Vintage Ladybug Farm (32 page)

“I looked it up online,” Lori informed Noah, cutting herself a generous slice. “And did you know there’s a company that will print any picture you want onto a slab of sugar? So that’s what we did. Of course, I wouldn’t actually eat it if I were you. It shipped all the way from Ohio, and who knows what they did to get those colors.”

“Pretty cool,” Noah said, digging into his own slice of cake. “Tastes like Ida Mae’s cake.”

“It is. She just put the sugar thing on top.” She looked at him in assessment. “So. No offense or anything, but you know you’re crazy, right? College is the best deal anybody ever came up with for kids. Four years of hanging out and living on your own while somebody else pays the bills, and really, all you have to do to stay ahead of the crowd is do what the professors tell you to do, because nobody else does. And for somebody like you, going to art school—on a scholarship no less—it’s just crazy. Do you know how hot the art majors are?
I
couldn’t even hang out with them; that’s how hot.” She gave a small sad shake of her head. “You turned down the chance of a lifetime, if you ask me. What got into you, anyway?”

He didn’t even get mad, as he most certainly would have a year ago. “You just got to know where you fit, is all,” he replied. “I’m not saying I won’t ever go to college. The fact is, I’d like to, when I get out. But if I went right now, I’d spend the whole time wondering what else I was missing out on, and what good is that? If you’re not where you’re supposed to be, you’re nowhere, right? Good cake,” he added, setting down his plate as he spotted someone waving to him across the room. “Thanks for the sugar thing.”

“Yeah,” mumbled Lori as he left. “Sure.” But she felt uneasy and confused, as though the eighteen-year-old kid she’d taken such pleasure in tormenting for the past four years had somehow outsmarted her. She was glad when Dominic caught her eye from behind the makeshift bar and waved her over. She left her cake behind.

“Do you know,” she said when she arrived, “Aunt Bridget really needs to put a real bar in this corner, instead of a table covered with fabric. After all, it’s a wine tasting restaurant, right? People should be able to sit at the bar and have a glass of wine.”

“We’re way ahead of you, sweetie,” Lindsay said. “Your mom is going to start building it next week.”

“Fortunately, this is a fairly temperate crowd,” Dominic said, “because we’re running low on the ‘good stuff,’ as you call it. Here, chérie, I want you to taste this.” As he spoke, he poured a measure of red wine from a decanter into a tasting glass and handed it to her.

“What about me?” Lindsay objected.

He held up a finger, smiling. “Patience, love. First sip goes to the wine maker.”

Lori’s eyes went wide. “You did a thieving?” she accused. “Without me?”

“Thieving?” Lindsay repeated, looking alarmed.

“It’s where we draw off a little wine from the barrels to taste,” Dominic explained. “You can tell a lot about a wine in the laboratory, but the only way to really know what you have is to taste it. And so?” He nodded to Lori. “What do you taste?”

Lori inhaled the bouquet, considered it, and took a slow and thoughtful sip. “Vanilla,” she said, surprised. “And bite of pepper.”

Lindsay reached for the decanter. “Let me taste.”

“Wait.” Lori tasted again. “Is that apples?”

Dominic smiled at her, his eyes sparking with pride. “Excellent. I knew you’d spot it.”

“A little sugary,” she commented.

“That will fade with maturity.”

“Kind of raw.”

“It’s summer wine. Unfinished.”

Lindsay took a sip and looked at them both in surprise. “This is our wine? It’s good.” She tasted again. “I would pay money for this.”

Dominic said, “Not yet, you won’t. But give it some time and you could be paying a great deal of money for it.”

Lori held the glass up to the light, examining it. “It’s so much more complex than I expected. And it’s still young.” And she looked at him, puzzled. “It doesn’t taste anything like Blackwell Farms wine.”

“Of course not,” Dominic said. “In my estimation, it has the potential to be even better.”

Lindsay looked at him, surprised and delighted, and Lori frowned. “But I don’t understand. The wine we sampled didn’t have any of these flavors. We did everything just the way we were supposed to, and we should’ve gotten wine that tasted like I expected it to. How did this happen?”

Dominic said, “Wine is a living thing, chérie, and full of surprises. The oxygenation, the oak chips, the stirring and the pump-overs—all of these things change the chemistry, of course. But in the end it all comes down to alchemy. Which is, like so many of life’s greatest gifts, a lovely mystery.” As he spoke, his hand came to rest easily and naturally on Lindsay’s waist, caressing it lightly, and she smiled into his eyes.

Lori, preoccupied with analyzing another sip of the wine, didn’t notice.

“And so, my young vigneron,” Dominic said to her, “what shall we do with your first vintage? Bottle it, or hold it in reserve?”

Lori’s eyes flew wide with surprise. “
My
vintage? But you’re the one who … All I did was …”

“You chose the crush,” Dominic reminded her. “You chose the barrels. You tested for bacteria. You monitored the alcohol levels. You watched the temperature. You stirred down the CO2 … You made the wine.”

“But …” She caught her breath on a note of wonder, and the protest faded from her eyes as she looked back at the glass of wine in her hand. She held it up to the light again and regarded it as though it held the elixir of magic. “I made this,” she said. Her voice was soft with amazement and then bubbling with pride and excitement as she repeated, “I
made
this.”

She turned back to Dominic, eyes bright and clear, and gave a decisive nod. “Bottle half of it,” she said. “In three months it’ll be completely drinkable, and we need the sales. Hold the rest in reserve until we get the first crush of Ladybug Farm grapes. I really want to see how this wine grows up.” And she moved off, sipping her wine, looking extremely pleased with herself.

Dominic watched her go, chuckling softly. “So do I,” he confessed and gave Lindsay’s waist an affectionate squeeze.

Lindsay smiled into her glass. “This wine is good,” she said. “But you’re the one who’s responsible for it, not Lori. That was nice of you.”

He replied, “A winemaker never forgets his first vintage, and she worked hard for this one. I wanted it to be special for her.”

“And if it hadn’t turned out so well, would you still have let her take credit?”

“Of course not.”

She looked up at him, her eyes filled with gentle adoration. “You are the most extraordinary man,” she said. “I really should marry you.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled as he looked down at her. “Don’t tease me, love. I just might say yes.”

Lindsay was suddenly breathless. She said, slowly, just coming to the realization herself, “I don’t think I’m teasing.”

The humor left his eyes in stages and was replaced by a question, quick, hesitant, intensely searching. Her heart beat hard and fast. She watched his face. She didn’t breathe.

He said softly, “Is that a proposal?”

She nodded, her throat so dry that she couldn’t form the words.

The expression on his face was soft with amazement and cautious disbelief, still hesitant. “Are you sure?”

Again, she could only nod, although now her heartbeat began to slow with a quiet, gentle certainty, and a wonderful warmth spread throughout her veins. Better than wine. Sweeter than sunshine. She’d never been more sure of anything in her life.

There was wonder in his eyes and deep, quiet joy. “This is a little sudden.”

“I know. Please say yes.”

“Not something we should probably leap into.”

“I know. Say yes anyway.”

He lifted his hand and brushed her hair. He smiled. “Okay, then,” he said huskily. “Yes.”

~*~

“Look at them.” Cici smiled indulgently at the couple in the corner near the door, standing close together but not too close, holding hands, heads bent urgently toward each other, gazing at each other as though they were the only two people in the room. “She’s saying she’ll love him forever.”

“And he’s begging her to wait for him,” Bridget added, smiling.

“And she’s saying until the end of the earth,” said Derrick.

“And he’s saying he’ll never forget her, not ever,” said Paul.

Cici sighed as Noah and Amy, arms around each other’s waists, left the building. “In three months time, they won’t even be writing to each other.”

“By the time he gets back, she’ll be engaged to someone else,” said Bridget.

“And he will have forgotten her name,” said Paul.

“Ah, young love.” Derrick gave the departing couple a wistful salute with his wine glass. “As sweet as summer wine and just as mercurial.”

“Thank heaven that’s all behind us, huh?” said Cici, and they all smiled an agreement that was tinged with only the slightest bit of reminiscent regret.

“Nothing is certain but that everything changes,” murmured Paul.

“Who said that?”

“Someone important, I’m sure.”

Bridget said, “Speaking of which, big changes for you guys, huh? Do you know anything at all about running a B&B?”

“Of course not, darling,” Derrick replied happily. “That’s the adventure in it.”

“Haven’t you had enough adventure for one year?” Cici looked amused.

“Haven’t you?” Paul returned, and she laughed.

“Just don’t try to rebuild anything,” she cautioned.

“And be sure to have the building inspector out
before
you close the deal,” added Bridget.

“Not an issue,” Derrick assured her with an airy wave of his hand. “We’ve learned our lesson.”

“The real dilemma,” said Paul, “is what color draperies to hang in the front room.”

“I say no draperies at all,” added Derrick, “but plantation shutters.”

“That has possibilities,” agreed Paul. “We’re doing a complete repaint, inside and out,” he added.

“Well, maybe not out,” put in Derrick. “I’ve grown rather fond of the kitschy doors.”

Paul grinned. “They are a showstopper, aren’t they?”

“And we’re renaming the place, of course. The sign just came in this morning.”

“Oh?” Bridget said. “What are you—”

But just then the music stopped and someone tapped a spoon loudly on a glass. They all turned toward the sound.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the booming voice of Reverend Holland filled the room. “I’ve just been informed that our guest of honor will be departing to meet his destiny in less than fifteen minutes. Let’s all go out and see him off, shall we?”

In fact, Noah had more than an hour before he had to leave, but Lindsay had known that it would take at least forty-five minutes for the party to wind down, and she was right. Amy was the last to leave, and Noah spent a long time standing morosely in the drive looking after her before he went to collect his things.

Noah had refused to allow the ladies to accompany him to Charlottesville, and though they were hurt by this at first, it didn’t take much thought to understand why he preferred to say good-bye in private. So when Dominic brought his truck around, the women all gathered in the front yard, even Ida Mae, to say good-bye. Noah looked embarrassed when he came down the steps with his duffel bag and saw them all, and he quickly ducked down to pet Rebel, who charged out from under the porch to bark and snarl and nip at his ankles.

“You good old dog,” he said, scratching the border collie behind the ears. “You good old dog.”

Rebel tolerated the affection for only a minute, then dashed off in search of something to chase. Noah let him go and stood up, dusting off his hands on his jeans. “Well,” he said. “I guess this is it.”

Cici smiled at him. “I guess it is.”

His eyes flickered from one to the other of them: Cici, Bridget, Lori, Ida Mae, and finally Lindsay, but he couldn’t look long at her because he could see how wet her eyes were, even though she was smiling.

He said, “I put the car up on blocks in the barn and covered it with a tarp. I don’t think it’ll be in your way.”

“I’m sure it won’t.” It was Cici who said that.

“Thank y’all for the party.” He cleared his throat. “What I mean is … well, thank you.”

Cici stepped forward quickly and hugged him hard. “Noah,” she said in a tight, strained voice “your fingerprints are on every inch of this place. It won’t be the same without you. You know you’ll always belong here, don’t you?”

He managed to nod, but he couldn’t say anything just then.

Bridget was next, hugging him tight and whispering, “You come back to us, you hear?”

He said, somehow, “Yes, ma’am.”

He was surprised when Lori stepped forward and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “They have video chat for military families now,” she told him. “You can call us.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, and that made him grin. “I can.”