My body definitely does not want to. But she refused to admit defeat. Mom was twice Harley’s age, and her body was as supple as a seal’s.
“—press your feet and arms actively into the floor, lift your heels, and push your tailbone toward your pubis. Annnnnd breathe . . .”
Pubis? Carefully, so as not to snap a neck vertebra, Harley turned her head to where Mom was rocking an awesome bridge. On her stomach stood a darling brown goat with a pink nose. Harley had to admit, his practice had done wonders for his balance.
* * *
“Whew! That was amazing,” said Mom afterward, her mat bag slung over her shoulder, hydrating herself as they walked to the car. “Hey! I have an idea. You should offer goat yoga at your B and B.”
Harley couldn’t speak. She was still trying to catch her breath.
“What’s going on with the little one? Fill me in.”
Amazing how the slightest mention of her baby helped her recover. “I brought something to show you,” she panted.
The moment they were seated in her car, she pulled her phone from her bag and pulled up the photo.
Mom gasped. “There he—she—?” she looked questioningly at Harley.
“It’s a boy.” Harley beamed. “I’m going to have a son!”
“A son!”
“There’s his little, you know.” She pointed to a pin-dot on the sonogram. “See?”
Mom held the photo closer to her face and squinted. “I’m not sure.”
“Right there,” said Harley, trying not to take offense. “Look closer.”
“Hm.” Mom shook her head and handed it back to Harley. “I’ll try looking at it with my readers when we get home. Meantime, Louise’ll be expecting us.”
Minutes later, Harley and her mom walked slowly up the stone walkway leading to the Victorian, admiring the colorful annuals coming into bloom. Gazing around at the broad porch and up at the aqua-painted ceiling, she grew excited despite herself. As many times as she’d drawn this house . . . fantasized about living in it . . . she’d never dreamed that one day she’d actually be standing on its threshold.
The carved wood door opened to an elegant woman with close-cropped silver hair, hooded blue eyes, and a hint of an overbite. Fine chains of platinum and diamonds encircled the crepey skin on her neck. “Cindy, come in. Harley. I’ve heard so much about you, I feel like I already know you. I’m sorry it’s taken this long for us to meet.” She stepped aside with a sway of her caftan, revealing a cream-colored foyer, high ceilings, and a parquet floor.
Mom had always been easily impressed by the places she cleaned. She talked about them so much, they all started to sound the same. Now it was Harley’s turn to be impressed. She handed her hostess the present she’d brought.
“What’s this?”
Following the success of her debut collection, Harley had come up with a set of related drawings depicting the house in all four seasons. “A little memento to remind you of your Ribbon Ridge house, after you move.”
Louise leaned her cane against the wall. With a vein-roped hand she accepted the package, peeled back the wrapping paper, and shifted through the dessert plates with open admiration. “Cindy. Why didn’t you tell me the new designs were out?”
“You can’t buy them in any store,” Harley interjected. “These are one-of-a-kind digital proofs given to me by the manufacturer.”
“For me? How thoughtful. I can’t wait to show Abe.” She carefully set the stacked dishes on a table in the foyer and retrieved her cane. “How would you like a tour?”
Harley and Mom exchanged glances. “Only if it’s no trouble.”
“We’re trying to sell, remember? The more people who go through it, the better. Follow me.”
Louise led them to an airy sitting room with a marble fireplace and floor-to-ceiling windows.
“As you can see, we’ve already gotten rid of a lot of things. Our place in Arizona is much smaller, so no sense taking them with us. What’s left either doesn’t fit in the southwest or just seems to belong here. I thought I would leave them and see if the new owner wanted them.” She turned to the pile of moving boxes in the corner. “Your mother has been an enormous help. I don’t know how I could have done it without her.”
“I didn’t see a FOR SALE sign in the yard,” said Harley.
“Abe and I have been going back and forth about which Realtor to use. We each have a close friend in the business. But I think we’ve finally made a decision. The sign will be going up tomorrow.”
Harley drifted across the parquet floor to the dining room, pared down to a crimson-colored chair and an antique sideboard in a honey-colored wood. Above it hung two modern prints of poppies.
Next, they came into a cozy parlor with a simple, matte-black fireplace surround topped by a large round mirror. An oversize ottoman, like a giant’s pincushion in yellow tufted velvet dominated the center of the room, beneath a chandelier of multicolored glass teardrops.
Behind Louise, Harley rolled her eyes and mouthed, oh my gosh to her mom. In return Mom lifted a brow, as if to say, didn’t I tell you?
Louise gestured to the room at large. “I have so many fond memories of this room.” She sighed. “The whole house, really. It’s a good house. Abe and I spent many happy years here. He’ll be back in a bit. He’s out taking Fancy for a walk.”
Louise approached the staircase, caftan flowing out behind her. “Would you like to see the upstairs?”
“Are you sure?” asked Harley, with a glance at Louise’s cane.
“Oh, this pesky thing.” She smiled. “Despite what it looks like, I’m not an invalid.” She was already dragging herself up the staircase with the aid of the handrail.
The second floor continued the theme of ivory walls, parquet floors, and chandeliers.
The first room they came to had a wall consisting entirely of bookshelves. A ladder to reach the uppermost shelves leaned against it.
“The study, obviously.” Louise strolled over to the tall window and opened it to the warm summer day. A breeze sent the sheer white curtains billowing. “As you can see, it gets full afternoon sun. I always thought it would make a wonderful artist’s studio.”
Chills went down Harley’s spine. As an only child, she had imagined the Victorian’s interior hundreds of times, filled with laughing children. But the reality far surpassed anything she could have dreamed up.
The house had an airy ambience. Harley followed Louise through arched double doorways, across marble bathroom floors.
“The nursery,” said Louise. A wrought-iron bassinette of painted wood stood against a wall, and a matching crib stood in the center of the room. “We won’t be needing this furniture either, where we’re going. This room has the best view. Come over here and look out. You can see all the way across the valley.”
Mom elbowed Harley, bringing her out of her reverie of tickling little toes and bedtime stories; first days of school and blowing out birthday candles. She drifted toward the window where she closed her eyes, placed her hands on the frame, and then opened them. Spread out before her lay the Chehalem Valley as she had never seen it before. Long seconds passed as her eye traveled over familiar vineyards and meadows and farmettes, but from a fresh perspective. And then, she looked straight down and saw the house she’d grown up in. From here, it seemed infinitesimally small and insignificant.
Her heart thumped wildly. As familiar as she was with the Victorian, never until this moment had she ever fathomed the possibility of owning it. But now that she was here, she couldn’t bear the thought of letting it go.
“We went so far as to convert its bathroom into a laundry room.” Louise smiled wistfully. “We never did manage to fill the nursery. But this saved me many a trip up and down the stairs lugging a heaping laundry basket over the years.”
Possibilities filled Harley’s head to overflowing. Why couldn’t she have felt like this about any of the houses her Realtor had shown her? “How many bedrooms are there?”
“Six, each with its own bath. The mattresses might be old, but they’re in great condition. None has been slept on more than a few times.”
Perfect for a B and B.
Downstairs, a door opened and closed. “Louise?” shouted a man’s voice.
“Up here. I’m showing Harley the house.”
Footsteps plodded up the steps and across the floorboards.
Louise turned sideways.
“So,” said a voice behind Harley, “this is the artist I’ve heard so much about.”
Harley turned to see a man with a determined face wearing an Argyle-patterned sweater vest. “I’m more of a designer,” she replied.
“Now her designs are going to be on linens, too,” gushed Louise. “Can you imagine? Our house is going to be famous.”
“Do you have a card?” asked Abe.
Outside of the business, it was the first time anyone had asked for one. By the look on her face, Harley thought Mom might burst with pride. “What’s the asking price?” she blurted.
“Mom—” Like there was even an outside chance Harley could afford this.
“It’s a perfectly reasonable question,” replied Louise. “We thought—”
At the number Louise quoted, Harley’s balloon of excitement burst and sank slowly to the floor.
Fifteen minutes later, she and Mom were headed back to the car. “What did you think?” asked Mom in a voice filled with maternal hope.
Harley forced her gaze away from the house and onto the brick walk. “There’s no way, even with my advance. My merchandise is still in the production phase.”
“But once it’s out there in the stores . . .”
“Seriously, Mom,” said Harley, her frustration finding its way into her voice, making her sound impatient. Didn’t Mom realize she wanted the Victorian every bit as much as Mom wanted her to have it? “That house is way beyond my reach. But thanks for bringing me here. It was really nice of the Grimskys to show me around.”
* * *
When Harley got a call from an unknown number on her drive back to Seattle, she almost didn’t answer, thinking it was a sales call. But something told her she should.
“Miss Miller-Jones? Abe Grimsky. After you left, Louise and I had a little talk.”
Harley’s ears perked up.
“I’m retired now, but I was in business for a half century. Started out with nothing, ended up not so bad. I did it all for Louise. My wife is everything to me. As time went on, there wasn’t much I couldn’t give her. Not many places I couldn’t take her to. The one thing she wanted that I could never give her was a child.”
It was a lovely sentiment. But why—?
“I saw you today, looking at the nursery.”
A jumble of emotions went through Harley. Surprise at Abe’s phone call. Compassion for the Grimskys, who had everything except what they wanted most. And a budding anticipation.
“Louise saw you, too. I watched her, looking at you. As I said, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make her happy. And nothing would make her happier than to know the little one of the designer of those dishes was growing up in that nursery. That’s why I’d like to give you the chance to offer on the house before we sign the Realtor contract tomorrow.”
“Excuse me?”
“What was the point of working so hard all those years if I can’t indulge myself in the end?”
“Mr. Grimsky, I know what the asking price is. It’s way out of my price range.”
“Listen to me, young lady. I built that house with my own two hands, back before you were a light in your mother’s eye. Before anyone around here even heard of pinot noir, when the Chehalem was nothing but a forest of filbert orchards. Practically every dollar I get back will be pure profit.”
“But still . . .”
“Want some free advice from a successful businessman? Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Hang up the phone, sit down tonight when you get home, and take a look at your finances, then call me in the morning and let me know your decision.”
Chapter Six
September, three months later
Jack’s mother arched her lower back as far as she could within the confines of her safety belt. “I just got an email from my cousin Judith, the Realtor,” she said, looking at her phone. “The property on the corner of Ribbon Ridge Road is for sale.”
“The Victorian?”
Squeezed next to each other on the plane, they spoke quietly.
“Judith was angling to get the listing. It was as good as hers until out of the blue, the Grimskys found a buyer on their own on the very day they were to have signed the listing agreement. They’re set to finalize the deal tomorrow morning.”
Jack turned from his window view of the rocky Oregon coastline. “And?”
“Jack. Isn’t it obvious? That land should be ours.”
“It can’t be, what? Two, three acres?” The Grimskys’ small parcel of ground was undeniably valuable, but acquiring it wouldn’t make a huge difference in the company’s bottom line.
“That’s a thousand cases of wine.”
“A drop in the bucket, considering we’re yielding a quarter million cases a year.” He tipped his head sideways to stretch out the kink in his neck.
“It’s the most southeastern slope on Ribbon Ridge. There’s no better aspect for growing wine grapes.”
“Seems to me it’d be the house you’d be after. You always talked about what a great B and B the Victorian would make.”
Melinda had been hoping her son hadn’t been paying attention or wouldn’t remember all the times she’d mentioned converting the Victorian herself. But it was true. The house had charm galore and was in the ideal setting for tourists to the wine country.
She knew more about the sale than she let on. According to Judith, the prospective buyer was none other than Harley Miller-Jones. Harley had always had an artist’s eye. No doubt she had seen the Victorian’s potential, too.
Melinda had been steering her son away from Harley all his life. Now, if it looked like she was competing with her for a vanity project, she would seem like Goliath to Harley’s David. Jack would be sure to take Harley’s side.
“The timing’s pure luck. The second we land you need to figure out how you can snatch it up. Ryan’s handling the transaction on the Grimskys’ behalf.”
Jack glanced at his wrist. “Mother,” he said, his head falling back onto the headrest, his eyes closing. “It’s already after five. Ryan’s office will be closed.”
“It seems like days since we boarded in Auckland,” sighed Mother. “I’ve lost all sense of time.”
What Jack wouldn’t do for his Dad’s input at times like these, to balance out his mother’s strong opinions. But though Dad was long gone, Jack was still struggling to stand up to Mother. He often thought it would be far easier if she were working against him. Yet, deep down he knew that everything Mother did, she did with what she firmly believed were his best interests at heart.
* * *
When Jack was thirteen, he and Mother accompanied Dad to Portland, where he was running a marathon. Their job as cheering committee was to hoot and holler when the starter shot his pistol, then scurry down side streets to a predetermined mile marker. Easier said than done in an unfamiliar town of steep hills, even with a map on Jack’s phone. GPS wasn’t always reliable. Sometimes they got lost and had to backtrack, forcing them to jog if they were going to reach their destination in time to wave Dad on.
When they finally got to 13.1, the popular halfway point swarmed with other supporters, they found a spot and waited, craning their necks and panting as if they were running the race themselves. Jack tried to maneuver his hand-lettered sign reading It’s a hill—get over it, in front of all the other ones, checking the time every thirty seconds.
Dad’s ETA came and went. Another five minutes went by. Ten. Dad was young and fit. Maybe he stepped on a rock and twisted his ankle, said Mother.
After twenty minutes they started walk
ing against the flow of oncoming runners. They hadn’t walked far when they saw a small huddle of people hunched over something on the ground and heard the siren.
Some Good Samaritan offered them a ride and they followed the ambulance to the hospital, but despite repeated, frantic attempts with the defibrillator, Dad never regained consciousness. Hours passed in a slow blur until Alfred, the Friestatts’ vineyard manager, arrived and Mother fell into his arms. Finally, they all drove back home in stunned silence.
Don Friestatt had been the scion of one of Ribbon Ridge’s founding families. In a heartbeat, Jack became the sole heir to vast acres of vineyards and a thriving wine business.
When they pulled up to the estate, there were already lots of vehicles spilling out of the driveway. Inside, relatives, friends and strangers alike rambled through the spacious house, swirling their drinks, telling Jack that now he was the man of the family and it was up to him to take care of his mother and the business.
But Jack wasn’t a man. He was a boy. The reality was that from that time on, his mother had set the pace, made all the important decisions. Not just for the family wine business, but for everything.
* * *
“First thing tomorrow morning, then,” said Mother. “Head over to Ryan’s office. Find out what the buyer is offering and top it. Make the Grimskys an offer they can’t refuse.”
She sighed confidently. “What with managing estates in both Marlborough and Oregon, plus the winery, you’re going to be busier than ever. The next order of business is finding you a new wife. There’ll never be another Emily, but you can look for someone as much like her as possible. Someone biddable and reliable. A wife, a mother, and an advocate.”
Jack stretched his legs as far as the seatback in front of him would allow. “You’re a businesswoman yourself. Hasn’t the idea of the traditional, corporate wife become somewhat of an anachronism?”
“Wife—or husband, for that matter—the spouse of a high-profile business owner provides an essential support role. There’s no shame in that. It’s a unique and specialized job. Few people are cut out for it.”
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