The Vineyard at Painted Moon

by Susan Mallery

  “You’re not mad that I didn’t tell you I’d applied?”

  “No. Of course not. I know why you wanted to do this on your own. Bruno didn’t say anything, by the way. Not until he’d decided to hire you.”

  They walked back to the kitchen. Mackenzie took her usual place at the island while Stephanie heated water for tea. While the bags were steeping, she drew in a breath and confessed the truth.

  “I didn’t tell you everything about my interview with Elias,” she said, looking at Mackenzie. “I was too embarrassed to want to talk about it.”

  Her friend leaned toward her. “What does that even mean? What else is there to share?”

  Stephanie busied herself putting the used tea bag on a small plate and then stared at her mug. “He wasn’t impressed with my work,” she began before explaining how she hadn’t noticed the duplicate flyers and that her own mother had been saying she was basically a pity hire.

  Mackenzie listened until she’d finished, then reached for Stephanie’s hand. “None of that is true. He’s wrong about you.”

  “I wish I could agree with you, but I can’t. I didn’t do the job I should have. I was mad at my mom for dismissing my ideas, and the last couple of years, I wasn’t even trying. That’s on me. I didn’t even do a good job of researching the winery.”

  “Okay, sure, you had one stumble, but Bruno was very impressed with you and how you handled yourself. He loved your ideas.”

  “I’m glad. I worked really hard to be dazzling.”

  “It worked.” Mackenzie smiled at her. “I love you. There’s nothing you can say or do to make that change. Now what else don’t I know?”

  Stephanie felt herself warm with gratitude. “You’re a better friend than I deserve, but I’m going to accept the gift of your love. As for other secrets, sorry, but I don’t have any. You already know that I quit my job and that my ex-husband proposed and currently isn’t talking to me. Mom’s still a bitch, so hey, no news there. It’s been nearly two years since I’ve had sex.” She paused, as if considering, then laughed. “Those are the highlights.”

  “They’re good ones. Have you heard from Kyle?”

  “No. He’s in touch with the kids, but he’s avoiding me.”

  “Probably because you broke his heart.”

  “I’m less sure about that,” Stephanie admitted. “We’ve been getting along better than ever lately, and while that’s nice, it’s not love.” She held up a hand. “That’s not to say I wasn’t tempted, because I was. Getting back together with Kyle would have solved all my problems.”

  “Not if you don’t love him.”

  “There is that.” She picked up her mug. “You ever think about dating?”

  “No.” Mackenzie grimaced. “I was never very good at it when I was a teenager. I can’t imagine meeting someone now and trying to make it work.”

  Stephanie understood the reluctance to make the effort, but if they didn’t, they weren’t ever going to find anyone.

  “Do you want to be alone for the rest of your life?” she asked.

  Mackenzie shrugged. “I don’t know. Not really. I liked parts of being married. I just wasn’t very good at it.”

  “Some of that is on Rhys.”

  “Yes, but a lot of it is on me.” She bit her lower lip. “We didn’t have much of a sex life. Or one at all.” Color stained her cheeks. “I knew we’d grown apart, but I never much thought about the sex thing. Rhys did, though. He’s mentioned it more than once, so I know I let him down.”

  “You didn’t miss that part of things?” Stephanie asked, careful not to let on what her brother had told her.

  “At first.” She paused. “Okay, this is definitely TMI, but it wasn’t ever that good. I never felt like your mother looked after a night with Giorgio.”

  “Ugh. You didn’t just talk about sex with my brother and my mother doing it with Giorgio in the same sentence. No. Don’t. It’s too much.”

  Mackenzie grinned. “Sorry. I take it back.”

  “Too late.” She paused. “I’m sorry things weren’t great with Rhys.”

  “Me, too. Because I was a virgin when we met, so I have no way of knowing if it was because of me or because of him.”

  “Technically there is a way to find out.”

  Mackenzie looked at her. “I’m four and a half months pregnant. I’m not going to have sex with some guy just to figure out who was at fault.”

  “Fine. Wait until the baby’s born.”

  “I’m going to have other things on my mind.”

  “Possibly. I, on the other hand, am going to start dating.”

  Mackenzie’s eyes widened. “You are?”

  “Yes. I’m giving myself six months to get settled into my new job and then I’m putting myself out there.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Let’s wait on that to make sure I follow through.”

  Mackenzie smiled at her. “You will. Look at how far you’ve come.”

  Stephanie raised her mug of tea. “How far we’ve both come.”

  * * *

  Barbara knew the man sitting in front of her was a third-rate winemaker at best. His resume was unimpressive, his appearance was run-down, and after tasting his wines, she wasn’t the least bit excited about hiring him. Still, he was the best of the three she’d interviewed, and with fermentation finished and the wines about to go into the barrels, she was out of options. Beggars and all that, she thought, trying not to let herself fall into hopelessness.

  The anger that had sustained her since Mackenzie’s defection had faded—no doubt overcome by the enormity of trying to carry on without her former daughter-in-law.

  “When can you start?” Barbara asked.

  “I can stay until the wine’s in the barrels, then head back to California for a week to get things settled.”

  This was not what she wanted for Bel Après, she reminded herself. She and the winery both deserved better. But there was no “better” to be had and it was this man or someone worse.

  “Excellent,” she said, holding out her hand. “Once you’ve moved here permanently, the first task we need to take on is getting an assistant winemaker in place.”

  “I agree. It’s something you should have done years ago.”

  Barbara glared at him, fighting all the sarcastic responses that came to mind. Knowing they wouldn’t help and might, in fact, scare him away, she forced out a tight smile and only said, “So let’s fix that, shall we?”

  When he was gone, she closed her eyes against the horror of it all. She turned her chair away from her desk and told herself to breathe. That they had a winemaker now and that was one problem solved. But when she opened her eyes, she found herself staring at a picture of her and Mackenzie, their arms around each other’s waists, standing in the Red Mountain vineyard, laughing in the bright sunshine.

  It had been a perfect day, she thought sadly. Everything had been as it should be. Unlike her life now.

  “Damn you,” she said quickly, then repeated the statement more loudly. When that didn’t make her feel better, she took off one of her pumps and threw it at the picture. The heel hit the glass, shattering it. Shards fell onto the carpet. She saw a sharp gash over her own image.

  But Mackenzie’s half of the picture was untouched, and her smiling face seemed to turn mocking as Barbara looked away and let herself surrender to her tears.

  * * *

  Mackenzie tried to control her frustration. Taking time out of her own day was bad enough, but she’d also had to pay to have her attorney drive over from Seattle for a meeting with Rhys and his attorney. She had no idea why all this was required for what she had hoped would be a wrap-up meeting, finalizing the divorce settlement, child support agreement and parenting plan.

  As per Rhys’s recent request, she and Ramona had prepared a parenting plan
for him to review. The amount of child support he had to pay was based on his salary, and she had no intention to ask for more, so there wasn’t much to talk about there. Ramona had explained about the additional payments Mackenzie could request for things like private school or a college fund. Mackenzie had considered her options and had settled on asking him to set up a college fund such that he would put aside the equivalent of two years at WSU. She would do the same. If their kid wanted to go somewhere more expensive, she would figure that out herself.

  Per Ramona’s recommendation, there was also a clause about medical payments if their child be born with some kind of disability. Under those circumstances, Rhys would be expected to contribute more than the base amount. The rest of it—visitation and the like—had been pretty easy. She’d assumed Rhys would want every other weekend, alternating birthdays, Thanksgivings and Christmases. She’d offered him a month every summer, with a notation that deferring the month while the child was still young didn’t take away his right to ask for it later.

  Ramona had assured her that the parenting plan was fairly standard. There were mentions of who paid ordinary expenses. While the child support was meant to cover day-to-day costs, it was not unreasonable to ask Rhys to pay for an occasional haircut or new shoes.

  As she pulled into Rhys’s lawyer’s parking lot, she told herself to breathe. That she would get through the meeting and then she and Rhys could be done with all this.

  She met Ramona in the lobby of the small building. Her lawyer led the way to the receptionist, where she gave their names. They were immediately shown back to a large conference room with a table that easily seated thirty. Rhys and his lawyer were at one end. Ramona walked toward them and sat down, across from them. Mackenzie settled next to her.

  As she greeted her soon-to-be ex-husband and his lawyer, she tried to remember the last time she’d seen Rhys. It had been several weeks ago, she thought, when she’d told him she was pregnant. Despite living in a small town, their paths rarely crossed.

  She felt herself tense as she remembered she was wrong about the last time she’d seen him. It had been when she’d spotted him having lunch with a blonde woman.

  Trying not to be obvious, she studied him. He was dressed in his usual jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. His hair was longer, and she thought maybe he’d lost weight. When his gaze met hers, he offered her a tight smile.

  “How’s it going?” he asked.

  As she had no idea which “it” he meant—baby, winery, the divorce—she could only shrug and say, “Fine.”

  Mr. Norris, Rhys’s attorney, slipped on his glasses. “Thank you all for coming,” he began. “We only have a few items left to wrap up to finalize the paperwork for the divorce. My client and I are hoping we can get through them all today.”

  My client? Mackenzie frowned at the odd phrasing. The formalness made her uncomfortable and gave her a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.

  Ramona pulled a stack of paperwork from her briefcase. “I have the copies of the settlement agreement you emailed me and I’ve looked them over. My client has agreed to the changes noted.”

  They’d all been minor and more procedural than anything else.

  “Do you have your changes on the parenting plan?” Ramona asked.

  Mr. Norris glanced at Rhys, who nodded. The older man passed over two sets of documents. Ramona took one and handed the other to Mackenzie.

  “The modifications might be greater than what you were expecting,” Mr. Norris said.

  Mackenzie glanced at the pages in front of her. The first paragraph stated that Rhys claimed paternity of the unborn child and would not require a DNA test for the parenting plan to go into effect, although he did request one after birth, on behalf of a family member.

  She looked at him. “You believe it’s your baby?”

  For the first time since she’d walked into the room, he seemed to relax. “I know it is. I was there when it happened, and I know you haven’t been seeing anyone else. But it would make things easier with Mom if we could get confirmation.”

  “Sure. I’m happy to do that.”

  The tension she hadn’t acknowledged eased a little bit. Everything was going to be fine. She’d been silly to worry about the meeting. It was what Mr. Norris had said—a chance to get everything finalized so the divorce could move forward. Rhys was the man he’d always been—she should trust him to do the right thing.

  Mackenzie continued to read the document. Two paragraphs later, she realized that there weren’t changes to the parenting plan so much as a complete rewrite of what she’d offered. She read the proposed visitation schedule twice before she could understand what it all meant.

  He didn’t want every other weekend, or holidays or summers. Rhys was proposing seeing his child one afternoon a month for the first year, two afternoons a month from ages one year to four years. From then until age eighteen, he would see his child two days a month.

  She flipped to the second page, looking for some hint that he wanted more than a cursory relationship with his own kid, but she couldn’t find one. Because it wasn’t what he wanted.

  She looked at him, trying to understand what was happening, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. He carefully stared down at the papers in front of him, his expression giving nothing away.

  Disappointment joined shock. He’d meant what he’d said when she’d told him she was pregnant. He didn’t want a baby in his life. He wanted to be free. He would do the very minimum required and nothing more.

  “I thought you were better than this,” she said into the quiet.

  He flinched but still didn’t look at her. Mr. Norris cleared his throat.

  “We’ve increased the amount of child support, as you can see. It’s a very generous amount.”

  She supposed it was but didn’t bother looking at it. Instinctively, she put a hand on her belly, as if to protect her unborn child. By whatever circumstances, they had created this life together. It was a part of both of them and yet that didn’t mean anything to him.

  Oh, she didn’t think he should have warm fuzzies about her, but his child should mean something to him, and it didn’t.

  That truth jolted her more than anything that had happened over the past six months. It made her wonder if she’d ever known him at all. She hadn’t been foolish enough to think he would jump for joy at the thought of being a father, but she had thought he would suck it up and do what was right. And she’d been wrong.

  Mackenzie squared her shoulders and turned to Ramona. “Once you look it over and make sure everything is legal, I’ll sign it.”

  Her attorney raised her eyebrows. “You’re willing to accept this parenting plan?”

  “I am.” She turned to Rhys. “I’m not going to force you to see your child when it’s obvious you don’t want to. I want to say I hope you’ll have regrets about what you’re doing later, but somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

  If she’d expected shame or embarrassment, she didn’t get it. Rhys looked at his attorney. “Has any of this gotten in the way of finalizing the divorce?”

  The parenting plan proposal had been a blow to the heart, but that last statement was a kick in the gut.

  Mr. Norris looked vaguely uncomfortable as he said, “I shouldn’t think so. Ramona and I will go over the paperwork one last time. After that, all that’s left is for you each to sign and then we file it with the court.”

  Mackenzie glanced at her attorney. “Anything else?”

  “No. You can go.”

  Mackenzie nodded and rose. She walked out of the conference room and momentarily got turned around. She started to backtrack to find the reception area and the way out, only to come to a stop when she saw a familiar-looking blonde in one of the private offices. As Mackenzie passed, the woman looked up and her eyes widened with recognition and shock.

  Mackenzie for
ced herself to keep moving, heading directly for the glass door she could see in front of her. She got into her Jeep and started the engine, then drove directly back to Painted Moon.

  She managed to keep every thought, every emotion carefully locked away until she burst into Bruno’s office. Her business partner took one look at her and came to his feet.

  “What happened?”

  “He doesn’t want the baby. I don’t care about me but how am I supposed to explain that his or her father doesn’t want to know his own child?”

  Strong arms drew her against a warm, wide chest. She let her purse drop onto the floor and wrapped both arms around Bruno’s waist. The tears came after that, quickly morphing to sobs that shook her whole body.

  “I don’t love him,” she said, her voice shaking. “I don’t want to be with him. Whatever we had has been over for a long time. But he’s not who I thought. He’s not a good man. We’re talking about a baby. Even people who don’t like kids make an effort for their own.”

  Bruno didn’t speak. Instead he continued to hold her tight. One hand moved up and down her back in a comforting, circular motion.

  After what felt like hours but was probably ten or fifteen minutes, she managed to get control.

  “I’m being very unprofessional.”

  He chuckled. “Pshaw.”

  She raised her head and sniffed. “What did you say? Pshaw? Are you like a hundred and twenty?”

  He pulled a box of tissues off a bookshelf and guided her to the sofa in his office. He sat close to her, angled to face her.

  “I’m sorry Rhys is being a dick.”

  “Me, too. And I’m surprised.” She wiped her face and blew her nose. “I was so wrong about him. What else didn’t I see? It’s his own child. Possibly his only child. He’s not some seventeen-year-old jock losing out on a college scholarship because he knocked up his girlfriend. He’s a mature man. We were together sixteen years. This baby should matter and it doesn’t.”