by Jane Graves
When she reached the sign Bonnie had talked about, she made a left onto a brick path that wound through the trees. When the trees finally parted, Kari stepped onto a deck that was cantilevered over a precipitous drop-off. Beyond it, tree-covered hills rolled and crisscrossed, lit by the golden glow of the afternoon sun. It looked almost too beautiful to be real.
Nina sat on a park bench on the cantilevered deck, staring out across the valley. A bulldog lay at her feet, relaxing in the warm stillness of the afternoon.
“Hi,” Kari said.
Nina turned around, and a smile came to her face. “Kari! Hi.”
“Mind if I sit down?”
“Not at all.”
Kari sat next to Nina. “Bonnie told me you were here. I just wanted to thank you for the stuff you sent over. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I just thought you might be able to use a few things you might not buy for yourself right now.”
“It was really nice. Thank you.” Kari looked across the valley. “It’s pretty here. I had no idea Rainbow Valley even existed.”
“It’s a nice place to live. I’m glad you’ll be staying for a while.”
“So am I.” She leaned over and petted the bulldog, who panted his approval. “And this must be Manfred. Bonnie said he came on this walk with you.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s such a sweet dog.”
Nina smiled. “Curtis and I adopted him from the animal shelter when he was just a puppy. That’s been…let’s see. Eleven years ago.”
Kari glanced down at the ring Nina wore. “Curtis? Your husband?”
“Yeah.” She paused, a melancholy expression passing over her face. “He died last year.”
Kari felt a stab of sympathy. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry.”
“He worked at the power plant near Waymark. There was an accident. He lived for a few days, but he just couldn’t hang on.” Nina’s eyes grew misty. “He tried so hard, but he just couldn’t.”
“That must have been so difficult for you.”
“It was. I don’t know what I’d have done without Marc. He told me to stay home from the shop as long as I needed to, that he’d take care of everything. And he did. I still don’t know how he ran the shop and the vineyard at the same time.”
Kari smiled. It was just as Nina had said. When the going got tough, Marc was the guy you wanted in your corner.
“He’s offered to do some work around my house,” Nina went on. “Help me get it on the market. I hate going home to all that empty space by myself every night, so I really should move. But there are just too many memories.” She wiped her fingertips beneath her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m just feeling a little emotional. Today is our anniversary.”
“Your anniversary?” Kari said. “Oh, I’m sorry! I wish I’d known. I shouldn’t have come down here. You probably wanted to be alone.”
“Actually, I’m glad you showed up. Keeps me from crying so much I screw up my mascara.”
“You must really miss Curtis,” Kari said.
“Yeah. And now Manfred is getting on in years. The vet says he has liver disease. There’s nothing he can do, so it probably won’t be very long before he…” She stopped for a moment, swallowing hard. “I don’t know what I’m going to do when he leaves me, too.” She reached down to stroke Manfred’s head. “He’s such a good dog. Some people say animals have no soul, but they’re dead wrong. This dog has a soul.”
Manfred looked up at Nina, his eyes adoring and perceptive at the same time. Kari had never really thought about whether animals had souls before, but looking at Manfred now, she had a feeling Nina was right.
Nina glanced at her watch and wiped her eyes again. “Oh, shoot. Look at the time. I told Bonnie I’d be back in half an hour. And here I’ve talked your ear off.” She smiled at Kari. “Thanks for listening. It was nice to be able to talk about Curtis. Particularly today.”
“It was nice to hear about him.”
“It’s hard talking to Marc and Daniel about him. Men. They never know what to say. Especially Marc. I know he cares, but…” Nina smiled and shook her head. “Sometimes he is so clueless.” Then she glanced at the valley one last time, that melancholy expression coming over her face again. “Curtis is out there, you know.”
“What do you mean?”
“In his last hours, he talked about Manfred. He said he was going to wait for him at the Rainbow Bridge. And then he said the two of them would wait for me.”
“Is that the way it works?” Kari said. “Can people wait there, too?”
“I don’t know. I think maybe the Rainbow Bridge works any way you need it to. I like thinking about Curtis being down there with the animals, healthy again, waiting for us.” She let out a shaky sigh, and tears filled her eyes again. “Or maybe it was just his way of telling me he’ll love me forever.”
Kari couldn’t imagine loving a man that much and then losing him. But still she knew that kind of love had to be worth every bit of the anguish somebody would have to face when they lost it.
Chapter 12
Just think about the cost savings if we didn’t have to store and replace barrels,” Daniel said. “Damned things are expensive. Micro-oxygenation will solve that problem.”
As Daniel looked up at the stacks of oak barrels he deemed to be archaic and useless, Marc fought to hold his temper, but it wasn’t a battle he was sure he could win. When they were at City Limits and Daniel talked about tweaking the aging process, Marc had no idea he was talking about this.
“Have you priced those barrels lately?” Daniel asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Marc said. “We have to have them.”
“From France? Seriously?”
The morning sunlight angled through the door, casting a warm glow across the weathered wood. Yes, the barrels came from France, but only because that was where a vintner went if he wanted the best money could buy. If the best barrels came from the bottom of the ocean, Marc would find a way to excavate them.
“They’re not necessary,” Daniel said. “We could use tanks instead. Stick a few oak chips in them, and bam! Instant oak flavoring.”
“So you want our wine to have fake oak flavoring?”
“If the consumer can’t tell the difference, why not?”
“I’ll know the difference.”
“A lot of vineyards are using the process,” Daniel said. “Good ones. It’s not that out of the mainstream.”
“Our goal isn’t to be mainstream. Mainstream is average. Our wine is not average.”
“But it’ll speed up the process. We can get the wine out the door a whole lot faster.”
“This isn’t about speed.”
“It could be. And think of the control we’ll have over the process. All the tanks will be linked together. Their lines will be thermostatically monitored during fermentation, and the whole thing will be computer controlled.”
“So you figure as long as you hook something up to a computer, it’s automatically faster and better?”
“Generally, yeah. Only makes sense.”
“Wine making isn’t about fast and cheap and fake, so get this micro-oxygenation thing out of your head.”
“If you understood it better, then maybe—”
“Understood it better? Are you serious? I understand it completely. It’s a half-ass way of making wine, and I’m not interested. I can’t even imagine what Dad would have to say about it.”
Daniel shook his head slowly, as if he couldn’t believe his brother was being such an idiot. “Here’s a news flash, Marc. Sometimes our father was a real asshole.”
With that, he strode away, waving his hand dismissively. Marc gritted his teeth, wishing he could deck his brother for saying that, then toss in a few extra whacks to knock some sense into him.
Their father had been strict. No argument there. Sometimes a little intolerant. But Marc had respected him in a way that Daniel never had. And it was because Marc had always seen Cordero Vi
neyards as a living, breathing entity that required a firm hand and fierce determination to keep it alive. This place had history. Every vine, every furrow of dirt, every grape they cultivated was because of something their grandfather had started decades ago and their father had carried on.
Marc wasn’t sure his brother understood any of that. When Daniel spent a day working in the vineyard and then looked at the dirt beneath his fingernails, what did he feel? An age-old sense of purpose that carried him through from one exhausting day to the next or the need to take a shower so he could head to town and pick up women? When the grapes ripened to the point of bursting, did he feel a sense of pride in nurturing the vines to produce another stellar crop or cringe at the backbreaking labor required to harvest them?
Marc was starting to face the truth. If he handed the management of Cordero Vineyards over to Daniel and left Rainbow Valley, when he returned he might not even recognize the place his father had entrusted to him all those years ago.
When she got back to the vineyard that afternoon, Kari looked out the kitchen window and saw a big black truck parked on the driveway near the barn. She went out the door for a better look, and Boo followed her. He ran to the edge of the deck and looked down the hill to the grape arbor. Two women and a man stood near it. After a moment Kari realized it was Shannon and Nina, along with a man she didn’t know. On a leash beside them was a big black-and-white dog.
Boo barked, then ran down the stairs and galloped toward the other dog. The big dog spun around and came to attention. He was four times the size of Boo, with jaws like a T. rex’s. Pit bull? If so, he’d be able to gobble Boo up in a single bite.
A little worried, Kari ran down the stairs toward the grape arbor, but fortunately all the dogs were doing was circling and sniffing the way dogs did when they were interested in each other, not what they did when one was considering having the other one for lunch.
“Hi, Kari!” Shannon said.
“I’m sorry,” Kari said. “Boo got away from me.”
“No problem. He and Fluffy are getting along just fine.”
Kari looked at the dog’s sleek black-and-white coat. “His name is Fluffy?”
“What’s the matter?” the man said. “You don’t think he looks like a Fluffy?”
“Uh…”
“Luke named him that just to annoy me,” Shannon said with a smile. “Kari, this is Luke Dawson. My fiancé.”
Kari shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Boo’s a little doll,” Shannon said, smiling down at him. “Is he a cairn terrier?”
“Mostly, I think,” Kari said. “Marc thinks he looks like a rag mop.”
Nina rolled her eyes. “Marc thinks a dog isn’t a dog unless it’s the size of the Titanic and keeps rabbits out of a vineyard.” She turned to Shannon and Luke. “So what’s it going to be on the arbor, guys? Tulle or ribbons?” She held up a sample of both.
“I like the fluffy stuff,” Luke said.
“But the ribbons add color,” Shannon said.
“Then get colored fluffy stuff.”
“That would look like cotton candy.”
“You love cotton candy,” Luke said.
“Sure I do. Just not draped over a grape arbor.”
“Fluffy likes the fluffy stuff,” Luke said.
“The only thing Fluffy likes right now is Boo,” Shannon said, watching the dogs play together. “We’ll have to check with him later about the tulle.” She turned to Kari. “What do you think? Ribbons or tulle?”
Kari smiled. “Now, whatever I say, I’m going to ruffle somebody’s feathers. Maybe I’d better just go.”
“Can I go with you?” Luke asked.
Shannon smacked him on the arm. He gave her a grin and hauled her up next to him for a kiss. “Sweetheart, if you want burlap bags hanging off that thing, we’ll have burlap bags.”
Shannon looked over her shoulder at Nina. “How about both?”
“Look at that,” Nina said. “Already you have marital harmony, and you’re not even married.”
“Good,” Luke said. “It’s settled. Gotta go now. We have a million things to do at the shelter.”
“Since when are you dying to scoop poop?” Shannon asked.
“Since you made me come here to talk about crap like tulle and ribbons.”
Shannon rolled her eyes, then turned to Nina. “Thanks. We’ll be in touch about the menu.”
Kari grabbed Boo so he wouldn’t follow them. Luke took Shannon’s hand, and they walked back up the hill, Fluffy trotting along beside them. When they reached the truck, Luke opened the passenger door for Shannon. But before he let her into the truck, he pressed her up against it and kissed her, and it wasn’t just a peck on the cheek. Fluffy watched as if he was crazy about both of them.
“They’re really in love,” Nina said quietly. “You don’t see that every day.”
“No,” Kari said, feeling a tug of envy. “You don’t.”
“They knew each other in high school. Met again when Luke came back to Rainbow Valley last year.” Nina smiled. “I like that. It supports my theory about love.”
“Which is?”
“That for every woman, there’s one man she’s destined to be with. Shannon and Luke never forgot about each other because they were destined to be together.”
Kari liked the sound of that. She was pretty sure she’d run away from her own wedding because she was destined not to be with Greg. So that left the gate open for her own soul mate to walk through. She had a passing thought about Marc maybe being that man, then brushed it away. What had their agreement been? Hot sex with no strings attached?
No forevers there.
“Curtis and I were married here,” Nina said. “Right there under the arbor.”
Kari heard the same melancholy tone in Nina’s voice that had been there when they were at the Overlook. “I can see why. It’s a perfect place for a wedding.”
“Our father was gone by then, so Marc gave me away. Walked me up the aisle. Put my hand in Curtis’s.” For several moments, she stared at the arbor, as if she was reliving everything in her mind. Then a smile crossed her lips. “It rained that day. Can you believe it?”
“Oh, no! On your wedding day?”
“Right in the middle of the ceremony. The storm blew up out of nowhere. Father Andrews kept talking faster and faster. He’d just made it to ‘you may kiss the bride’ when the heavens opened up. It only lasted a few minutes, but everybody was drenched.” Nina smiled wistfully. “I didn’t care. I was a married woman. Since the day I met Curtis, that was all I wanted to be.”
Kari couldn’t help thinking that if she’d gone through with her own wedding and something like that had happened, Hilda the wedding planner would have shot herself right in front of three hundred waterlogged guests.
“Sometimes I wonder what will happen to this place if we end up selling it,” Nina said. “I can walk out here now and remember all of it like it was yesterday. But what will I do if it’s gone?”
“You have photos, right?”
“It’s not the same thing. Out here I can hear Curtis’s voice. It’s as if the breeze is carrying it right to me.” Then Nina laughed a little, waving her hand. “Don’t listen to me. I sound crazy as a loon.”
No. She didn’t sound crazy. She sounded like a woman in love. But how heartbreaking was it that she had to wait until the next world to finally be with the man she was in love with?
Over the next week, Marc and Kari fell into a routine of work and play that Marc decided he really liked. If Kari had the early shift and was home in the afternoon, she’d make dinner for him and Daniel. If she had the late shift and didn’t get home until eight thirty or nine, she grabbed something to eat at Rosie’s. Then when she got home, either they watched TV together for a while or they went straight to bed. On the nights she left town after dark to come home, if she was more than a few minutes late, he found himself looking at his watch and worrying until he finally heard her at th
e door.
On Friday afternoon, Marc made a run to the shop to deliver a dozen cases of wine and got stuck in town longer than he planned. When he finally got home and came into the kitchen, Kari was standing at the stove with her back to him, stirring a big potful of something he couldn’t identify, but it smelled great. She had her iPod plugged into a set of small external speakers she’d intended to take on her honeymoon with her. The music she played wasn’t music at all, just a big blur of incomprehensible noise that usually annoyed the crap out of him. But the moment he saw her long legs protruding from a pair of very short shorts, all the blood in his head went south and he just didn’t give a damn.
“Sorry I wasn’t home sooner,” he told her. “The idiot Lola hired to put some new shelves up in her shop skipped out without finishing the job.”
“Lola?”
“Of Lola’s Pet Emporium.”
Kari laid the spoon down and faced him. “So you finished it?”
“It didn’t take long. All I had to do was—”
And that was when he saw it. A two-inch strip of bright pink running the length of Kari’s hair, from her part to the curly tips. He stopped short and stared at it. What the hell?
Just then Daniel came into the kitchen. “Whoa,” he said with a smile. “Good choice. Love the pink.”
“Why, thank you,” Kari said, returning his smile. Then she looked at Marc. “What do you think?”
Daniel grinned. “This should be good.” He turned to Marc. “So. Tell Kari what you think of her hair.”
“The pink’s nice,” he said.
“That’s all?” Daniel said, looking disappointed. “Angela put on a temporary tattoo once, and you launched into a ten-minute lecture before you realized it wasn’t permanent.”
“This isn’t permanent, either,” Kari said. “I borrowed a box of Jell-O from the pantry.”
“Jell-O?” Marc said.
“It dyes hair temporarily. I decided to do something a little crazy.”
Actually, when Marc looked at that pink streak, he saw Kari through and through. Yeah, it was a little wild, but so what? He’d learned to go along with whatever Kari’s whim of the moment was, because it eventually resulted in the kind of cataclysmic sex that knocked him senseless, and that was worth every crazy idea she had. The shower. The floor. Her on top. Up against the wall. He didn’t care. So if she wanted to put a pink streak in her hair because she liked doing crazy things, why in the world would he object?