The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (83 page)

The road grew steeper, and soon they were rattling over the wooden bridge that spanned Horse Creek. They passed several designated picnic areas, then the turnoff for the Horse Creek Inn. Gradually the dense trees began to thin, giving way to rolling hills purled with grapevines. Far off in the distance she could see the turreted Horse Creek Winery, modeled after a French chateau.

Aubrey turned onto a dirt access road herringboned with tire tracks, and soon they were bumping along between rows of vines, dust boiling up around them.

“Aren’t we trespassing?” she asked.

“Theo and I are old friends,” he replied with a Gallic shrug. “He won’t mind.”

He was referring to Theodore Carrillo, of course, owner and current patriarch of the winery and a descendant of the
gente de razón.
“Is there anyone you
don’t
know?” she asked with a smile.

When she’d belonged to the country club, she’d occasionally seen Theo around. She recalled when Mike, who fancied himself quite the connoisseur, had gone out of his way to butter up the old man at one of the functions, and been politely, but summarily, snubbed.

“Theo throws a big party every year at harvesttime,” Aubrey told her. “There’s an enormous vat of grapes, and all the ladies take turns stomping them.”

“Sounds messy.” Gerry tried to picture herself, skirts held high, grapes squishing between her toes, but the only thing that came to mind was an episode of
I Love Lucy.

“It was Theo who convinced me to come here after”—he faltered—“when I decided to leave L.A.”

His wife. It always came back to that, didn’t it? Gerry realized to her dismay that she was jealous—of a dead woman.

They pulled to a stop before a windbreak and climbed out. The only things moving were the pale scarf of dust floating over the road down which they’d come and the leaves of the laurels overhead, rustling in the breeze. From somewhere off in the distance came the faint drone of a tractor, and closer by the hollow chuckle of water making its way along an irrigation pipe.

Aubrey spread the blanket over the soft grass beneath the trees, and Gerry kicked off her shoes, hesitating only a moment before muttering, “Oh, what the hell,” and lifting her skirt to shuck off her panty hose as well. She sank down, stretching out on her stomach with her chin propped on her hands. How long since she’d last played hooky? Not since she was in school. The only difference was that back then she hadn’t had anyone to gaze appreciatively at her legs.

Aubrey unpacked the hamper: roast chicken, potato salad, Brie, and a loaf of French bread. From a freezer pouch he produced a bottle of Chenin Blanc bearing the distinctive Horse Creek label. “It seemed only fitting,” he said, uncorking it and pouring them each a glass. He lifted his in toast, the sunlight catching on its rim and wheeling outward in a brilliant flash. “To a day that was salvaged after all.”

Gerry, surprised to find that she had an appetite, ate half the chicken, most of the potato salad, and several slices of bread slathered with cheese before collapsing onto her back with a groan. The sun had passed its zenith, leaving the sky the deep, crystalline blue of a mountain-fed lake. Gazing up at it, tipsy from the wine, she imagined them to be on a raft slowly drifting downstream.

She told him then: about the disastrous morning with Sister Clement, her trip to San Francisco with Claire, and Andie’s going to her father’s. When she’d run out of breath, he observed lightly, “It sounds as if you’ve been trying to please everyone and not doing a very good job of pleasing yourself.”

“Mothers don’t have that luxury.”

“Andie strikes me a sensible girl. She’ll come around.”

“What makes you so sure?”

He smiled. “Call it an educated guess.”

“How do I know she won’t be better off with her father?”

“You don’t really believe that.”

“I’m not even sure I’ll be employed.”

Aubrey brought a hand to her face, his fingertips like soft leaves brushing over her cheek. “I could find you one at double the salary just by picking up the phone.”

She sat up, fixing him with a stern look. “It’s not your job to fix my life.”

He shook his head, chuckling softly. “Believe me, I wouldn’t dare. You’d shoot any man who tried.”

What am I trying to prove?
Gerry wondered. That she didn’t need a man in her life? That she wasn’t in love with Aubrey? Did she think that if she said it enough times, in enough ways, it would become true?

She looked at his long legs stretched out on the blanket. He still had on the expensive calfskin loafers, now filmed with dust, that he’d worn with his suit. It seemed the perfect metaphor for Aubrey himself: a man living in two worlds who didn’t fully belong in either one.

She lifted her glass. “Here’s to friendship … and great sex. Not necessarily in that order.”

“Ah, a woman after my own heart.” He touched his glass to hers.

It was the kind of banter she’d once found sexy and at the same time safe—for it kept her from having to do more than skim the surface. But now she found herself hating it, while at the same time feeling helpless to change course.

Maybe it was for that reason, or maybe just the wine, but she blurted, “I’m sure you’ve known your share of the other kind—women who thought it their Christian duty to jump in and rescue you from the burning pyre.” She saw his expression darken, and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, Aubrey, I’m sorry. It just slipped out.”

“It’s all right.
Not
talking about her doesn’t make it any easier.” He placed a hand over hers. “I know you felt bad about what happened at the wedding, but the truth is, I rather think Isabelle would have liked her music being played on such a happy occasion.”

Gerry felt something flit over her heart. “She sounds like someone I would have liked.”

“Oh, she had her faults.” Usually, when speaking of his wife he appeared remote, as if in a place she had no way of reaching. But now he seemed to want to tell her about Isabelle.

“Such as?” Gerry was suddenly curious.

“She could be a prima donna at times.”

Gerry wondered if he saw her as just the opposite: steady and dependable. Good for a laugh and to service his sexual needs. “I suppose it goes with the territory.” Isabelle had been celebrated in her own right, after all.

“She was a bit of a hypochondriac as well. Always running to the doctor for one thing or another.” His voice was tender and he smiled at the irony of it—Isabelle couldn’t have known that what was in store for her would be far worse than any of the ailments she’d imagined.

She studied his strong Gallic profile. In the light filtering through the branches overhead, she could see darker strands amid the silver hair that fell over his collar. He looked relaxed and happy. As if he’d at last made peace with his wife’s death—or perhaps with the fact that such peace was unattainable.

Gerry felt relaxed as well. On this day when it had seemed nothing could go right, suddenly she could find no wrong. When he leaned close and touched his lips to hers, she tasted the wine on his breath, sweet and tantalizing. It had been a while since they’d made love, and with a teasing laugh, she wound her arms around his neck and rolled onto her back, pulling him with her.

It was crazy, she knew; someone might see them—once with Mike, on a hike, when they’d been fooling around in the woods, a young woman had come bursting into the clearing—but right now she didn’t care. The threat of discovery only made it more thrilling.

She took off her blouse. She was glad she was wearing her best lace bra and not one held together with a safety pin. (Not that Aubrey would have minded—he claimed to like her even in her rattiest old underwear.) She shivered as he removed it and traced each nipple with the tip of his tongue. Softly, oh so softly. Setting off an avalanche of sensation. She offered no protest when he reached under her skirt and pulled her panties down over her ankles, sending them sailing out where they snagged on a bush.

Aubrey slipped off his shoes and tossed his socks onto the bush alongside her panties. Moments later he was straddling her. His unbuttoned shirt caught the breeze, blowing out around him. She ran her fingers through the hair on his chest, which was dark and soft, like the pelt of some sleek, exotic animal.

He gazed down at her with a kind of reverence. “Christ, you’re beautiful. You have no idea.”

Aubrey bent down to cover her mouth with his. The sun was a molten glow behind her closed eyelids, and she had a sudden sense of falling upward. With a soft moan she lifted her legs, wrapping them about his hips, and felt him slide into her. This was how it had felt making babies, she thought in some distant, still-functioning part of her brain—an added dimension, a sense of something greater than just two people. Only with Aubrey there would be no babies. Perhaps no future, either.

Then she
was
falling. Spinning toward the sun like a planet cut loose from its orbit. She clutched hold of Aubrey, tightening her legs and burying her face in the crook of his neck as she cried out—a sharp cry, like someone in pain. Anyone looking on from afar might have mistaken it for a struggle, a woman fighting for her life, and they wouldn’t have been entirely wrong. For in the midst of her pleasure Gerry had the sense of something being wrenched from her against her will.

Then Aubrey was coming, too, teeth gritted and neck arched. She felt the warm pulse of his seed, and tilted her hips to keep it from escaping—not from any vestigial desire to be pregnant, but from some deep need to take as much of him into her as she could.

For the longest time afterward neither of them moved. Aubrey remained inside her, elbows propped on either side of her to keep from crushing her with his weight. They were both breathing hard. Then she became aware of something tickling her leg—an ant. Somehow they’d managed to work themselves off the blanket onto the grass. Aubrey rolled away, and helped her to her feet. She reached for her clothes, glancing about furtively.

“My God, what were we thinking?” she said.
“Anyone
could have come along.”

“What if they had?” Aubrey sauntered leisurely over to the bush to retrieve her panties and his socks.

She giggled at the sight of him bending over naked. “You look as if you’re hanging Christmas ornaments.” She giggled even harder at the image of her panties adorning the People’s Tree.

He tossed her the panties with a wicked grin. “At least we know who’s been naughty or nice.”

They dressed quickly, and she was careful to keep her eyes averted lest the sight of him bring on another onslaught of giggles—or another ill-advised tumble in the grass. She felt all of sixteen, though as a teenager she’d felt more certain of her destiny than she did now.

She sneaked a glance at Aubrey. Had his feelings toward her changed? At times she sensed that he was holding back, but maybe it was her own mixed feelings she’d seen reflected in his eyes.

Now she sank back down on the blanket, light-headed, her heart pounding in shallow thuds. This definitely wasn’t what she’d signed up for.

Aubrey must have sensed the shift in mood, for all at once he seemed to withdraw into himself. In silence, they packed up the hamper and shook out the blanket. This time her eyes were averted for a different reason: She didn’t want him to see what was written there.

They were in his car, bumping along the road, when he said casually, “I suppose I should have told you before, but I didn’t want it to spoil our afternoon—I’ve been offered a guest conductorship in Brussels.”

All at once she couldn’t quite catch her breath. “Really? For how long?”

“Six months, maybe a year.”

“It sounds as if you’ve decided to accept it.”

“That’s why Gregory and I were having lunch. He wanted to fill me in on all the details.”

“What about Isla Verde?” She maintained a light, even tone.

“I’ll keep it until my lease runs out.”

“Justin won’t be happy when I tell him.”

“You won’t have to. I’ll tell him myself.” Aubrey looked sad.

Gerry was glad for her sunglasses—he wouldn’t see the tears in her eyes. She reminded herself that love had never been part of the deal. If Aubrey had the good sense to pull out before they got in over their heads, the least she could do was go along.

She gazed out the window at the neat rows of vines lined up like sentences on a page, a page out of a story she suddenly didn’t want to end.
It’s good that he’s going,
she told herself firmly. For even if she could put aside her own fears, there would always, always be Isabelle tugging him in another direction, filling his head with the sound of her music.

“Don’t forget,” she said, “you promised to teach him how to throw a curve ball.”

“He has his father for that.”

She gave a snort of derision. “The only sports Mike knows are golf and fishing. Last year he gave Justin a set of clubs for his birthday. There was just one problem—they were right-handed and Justin’s a lefty.”

Aubrey grimaced. “Poor kid.”

She wondered if he was thinking of the child he’d never know—a longing she was all too familiar with, and one that made her feel close to him even as he pulled away.

“When will you be leaving?” she asked.

“Not until the end of the month.”

But from the look on his face she saw that he was gone already—lost to her in a way that was all the sadder because she’d never really had him to begin with. Her heart cracked, and feelings she hadn’t even known were there came spilling out. All her big talk of wanting to be on her own felt like just that: talk.

“I’ll miss you,” she said.

“Me, too.” The words came out tight and clipped.

“You’ll keep in touch?”

“Of course.”

“A year’s a long time. I’m sure we’ll be seeing other people.” She tried not to think about what they’d been doing just minutes before.

He shot her a glance that told her this wasn’t a decision that had been made lightly. “Just so you know, there’s no one else. That’s not why I’m leaving.”

She knew the real reason—Isabelle.

“I didn’t think that,” she said.