Page 35 of Butterfly Sisters
“Neither did I. I mean, I have a team to help me, but I provided the original design.” He walked over to the kitchen. “Want a drink? I’ve got a bottle of white wine in the fridge.”
Leigh closed the magazine, putting it back on the coffee table. “When did you start drinking white wine?” she asked, shuffling behind him as he led the way over to the bar separating the living and kitchen areas.
“When I had to entertain the people from New York who launched my brand. I drank white wine for six months straight while we planned the launch of Down South Athletics. I started to develop a taste for it.”
She grinned.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’d choose a Bud Light during football season any day, but a nice unoaked Chardonnay isn’t a bad summer drink.”
Leigh let out a loud laugh. “I never thought I’d hear Colton Harris say ‘unoaked’ anything.” She laughed again.
“Well, you haven’t been around for a while.” He reached into the fridge and pulled out the bottle, uncorking it and pouring two glasses, handing her one.
“Thank you,” she said, seeing him differently now. “You surprised me tonight.”
He held up his glass. “To surprises.”
“To surprises.” She clinked hers to his.
“We never found that butterfly book of your grandmother’s,” Colton said, as Leigh sat on a barstool at his kitchen island, her fingers around the bottom of her half-empty wine glass, the view out the window now a dark purple as the sun made its final exit. Colton had topped off their wine a few times now, and she was feeling the low buzz of it, relaxing her shoulders, and warming her cheeks.
“I know. I wonder where it is.” She toyed with the stem of her glass, thinking. “You know, I used to do the same thing with birds that Nan did with butterflies. I just couldn’t draw them.” She took a sip of the fruity, crisp wine. “While she and I were very different in terms of talent, we shared our love of the outdoors. Being back has made me realize how much I miss it.”
Something crossed Colton’s face and he got up. “Want to see something cool?”
“Of course.”
“Bring your glass.”
Leigh followed Colton through the large expanse of the living room, down a wide hallway, past a handful of immaculately decorated bedrooms to the back of the house, where he led her into a great room with a pool table, an entire wet bar for hosting parties, and a full-sized basketball hoop. She tried not to gawk as she looked up at it.
“Not much to do in winter,” he said. “But this isn’t what I wanted to show you.”
Colton went over to the back wall that was made entirely of glass and unlatched a bolt in the middle. The entire thing folded up like an enormous, transparent accordion, opening the whole back of the house to the huge deck with glass walls as railings, a stone fireplace at one end, and the sweeping view outside. As far as she could see were rolling hills of cotton fields and a private section of the lake. The only structure visible was an old bungalow on the edge of the shore. It was quiet tonight, with the exception of the cicadas’ chirp and the crickets.
“Holy cow,” she said, stepping onto the deck, the cool spring breeze blowing her hair back.
“It’s incredible out here in the mornings.” He pointed to a small table and chairs set at the end of the deck. “Sometimes, I sit with my coffee and a book, and lose track of the time because it’s so peaceful. It’s just me with all the wildlife.”
“I can imagine what it must be like,” she said, sipping her wine and basking in the glow of the moonlight and the twinkling stars that had started to emerge.
Colton kept his eyes on the horizon. “I’ll bet it’s different from New York…”
“Yes. Definitely.” She took in the extensive view in front of her—the hills in varying shades of purple against the ever-deepening sapphire-blue sky—and thought about her one-room apartment back home. How hard she’d had to work for that little bit of space.
He took a drink of his wine and faced her. “You always had this unsettled need to prove yourself that I never had. I never left, but I never wanted to either. And success sort of foundme. But you know what? I think it found me because I was meant for this.” He waved an arm across the view. “I couldn’t live without it.”
“You say success found you, but you built Down South Athletics, right? That was from your creative mind—you found it, not the other way around. You just didn’t have to go anywhere to get it.”
He nodded. “How about you—have you found your thing? Are you happy?”
She tried to put on a brave face, but the tilt in his head told her that he could see right through it. “Of course,” she lied anyway.
He stared at her as if willing her to spill the beans.
“Sometimes I wonder why I stayed away so long,” she said, hoping the half-truth would satisfy him.
“You used to count down the days until you could come to the cabin and see your nan.”
