The Long Way Home (30 page)

I looked at him, examining his eyes, "If it was your
baby?"

"Why, you got something you
wanna
tell me?"

I laughed, "Uh, hell no. I just took possession of the
vineyard. Don’t even kid around. In fact, just looking at that bundle of joy, I
think maybe we should probably abstain for a while."

He chuckled, "I won the cup for you."

I rolled my eyes. He kissed me softly, "If you ever had
my baby, I would make you marry me and never let you get away."

"So you would go all caveman on me and drag me off to
your cave?"

He kissed me again, "Don’t tempt me to show you what I
would do. I told you, this is it. I gave you your chance to get away; it's me
and you forever now."

I loved the sound of that. I kissed him back. I pressed send
on my text. The noise of a cell phone behind me made me turn around. Will gave
me an emotional look. "Hey."

I smiled, "I knew you'd come. She's inside." I
stepped out into the hall. Mike hugged Will and slapped him on the back. Luce
followed us into the hallway. I watched as my mother placed the baby into
Will's arms. He started to cry, hugging the small bundle. He shook his head,
"She's perfect."

He looked awkward and smitten in the same breath. Brandi's
hands were lifted to her lips. Her eyes were filled with tears and her hands
shook as they rested on her lips.

He carried his new daughter to Brandi and the three of them
embraced. Mom left the room, closing the door. She gave me a look, and then
gave Mike a
scowl,
"Just marry Jacqueline before
you impregnate her, please. It's bad enough the celebrity gossip pages are
saying she had a nervous breakdown and Lucian left her."

She
pat
him on the chest and walked
down the hall with Muriel.

Mike gave Luce a look but he just shook his head, "So
weird your mom is gay now."

I looked at my mom and Muriel, suddenly seeing something I
had been missing all along. The two of them linked arms and my mom leaned her
head on Muriel's shoulder.

I felt shivers all over my body, "That explains so many
things."

Mike folded his arms across his chest, "I like Muriel
way better than your dad."

I nodded, "Me too." I looked at him, "What a
year."

He smiled, "Things are never dull with you rich
people."

Luce snorted, "To say the least."

I swatted at them both. Slowly we crept back into the room to
see smiles and tears.

Will looked at me, "Thank you."

I winked at him, "I owed you one, I think."

The bottles were lined up on display perfectly. I dusted the
table once more and looked around the room. The barn renovation had gone
perfectly. The old beams and glass were all that was left of the ancient
structure.
We hadn’t built like the Romans
,
it didn’t last
.

The fresh paint smell had finally started to fade. I looked
at the boys I'd hired from the university to pour and serve. "You are good
if I go and check on the rest?"

They nodded, giving me an odd look. I was being a control
freak.

I walked out onto the path of trees we had just planted in
amongst the old black walnuts and willows. I touched one of the lemon trees and
smiled. It would one day be my legacy.
Albero
di
Limone
was the name of my label, or Lemon Tree Winery for
Americans.

The path led to the villas I had made for the guests. There
were
two,
each functioned as a 60-room inn. It was
perfect. They were mock-ups, not exact, of the villa Daniela and Tex had been married
at. The view was of the vineyard and the sea. The
hills with
the vineyard was
my favorite view, but I was alone in that. Everyone
else loved that Carolina coastline.

We even had storm reservations for storm watchers who could
come on short notice. If a storm was hitting, the room instantly was reserved
for them. Some people were crazy and liked watching storms. They made me
nervous.

The butlers were in proper attire and ready to serve. I
scanned each one as I walked past, "You ready?"

They nodded.

I walked past it to the far side of the property, where the
best view was. Our house was there, tucked away in the trees. It matched the
villa in Rome but with considerably better updates. I walked in the front door.
Mike and my mom were arguing.

Or rather she was yelling at him, "You can't, Mike, stop
being such a…"

"Mom!"

She looked at me and blushed, "Sorry dear, we were just
discussing the fact he was going to sign autographs at the winery. He, Lucian,
and Will are all in protest."

I lifted my hand to my heart, "I think I'm having a
heart attack and you two are fighting about autographs? Where the hell is
Brandi? Jesus. I need someone to make sure those boys don’t drink anything.
They looked shifty. Has anyone made sure the rooms are all clean? Vince, Tex,
Daniela, Sal, and Arthur will be here any moment. Sal and Arthur have women
with them. I had the driver bringing them from the airport, but I didn’t know
about the women. I mean, I should have assumed there would have been dates and
I didn't. I am not good at this planning stuff."

Mike ignored everything I said and walked towards me. He
scooped me up and carried me up the huge stairs. I wiggled, "France, stop
messing with me. Mom! Mom, go and get Muriel and tell her that she can't feed
those boys liquor. MOM!"

Mike opened our double doors and walked across the room to
our bed. He tossed me onto it and walked back to close the doors.

"Mike, I can't do this right now. I have a thousand
things to do, I don’t have time for this."

He jumped onto the bed, making it rock like a boat,
"Deep breaths, Jack."

I gave him my dead-inside look. He snorted, "You are so
dramatic. When we got out in the second round of playoff games, you never saw
me getting
all dramatic
. I shook gloves and skated off
the ice. Now you
gotta
just
let tonight be what it will. You got a whole team helping you here, but it
doesn’t work if you don’t trust them."

I almost growled, "France, I need to make sure
everything is going to go smoothly."

"Stanley has helped every step of the way. The sommelier
has tasted everything we are about to serve. You have all the right people in
all the right places. The chef already let me taste everything he made and it
was good. Real good. The decorations look top notch and the bride and groom are
in their room with Abby, getting ready. Why don’t you just lay back here for a
minute with me and think about how nice it is that you can do all this
stuff."

I sighed, "I can't even relax here. I thought this would
be more relaxing but I owe you so much. I was looking at the villas and our
house and it hit me, I will probably never make enough money to pay you back.
Ever. What if it's never mine?"

When he didn’t answer, I glanced over at him. He looked dead
inside when he spoke softly, "Your mom gave me all that money. She didn’t
want me to tell you. That’s what we were fighting about. It was all yours
anyway, all your inheritance."

My stomach dropped, "My dad paid for it all?"

He pinched the bridge of his nose, "Jack, you paid for
it all. Your mom had your trust fund reinstated. You own this whole place. She
and Muriel wanted me to make it look like I paid, but I never did."

I felt
sick,
"I can't talk
about this now." I got up from the bed, but he got up fast and pulled me
back to the bed.

"Too bad, ‘cause you're going to."

My tone dropped down to calm-like anger, "I can't
believe you would lie to me like that."

He dropped to his knees, between my legs, "You have made
me live in sin with you for a year, as your mother calls it. You don’t want to
talk about marriage or babies or us ever being anything beyond what we are now.
You want your own identity and you want to earn this place so bad that you're
pushing me away. I don’t want this money to be between us anymore. What's mine
is yours, and if you had just let me do it, I would have given you the damned
vineyard. But I know you. I knew you would insist on paying for it. So your mom
took money from your inheritance and gave it to me to cover the vineyard and
all the renovations. Now you know."

I had a thousand excuses for the thing he'd said, but I
didn’t know how to say them. I sat there staring at him.

His eyes filled with something not good, "I guess now
that you don’t owe me and you own this place, you will have to choose if you
want to be with me or not. But I'm done with this living arrangement, and I'm
done with you holding that fucking money over my head." He got up and left
the room.

I sat there and watched the door close. It felt bad.

I got up and followed him out of the room, but he was gone
when I got downstairs.

Muriel gave me a look. I nodded, "I know."

Mom came into the room with a sheepish look, "We just
wanted you to have it. We never thought about the fact that it would make a
wedge between you and Mike. He wanted to tell you from the start but we made
him promise not to."

Muriel got up from the chair and stood next to my mom. I
sighed, "Thank you." I forced a smile on my face.

Muriel laughed and my mother gave me a scowl, "Oh, if
you're upset, just say it."

I slumped into a chair in the nook, "Mom, how could you?"

She sat across from me and picked at a bowl of grapes,
"How could I what? Use the trust fund money that I had protected for you
to purchase your dream that your father stifled? Yes, how dare I try to make up
for the fact I was never much of a mother." She got up and walked away
from the table. None of us knew how to fight in a healthy way.

Muriel gave me a nasty look but my mother turned back around
with a vengeance. She nearly spat at
me,
she spoke so
harshly, "Your grandfather left you that money because he loved you. He
always loved you and Brandi. He always wanted you to be safe and happy. If he
had known you wanted a vineyard with a bunch of villas he would have bought it
and made it so. You will not be ungrateful. I never raised you to be rude. Not
to someone's face." She turned and left for real this time.

Muriel gave me a
smile,
"I like
to think of it as payment for all those years of wearing the right thing and
saying the right thing and being the right thing. A minute is a precious thing
to waste being unhappy. Every minute had a dollar value. Your father got a
bargain, if you ask me." She winked and walked out after my mother.

I looked out at the trees and gardens. I got up and ran from
the house along the path. I ran down the grass path to the beach. He was
sitting there, in the spot where we had gotten sand in all our bits.

I sat next to him but he didn’t move. The sea looked grey and
ready to storm, regardless of the beautiful day.

I nudged him, "I am grateful I have someone like you who
gives me the thing I need, even when my stubborn ass can't see that I need
it."

He sat stoic so I continued, "I'm grateful that no
matter what, you didn’t give up on me. You let me finish the
renos
and make this place what I wanted it to
be,
before you told me I was actually borrowing my own
money. I never would have finished if I thought it was my father's."

I looked out at the choppy water, "But most of all, I am
grateful that two years ago, when my pride and my heart and my mind were all
broken, they managed to think of you in their moment of despair. The first
thing I did when I caught Phil
cheating,
was drive to
you. You were my autopilot and my safe haven. You were home, safety, and
happiness and I knew that then."

He wrapped an arm around me, pulling me into him. He kissed
the top of my head, "Will you marry me?"

I smiled, "I will."

"When?"

He smiled, "I'd say in an hour but Will and Brandi are
getting married. How about in a week?"

I looked into his eyes and saw myself. I hoped it would stay
like that forever—me in his eyes like I was the only thing he saw.

I nodded, "I'm sure Mom and Muriel can whip something up
and we'll just keep the decorations up."

He laughed, "Promise, ‘cause if I call my momma there is
no turning back."

I leaned
in,
brushing my lips
against his, "Let's go call her now."

He kissed me hard, pressing himself
against
me and pushing me back in the sand,
"Let's call her in an
hour."

I laughed and pushed back, "No way. I had a hell of a
time getting all that sand out of my butt."