Page 78 of Second Dance
Grace grinned and darted toward the house where Annie waited on the porch. Delphine appeared behind her daughter, elegant in a crisp sheath dress despite the early hour. She walked to the car, leaning down to my window.
“I'm looking forward to hearing about this secret adventure when you return,” she said, her eyes flicking between us with barely concealed amusement.
“Thanks again for taking Grace for me,” I said.
“No thanks needed.” She looked over at Alex. “Esme’s picking them up later to take them to the beach. I’m off to work.”
I hugged her and then got back into Alex’s car, waving as we rolled down the driveway. Knowing that Grace was safe with Delphine—and Bella and Peter with Sonya—we drove out of town and onto the coastal highway toward San Francisco.
The road unspooled like ribbon—azure ocean to gold hills, gold hills to more gold. Alex put on a playlist of love songs, and his hand found mine on the console between us, fingers threading through mine with the easy familiarity of someone who’d done it a thousand times before. His thumb traced lazy circles on my palm, and I found it hard to focus on anything but that simple touch.
“Do you remember that concert we saw in Central Park?” Alex asked, glancing over at me. “Who played? I can’t remember a thing about the music. Only you in that sundress.”
“Eli Winters,” I said, my voice softer than I intended. “So romantic. Except for the mosquito bites.”
“Yes, that’s right.” He laughed, squeezing my hand. “But I don’t remember mosquitoes.”
“That’s because they never bit you.”
His eyes stayed on me a beat longer than necessary before returning to the road, and the intensity in that look made warmth bloom in my chest.
We crested a hill, and the world became vines—row after row catching sunlight, the geometry of it soothing. I pressed my free hand to the glass. “Wine country.”
“Is it okay?” Alex asked.
“I can’t think of anything better. In fact, I had a feeling this might be where we were headed.”
We left the main road for a narrow valley lane, shouldered by old oaks and bay laurel. The asphalt turned to packed gravel. A cattle guard clanged under the tires and the smell shifted todust, warm grass, and wild fennel crushed somewhere along the fence line. Up ahead, two low, dry-stacked stone pillars framed a wrought-iron gate. Beyond it, the drive climbed toward a stone-and-stucco ranch house with a terracotta roof, tucked into the hill.
“Oh, how pretty,” I said.
“This is a winery owned by some friends of mine. They’ve promised us lunch.” Alex leaned forward slightly, his hands tightening around the steering wheel. “They were friends of Mattie’s, then became part of a small business grant we did five years ago. They transformed this place.”
“I’m excited,” I said, even though my stomach fluttered with nerves at the thought of meeting Mattie’s friends. What would they think about Alex moving on with another woman?
He must have sensed my tension because he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “They’re going to love you.”
The driveway curved past olive trees and a kitchen garden with tomato vines tangled on twine, and marigolds dotting the green. Then a courtyard opened to sun-bleached flagstone, a bocce court under live oaks, and a waterfall that spilled into a shallow stone trough.
When we got out of the car, a yellow dog trotted over, tail wagging lazy friendliness. A middle-aged couple waited on the terrace, sun-browned and dressed in casual linen shirts. The woman strode toward us, grabbing Alex into a hug. “Alex, it’s so good to see you.” She held him at arm’s length, assessing him. “You look good.” Her silver bob framed a round face, etched with lines around her mouth. She turned to me. “You must be Gillian. Welcome. We’re glad to meet you.” Her hand was cool and dry in mine. “I’m Marisol. This is my husband, Leo.”
Leo had a mop of thick black hair—greying at the temples—and skin weathered from what I assumed was outside work inhis vines. His light blue eyes seemed to take me in as he held out a hand for me to shake. “You interested in looking at our vines?”
“For sure,” I said.
We followed Leo and Marisol out to the vines, laden with clusters of grapes. Alex’s hand settled at the small of my back as we walked, and I found myself leaning into the touch. The end posts were stenciled with block names. Olive-green netting hung rolled and ready for harvest. Stepping into the rows, the temperature seemed cooler near the soil.
Leo encouraged us to pinch a grape from a cluster and let it pop between our teeth—tiny, hard and tart. More herbal than sweet.
Alex plucked one and held it out to me. When I leaned in to take it with my teeth, his thumb brushed my lower lip, sending a shiver through me despite the warm sun.
“They’re months away from harvest,” Leo said. “We’re hoping for a good summer.”
“What’s a good summer typically?” I asked, trying to focus on the conversation and not on the way Alex was looking at me. “For the grapes, I mean.”
Squinting into the sunlight, Leo pulled a cap from his back pocket and brought it down low over his forehead. “Warm days, cool nights. That’s the short version. Eighties in the day, fifties at night, keeps the acid bright while the sugars climb. We hope for morning fog that burns off by coffee time. A couple of short heat spikes are fine, but weeks over a hundred cook the acid out and raisin the fruit. We like steady, even ripening—veraison late July into August, then slow and patient hanging time so flavor and tannin catch up.”
Marisol added, “And dry at the end. No rain on the fruit in September, please God. A breeze to keep mildew down, not too much humidity, and no smoke in the air.”
