. Each of us had full, complete lives. We were true to our passion, in whatever form it took.
Your passion isn’t the vine, it’s the wine. And the writing. Look at why you like it. That is the passion. I thought my passion was Knowles Valley. But it wasn’t. It was the vines. I was never happier than when I was walking the rows. California or Bainbridge. For me, it was the vines and you.
Love you Ice Sweet,
Vic
“I know what’s important, Daddy. Truly I do.” She would listen to what the Italians had to say, but she knew what was important.
# # #
Russell took his bottle of Coke and rolled it slowly back and forth between his palms. The cool glass felt good despite the fall day.
“She’s over the Atlantic somewhere right now. That’s a bit out of reach. I’ll ask her when I see her next week.”
“You know where you’re going yet?”
She was going to meet his plane at Sienna airport with a rental car. They’d poke along the Amalfi coast, or slide over to Monaco and the French Riviera. A whole week, just the two of them and Italy—that’s all he cared about.
“I’ll know when the time is right. When the mood is right.”
Angelo swore loudly, waved for him to take the tiller, and went below. The Lady slipped along the shore and Russell fell back to watching the lighthouse slip slowly by. It was a sweet one—all alone at the foot of the hill, guarding the far end of a long, lonely beach road.
Angelo came back on deck after several minutes and shoved a cell phone into his hand.
It was active. He put it to his ear and it was ringing. He looked to his friend, but Angelo just took the tiller and focused on the way ahead.
“Uh, hello?”
“Hi, who is this?”
“You called me.” The voice was crackly and there was a funny lag.
“Cassidy?”
“How did you call me?”
“I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. I was just sitting here and the phone that’s mounted on the headrest in front of me rang.”
“Uh,” Angelo was one sneaky, really good friend. “I miss you. Guess I just wanted to hear your voice. Ange...” Angelo kicked his shin. “Uh, I figured if you could call out from a plane, you could probably call back the other way.”
“It’s nice to hear your voice, too. I’ll be on the ground pretty soon, we’re over Sardinia now.”
“Cassidy, I was wondering…” He wanted to do this when she was sitt
ing across from him, holding his hand or playing footsie under the tablecloth. Something.
“What?”
“If, ah…”
“You’re still coming next week?” The worry in her voice gave him confidence.
“Of course. Can’t wait.”
“I’ve picked some great places to go.”
“Wonderful.” Come on, Russell. Get your shit together. This was probably costing dollars per second. Of course it was Angelo’s phone, so why should he care.
“I—”
“We’ll be landing shortly,” a heavily-accented voice cut across the airwaves. “Please shut down all electronic devices and return your seat backs and tray tables to the upright position.”
He could just hear her as they repeated the instructions in Italian. “Thanks for the call. I’ll talk to you as soon as I’m settled. Bye.”
She was gone before he could respond.
“Wimp.”
“We were cut off. They’re landing. Thanks, Buddy. Thanks for the try.” He went to toss the phone back to Angelo, then noticed it was his, as were any call charges.
He grabbed his soda and twisted the cap. It exploded in his hands spraying foam and sugar all down his shorts and legs, dribbling into his shoes. Nutcase scrambled for cover, splashes of sticky foam all over her coat.
Angelo pulled his own bottle from the cup holder and, with an over-pleased grin, opened it with a small “phsst.”
# # #
The Porsche roared up to the airport terminal. Angelo had promised to treat it nicely while he was gone. Angelo hadn’t even bothered to buy a car and Russell sure wasn’t going to travel with a bunch of smelly fish in the restaurant van right before climbing on a plane for fifteen hours. Perry was going to take care of his boat and Nutcase. He really had nothing to worry about, so why was he such a nervous wreck?
Angelo whipped up to the curb missing an old lady by inches; probably scared a decade off her life.
Russell started to climb out, but Angelo grabbed his arm.
Where Dreams Books 1-3 Page 28
