Love Letters from Ladybug Farm (22 page)

“Hmm. He brought some honey.” Bridget was thoughtful for a moment. “You know, if this whole thing with the fertilizer hadn’t happened, we would have killed ourselves getting ready for tomorrow.”

“I didn’t want to worry Cici,” agreed Lindsay, “but with just the two of us and Ida Mae—even if Noah could have been drafted to polish the silver and peel potatoes—we would have been up all night.”

“Literally. And it still would have been a disaster, because my brain is fried.”

“Mine, too.”

Bridget grinned. “So, I guess the moral of the story is that sometimes men are worth the trouble.”

“Even if only by accident.”

Bridget turned for the door, suddenly energized. “I’ll tell Ida Mae to put the food back in the refrigerator.”

“And I’ll call Catherine.” Lindsay turned back to the phone.

“And then,” Bridget began.

“Bed!” they finished in chorus.

When Richard walked into a restaurant, he got the best table, the head waiter, the reserve wine. Part of it was the Hollywood cachet that clung to him like cheap cologne; part of it was just being—well, Richard. He expected the best, and he always got it.

Cici forgot how much that used to annoy her. Now she remembered only how much she missed living like that.

“So,” Richard said, slicing into his porterhouse, “tell me about this farm of yours.”

“You wouldn’t like it. Not a supermodel in sight. And no home gym.”

Cici had ordered a smoked chicken and fire-roasted pepper thick-crust pizza with sun-dried tomatoes and, yes, shaved truffles, because Richard was paying. She took a bite and barely repressed a moan of ecstasy as Richard said, “Very funny. You have horses, I suppose. Isn’t this part of the country known for its jumpers?”

Cici held up a staying finger. “Please,” she murmured. “This is a sacred moment.” She took another bite of the pizza. “Oh, my God. Ida Mae never made anything like this.”

He smiled at her across the candlelit table. “Well, whatever it is about that farm, it must agree with you. You look great.”

Cici was so surprised she almost forgot about the pizza. “Thank you.”

He cut and speared another bite of his steak. “I mean it. Ten years younger, at least. And I like your hair.”

“Oh.” Self-consciously she touched her freshly blow-dried locks. “Miss Clairol Honey-Blond.”

“It’s longer, isn’t it?”

“Since the last time you saw me, five years ago?”

“Lori sends pictures,” he pointed out with a small frown. “And you’re in most of them.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, so she turned back to her pizza.

“No horses,” she said after a moment.

“What?”

“We don’t have horses,” she explained. “We have sheep. And chickens, and a deer, and a crazy dog. And a goat,” she remembered.

“Good God.” He paused with a forkful of baked potato poised in midair. “It sounds very ...
Beverly Hillbillies.”

She laughed. “Not a bad comparison, actually.”

“And somehow this ... paradise ... managed to seduce my daughter from her future as president of a Fortune 500 company to a major in—what does she call it? Agronomy?”

Cici looked at him levelly. “Lori,” she told him, “was never going to be president of a Fortune 500 anything.”

He thought about this for a moment, and shrugged. “Maybe not. Do you think she’s serious about this wine thing?”

Comfortable now on the subject of their daughter, Cici relaxed and began to talk. She talked about the time Lori had spent at Ladybug Farm, exploring her talents and discovering her passions; she talked about their successes and their failures. As Richard ordered a second bottle of wine, she told him about Noah, and what an astonishing young man he was growing into, and about their plans and hopes for the vineyard. She talked about the rhythm of their life at Ladybug Farm, about the way the sunrise painted a pinkish yellow glow on the stone floor of the kitchen, and how the dew glistened when she went to gather eggs in the morning, and how one could hear the rain coming across the valley long before it actually reached their house. And, simply talking about it, she felt an ache of homesickness that was so intense it actually tightened her throat.

Richard told funny stories about his celebrity clients—none of which Cici was actually convinced were true—and made dry observations about life in the high-speed world of the Hollywood glitterati. And even though the tales he told were tongue-in-cheek, even though the life he described was light-years away from her own—or anything she wanted her own to be—he made her laugh. He also made her a little envious. And for two and a half hours, he took her out of her everyday worries and into a world where living was easy, and someone else picked up the check.

Over brandy Alexanders and a decadent chocolate dessert topped with amaretto ice cream and two spoons, Cici said, “You know, Richard, sometimes I forget what a nice guy you can be.” She smiled at him. “Thank you for tonight. I needed it.”

He lifted his glass to her and replied in kind, “You know, Cici, I really like the woman you’ve become. I don’t know if I’ve told you that often enough.”

She swirled a spoonful of ice cream and popped it into her mouth. “I don’t think you ever told me that. Are you going to eat any of this?”

He looked at her for a moment, his eyes unreadable in the candlelight, his smile absent, almost as though he wanted to say something else. Then he picked up the other spoon. “Don’t eat all the ice cream,” he said.

Visiting hours were over by the time they returned to the hospital, and the nurse told them Lori was asleep. They sneaked into her room anyway.

“I feel like a terrible mother,” Cici whispered. “My baby is lying there with her leg in a cast and I’m two hours late. With brandy on my breath.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Richard said softly, smiling in the dark. “I somehow don’t think she’ll mind.”

Cici tiptoed across the room, and smoothed back a strand of hair that had escaped from Lori’s braid. She bent forward and kissed her sleeping daughter’s cheek. When she straightened, Richard was standing beside her, very close.

“Look at that beautiful creature,” he said. His voice was a half whisper, almost like prayer, and his hand dropped to Cici’s shoulder, fingers massaging gently. “That wonderful girl.” He looked at Cici, his eyes tender, his smile sad and far away. “You know, sweetie, whatever else we did wrong, we did this one thing right. And that makes it all worth it, doesn’t it?”

Cici nodded, and returned his smile, and when he slipped his arm around her shoulder, she let herself lean into him. They stood there beside Lori’s bed, watching her sleep, for a long time.

Richard murmured, after a time, “Lori was right. You do smell good.”

Cici straightened up, and stepped away. “I should go.”

“Where are you staying?”

She hesitated. “The Embassy.”

He smiled. “So am I.” He held out his hand. “Want a ride?”

Cici found his eyes in the dimness and held them. Slowly, she smiled, too. “Okay,” she said.

She slipped her hand into his, and they left.