Page 60 of Cru's Crush
“What is?”
“When the time comes, I pray she clearly sees the right path.”
I looked behind me, making sure she was inside the plane. When I saw she was, I sat beside him. “What’s this about, Tryst? Are you thinking Daphne will want to be with Beau again? If you do, I can tell you that isn’t possible. First of all, she doesn’t want it. Second, he’s with Sam now. They’re engaged.”
Tryst closed his eyes and shook his head. “Not Beau.”
“You aren’t going to tell me anything else, are you?”
His gaze met mine. “I am not, Enzo.”
“What happened at the temple?”I asked Daphne an hour into our flight.
“Nothing, but everything, if that makes sense.”
It didn’t, but I nodded anyway. “What did Tryst talk to you about?”
“He didn’t. In fact, he didn’t go beyond the entrance.”
My eyes scrunched.
She shrugged. “He told me to go in, stand in the very center under the skylights, and he’d wait.”
“And then what?”
“As soon as I was inside, the sun broke through the clouds. I raised my face as the heat from it bathed me in light like I’ve never known. I turned in a circle, letting it wash over me. I cried, but I can’t explain why. Then the light went away. I thought I’d feel cold, but I didn’t. I only felt at peace.”
Tryst’s words, after all she’d just said, made even less sense to me. And, unlike her, the last thing I felt was a sense of peace.
16
DAPHNE
Ihad no idea what Cru and his uncle had discussed after I got on the plane when we left Álamos, and he didn’t say. I also didn’t understand the significance of Tryst taking me to the temple or what happened once I was inside. All I knew was with each passing day, I felt more and more like I belonged here—by Cru’s side.
We’d been backin California close to a month when, on our morning walk amongst the vines, I saw the first sign of life by way of bud break. I raced over to check, and sure enough, I could clearly see green peeking through the gnarly, brown branches.
“Looks like it’s time to get to work,” Cru said as we inspected section after section and found the majority showing the same thing. Timing now started becoming crucial. Once the vines came out of dormancy, we’d have to eliminate suckers springing up near the base and anything else we found that might compromise hardiness.
As we cut and pruned, I noticed Cru following my lead, leaving everything on the ground, where it fell. Later, we’d return, shred, and till, turning the waste into what I believed was the most beneficial organic matter.
At night, we’d go to the house with barely enough energy to get out of our work clothes and eat. Yet once we’d showered and gotten in bed, it was as though, when our naked bodies touched, our stamina renewed, and we’d spent hours making love.
By May,flowering and fruit set were well underway, and by June, deep-green grapes were in abundance.
Every day was full of excitement and discovery, which would continue well into October, when the last of the ripened fruit was harvested.
I thanked Cru almost daily for giving me the opportunity to work at Los Cab and, thus, fulfilling a dream I almost didn’t know I had.
“I love seeing you so happy,” he’d say as often as I thanked him.
Cru had graduallyconvinced Trevino that he wasneededin the vineyard, which was vastly different than offering him a job. While I was the second-labelwinemaker, he’d made Bit, as almost everyone called him now, vice chief of operations.
As I’d suspected all along, Bit knew a lot more about his family’s vineyards than he’d ever let on. He’d also made great progress fixing up the original winery building. It was far too small to handle anything more than the experimental varietals, but that made it almost perfect. Rather than installing modern equipment, the original presses, and even the fermentation tanks, were rehabbed and made ready for the harvest that would begin in September and October.
Mid-July markedone of the most beautiful times in the vineyard—known as Veraison. It was a fancy word for berry ripening, when the color of the fruit transitioned from green to translucent, then golden, or in the case of the red varietals, turned shades varying from pink to purple.
Along with the change in color came the intense heat the valley was known for. Temperatures could reach well into the hundreds by ten in the morning.
