“Sure,” I said immediately. As far as I knew, Rafe didn’t have any plans for the day, since he’d finished the last of his freelance pre-visualization commissions not quite a week earlier and had decided not to take on any new ones until after the first of the year. “I’d love to see the place.”
Even as I spoke, though, I couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sadness. It had been fun to have Cat so close by, to have her as well as Rafe to help me navigate the sometimes complicated familial relationships in the Castillo witch clan. If she bought this vineyard up in Pojoaque, she wouldn’t be right around the corner any longer. True, she’d only be twenty-five minutes away at the most, but that wasn’t quite the same thing. Still, I knew this was what she wanted, and I certainly wasn’t going to stand in the way of her happiness.
I had to hope Rafe would feel the same way.
2
Rafe Castillo
It would have been nice if he could have shot down this idea of Cat’s. Of course she was her own person and free to do as she liked — at least, she was now that Genoveva wasn’t around to issue edicts — but at the same time, Rafe wished his sister had found someplace just a little closer to Santa Fe. During the drive to Pojoaque, he’d hoped the property would exhibit enough obvious flaws that it would be simple to tell her this wasn’t the one, and that she needed to keep looking. But….
“It’s beautiful,” he said as they stood outside the main house and surveyed the grounds. The vines were dormant at this time of year, of course, looking more like carefully pruned bundles of twigs, and the ancient centuries-old cottonwoods that ringed the property were likewise bare. Even so, there was a sense of peace and beauty here he couldn’t ignore. The winter sunlight slanted across the stone walkway that led from the house to a long, low outbuilding a few yards away, and the air was fresh and cool.
He and Miranda and Cat had been given the luxury of inspecting the vineyard without the owners standing by and watching, since they’d texted Cat the codes to the electronic gate that guarded the property, along with the codes to locks in the main house and the building that had been the tasting room. Looking at it now, Rafe asked, “What are you going to do with the tasting room? Throw wild parties?”
His sister lifted an eyebrow at him. “No. The owners have already sold off most of their inventory, and they said they’ll throw in what’s left as part of the sale of the property. I’ll store the wine in the cellar — it’s located under the tasting room. Then I figured I’d take out the fixtures and either sell them off or donate them, and turn the place into my fiber studio. I’ll finally have the room to set up that seventy-two-inch Countermarche loom I’ve been eyeing for years.”
“Well, it sounds like you have a plan already,” Rafe said. Personally, he thought the tasting room would make a great party space, but Cat had always been serious about her weaving, and he guessed she was just itching to be able to spread out and really flex her muscle, so to speak. “You want to look at the house?”
“Absolutely.”
She set off along the path that led to the main house, while he and Miranda followed a few paces behind. As they walked, Miranda’s hand stole into his, warm despite the chilly December breeze, and Rafe felt himself grow a little warmer at her touch. It felt so damn good to hold her hand like this, to know she was there next to him. She didn’t speak, though, but remained quiet, looking around her with interest.
There was a lot to look at, actually. Besides the house and the tasting room, there were several more outbuildings, probably where some of the actual winemaking had taken place. He supposed one of them could be converted into a garage, and the other maybe a gardening shed or something like that. With everything dead and waiting for the return of spring, it was hard to tell, but he thought he spied some raised beds for vegetable gardening off to one side, and at the far end of the property was a little grove of bare-branched fruit trees, probably apricot and cherry, possibly apple.
Cat would definitely have enough to keep her busy here. And if she was truly busy, how often would she really want to come down and visit her family in Santa Fe?
Rafe did his best to push that thought aside. The important thing was for his sister to be happy, no matter where she ended up. If the prospects for meeting any future life partners out here in Pojoaque were even worse than they’d been in Santa Fe, well, that was Cat’s problem to work out. He didn’t want to think that she’d given up, but clearly right now she was focused on something other than her love life.
The main house was actually more Tuscan villa in style than pueblo or even Spanish. It stood two stories tall and was faced with stone, topped by a slate roof. It looked sturdy and graceful — an impression that stopped the moment you stepped through the double front doors.
“Well…it’ll be a project, that’s for sure,” Miranda said as she looked around the foyer.
Clearly, the owners had expended all their money and energy on their vines and not too much on their residence. The old oak floor was scratched and stained, and Rafe spied stains on the plaster walls as well, probably from a leaky roof.
Cat shrugged. “I’m okay with that. I have first dibs on staying indefinitely at the Airbnb where I am right now, so if it takes months to get this place ship-shape, that’s fine. The important thing is to do it right — this home has good bones, so it’ll be worth the effort.”
“Maybe we should look at the rest of the house before we make that determination,” Rafe suggested. Not that he wanted to shoot down his sister’s dreams of creating an idyllic oasis out here in the Pojoaque countryside, but….
His comment made Cat shoot him an annoyed glance, although she didn’t argue. “Yes, of course we’ll need to go through the whole place. I saw pictures online, but they don’t tell all of the story, especially since those pictures were taken when the owners still had their furniture here.”
“Lead on,” Miranda said. Her big green eyes sparkled with interest, and Rafe guessed that she was already on Cat’s side as far as the property was concerned.
They left the foyer and went into the room to their left, which was obviously the dining room. It was long and somewhat narrow, but had a tall, arched window that provided a perfect view of the vineyards. Once the vines had leafed out again, it would probably be spectacular in here.
The kitchen was less promising, but Cat didn’t seem put off by the ancient appliances — probably older than she was — or the scratched-up stainless sink. “I’ll redo all of this,” she said with a wave of her hand. “But at least it’s a nice size, and the pantry is huge.”
Which it was, with enough space to store supplies for the most enthusiastic of cooks. The rest of the house was much the same way — a lot of cosmetic repair that needed to be done, but Cat’s assessment that the bones of the house were good proved to be accurate enough. Rafe didn’t even bother to run a rough estimate in his head of what this would all cost, because he knew that such estimates invariably got tossed to the side once you were actually embroiled in a project. However, since Cat could afford it, he didn’t bother to make any comments on sort of budget this kind of update would require.
Especially not since she and Miranda were already sharing opinions and ideas, discussing options for flooring and window coverings and everything else. Rafe was content to let them talk, mostly because they both seemed so excited about renovating this house into a showplace, and also because he loved to watch Miranda when she was like this, eyes glowing, cheeks pink with excitement.
Or maybe it was just that he liked to watch Miranda, period. He still had a hard time realizing that someone so strong, so brave, so beautiful, was actually his wife. Maybe it would sink in after they had their “real” wedding ceremony at Loretto Chapel. He knew her dress-shopping expedition with Cat the day before had been successful, because Miranda had come into the house with a garment bag draped over one arm and a satisfied expression on her face. She’d hidden the dress away in a closet in one of the unused bedrooms and threa
tened him with all sorts of hexes if he even attempted to take a peek.
“I mean it,” she’d said. “It’s bad luck to see the wedding gown or the bride before the ceremony, and as far as I’m concerned, we’ve already had enough bad luck to last us for years.”
Rafe had to agree with her on that point. Anyway, he really didn’t care about the wedding dress one way or another, as long as Miranda was happy with her choice.
“So I assume you’re going to buy it,” he said to his sister after they’d finished going over the entire house and had once again gathered in the foyer.
“How could I not buy this place?” Cat replied, a smile touching her lips as she went over and laid a hand on one stained plaster wall. “It needs someone to love it. By the time I’m done, it’s going to be spectacular.”
“No ghosts?” he teased, but she shook her head, expression suddenly serious.
“No, I don’t sense anyone here.” She paused for a moment, eyes half shut, as though reaching out to feel the energy of the place. “It looks older than it is, really. The owners say it was built in the late 1960s, and although that’s plenty of time for someone to have lived here and died and had their spirit remain behind, I don’t feel anything like that. This is a happy place. It has good energy.”
Rafe supposed he’d have to take Cat’s word for it. She’d always been a lot farther along the “woo-woo” scale than he was, probably because of her witchy talent for communicating with ghosts. Although his own gift of transforming into various wild animals was a rare and valuable one, it also had given him a somewhat pragmatic way of looking at the world. Wolves and coyotes and mountain lions didn’t generally have much nonsense about them.
“What about you, Miranda?” he asked then. “Do you feel anything?” After all, her talents were legion, and strong as hell, too. Between the immense powers she’d been born with and the prima energy she’d been given, thanks to Louisa’s sacrifice, there was a very real possibility that Miranda might be able to sense presences and entities that even Cat couldn’t.
“No,” Miranda said after a slight pause. “It’s just like Cat said — the energy here is good. It feels like…a sanctuary. A place to escape from the world.”
After what all of them had suffered at Simon Escobar’s hands, Rafe thought they could do with a little sanctuary. At the same time, he hoped Cat wouldn’t retreat into this vineyard and not want to come out. She still needed to be part of the Castillo clan, part of their lives.
“Well, it sounds like it’s all settled, then,” Rafe said.
Cat nodded, dark eyes shining. “Yes, I’ll let the owners know I want to take it, and then I just need to shuffle some money around.”
A lot of money, Rafe thought, but he didn’t say anything. Cat’s finances were her own business. Anyway, she’d never been the type to throw cash around. While she wasn’t quite as careless about her wardrobe as he tended to be, she also didn’t flaunt her Castillo wealth, didn’t drop thousands at the pricey boutiques that clustered around Santa Fe’s plaza. Really, she hadn’t had a lot of things to spend money on all that time she was living at home, so it had been piling up for years.
“Well, let’s get the ball rolling,” Rafe said, since he knew this was a done deal, and he’d have to step back and let his sister have the freedom to achieve her dream. “It looks like you’ve just bought yourself a hell of a Christmas present, Cat.”
3
Miranda
That night, Rafe and I had Cat and Eduardo over for dinner, since she had to break the news to him about the winery purchase, and she figured it would be safer to do it with an audience present. Why she was so worried about her father’s reaction, I wasn’t sure, because Eduardo had always seemed to me to be one of the gentlest men I’d ever met. However, I supposed Cat might be worried that he would see this as an abandonment coming so soon after the death of his wife, although realistically, the vineyard house couldn’t possibly be ready for her to move in until the late spring or even early summer. After dealing with the lackadaisical attitude of a lot of the contractors in Santa Fe for just a few minor repairs around the house, I imagined that Cat would have her hands full overseeing such a large project.
Then again, that could be exactly what she wanted.
I had set places for the four of us on the long table in the dining room, and a centerpiece of fresh pine boughs and red velvet bows added a cheery touch. You couldn’t see it from the dining room, but a large Noble fir decorated with white lights and a bunch of ornaments I’d found in boxes in the garage held court in the living room, and more pine boughs and red bows had been draped over the mantel. I hadn’t been able to do much to the house yet, but filmy draperies at the windows to replace the heavy damask ones that had hung there previously, along with as many Christmas-y touches as I could add without things looking too busy, had done a lot to lighten the mood in the Castillo home. Even Rafe, who in general didn’t pay much attention to interior decorating, had complimented me on the way his childhood home looked.
I hoped that the cheerier environment might put Eduardo in a good mood. Certainly when he arrived, a bottle of wine in his hand as an offering, he praised the holiday decor while he looked around, smiling. It had to be difficult to come here when he’d shared this house with Genoveva for so many years, but I didn’t see any sorrow or worry in his handsome, refined features, only happiness at a chance to spend the evening with his family.
The three of us went into the dining room, and I sneaked a quick glance at my watch. A little after seven, which meant Cat was running late. Well, she’d had a lot to do this afternoon — I knew she was meeting with the owners of the vineyard, and had brought along a Castillo cousin who was a real estate agent to go over the paperwork and make sure there weren’t any red flags. Even so, I was fairly certain that if she’d hit any snags, she would have contacted Rafe or me. However, since neither of us had heard anything, we’d both assumed that everything had gone smoothly. But the smoothest real estate transaction could still be pretty protracted, just because of all the documentation involved.
Luckily, the doorbell rang just a few minutes after Rafe and Eduardo had sat down at the dining table. I excused myself and hurried to answer it. Standing outside was Cat, positively glowing with excitement, her cheeks pink above the wine-colored suede coat she wore.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said as she unbuttoned her coat, then unwound the scarf she was wearing. Some cold night air had come into the foyer as she entered, and I could tell that the coat and scarf weren’t overkill, not at all. I wondered how cold it would really get here; we weren’t anywhere near the heart of winter yet, and although I knew something about cold, thanks to living in Flagstaff for part of the year, my family had tended to spend the cold months down in Jerome rather than up in Flag.
“It’s fine,” I told her. “The lasagna needed to stay in the oven for a bit longer anyway.”
“Oh, good.” She hung her coat up on the rack that stood in one corner of the foyer. “It took longer to go through all the paperwork than I’d thought, but we finally did plow through it. Luna Rio is now officially mine.”
“That’s great news,” I said, returning her smile. “Your dad’s already here, so you can tell him all about it.”
Her smile faded a bit. “He’s going to think I was way too impulsive about this.”
“You don’t know that. After all, you took Rafe and me with you to look at the property. It’s not as if you blindsided all of us with this.”
“I guess so.”
She still didn’t look convinced, and I didn’t bother to argue with her. Yes, she’d taken a big step — and taken on a big responsibility — but she was an adult and could make her own decisions.
In the meantime, though, I needed to get the lasagna out of the oven, and the garlic bread as well. As soon as I mentioned that I needed to check on the food in the kitchen, Cat said, “Let me help you.”
“There’s not much — just a pan of la
sagna, a bowl of salad, and some garlic bread.”
“It’s enough, though. And it would be rude for me to sit on my butt while you did all the work. I’m surprised Rafe isn’t helping you.”
“He actually made the garlic bread,” I protested. Which he had…under close supervision. Still, he’d helped with spreading the split loaf with melted butter and garlic, and sprinkling the freshly grated Parmesan cheese on top. That had allowed me to put the salad together while he worked. Even when making a relatively simple meal like this one, it was a lot easier to have an extra pair of hands.
“I’d have paid to see that,” Cat said as she followed me down the hall and into the kitchen. “Rafe isn’t exactly what you’d call domestic.”
There was an understatement. However, since we were still in what I could safely call the “honeymoon period,” he was usually eager enough to help out when he could.
Really, all I had to do was pull the lasagna out of the oven while Cat retrieved the garlic bread from the toaster oven. She got out a basket and put the bread in it — without having to ask where the basket had been stored, since I hadn’t moved much around and so everything was basically put away where it had always been. With her free hand, she picked up the bowl that held the salad. Thus laden, she made her way into the dining room, with me a few feet behind her.
“I see Miranda put you to work right away,” Rafe remarked as he took the bowl of salad from her.
“She offered,” I said archly, putting the pan of lasagna down on the hot pads I’d already set out to protect the table.
A Canyon Road Christmas Page 2