Giuliana went on tiptoe to peer toward the tasting booth. Her sisters were both busy. “I think it would be better if we put that off until—”
“Please.” He could wheedle like a little kid wanting cookies. “A quick visit. We’ll be in and out in no time.”
She sighed. “Quick,” she agreed. “Don’t come to the offices. Meet me outside the caves at seven A.M.”
When the older men nodded, she waved good-bye and hurried off. Seven A.M. Her sisters and their husbands would still be sleeping at the farmhouse. She’d slip out at dawn from her place beside Liam.
Her stomach flipped again. What would he think about her plan? And why did it matter? He’d only wanted these last two weeks with her anyway.
Reaching a narrow side street off the square, she leaned against a warm brick storefront and took in that air she’d claimed she required. It was going to be okay. She didn’t need to hang on to her composure or her secret for all that much longer. Once the latter was revealed, she could take herself someplace private and allow the former to fall apart.
She dropped her head in her hands.
“Hey, are you all right, ma’am?”
The Southern-accented voice had her looking around. A big man in a ball cap stood on the sidewalk. She thought he might look familiar, but she couldn’t place him. A lot of different people came through the winery for tastings and tours. He was positioned outside the same shop as she, only on the other side of the recessed entrance door and in front of the second of two plate-glass windows.
The shop was closed, but a ladder stood between herself and the stranger, as if he’d been working on the sign above the doorway. She glanced up at it. Mystical Meanderings. Her gaze took in window display: a selection of books on ghosts, palmistry, and tarot reading. Decks of fortune-telling cards were spread on a cloth, their intricate illustrations glowing in the late afternoon light. A sign taped to the glass listed the hours a psychic was available for appointments.
“Ma’am?” the guy in the hat asked again.
“Oh, I’m fine.” She looked at the ladder, looked again at the man. “New shop?”
He smiled. She couldn’t see much more than half his nose and his mouth with his hat pulled so low on his forehead. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve got a creepy aunt in Louisiana who practices voodoo, so I keep myself clear of the black arts.”
He said “Louisiana” like Lose-E-ana, and to her, his accent sounded straight out of the bayou—though the closest she’d ever come to an alligator was at the zoo. “I thought this might be your store.”
“Nope. You have one in the area yourself?”
She shook her head. “Family has a vineyard. And a winery.”
“Must be nice.”
Until it had become the albatross that dragged them all down. Right now it was the anchor that kept her in Edenville when her survival meant getting away from Liam.
Her husband. In her mind’s eye, she saw him as he’d been that morning, sprawled on his stomach on his big mattress, the white sheets yanked low to expose the long, golden valley of his spine and the top rise of his butt. He’d turned his head on the pillow, his blue eyes finding her dressed and almost out the door.
“Sweetheart?” he’d called, his voice rough with sleep. “Running?”
She worried it wasn’t fast enough.
His gaze had focused more sharply then, humor sparking in those blue eyes even as his voice gained that sexy edge of command. “I don’t remember saying you could leave so early. I have something you need to take care of.”
A hot shiver had zigzagged down her spine. That game. They’d played it all the night before. It didn’t matter, because at that implacable tone, her will melted. So did that suddenly aching place between her thighs. “Liam . . .”
“Are you sure you’re okay, ma’am?”
She jerked back to the present and tried to smile. “Sure. I—”
“Then let me show you something,” the man said. “Look over here.” A movement of his head indicated something on the other side of the window he stood beside.
Giuliana hesitated.
“It’s interestin’,” he said, in that laidback Southern accent.
A bit curious, but mostly polite, Giuliana stepped forward.
“No!” the man barked out.
She rocked back, startled.
“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry. You were about to walk underneath the ladder. Don’t want to disrupt the spirits.”
“You think it’s bad luck?”
“Oh, more, ma’am. My voodoo aunt told me all about it. An open ladder like that—it forms a triangle which is a symbol of life.”
He sounded completely convinced. “Okay,” she said.
“You walk through it, and you risk wakin’ up the souls that live inside. You don’t want to annoy any evil spirits, ma’am.”
“Ghosts,” she said.
He nodded. “Them most of all.”
Hair rose on her arms, though she told herself she wasn’t superstitious in the slightest. “Well . . .” She laughed a little, eyeing the ladder. “I should get going.”
His voice hardened. “You have to let me show you this first.”
She stepped back. She didn’t have to do anything.
“Giuliana!”
Her head whipped around. At the mouth of the street, half a block down, stood Liam. Relief washed over her.
“Come on,” he called. “I’ve been looking for you.”
Worry chased the relief. Another one with orders. Memories from the night before flashed like neon in her mind. Undress me, he’d said. Touch me. Taste me.
She’d complied with such eagerness.
What if Liam’s order, one day, was Love me?
“Giuliana!”
Squaring her shoulders, she left the stranger behind and headed toward Liam. Love him? She had to prove to herself she didn’t.
15
All evening, Kohl had tread carefully. Grace had been spooked by the sudden appearance of her ex—and maybe by his own instinctive urge to fight the guy—so he’d worked damn hard to reassure her at every turn.
The thing was, he didn’t feel all that secure himself.
What did she think of him? He was a solidly built man, a former soldier, a farmer for all intents and purposes now. Did she find him too bulky? Maybe she didn’t like his dark hair. The bruise that shadowed his jaw was already half disguised by his fast-growing whiskers. That could turn some women off.
And of course there was her physical vulnerability to worry about. Maybe the abuse she’d suffered made her wary of a man’s touch. She’d held his hand, true, and there’d been that one kiss, but by touch he meant . . . touch.
He was afraid to look at her now, as they drove from the restaurant through the darkness, because looking at Grace made him want so much to touch. Throughout dessert, as their evening together was wearing down, he’d had to keep his attention on his double chocolate brownie because she was the sweet he really wanted to taste.
Now he cleared his throat. “Would you like to, uh, do something else now? We could find someplace to get a drink . . . maybe karaoke . . . ?”
“Not tonight, if that’s okay? I’d much rather it just be the two of us.”
Gulp. What did that mean exactly? Was she ready to be taken back to where she was living or did she mean she wanted the evening to extend a little longer? What would he do with her for a little longer? He’d just about tapped out his small talk and his veneer of social nicety was already strained thin.
“Take me to Tanti Baci,” Grace said.
His stomach felt like it was grinding on a tray’s worth of ice cubes. Tanti Baci? She wanted to go to his bungalow at the vineyard?
Throwing his mind back, he tried recalling in what state he’d left it. Fact was, the army had molded him into someone fairly tidy, but he’d been in a nervous rush. And what did he have to offer a woman in the refreshments department? He couldn’t exactly pour her a tumbler of José Cuervo, an
d that might be all he had besides tap water.
And then . . .
“I don’t make my bed,” he confessed. Oh, God! Had he just let that pop out? His fingers tightened on the steering wheel. He didn’t even know how to begin to take that comment back.
“You don’t have to show me your bedroom,” Grace said.
Okay, but . . . but then he thought of what they could do. The same thing that generations of Edenvillians had done before him. His jangling nerves stopped their rattling and clanging as he pulled onto the gravel drive that led to the winery. Then he steered onto the even narrower path that led to his modest two-bedroom home.
When they emerged from the car and into the dark, instead of leading the way to his front door, he turned in the opposite direction. “Let’s take a walk.”
Moonlight glinted palely against the copper in her hair when she turned her head to look at him. “A walk?”
Yes, a walk. Because he was out of words that would tell her more about himself. On his way to perform Edenville’s customary mating ritual in the customary location, he could take her through the grounds of where he worked. It could explain more than he ever could about who he was. He’d started the job because he’d had to restart his civilian life somewhere, but the vineyard had become more than a reason to get up in the morning. It had brought him peace, he’d begun to realize, to shepherd life through its never-ending cycle. His first day on the job he’d arrived burned out and nearly hopeless. As the time of harvest neared, he saw that he was cultivating something new of his own. Inside him was growing . . . hope.
Finally, he was beginning to see a life beyond the autumn when they’d bring in the grapes. It was because of the vineyard . . . and it was because of Grace.
That symptom of his disorder—the “limited future” part—was diminishing every moment he spent with her. In September or October, depending upon the weather, they’d pick this year’s crop. But that wouldn’t be the end. He already had a long list of tasks that needed to be accomplished to ready the vines for next spring. The seasons of Tanti Baci stretched out before him. He saw them now, one after the other after the other. Unless . . .
A worry made him frown.
“Is something wrong?” Grace asked.
Now wasn’t the time to talk about financial difficulties. But walking the vineyard brought them to mind, too. He worried what would happen if the winery didn’t make it. Allie and Stevie were determined to save the family legacy, but he’d sensed a deeper disquiet within Giuliana recently. She’d been tidying offices and clearing files in a way that signaled she was preparing the place for some kind of upheaval.
“Kohl?” Grace brushed his forearm with her hand.
Sexual heat waved across his skin. Just a casual caress and he was forced to clench his hands to keep them at his sides. He didn’t want the sisters to lose Tanti Baci any more than he wanted to lose the new connection he’d found with Grace. By wanting too much, too soon, he could frighten her away.
Control, Kohl! If the vineyard was the solid world that he needed in order to reconnect with being a flesh-and-blood person again, she was the beautiful dragonfly winging through it, the one who allowed him to believe that there were things in life beyond flesh and blood. That there were things that could soar above the ugliness of his wartime memories.
He so did not do whimsy, but she seemed to embody every intangible that gave life magic.
In a few minutes they were standing at the base of the wedding-cottage steps. The blooming white rosebush that had camouflaged the cornerstone had apparently been transplanted that day. The security lights illuminated the patch of turned-over earth and the snowfall of petals left behind. They perfumed the air with a cool and rich scent that paired well with the snap of cinnamon that was Grace’s signature.
Taking in a breath, his head spun.
He must have stumbled a little, because Grace was touching him again, her hands gripping his forearms. “Steady,” she said.
Steady was what she did to him. He closed his own fingers over her elbows, so they were connected like a plug and socket. Energy flared between them, flowing from his body to hers. She felt it, too, he knew it, because he heard her quick intake of surprise.
“Yeah,” he whispered. It was sexual and magical. But as fantastical as it felt, it was undeniably real.
She shivered.
“Cold?” He glanced over his shoulder. “I thought we might take a tour of the cottage.” The keys to the door were in his pocket. “It’s as good as new, now.”
She hesitated.
Kohl smiled. “You’re not afraid of ghosts, are you? I think Anne and Alonzo are the friendly kind.”
“You believe you’ll see them?”
He hesitated. She was asking if he believed this feeling, this thrill of awareness that was humming between them, was something besides a sexual thrill. True love? They both knew the legend. He shrugged, unsure of himself again. Unwilling to commit either way.
“Daniel is superstitious,” she said, turning her face from him. She broke free of Kohl and spun around. Her palms rubbed her upper arms. “He throws salt over his shoulder. He considers Friday the thirteenth an unlucky day. If he comes across a black cat, he kicks it.”
Anger fired in Kohl’s blood. Had he kicked her, this sweet bit of magic? When he’d beaten his wife, had his cowardly excuse been his fear of that gift that made her unordinary?
“Grace.” He strode forward to put his hands on her shoulders. “You can trust me. I’m not him.”
“I know.”
But it wasn’t enough. He needed to be certain that she saw him as different from that other man. He needed her to talk freely of herself and know that he accepted everything about her. “You’re beautiful,” he said, then hung his head. “I’ve said that too many times.”
She stifled her laugh with a hand over her mouth.
The soft sound made him turn her toward him. “Honey. You know me.” And she did, he thought. In the short space of time they’d been acquainted, he’d shown her every side of himself. He held out his arms. “I want to know you, too.”
When she was silent, he brushed a hand over that sunset hair. “How do you do it?”
“I-I don’t know.”
He was gratified that she didn’t pretend she didn’t understand. Then she glanced up at him, glanced down again. “It’s a tingle, I guess. It doesn’t work every time. But often someone says they’re looking for something and . . . it just occurs to me where it is. Nothing special.”
Nothing special? That was the first thing that his Friday upbringing could help her with. Once you’d been named Kohlrabi, or Marigold, or Zinnia, you could never really see yourself as someone like everyone else. It gave a person a certain kind of resilience, and for the first time, he could see some real value in that.
“My mother’s going to love you,” he said, grinning.
“Kohl . . .”
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed those tender lips. She smiled through it and his heart jumped, then stabilized. There it was again. Even lip-to-lip, she steadied him.
Her head ducked again, breaking the kiss.
He pressed his lips to the smooth skin of her forehead. “You wanted to be a Flaky Friday . . . just think about it. With your special talent, you’re well on your way.”
“You really are okay . . . well, you don’t think it’s weird?”
“I don’t understand it, but I don’t need to.” You couldn’t explain love, either, could you?
Her gaze came up. A little dimple peeked at the corner of her mouth. He found it adorable. “Have you lost something?” she asked, her voice shy. “I’d like to find something for you.”
He’d seen her do it before, but frankly, a part of him still had his doubts. “I saw your daddy witch a well once.”
She stiffened a little. “I’m nothing like him.”
“No.” He touched her pretty hair again.
“So . . . what’s missing?” she
insisted. “What’s missing in your life?”
He ran his finger down her nose. “Right now, not a thing.”
Her dimple winked again. “That’s it exactly, Kohl. A person or a thing.”
She was serious. He looked around him, seeking inspiration. His gaze lit on the cottage, and what came to him was not even a serious thought. “The Bennett-Baci treasure,” he said. “Where is it?”
He thought she’d laugh it off. Perhaps she didn’t know enough about the uncertainty of its very existence, because her expression was solemn as she cocked her head and closed her eyes. She swayed a bit, and her hand reached out to touch the cottage wall.
At that, her eyes popped open. Her gaze on Kohl, she blinked. Then her head turned. She was staring at the cornerstone. “It’s there,” she said.
“What?”
“It’s under that metal plaque.”
He didn’t believe it. But he couldn’t exactly say so. With her gaze on him, he slowly reached into his pocket for his pocket knife. “Under the plaque?”
“It’s a cornerstone, right? Often important things are buried behind or beneath them.”
It took some poking and prying. But it wasn’t that difficult to free a corner from the masonry. And then the entire plaque was loose. “I’m going to have to figure out a way to explain this tomorrow . . .” he started.
And then he saw it. The space. And in the space was a metal box, like the one that had housed Anne’s diary. But inside this box wasn’t a book. This something was oddly shaped and rolled in crumbling paper and dusty flannel. And inside the packing materials was—
“Bells,” Grace said. “A pair of bells.”
Kohl squinted. He supposed she was right. Each the size of a . . . kohlrabi, they were a dark-stained metal. Jewels encrusted the edges and they were set on a lacy stand of more metal, almost like a crown.
He shook his head. “Wow . . . just wow.”
She smiled, and it was such a life-giving sight that his heart took flight—just like a dragonfly. Oh, he was so doing whimsy. Kohl caught Grace up in his arms. “You are amazing.”
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