Let It Breathe

by Tawna Fenske

  “Way to go last night, by the way,” Eric grunted as they both stooped to lift a box.

  Clay froze. “What?”

  “You were kind of a stud, huh?”

  Clay stared at him, speechless. Had Larissa said something? Had Reese? “Um—”

  “The fire?” Eric raised an eyebrow. “I heard you were the one who helped put it out, the one who called the fire department. Isn’t that right?”

  “Oh. Right.” Clay swallowed, feeling his heartbeat return to normal. “It was nothing, really. I just happened to be driving by.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I heard.” Eric cleared his throat and hoisted his box. “So you just happened to be driving by at one a.m.?”

  Clay picked up a box and avoided Eric’s eyes. “Dropping off Larissa. She got into some trouble with a guy at Finnigan’s. I happened to be there and helped her out.”

  “Sure, sure—that’s what ’Riss said. Must’ve been pretty late?”

  Clay shrugged and carried his box across the floor toward the pile. Did Eric know something, or was he just being his usual nosy self? “Beats me,” Clay said. “Took us a while to finish things at the police station, and then I had to go get my truck so I could drive ’Riss back here. We were trying to give Reese a little alone time with her date, you know?”

  “That’s right—I almost forgot Reese had a date. Did you meet him?”

  “Yeah, met him the other day. He’s a veterinarian. Seems like a good guy.”

  “That’s what Reese deserves. A good guy.”

  Clay set his box down, trying not to read too much into Eric’s words. A good guy, Clay thought. That’s not me.

  “Absolutely,” Clay agreed. “Nothing but the best.”

  “She looked good this morning,” Eric said. “I mean, considering everything with the fire and the drama with Larissa. She seemed kind of glowy.”

  “Maybe she’s getting sick,” Clay suggested. He dusted his hands and trudged back across the floor toward the boxes. Behind him, Eric set his box down with a solid thunk.

  “Maybe she got laid.”

  Clay stumbled. He caught himself quickly, glad he’d already set his box down. “Dude—are you sure you should be talking about your ex-wife’s sex life?”

  Eric just laughed. “Relax, I’m kidding. Mostly. She did have a certain look about her this morning, didn’t you think?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Not that she’s the sort of girl to jump into bed with a guy she hardly knows, but good for her if she did. She deserves to cut loose once in a while.”

  “Right.” Clay bent down to pick up another box, still avoiding Eric’s eyes. “Don’t you think this is a weird topic of conversation?”

  “Spend enough time around this family, you get used to weird in a hurry.”

  “Good point.”

  Eric grinned. “So maybe this guy is the one. Someone who can pull her out of her rut, shake her up a little, put some spring in her step.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “She deserves it.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Don’t fuck it up.”

  Clay froze, the box of wine suddenly deadweight in his arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’ve seen how you look at her. How you’ve always looked at her. And the way she looks at you. I know, I know—” He held up his hands to silence the objection Clay was too dumbfounded to raise anyway. “I know you’re not planning to lay a hand on her. I know there’s the whole guy code and all that shit about her being my ex-wife and you not wanting to screw up the friendship. But I also know how things can happen.”

  “Nothing’s going to—”

  “You two would be the worst thing in the world for each other.” Eric picked up another box, his eyes still fixed on Clay’s. “She’s got all these hang-ups about marriage and her parents, and you’ve got your issues with addiction and recovery. Seriously, you’d be a disaster together.”

  Clay stared at Eric for a few seconds, then nodded. “I’m touched by your concern.”

  “Yeah. Well, just forget about any touching and you’ll be fine.”

  Clay turned his back and headed toward the far wall with his box of wine. “I can pretty much guarantee there won’t be any touching between Reese and me.”

  Not now, anyway, Clay thought. Not after today.

  “Good. That’s good.”

  It wasn’t. Not in Clay’s opinion.

  But he politely refrained from saying so.

  Reese’s mood was as gray as the Willamette Valley sky on the car ride back from the meeting with the bank. With her mother behind the wheel, Reese’s mind could drift like an untethered buoy.

  June sighed. “That didn’t go as well as I’d hoped.”

  Reese looked at her mother. “They might as well have locked the front doors when they saw us coming.”

  “It wasn’t that bad.”

  “Not that bad? The bank manager laughed at us. Hard. Did you miss the part where he choked on his danish?”

  June frowned and steered the car back toward Dundee. “We’ll come up with something, sweetie. Just because this bank won’t loan us more money for the construction doesn’t mean—”

  “You heard what he said. No bank is going to loan us money with a fire under investigation and a budget so rubbery it could work as a prophylactic.”

  “That reminds me, Axl asked us to stop at the drugstore for a box of those ribbed condoms.”

  “Can it wait? I’d really like to get back and start crunching some numbers.”

  June nodded and kept the car pointed forward. “Maybe we could scale back on some aspects of the construction. We just got started, so we could go for smaller square footage or do away with some of the custom woodwork or—”

  “That costs money, too. We’d have to have new plans drawn up, new blueprints, new permits—not to mention the fact that Wine Spectator just ran that article with the sketches that show our current plans.”

  “Right, right.”

  Reese closed her eyes and slouched lower in her seat. “We’ve made the whole damn thing so public.”

  June sighed again. “Let’s just sleep on it, honey. Maybe something will come to us.”

  “Sleep. That sounds nice. I didn’t get much last night.”

  “Right, the fire.”

  “The fire, the drama with Larissa—” Reese trailed off, feeling the heat creep into her cheeks. There was more than one reason for her sleepless night. One of those reasons had made her mindless with his hands stroking her hips, his mouth on her breasts, his body pressing against her, hot and hard and—

  “Something on your mind, sweetie?” her mom asked.

  Reese opened her eyes and bit her lip. “Just thinking about Larissa.”

  Which was true, in a way. Is that what Clay had been thinking about last night? In bed with Reese, had Clay been comparing her to her cousin? Remembering his night with Larissa?

  “You think ’Riss is in trouble?” her mother asked. “She does go out a lot. I don’t remember you being like that at her age.”

  “I wasn’t,” Reese said. “I don’t know if she’s in trouble, honestly. She’s always been wild, but I thought she might have settled down by now.”

  “Maybe Clay could talk to her,” June suggested. “He’s been down that road, after all. The binge drinking, the irresponsible behavior. Maybe it would help Larissa to talk with someone who’s learned the hard lessons.”

  “Hard lessons,” Reese muttered, her mind wheeling down a dangerous path. “I’m sure Clay would be happy to talk to Larissa about hard lessons.”

  June glanced over with a worried look, and Reese realized her voice had taken on a dark tone. She softened it and tried again. “I’ll mention it to him the next time I see him.”

&nb
sp; June nodded and glued her eyes back to the road. “How did your date with the veterinarian go last night?”

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “He’s a nice man?”

  Reese shrugged. “He’s very nice. Held the door for me, laughed at my jokes, helped subdue Grandpa’s jealous girlfriend, and picked up my drunk cousin at the police station. Typical first-date stuff.”

  June smiled. “How about fireworks? Chemistry? That wonderful spark between two people who are just made for each other?”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  Yes, you do, chided the voice in her head.

  Shut up.

  “What’s that, dear?” June asked.

  Reese bit her lip. “Nothing.”

  They were both quiet a moment, the sound of wet pavement sloshing beneath the tires. Reese stared past the trees and rolling green hills and tried not to think about Clay.

  She’d really thought there might be something there, which was stupid. He was the worst possible match for her. A recovering alcoholic who was best friends with her ex and fuck buddies with her cousin?

  But still, she’d felt something between them. She always had. Something that hadn’t been there with Eric, or with any other man she’d dated in the last decade.

  Her parents talked about being soul mates. It was a stupid concept, one Reese refused to believe in. Relationships were about hard work and solid friendship and the ability to be patient with the other person’s shortcomings, and even then, there were no guarantees. There was no magical formula, no woo-woo chemistry that kept two people together. Some people just had the ability to make relationships work, and some people didn’t.

  Reese sure as hell didn’t. It was as simple as that.

  Still. Maybe she was missing something. Wouldn’t be the first time. She glanced over at her mother, then down at her mom’s wedding ring.

  I call dibs . . .

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, sweetie?”

  Reese turned and looked out the window, not sure what the hell she wanted to ask. Am I doomed to fail at love? Can people ever really change? Can you screw up love the first time and still get it right someday?

  She cleared her throat. “Do you have any Popsicles at the house?”

  June stayed quiet, so quiet Reese turned to look at her. Her mother’s eyes watched the road, but she wore a peculiar expression as she stared straight ahead at the rain-slick road.

  “Popsicles?” June asked. “That’s what you want?”

  Reese nodded, hating that she was too chicken to ask for advice or wisdom or anything more substantive than comfort food.

  “Or cookies or donuts. I can pick some up at the store later,” Reese said. “I just thought—”

  “No, I think I have some. Want to come down to the house now and sit on the porch and talk for a little bit?”

  Reese hesitated. “I’d better finish up some things in the office.”

  “I’ll drop you at the winery barn, then.”

  “Thanks for driving.”

  “No problem, honey.”

  June wheeled the car into the circular drive, her tires spitting up bits of gravel. She turned and smiled at Reese. “You sure there’s nothing you want to talk about, sweetie?”

  Reese gripped the door handle and nodded. “Thanks, I’m good.”

  “You want to come over for dinner later?”

  Reese shook her head. “I may stop by for a snack, but I’m pretty beat. Thanks for the offer. I’ll probably just turn in early.”

  “You did great in there today.”

  Reese laughed and popped the door open. “For all the good it did. Thanks, you weren’t so bad yourself.”

  “We’ll figure something out, honey. Try not to worry.”

  Reese eased herself out of the car and patted the roof. “Love you, Mom.”

  “Love you, too, sweetie.”

  Reese shut the door and watched as her mom cranked the car around and headed the few hundred yards down the hill to their house. With a sigh, Reese turned and trudged into the winery. She forced herself not to look over at the construction site, though she could see from the corner of her eye that the heavy equipment was parked and the crews had gone home for the day. No sign of Clay, not that she was looking for him. She didn’t know whether to be sad or relieved that he’d left.

  She pushed her way through the winery door, breathing in the comforting scent of fermenting grapes and French oak. She glanced around the cavernous space, noticing the racks of wine barrels missing from the west side of the building. Eric and his crew had been busy moving everything down to the other cellar.

  She looked over at the coat rack, at the empty, upturned barrel where Eric usually left his lunch pail. The coat and the lunch box were gone, and Reese felt relieved. She had the place to herself.

  She threw open her office door and felt a sinking in the pit of her gut.

  “Reese. I’ve been waiting for you.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Reese offered a weak smile as she took in the view of Larissa parked in her desk chair. She wore a short skirt that showed off her legs and sent an inexplicable surge of fury through Reese. She hated herself for imagining those legs wrapped around Clay’s waist, and hated herself even more for caring.

  But Larissa smiled, and Reese couldn’t bring herself to hate her cousin. Truth be told, she was actually the most welcome sight among her visitors.

  “Axl, Sheila, Larissa,” Reese said, her voice tinny with false cheer. “What are you guys doing here?”

  “We wanted to hear how things went with the bank,” Larissa said. “Did you get the money?”

  Reese sighed and shook her head. “Long story. The short answer is no.”

  “Motherfucker,” Axl spat.

  “Pretty much,” Reese agreed and leaned against the wall. “Look, I’d love to stay and talk, but I’ve got to go feed all the animals.”

  “I fed them all an hour ago—even that little opossum—so you could stay and talk,” Larissa said. “Come on, we need details.”

  “Thank you.” Reese sighed. “Do we have a bottle of Pinot open?”

  Larissa stood up and headed for the wine bar. “Nothing open, but let me grab a bottle from the ’09 Emerald block. We’ve got a lot of that left.”

  As Larissa scurried from the room, Sheila gave Reese a sympathetic smile. “I dropped by to pick Eric up, but he’s still finishing up down at the other cellar. Larissa told me you were with the bank people, so I thought I’d stick around and offer moral support.”

  “Thanks,” Reese said. “I suppose I need it.”

  “So no luck with the bank fucks?” Axl asked.

  “No fuck with the—” Reese closed her eyes. “No luck with the bank fucks.”

  Sheila shook her head. “A friend of mine manages a credit union over in McMinnville. If you want, I could try talking to her, see if there’s anything they can do.”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think there’s much use,” Reese said. “Word got around fast about the fire, and we’re already mortgaged to the hilt. I don’t think bank loans are the answer.”

  “Larissa always goes to those sales pitches with those little-bitty skirts and low-cut blouses,” Axl said. “Seems to work with the wine reps. Maybe we should send her in to talk to investors or bankers or something?”

  “Sure,” Larissa chirped, breezing back into the room with a bottle of Pinot under one arm and the stems of four wineglasses wedged between her fingers. “I’m always happy to show a little skin for the sake of the business. Who am I flashing?”

  “No one!” Reese snapped. “We don’t need you flashing anyone.” Wincing at the waspishness in her voice, she softened it and tried again. “I don’t think cleavage is the answer here.”

  “Depends on the question,” Laris
sa said as she held out the wineglasses for Sheila to take. “Anyone know where all the corkscrews are? I can’t find a single one.”

  “They’re not in the drawer?”

  “Nope. The drawer is empty.”

  Reese sighed. “What the hell kind of winery can’t open a bottle of wine?”

  “Gimme that,” Axl said, snatching the bottle from Reese. “I’ll just shove it in.”

  “A phrase no granddaughter ever wants to hear from her grandpa,” Reese muttered.

  “You’re lucky I’ve got my hands full or I’d smack you upside the head right now,” Axl said as he used his teeth to peel the foil off the top of the bottle before shoving the cork in with his thumb. Wine splashed down the neck and bits of cork floated inside, but it got the job done.

  “There,” Axl said, thunking the bottle on the desk. “All done. Someone pour.”

  Sheila lined up the glasses and took the bottle from Axl. “So what’s your next course of action?” she asked. “If sex appeal isn’t the answer, what is?”

  Axl snatched a glass. “You want I should rough somebody up?”

  “No,” Reese said. “No violence, no cleavage.”

  “You’re really not leaving us a lot of options, hon,” Sheila said. “I guess there’s always bribery or bank robbery.”

  “I’m in,” Axl volunteered.

  “No illegal activity,” Reese interrupted. “We’ll come up with something, but I don’t think we’re on the right track here.”

  Larissa shook her head and began pouring wine into the glasses. “How about your new boyfriend, Reese? He’s loaded, isn’t he? Maybe he’ll loan us the money.”

  Reese froze. “Boyfriend?”

  Larissa grinned, not meeting Reese’s eye as she began to pour the wine. “The veterinarian? Aren’t you two dating?”