“I’ll be out there for forty-five minutes to an hour,” Sam said. “My phone’s on. Call if you need something.”
“I’ll be fine.” Lucy pulled her face into a grimace as she added, “I have to call my mother and tell her what happened. It’ll take all my skills of persuasion to keep her from flying up here to check on me in person.”
“She’s welcome to stay here.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that. But the last thing I need is for my mother to hover over me.”
“Offer still stands.” Approaching the settee, Sam bent to pet Renfield, who was sitting beside Lucy. “You watch over her,” he told the bulldog, who regarded him solemnly.
“He is good company,” Lucy said. “He’s certainly quiet.”
“Bulldogs aren’t generally barkers.” He paused and shot Renfield a chiding glance. “But there is the flatulence.”
Renfield reacted to the comment with a look of extreme dignity, causing Lucy to laugh. She reached down to rub the dog’s loose-skinned head as Sam left the house.
Although the morning wasn’t yet over, the day was already hot, the sun burning through a slack canopy of clouds. Screen windows on both sides of the house let in stray breezes from the ocean.
Lucy relaxed on the sofa and let her gaze travel around the beautifully finished room, the gleaming black walnut floors, the Persian rug woven in cream and sage and amber, the meticulously restored cornice molding at the seams of the walls and ceiling.
Picking up her cell phone, she dialed her parents’ number, and her mother answered.
No matter how Lucy tried to underplay the story, her mother sensed the truth, immediately launching into a state of excited worry.
“I’m coming. I’ll be on the next plane.”
“Mom, no. There’s nothing you could do.”
“That doesn’t matter. I want to see you.”
“You don’t have to. I’m being well taken care of, I’m totally comfortable, and—”
“Who’s taking care of you? Justine?”
“Actually, I’m staying with … a friend.”
“Who?”
“His name is Sam Nolan.”
After a perplexed silence, her mother said, “You’ve never mentioned him before. How long have you known him?”
“Not a long time, but—”
“You’re staying in his apartment?”
“Not an apartment. He’s got a house.”
“Is he married?”
Lucy held the cell phone away from her face and looked at it in disbelief. Bringing it back to her mouth, she said, “Of course not. I don’t go out with other people’s boyfriends or husbands.” Unable to resist, she added, “That’s your other daughter.”
“Lucy,” her mother said on a note of gentle scolding. “Dad and I were planning to visit Alice next week—I’m going to change our flights so we can come out earlier.”
“You don’t have to. In fact, I’d really rather you not—”
“I want to meet this Sam person.”
Lucy struggled to suppress a laugh at the way her mother had phrased it. “He’s a perfectly nice guy. In fact, he’s your dream son-in-law.”
“You’ve gotten that serious with him?”
“No … God, no … I’m not even going out with him. I just meant he’s the type of guy you’ve always wanted me to go out with. He owns a vineyard. He grows organic grapes and makes wine, and he’s helping to raise his orphaned niece.” As she spoke, Lucy looked out the windows behind the settee. She located Sam’s strapping form amid a group of men working with spades. Deferring to the heat of the day, a couple of them had removed their shirts. Sam was fiddling with a gas-powered tiller, doing something with the start cord. He paused to draw a forearm across his sweaty brow.
“Is he divorced?” her mother asked.
“Never married.”
“He sounds too perfect. What’s wrong with him?”
“Commitment avoidant.”
“Oh, they’re all that way until you make them see the light.”
“This isn’t your run-of-the-mill fear of commitment. It’s a lifestyle choice.”
“Are his parents still in the picture?”
“They’ve both passed away.”
“Good, there’ll be no competition on holidays.”
“Mom!”
“I was joking,” her mother protested.
“I wonder,” Lucy said. Often with her mother, it seemed they were having two different conversations. Lucy suspected at least half of what she said had gone completely unnoticed. She continued to focus on Sam, who was pressing the primer button on the tiller to pump some gas into the motor. “You know, Mom, you’re asking a lot more questions about the guy I’m staying with than you are about my injuries.”
“Tell me what he looks like. Is he clean-shaven? Tall or short? How old is he?”
“He’s—” Lucy broke off, her mind going blank as Sam stripped off his T-shirt, blotted his face and the back of his neck with it, and tossed it to the ground. He had an amazing body, lean and long, muscle stacked on muscle.
“What is it?” came her mother’s voice. “Is everything all right?”
“Everything’s fine,” Lucy managed to say, watching the tanned surface of Sam’s back ripple as he bent to pull the start cord of the tiller repeatedly. Having no luck at getting the motor to turn over, he released the handle and talked with one of the crew, his posture loose-limbed, hands braced on lean denim-clad hips. “Sorry, lost my train of thought. I’m still on pain meds.”
“We were talking about Sam,” her mother prompted.
“Oh. Yes. He’s … clean-cut. A little bit of a science geek.” With the body of a Greek god.
“That sounds like a nice change from the last one.”
“You mean Kevin, your future son-in-law?”
Her mother made a disgruntled sound. “That remains to be seen. It’s one of the reasons I’m coming up to see Alice. I have the feeling the situation isn’t as cut-and-dried as she claims.”
“Why—” Lucy stopped as she heard a strange, unearthly baying. She sat up a little and glanced around the room. Renfield was nowhere to be seen. A metallic clank, like a saucepan or a colander being dropped, was followed by whimpering and another prolonged howl. “Uh-oh. Mom, I have to hang up. I think the dog’s gotten into something.”
“Call me back later. I haven’t finished talking yet.”
“Okay. Gotta go.” Hanging up quickly, Lucy called Sam’s number, straining for any glimpse of Renfield. The dog sounded like he was being butchered. She heard Sam’s voice on the phone. “Lucy.”
“Something’s going on with Renfield. He’s howling. I think he’s in the kitchen, but I’m not sure.”
“I’ll be right there.”
For the minute that it took Sam to hightail it to the house, Lucy was tortured by her inability to do anything. She called Renfield’s name, and the dog responded with a disembodied whine, the banging and snorting and howling coming closer, until finally he careened into the living room.
Somehow the dog had gotten his head stuck in a rusty cylinder that defied his efforts to shake it free. He was so frantic and miserable that Lucy pushed aside her ice packs and began to calculate how she could reach him without putting any weight on her splinted leg.
“Don’t even think about moving off that sofa,” Sam said as he strode into the living room. Amused exasperation filled his voice. “Renfield, how the hell did you get into that?”
“What is it?” Lucy asked anxiously.
“A smudge pot liner.” Sam knelt on the floor and grabbed for the dog, who jerked and whimpered. “Easy, boy. Sit. Sit.” He pinned the stocky, wriggling body to the floor and began to pry the metallic tube off his head.
“What’s a smudge pot?”
“They used to burn kerosene in them to keep orchards warm when a frost was settling in.”
Renfield’s head was covered with black soot and grime that accentuated the folds an
d wrinkles of his face. The dog lunged at Sam in a frenzy of gratitude.
“Easy, boy. Calm down.” Sam petted and stroked the dog, trying to soothe him. “He must have gotten out the back door somehow. There’s a junk pile we haven’t gotten around to hauling off yet. All kinds of trouble for him to get into.”
Lucy nodded, mesmerized by the sight of a shirtless Sam, his sun-burnished muscles gleaming with perspiration.
“I’ll wash him outside,” Sam said, scowling at the soot-covered bulldog. “If I’d had any say, I’d have gotten a nice golden or a Lab … a useful dog that would’ve chased pests out of the vineyard.”
“You didn’t choose Renfield for yourself?”
“Hell, no. He was a rescue case that Maggie was trying to pawn off on someone. And Mark had fallen so hard for her, he volunteered to take him.”
“I think that’s sweet.”
Sam lifted his gaze heavenward. “Mark was a patsy for taking him. This dog doesn’t do tricks. He can’t keep up during a brisk walk. His vet bills rival the national debt, and he lies around the house in the places most guaranteed to pose a tripping hazard.” But as he spoke, his hands were gentle on the dog’s fur, smoothing his back, scratching his neck. Renfield closed his eyes and wheezed happily. “Come on, idiot. Let’s go out the back way.” Sam picked up the smudge pot liner and rose to his feet. He glanced at Lucy. “You’ll be okay while I wash him?”
With an effort, Lucy tore her gaze from his half-clad form and switched on her electronic tablet. “Yes, I have everything I need.”
“What are you reading?”
“A biography of Thomas Jefferson.”
“I like Jefferson. He was a big patron of viticulture.”
“Did he have a vineyard?”
“Yes, at Monticello. But he was more of an experimenter than a serious grape grower. He was trying to grow European vines—vinifera—which produced amazing wine in places like France or Italy. But the vinifera couldn’t handle the weather, disease, and pests in the New World.”
Clearly he was a man who loved what he did. To understand him fully, Lucy thought, you would have to learn about his work, why it meant so much to him, what the challenges were. “I wish I could walk through the vineyard with you,” she said wistfully. “It looks beautiful from here.”
“Tomorrow I’ll take you outside to see something special.”
“What is it?”
“A mysterious vine.”
Lucy regarded him with a perplexed smile. “What makes it mysterious?”
“I found it on the property a couple of years ago, growing on an easement that was about to be plowed up for a road project. Transplanting a vine that size and age was a tricky proposition. So I asked Kevin to help me with it. We used tree spades to get as much of the root-ball as possible, and we moved it to the vineyard. It survived the transplant, but I’m still working to get it healthy.”
“What kind of grapes does it produce?”
“That’s the interesting part. I’ve got a guy at the WSU land grant working on identifying it, and so far he hasn’t been able to come up with anything. We’ve sent samples and pictures to a couple of ampelography experts in Washington and California—it’s not on record. Most likely it’s a wild hybrid that happened from natural cross-pollination.”
“Is that rare?”
“Very.”
“Do you think it will make a good wine?”
“Probably not,” he said, and laughed.
“Then why have you gone to so much trouble?”
“Because you never know. The grapes might turn out to reveal some attributes of the wine that you never expected. Something that expresses this place more perfectly than anything you could have planned. You have to…”
As Sam paused, searching for the right phrase, Lucy said softly, “You have to take a leap of faith.”
Sam gave her an arrested glance. “Yes.”
Lucy understood all too well. There were times in life when you had to take a risk that might end in failure. Because otherwise you would be haunted by what you hadn’t done … the paths you hadn’t taken, the things you hadn’t experienced.
* * *
After Sam had taken care of Renfield, he worked in the vineyard for an hour and went to check on Lucy, who had fallen asleep on the sofa. He stood in the doorway, his gaze tracing slowly along the length of her body. There was something extraordinary about Lucy, a delicate, almost mythical quality. Like a figure from a painting … Antiope, or Ophelia dreaming. Her dark hair trailed in ribbons across the pale green velvet, her skin as pale as night-blooming lilies. Dust motes glittered in a constellation in the sunlit air above her.
Sam was fascinated by Lucy’s mixture of vulnerability and strength. He wanted to know her secrets, the things a woman would reveal only to a lover. And that was nothing short of alarming. He’d never had such thoughts before. But if it took the last ounce of decency he possessed, he would leave her alone.
Lucy stirred and yawned. Her eyes opened to regard him in momentary confusion, heavy lashes shadowing the drowsy depths of green. “I was dreaming,” she said in a sleep-colored voice.
Sam went to her, unable to resist reaching down to play with a lock of her hair. “What about?”
“I was here. Someone was showing me around … it was the house the way it used to be.”
“Was I the one with you?”
“No. It was a man I’ve never met.”
Sam smiled slightly, releasing the lock of hair. “I don’t know if I like you hanging out with another guy in my house.”
“He lived here a long time ago. His clothes were … old-fashioned.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No. But he led me on a tour. The house was different. Darker. The furniture was antique, and there was fussy wallpaper everywhere. In this room, it was green-striped. And the ceiling was papered, and there was a square with a bird in it at each corner.”
Sam stared at her alertly. There was no way Lucy could have known that when he and Alex had removed an ugly drop ceiling that had been installed in this room, they had found the original ceiling, papered exactly as Lucy had just described. “What else did he show you?”
“We went to the third-floor attic, the one with the slanted ceiling and the dormer windows. Children used to play in there. And the stained-glass window that used to be at the second-floor landing … I told you about it yesterday, remember…?”
“The tree and the moon.”
“Yes.” Lucy’s gaze was earnest. “It was there. The same one I saw before. A design of a tree with bare branches, and the moon behind them. It was beautiful, but not what you would expect for a house like this. But it was right, somehow. Sam…” She grimaced as she leveraged herself to a sitting position. “Could I have a pencil and some paper?”
“Easy,” he said, trying to help her. “Don’t move too fast.”
“I need to sketch it before I forget it.”
“I’ll find something.” Sam went to a cabinet where they kept Holly’s art materials. Retrieving some pencils and a spiral pad of art paper, he asked, “Will these do?”
Lucy nodded, reaching eagerly for the supplies.
For a half hour or so, Lucy worked on the sketch. When Sam brought a lunch tray to her, she showed the design to him. “It’s not finished yet,” she said. “But this is basically what I saw.” The drawing was striking, the trunk and the branches of the tree spreading across the paper in a pattern like black lace. A moon appeared to be caught in the grasp of the upper branches.
“The tree would be done in lead?” Sam asked, studying the image, and Lucy nodded.
Imagining the picture as a stained-glass window for the front of the house, Sam felt a chill of rightness, of certainty too strong to be questioned. The house would never be complete until this was replaced.
“What would it take,” he asked slowly, “for you to make this window? Exactly the way you saw it in the dream.”
“I would do it
for nothing,” came Lucy’s emphatic reply. “After the way you’ve taken care of me…”
Sam shook his head decisively. “This window’s going to take some work. The design is intricate. What do you usually charge for something like that?”
“It depends on the type of glass, and how much detailing I would do … gilding and beveling, things like that. And that’s not including the installation, especially since you would need it to be weather-sealed—”
“Ballpark guess.”
Lucy gave a little grimace. “Three thousand dollars for everything. But I could skimp in some areas to bring down the cost—”
“No skimping. This is worth doing right.” Sam reached over and tucked a paper napkin at the top of Lucy’s shirt. “What do you think about making this window at your own pace, and in return we’ll lower the monthly rent for the Friday Harbor condo? That way it’s fair for both sides.”
Lucy hesitated, and Sam smiled. “You know you’re going to say yes,” he said. “You know that window has to be made. By you.”
Sixteen
Over the next two days, Sam treated Lucy with implacable friendliness. In conversation, he steered away from personal matters, and whenever he came into physical contact with her, he was carefully impersonal. Understanding his decision to establish a safe distance between them, Lucy tried her best to accommodate him.
Sam took obvious enjoyment in his vineyard work, hand-tilling the soil, caring for the vines with a mixture of backbreaking effort and patience. As he explained the grape-growing process to Lucy, she began to understand more about the sophistication of terroir, the matching of the right grape varietal to the specific plot of land and its unique character. There was a difference, Sam had explained, between treating grape growing as a purely technical process, or having real communication with the land, a true give-and-take.
Living in proximity with the Nolans, Lucy saw that the three of them were a close and loving family unit. They had well-established routines and regular times for eating and sleeping, and it was clear that Holly’s well-being was her uncles’ primary concern. Although Mark was the father figure, Sam had his own place in Holly’s affections. Every day after school the little girl chattered endlessly to him about her activities and her friends, and what had happened during recess that day, and she listed the contents of her friends’ lunch bags in an effort to convince him to let her have some junk food. It both amused and touched Lucy to see how patiently Sam listened to Holly’s concerns.