by Susan Wiggs
She was wearing a new outfit, not the usual flowy stuff that hid all her assets. The fitted skirt and blouse showed off her figure in a way he found extremely distracting. “Wow in a good way. Isn’t that one of your mother’s outfits?”
“Yes, restored to its former glory. It doesn’t look too dated?”
“The kitchen looks great, and you look great.”
“Thanks. Two hours of hair and makeup, and I’m a natural beauty.” She struck a pose, wielding a spatula.
“You don’t need that much help.”
“I do for the photo shoot. That’s actually what I wanted to see you about.”
“The photo shoot? Oh, yeah, that magazine you mentioned.”
“Yes. There was a conflict, and the photographer and writer aren’t coming. If they reschedule, I’ll miss the opportunity for Bella Vista to be on the cover of the magazine. So I was wondering...I know it’s not your usual thing, but could you take the pictures and write the article?”
“What?” He wasn’t sure he’d heard right.
“I’m asking you to do the piece on the cooking school. Right now. Today. It’s the only way to make sure Bella Vista is featured on the cover.” Her cheeks flushed. “I sound desperate, don’t I? Sorry. I hate that I sound desperate.”
He felt a wave of affection for her. “This is important to you.”
“It’s everything to me.” She fluttered her hands nervously. “I’m sorry, it’s probably a bad idea.”
“Are you kidding me?”
Her shoulders slumped and she stared at the floor. “Okay, I get it, this is not your thing.”
“No, Isabel, you don’t get it.” He touched her beneath the chin and tipped her face up. “You’ve never asked me for a single thing, and now you are. I’m just wondering what the hell took you so long.”
The relief in her eyes nearly broke his heart. “You mean you’ll do it?”
“I’ll have my literary agent call the editor and make sure it’s the featured piece.”
“Oh, that would be fantastic. But you have to understand, the magazine’s budget is really small. I thought maybe we could work something out.”
“I don’t expect a fee. I don’t need to work anything out. I just need for you to trust me.”
“I trust.”
“Remember you said that.”
* * *
Jodi, the stylist who had helped at the wedding, proved to be an able assistant, patiently holding up reflectors and diffusers to correct the lighting. Isabel was surprisingly comfortable in front of the camera. Mac hadn’t been expecting that. Then he realized she was a woman in her element, in a place she loved, surrounded by the world she had created for herself. No wonder she never wanted to leave this place.
They set up shot after shot, in the kitchen, the patio, the orchard and the field with the beehives. He took pictures of the landscape and the wood-fire pizza oven and the newly completed outdoor shower with its smooth river stone surface and rustic wood privacy screen. But mostly, he took pictures of Isabel herself. The golden light of sunset infused each scene with a honeyed glow, lending a dreamlike quality to every frame. She was so damned beautiful it made his eyes hurt, and she didn’t even know it. He could look at her all day. He could look at her his whole life, and it wouldn’t be long enough.
He gave her props, not just the expected kitchen utensils, but a flower, a beehive smoker, the Vespa, anything to bring out her personality. He had her lift a dipper of honey to the light and captured the dripping sweetness in the foreground. Finally, when the sunset sank into twilight, Mac called it a day. “You’re going to love these pictures,” he assured her. “The magazine’s going to love them. Now we need to come up with an article to do them justice.”
He put his gear away while she paid Jodi and walked her out.
“Thank you, Mac,” she said, coming back inside. “An article by a national journalist like you—it will be quite a coup. The editor was so impressed. I don’t know how I’ll ever thank you.”
“Come to Ravello with me. Let’s go on an adventure.”
She smiled softly. “You’re already too much of an adventure for me.”
“No such thing. We need to get started on the article.”
“It’s funny, I’ve watched you work all this time with my grandfather, but I have no idea how you do what you do.”
“Here’s how it works. You’re going to talk to me. Really talk.”
“All right. Brace yourself. I think I’m kind of boring.”
“Believe me, you’re not boring.”
“Okay, then. But first I need to shower off all this hairspray and makeup. Not to mention this sticky honey. Why’d you have to use so much honey?”
“So I can lick it off you.”
“Hey—”
He grabbed her hand and gently slid each of her fingers into his mouth, one by one. The sweet honey taste of her nearly killed him. Judging by the look on her face, she was pretty turned on, too. “Let’s try the outdoor shower,” he said.
“But—”
“No buts. I bet you haven’t even tried it out.”
She stared at him, her eyes saying no already.
“Come on.” Keeping hold of her hand, he led the way. Landscaping lights illuminated the path through the darkness, down through the garden to the outdoor shower, a fantasy of lush plantings surrounded by rough stone in a rustic wood enclosure. There were fluffy white robes hanging on wrought iron hooks, and an array of homemade soaps and lotions, all perfectly arranged for the photo shoot.
He brought her into the enclosure, knelt down and took off her sandals. Then he put his arms around her and unzipped her skirt. She was quiet and sweetly compliant. Her skin felt warm beneath his hands as he undressed her and turned on the water. Then he peeled off his clothes and they stood together under the warm stream of water, exploring each other with soap-slick hands, kissing and tasting until he was about to explode. He took her there on the shower bench, gratified by the small, involuntary sounds of ecstasy she made. It was fast, and when she came, he felt the shudders rippling all through her body, and he couldn’t hold back. He turned her in his arms and kissed her long and deeply while the water rinsed them clean.
“Best shower ever,” he whispered, turning off the water and wrapping her in a robe.
“Yes,” she said. “I feel...it’s hard to explain. As if we go away somewhere, kind of like in a dream.”
“That explains it, then.”
She leaned her damp forehead against his shoulder. “What does it mean?”
“I think you know. But you don’t want to say.”
“Hey.”
“It’s okay. Tonight we’re doing the interview. Don’t worry, I’ll get more personal after we’re done.”
* * *
Isabel floated back to the house with him. She did know why they were so good together, and he was right; she didn’t want to say. Because it worried her.
The television was on in the lounge room, so they sneaked into the kitchen for a bottle of wine and two glasses, a dish of walnuts toasted with rosemary and salt and a wedge of cheese drizzled with honey. They tiptoed up the stairs to her room. He set down the bottle, backed her up against the bed, dipped his finger in the honey and said, “I might have to have you again.”
Her response was ridiculous. She wanted his hands all over her. He’d created a monster. A nymphomaniac. “That sounds like an excellent idea,” she said, drawing him down over her.
They didn’t get around to the interview until much later. He was leaning back against a bank of pillows while she leaned her cheek against his bare chest, her hands gently stroking his belly. “You’ve lulled me into submission,” she whispered. “Ask me anything.”
“Oh, baby, you don’t want to give me that
kind of license.” He leaned over and picked up his phone, putting it in record mode. “Let’s stick to the interview. I want people to be blown away by the article.”
“All right.” She felt relaxed and replete. Floating. Filled with a kind of joy she’d never felt before. “Where do we start?”
“With cooking. Why do you love it?”
The question startled her. No one had ever asked her something like that. And no one had ever listened to her the way he did—with his eyes. With his whole body. “Well, it’s elemental. Creating a meal for someone is incredibly personal. There’s a kind of intimacy in the process. Feeding someone is...for me, it’s a way of showing love, by providing nourishment that comes from my own creativity and craft.” She flushed, because it sounded strange, putting that feeling into words. “How am I doing? Is this what you had in mind?”
“Just keep going. Don’t worry about how it sounds.”
“All right. I love knowing that I’m good at it. Cooking connects me with my family—the mother and father I never knew, the grandmother who raised me, the place where I grew up amid all this abundance, right here at Bella Vista.
“The kitchen is the place where I feel closest to my grandmother, especially. She was my mother, my grandmother, my lodestone. I lost her at a crucial time in my life. I was just twenty, and it felt much too soon. I hadn’t learned everything I needed from her. Fate doesn’t give you a choice, does it? Yet when I cook, I feel her flowing through me, guiding my spirit and my hands.”
“What’s your earliest memory of your grandmother?”
She thought for a moment. It was just a flash, but then it gave way to a gilded memory, misted like a dream. “Grandfather made me a step stool, so I could reach the counter in the kitchen. He stenciled a picture of a dog on it and a saying, ‘Use this stool to reach for the stars.’ I would set it next to the counter so I could be tall enough to help. I remember the flour dusting Bubbie’s hands. She would roll up her sleeves and I could see the tattoo. One time, I took a magic marker and wrote some numbers on my arm, and she fussed at me and made me scrub it off. She said no one should have a mark like that, and if she could scrub off the one on her own arm, she would.”
Isabel sighed, still able to hear her grandmother’s soft accent. “I remember the smell of her wild blackberry jam, the steam rising up from the pots and utensils when she sterilized them. She used to trade her jam for jars of honey from the Krokowers down the road. More than once, she said she wanted to produce her own honey one day, right here at Bella Vista, but this was a working orchard and she didn’t have a lot of spare time.”
Isabel swirled her finger in the fine hairs on his chest, taking comfort in his calm, quiet presence. “Bubbie was just getting started on the honey project when she got sick. I guess that’s why I’m so determined to keep bees. I want to do something she never had the chance to do.”
“She’d love everything you’ve done,” Mac said.
“I hope so. We had a long time to say goodbye to my grandmother,” said Isabel. “Sometimes we thought that was a blessing, and other times, a curse, because it’s just so horribly sad. When someone is ill and you know you’re losing her, you want to make sure you’ve said everything that needs saying. It’s a very long conversation. My grandmother and I didn’t leave much unsaid between us—or so I thought. We were both keeping secrets, though. We were both trying to protect each other from the truth. I never told her about Calvin Sharpe, and she never talked about losing Erik.” She paused, instantly wishing she hadn’t mentioned Calvin. “And that, by the way, is strictly off the record.”
“Whatever you say. But did you ever stop to consider that if the guy was a dick to you, he was a dick to others? I’m guessing you’re not the only one.”
Mac was right, of course. “I’m just glad I don’t have to deal with him anymore.”
“Not even when he finds out you poached the magazine cover he was counting on?”
She felt unapologetic as she leaned over to the bedside table for her glass of wine, holding it up to the light and then taking a sip. “She mentioned Erik the day before she died. She was drifting, then. Peaceful, in and out of consciousness. I recall that her final words to me were something mundane. I think she asked me to turn out the light or something. But our last conversation, that last big talk, was a good one. She made me write it down, because she wanted to make sure I’d never forget.” Isabel opened the drawer of her nightstand and found her journal. She had never been consistent about keeping it, but she did write down the things that were important to her, things she wanted to remember. And a few things she didn’t. In the back pocket of the journal was a newspaper clipping about her father’s accident. Bubbie’s obituary. And a small purple data card containing raw video from the teaching kitchen webcam that had recorded her final encounter with Calvin Sharpe.
She flipped to a page near the front of the journal, where she’d written down her grandmother’s words. “Here it is. It’s dated the day she passed away. ‘In this life, I had all I ever wanted. Losing Erik was a sadness that knit itself into my soul, but that sadness was balanced out by all that came after. The years with you, my little girl, and with your grandfather and all the people of Bella Vista. It has been a life of abundance and I will always be grateful for that.’” She set the book aside and drew her knees up to her chest, her eyes misting. “And I have no idea what that has to do with the article about the cooking school.”
“It has to do with you. I’m glad you told me,” he said. “I wish I’d known your grandmother.”
“She would have liked you.”
“Everyone likes me.”
I know.
“Tell me more about cooking. Why a cooking school? Why not a restaurant or catering service?”
“The idea hit me last year when Dominic’s kids went on strike. They couldn’t stand his cooking, and Tess’s skills in the kitchen were nonexistent, so I started giving them lessons. When I was teaching, something, I don’t know how to describe it...Something came alive in me, and I realized I’d found what I was supposed to be doing.”
She offered him the small dish of walnuts. “Eating is one of those things we all have in common,” she said. “We all do it, no matter who we are or where we come from. When we sit down together for a meal, we slow down, relax and talk with each other. It’s also nice to be quiet while we eat and just enjoy the comfort and companionship of a shared meal.” She smiled. “I bet your mom would describe it differently, with all those boys she raised.”
“God, yes. Mealtimes were loud and messy at our house. I don’t think relaxing applied in my family.”
The image of a table crowded with boys wolfing down their dinner made her smile. She found herself wanting to know more about them, more about Mac’s parents. More about his life. She wanted to know everything about him. “I knew when I dreamed up the cooking school that it wouldn’t be for everyone,” she said. “Personally, I feel a sense of abundance when I prepare a home cooked meal. I love the feeling that I’ve placed everything we need on the table. It’s different from a restaurant enterprise—that’s an act of commerce, a transaction. At home, no one worries about what to order from the menu or what the tab’s going to be, what wine to pair with the food.”
He lay back and folded his arms behind his head. She tried not to stare at his biceps. He grinned at her. “You make it sound very relaxing.”
“For me, it is. And I love to see the way people taste and enjoy what I’ve prepared. It’s a way of showing my care and regard for someone. When I create something delicious in my kitchen, it sends a clear message.”
“Like to Homer Kelly?”
She laughed. “I tried sending that message to him, but he didn’t get it. Homer Kelly was an idiot.”
“Agreed. If you made your butter croissants for me, you’d have to get a restraining order to keep me
away from you.”
Getting involved with Mac was a bad idea for so many reasons. Even so, she didn’t want to keep him away from her. She wanted to keep him close.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Magnus pushed the old accident report across the desk to Mac. They were finishing their final talk together, and Mac knew this might be the most difficult conversation so far. Of all the ordeals that had befallen Magnus Johansen, this was the one wound that would never heal.
“It is a straightforward story,” Magnus said. “The tragedy occurred the way accidents befall people every day. My son had a quarrel with his hot-headed wife, who happened to be pregnant and more than a week past her due date. That, I imagine, would put any woman in a temper. At the time, I didn’t know what they quarreled about, though I do now, of course. He got into his car and drove to the city.”
Magnus took off his glasses and used a cloth to polish the lenses. Despite his age, his hands were steady and strong, brown from his years in the sun. Here in the office where he’d conducted the business of Bella Vista for decades, he still looked like a man in charge.
“Erik owned a red Mustang convertible, and he had a bad habit of driving too fast. That day is still vivid in my memory. I was up on a ladder, doing some spring pruning, and several of the workers scattered, all of a sudden, like startled birds. It happened. As a grower, I tried to use documented workers, but sometimes their family members were undocumented. So when I saw two lawmen arriving, my first thought was of a raid. Then I realized the visitors were with the highway department. Somehow I came down the rungs of the ladder without falling, because I knew before they said a word. You see, if he had been injured and taken to hospital, there would have been a phone call urging us to rush to the emergency room. But the fact that they came in person...”
Mac had scanned the report. “He was declared dead at the scene.”
“The longest walk I’ve ever taken was from the orchard back to the house that day, to tell his mother and his wife. Francesca became hysterical, her labor started, and so Eva and I had to take her directly to the hospital. There was no time for the horror to sink in. I was a man ripped in two that day, grieving the loss of my son, but at the same time, holding this beautiful new baby in my arms. Eva and I made a pact with one another for the sake of the baby. We would not allow ourselves to be broken by what happened. Instead, we would create a wonderful world for Isabel, and dedicate ourselves to her safety and happiness.”
