Page 99 of Rainshadow Road

Lucy’s trembling fingers came to his lips, caressing them gently. “Are you sure? How do you know it’s not just about sex?”

“It is about sex… sex with your mind, sex with your soul, sex with the color of your eyes, the smell of your skin. I want to sleep in your bed. I want you to be the first thing I see every morning and the last thing I see at night. I love you the way I never thought I could love anyone.”

Her eyes flooded. “I love you too, Sam. I didn’t want to leave you, but—”

“Wait. Let me say this first… I’ll wait for you. There’s no choice for me. I can wait forever. You don’t have to give up New York. I’ll do whatever’s necessary to make it work. Long-distance phone calls, cyber-whatever. I want you to have your dream. I don’t want you to give it up or have less of a life because of me.”

She smiled through her tears. “But you’re part of my dream.”

Sam wrapped his arms around her, and rested his cheek on her hair. “It doesn’t matter where you go now,” he murmured. “No matter what, we’re together. A binary star can have a distant orbit, but it’s still held together by gravity.”

Lucy’s chuckle was muffled in his shirt. “Geek love talk.”

“Get used to it,” he told her, stealing a hard kiss. He glanced at the terminal. “You want to go in and reschedule your flight?”

Lucy shook her head decisively. “I’m staying here. I’m going to turn down the art grant. I can do my glasswork here just as easily as I can there.”

“No you’re not. You’re going to New York, to become the artist you were meant to be. And I’m going to spend a fortune in plane tickets to see you as often as possible. And at the end of the year, you’ll come back here and marry me.”

Lucy looked up at him with round eyes. “Marry you,” she said faintly.

“The formal proposal comes later,” Sam said. “I just wanted you to be aware of my honorable intentions.”

“But… you don’t believe in marriage…”

“I changed my mind. I figured out the flaw in my reasoning. I told you it was more romantic not to get married, because then you just stay with each other for the good times. But I was wrong. It only means something when you stay during the bad times. For better or worse.”

Lucy pulled his head down for another kiss. It was a kiss about trust and surrender… a kiss about wine and stars and magic… a kiss about waking up safe in a lover’s arms as the morning climbed past the flight of eagles and the sun unraveled silver ribbons across False Bay.

“We’ll talk about New York later,” Lucy said when their lips had parted. “I’m still not sure I’m going. I’m not even sure that I need to, now. Art can happen anywhere.” Her eyes sparkled as if she were pondering some secret knowledge. “But right now… would you take me to Rainshadow Road?”

For an answer, Sam picked up her suitcase and put his arm around her as they walked to the truck. “Something happened to that window you made for me,” he told her after a moment. “The vineyard is changing. Everything is changing.”

Lucy smiled, seeming not at all surprised. “Tell me.”

“You have to see it for yourself.”

And he took her home, on the first of many roads they would travel together.

Epilogue

A hummingbird’s heart couldn’t have beat any faster than Lucy’s as the taxi turned onto False Bay Drive and headed toward Rainshadow Road.

During the past year she had made the journey between New York and Friday Harbor countless times, and Sam had traveled to see her just as often. But this trip, unlike all the others, wouldn’t end in good-bye.

Lucy had returned to the island two days earlier than she had originally planned. After a year of living apart, she couldn’t stay away from Sam any longer.

They had mastered the art of the long-distance relationship. They had lived by the calendar, scheduling calls and plane flights. They had sent cards, texted, e-mailed, and Skyped. “Do you think we’ll talk this much when we’re actually together in person?” Lucy had asked, and Sam’s reply had been a distinctly lecherous “No.”

If there was such a thing as changing together while living apart, Lucy thought they had done it. And the effort required in maintaining a long-distance relationship had made her realize that too many people took the time they spent with someone they loved for granted. Every precious minute together was something they had earned.

During her time as the Mitchell Art Center’s artist in residence, Lucy had joined other artists to create conceptual works with techniques such as vitreous painting—applying a mixture of ground glass and pigment to the glass—or layering mixed-media pieces with glass fragments. Her main work, of course, was with stained-glass windows, using natural motifs and experimenting with ways to manipulate color with light and refraction. A respected art critic had written that Lucy’s stained-glass work was a “revelation of light, animating glass images with exhilarating color and tangible energy.” Near the end of her tenure, Lucy had been offered commissions to create stained-glass windows for public buildings and churches, and she had even received a request to design theater sets and costumes for a production of the Pacific Northwest Ballet.

In the meantime, Sam’s vineyard had flourished to the point that he had reached his target yield of two tons of grapes per acre at least a year earlier than he had expected. The fruit quality, he had told Lucy, promised to be even better than he could have hoped for. Later in the summer, Rainshadow Vineyard would hold its first on-site bottling process.

“Nice place,” the taxi driver commented as they turned onto Rainshadow Road and approached the vineyard lit with orange and gold.

“Yes, it is,” Lucy murmured, drinking in the sight of the sunset-colored house, the gables and balustrades gilded with light, the shrub roses and white hydrangeas spilling over with profusions of blossoms. And the vineyard rows, lush with fruit. The air rushing through the car windows was sweet and cool, ocean breezes filtering through healthy young vines.

---