Page 17 of Love You Always

“Yeah?” I ask, jutting my lower lip forward. “It’s a big city. Did you meet every single person there?”

“I met enough.”

I’m dying to know how LA did him wrong, or better yet, what woman put a cramp in his swagger because that has to be it. There’s someone in particular who ruined it for the rest of us.

“Well, you didn’t meet me.”

There’s cynicism in his bark of a laugh. “Sure didn’t.”

“Too bad. If you did, you’d know, I spent my first eight years on a farm. I like it here because it reminds me of that. Not because I’m trying to be someone I’m not.” I look him dead in the eye to make sure he believes me, then I cock my head to the side. “But if you have baby chicks I can pet, I’m not gonna say no.”

He returns my gaze, his eyes just as steely as before. It’s some bizarre standoff, each of us daring the other to flinch. Finally, the ticking muscle in his cheek relaxes and his eyes soften a fraction. He nods. “We don’t have any chicks here. We have grapes.”

CHAPTER 7

Archer

I don’t knowwhat to make of the woman who’s been trailing after me like a lab assistant, writing down notes in my book as I drop samples of grapes into plastic baggies.

We’ve moved from the vineyard closest to the tasting room and the kitchen garden to the most distant parcel of vines on the Buttercup Hill property. I normally hop in my truck to come out here, but Ella insisted she didn’t mind walking the mile to get out here. Maybe she wants to get her steps in or something.

Once again, I didn’t have time for my workout, so I don’t entirely mind walking the vineyards on foot. The stack of papers in my office moves to the back of my mind as I inhale a few deep breaths of fresh air. That’s the reason I go out for my daily run—to remember to breathe deeper than I do when I’m indoors at my desk.

The sky is that impossible blue color that looks like it came from a box of crayons, somewhere between pale blue andperiwinkle. Not a cloud anywhere. The tops of the oak trees sway in the breeze, but otherwise, the air is still. All I see for a clear mile in any direction is rows of grapevines laden with dark purple cabernet grapes, some of the best in Napa.

The vines are so heavy with fruit that some list forward as if begging to be relieved of the weight. I’ve been over here every day for the past week, plucking grapes and taking them back to the lab outside the wine cellar. And each day, I end up deciding the grapes aren’t quite ready for picking. So the vines take in a little more sun, pull in a little more water from their deep roots. And I come back, thinking maybe today’s the day.

“You’re going to let me see the lab, right?” Ella says, squinting up from the notebook and not bothering to shade her eyes from the strong mid-morning sun. In every direction, rows of cabernet vines span out on trellises. Guests at Buttercup Hill never come out here, which is why it’s one of my favorite places on the property. The only sounds are birds and the distant hum of cars on Silverado Trail. Now I regret mentioning that we have a lab. This woman doesn’t miss a thing.

“Don’t you have places to be today?” I ask.

She grins. “Nope. No place better than this.”

I half expected her to get bored after twenty minutes of walking down yet another row of vines and waiting for me to choose a solitary grape to test. I also half hoped she’d decide that having her wedding here might be more trouble than it’s worth once she saw that it’s basically farmwork everywhere except the inn and restaurant where Beatrix throws the most elegant events in three counties.

If anything, she seems more invested now.

I slap a hand across the back of my neck, which feels hot in the blazing sun. I wish she was the irritating diva I expected because this woman, with her outsized enthusiasm for viticulture and her gawking interest in seeing my lab makes me almost likeher, and there’s no point in that. After today, I don’t plan on seeing her again.

“I just hope I can read your chicken scratch,” I grumble, as she makes note of which land parcel and which type of grape I’ve just picked. I try to look over her shoulder to see what she’s written down, but she hides my own notebook from me as though I’m trying to cheat on an exam. It’s exasperating, and I wish I didn’t find it a little bit charming.

“Are most of the grapes here cabernet?” she asks, scribbling in the notebook. “It seems like about eighty percent of the ones you’ve picked are cabs.”

She’s not wrong. In fact, my plan today was to sample eighty percent cabernet grapes and twenty percent sauvignon blanc. “Lemme guess, back on that farm, someone taught you math?”

“Not on the farm. But I did manage to get a college degree, so percentages came into play somewhere along the way.” She saunters along beside me in her too-long pants and muddy boots which have picked up a layer of grass on the bottom.

She looks right at home out here, and I figure that her years of acting have given her that ability to blend into whatever setting she arrives in for a movie. I can picture her as an American ex-pat who lands in Tuscany without knowing a soul. She’s supposed to get married, but her fiancé dumps her. So she goes to Italy and takes the only job she can at a vineyard, falls in love with the son of the property owner. Some shit like that…

My brow instantly furrows when I notice her staring at me with a curious grin on her face. I wish I didn’t like the look of it because the last thing I need is to have any sort of interest in a woman at all. Let alone one who’s marrying another man. “What?” I gripe.

“You were smiling.”

“Was not.”

“Oh, yeah, you were.”

“Better get you out of the hot sun because you’re imaginingthings, darlin’.” I indicate she should walk back in the direction of the old brown barn, which we can’t really see in the distance because of the angle of the sun.

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