Baby, It's You (20 page)

“Don’t worry. We’ll come back as early as you need to.”

A tiny smile came to Kari’s lips. “Then let’s go.”

Kari had forgotten how much fun it was to feel the landscape whizzing by and the roar of the engine, and all her thoughts about her altercation with her father seemed to melt away. But the best thing of all was being able to circle her arms around Marc’s waist and just hang on for the ride.

Then about thirty minutes away from their destination, the strangest thing happened. Her stomach began to swirl with nausea, and her head felt light and dizzy. At first she thought maybe she’d eaten something that hadn’t agreed with her, but she couldn’t imagine what that might be.

Unfortunately, it felt like motion sickness.

This couldn’t be happening. She’d never had that problem when she’d ridden a motorcycle before, but there was no doubt it was happening now. As long as she looked at the horizon it wasn’t bad, but if she closed her eyes the dizziness overtook her again. By the time they got to Fredericksburg and pulled into the parking lot of the motel, it was all she could do to get off the bike and stand up straight. She put her hand to her stomach.

“You okay?” Marc asked.

“Yeah. Just a little motion sickness, I think. It’s been a while since I’ve been on a motorcycle. I’m fine.”

She forced a smile and followed him into the motel office, where a grandmotherly woman greeted them and gave them keys to their room. The moment Marc closed the door behind them, he took her in his arms and kissed her. Then he swept her up in his arms and laid her on the bed, his eyes blazing with the kind of sexual desire that made her feel like the most beautiful woman on earth. He made love to her slowly and leisurely, as if they had the rest of their lives to do it.

Before they left Rainbow Valley, Marc had called two vineyard owners he knew to tell them they were going to be in Fredericksburg, and they set aside time for private tastings. Marc and Kari spent the afternoon sipping the different wines in beautiful surroundings, and she loved it. But mostly she loved hearing Marc talk about the industry with the other vintners. Mold and pests and bottling processes and harvest timing were fairly mundane things, but their conversation was filled with enthusiasm and passion and laughter. She could see the respect other vintners had for Marc, and watching the light in his eyes when he talked about Cordero Vineyards absolutely mesmerized her. She was glad she’d learned as much as she had about wine making in the past several weeks, and a few times she actually asked well-informed questions the other vintners were happy to answer.

And as Marc talked, his hand would stray over and rest on her thigh, and then he’d turn and look at her with that smile that said he was in his element and having a good time, but also that he was glad she was there with him. Kari’s mind grew a little fuzzy from the few glasses of wine she had, but all her sickness earlier had passed, and it made her feel warm and wonderful. And by the time they headed back to the motel, she knew for a fact it had been one of the best days of her life.

The next morning when Marc woke, morning light filtered through the blinds, casting stripes of warm sunshine across the bed. Kari lay on her side, her fist curled beneath her chin. Soon she stirred and shifted to her back. The covers fell away, exposing her soft, heavy breasts. Marc watched them rise and fall with every breath she took. Had he ever seen anything more beautiful?

After a moment, he reached up to stroke one fingertip softly across her nipple. Back and forth, back and forth. She was still asleep, but as her nipple rose and puckered, she began to stir beneath his touch. He rose on one elbow, closed his hand around the base of her breast, and squeezed gently. Her nipple rose enticingly. He dipped his head and flicked his tongue across it. She squirmed left and right, a soft whimper rising in the back of her throat, a tiny, plaintive cry that made his cock leap and harden.

Half-awake now, she threaded her fingers through his hair and flexed her fingertips against his scalp. He closed his mouth around her nipple, applying suction at the same time he flicked his tongue. She squirmed beneath him as if it was too much, but at the same time she held him in place and arched her back, asking for more. She kicked off the covers, pulled one knee up and let it fall to the side, her breath coming faster. He stroked his hand along her inner thigh, and her escalating breaths became hot and heavy, her moans beginning to sound like pleas.

“Now,” she said.

“Now what?”

“Inside me,” she murmured. “
Now.
”

Impossible. He’d woken her from a sound sleep less than two minutes ago, and she was already ready for him? Just like
that
?

Finding that hard to believe, he slid his fingers between her open thighs. She was hot, swollen, and wet. If he’d been hard before, he was granite now. He’d never been the kind of man who needed frequent ego boosts, but he had to say he was enjoying this one.

“Marc.
Now!
”

Yes, ma’am.

He fumbled across the nightstand, snagged a condom, ripped it open, put it in place. Seconds later he plunged inside her. Her groan of satisfaction almost made him come right there.

Easing in and out of her, slowly, deliberately, then plunging in again. She lifted her hips with every stroke, pushing against him, taking him as deeply as she could, begging for all he could give her and then some. He pushed her right to the edge, and as she fell, he fell along with her.

Afterward, they lay together in satisfied silence. Marc thought back to the years when he was so overworked and stretched so thin he nearly snapped, and he wondered what it would have been like if he’d had somebody to share things with the way he did with Kari. Just somebody he could talk to at the end of the day to share the good and the bad. He didn’t need anybody to fix anything. But if he’d just been able to talk, to open a valve and let off a little of the pressure, things wouldn’t have felt so insurmountable. And if that somebody had been a woman like Kari, whose ever-present smile and gentle touch soothed him in other ways, how different might his life have been?

He told himself it could have been any woman who’d wandered along at this point in his life and he’d have felt the same, but it wasn’t true. It was Kari. She was the one he couldn’t wait to be with.

He traced his fingertip along her cheek, then pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Crazy idea,” he said.

“You can’t have a crazy idea,” she said. “You’re not a crazy person.”

“You made me a crazy person. So come with me.”

“Not a problem,” she said with a smile. “I’ll follow you anywhere. To the sofa, to the shower—”

“How about from Los Angeles to Chicago?”

Kari froze. “What?”

“You like to ride,” Marc said. “How about coming with me when I leave Rainbow Valley?”

“That’s crazy.”

“Didn’t I just say that?”

Kari was stunned. “I thought this was just a casual thing. You know. No strings.”

“What could be more strings-free than a road trip on a motorcycle?”

Her first thought was,
Oh, thank God. I’m not going to have to say good-bye to him.
But that didn’t mean any of this was forever. It was precisely because she was asking nothing of him that he wanted her around. If she asked for more, she had the terrible feeling she’d end up with nothing at all, because the last thing he wanted was to be tied down. But how many times in the past several days had she looked at him with longing, wishing for that moment he’d suddenly turn around, realize he belonged at Cordero Vineyards, and want to stay there forever with her?

“I grabbed this from the lobby,” Marc said. “Look here.”

He opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out a map of the United States. He opened it and pointed out the highway from Los Angeles to Chicago.

“This is old Route 66. That’s how you see the country. Not on the interstates. On the back roads. So here’s what I’m thinking. First we head to Los Angeles. Maybe hang out at the beach for a week or so. Then we hit Route 66. We can ride the whole distance to Chicago. We can do it as fast or as slow as we feel like it, and stop anywhere along the way we want to.”

“But that’ll take weeks.”

“I have three years. What’s a few weeks?”

“What about my job? I don’t have any money unless I work.”

“It’s barely more expensive for two to travel instead of one. I’ll pay for everything. Believe me—Rosie has a hard time finding good help. You’ll always have a job there later if you want it. Let me do this, Kari. I’d love it if you came along.”

“What about Boo?” she asked.

“Daniel will take care of him. What’s one more animal around there? Of course, the house will be chewed to pieces when we get back, but what the hell?”

Kari smiled, even though she didn’t feel happy. He wanted her to be with him, which was a dream come true. But in that dream, they weren’t on his motorcycle. They were living at Cordero Vineyards. That was the scenario she played in her head when she was in the shower, driving to work, falling asleep in his arms at night. In the end, though, it didn’t matter.

Wherever Marc was, that was where she wanted to be.

Then she had a terrible thought. She’d gotten so sick when she’d been on his bike yesterday. What if she couldn’t ride long distances without that sickness coming back again?

No. She wasn’t going to worry about that. There were remedies for motion sickness. She simply wasn’t going to accept the thought of not being able to leave Rainbow Valley with Marc. She was
not
going to accept it.

“Or maybe you want to stay in Rainbow Valley,” Marc asked. “I know you’ve gotten to know people, and you do have your job. You’ve worked hard for that. So if you don’t want to go—”

“Come on, Marc. Like you don’t know I’m half-crazy? I don’t want to be tied down any more than you do. Trust me. If it’s between staying in Rainbow Valley and hitting the road on a motorcycle, which do you think I’m going to pick?”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.” His brilliant smile made the entire room glow, but Kari could barely contain the desperation she felt. Marc wanted freedom, and she knew if she told him she wanted anything else, the last thing she’d see of him was his back as he drove out of town.

An hour later, they got back on his motorcycle to go home. As they headed down the road, at first Kari felt fine. Then nausea crept in, and she had to focus on the horizon to keep from feeling really sick. The panic she felt about that didn’t help. What if this happened every time she sat behind him on this motorcycle? If she couldn’t ride from Fredericksburg to Rainbow Valley without getting dizzy, how was she supposed to go across the country with him?

By the time they crossed the city limits into Rainbow Valley, she felt so dizzy that if she hadn’t had a death grip on Marc, she might have gone tumbling right off the back of the bike. As they came around the last bend and she saw the “Cordero Vineyards” sign in the distance, she was filled with relief.

Deep breath. It’ll be over in a minute.

As they approached the driveway leading to the house, Marc pulled his motorcycle to a halt to allow a party rental truck to pull from the driveway onto the highway. Luke and Shannon’s wedding was only a few hours from now. Undoubtedly Nina was putting the finishing touches on the arbor for the ceremony and the decorations for the reception.

Marc brought his bike to a halt and let the truck pass. Then Kari was surprised to see another car coming down the drive.

“Who’s that?” Kari asked.

“Don’t know.”

Marc waited on that one, too. As it turned onto the highway, she saw a magnetic sign on the side of the car that read, “Morgan Tank and Equipment.”

Marc muttered a curse. “I can’t believe this.”

“What’s wrong?” Kari asked.

“I need to have a word with my brother.”

A
minute later, Marc stormed into the kitchen, where Daniel sat at the table poking at his phone.

“Marc. You’re back.”

“Yeah. I’m back. Tell me what a rep from Morgan Tank and Equipment was doing here.”

Daniel froze. Then he looked back down at his phone with a careless shrug. “Just talking.”

“Talking? What about?”

Daniel tossed his phone aside. “You know what about, so why are you asking me?”

“Weren’t you listening when I told you how I feel about micro-oxygenation?”

“Oh, come on, Marc! Will you get with the program? Technology is the future of wine making.”

“It’s not this vineyard’s future. We’re a boutique winery. Our selling point is the care we give to every grape we pull off a vine. You start applying
technology
to what we do, and we lose our competitive edge.”

“Old school,” Daniel said. “You need to keep up.”

“Keep up?” Marc said, his voice escalating. “You haven’t lived here for ten years, and
I’m
the one who needs to keep up?”

“There’s a big world out there,” Daniel said. “Hard to keep up with when you’ve never stepped foot out of Rainbow Valley.”

“I haven’t stepped foot out of Rainbow Valley,” Marc said, his voice quivering, “because I was operating this vineyard while you were running all over this country doing whatever the hell you pleased.”

“Whatever I pleased? Whatever I
pleased
made me a fucking millionaire! Why do you always act as if that’s nothing?”

“I’m not going to let you run this place into the ground.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.”

“Yeah? Well, you can’t do a lot of judging when you’re on the back of a motorcycle heading out of town.”

Now as Marc envisioned that, he saw it more as a trap than freedom. He’d be in another state while Daniel was here screwing up the business their father had entrusted to him, and that was absolutely intolerable.

“If you’re so damned worried about this place,” Daniel said, “why are you leaving?”

“Just because I’m leaving it doesn’t mean I don’t care what happens to it!”

“I don’t know, Marc. I think you give up that right the minute you put it in my hands and hit the road.”

So that was what it came down to? If he handed this place over to Daniel everything went to shit, and if he didn’t, he was destined to be here forever?

“Right now we’re stuck with oak barrel aging,” Daniel said. “But as soon as I’m in charge, there may be a few new procedures at Cordero Vineyards.”

“Damn it, Daniel, I’ve sweated
blood
over this place!”

“Right. Because you’ve always been desperate to live up to the old man’s expectations. Well, he’s dead and gone. It’s your life now. Why don’t you live it?”

“We had a deal,” Marc said hotly. “Don’t you
dare
try to back out now!”

“I’m not backing out. Just because I decide to do things a little differently—”

“You’re going to destroy this place!”

“Oh, come on, Marc! A vineyard is always one bad season away from closing its doors. It could happen whether you’re running it or I am.”

“You really don’t give a damn about this place, do you? If I sell it, no big deal. If a mold infestation takes out our crop, who cares? If you put micro-oxygenation tanks in and destroy a whole year’s work, so what? If we lose this crop, we’ll miss an entire vintage. It’ll take us years to recover from that!”

“Assuming you decide not to sell.”

“Either way it’s a disaster. If we lose a crop, do you know what that does to the market value of this place? I depend on it for a living, or at least I need to be able to cash out the equity. Have you even stopped to think about that?”

“Do you actually think I’d let you swing from the end of that rope?” Daniel said. “Seriously?”

“What are you talking about?”

“If I make the wrong decision, if things go south, I’ll pay you for the crop. I’ll write you a check. And you know I can do it. You won’t be out a dime.”

“It’s not about the fucking
money
! When are you going to get that through your head?”

“Then what the hell
is
it about? You say it’s your livelihood. How is that not about money?”

And that was when Marc knew. His brother was never going to be able to do this. It just wasn’t in him. He could learn how to operate machinery. How to prune grapevines for maximum production. But that didn’t give him the heart for the business, the drive, that feeling of pride when he looked out across the vineyard and imagined the final product, bottled and ready to drink.

“Never mind,” Marc said. “Let’s just get the grapes in on Thursday, and then—”

“No. They need to stay on the vine at least another week.”

“Another
week
? You leave them on the vine that long and the sugar level will go through the roof.”

“I don’t think so. And the tannins will also be softer.”

“The alcohol content will be too high. Did you test the pH?”

“You told me I have the best palate of anybody in the family. So why don’t you just let me taste the damned grapes and decide when to harvest?”

“No. Let’s get it done. The crew is booked—”

“I rescheduled for next week.”

“You
what
?”

“You want me to run this place? So let me run it.”

Marc was dumbfounded. He couldn’t do this anymore. He couldn’t listen to his brother ignore every procedure they’d ever established at this vineyard and simply shoot from the hip. He just couldn’t do it.

“You know what?” Marc said. “Fine. Do whatever you want with the place. Harvest when there’s so much sugar in the grapes they taste like candy. Use fake oak flavoring. Hell, burn the place to the ground. I don’t give a shit. It’s all yours, buddy. We’re harvesting in a week? Fine. I’ll bring my shears. The minute those grapes are in, I’m out of here. Then you can deal with the aftermath.”

Kari truly believed Luke and Shannon’s wedding was the most beautiful one she’d ever seen. The late afternoon sun eased through the tree branches, dappling the whole area with clusters of sunshine. Friends and family gathered in front of the grape arbor to watch two people they all loved promising to love each other for the rest of their lives.

This is it
, Kari thought.
This is the way it’s supposed to be.

After Marc and Daniel fought World War III earlier, Daniel moved out of the main house into the cottage. Angela showed up with only minutes to spare and avoided talking to Kari, coming to sit next to Marc only when the ceremony was about to begin.

Marc didn’t touch Kari through the entire ceremony, and she knew it was because Angela was sitting right next to him. Angela stared straight ahead the whole time, her face tight and unsmiling. Even when Shannon and Luke exchanged rings and became man and wife, her expression never changed. Kari could only imagine what was going on inside her head.

Nina and Daniel sat to Kari’s left. Daniel checked his phone at least three times during the ceremony, and Nina seemed to be in another world. Her gaze never strayed from that arbor, and as fond as she was of Shannon and Luke, Kari knew she was thinking about Curtis. When Luke kissed his bride, Nina began to cry, and she had to pull a tissue from her purse to dab beneath her eyes.

The reception took place in the barn next to the oak barrels, where Nina had set up tables with linen tablecloths and wine-themed centerpieces. Candles on the tables lit the room with a warm glow. And Shannon looked positively radiant. Kari had been to a lot of weddings before, but there was something about the way she and Luke looked at each other that made Kari feel a sense of envy well up inside her. That was the wrong thing to feel, she knew, because she was truly happy for them. But she couldn’t stop wondering if there would ever come a day when a man would look at her the way Luke looked at Shannon.

Then she glanced up at Marc, and the most frustrating sense of longing swirled through her. Yes, she was leaving town with him. But if he knew what she really wanted, she was sure he’d run far and fast.

“Angela’s still pissed,” Marc said.

“Yeah. I can tell. But she’s coming to dinner, right?”

“She said she was.”

“She’s avoiding me,” Kari said.

“She’ll get over it. Daniel is avoiding
me
.”

“He’ll get over it, too.”

“He may. I’m not sure I will.”

“I’m sorry everything’s such a mess right now,” Kari said. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Marc took her hand. After a moment, he leaned in and gave her a gentle kiss.

“Angela may be watching,” Kari said.

“She knows how I feel about you.”

For a split second, Kari imagined him saying it.
I love you. I love Cordero Vineyards. To hell with riding across the country. I want to stay in Rainbow Valley forever.

“I’m really glad you’re coming away with me,” he said. “We’re going to have such a good time.”

Such a good time.
Didn’t he know how much she wanted them to be more than just traveling friends with benefits?

After Shannon and Luke left on their honeymoon and the caterer had cleaned up, Marc made his way back up to the house with Nina. Daniel and Angela walked behind them, talking to each other but acting as if Marc didn’t exist. Marc opened the back door to find Kari already in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on dinner. Nina helped Kari set the table and bring the food to the dining room, and they all sat down to eat. The tension in the room felt as heavy as sludge in the bottom of a fermentation tank, and Marc wished he was anywhere else.

“It was a nice wedding, wasn’t it?” Nina said as she passed the green beans around the table.

“Beautiful,” Kari said.

Nina turned to Angela. “What did you think?”

She shrugged. “It was okay.”

“I’d love to see you get married under that arbor someday.”

“Assuming we still have a vineyard for me to get married in.” She stabbed her fork into a chunk of chicken. Marc felt stress working its way between his shoulders, and he had to bite his tongue bloody to keep from snapping back.

“Chicken’s good,” Daniel said as he ate, because nothing on earth got in the way of his appetite.

“Thanks,” Kari said. “I found a recipe in that old Betty Crocker cookbook in the pantry.”

Angela flicked her gaze to Kari. “That cookbook was Grandma’s. She didn’t let anybody touch it.”

“Grandma is dead, so there’s no reason not to use it now,” Marc said. “Otherwise, it just collects dust.”

Angela pursed her lips and stabbed another bite of chicken.

“So, Angela,” Nina said. “How’s school?”

Oh, crap
, Marc thought. Did she
have
to go there?

“Fine,” Angela said.

Daniel looked up. “That’s not what you told Marc.”

“If she says it’s fine, it’s fine,” Marc snapped.

More silence, so much that the clinking of silverware sounded like Big Ben chiming the hour. Then all at once, Angela tossed her fork down with a clatter.

“It’s not fine,” she said.

Oh, God
, Marc thought.
Here it comes.

“I’m not crazy enough for Kim and her friends, and I’m not cool enough to pledge a sorority. So where does that leave me?
Nowhere.
”

“Who the hell cares?” Marc said. “Didn’t I teach you not to follow the crowd?”

“That gives me no one to hang out with. And everybody laughs at me.”

“Why would they laugh at you?” Marc said.

“Because I’m from some dinky little town most of them have never heard of. And they say I talk funny.”

“Aren’t they Texans, too?” Nina asked.

“Most of them are. But it turns out big-city Texans talk different than small-town Texans. I try not to talk like I talk, but I’ve been talking this way for eighteen years, so I don’t know how else to do it.”

“All that will change,” Nina said.

“No, it won’t. That place is so big, and I just don’t fit in.”

“Well, you’ll just have to learn to fit in,” Marc said.

“I don’t want to fit in. I don’t even want to go back.”

Silence fell over the table. “No,” he said carefully, trying like hell not to blow up. “You’re going back to school.”

Angela was silent.

“I’ve paid for this semester, and you’re going to finish it.”

“No, I’m not. I hate that place!”

“What are you talking about? You’re not dropping out!”

“What do you care? You’re not even going to
be
here!”

With that, Angela pushed her chair back and leaped up from the table, heading for the stairs. Then all at once she came back to the kitchen. “I don’t suppose I could actually go to my own room, could I?”

“Yeah,” Marc said. “It’s all yours again.”

Angela looked at Kari. “But that means that
she’s
…” She looked heavenward. “Oh,
God
.”

As she stomped up the stairs, Marc flung his napkin down and stood up, scraping his chair across the floor. Enough of this. He was going to go have a word with her
right now
.

“Marc,” Nina said.

He kept moving.

“
Marc!
”

He turned back.

“Don’t you get it?” Nina said.

“What?”

“She’s having a hard time at school. She could probably get through that, except she’s not going to have a father to come home to when things get tough.
That’s
what she’s trying to tell you.”

“She knew I was leaving. She thought it was fine.”

“It’s one thing to talk about it. It’s another thing when she sees you on the verge of doing it.”

Marc swallowed hard, the truth slowly coming to him. Was this what his leaving was going to do to his daughter? Suddenly he felt sick. The plans he’d been making for years, the ones he thought were set in concrete, were suddenly shifting like sand beneath his feet.

“She’s just a kid,” he said. “Everything seems tough to handle when you’re a kid, right? She’ll get over it.”

“Yeah? How about me? Will I have to get over it, too?”