Chapter 5
Great. Just great. Alana had flown down to visit a friend in LA and all hell had broken loose at the ranch while she was away. The USDA made a surprise inspection, an inspection she guessed the county planning commission had a hand in spurring. They’d found everything up to standards, but it shook up the employees; they felt targeted. The pressure and the uncertainty were wearing people down—one of the crew supervisors had quit and gone to work for another vineyard. It didn’t take a genius to know that the staff wanted her to take care of the windmill permit so things could settle down. And it hadn’t helped the ranch’s relationship with the county when she’d missed an engagement she’d been scheduled to speak at. A fundraiser. Three hundred people and no guest speaker. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought the events had been a setup.
She tore the calendar from the wall in her grandmother’s study and threw it across the room. It slowly floated down onto the carpet. She picked it up and smoothed it across the desk. April. The last entry said call Alana and invite her for tea. That hadn’t happened. She ignored the shaky feeling in her chest as she flipped through the pages and tapped dates and engagements into her phone. If she missed another event, it would be by choice, not because she’d failed to note it.
Frustrated and tired of being closed up in the house, she grabbed her hat and made her way past the staring eyes of the bronze lizard atop the peaked roof of the pavilion and down to the old barn.
Her eyes adjusted to the dimmer light in the barn. Three of the walls had been finished and painted. Evidently Nana had installed insulation to prevent heat from the sun from penetrating and overheating the space. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that the place hadn’t been tidied up; the wooden workbench held Nana’s half-finished clay sculptures, and shelves along the sides were piled with stones and shells and spools of brightly colored ribbons. Paintbrushes spiked up out of antique pickle crocks. The barn still held the air of a living past, the feel of Nana and her impulsive enthusiasm for projects and life.
In the center of the workbench sat a wooden box with a note taped to the top. It was addressed to Alana. She opened the note and saw Nana’s fine script. Her throat tightened with each word.
I thought you’d make good use of these. Always remember I have great faith in you, Alana. I know you’ll find the ranch an interesting challenge. I hope it makes you as happy as it did me.
I love you and always will,
Nana
Tears that she’d held at bay swam and tracked down her face as she lifted the lid of the box. The scent of linseed oil and wood wafted up out of it. She fingered the bent tubes of oil paints.
She and Nana had painted with these very paints years ago, when Alana was barely old enough to hold a brush. She screwed off a cap and sniffed, squeezed the bent tube and saw the pigment ooze up. After all the years, the pigments were still useable.
She picked up another tube and saw the corner of a tiny painting sticking out from under the paint tubes. It was one Nana had done of Alana sitting among the olive trees. She remembered the day Nana had finished it. She’d told her grandmother in her perky six-year-old voice that she was going to be a famous artist and a famous rancher. Evidently Nana had taken her seriously.
Lifting her hand, she wiped at her face, wishing she could just as easily wipe away her grief.
Glancing around the barn, she spotted the old easel in a corner. She pulled it out and stood it up. It’d be perfect. She’d promised herself that while she was on the ranch she’d get back to her painting; the light was stunning at this time of year, especially in the evenings.
As she tightened the brass screws to stabilize the easel, an unfamiliar heaviness sank into her. The quiet time she thought she’d have, time away from the bustle and distractions of Paris, long hours to reacquaint herself with brush and pigment, canvas and dreams—somehow she hadn’t managed to carve out even a few peaceful hours.
A sizzle of anger sped through her, teasing into her sadness and feeding the hungry guilt that lay poised and ready to devour her dreams. Nana had been an indomitable force, a woman of fierce talent. How could she have imagined that Alana would be in any way capable of taking on the ranch? Or that taking the reins there would make her anything other than miserable?
She shook off the leaden feeling and its threat to pull her into a dark place and put her shoulder to the door along the north side of the barn. It didn’t budge. But she planted her feet and shoved again, and it slid open. There, spreading out below her, were the oldest olives groves and beyond them, far-reaching oak-covered hillsides.
The only blot on the horizon was the damned windmill. Still, in the afternoon light its graceful blades made it look like an ecstatic bird trying to soar. She supposed it could’ve been worse. She sighed. No matter what she decided to do with the ranch in the long run, for now she was stuck with dealing with the windmill. And since it was Nana’s last project, she harbored the hope that she might succeed in getting it approved.
Alana didn’t know that a windmill would be a fitting legacy for Nana, but defeating the naysayers of the county would have been a victory she’d have celebrated in style.
Alana scanned the crates lined up along the far side of the barn. She grabbed a screwdriver from a workbench and pried the nearest crate open. Inside was a bright painting of a girl sitting on the edge of a pond and studying a pelican. Alana’s heart squeezed tight under her ribs. She’d been with Nana less than two months ago when they’d seen the painting on an open studio tour. Alana had fallen in love with it but when she’d returned the next day, the painting was gone.
Nana had bought it without telling her.
She’d always asked Alana’s opinion about art. That was a subject Alana did know and a passion that fired her. Tears pooled as she realized the painting must’ve been intended as a birthday surprise.
But it wasn’t Nana’s queries about art that rose in her mind as she stared at the painting. What seared her thoughts was the last conversation she’d had with her before she’d flown to Paris, two weeks before Nana had died.
She’d pulled Alana aside after lunch that day and walked with her in the sculpture garden. She’d sat her down on a cast bronze bench and clasped Alana’s hands in hers. “If you don’t have something to sink into, darling,” she’d said in a firm tone that bordered on warning, “something to wrap your heart around, some life purpose to give you backbone and focus, you’ll be just one of those girls.”
She didn’t elaborate, didn’t have to. Alana knew full well what she meant. She’d seen too many of her friends who’d inherited fortunes far smaller than hers lose themselves in the very lifestyle that she’d been living for the past four years.
There’d been moments, too many in the last year, when the luster of Alana’s fast-paced life had dimmed. But running the ranch was not the way forward.
Oh, Nana, what were you thinking?
She decided to leave the easel in the barn; the light was better than up at the house. She closed the sliding door, picked up the painting and headed out. Spotting a cluster of visitors gathered outside the frantoio, she pivoted and walked toward the back of the house. She stopped when she saw Isobel and her husband kneeling at the edge of the kitchen garden.
Rafael leaned close and closed his hands around the trowel his wife held. As he did, Isobel nuzzled against him. He chuckled and turned her hands, guiding the trowel in a circular motion. Isobel beamed with delight as they pulled out a perfect leek.
Longing rippled in Alana’s chest as a wish crossed into her heart. It was a simple wish, a wish to have someone like Isobel and Rafael had, a partner, someone to live beside, someone to help her. A wish for something she’d never realized she’d wanted.