A Vineyard Vow
The Vineyard Sunset Series
Book Six
By
Katie Winters
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Copyright © 2021 by Katie Winters
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Katie Winters holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
Table of Contents
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
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Chapter One
Amanda had a thing about lists. Like her mother before her, Amanda liked to see all her next steps in front of her: what to pick up at the grocery store, which law school assignments were due when, and who to send a birthday card to — that sort of meant she had control.
Now, seated on the carpet in front of the splendor of her Christmas tree, Amanda found herself composing a very different sort of list.
1. Rutgers University Law School - graduate in three and a half years
2. Marriage at age 22 (January)
3. Starter house, age 23 (at least three-bedroom)
4. First child, two years after law school ends (possible names: Clinton? Winnie?)
5. ?
Five. What could five be? Amanda furrowed her brow and stitched the back end of the pen into her chin. Admittedly, this early evening, she had already drank a glass of merlot, and her mind was fuzzy with a mix of apprehension and excitement. This list had nothing to do with the fact that she and her fiancé, Chris, needed more pepper for the pepper shaker. It had nothing to do with stopping at the gas station across town because it was five cents cheaper per gallon. Nope. It had everything to do with life — and Amanda’s plan to do everything just-so by the book.
She was ready. She’d taken charge of it years before. And here it was, stretched out before her— a list of days, months, and years of happiness and prosperity.
Her phone pinged. She stretched a long, slender arm out to grab it. She found an email reflected back when she lifted it — one with the subject line: RUTGERS LAW SCHOOL SEMESTER GRADES.
Her heart pounded. She hadn’t anticipated her semester GPA until some time after the first of the year. With her belly churning, she forced herself to open the message, head to the administrative website and seek her grades.
As the website loaded, she considered the previous six months of her life which had been spent between class halls at Rutgers Law School, her apartment, and Martha’s Vineyard, where her mother had moved in the wake of her grandfather’s dementia diagnosis and her divorce from Amanda’s father. It had probably been the most chaotic year of Amanda’s life — and she had struggled at times to funnel her focus into her schoolwork.
“You shouldn’t spend so much time there,” Chris had said a few times regarding the Vineyard. “Your life is here. Your job is school. You’d hate yourself if you messed it all up for a few extra nights with your mom.”
The words had stung.
As a rule, of course, Amanda loved her fiancé, Chris, more than any other creature on the planet. But her mother? Her mother was part-guardian angel, part-superwoman. She’d only just beaten breast cancer; she had fallen in love all over again with her high school sweetheart; she had the bravery to go out there and get what she needed in this life.
She seemed to grow stronger with every new day that passed.
Amanda sometimes wondered if she would have that kind of strength as a forty-four-year-old woman. She prayed she would.
In any case, when Chris had suggested this, she had simply ignored him. It wasn’t as though he’d wanted to wrong her. He had her and their relationship’s best interest at heart.
Okay. Here it was: her semester grade. She typed her password into the system, waited with bated breath and then shrieked to high heavens when she gazed at the screen.
A 3.78 GPA.
Not. Freaking. Bad.
She leaped to her feet and did a little dance near the Christmas tree. She felt electric, overcharged, and she sipped back the rest of her wine and poured herself another glass. All her life, she had longed to be a criminal lawyer like her mother and father. All her life, she’d wanted to succeed.
And one semester’s high GPA was one step closer to that.
Amanda nibbled on a leftover Christmas cookie and hovered over the counter as she pressed her phone to her ear. Chris’s phone blared six rings before it cut out. She pressed her lips together in a straight line, surprised and then tried again. It was just past six, which meant that Chris’s job had probably already let him go for the night. That said, it wasn’t so uncommon that they held him back — especially as they were short-staffed over the holidays.
Finally, Chris answered on the fourth ring. “What’s up, babe?”
Amanda’s heart flipped around. She had always loved Chris’s voice. It was gritty and powerful and somehow a reminder of this strong, wonderful man she would soon marry and then have children with. She could hardly stand how much she loved him.
“Hey! Chris! Gosh, um. I have some news!”
There was silence on the other end of the line. After a moment, there was a muffled voice in the background, then another. Amanda’s lips curved downward.
It wasn’t his fault that she wanted his attention right then and he couldn’t give it. It wasn’t his fault at all.
“Hey, babe, sorry about that,” Chris said. “It’s a little chaotic here.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Amanda replied. If there was anything she was, it was understanding. It was sort of her thing.
“What did you say about news?”
“I have something I want to tell you! I was thinking I could make a nice dinner and um. Yeah.”
Again, there was a muffled voice in the background. Amanda still couldn’t make out what was said.
“Dinner? Sure. That sounds great.”
“Any requests?”
“Hmm.” He clucked his tongue for a second. “Eggplant parmesan.”
Amanda laughed good-naturedly. “With garlic bread?”
“You know me too well.”
“You’re easy,” Amanda said.
They chuckled together for a moment. Amanda breathed a soft sigh of relief. There they were: back to their old, easy ways. Amanda and Chris, Chris, and Amanda. Together forever—everyone knew that.
“Okay, so you’ll be back in about an hour or so, or?”
“Yeah. Around that, yeah,” Chris affirmed. “Not too much later.”
“Okay.” Amanda walked toward the fridge to hunt for eggplants. “I love you, Chris.”
“And I love you, Amanda Harris.”
“Not Harris for long,” Amanda stated.
“You’re taking my good name away from—”
But that moment, silence cut through the speaker. She blinked down at the phone to find that Chris had hung up. She shook it off; after all, he was busy with something and needed time with his colleagues before he slid out for the day. He had been away for Christmas and had grown increasingly anxious about his time away. Even their honeymoon, they’d put off for summertime, to ensure that they could get back from Martha’s Vineyard and dive back into law school and Chris’s work.
Whatever it was Chris did, Amanda was never so clear on it. It had something to do with importing and exporting. He took many business clients out to eat and drink; he was frequently in New York City. It all seemed glamorous, and certainly the kind of thing she wanted to be attached to.
Already, she’d imagined herself helping Chris host whoever it was he needed to “schmooze” for a night. They would pour wine and laugh and tell anecdotes, and every single client who left their place would say, “Gosh, what a successful and beautiful couple they are,” or, “They’re really going to have the most beautiful children, aren’t they?” or, “One day, those two will be a force to reckon with.”
She just knew it.
Amanda turned on a favorite playlist of hers and danced around the kitchen as she cooked Chris’s favorite, eggplant parmesan. Just after the oven beeped to say it had preheated, she received another email update from her second-cousin, Charlotte Hamner, who worked as a wedding planner and was refining the last elements of Amanda and Chris’s wedding.
CHARLOTTE: I know you cut it close with picking out that dress, but you definitely picked out the right one. Your mom was just showing me a photo. Girl, you are going to be stunning!
AMANDA: Haha. I know it took Mom and me forever to find the perfect one. She said it’s got the right ‘vintage’ flair.
CHARLOTTE: No doubt. How are you feeling about everything? Happy to be back in Newark?
Amanda placed the glass dish in the oven and rubbed her palms together. The Christmas tree glittered beautifully in the living room; her laptop remained open to show the high GPA; her heart felt full, vibrant and sure of her future.
AMANDA: I’m lucky to have two homes— one in Newark and the other in the Vineyard.
The eggplant parmesan came out of the oven just minutes before Amanda expected Chris back. This was classic Amanda behavior: she knew how to time things well and always had. Hurriedly, she slipped the garlic bread into the oven and inhaled the glorious smell of it, wafting through the kitchen and out into the living room. It had been a long time since she and Chris had acknowledged that they wanted to incorporate garlic back into their lives. During their first year of dating, Amanda had avoided it like the plague, as she’d wanted to impress Chris. Chris, it turned out, had done the same. All that kissing had been worth it.
Amanda had met Chris during her freshman year at Rutgers. He’d been twenty years old, two years older than her, with this tousled blonde hair and broad shoulders that were obviously sculpted in the gym. When he’d flashed a crooked smile her way, she’d known something in the innermost pit of her belly. She had known they were about to change one another’s lives for good.
Amanda took the garlic bread out of the oven and positioned two plates on the little island, where they normally ate and sipped wine together and discussed their days. She opened one of the better wine bottles— something from Italy and poured them both hefty glasses. Then, she checked her phone to see if he’d texted about heading back.
The phone was dark.
Amanda turned her eyes toward the door. She willed it to open. “Come on, Chris. Get home.”
She contemplated calling again. It was unkind of his office to hold him so late in the evening, a full hour after he should have left and especially during that strange in-between after Christmas and before New Year’s.
Still, Amanda knew how important Chris’s job was to him; he wanted to rise through the ranks, become someone special and make a great deal of money. He wanted to support her and their future children.
A few minutes late on a random day at the end of December meant nothing.
Right?
Finally, she typed out a text.
AMANDA: Hey! I just wanted to check in on you. You okay out there? Eggplant Parm hot and ready. : )
She sipped her wine and stared at the phone. A minute passed, then another. Hunger shot through her, and she thought long and hard about taking a few bites of her portion. Would Chris care?
It drifted toward seven-thirty. Amanda’s nostrils flared. Something strange and sickly curled itself in the bottom of her stomach.
But instead of calling Chris, she decided to call her mother. If anyone deserved to know the good news about her grades, it was Susan Sheridan. After all, she had given Amanda her wittiness and smarts.
Chapter Two
“So you want to stay with us for three nights, is that right?” Susan asked. She formed her fingers over the keys as she spoke to a haggard-looking couple at the Sunrise Cove front desk. They were coated in fluffy snow, and the man’s glasses had fogged up so much that she couldn’t see his eyes.
“Our hotel in Edgartown over-booked, apparently,” the woman explained, disgruntled. “I can’t believe you have a spare room.”
“Just one, I’m afraid,” Susan said. “It’s on the smaller side, but it has a beautiful view of the Vineyard Sound. I think you’ll be happy there.”
The man and the woman exchanged glances while Susan finalized their booking.
“We just wanted a nice, quiet few nights on the Vineyard,” the man grumbled. “And it’s been nothing but that.”
“Our taxi got a flat tire on the way over here,” the woman said.
Susan shook her head and tried to put on a sad, empathetic face. “That’s awful. Hmm. Why don’t you come down to the bistro after you get settled upstairs? We can suit you up with a bottle of wine—on the house.”
This seemed to calm both parties down. Susan passed over the antique key and watched as they trudged toward the staircase. Perhaps a few months ago, she would have carried their bags for them or followed them to the room. Truthfully, though, she didn’t have much energy left for the Sunrise Cove these days. Normally, Natalie or Scott or Wes manned the desk — especially since she’d taken much of the summer and autumn off to go through the scariest moment of her life — fighting off cancer. The chemotherapy had really done a number on her, but she pulled through with a new lease on life.
However, this night, Natalie had a family thing, and Scott was off with his son in Boston, and Wes was back at home with a horrible headache. It was up to her to “man” the ship.
She just couldn’t help but think back to her previous days as a criminal lawyer. It had been her life’s work. She’d always had a frantic case to take care of, a client who really needed her or some kind of loophole to find in the law. It had always felt like a code, one she had to crack and she had always loved the hunt to find the truth and win her case.
And it wasn’t like she didn’t feel for these poor people who’d had the flat tire coming over from Edgartown. It was just that, well — they were on vacation, and they still couldn’t manage to be happy. Sometimes, even though she’d put so much time and energy and love back into the Sunrise Cove, she couldn’t help but think —
Well, it didn’t matter, anyway, did it?
“Hey, you!” Christine popped out from the long hallway that led from the bistro. A bottle of wine toiled beneath her arm, and she held two wine glasses up, a suggestion and a demand at once.
Susan rolled her eyes. “I didn’t think you were still around to capture me.”
“Oh yeah. Zach needed extra hands tonight, and you know me, I can’t say no to him,” Christine replied, grinning.
“You would think after all your years of saying no to people that you would have managed by now.”
“I know? It goes to show practice doesn’t make perfect,” Christine said with a sneaky smile. She yanked
her elbow upward as she poured both of them hefty glasses.
Just as Susan lifted her glass to clink it with Christine’s, her phone buzzed in her pocket.
“Shoot. One sec.” She slipped the phone out to find her daughter’s name reflected back. Her heart performed a tap dance across her diaphragm.
“Amanda!” she cried.
Christine gestured to Susan’s wine glass and muttered, “Take a sip after you cheers, or else it’s bad luck!”
Susan rolled her eyes and turned away. Still, as she turned, she did take the slightest sip. She didn’t need any more bad luck. The year had given them all enough of it already.
Of course, it had come with its fair share of blessings, as well.
“Amanda, honey,” Susan beamed. “It’s so good to hear your voice.”
“Mom, I only just left the Vineyard,” Amanda replied, laughing through the line.
“I know. I just hate that I’m not a short drive away anymore, is all.”
“And you know how much Jake and Kristen wish you were a short drive away still, as well.”
Susan laughed good-naturedly. “The kids were pretty grown-up at Christmas, didn’t you think? Only a few tantrums.”
“Don’t talk about Kristen and Jake that way,” Amanda joked.
Susan bellowed with laughter. “Cody and Samantha are my grandbabies. I can’t have my only daughter talking about them like they’re animals.”
“Although they do sometimes sound like it.”
“Oh, darling. When you have babies of your own, you’ll understand.”
There was a silence on the other end of the line. Susan sipped her wine and turned to find Christine gesturing something wildly to someone on the other end of the long hallway. After she finished her gesture, she burst into laughter, chuckling at something someone had done. Obviously, Christine and Zach were up to their old antics again.
Everyone was filled with the youthfulness of Christmas.
“Amanda? Are you still there?”
“Yes. Sorry, Mom. I got distracted by something.”
“That’s fine.”
“Mom?”
“What’s up, honey?” Susan furrowed her brow. She sensed something in her daughter’s voice, a kind of hesitation that she hadn’t known her daughter to have in quite some time.
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