Love in the Vineyard (The Tavonesi Series Book 7) (10 page)

But she’d never regret that night. Not in a million years. She would’ve endured far more if she’d known it would bring her the gift of her baby. Her boy. Tyler was everything good about the world. He’d renewed her will to live. Strange how out of horror could come its antidote.

She pulled the lettuce she’d brought home from her job from the tiny fridge and began to tear the leaves into the plastic salad bowl she’d bought at the thrift store in town. Green and tender, the leaves smelled like spring. Sometimes she imagined that spring smelled like hope. Or promise. And she didn’t trust either one.

Two days later, Natasha was fluffing the soil in one of the side garden beds nearest the kitchen of the main house at Casa del Sole when her cellphone rang. With a quick swipe, she brushed the dirt from her hands and answered.

It wasn’t Tyler.

“How does a hike at nine thirty on Saturday sound?”

Adrian
.

“This Saturday?” She leaned against the redwood seat topping the grow box and toyed with the handle of her spade. She’d practiced telling Adrian no in front of her mirror that morning.

“Unless there’s another Saturday between now and then,” he said in a jovial tone. “We can go up Mount Saint Helena. You can see for miles from the top.”

God, she loved the sound of his voice. His Italian accent made English sound like a whole new language. But the timbre of his velvet-rich tones touched places in her that it shouldn’t.

“Or how about today?” he asked, surprising her.

“I’m working.”

Evidently he wasn’t. He probably didn’t have a job. He probably spent his time moving money around and watching his bank account grow. Or did rich people have people who did that for them too?

“So am I,” he said. “But I’d change my plans.”

“I can’t do that.”

“So we’re back to nine thirty on Saturday. I’ll pick you up. That is, if you’re up for a hike.”

She caved in to the part of her that wanted to see him again. The possibly not-so-smart part of her. And she’d like to see this new place she lived from a bird’s-eye view.

“Let’s meet at the same café.”

“We’re keeping to your rules, are we?” he said in a teasing tone.

“Yes.”

She heard a noise in the background. It sounded like geese calling to one another—the sound they made communicating when flying. No matter what she was doing, when geese flew overhead, she’d stop and admire them. It had become her new Sonoma ritual.

“Your choice. See you at nine thirty Saturday,” he said over the squawking. “Wear hiking shoes. We’re going to the top. Ciao.”

She muttered goodbye.

She shoved the phone back into her pocket. She didn’t own hiking shoes—she’d never been on a hike in her life. She turned the spade in her hand, digging idly. So much for her intention to tell Adrian she wasn’t going up Mount Saint Helena with him. Or anywhere else.

A loud honking had her looking up as a formation of geese flew over her head. Apparently there were a lot of the birds in Sonoma. She saluted them and went back to planting the jalapeño seeds that would spice up the midsummer meals at Casa del Sole.

Chapter Seven

SHE SHOULD’VE CANCELED THE DATE. BUT after dropping Tyler off at the school for an all-day field trip, Natasha couldn’t come up with a single excuse for not going to Mount Saint Helena and enjoying the spring-kissed day. At least not one she was going to let stop her.

Adrian met her at the café as planned. On the drive from the café to the park, he told her that she’d inspired him to try planting a pollinator garden, that he’d always wanted to plant natives that would draw bees and butterflies. A cousin of his had tried it with great success, he reported. He hesitated and then shook his head and she knew he’d edited his comment. He hadn’t mentioned where his cousin’s garden was located. In the gap of time and words, her chest tightened. The rules she’d hoped would ease her way suddenly began to close in around her. She wished she didn’t need to rely on deception in order to feel safe. Deception might serve her, but it also hindered. Her nerves flared and she nattered on about regional natives—Dutchman’s pipes, salvias, penstemons and her favorite, monkey flower. As she fought back the urge to tell him about her job, about her garden at the Casa, her mind went blank.

Filling the awkward silence, he started talking about books that he liked. And he asked plenty of questions about the stories they discussed. Some she could answer, most she couldn’t. She’d listened to audiobooks, but she was more up to date on films. So she managed to steer the conversation to movies. Their exchange began to flow more easily, and like waves lapping up against a shore, the rhythmic energy pulled her forward, luring her past her long-held defenses. To her delight, she discovered that he was a
Star Wars
fan.

“I always loved Yoda,” Adrian said with a playful wink. “In another life I’d like for him to adopt me.” He reached into his glove compartment and handed her a map. “How much farther to the turnoff?”

Natasha squinted at the map and wished that the Jeep he’d picked her up in had GPS. He’d forgotten about her saying she needed glasses. Just as well.

“Maybe five or six more miles,” she said, wishing she weren’t winging it.

They hadn’t traveled half a mile before the huge sign for the state park appeared.

“Our lucky day—it’s closer than it looked,” Adrian said as he turned into the parking lot.

Natasha fumbled with the seat belt but couldn’t release it and jump out in time to prevent Adrian from coming around to open the car door.

Maybe she wanted him to help her. Maybe her hands read a subconscious message and fumbled on purpose. Her mind might be obeying her cautions, but her body wanted contact. But when his fingers closed around hers, the contact revved up more than sexual impulses—his touch sent longing flooding through her in a slow, deliberate path.

She’d never allowed herself the luxury of longing. At least not for anything other than a perfect childhood for Tyler. Longing frightened her, set her off course. And desire? That was
definitely
off-course territory. So what the heck was she doing in a state park with Adrian?

He held her hand for longer than he needed to once he’d helped her from the Jeep. When he released her hand, the corner of his mouth turned up in a sexy, irresistible grin.

He brushed his arm across her shoulder as he reached in for the plastic tote bag she’d brought.

“You don’t want to carry this bulky thing up the trail,” he said, handing the bag to her. “The guidebook says it’s a moderately strenuous hike.”

He hauled a high-tech backpack from the back seat, unzipped it and motioned to the tote bag she clutched. “You can put anything you need for the hike in my pack.”

He eyed her attire. And she could’ve sworn she felt heat touch her as if he were brushing warmth along her body with his gaze.

“Do you have a jacket in there?” His grin faded and he looked all serious backwoods hiker. “It’s not the Alps, but I’m told the weather can change rapidly on this mountain, especially near the top.”

The balmy spring temperatures they’d had earlier in the week had dropped ten degrees. Not cold by East Coast standards, but there was a definite chill in the air. She reached into the tote bag and retrieved the windbreaker she’d bought at the thrift shop the day before. Down in the valley, the cotton T-shirt, shorts and zippered hoodie had seemed warm enough. Now she was glad she’d spent the five bucks on the windbreaker. She rolled up the jacket and handed it to him.

He stuffed her jacket into the pack along with water bottles and some granola bars, and then he pulled a guidebook out of the front zippered pocket. “I’ll have a look at our route while you change your shoes.”

“I’m wearing these.”

She’d bought the designer brand tennis shoes when she got the windbreaker. They were a bit snug, but none of the other shoes in the thrift store fit at all. She could’ve worn her work boots, but they were too heavy for walking.

“Let me see the bottoms.”

She turned the sole of one foot up to face him.

“Those could be slippery. There could be hardscrabble on the trails.”

“Scrabble?” She stifled a giggle at the absurd image of people setting up game boards in the woods. Clearly her nerves were getting away with her, as was her imagination. “Do you mean scree?”

“If that means loose rocks, then yes.” He pressed his lips together. “Maybe we should just go back and take the short path at Meadow Wood. I’ve been on it; it’s flat and manicured.”

“I’m not a sissy.”

He laughed. “I wasn’t implying you are. But I do apologize—I realize that perhaps I didn’t prepare you sufficiently for this outing.”

Sometimes his formal English made her smile inwardly. And his accent made the simplest of sentences sound intriguing. But it was the deep gazes he held her with that sent shivers into her core. He couldn’t have sufficiently prepared her for this outing if he’d wanted to.

“I should’ve told you it’s a bit over four miles.”

“Four miles isn’t so far.” She walked two miles on the weekends around the local park.

“Four miles one way. The elevation gain is only six hundred meters, but there are some pretty steep switchbacks.”

Now he
was
speaking a foreign language. Switchbacks and elevation gain? She tried to remember how many meters there were in a mile.

“We can always go a short way and turn around,” he said gently.

He seemed to be able to read her thoughts. Or her face perhaps.

“I’ll be
fine
. It’s not like we need pickaxes or anything.”

“I’m hoping not.” But his grin didn’t reach his eyes. He was still surveying her tennis shoes.

When she didn’t say anything else, he shrugged and slung the pack onto his back.

She was in the woods with a man. And she was one hundred percent out of her element. She sucked in a breath, inhaling the aroma of the forest of evergreens stretching a shady canopy over their heads. A knot of tension that had clenched around her ribs loosened as they walked in the dappled light to the trailhead.

They stopped in front of a sign with park information. He traced a finger along the bright red ribbon of color marking the trail.

“If we make it to the top, we’ll see Mount Tamalpais to the south and Mount Diablo to the east. It’s clear enough today, so we might even see the Sierra Crest and Mount Lassen. I’ve heard people say you occasionally can see Mount Shasta almost two hundred miles to the north.”

She heard the anticipation in his voice and vowed she’d make it to the top; she wasn’t about to be the reason he didn’t get to accomplish what he’d set out to do. And she’d never seen such a perspective. She’d come across the country on a bus. If she’d flown she might’ve had a better sense of the terrain, but back in those days flying wasn’t in her budget. Wasn’t now either. But she imagined taking Tyler on a plane. He’d love it. She resolved to save money from her new job and treat him to one of the local plane tours for his birthday.

Next to the map, a dense block of text surrounded a photo of Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife. The couple had that old-fashioned stern look that early photographs always seemed to capture.

Adrian consulted a pocket-sized guidebook he’d pulled from his pack. “It says here that in the 1880s, Stevenson and his wife spent their honeymoon at an abandoned bunkhouse of an old mining camp. It’s gone now, but there’s a marker farther up the trail.” He turned to her. “I’ve read some of his accounts of that time. Imagine living for two months with makeshift cloth windows and having to haul water in by hand.”

“It sounds romantic,” she said, wishing that she could put aside her troubles and spend a lazy few days in such a quiet, remote setting. And she shocked herself when she realized that she’d imagined Adrian into her fantasy.

“Do you like his work?” he asked as they started along the trail.

His question snapped her attention back from her daydream. “Pardon me?”

“Stevenson’s work—do you like it?
A Child’s Garden of Verses
? My mother used to read his stories to me and my siblings when we were young.”

She’d never read anything by Stevenson. And she sure couldn’t remember anything her mother had read to her except for
The Cat in the Hat
. And forget her foster parents. The only things they’d read regularly were lottery tickets.

“No, I’m not familiar with his stories.” She felt a pang of guilt that she’d never been able to read stories to Tyler. Except for the really simple ones.

“It is not so much for its beauty that the forest makes a claim upon men’s hearts, as for that subtle something, that quality of air that emanation from old trees, that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit.

“We must accept life for what it actually is—a challenge to our quality without which we should never know of what stuff we are made, or grow to our full stature.”

“You remember all that?”

“Had to. If we didn’t memorize one poem or a set of famous quotations each month, we weren’t allowed to go to Rome to—” He broke off. “I almost forgot the rules. Let’s just say we weren’t allowed treats that were important to us.” He gazed into the distance as if trying to pull back the memories. “I always wanted my mother to read the tales of scalawags and pirates or the
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
, but those made my sisters cry.” He laughed. “They wanted stories about princesses. I don’t remember how my mother reached a compromise.”