Something in the Wine (30 page)

“Any particular reason you’re asking me this?” Drew asked.

Annie glanced at her, then returned her gaze to the horizon. On the one hand, she wanted to tell Drew about the new feelings she was experiencing. Maybe Drew would be able to help her clear up some of the confusion. But on the other hand, Drew was the person who made Annie question her sexual orientation, so how could she give her objective advice? Besides, she was involved with Lynn—or close to getting back with her. No, she couldn’t tell Drew. “No reason,” Annie said. “I guess I was just curious.”

“So how about you?”

“Me?” Annie’s heartbeat sped up. What was Drew asking? Did she suspect that Annie was confused about her sexual orientation?

“Yeah. You practically know my life story, but you never talk about your past relationships.”

Not much to tell,
Annie thought but stopped herself before she could say it.
Come on. This is Drew. She never judged you.
Sucking in a soothing lungful of salty air, Annie turned toward Drew. “What do you want to know?”

Drew crossed her legs Indian-style, put her elbows on her thighs, and leaned forward. “Tell me about your last relationship.”

“His name was Patrick,” Annie said. While she didn’t like talking about him, she figured it couldn’t hurt to tell Drew. She trusted Drew. And besides, Jake would become suspicious if Drew didn’t know a thing about her relationship history. “He’s an auditor. We met through work.”

“Love at first sight?”

“God, no.” Annie smiled. “At work, I tend to be so focused on the job that it took me three weeks to figure out he was flirting with me.”

Drew chuckled. “That’s cute.”

“No, just clueless.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Drew reached over and nudged Annie’s knee. “So what happened when you did figure it out?”

“He asked me out and I finally said yes.” Annie had been twenty-five back then. All the other women her age had already been in several relationships and her family kept commenting on her lack of love life, so dating a nice guy like Patrick had seemed like the right thing to do.

“Finally?” Drew asked. A smile crinkled the edges of her eyes. “How often did he have to ask until you said yes?”

Annie shrugged. “Three or four times.”

“Wow.” Drew whistled through her teeth. “Persistent guy. I have to give him that. So how long were you together?”

“A little more than two years.” Two birthdays, two Valentine’s Days, and two Christmases of which now only painful memories and jewelry she never wore remained.

Drew studied her for a few moments. “Were you happy with him?”

Why was it that no one else had ever asked her that question? She shrugged. “I suppose. Everyone always said what a nice couple we made.”

“Did you think so too?”

“We were a good fit. We’re both really independent and need a lot of time to ourselves.” Annie clamped her teeth around her bottom lip. “At least that’s what I thought.” She couldn’t stop the bitterness from creeping into her tone.

“What happened?” Drew asked.

“He cheated on me during the last year of our relationship. When I caught him, he said it was because I wasn’t emotionally involved enough in the relationship.”

The picnic basket nearly toppled over when Drew kicked out her legs. Her brown eyes blazed with anger. “What an asshole! First he cheats on you and then he has the audacity to blame you? Jesus!”

Annie blinked. Drew seemed almost more upset than she had been. “He wasn’t totally wrong, you know?”

“Yes, he was!” Drew grabbed a handful of pebbles and threw it toward the ocean. “If he wasn’t happy with the relationship, he should have talked to you, not gone and had an affair.”

Annie stared at her. Drew was right, of course, but she hadn’t expected her to be so passionate about it.

Drew rotated her head until the bones in her neck popped. She gave Annie an apologetic smile. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to go off on you like that. I just can’t stand the thought of someone hurting you. I admit I don’t have the best track record with relationships, but I never, ever cheated on anyone. I’m sorry it happened to you. You don’t deserve that.”

“Don’t worry.” Annie emptied the last of the Cabernet with one big gulp. “I survived.”

“I wish you’d stop doing that.”

Annie frowned. “Doing what?”

“Pretending that nothing can hurt you emotionally.”

Annie pulled her knees up to her chest and folded her arms around her legs. “I don’t do that.”

“Yes, you do.” Drew looked deeply into Annie’s eyes. “You pretend not to care when your parents pick the restaurant on your birthday or your boyfriend is cheating on you, and you pretend that Jake’s stupid tricks are merely annoying you instead of hurting your feelings.”

“His tricks don’t—”

“Annie,” Drew touched one of the arms that were wrapped around Annie’s knees, “be honest with yourself. Of course it hurts you when Jake is playing tricks on you and never takes you seriously. If it didn’t hurt you, why would you be so intent on taking revenge?”

Annie snapped her mouth shut, which she had already opened for a denial.
God, she’s right.

Drew reached for her hand.

Annie’s first impulse was to pull back. Her defenses were down, so the touch felt too intimate. But when Drew just held on lightly, Annie left her fingers in Drew’s gentle grasp.

“Next time someone breaks your heart, don’t pretend that it’s just a scratch. Don’t let anyone get away with hurting you.” Drew squeezed Annie’s hand, looked into her eyes, and added more quietly, “Okay?”

Shaken, Annie nodded. “Okay.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

Drew let go of her hand.

Annie swallowed, no longer sure what to say. Usually, Drew was so laid-back and easygoing that the sudden intensity had startled Annie.

“So what about before Patrick?” Drew asked after a while.

Annie shook her head.

“No other long-term relationships?”

“No.”

“Really? Don’t tell me you’re the one-night-stand type.”

“I’m not.” Annie hesitated, then decided to be honest with Drew. “Patrick was my first and only relationship.”

A seagull let out a piercing cry.

“Wow,” Drew murmured and shook her head back and forth. “That’s just ... wow.”

Annie studied the horizon, aware of how unusual having had just one relationship was at her age. She searched for an explanation, then realized that Drew wasn’t waiting for one. The look in Drew’s eyes was accepting, not judging. Annie relaxed her tense shoulders.

“What a jerk,” Drew said. “To be your first and only lover and then ...” She shook her head. “Patrick didn’t deserve you.”

They sat side by side, just listening to the sounds of the waves and the seagulls for a few minutes.

Finally, Drew got up and walked closer to the ocean. “Wait here. There’s something I want to show you.” She climbed over several large rocks, then stopped and bent to pick up something.

Shells?

A wave hit the rocks, and a spray of water rained down on Drew.

“Be careful!” Annie called. She leaned forward and watched Drew on the slippery rocks. “You’ll fall in!”

“Don’t worry. I’m careful.” Without looking up from the ground, Drew continued down the beach. Sometimes, she picked up an object and looked at it before throwing it into the ocean.

After a while, Drew returned and settled back down on the blanket. She held out her hand. “Ever seen one of these?” She held out a milky-white stone. The pebble shimmered in the sunlight, looking almost like a clear opal.

Annie took the stone from Drew’s hand. Her fingers grazed Drew’s palm, making her breath catch. “I don’t think so.” She rubbed her thumb over the stone. Its surface had been smoothed by the ocean until no rough edges remained. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s a moonstone,” Drew said. “The ancient Romans thought they were created by frozen moonbeams. And the Greeks wore it as a talisman. They believed moonstones could help you find true love.”

“Oh.” Annie stared at the stone in her hand. The swirling white patterns in the stone looked as chaotic as her emotions.

Drew searched her face. She looked embarrassed. “Pretty lame, huh?”

Annie just shrugged. Something told her that she would hurt Drew’s feelings if she said yes. Drew had sent her flowers, read romance novels, and prepared a picnic on the beach—she seemed like the romantic type. Normally, Annie looked down on sentimental people. She didn’t believe in superstitions, romantic legends, and love stories. Her world was ruled by facts and figures. “Not lame, no,” she said. “But even if the stone held magic, I doubt it could help me. Maybe Patrick was right. I’m a lost cause when it comes to love.”

“Hey! No negative comments about yourself.” Drew slapped the thigh that Annie had pinched just moments before. Then she rubbed the affected body part, making Annie’s leg—and places higher up her body—tingle.

This is not happening.
Annie clenched her teeth. Her insides trembled.
It’s just this place and the wine that affect me like this. Not a woman. Not Drew.
A picnic during sunset on a beautiful beach would put anyone in a romantic mood, right? It didn’t mean anything. But the voice inside of her that said otherwise was becoming louder.

“You’ve got to start treating yourself better. Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Drew said, her voice a soft, intimate murmur. “You’re not a lost cause. When the time is right, you’ll be in a happy, loving relationship.”

In the past, Annie never cared. Whether she ever started a relationship again hadn’t mattered. But now, sitting on a blanket with Drew, watching the setting sun dipping the ocean in bronze and copper, she longed to have someone with whom she could share special moments like this.

A man, preferably.

But try as she might, she couldn’t imagine anyone else sitting in Drew’s place.

For the first time, she had to face the fact that those feelings might not go away. She stared at the moonstone, tempted to throw it away. But then she paused. When Drew wasn’t looking, she slipped the stone into her pocket, scolding herself for the sudden sentimentality.

Drew’s knee brushed against her ankle beneath the blanket, directing her attention away from the moonstone. Despite the hard ground, Drew stretched out on her back. The setting sun threw a soft glow over the planes of her face. She blinked, and each time, her eyes remained closed for a millisecond longer.

“You look tired,” Annie said before she could stop herself. She bit her lip.

Drew forced her eyes open and sat up. Her clothes were rumpled, which looked surprisingly attractive, and the wind swept a strand of hair into her face.

When Annie caught herself almost reaching out to comb the unruly curl back into place, she stuffed her hands into her pockets. She encountered the smooth contours of the moonstone. Quickly, she pulled out her right hand and rested it beneath her thigh instead.

“Sorry,” Drew said. Her nostrils quivered as she fought to suppress a yawn. “I swear it’s not the company. Lynn kept me up way past my bedtime last night.”

Annie dug her teeth deeper into her lip. She didn’t want to imagine Drew with Lynn, but she didn’t comment. Even though at times, the lines began to blur for Annie, Drew wasn’t her girlfriend and didn’t owe her an explanation. “What about your past relationships?” she asked after a while.

Drew folded her legs beneath her and faced Annie with an open expression. “Well, you’ve met Lynn.”

Is that really in the past?
Annie wondered.

“And before that ...” Drew took a fistful of pebbles and let them slip through her fingers one by one. “I searched for all the wrong things in all the wrong places.”

“What do you mean?”

Drew turned her head and looked at the waves crashing against the black rocks. “When my mother lost her battle with cancer, my father just stopped living. He was the picture of health before, but within three months, he was gone too. Heart attack, the doctors said.” She turned back to Annie. Shadows of pain flickered in her eyes. “More like a broken heart, if you ask me. He just didn’t have the will to go on without my mother. That’s what I want too.” Drew paused. “I mean ... not a love that makes me want to stop living, but ...”

“I know what you mean,” Annie said. “A love that will bond you to someone in life and beyond.” Annie had never had that either, and she never thought she wanted it. But now she wasn’t so sure. She touched the moonstone that was hidden in her pocket as if that could make Drew’s wish come true.
Don’t be a fool. It’s just a silly stone.
She snatched her hand away. “And you’ve never found it?”

“I never searched for it,” Drew said. “I thought I just wanted to have some fun and fantastic sex. It wasn’t until my parents died that I understood what I’m really looking for. The sex was just a way to get emotional closeness ... or the illusion of closeness.”

The frank words sent a shock through Annie, but at the same time, she admired Drew’s candor. “But doesn’t being with me ... I mean ... pretending to be my girlfriend get in the way of finding someone to love?” Would prospective lovers like Lynn become jealous even if they explained their revenge plan?