Page 117 of Red Mountain Burning
Back to the Bottle
Brooks was returning from Irrigation Specialists in Pasco when he thought he’d swing by to see Adriana. He wanted to see how her conversation with Margot had gone, but there was something even more important on his mind.
Pulling into Épiphanie, he did a double take when he saw Margot riding Elvis along the road to the sanctuary.Good for her, he thought.
He parked out front and entered through the large wooden doors. Passing through the lobby, he found Adriana at one of the dining room tables folding linens.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, offering a smile.
“Had to run out for a little bit and thought I’d swing by to say hello. Was that Margot I just saw riding Elvis?”
“Yeah, she’s riding him every day now. Your brother’s been teaching her.”
“That’s great. So she’s okay with you leaving?”
“She didn’t freak out, that’s for sure. Maybe she saw it coming.” Adriana went back to folding napkins.
“Can I help?” he asked, reaching for a napkin.
She showed him her method and then, “When will you tell Otis?”
Once he’d figured out the folding, he said, “I’m putting it off as long as possible. I want to be there for him, but I can’t lie about us leaving. I’m afraid, if I tell him, he’ll go off the deep end.”
“That’s really sad.” After a moment, she asked, “He’s still building the wall?”
“By himself, yeah.”
“It must be really hard to see a man you care so much about go through this.”
“It’s freaking unbearable. I wish there were something I could do, but I’ve known him a long time. The only thing any of us can do is let him fight his way through it. I swear…as much as I love this mountain and everyone here, it will be nice to be three thousand miles away. It can be exhausting. The last thing I want is to follow in his footsteps.”
Adriana added another folded napkin to her stack. She was moving three times as quickly as Brooks. “Don’t stay away from him for long. He needs you.”
“I won’t, but I need to choose the right time to break our news to him. Trust me: he’s not ready for it right now.”
But Brooks was ready to bring up the reason he’d really come. He took Adriana’s hand. “I’ve been thinking about something. Ever since we decided to move.”
She faced him. “Yeah?”
His pulse pounded in his wrists. He let his nerves calm and then said, “I think we should start trying to have a baby.” Just the idea of it made Brooks smile, his fatherly instincts coming alive, and he looked at her, hoping she’d feel the same way. “Even if you got pregnant immediately, we’d still have time to get settled in Florida before the baby came.”
To his surprise, her face went flat, and her eyes shifted away from him. For a second, he sensed a very bitter rejection and even repulsion. She quickly recovered, though, and twisted toward him with a smile. “I want to have a baby with you,” she said, “but I’m not quite ready.”
The last thing he wanted to do was push her. “Yeah, I get it.”
Adriana squeezed his hand. “Seriously. I do. Just not yet.”
Brooks nodded and whispered, “It’s fine.”
Dammit, he wished she would just wake up from her nightmare. Was Florida really the secret ingredient to her happiness?
* * *
Shortly afterward,Brooks walked into a bloodbath in the tasting room of Lacoda. Carmen looked like she was on the wrong end of a firing squad facing Jake and Emilia.
As much as Brooks wanted to duck back out, he asked, “What’s going on?”
The three Foresters turned as if he’d just slung a grenade at their feet.
