Once Upon a Wine (6 page)

“I have to go to California.” The reality started to sink in as she said the words.

“You don't
have
to go to California.” He pulled her closer against his chest.

She went still for a moment, thinking about that.
What if he's right? What if I stay here?

“What kind of restaurant do you want to open?” he asked, breaking the silence.

This was one of things she liked best about him: He was always interested in what she had to say, even when she had her shirt off.

“I'm not sure.” She shifted, rested her cheek against his warm bare skin. “In my mind, it's a fancy, upscale lounge. Like a really fancy bar. By the beach, maybe.”

“That's really what you want to do?”

“Yeah. It's what I'm going to do.” She pressed her lips over the steady thud of his heartbeat.

“But why do you want to?”

She lifted her face. “What do you mean?”

“Why do you want to open a restaurant?” He rested his hand on her lower back. “You could do anything you want.”

Cammie hesitated for a moment before confessing the truth. “My mom always wanted to open a restaurant. She was a great cook; she would try anything. And she loved entertaining. She always said when my dad stopped traveling for work so much and I started high school, she'd open a little café.”

“But she didn't?” Ian asked.

Cammie sighed. “She died when I was in sixth grade.”

He didn't say anything, just held her close.

“Breast cancer,” Cammie said, as if this told the whole story. She supposed that in a way, it did. “When she died, she left me a trust fund. I gained access to it when I turned twenty-one. I can't cook the way she did, but I love that feeling of getting people together. Dressing up. Escaping from reality a little bit. She and I were alike that way. That, and we have the same middle name.”

Ian rubbed her bare skin, sending a delicious shiver through her. “What's your middle name?”

Cammie blew out a breath. “It's weird.”

He waited.

“Really weird. It's a family thing.”

“You get that the longer you put this off, the more I want to know?”

She turned her head so she didn't have to see his expression when she confessed, “It's October.”

“Like the month?”

“Like the month,” she confirmed. “That was my grandmother's middle name, too.”

He let this sink in for a moment. “Were you born in October?”

Cammie laughed. “No. January twenty-ninth.”

He laughed, too. “Hang on. You're initials are COB?”

“Yeah.”

“And you don't like corn?”

“Oh, the irony.” They laughed and kissed and laughed some more.

Finally, Ian pulled away. “You know, there are a lot of restaurants in Delaware. Graduate schools, too. You could do everything you want to do right here. Less risk of failure than in California.”

“I'm not scared of failure. I told you—I've got this.”

“Then stay here because I want you to.” He hauled her up
across his chest. Her hair fell down across her face, blocking them both from the glow of the moon.

“You make a good case.” But her tone was apologetic, reluctant.

“Stay,” he urged her, pulling her closer against him.

She shivered as a cool breeze blew across her damp skin. “I can't.”

“Why not?” He loosened his arms around her. “We can do whatever we want.”

As he relaxed, she tensed. “Then come to California with me.”

“I can't move to California.” He said this without even a hint of hesitation.

“Why not?” she challenged. “You expect me to move across the country for you, but you wouldn't move across the country for me?”

“You wouldn't be moving across the country; you already live here.”

“I don't live here. I spend the summer here in a rental house. Big difference.”

“You could live here.” He squeezed her hand in his. “You could move in with me. We could walk the fields every day.”

He made it sound so easy. So tempting.

“It's not that simple.” She drew back so she could study his face in the starlight.

“It is that simple,” he insisted. “All you have to do is make up your mind.”

“But that's what I'm trying to say: Why do
I
have to be the one to make up my mind?”

He kissed her again. “My mind is already made up.”

“Then you take a chance. Come with me to California.”

“I can't.” His voice was so kind but so unyielding.

Cammie sat up and pulled on her shirt. “Because of the farm?”

“Yes.” Not a trace of regret or apology.

“The farm doesn't own you. You can leave if you want to.”

“No. I can't. I'm not hoping to start a business. My job is to keep
this business going.” He sat up, too, and she recognized her own stubborn determination in the set of his jaw, the fire in his eyes.

“What's the failure rate for farms?” she challenged.

“Doesn't matter; I'm already invested. And I don't want to leave.”

“So you're saying that I have to rearrange my life because you'll never rearrange yours? You and your farm will always come first?”

He hesitated for a long moment. “I want you, Cammie, but I can't leave.”

“Because a bunch of dirt and corn mean more to you than I do.”

“It's not just dirt. It's not just corn.” He looked around at the vast green acres around them. “All of this belonged to my grandparents and great-grandparents. It will belong to my children and grandchildren someday. It's part of me; I'm part of it.” He rested his hand in hers. “Stay here with me.”

He sounded so sure of himself. She tried to envision what he envisioned. “And do what? Be a farmer's wife?”

“Yeah.” He cupped her cheek in his palm and smiled that slow, heart-melting smile. “Be a farmer's wife.”

Cammie couldn't help herself. She started laughing. Ian surprised her by laughing, too.

“Come on,” he coaxed. “A straw hat, a pitchfork, some overalls . . .”

“You forgot the little piece of straw between my teeth.”

“Piece of straw?” He shook his head. “Go corncob pipe or go home.”

This was why it was impossible to dismiss his entreaty to stay as an adolescent fantasy. He was funny and playful and sexy and smart. He was everything she wanted in a man. Even at twenty-two, she knew that this kind of connection was rare.

But she'd have to give up everything she wanted for herself to be with him.

He saw her expression changing, and his changed, too. They
got dressed and he drove her home in silence. When they pulled up in front of the rental cottage, he gave her a slow, gentle, thorough kiss that she knew would have to last her forever.

Because August was all they had left.

•   •   •

The next afternoon, when she drove to the farm to count the rows with Ian, he led her to a corner of earth on the far end of the cornfield.

The land had been cleared and cordoned off. Where yesterday there had been burgeoning stalks of corn, there were now tiny green sprouts, so new that Cammie couldn't guess what they were going to be. She knelt down to examine the tender leaves with jagged edges and the tiny white flowers with yellow centers.

“Strawberries,” Ian said when she glanced up at him. “I know you like them better than corn.”

She did love strawberries—in pies, ice cream, cocktails, and fresh off the vine—but she hadn't realized he'd noticed. She should have known better. Ian noticed everything, even if he didn't remark on it.

“I planted them this morning.” He knelt down next to her in the freshly turned dirt. “I think I got the depth right. You can still see the crown here. Look.” He pointed out the section of the plant where the leaves and stems met the roots. “That's the sweet spot.”

Cammie reached out and brushed one of the green leaves with her finger. “So, now what?”

“Now we keep them alive.”

Over the next few weeks, Cammie watered and weeded the berry plants before she went to work. She chased away birds and covered the plants with long strips of burlap when ladybugs threatened. Every day she checked for signs of progress.

“When will the berries show up?” she asked Ian as August drew to a close.

“Next year.”

She blinked, confused. “What?”

“Right now, the plants have to put all their energy into growing.” He produced a small, sharp knife. “We'll prune the flowers this year.”

She threw herself between the blade and the berries. “But they're about to blossom!”

He rolled his eyes at her theatrics. “If we cut them now, the fruit will be better next year. The plants will spread and we'll have more. It's all about delayed gratification. We have to wait until next spring.”

She sighed. “But I won't be here in the spring.”

In the end, they compromised. Ian severed all the flowers on all the plants—except one. One plant was allowed to pursue its natural course, and at the end of the month, Cammie plucked a single red berry from the vine.

“Wow.” She offered the half-eaten fruit to Ian. “Taste this. Is it really this good, or do I just
think
it's this good because I've been working on it every day for a month?”

He tasted it, deliberating. “Does it matter?”

She decided it didn't and plucked another berry. “These can't possibly get any better.”

“Yeah, they can,” he promised. “Just wait.”

She hated to say these words because she knew it would ruin the moment. But she couldn't lie—not to him and not to herself. “I can't wait. I can't stay.”

“You can—but you won't.” He turned his whole body away from her.

“I have to go, Ian. I'll regret it for the rest of my life if I don't.” She waited for the tension in his back to soften, and when it didn't, she rested her palm next to his shoulder blade. “You can visit me. Call me. Wait for me.” Her voice was high and light, and she knew
that she shouldn't try to appease him like this. She shouldn't explain or apologize, but she couldn't seem to stop herself.

He finally shifted his body so he was facing her. “How long do you expect me to wait?”

She forced herself to take a deep, calming breath. “Two years, maybe three. We can take turns flying cross-country. I'll have Christmas and spring break and summers. Long-distance relationships can work.”

“Delaware to California is pretty damn far,” he said.

She desperately hoped he would say that she was worth the wait, that he'd never met anybody else like her. But he didn't. He stared at her with that cool, assessing look in his eyes.

So often when she'd dated boys in college, she'd wished she could find a guy who knew what he wanted. A guy with confidence and unwavering conviction. Now that she'd finally found that in Ian, it had backfired. He knew what he wanted most, and it wasn't her.

She forced herself to meet his gaze without speaking. No more cajoling. No more hopeful propositions for long-distance relationships. They'd met only two months ago. What did she really know about him, other than what he'd told her? What made her think that they could be happy if they stayed together?

She got to her feet and dusted the dirt off her hands. “You know what? Don't worry about it. This was just a summer fling, anyway.”

He followed her, took her hand. “Hey. This isn't just a fling.” He paused. “Not for me. I asked you to stay here forever and I meant it.”

She stared down at the rich, dark soil that kept him rooted forever to this life and this town.

“This is it.” His voice hardened as he let go of her hand. “Stay, Cammie. I'm not going to ask again.”

•   •   •

She hadn't stayed. She flew to California, and she didn't hear from Ian. She didn't contact him, either. She moved on with her life and assumed he'd moved on with his. But for years, she associated the smell and taste of strawberries with the summer they'd spent together. Every now and then, after a grueling night on the restaurant floor, she checked the weather blogs he'd recommended. Eventually she'd come to see their romance as sweet and poignant puppy love, a moment of her youth that could never be recaptured.

But now she was back in Black Dog Bay. And he was still here. The strawberries she'd been hulling brought back a flood of feelings.

While the sugar water cooled, Cammie found a lemon in the refrigerator, rolled it hard against the counter to make juicing easier, then squeezed the juice into a little glass dish. She added the strawberries, lemon juice, and grated lemon peel to the water.

“What are you doing?” came a sleepy voice from the doorway.

Cammie turned to find Kat, bleary-eyed and blinking against the overhead light.

“I'm making my mom's strawberry wine.” Cammie glanced at the big metal pot. “Trying to, anyway.”

“The strawberry wine they would never let us have?” Kat asked.

“Yeah.” Cammie frowned down at the faded handwriting on the recipe card, which she was viewing via her phone screen. “It says to mash the strawberries and lemon juice gently. How do you mash gently?”

“Step aside.” Ginger appeared next to Kat in the shadowed doorway. “Let an expert take over.”

Cammie obliged. Ginger muttered to herself while she rummaged through the kitchen drawers.

“Why are you up?” Kat asked.

“How could I sleep with you girls yelling and carrying on down here?” Ginger retorted.

“We were barely whispering,” Kat said.

Ginger harrumphed, and Cammie suspected that she wasn't the only one battling stress-induced insomnia. They were all freaking out but they refused to admit it. Everyone was putting on a good face, holding the line. And maybe that was the right thing to do. Maybe that would get them through to the grape harvest and beyond.