Fate Actually: Moonstone Cove Book Two

by Hunter, Elizabeth

“I was thinking I haven’t had sex in like… five years and hot man and ooooh, orgasms! I wasn’t thinking about birth control anymore.” She bit into a slice of bread. “I’m not twenty-five.”

  “Did you think your uterus just stopped working?” Megan snatched the glass of red wine from Toni’s hand. “Did you come equipped with an ovary gauge that I don’t have? Women can get more fertile in their forties, Toni. It’s like a going-out-of-business sale down there.”

  Toni closed her eyes. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. Obviously.”

  Katherine was staring at Toni and not saying a word.

  Megan took a long drink of wine. “I think you broke Katherine.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “You know, I have these discussions with my teenagers,” Megan quipped. “I didn’t think I needed to have them with my girlfriends too. Are you keeping it?”

  “I…” It hadn’t even occurred to her not to keep it. She’d been too absorbed with how she was going to manage her mother finding out. “I guess I am. I mean, I’m financially independent. I own my home. I have a big support system. I’m perfectly capable of raising a child.”

  “But do you want kids?” Megan asked. “It’s not for everyone.”

  “I don’t not want kids,” Toni said. “I always imagined having them, it just didn’t happen the way I thought it would. Men weren’t exactly beating down the door to marry Bobby Dusi’s daughter, who could beat them up and fix a car better than they could, you know? So I didn’t get married. So I didn’t have kids. It wasn’t a deliberate choice. Life just happened.”

  “Well, life definitely just happened here. Speaking of men beating down your door, who’s the daddy?”

  Katherine finally spoke. “Henry?”

  Toni nodded.

  “Who’s Henry?” Megan’s eyes went wide. “Why haven’t I heard about this man? Who is he? How long have you been in a relationship? Do you have pictures?”

  “No, we’re not in a relationship. Exactly. And it’s not—”

  “You have a picture,” Katherine said. “I saw it pop up on your phone once when he called.”

  Toni pointed at her. “You are not to be trusted.”

  “Oh bullshit.” Megan held her hand out. “We are going to support you whatever happens, and you know we’ve got your back walking through literal gunfire, Antonia Dusi, but we’re gonna give you shit about this first. Show me the man.”

  Toni took a deep breath, opened her contacts, and tapped the picture next to Henry Durand’s name before she handed her phone to Megan.

  She grabbed the phone, pulled it close, then held it at a distance and squinted before she gasped. “He is so cute! He looks like that…” She snapped her fingers. “Who’s the actor I’m thinking about?”

  Katherine said, “I’m a seer, not a telepath.”

  “You know, the young one who was in all those Disney musical shows.” Megan’s eyes went wide and her head whipped around to Toni. “He’s young! How young is he?”

  “Thirtysomething,” Toni muttered. “I don’t know exactly. And he doesn’t look like Disney Musical Guy.”

  “He kind of does though, you cougar.”

  “See? This is why I was dreading telling you guys about him. I’m forty-one; I’m not a cougar.”

  Katherine took the phone from Megan, looked at the picture, and smiled. “He’s not that much younger than you. I think he just has a young face. Have you told him?”

  “No.” She couldn’t even imagine it. “He’ll probably want to marry me.”

  “And you don’t want to get married?” Katherine asked.

  “Do you know how many of my cousins got married because they got pregnant? Only one of them is still happy. I don’t object to marriage completely, but I don’t want to do it just because I got pregnant.”

  “Agreed.” Megan handed her the phone back. “It’s not 1950. You’re an independent woman with a good support system. Have the baby. Work out the coparenting. Let the relationship be a separate thing.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Are you sure he’d want to get married?” Megan asked. “A lot of men don’t.”

  “Henry is very…” She sighed. How could she explain? “He’s very good.”

  Megan snorted. “Tell us more.”

  “Not like… Okay, he’s good at that too, but I’m talking about his character. He’s traditional, but not in like the narrow-minded way, just like in the… good way.” She wasn’t doing this well. “He grew up on a winery; went to college in Washington State for viticulture. My cousin hired him about a year ago to be his winemaker. He’s incredibly gifted, and I know he’s traveled a lot for his education, but he still seems kind of… sheltered. Added to that, he doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink except for work, and he volunteers at the homeless shelter. He… picks up trash on the side of the road. He already adopted a rescue dog, for heaven’s sake.”

  As if on cue, Katherine and Baxter’s adorable goldendoodle scratched at the door. Katherine rose to let him out. The sun was setting over the ocean as Archie came over and promptly laid his head in Toni’s lap.

  “Look at you.” She rubbed his head. “How do you know?”

  “He’s very empathetic,” Katherine said. “You probably have a lot in common. Henry sounds like a wonderful person who would make an excellent father. What’s the problem?”

  “He’s too good.” Megan narrowed her eyes. “Right?”

  Toni nodded. “I hate to be cynical, but I just feel like… no one can be that decent, right? What am I not seeing?”

  Katherine smiled. “I think you’re overthinking this. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. Like you said, it’s not like you have boyfriends coming out your ears. He works with your cousin and knows your family. You’re not going to be able to hide the pregnancy forever, and they’re gonna know who the daddy is.”

  “I know. But just… for a while, can we pretend it’s not real? I’m trying not to get too attached to the idea anyway. The chances of miscarriage when you’re older are a lot higher.” The mention of losing the ephemeral baby already felt like a splinter in her heart.

  Megan nudged her arm. “You want this.”

  Toni took a deep breath. “It’s not what I imagined. At all. But I think it’s fate, you know? This is probably it. This is probably my last chance to be a mom. And I always imagined I’d be a mom. I think… I’d be a fool not to take it.”

  Katherine’s smile was wide and glowing. “You’re going to make a wonderful mother.”

  Toni blinked back the tears that threatened her eyes. “I don’t know how to do much domestic stuff, you know? And this is like… super domestic stuff.”

  “You’ve got us,” Megan said. “We got your back; you can ask me anything. And I have three kids who will make awesome babysitters.”

  “And I am a very enthusiastic aunt,” Katherine said. “I’m also excellent at helping with homework.”

  Toni held up a hand. “Okay, can’t go there quite yet. Can we talk about the severed finger for a while? That’s a lot less scary than thinking about babies.”

  * * *

  After Katherine got a ginger ale for her, Toni sketched out her morning, starting with the call from Nico at the farm.

  “So someone was messing with his tractor and lost a finger?” Katherine winced. “Painful. But why wouldn’t they have taken their finger and gone to the hospital? In all but the worst cases, they can usually reattach them.”

  Megan made a face. “Really though? They don’t turn black and fall off?”

  “That does happen, but the success rate is quite high. Around seventy percent or so. Vascular surgeons can do amazing work. They might have sent him up to San Francisco…” She turned to Toni. “I’m assuming, but I shouldn’t. Was it a male finger?”

  “It looked pretty big to me. I’d say probably male.”

  “Could you tell which one?”

  She shrugged. “Not a thumb. That’s about it.” She closed her eyes
. “No.”

  “No what?”

  “No, there’s something else about it that seemed different.” She kept her eyes closed. “What was it?”

  “Not a thumb,” Megan said. “Was it a clean cut?”

  “No. Ragged, like it had been torn off. Or… bitten?” That. That was what she’d noticed. “The nail was really neat. Like, really neat.”

  Katherine frowned. “So probably not someone who works with his hands.”

  “But someone who was trying to tamper with a tractor?” Megan shook her head. “I’d expect anyone who knows how to disable a tractor to have workingman’s hands.”

  “Neat. Clean.” Toni could see it in her mind now. “I’m pretty sure he’d had a manicure. His cuticles were all neat like mine are when I get my nails done.”

  “You get your nails done?” Megan asked.

  “Every time a Dusi or Lanza woman gets married, I do.” She reached for another piece of bread. “He had a manicure, neat fingernails, and clean hands. No grime on the finger other than a little grease from the engine and dirt.”

  “Who would want to mess with your cousin? Didn’t you say this would mess up his pinot noir harvest?”

  “I texted him before I came over,” Toni said. “He’ll be okay since his neighbor loaned him his old rig. They’re going to have to work late and finish up first thing in the morning, but they did get most of the fruit today. And tomorrow morning shouldn’t be too cold.”

  “Is Henry out there with them?” Megan asked.

  “Don’t know why that would be important.” Toni nabbed a piece of cheese. “Drew Bisset was at the scene.”

  “Isn’t he the one who predicted the Cove was gonna go back to ‘normal’?” Megan used air quotes around normal. “Oops.”

  “I mean, people do lose fingers,” Toni said. “It’s probably one of the more common agricultural accidents.”

  “But this guy was messing with someone else’s tractor, got his finger torn off, and left his finger in the tractor!” Megan said. “Who does that?”

  “Makes you wonder,” Katherine said.

  “Makes you wonder what?”

  “Why?” Katherine lifted her shoulders. “If someone came into the emergency room with a detached finger, they’d ask him how he detached it, but I doubt they’d ask that many questions. He could just say he was fixing a tractor. They’d never know he was doing anything criminal.”

  “So you’re wondering why he didn’t seek medical care?”

  “And wondering why he left his finger behind.”

  Toni said, “Maybe it fell in the engine and he couldn’t get it out because he was bleeding everywhere.”

  “Was there a lot of blood at the scene?”

  Toni thought about it. “No.”

  “Hmm.” Katherine looked troubled.

  “Maybe it got cut off and someone took it,” Megan said. “Or the finger got lost on the way to the hospital.”

  “You think someone accidentally misplaced a finger?” Toni asked. “Maybe left it on the roof of the car and drove off like it was a cup of coffee?”

  “Did any of the local clinics report someone coming in with a missing finger?” Katherine asked. “If they didn’t, that leads us to a whole other set of questions.”

  “Like what?” Toni asked.

  “Well…” Katherine’s eyebrows went up. “The most obvious one would be: Was the person alive when the finger was detached?”

  Aaaaaand there went Toni’s stomach again. “I’m gonna say that’s something Drew can figure out without us.”

  Chapter 4

  Toni woke up on Saturday morning and stretched with languor in the sunbeam that crossed her bed. Her foot hit something, and Shelby gave her an annoyed yowl when she fell off the end of the bed.

  “Oops.” She glanced over at the cat. “Sorry.”

  Shelby jumped back on the end of the bed and promptly attacked Toni’s foot.

  “Ow!” She pulled her legs up. “Jeez, cat.”

  The grey shorthair glared at her and let out another loud meow.

  “Let me guess, a tiny portion of the bottom of your food bowl is showing.”

  Shelby turned her back and showed Toni her tail, which whipped back and forth before she jumped to the windowsill.

  Toni swung her legs over the bed and let her feet touch the newly refinished floorboards. The wood was cool to the touch, so she toed on her slippers and grabbed a thin cotton robe before she wandered out to the kitchen.

  It was only when she got to the kitchen that she heard the distant sound of a gardening pick.

  Toni closed her eyes and sighed. “Henry.”

  She quickly checked Shelby’s food bowl, picked it up, and shook the kibble to the bottom of the bowl to cover the bare patch. Then she set it down and Shelby promptly began eating.

  “Weirdo,” Toni muttered. She walked to the door and wrapped her robe tight before she stepped out onto the wide porch built onto the front of the house.

  Her home was a Spanish-style bungalow; an ancient grapevine covered the open wooden porch, creating a thick green shade across the front of the house during the warm summer months. Now that it was fall, fat purple grapes hung over her head, and she could see the edges of the lush green leaves curling up as they started to get dry.

  Across the front yard, between the stand of oaks and her peeling red barn, she saw Henry with his pick and a wheelbarrow.

  She slid into her garden boots and walked across to the barn.

  “Henry,” she said. “I told you I was going to do that.”

  He looked up and wiped a thin sheen of sweat off his forehead. The smile he shot her was brilliant. “Hey.”

  “I told you I could clear that out,” she repeated.

  He leaned his pickax on the ground. “It’s not a problem. I told you and Nico I’d help.”

  She squinted into the rising sun. “You don’t have enough to do at the farm?”

  “Danny and the other guys already started processing. And if I want to clean up these old vines and get some cuttings to propagate them before next year, I need to get some healthy shoots going before it gets too cold.”

  Along the east side of the barn, there were eight rows of ancient grapevines pruned in a goblet style. Nico guessed they were nearly one hundred years old. They’d gone completely wild in the past twenty years, but they’d survived rain and fog, so Toni knew they had to be hardy.

  The small vineyard was in a part of the garden that was completely overgrown, and it wasn’t until she’d cut the long grass back that she even realized they were there. She called Nico to take a look to see if they were worth salvaging, and Nico had sent Henry, who’d become obsessed.

  “You know these could be some of the original vines planted on the property,” he said, swinging the pick over his shoulder to dislodge a large chunk of concrete that had been tossed between the rows. “If I can get decent cuttings off them—and if the grapes are any good—we could propagate or clone the original varieties that were grown on this land.” He turned to her with a wide grin. “Don’t you think that’s exciting?”

  She couldn’t help smiling a little at his schoolboy enthusiasm. “Hey, if you’re going to clean up my yard, I’m not going to argue.”

  His eyes were dancing in the sunshine, and his smile was dazzling. His dark hair fell over his forehead, and she could see a little stubble on his jawline. His shirt was long-sleeved, but he’d opened it at the neck and the cords of muscle on his neck nearly had her drooling.

  Oh God, he does look like a Disney prince.

  “Uh…” She blinked and turned to look at the house. Must. Escape. Dazzle. “I was gonna make some coffee. Do you want some?”

  Wait. Shit. Was she allowed to have coffee? Was that bad for the baby?

  Don’t think about the baby.

  “I’d love some coffee.” Henry put his fingers to his mouth and let out an ear-piercing whistle. “I should call Earl. He’s been gone a while.”

 
“You don’t worry about him getting lost?”

  Henry looked at her like her head was damaged. “No.”

  Earl was the dog of mysterious origins that Henry had adopted. Within seconds of the whistle, she heard him crashing through the brush as he raced across the oak grove that led down to the dry creek bed.

  Toni braced herself.

  If there was anyone more enthusiastic about life than Henry, it was Earl. He was the size of a small horse, with a ruddy tan coat and floppy ears. He looked a little like what Toni imagined would happen if a yellow lab and a quarter horse had a baby.

  “Hey Earl!” Toni put her hands out. “Sit. Sit!”

  Earl, who was mostly legs and panting tongue, managed to stop just before he ran into Toni’s legs and knocked her over like a bowling pin.

  “Hey, buddy!” Henry grinned and spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “Sorry. He loves you.”

  The waves of happiness were impossible to resist. It was early in the day, and Toni’s emotional receptors were wide and clear. Joy and affection rippled off Henry, then bounced off Earl and onto her. It was nearly enough to make Toni light-headed. Earl stuck his head under her outstretched hand and woofed. It was impossible not to be charmed.

  “Hey, buddy.” She picked a foxtail off his ear. “You need to be careful with him.”

  “I check him every night.” Henry propped his pick against an old vine and walked over to pull another foxtail off Earl’s shoulder. “I don’t suppose I could ask you for a bowl of water. He’s still afraid of Enzo and won’t go in the barn.”

  At the sound of the Enzo’s name, Earl whined.

  “It’s okay.” Toni rubbed his ears. “I know you were only trying to be friendly. He’s a cranky old man.”

  “Don’t let him in the house,” Henry said. “I’m fairly sure he rolled in something.”

  “Okay.” Toni patted her leg, and Earl followed her while she walked back to the house. “You’re going to have to pine from a distance then.”

  Earl trotted ahead of her and promptly sprawled in front of Shelby’s favorite window.

  As if she’d been waiting for her cue, the grey cat jumped into the window and paced back and forth with her tail held high as Earl let out excited yips.