Page 83 of Love You Truly

She picks up my beer and hands it to me. “Here. Drink some of this. Then we’ll talk this through.”

“Happy birthday to me,” I mutter. Mary clinks my glass as I’m slugging down a long drink.

A moment later, two new beers are placed wordlessly on the table by the bartender, who only makes eye contact with Mary, who nods. It’s like they’re speaking some private pub language I don’t understand.

“Okay, let’s start from the beginning,” Mary says after finishing her first beer and sliding the glass away. “First, happy birthday. I hope this year brings you everything you want. Which brings me to the next part. You inherited Autumn Lake. Congratu-fucking-lations. Let’s not lose sight of that.”

I nod. “You’re right. It’s a good day, no matter what else happens.”

“Yes, and as to the third thing, yeah, you’re gone for the guy, that’s clear. And from what I can see, he feels the same way, so maybe you don’t have anything to worry about.”

“No, it’s an agreement. We’re playing a role.”

“Him telling you he loves you doesn’t sound like role-playing to me.”

Here come those tears again. Dammit, I have no control over myself at all, and it pisses me off.

I shake my head. “I know. I think he might actually mean it.”

“Might?”

“Fine. He does.”

“And what about you?”

“I love him so much, Mare. But what if the same thing happens again? What if I tell him how I feel, and it takes away the magic? What if he’s just in it for the chase? Or the wine grapes?”

“What if he isn’t? What if he’s there for all the right reasons, and you’re the problem?” she asks quietly.

The jukebox starts playing “Wildest Dreams,” and I just sit there and listen to the lyrics. I don’t just want Dash to remember me after he leaves. I don’t want him to leave at all.

The bartender drops off a basket of soft pretzels and mustard, the snack I didn’t know I needed in my life.

“Listen, you can’t know what’s what until you talk to Dash. He should be part of this conversation.”

“But what if he’s relieved we don’t need to keep up with our charade? What if he wants to divorce me tomorrow?” I take a choppy breath and wipe a new set of tears from my eyes with the back of my sleeve. “Dammit, why am I crying?”

“Because you love the bloke. And if you tell him how you feel, you just might get everything you never knew you wanted. But you have to tell him.”

I nod. She’s right. I know she’s right.

I’ll tell him tonight, but for now, I’ll sit with my friend on my birthday and drink some beer for courage. We can call a cab tonight and pick up our cars in the morning.

And a couple of hours later, after a couple more beers and a lot more pretzels, I creep into my house, fully intending to tell Dash everything.

I find him fast asleep with a book on his chest, and I don’t have the heart to wake him. We’ll talk in the morning.

CHAPTER 31

Dash

I wake up in the middle of the night to the smell of smoke. At first, I think it’s barbecue smoke and marvel at how the shifting winds could carry smells from our restaurant clear across the property.

A second later, I come to my senses. The clock reads four in the morning, and our restaurant isn’t open. No reason for anyone to be cooking anything.

And now that I’m starting to pay attention, the smoky smell doesn’t smell like a barbecue as much as it smells like a fire. That gets me out of bed in a flash.

After the Napa fires a few years ago, all of us exist on high alert to the potential of it happening again. In hours, miles and miles of vineyards burned to the ground. Fire officials said that in the valley where Napa exists between two mountain ranges, the fire created its own weather.

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