She crossed the yard to the kitchen and walked into the room slowly, finding Vicki and Jonathan deep in conversation when she came in. Immediately, she felt like the outsider that she knew she was. Why did I let myself believe anything else? She wondered. I'm here to work. I need to stay out of everything else.
Jonathan watched her cross the kitchen, his topaz eyes sadder than she'd ever seen them. She made eye contact once, and pulled her gaze from his as quickly as she could, wishing she had not seen the pain there because it made her want to close the space between them and pull him into her arms.
"I'm going to go jump in the shower," Isabella told the room, not stopping as she moved toward the living room.
"Dinner will be a while off," Vicki said. "I'm so sorry, I'm getting a late start on it."
"No, no rush at all. I'll be in my room," Isabella said.
"Isabella… " Jonathan's voice was soft, a plea.
"I'll see you at dinner," she said. She didn't stop moving, entering the small bathroom and pulling the door shut behind her.
She waited until she was standing under the fierce pulse of hot water to let the tears come. She felt ridiculous, but couldn't help the wrenching sobs that forced their way out of her throat. She stifled the sound, her hand pressed over her mouth as her body mourned.
What had I thought? She asked herself. That I'd settle here and become part of the family? That this would be some happy ever after home for me? This is a job. It's nothing more. It's a means to an end and I must remember that.
She berated herself, standing in the stream of water until it began to cool, then quickly dried off and went to her room. She looked around her, taking in the suitcases, the few personal belongings she'd brought. She pulled on a t-shirt and shorts and then dug through her suitcase until her hand found the small box it sought. Turning to the bed she'd made so neatly that morning, Isabella pulled the covers back and crawled in, allowing the blankets to hug her body heavily despite the heat of the day. She held the box in front of her and took a deep breath, opening it only after several minutes had passed, when she felt in control.
Inside, nestled in black velvet, was an engagement ring featuring a single large diamond. She traced the shape of it with her finger, willing her mind to remain blank. After staring at it for several minutes, Isabella took a deep breath and pulled the ring from the box, settling it on her finger. It felt foreign there—she rarely wore jewelry—but it gave her some measure of comfort as she drifted to sleep. The ring reminded her that once, long ago and far away, she'd been loved unconditionally.
Isabella woke to a gentle knocking on her door.
"Isabella?" Vicki's voice floated to her, pulling her from a dreamless sleep.
"Just a second," her own groggy reply sounded disembodied as it floated from her through the darkened room. She pushed herself from the bed and opened the door.
"Hey," Vicki said when Isabella's disheveled hair and sheet-lined face appeared in the door to the hallway. "You okay?"
Isabella took mental stock. She reminded herself that she had no real reason not to be okay, and that the only possible answer was yes. She nodded.
"Well, Jonathan went out, he won't be back for dinner, so it's just us tonight."
Isabella felt as if she'd been slapped, but tried to hold herself steady. "Can I help with anything? I'm so sorry I disappeared, I was really tired."
"No, Iz…it's okay," Vicki said.
Isabella didn't want the understanding sympathy in Vicki's voice. She didn't want this woman feeling sorry for her. She would have to be more careful not to make her feelings obvious going forward. Isabella wished she could just make her feelings go away.
"Thanks, Vicki. I'm not really hungry tonight," she said. "I think I'm just gonna turn in."
Vicki's eyes searched her face. She looked immeasurably sad. "I understand," she said after a minute. "Goodnight, Iz."
"Goodnight." She pushed the door shut again, wondering at Vicki's decision to shorten her name. It felt intimate to her. No one had called her Iz for a long time.
She walked back to the bed and saw the small box partially buried among the covers. She picked it up, pulled off the sparkling ring and pressed it back between the mounds of soft fabric within, placing the box on the bedside table before crawling back into the bed.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Jonathan
Jonathan had stood outside the bathroom door, listening to the water run over Isabella's body after she’d excused herself from the kitchen. He’d leaned his head against the thin wood that separated them. He knew that there was far more keeping them apart now than there had been just an hour ago, and he knew that he needed to take some kind of action on that count. Selfishly, he wanted to talk to Isabella about Charlotte, about the baby. He trusted her opinion, and knew that her advice would be wise, but it would be unfair to consult with her on this topic. Besides that, he wasn't sure he could trust himself with her in the intimate quiet that would be required for that conversation. His physical reaction to her seemed to grow with every encounter until it felt separate from his consciousness and he wasn't sure it was completely within his control. He knew that he'd need to put some distance between them until he could be fair to her; until he'd figured out what Charlotte's baby—his baby—meant in his life.
He had pulled himself away from the door and went back to the kitchen.
"I'm going to see her," he told Vicki.
"Now? Are you gonna call first?"
"No. I don't want her to have the chance to think about it, and I need to see him."
Vicki smiled sadly. "Okay," she said, turning to look at him. "He's beautiful, Jon. He looks just like you."
"I need to see him," he repeated, leaving the house and heading for the truck.
Charlotte's parents lived on the other side of town, not far as the crow flies, but a good twenty-minute drive thanks to the rutted dirt lanes around the vineyards. Her parents grew grapes, but they didn't tend them, didn't make wine. They sold them to winemakers locally and in other parts of the state, making enough to keep them tended and turn a small profit as long as the season was good. The house wasn't big, but it was bigger than Jonathan's. They'd raised Charlotte with a mantra of escape, telling her that leaving Paso Robles was her best chance for a good life; that agriculture in California's hot valley was not the life she wanted. And she'd taken the message to heart, refusing Jonathan's proposal and heading north. He'd never expected her to come back.
He pulled up outside the ranch style home, a strange twinge in his heart at the sight of Charlotte's Honda parked in front. He got out of the truck and stood beside it for a moment, steeling himself as the sun hung lazy and low out over the grapes. He took a deep breath and went to the door.
"Jon," said the man who pulled the door open. His balding pate and watery blue eyes gave Jonathan a nostalgic flood of feelings. He'd spent many evenings talking with Charlotte's father, who was a rational and intelligent man. He looked sad now, shaking his head slightly. "I had a feeling we'd be seeing you soon. Son, I…"
"Who is it, Dad?" Charlotte’s voice came from within.
Jonathan saw the baby before he saw her. She appeared at the door, holding him in her arms. He was big; he made her look even smaller. His pudgy arms were exposed and a there was a mop of curly dark hair atop his head. She was thin and petite, as always, and Jonathan wondered absently how she'd managed to produce such a strapping child.
"Jonathan," she said, her voice wary. "I guess Vicki told you that we bumped into her in town. How are you?"
His face must have held a strange mixture of frustration and confusion. He found himself wanting, more than anything, to see the baby's face. "Fine," he managed. "Can I come in?"
"Of course," Mr. Arnold said. "Come in, Jon. Can I get you a drink?"
"Who is it?" came a high voice from the kitchen. "Frank, dinner's almost ready!" Andorra Arnold. Jonathan braced himself as the abrasive Mrs. Arnold joined them in the living room. Her bleached
blonde hair made the deep wrinkles around her eyes stand out more than he remembered. She wore full makeup, and had always reminded Jonathan of the kind of social climbing socialite one might find in a big city. He'd never understood how she had settled here.
"Aha," she said, wiping her hands on an apron that tied around her thick middle. "I wondered when you'd be making an appearance."
"I would've come sooner," Jonathan told her, "if I'd had any idea that I had a son."
She raised an eyebrow and shot back a superior look that Jonathan had grown used to during the time that he'd dated Charlotte.
They sat down, a tense and careful air between them.
Charlotte held the baby in her arms, where he squirmed and reached with grasping fingers.
Jonathan watched the boy, a sense of wonder and misery flooding him. When the baby turned his head and smiled, Jon's heart was in his mouth. He was beautiful—rosy cheeks and a small cleft in his chin. His round face was olive-skinned, like Jonathan's own, and his amber eyes were the same as the ones that had looked back from the mirror every day of Jonathan's life.
My child, he thought unwillingly. My son.
"Look, Jon," Charlotte began. "I guess I should have called you when I changed my mind…"
Jonathan bit down on his lip to keep from saying the things that were racing through his mind. "I don't need to know, Charlotte," he said finally, his eyes never leaving the child in front of him. He felt magnetically drawn to the boy, had to stop himself from crawling onto the floor and pulling the child into his arms. He longed to feel him against his chest, to bury his face in the curls that adorned the boy's head. "All I need is to know him. However that can be possible." He tore his eyes from the boy, and met Charlotte's. "I just want a chance to know my son."
The Arnolds became hospitable hosts once they realized that Jonathan had carried little anger or expectation with him to their front door. He might have felt those things, but they evaporated quickly the moment Charlotte asked if he'd like to hold their son, Thomas.
Jonathan had little experience holding babies. He nodded in response to Charlotte's question, and then sat still, eyeing her questioningly.
"He won't hurt you," she laughed, wrapping Thomas's blanket tightly around him and handing Jonathan the bundle.
She pushed the baby into Jonathan's arms and sat on the floor at his feet, looking up at him.
Jonathan's arms went protectively around the baby, and he stared into the light eyes with wonder as the baby focused his open gaze on Jonathan's face.
Thomas gurgled and cooed, and Jonathan couldn't help but lean in close to breathe in his sweet scent.
"You're a natural," Charlotte marveled, sitting on her knees and watching them together.
Jonathan let instinct take over, and allowed himself to pull the little boy close, burying his nose in the chaotic curls atop his head. He took a deep breath there, letting the scent of powder and sunlight and milk flood through him. Something inside him clicked at that instant, with his son in his arms. Jonathan felt a change in him, though he couldn't say what it was. All he knew was that life would have to be different from this point forward. He held the boy like delicate china for one second longer, then settled carefully back into the couch.
"It looks so easy for you," Charlotte said. "None of it came easily to me." She looked sad, staring at the side of the baby's face. "Everything about babies is so foreign, so hard to figure out. He can't tell me what he wants," she said. Her voice softened and she spoke to the boy, "Can you, buddy?"
Jonathan watched her, feeling sorry for her. As Thomas's small fingers explored his shirt, Jonathan thought how apart she seemed. But she's had him for months, he thought. She kept him from me for months. He tried to make himself angry—the last thing he wanted was to be sympathetic to a woman who had been so deceptive; but he was failing.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked finally.
"I don't know," she said, her blue eyes welling up and her face flushing. "I picked up the phone hundreds of times. But it was always when I felt overwhelmed, when I thought I might not be able to do it myself. And I didn't want to ask for your help."
"That wasn't a choice you should have had," he said quietly. "I had a right to know."
"I know. Of course you did. But I just…things started happening so fast." She pushed her hips to the side, pulling her legs out from under her and scooting to lean back against the other couch. "I was sure I didn't want to be pregnant when I left," she said. "And by the time I'd settled up in San Francisco with my brother and found a job and everything, I just didn't want to reopen this part of my life. It wasn't easy for me to leave, you know."
"Seemed easy to me," Jonathan said, smiling down at Thomas as the little boy pressed his palm against Jonathan's lips.
"It wasn't, Jon," Charlotte's eyes were pleading now. "I loved you. It killed me to leave."
"You loved me." Jonathan couldn't look at her then, so he focused on Thomas, who was holding his hands up in the air, grasping tiny fists of nothing. "I asked you to marry me, Charlotte. And you left."
"I couldn't marry you…"
"You told me." The pain of her first refusal hit Jonathan again, and he had a sudden urge to get up and run. The dark-haired baby in his arms moored him to the couch.
"I just…I didn't want to stay here. I didn't want the life that my mother has. She's never been happy."
"That's her life," he said, finally feeling the anger he'd sought rising to the surface. "Our lives could have been different. We're not them."
"I don't know. I don't want to rehash it all now." She spread her palms flat over the smooth pink fabric of her pants, resting them on her thighs. "I'm here now."
"But why didn't you call me when you knew about Thomas?"
"I was scared. I didn't have a plan. At first I thought I could do it on my own. But when he came, it was all so different than I imagined. He cried all the time, and there was no one to help me. My brother had work, and Thomas was turning his life upside down. It just wasn't working." She stopped, gave him a look that told him there was something else. "I was going to give him up." She said it in a small voice, sounding like a child herself. "Dad convinced me to come home. They've been helping."
Fury rose in Jonathan's chest like a storm ready to burst forth. "Why didn't you call me?" he asked, his voice barely controlled.
"I don't know."
"You would have given him up to strangers," he said, his voice low and shaking. "And I would never have known I had a son."
"You know now."
"You stole part of his life from me."
"It wasn't like that. You don't know how hard it's been."
"I don't know," he said, his words like daggers. "Because you didn't tell me."
"Jon, please don't be angry with me. I don't know if I can take it."
"You don't get a choice, Charlotte. And neither do I. How could I not be angry? You knew I wanted a family. You knew I wanted you." He stood, unable to control the emotion that was flooding his veins. He wanted to pick something up and send it flying across the room, hear the satisfying smash of wood and glass, but the wide brown eyes staring at him from the bundle in his arms stopped him.
"What are you going to do?" she asked, her voice a whisper.
"I don't know," he said. "But I know that I want to know my son." He sat back down on the couch.
"Of course," she said quietly.
Jonathan held the baby tighter and kissed the top of his head, feeling the warmth of his small body against his chest. Warmth flooded through him, calming him.
"Look, Char," he said, softer now. "We'll figure out how to go forward. I just need to know that you're not going anywhere. That you're gonna give me a chance to be with him."
"I have nowhere to go," she said.
He stood, and she followed suit. He handed Thomas to her. "I'll call you tomorrow after I've had some time to think," he said.
"Okay," her voice was small.
He left h
er standing in the center of the room and walked out the front door feeling like a completely different man than the one who had walked in.
When Jonathan returned from Charlotte's the house was quiet. He went straight to bed, working hard to keep his mind from rehashing the events of the day. As he faded into sleep, he struggled to keep two distinct visions from tangling him back into wakefulness—the pudgy dark-eyed face of his son and the pale beautiful face of Isabella.
"Isn’t the baby adorable?" Vicki asked, sitting down across the table from her brother the following morning.
Jonathan could tell she was being careful, afraid of touching a nerve. "Auntie Vickie," he smiled, thinking of Thomas's grasping chubby hands. "He's adorable."
"And did you figure anything out?"
"No. We didn't get that far. I want to move very slowly, I'm a little bit worried that Charlotte will run again."
"A fair concern." Vicki was holding her fork in the air, thinking. "What do you want to see happen?"
"I'm not sure," he answered. "I just know that I want my son to be part of my life. Whatever has to happen to make that a reality."
"Right," Vicki said. "Think maybe you should talk to a lawyer about it?"
Jonathan put his fork down and gaped at his sister. "Do you think I need to?"
"Honestly? Yeah, I do."
He was silent, thinking about how Charlotte would react to him telling her that he'd hired a lawyer.
"I would find out what your rights are, at least. Make sure that she can't do anything crazy."
"I don't think she's crazy." He thought of Charlotte's teary face as she'd talked about the difficulties she'd had with the baby at first.
"You never know," she said.
"I guess you're right." He stood and walked out the door, thinking about Thomas.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Isabella
A Rare Vintage (Wine Country Romance) Page 7