by Susan Wiggs
Cormac plucked a photograph from the drawer. “He’s a grown man in this picture.”
It was her favorite shot of Erik, one she used to take out and study when she was growing up. The photo showed him standing on Shell Beach, out on the Sonoma coast, with the cliffs sweeping up behind him and the ocean crashing around his bare feet. He was smiling broadly, maybe laughing, in the picture. He wore a red baseball cap turned backward, board shorts and no shirt. The camera had frozen him in a moment of freedom and joy.
“He’s younger in this picture than I am now.” She shook off a wave of regret, then shut the drawer with a decisive shove. “So, do you want a quick tour, or...?”
“Sure.” He turned and grabbed his cane.
“What happened to your leg?” she asked.
“I wish I could say I trashed my knee while doing something awesome, but it happened at JFK airport when I was running for a flight.” He shrugged. “It’ll be okay.”
In the middle of the second floor were the two biggest suites, one facing north, the other south. “We just finished remodeling them,” Isabel said. “Careful, I think the paint might still be wet on the doorframes.”
He scanned the new furnishings, the bright walls and window seats. “It’s great, Isabel.”
“Thank you. This has been a labor of love, for sure.”
“What’s up those stairs?”
“Third floor. My room, a few more guest rooms....”
Leaning on the hand rail, he went up the stairs. Isabel told herself to get used to this. Grandfather had invited the guy to explore their lives, and she supposed that meant he would be poking around every room of the house.
She showed him the guest rooms on the third floor, including the suite where Erik and Francesca had lived after they married. Though currently unfinished, this was going to become the honeymoon suite, romantic and private, appointed with luxurious fabrics and a special dressing room for the bride.
“And this,” she said, opening a door to a small sunroom, “was my grandmother’s domain. It hasn’t been refurbished yet, either. I’m not sure what to do with it.” Although Bubbie had been gone for ten years, her presence could still be felt in the closed-off room. Her sewing machine stood in the corner, still threaded, the needle raised as if awaiting orders. Under the long bank of windows was a faded daybed where Bubbie had lived the final days of her illness. She had spent time doing the things that mattered to her—simple things—visiting with family and friends, writing letters, gazing out at the beautiful view, enjoying a cup of tea with a buttery cookie, reassuring Isabel and Magnus of her love.
But Bubbie had never divulged the biggest secret of her life.
Regarding the sunroom, Isabel felt a surge of inspiration. “I’d love to turn this space into something Bubbie would appreciate,” she said.
“Need any suggestions?”
Not from you, she thought. “I’d love it to be a place of dreams, somewhere to sit and think.”
“Thinking gives me a headache.”
She gestured at the row of windows. “You’d probably like a universal gym and giant speakers blaring heavy metal music.”
“Hey, thanks for reducing me to a cliché. Actually, I was going to suggest yoga mats and gong music.”
The suggestion surprised Isabel. She could instantly picture a yoga retreat here. Maybe having Cormac O’Neill poking around and commenting on everything might turn out to be the start of something good.
Yet the thought of a stranger covered in beestings, staying in the house, swearing like a reject from a busy restaurant kitchen, was unsettling.
“Shit, oh, man.” As if he’d read her thoughts, he staggered and grabbed the doorknob.
“What’s the matter?” She clutched at his arm. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, sorry, I’ll be okay. Post Adrenalin letdown,” he said. “Feels like vertigo.”
“What can I do?”
“Maybe a rest and a shower.”
She escorted him back to Erik’s room. “All right,” she said, feeling flustered again, “you should find everything you need here.”
He paused, studying her. “I already have.”
* * *
Cormac O’Neill had been to a lot of places in his life, too many to count. But as he stood at the window of his room at Bella Vista, he couldn’t recall a place that rivaled the beauty of the Sonoma hacienda. Looking out at the orchards and fields, he felt a million miles away from the war-torn places of the world, the airports and grimy cities, the long barren stretches of scorched earth in the foreign lands he’d visited. During his career, he had lived in mud huts and tents, in hovels and out in the open, being eaten alive by bugs or shivering in an unheated room. He could do worse than a luxurious villa in Archangel, that was for sure.
Staggering off an overseas flight at SFO this morning, he’d borrowed a buddy’s Jeep, gulped a double shot of espresso and had driven straight from San Francisco to Archangel, hoping to relax and sleep off the jet lag. Instead, he’d encountered the skittish and suspicious Isabel, who had kneed him in the groin. Next came the swarm of bees and the trip to the urgent care place. He wondered what the next disaster would be.
When Tess had told him about the book project, she hadn’t mentioned hostile women and swarms of bees. In fact, she’d characterized it as a working vacation of sorts, a way for him to recover from his bum knee by soaking up the charms of Sonoma County.
In contrast, Bella Vista was lush and seductive, the landscape filled with colors from deep green to sunburned-gold. Gardeners, construction workers and farm workers swarmed the property. Isabel Johansen was in charge; that had been clear from the start. Yet when she’d shown him to Erik’s room, she’d seemed vulnerable, uncertain. Some might regard the room as a mausoleum, filled with the depressing weight of things left behind by the departed. To Mac, it was a treasure trove. He was here to learn the story of this place, this family, and every detail, from the baseball card collection to the dog-eared books about far-off places, would turn into clues for him.
And holy crap, had Isabel looked different when she’d given him the nickel tour. Unlike the virago in the beekeeper’s getup, the cleaned-up Isabel was a Roman goddess in a flowy outfit, sandals and curly dark hair.
Mac reminded himself that meeting Magnus Johansen was the whole point of this trip. At the moment, he didn’t feel like meeting anyone. The meds he’d been given, combined with the letdown after the shot of epinephrine, made his brain feel like cotton candy.
Rummaging through his duffel bag, he broke out the cream from the pharmacy and dabbed some on the itchy welts covering his arms, legs and hands. There were bites on his back he couldn’t reach, so he scratched himself on the bedpost, seeking relief.
He hoped the bees were not an omen of mishaps to come. He could always hope this morning’s disasters were an anomaly. His plan was simple. He would gather information about Magnus Johansen, a war hero turned orchardist, then settle in and write the story. It was what he did, what he was good at—telling other people’s stories.
The PR people who worked for his publisher liked to make much of his background. He’d been raised with five brothers by parents who worked in the diplomatic corps, traveling to the far corners of the world, their mission to spread peace and understanding. It all sounded exotic and glamorous, although for a kid, the reality had been far different—an endless succession of airports and foreign hotels, stifling tropical heat and painful immunizations and a new school every other year. The upbringing had taught him much about the world; he’d learned a few languages and had figured out how to be ready to go at a moment’s notice. But his way of life had never taught him how to stay in one place. The concept of home was foreign to him.
He went into the immaculate bathroom and took a quick shower in the old-fashioned claw-foot tub. There w
ere perfumed soaps and fancy shampoo and lotions. Damn, it felt good to shower off the travel and the jet lag. He wanted to stand there all day, but he was here for a job. He put on clean shorts and a shirt, then put the knee brace back in place. The zipperlike surgical scar wasn’t pretty, but at least his knee didn’t feel as though it was on fire anymore.
He was supposed to be taking care of himself after his injury. The doc said his knee would never heal if he didn’t follow a program of physical therapy and exercise.
There was a knock at the door. “Hey, Mac,” said a voice. “It’s me, Tess.”
Leaning on his cane, he hobbled over and let her in.
She was as pretty as ever, red hair, tall and willowy. Actually, she was even prettier than he remembered. He didn’t recall the brightness of that smile. “Tess Delaney. Fancy meeting you here.”
“It’s great to see you,” she said. “We didn’t know when you’d get here.”
“I caught a flight from Taipei on standby. Borrowed a set of wheels in San Francisco and here I am.”
“Wow, that was quick. Oh, my gosh, it’s been too long.” With that, she gave him a brief hug. “I’m really glad we stayed in touch, Mac. Thanks for coming.” Her eyes sparkled as she grinned at him. “What?” she asked. “You’re looking at me funny.”
“You look really good, Tess. Glowing. Hey, are you—”
“About to marry the love of my life, yes. And no, I’m not pregnant. Just...in a different place than I was last time I saw you. A much better place, literally and figuratively.”
He sensed a mellowness about her he didn’t recall from before, as if her sharp edges had been softened. Maybe it was this place—Bella Vista. Maybe it would soften him, too. Except he didn’t need softening.
She stepped back and regarded him from head to toe. “You don’t look so hot. Isabel said you got stung.”
“Stung’s the word for it,” he murmured. “I’ll be okay. She was nice enough to take me to a clinic.”
“Good. My sister’s super nice.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
She set her hands on her hips. Tess had put on a little weight, and the curves looked good on her. She’d been really skinny in Krakow, skinny and stressed out. “She said you got off on the wrong foot this morning.”
“Ha-ha.”
She checked out his knee brace. “What happened?”
“Torn ligaments. I’ll heal.”
“Are you hungry?”
“You know me. I can always eat.”
“You came to the right place. Let’s grab something for you from the kitchen, and then we’ll go find Magnus.”
The “something” turned out to be a wedge of the most amazing cake he’d ever tasted. It had cream in the middle, a crust of honey and almonds on top. He crammed half a wedge into his mouth and moaned aloud. “Damn, that’s good,” he said around the mouthful. “Damn.”
“I already ordered it for my wedding breakfast,” said Tess.
“It’s called Bienenstich—bee sting cake,” said Isabel, coming into the kitchen. “Appropriate, under the circumstances.”
He turned to face her, his cheeks stuffed with food like a chipmunk’s. Then he swallowed the bite of food. “It’s delicious. Did you make it?” he asked, not taking his eyes off her. She didn’t look much like her sister. While Tess had red hair and freckles, Isabel had olive-toned skin, dark eyes and full lips, like a flamenco dancer or maybe an Italian film star swathed in veils.
“I did,” she said. “It’s a German tradition. You should have coffee with it.” She went over to an espresso machine that resembled the chrome front of a Maserati, and got to work.
Coffee. Oh, God.
He took out his phone, which was also his work computer, voice recorder and general organizer of his life. “I’m not getting a good signal here. Is there a wi-fi password?”
“I should remember that,” said Tess, “because we just upgraded. When I first got here, you couldn’t even get a signal. Isabel, do you remember the password?”
“‘CATSEX!!’ all in caps, with two exclamation points.” She shrugged. “I didn’t pick it.”
“Isabel’s the best cook in the world,” said Tess, raising her voice over the grind and hiss of the espresso maker. “We eat like this all the time at Bella Vista.”
He connected with his phone and scrolled through a depressingly long queue of unanswered emails. A freelancer’s dilemma—you were never really free. You just moved from one assignment to the next. He deleted a few nonessential notes, then pocketed the phone and helped himself to another piece of coffee cake, feeling charitable now toward the bees that had produced the deep, rich honey that flavored the topping. Seriously, he couldn’t remember the last time food had tasted so good to him.
After the espresso machine spewed forth a cacophony of grinding, whistling and a deep-throated gurgling, Isabel set a frothy cappuccino in front of him. The rich aroma rose on a wisp of steam.
“Okay, that settles it.” He wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I’m never leaving.”
“Ha,” said Tess. “You never stay.”
She knew him better than he thought. The longest he’d ever lived in one place was during college. After that, his permanent address was his literary agent’s Manhattan office.
Here, he felt like a stranger in a strange—and extremely seductive—land. In contrast to the places of his past, Bella Vista seemed weighted by a sense of permanence—the old country house with its courtyard and patios, the rustic stone barn and machine shop, outbuildings and weathered work sheds, the acres of age-gnarled apple trees, now covered in springtime blooms. He wondered what it would be like to watch the seasons change all in one place, year after year.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he told Tess.
She gave a dismissive sniff, then turned to her beauteous sister. “He never stays. Mac is a rolling stone.”
Isabel offered a bowl full of raw sugar crystals. “Good to know,” she said.
“I’m wounded,” he said, adding sugar to his coffee. “Why is it good?”
“I like to understand who I’m dealing with. So do you prefer Mac or Cormac?”
“Either.” The piercing mechanical whine of a saw came from somewhere outside. “You’ve got a lot of work going on around here,” he said. “If this is a bad time—”
“It’s a perfect time,” Tess interrupted.
He sensed what she wasn’t saying. Magnus Johansen wasn’t getting any younger.
When the shrieking of the power saw stopped, Tess asked, “So what do you think about Isabel’s project?”
What the hell did he care? The whole idea of running a vast estate, regardless of how historic it was, felt like way too much of a commitment to him.
“She’s turning the place into a destination cooking school. Did she tell you?” Tess beamed with pride.
“She’s standing right here,” Isabel reminded them.
“Cool idea, huh?” Tess asked, ignoring her sister.
“If you’re into cooking,” said Mac. “And school.”
“I take it you’re not,” Isabel said.
“I’m here for Magnus,” he said. “In the meantime, I’ll try to stay out of your way.”
“Ernestina told me he’s out with the workers in the new section of the orchard.” She looked him up and down, her gaze hard to read. “It’s a few hundred yards away. Can you walk that far?”
He nodded, gripping his cane as he studiously ignored the twinge in his bad knee. “Sure, let me grab my camera.”
“You’re a photographer, too?” asked Isabel when he returned with his gear. “It looks like a bazooka gun.”
“I take a lot of my own pictures,” he said. He’d found, in his work, that putting the camera between hi
mself and a subject sometimes created a necessary boundary. Or if that wasn’t needed, it was a way to capture a moment, a mood or nuance when words weren’t enough.
The three of them stepped through a set of French doors leading to the central patio, which was swarming with even more workmen. Isabel led the way, descending a set of yellow limestone steps. He couldn’t stop himself from checking her out from behind. He kind of wished she wasn’t wearing all that flowy stuff because he suspected there was something much more interesting underneath.
Pretty women were one of his several weaknesses. There was something about long hair, shapely legs, tanned skin, smooth and soft... He couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a woman, inhaled the scent of her hair, pressed his lips to the pulse in her neck. He nearly stumbled over a tree root as he imagined what Isabel Johansen smelled and tasted like.
She turned back, scowling at him. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he said, clearing his throat. “Just taking in the atmosphere.”
They came upon a crew of workers with long-handled pruners. Speaking in Spanish that sounded smooth and natural, Isabel asked one of them where Magnus was.
One of the guys gestured at the end of a row of trees and waved. “He’s over by the new trees from the nursery beds.”
They headed down another row of trees. At the end of the row, Mac could see an old man silhouetted against the hillside, a ladder on one shoulder and a cane in his other hand. Tall and slender, in overalls and a work shirt, white hair sticking out from under a flat cap, Magnus Johansen moved with the ease of a much younger man.
Isabel called out to get his attention and he stopped, setting the ladder on the ground. He took off his cap and waved it at them.
Mac paused to take a candid picture while Isabel and Tess walked ahead, framed by the rows of arching trees in bloom. A timely breeze created a flurry of petals that filled the air like an unseasonable snowstorm. The camera lens captured the tableau of the old man and his two beautiful granddaughters, the moment gilded by sunshine filtering through the leaves. Nice.
Mac put the cap back on the lens and approached him. “Cormac O’Neill,” he said, shaking hands. “Good to meet you in person.”
