by Pamela Aares
Tasha was more beautiful than Adrian remembered.
And just as skittish.
Whatever she was hiding, the continued anonymity she was proposing suited him just fine. He liked the idea of being seen as an everyday man, just another guy living in Sonoma. And he liked a woman who could ask for what she wanted.
“I’ll play,” Adrian answered. “But just exactly what rules are you suggesting we follow?”
He had to admit her proposal added an edge of raciness to the day, an edge of challenge and the allure of fantasy. Maybe she wasn’t afraid, as he’d first thought she was. And maybe, like him, she too wanted to be liked for who she was in this time. In this moment.
In Rome, almost everyone he ran into knew he was from one of the oldest Roman families. They knew his cousins and cousins of cousins. Knew of the vast Tavonesi wealth. When he first moved to the Bay Area with his father and siblings, he’d loved that they’d all had a degree of anonymity.
But now that he’d started to revamp the vineyard, in the Napa and Sonoma circles he traveled, he’d lost the privacy of those early days. His worth, his prospects, his heritage were on the surface, easy for anyone with a computer to access. Though notoriety came with success, with moving forward with his plans, he resented the assumptions and prejudices that accompanied the details of his life, as though a map of his past set out every possibility for his future. He was charting new waters and didn’t want to be bound by history or prejudice or presumptions. His sisters Zoe and Amber had cut themselves free and were pursuing their dreams. And so were his American cousins Alex and Alana.
But what he disliked most about his wealth was the feeling of being targeted. Of being a catch. Wealth drew people to him; that was another fact of his life. But he didn’t want to be seen through that lens, to be pursued for his bank account. Wealth made it hard to know whom to trust. Especially when it came to women.
Tasha bit at her cheek and knit her brows. Her fingers tightened around the mug she gripped. At the party, in the dim lights, he hadn’t noticed the lapis blue rimming the hazel green of her eyes. Now, in the morning light, the flecks of gold in her eyes seemed to dance even though she wasn’t smiling.
When she didn’t answer right away, he added, “We can make the rules up as we go. Although Parker would have our heads. He prefers clearly organized games. And scorekeepers.”
She laughed. Thank God. He was beginning to feel like a fool. She released the mug and sat back in her chair, tilting her chin.
“Wandering the gardens should give us plenty to talk about,” she said softly. “We can talk about the plants. I love plants.” One side of her mouth quirked up. “But I already told you that, didn’t I?”
What was it about her that made him suddenly nervous? That made him feel as if the outcome of the day mattered more than he wanted it to?
“Well then, you’re in luck, because I like plants too.” He heard himself say the words. But the razzing voice in his head taunted him and told him he was blathering like a fool, repeating information he’d already told her the night of the party. He’d dated princesses, for God’s sake. What was it about Tasha that made him feel like he was out on the first date of his life—that took him back to when he was sixteen and vying to win the affection of his sister’s best friend?
He needed to move; he always thought better when he was in motion. Movement calmed him like nothing else.
He stood and put on his sunglasses. “The day awaits.” Though he wanted to offer his hand to help her up, instinct told him not to.
He got a better look at her as they walked to his car. The white cotton shirt and jeans were a contrast to the elegant costume she’d worn to the party, but the snug fit of her more casual clothing showed off her curves. Sunlight glinted off a small gold heart hanging from a short chain around her neck. It struck him as a girlish adornment for such a sophisticated woman. She wasn’t wearing makeup, or if she was, it was the kind that made it look like she wasn’t. Coco had once told him that such an effect was the hardest to achieve. Still, he’d bet good money it was simply Tasha’s natural coloring. Her rich, dark hair set off her ivory skin and the rose tint of her lips. He’d come close to tasting them at the masquerade. And in his dreams over the past two nights, he’d done more than explore her lush lips. But as skittish as she was, he wasn’t going to try a stupid move like that and ruin his chance to get to know her better.
He drove. She’d walked from her home to the café. He would’ve felt odd having her drive, but he would’ve let her. At this point he’d do most anything to reduce the strange tension buzzing between them. Already he regretted his choice of vehicles. His BMW wasn’t flashy but still, he wished he’d brought his Jeep. But Zoe had needed it to tow her horse trailer out to the coast. And he hadn’t wanted to pull up in one of the vineyard trucks, although he was becoming fond of cruising the countryside in a truck.
Some days he almost felt like he fit in. Almost.
“It’s hard to believe such open countryside still exists,” Tasha remarked as he turned onto the road leading up over Sonoma Mountain.
“Are you new to the area?”
“Yes.”
Her tone told him he’d hit a nerve. This anonymity business was harder than he’d imagined.
He pointed out a few landmarks, showed her the turnoffs for the roads that led to public parks as they passed by.
“There isn’t as much open space as there is in Marin, the county to the south of here,” he said, aware that he was chattering like a tour guide. But yammering on was better than silence. The brief silences ramped up his awareness that nothing about this day, this date, was likely to be normal.
“Ranches make up much of the lands we’re passing,” he went on. “And vineyards,” he added. Although that fact was obvious. The hillsides were covered with them. In fact, he’d just passed his own.
Natasha brushed a piece of hay off the leg of her jeans. Hay in a flashy sports car? It struck her as odd. Maybe she’d been more than foolish to get into a car with a man about whom she knew next to nothing.
Impulsive.
The social worker’s word from years ago rang in her head. She’d worked hard since those days to tame her impulses.
“So many vineyards,” she said, still fighting the impulse to ask him to take her back to the café.
She sounded like an escapee from a mental institution. Except such places didn’t exist anymore. People with mental challenges ended up in homeless shelters—if they were lucky. That was another reason she was determined to save money from her new job and get her own place for her and Tyler—to open up a spot for a woman who had no alternative. A spot for a woman who hadn’t landed in a shelter because she’d made a stupid bet.
Adrian looked over at her. “You don’t like vineyards?”
She snapped back to the present, to the car, to the man.
“No, I do.”
Did she? She hadn’t spent any time in a vineyard. The orientation tour at Casa del Sole was the first time she’d set foot in a vineyard. She might not be revealing specifics about her life, but she didn’t want to lie to him.
“Honestly, I haven’t spent much time around them. Vineyards, I mean. I have more experience with flowers and vegetables.”
“Then you’re way ahead of me. I couldn’t grow a vegetable if my life depended on it. But I do love flowers. Flowers were my mother’s great love.”
Were. She heard the past tense, heard the hitch in his voice. Knew that his mother hadn’t just given up growing flowers. Knew that she was dead. Oh yes, she knew the sound of her own voice when she spoke about her mother.
“I’m sorry.” She meant it.
He nodded, not taking his eyes off the road. “I thought that after a year had passed, I’d be through it, the grieving. But it’s been more than a year and it turns out none of us are.”
“It gets better,” she said, resisting the urge to pat Adrian’s arm. She didn’t want to tell him that it took years. Deca
des. That the missing never went away.
Us. He had sisters; he’d said so. Eight. A huge family. He couldn’t know he’d poked a sore spot. She wanted Tyler to have a family—a family that navigated the ups and downs of life together. A family that could protect him in case anything happened to her. But so far, she hadn’t managed to take even one step in that direction.
Taking that step would involve marrying. Maybe having another child. She should’ve looked for a suitable man years earlier, but she hadn’t been ready. And wasn’t ready now. Maybe she never would be.
She knew all men weren’t like Eddie, but even after years of trying she couldn’t erase what her body knew, what her body feared. Head knowledge had an uphill battle to trump fear.
Guilt knotted in her chest, making it hard to breathe. She pressed a button and lowered the window, letting in cool, fresh air.
If she could get past her fears and buck up, maybe she could create a more secure future for Tyler. She hated that doing so might require a man. A man with means. A kind man, a reliable man, a man with an extended family that wasn’t crazy and would welcome her son. But she didn’t trust fate and sure didn’t trust her own powers of discernment.
For a few miles neither of them spoke. The silence was more uncomfortable than talking had been. She fought her thoughts and searched for something, anything, to say. But the words wouldn’t come.
“Here we are.” Adrian turned the car off the main road onto a gravel drive. “There aren’t any docent tours today, so you’re stuck with me. And the brochures.”
Brochures.
If she was careful, he wouldn’t notice she couldn’t read them. At least not quickly. And the way her nerves were jittering? She probably wouldn’t be able to read at all.
She leaped out of the car, not wanting to give him a chance to come around, to open the door, to take her hand. Touching him was a bad idea. Touching him made her thoughts scramble and her desires rev up.
He dropped five dollars into the plastic box beside the arched fence marking the entrance to the gardens and took a guidebook from the covered rack beside it. He handed the booklet to her.
She handed it back. “I forgot my glasses.” Sometimes lies were necessary. And they didn’t count when no one got hurt. It couldn’t hurt to have him read to her.
“You wore contacts the night of the ball?”
She hadn’t expected him to question her. “I only need them for reading,” she said quickly. “I hadn’t imagined I’d be reading out here. Besides, I find that plants speak for themselves. I rather like looking at them just as they are, without maps and descriptions.”
They started up a gravel path that wound through a glade of flowering shrubs and plants. They walked side by side, and she was careful not to brush up against him.
“My sister Amber tells me that plants speak a language all their own,” he said. “She’s done years of research. I don’t remember the science precisely, but she discovered that when insects chew leaves, plants respond by releasing volatile organic compounds into the air, communicating to other plants around them and signaling that they should pump out insect-repelling chemicals to ward off attack.”
He shot her another of his bone-melting grins. “Other researchers have duplicated her studies, so she’s no longer considered one of the lunatic fringe, much to our father’s relief. For a while, he thought she was losing it. But I never did. I’m sure there are languages and ways of communicating that have nothing to do with words.”
He waved his hand through the cool morning air. “Imagine how many conversations might be taking place all around us.”
Evidently he wasn’t the only fascinating member of his large family.
“I do think we can hear them. If we listen. Really listen.” She knelt in front of a shrub she didn’t recognize and fingered the soft hairs on the leaves. “Sometimes I think I speak their language better than my own.”
She’d never admitted her feelings to anyone. And now she was the one sounding like a member of the lunatic fringe.
He crouched beside her. The buff-colored pants he wore hugged his thighs. He had legs like an athlete. Maybe he was one.
The corners of his mouth lifted in a playful grin. “Maybe they’re eavesdropping on us.”
Even through the rich aroma of the plants around them, she could detect the scent that was distinctly his. The mélange of spices and citrus and maleness wound into her senses with the same force it had the night of the party.
He ran his fingers along a lower branch on the shrub. “Amber once told me that plants have genes that use signals similar to the ones we use to relay sensory information through the body.”
Natasha pulled her hand back from the plant. The sensory signals flooding her were clear enough without adding a plant’s messages to them. Just being around Adrian shot energy through her.
Desire.
She hoped the perfume makers were wrong, hoped that desire didn’t really have a perceptible scent. If it did, she was in trouble.
He pressed one knee to the ground and retrieved the brochure from his back pocket. He opened it to a small map and pointed to the paths marked in blue.
“There’s a Woodland Garden and a Chinese Heritage Rose Garden in this section. Do you have a preference?”
How long had it been since someone had cared about her preferences?
“Let’s just wander,” she said as she stood.
To her relief he tucked the brochure back into his pocket as they started up the path.
The garden had been minimally pruned, allowing plants to grow into one another. It was the closest thing to wilderness she’d experienced except on TV. Bliss flooded her as they walked deeper into a wooded area canopied with tall trees. Birdsong mingled with the sound of their footsteps on the gently sloping path. Magnolias stretched high above them, and with every gentle breeze, flowering quince blossoms showered down on them like confetti. People spoke of spring fever, and she’d never really known what they’d meant. But she felt it now, felt the rising energy of new life coursing in her.
And was she dropping into fantasy or did she really feel a strange connection to the mysterious man who walked beside her?
They reached a bench in front of a pond filled with water lilies. A huge climbing rose with deep pink blooms arched over a rock wall off to one side.
Her heart clenched as he pulled the brochure from his pocket.
“That’s Rosa chinensis Spontanea. It says here that it’s a key parent of modern roses. Once thought to have been extinct,” he read smoothly, “it was reintroduced in the 1980s.”
“I think all roses originally came from China,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t hand her the dreaded booklet. “I do love roses. Their colors, their transporting scents.”
He sat on the bench and draped his arm across the back of the curved wood. “I was surprised to discover such a place around here.”
Evidently he was new to the area too. Or maybe he was simply visiting. Suddenly she had a nearly uncontrollable urge to find out more about him. But then there’d be the inevitable questions about her life in return. She’d just have to stick to her rules.
She sat at the far end of the bench, barely out of reach of his fingertips. He drew his arm away and leafed through the brochure again.
“This place was a pile of rubble in 1968. The woman who bought this land first planted the vineyards we passed. And then she traveled to China and collected all the starts and seeds for this garden for twenty years. Imagine.”
Her chest tightened when he handed her the brochure.
She turned several pages and looked at the pictures. And miracle of miracles, she could read a couple of the captions. “Twenty expeditions,” she read. “That’s quite a dream.”
“I wonder why she loved China so?” Adrian pointed to the brochure. “Does it say anything about that?”
She turned her gaze back to the pages, and the words began to wiggle. It’d be only moments before the whole thing
was one big blur. She stood and handed the booklet back to him.
“I’d have to squint to read the small print. You have a look.”
He flipped through the pages, hunting for information. She envied the ease with which he could so quickly scan the tightly packed paragraphs.
“I find these sorts of guidebooks truly frustrating,” he said as he folded it and tucked it into the pocket of his jacket.
Not as frustrating as she did, she wanted to say.
“They never tell you the backstory, what motivated a person to pursue such a near-impossible feat.”
“Perhaps it was her dream,” Natasha said.
He crossed his arms and stretched out his long legs and surveyed the blooming plants covering the hillside. “I trust the power of dreams. I always have.”
She didn’t. Not anymore.
“Do you?”
She’d been hoping he wouldn’t ask.
“I have in the past.”
“But not now?”
He looked genuinely surprised. She hated to throw ashes on his enthusiasm.
“I’m not sure. Maybe.”
“Maybe’s better than no,” he said with a chuckle that reached into her heart.
He walked to the edge of the pond and looked out toward the mountains in the distance. “This place is extraordinary. Almost magical.” He turned to her. “Do you feel it?”
Did she ever. She nodded, not trusting her voice.
“I have to bring my sister here the next time she’s in the States. She’ll love it.”
And then she knew. He didn’t live in Sonoma. He was from some rich Italian family that probably flitted from place to place all over the planet. Resignation bloomed in her. He was from a world she could never belong to. When had she begun to entertain the possibility that she might? It must have been in her dream.
Natasha paced her room when she returned to Inspire. Tyler was an hour late.
Scenarios of disasters ran through her mind. Had someone kidnapped him? Was he injured and in the hospital? Had he gotten lost? Had he got caught in gang crossfire? No, she could cross that one off her list. There weren’t any gangs active in this area. She was thankful for that.