Page 75 of Cognac & Cornflowers

“You don’t want her depending on you?”

“That’s not what he said, Dad!”

“I would love her to depend on me, but only if it’s what she wants – not because she doesn’t have any other choice.”

“She always has another choice. She can come home.”

“I understand that, sir. I should have explained that when I asked Becca to move in with me, she felt that her only other option was to move home to Kansas. I didn’t want her to leave, but I didn’t want her to feel stuck with me if she chose to stay.”

“Right.”

Jacob didn’t know whether that had come across the way he hoped or not. He waited to see what else they had to say.

Becca gave him a reassuring smile.

“And you make wine?” her dad asked eventually.

“That’s right.”

“And you do all right for yourself?”

Becca gave him an apologetic look, but Jacob smiled.

“Yes. I do. It’s a successful business. My grandparents started it, and my parents passed it on to me.”

“And what do your parents do now?”

Becca rested her hand on his arm and mouthed,sorry.

Jacob nodded; it was okay. He was used to people knowing what had happened to his parents, but there was no reason that Becca’s folks should know. “They died in a car crash nine years ago,”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“No, son. I don’t mean, I’m sorry for your loss, though I am. I meant sorry for putting you on the spot like that. I didn’t know.”

“There’s no way you could know. It’s okay.”

“Yeah. I just … I want to look out for my girl, that’s all.”

“I understand that. And I want to do what I can to reassure you.”

“Yeah, but there’s not much you can do when you’re just a voice on the phone fifteen hundred miles away.”

“I know. That’s why I’d like to meet you.”

“That’d be good. You want to come next school holidays?”

Becca shot Jacob a quick smile and nodded eagerly.

“I was thinking – if it’d suit you – we could come a lot sooner than that. In fact, if you’re free next weekend, we could come then.”

“I don’t see how you could make it work. It takes all day to get here. You’d no sooner land than you’d have to turn around and go back again.”

“We’d be able to make it in a couple of hours. We could come on Friday night or Saturday morning and leave on Sunday afternoon.”

“How?”

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