by Tessa Layne
And then she’s kissing me back and my eyes are as wet as hers.
“Declan. Make love to me. Kiss me until I can’t cry anymore.”
I pick her up and carry her through the suite. Food can wait until I’ve fed her soul in the manner she’s requested. I lay her on the bed and hover over her. “I love you Emmaline. And I will never forget you. Even when I’m old and decrepit. You will always live in my heart.” I kiss her, as tenderly and slowly as I can manage. Giving her my soul in little pieces, with each breath. Our lovemaking is messy, and raw. I taste the salt of her tears and it mingles with the sweetness of the whiskey on her tongue. She gazes at me with a desperate need as our bodies merge and rock together, moving as one being with two halves.
“I don’t want to forget this, Declan. I’m so afraid I’m going to forget this. How much I love it. How much I love you.”
“Shhh,” I hush her before claiming her mouth. “Your heart will never forget this,” I say, thrusting deeply. “Never.”
And I desperately hope that when the time comes, I can believe it.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
She’s pulling away. Withdrawing into herself. I can feel it. I can see it in the tightness of her jaw, the set of her mouth. I feel like I’m eleven again, and trapped in the barn. Fear clutches at me, sinks her icy fingers into my heart, whispers taunting phrases inside my head that turn my blood to ice.
She’s leaving.
You’rre nnnnot worrrrrrrtthhhyyyy.
You don’t deserve happiness.
And that’s the truth, because this last week, as I’ve made funeral arrangements for a woman I don’t know, and doted on her daughter, plying her with food by day and orgasms by night, I’ve been happy. I’ve felt… worthy, useful. Needed.
Emmaline needs me, I shout back to the wraith-like voice in my head.
More importantly, I need her.
But as I catch Emmaline’s eye across the decorated Hansen barn where Ingrid’s wake is being held, I can see she’s already gone. It’s only a matter of time. I tighten my grip on my whiskey glass. I know what’s coming and I’m powerless to stop it. She’s a vision in pale blue silk, having refused to wear black at her mother’s funeral. There’s a seriousness in her gaze, a finality. And even though my pulse quickens as she closes the space between us, this time her words won’t be an invitation. Goodbye is written all over her face.
“Say it.” I bite the words, hating that they rise unbidden.
For a beautiful moment, her face softens, and she brings her delicate hand to my cheek. A loving gesture that surely, she learned from her mother. “Thank you for everything, Declan. I- I can’t begin to repay your kindness.”
“Say it.”
“You’re in love with Madame M, not me.”
How can she even say that? It’s utter bullshit and we both know it. I shake my head. “I’m in love with you, Emmaline. You.”
“You’re in love with an idea of me that doesn’t exist.” She glances away, biting down on her bottom lip. When she lifts her eyes again, they’re glossy with unshed tears, and it wrecks me to my soul. “My future is set in stone.”
“You don’t know that,” I interrupt. “There’s new research every day. And I can fund more, get you access to the best doctors in the world-”
She shakes her head and places her fingers over my mouth. “Don’t make this any harder than it already is.” Her voice catches, and she sucks in a ragged breath before continuing. “What’s inevitable, is that someday, I will look at you and not know your name.” She blinks rapidly. “I won’t remember that there was ever anything between us. You’ll be nothing more than a stranger to me.”
“But we still have time.” I hate that I’m pleading with her, that I’m showing my hand this way, but I’m desperate. “Our future is with each other.”
“Don’t you understand?” A tear rolls down her porcelain cheek. “I don’t have a future. And I love you too much to put you through the hell my parents went through, what I went through.”
“But look at you now, you’re healthy. You’ll be healthy. I know it.”
Her face twists, grief showing in every line and plane. “Stop deluding yourself, Declan. There. Is. No. Cure,” she bites out, as if each word is killing her.
“But there will be, in ten, maybe twenty-years’ time? By the time you’re old enough you might start showing symptoms?” My voice cracks at the unfairness of it all. At the bleak look that settles across her features, followed by steely determination. That I recognize, and foreboding hollows in my stomach.
“Declan,” she whispers my name like a prayer. “I’m so sorry. But I- I can’t. I won’t. You have no idea what it’s like, the devastation of watching someone’s life drain away before your eyes. There’s no happily ever after for us, no forever love.”
I crook a finger under her chin and force her gaze up. “I don’t need forever. I don’t need a fairytale ending. I need you. Right now. For as long as I can have you. I’ll be grateful for every minute.” I hear the desperation rising in my voice, and I’m helpless to stop it. Her words are like a fist to my belly, and I don’t know how to convince her I’m all in. “Please Emmaline,” I beg. I’m not above begging. Not if it will give me one more day with her. “Don’t push me away. You deserve happiness, too.”
Her tears are spilling freely now, and she shakes her head with a grimace. “You have no idea what you’re asking for. You don’t know the pain.”
“I do,” I whisper harshly. “You know the pain I’ve endured. It might not be the same as yours, but it hurts just as much. Don’t do this to me, Em. Don’t do this to us.”
“I’m so sorry. Please know it’s saving you from even worse pain down the road.” She steps back.
The gulf between us might as well be as wide as the Grand Canyon, or the Marianna Trench. The movement conveys a finality I’m not willing to accept. I follow her, closing the space again. “I don’t want to be saved,” I say loudly enough that heads turn.
One of the Grace sisters rushes over, shooting me a worried glance. “Emmaline, are you okay?” She glares at me, as if to say Hands off, Buster. I lift my hands and back away. Not because I want to - I don’t. But I can see what this is costing Emmaline, and I don’t want to be the one responsible for giving her more pain.
“I’ll always be here for you Em. All you have to do is pick up the phone.”
Her face crumples, and with it, my future. She nods and whispers “Thank you.” I want to touch her. I want to feel her satin skin under my lips one last time, to feel the breath of her skating across my skin, her hands on me, driving me wild. I want it with blinding, ten-year-old desperation. But it’s slipped through my fingers. She is no longer mine. The sensation of my heart squeezing and fracturing into a million pieces brings spots to my eyes. I can’t breathe. I’m quite sure my body has forgotten how to breathe. My heart has forgotten how to beat. And without Emmaline in my life, I’m not sure it will ever start again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
I catch the next flight to San Francisco. I can barely keep my eyes open as I turn into the long drive. This time, there aren’t cars everywhere. The drive is as lonely and dark as the night sky. I cut the engine when I reach the wide-open area between the barn and the crushing pad, banishing the memories that float around my head like a mobile. Emmaline in a mask, Emmaline laughing as she holds up an open-holed bra she just finished creating. Emmaline holding her mother’s hand, Emmaline leaning against me as they lower Ingrid’s casket into the ground to rest next to Ivar.
But every memory slices me to the bone, razor-sharp, and exacting in its pain. I’m doing a fuck-all job of banishing. The dashboard clock shines 2:37, casting the car in blue light. The trailer, parked in front of the farmhouse, is dark. No use waking Alison up now. Or Nico, wherever the hell his sorry ass is. I reach behind the passenger seat and pull out my briefcase. I have enough juice left on my phone to use it as a hotspot, and there are loose ends I need to tie
up before I begin my new life as a vineyard owner.
A hand on my shoulder startles me awake. “What the fuck?” I yell, jumping out of my skin. Beside me, Nico collapses forward onto himself, shoulders spasming in laughter. “Not funny,” I growl. “You about killed me just now.”
“Sorry, not sorry.” He clutches his chest, still laughing. “You shoulda seen the expression on your face.”
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“Nice to see you, too.” He grins at me. A genuine ‘Hey, I’m happy to see you’ grin. Although I can see the strain of the last several months when I look closely.
“How’ve you been?”
He makes a face and shrugs his shoulders. “Pissed as hell at everyone. Especially Dad.”
“Not Ronnie?”
He lets out a cynical laugh. “Oh I’m pissed at her too. But not for leaving. If I never see her again, it will be too soon. She bankrupted me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. She fleeced me. Emptied the bank accounts, sold off assets, you name it. I’ve had to hire a forensic accountant.”
Whoa. I shake my head, blinking. “Holy smokes.”
“As near as we can tell, she started shifting money into shell corporations and from there into Swiss accounts not long after we married.”
I let out a low whistle.
Nico grins, only this time, it’s more of a grimace. “So the silver lining in Dad’s little stunt is that I finally figured all this out.”
I clap him on the shoulder. “So. What’s it feel like to be penniless?” I can’t quite get it out with a serious face.
He fake-punches me. “Like that.”
And somehow, I know it’s the same feeling that I get in the pit of my belly when I think about Emmaline.
Dawn is breaking on the horizon, lighting the sky in shades of pale pink and blue. I nod my head toward the farmhouse. “House is coming along.” I can see scaffolding, and it looks like most of the new roof has been framed in. “Looks like Alison is running a tight ship.”
“You can say that again,” Nico mutters under his breath.
“What? She bust your balls?”
Nico glares and gives a grunt that can only be construed as pure frustration. “I can’t make a move without her hounding me.”
That’s the best thing I’ve heard in days. I lean my head back and laugh all the way to my belly.
“I’m serious,” Nico follows up. “Some days, I want to turn her over on my knee and spank her ass.”
“Maybe you should,” I joke. Then I think about where spanking led me. “Bad idea. Don’t even think about touching my winemaker. Find someone else’s ass to spank.” I point a finger at his chest. “Touch her and you die. Got it?”
Nico scoffs. “You sound like Jason.”
“Not. Funny.” I glare at him, the light humor evaporating from the car. “C’mon. Let’s go.” I return my laptop to its case and exit the car. Nico hangs back as I knock on the trailer door. I knock again, harder, after a full minute. Thirty seconds later, a curvy young woman with dark straight hair and fringe above her eyebrows answers the door, face still soft with sleep. “Alison?”
“Yeah?” she asks, then her eyes go wide as she recognizes me. “Holy shit.” She looks down at her very short pink satin robe, then back at me. “Hoooooly holy shit. What in the hell are you doing here? Did I do something wrong? I swear, if you don’t like something, blame him.” She points at Nico with a glare.
I spin around, and Nico takes two steps back, hands in the air. “What? I didn’t do anything.”
I turn back to my winemaker, whose face says something entirely contradictory. But I don’t have the energy to sort out their little spat. “I know it’s early, but I have a full day. Can you show me around? I want to see where we are.”
She nods rapidly, suddenly looking very nervous. “I’ll be right out.”
I turn back to Nico. “You. Go down into town and get yourself some breakfast. I need you out of the way for the next few hours.”
To my surprise, Nico looks disappointed. I pull out my wallet and hand him a twenty. “Here. It’s on me.”
Nico takes the money with an exasperated noise. “Fine. We’ll catch up later.”
A few minutes later, Alison opens her trailer door and comes out dressed in jeans, leather boots, and a leather motorcycle Jacket, obviously prepared to walk the property. “Where do you want to start?”
I make a full circle, inhaling the cool morning air that smells faintly of salt and dirt. “How about with the vines? I think a walk would do me some good.”
She smiles in approval. “Excellent place to start.”
I throw myself into work. Not the work of wheeling and dealing, or acquisitions. There’s no joy in the hunt, or in the conquering. Not anymore. I need backbreaking labor. Hard physical work that callouses my hands and drives all thought from my head except the pain of cramped, exhausted muscles.
“Wanna talk about it?” Nico asks wryly as I turn a compost pile by hand.
“Nope.”
“I’ve been there, you know.”
I throw down the pitchfork, ready to lay into him, ready to blast him with the accusation that my pain is more unique, and therefore better, than his. But the fight’s gone from me. “Yeah. I know.” I pick up the fork and start again. And tell him about Emmaline. It’s uncomfortable at first, but after a while, as I lose myself in the rhythm of forking, turning, tossing, they just become words. And surprisingly, by the time we’ve turned the colossal mound of shit, hay, and grape cuttings, I feel cleansed. Like the wound no longer festers. And I know I can do what I have to do next with a clear head. I return to the house. It’s not fully livable, but I’ve set up a cot in the mudroom off the kitchen, and that will suffice until the roof is complete. I drop into a chair at the kitchen table - an antique monstrosity made out of redwoods culled from the property over a hundred years ago - and flip open my laptop and begin to type.
* * *
My Dearest Emmaline -
* * *
In light of the chaos of our final days together, there were things I wanted to tell you - that I meant to tell you, that got pushed aside. It’s shameful that I’ve waited this long, but the ache I have where my heart should be, has been too much for me to even think about writing this letter until today.
Today I told my brother Nico about you, and how much I love you. How much I miss you. I think you would be proud that I’m slowly piecing things together with my family. I couldn’t have done that without you. I’m enclosing a key. I think you might recognize it. But in case you don’t, I think you’ll recognize the address where the key opens the front door.
* * *
352 Lincoln
* * *
I didn’t realize it at the time, that this was your childhood home, nor did I understand the financial struggles you were dealing with when you sold it. But the home, as well as the building your shop is in, belong to you, their rightful owner. Free and clear, no strings attached. Use them, sell them, burn them down. Whatever you want.
* * *
I pause from my writing, fingers twitching over the keys. There’s more I want to say, about the debt that’s been assumed, that I’ve set up a fund for her medical needs, should she ever become sick. But that would just obligate her to me, and I don’t want that. She’s carried a lifetime of burdens for others, it’s time for her to be free to fly - wherever it takes her.
* * *
I will love you until the stars burn out. I don’t care that you won’t remember me, or recognize me, or know me the way we do now. I will sit by your side and hold your hand and read to you from the Poetic Edda, and sing you the song you sang to your mother. Because inside, you will still be you. And I will love you until neither of us are any more.
* * *
I stop again. There’s nothing more I can say. I hit print. And before I have time to second guess myself, and talk myself out of sending it, I sign the letter With all
my love, Declan, fold it and stuff it in an envelope, along with the key. I go in search of Alison. “Can you do me a favor?” I ask when I find her bent over her laptop in the office off the crushing pad.
“Sure,” she says without looking up.
“Can you run this letter to the post-office down in Yountville?” I hold out the envelope.
She stares at me for a full minute before shaking her head and turning back to her laptop. “You hired me to be your winemaker, not your Girl Friday.”
So I did.
I grin. “I like you even more in person, Alison. You’re right. I’ll get Nico to do it.” I turn on my heel and can’t help but smile at the laughter I hear behind me. It takes me a while, but I find Nico repairing a section of broken fence at the bottom of the property. “I need you to run this into town,” I say brusquely holding out the letter.
“Something wrong with your legs?”
“I’m waiting for delivery for the harvesting bins.” It’s a thin argument. The reality is that if I take the letter into town, I’ll brood the whole way there and back, and I have to find a way to push myself forward, to move on.
I think Nico senses this, because he rolls his eyes, then wipes the back of his glove along his forehead. “Fine. Sure. But it’ll cost you.”
“Anything.”
“Dinner for two at the French Laundry.”
I blink. “That’s a thousand bucks. Easy.”
He shrugs and turns back to the fence. “Suit yourself.”
Goddammit. He fucking has me over a barrel, and he knows it. “Okay fine, but I want to know who your date is.”