She goes on to say that Christine used to be sort of sweet, but in the last few years, she’s changed. Edith’s direct quote is that Christine’s “got her nose so high in the air, she’d drown in a rainstorm.” I’d ask her what that means, but she leans in close and whispers, “I think she’s overcompensating for growing up in the trailer park across town with her mama.”
My stomach twists and suddenly, I feel bad for contributing to gossip about this woman I don’t even know. “Edith!”
“It’s the truth!”
I shake my head. “She might be ‘high falutin’, as you called her, but if she makes Jack happy—”
“She doesn’t.”
“Well if she’s good for him—”
“She isn’t.”
“Sheesh, remind me never to get on your bad side.”
“Where do you think Jack gets his?”
She stands up and carries both of our coffee cups over to the sink even though I was only half finished with mine.
“I’m not trying to be mean,” Edith says, clearly hurt.
“I know. It’s just…I know how it feels to be the subject of…rumors.”
She turns then and smiles warmly, her blue eyes twinkling. “See that? You try not to see the bad in people. You’re already nicer than she is. Prettier too.”
I throw my hands up and get back to work, though I can’t help but think about Christine. It’s not my business what (or who) Jack does in his spare time, and I definitely don’t care about the type of women he invites to sleep over. Who cares if she’s stuck up or hoity toity? You know what I care about? Whether or not she cleans up after herself. That’s all. I hope she puts the used towels in the dirty clothes hamper and loads her dishes in the dishwasher when she’s done with them. She can be as mean as she wants as long as she doesn’t make my job harder come Monday morning.
Still, I am a little bit curious about her. Call it boredom, but I’ve been imagining what she’ll be like all day, and I nearly jump for joy when I hear a car pull up out on the gravel drive.
“Christine’s here!” Edith calls from the living room.
I’m moving clothes from the washer to the dryer when the front door opens and she strolls in. I’m so anxious to see her that I stuff everything in as quick as I can and dash into the kitchen just as Jack greets her in the front hall. They hug instead of kiss, which I find interesting. Christine seems distant, offering Edith a polite nod, but nothing more. They obviously have bad blood.
She’s beautiful—though, I obviously expected nothing less. Her light blonde hair is cropped short near her chin. She’s wearing a white dress and sandals that tie up around her ankles. Dainty gold necklaces are layered around her neck, and I’m immediately envious of how put-together she looks. It’s been easy to forget about comparing myself to other women when the only one I’ve seen for a week is more than twice my age.
I’m still staring at her outfit when she rolls her suitcase into the room, bringing a trail of mud along with it. Dammit. I just mopped that floor this morning. The farther into the house she goes, the messier it gets.
“Oh, oh! Hold on, looks like you have something on your wheels.”
I rush forward with a rag I grabbed from the kitchen counter and make quick work of the mud. When I finish, I push off my knees to stand and smile. There, no more mud streaking my wood floors.
All three of them are staring at me like I’m crazy.
“Meredith, aren’t you off the clock?” Edith quips.
I point back to the kitchen. “I was just finishing up some laundry, didn’t want to leave it in the washer all weekend.”
“Laundry?” Christine frowns, glancing from me to Jack and then back again. “I’m sorry, I don’t believe we’ve met.”
She’s looking at me like I don’t belong. It’s the exact same look I give the fauna in the shack, but it doesn’t faze them. If anything, they’ve invited even more of their friends. Come on! Tell Jerry and the other spiders we’re throwing a barbecue later! Yup, havin’ flies again!
“Meredith is helping out around the house for a little while,” Jack explains simply.
Christine isn’t satisfied, so I smile and hold out my clean hand. “I’m the new housekeeper. Pleased to meet you.”
In a flash, her expression softens. Apparently, my job as Jack’s housekeeper immediately whisks away whatever jealousy might have been building inside her. It’s as if I held up a sign that read, Don’t worry, you’re better than me—on the inside and out.
Still, she can’t help but size me up. Her gaze scans over me quickly, clearly assessing as she goes. I wish I’d put on a little more makeup this morning. She’s decked out like a blogger at fashion week. Meanwhile, I look like I’ve been hauled out of the ocean after a year alone on a deserted island. I should be the least threatening female she’s ever met. Still, when she scans down to my jeans, her eyes go wide with wonder. “Are those the new distressed skinnies from J Brand?”
I glance down. “Oh, umm…I don’t—”
She walks around me so she can see the back pockets. “They are!” She jerks back around to face me, gripping my shoulders in her hands, shaking me gently. My brain rattles in my head. “Where did you get these?! They’ve been on backorder on every website I search.”
I laugh, slightly embarrassed, slightly aware of the emphasis she put on the “you” of that question. “I got them back in California, actually.” Truthfully, they were just one of a dozen designer pairs hanging in my closet. I didn’t think much of them and now I feel slightly guilty that I wore them all week while scrubbing toilets. She’s so impressed, I think she’d rip them off me if she could. “I’d let you have them, but they’re kind of all I have at the moment.”
She laughs and finally releases me. I breathe a sigh of relief.
“I know what you mean,” she says while flipping her hair. “When you find the perfect pair of jeans, it feels like you can’t wear anything else.”
Edith opens her mouth to inform her she misunderstood, to tell her these are actually the only pair of pants I own, but I beat her to it.
“Preach it, sister.”
She beams and I smile back.
“California, huh?” she asks. “What are you doing in this hellhole?”
Jack scowls behind her, but I do my best to ignore him.
“It’s kind of a long story.”
Her manicured brows arch with interest. “Well, I’m dying to hear it.”
12
Jack
Christine won’t stop talking about Meredith. We left the ranch thirty minutes ago and we’re supposed to be on a date, talking about us and our future. Instead, she’s going on and on about my new housekeeper. Don’t get me wrong, I love most any excuse to avoid talking about our relationship, just not this one.
“Is it weird that I have a girl crush on her?”
Not that weird considering every ranch hand on my property has an actual crush on her.
“She’s really pretty,” she continues, a little too airily.
“Hadn’t noticed.”
I swing my truck into the first available parking spot outside of Hill Top Vineyards and kill the engine.
She laughs as she unbuckles her seatbelt. “Thank you for that, but it’s not necessary. I’m not accusing you of wanting her, so there’s no sense in pretending you’re blind.”
I know a trap when I see one.
“She’s my employee, and Helen’s sister,” I point out, hoping that will force her to drop the issue.
It does. We walk in silence up to the tasting room at the top of the hill. Hill Top Vineyards—aptly named for its location—has been around for a few years. They’re a leader in Central Texas vino, and I’ve been meaning to drive out and experience the place myself for a while.
“It’s annoying, really. That whole fresh face, no makeup thing only works for like five percent of women.”
So I guess we’re back to talking about Meredith. I want to groan.
r /> “I always say you don’t need that crap,” I tell her.
She laughs and pats my shoulder. “That’s sweet of you to say, but you’ve never actually seen me without a full face of makeup.”
I narrow my eyes, racking my brain. Surely… “How’s that possible? We’ve been together for two years.”
She shrugs. “That’s what happens when you see someone once a month. We might have been together for a while, but in some ways it still feels like we just started dating.”
I know what she means. There have been door-to-door salesmen I feel like I know better than I know Christine. It’s an unsettling thought, but I shake it off and usher her inside the winery.
Since it’s a Friday evening, the place is packed, but I planned ahead. We have reservations for a tour and tasting, and we arrive just in time to go with the next group.
My dad started the vineyard at Blue Stone Ranch nearly 20 years ago, and even though I have someone else heading the day-to-day operations, I try to stay as educated on the industry as possible. It’s not like I’ll glean any trade secrets from a public tour at Hill Top (unless I’m lucky), but that’s not my aim. I like tasting the wine, talking to the employees, checking out the atmosphere. It’s important to see how we stack up against our competition.
I’m enthralled through the entire tour. Most people are there to get shitfaced while feeling superior to poorer people with Bud Light. The level of pretense and false interest is high, but by the time we’re out in the vineyard, we’ve lost half the group. Meanwhile, I’m glued to the tour guide’s side as if there’s a written exam at the end. The guy hates me, wasting my time with fluff. “And did you know one vine produces roughly ten bottles of wine?” No one cares.
I chime in. “Are you guys administering the fertilizer after the vine has blossomed or closer to when the grapes are about a quarter inch?”
He doesn’t know the answer and we move along to the outdoor receiving area where the growers deposit the freshly harvested grapes. From there, we head inside to see the fermentation vessels: the huge, stainless steel tanks that house the pulp while it turns into wine. They have a larger facility than we do (I ask the tour guide the exact square footage, but he doesn’t know), and I’m especially impressed by their aging rooms. We age our red wine in oak barrels as well, but from the looks of it, they produce nearly twice as much volume as we do. After that, I grab Christine and skip the part of the tour that leads through the bottling room—we just paid a branding company an arm and a leg to design our packaging. Besides, I’m getting hungry.
Finally, I’ve found a weakness: their food is shit. I know it’s common to have light fare like fruit and nuts in tasting rooms, but at Blue Stone, we make sure there are better, more filling options available. After all, these people eventually need to drive home.
While we’re sampling various white wines, the owner—a man about my age, named Vince Davies—comes to find me. He claps me on the shoulder and I turn to greet him.
“My tour guide says you were harassing him,” he teases.
“Just getting my money’s worth.”
“You know I would have taken you around the place myself if I’d known you were coming.”
I wave away his offer. “How am I supposed to steal all your secrets with you shadowing me?”
His eyes sweep over to Christine and I introduce them.
Vince smiles. “Ah, now I see the real reason why you didn’t want me around.”
I laugh good-naturedly then go back to shoveling birdseed into my mouth. I’m starving.
“Oh stop,” Christine says with a subtle blush. She’s obviously impressed with Vince, and I’m actually glad she’s so eager to talk to him for a while because I’m happier taking a back seat in social settings like this.
“You have a beautiful winery,” she says with a flirtatious smile. “I think we’ll head out and watch the sunset in a little while.”
“To be honest, the view is probably 90% of why people come out here,” Vince admits. “The wine is just the cherry on top.”
“It really is breathtaking!” Christine continues, reaching out to touch his arm.
That’s one of the things Hill Top has over us: location. From their large back patio, guests can look out over a deep valley where all the grapes are grown. The view extends for miles, and it’s the reason their sunset tastings sell out months ahead of time.
Vince motions to the patio. “I actually keep one of the best tables in the house reserved out there. I’d be happy to offer it up to you guys for the night.”
It’s tempting, but I don’t think I’ll last through the sunset. My plan was to take the tour, speed through the tasting, and then find a place to eat with Christine on the way back to the ranch, preferably somewhere with a drive-through.
“I appreciate the offer, but—”
“Yes! Please, that would be great.” Christine cuts me off. “But you must join us!”
Vince chuckles and glances over to see what I want to do. I swallow a sigh. “Sure, yeah. Sounds great.”
For the next hour, the three of us sit outside while the Texas sun paints the sky pink and orange as it disappears behind the horizon. Christine does most of the talking. Vince tries to keep up, and I mostly stay quiet, sipping my wine, ignoring the loud grumbles coming from my stomach, and trying to figure out why I’m not having a better time.
It’s not the people I’m with. Vince is a great guy—we’d be better friends if I had the time for it—and Christine is always good company. They aren’t the problem. No, I feel uneasy, like I’m sitting here missing out on something.
Yeah, something like a double cheeseburger with bacon.
As soon as Vince excuses himself to get back to work, I sigh with relief and start to stand.
“Christine, you about ready to go?”
She jerks her gaze to me, and I get stabbed by a million tiny daggers. Oof. She’s pissed.
“We haven’t even been here an hour!”
“I’m starving.”
“Then eat some nuts.” She shoves the nearly empty bowl toward me. “Jesus, do you even know how to relax? You’ve been sitting over there jiggling your leg under the table for the last hour.”
I frown. “I can relax.”
“Prove it.”
“I will—at home. I’m hungry and ready to go.”
She bites back a response, grabs for her purse, and storms off ahead of me. I have no clue what I’ve done to piss her off, and truthfully, I can’t muster the energy to care. I’m working on an empty stomach here. I just hope she’s not so mad that she’ll object to stopping for fast food on the way home.
Tense silence fills the truck as we start the drive. She’s sitting over on the passenger side as far away from me as she can get, arms crossed and attention laser-focused out the window. I ask her if she likes this radio station, but she doesn’t respond. I ask her if she’s hungry, and she shifts more of her back to me. If we weren’t currently flying down the highway, I think she’d open the door and fling herself out.
Okay then.
Silence it is.
We drive another thirty minutes like that, and while I don’t mind the quiet, I have enough sense not to pull into any of the restaurants we pass. The only thing worse than being inattentive to her needs would be attending to mine—and I don’t really want a milkshake dumped over my head.
When we finally make it back to the farmhouse, I park my truck and turn to her, prepared to say whatever it is she needs me to say so we can continue on with our night.
“Listen, I know I haven’t been the perfect boyfriend.”
“Boyfriend?!” she snaps, throwing her hands in the air and finally turning in my direction. “We’re hardly acquaintances at this point, Jack!”
“You don’t mean that.”
Her eyes turn into angry slits, and I realize she’s way more worked up than I thought she was. On a scale of one to ten, she’s a twenty-five, and I’m hovering somewhere near a two.
“It doesn’t matter what I mean. You’ve been checked out of this relationship from the very beginning, and I’ve been too in love with you to do anything about it!”
My stomach tightens at the L word.
Her face crumbles. “Do you know what it feels like to want someone who can’t even make time for you?”
Shit. Now I feel bad. “I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”
“Yeah?” she prods. “How are you going to do that? Say you love me? Move to San Antonio? Buy me a ring?”
Sure…those are some really good options, but I know I won’t do any of them. I’m sitting here with a woman I’ve been involved with for two years. She’s crying and shouting and there’s still 40% of me that’s focused on getting some dinner. What the hell is wrong with me? She’s called me emotionless before, and maybe it’s true. Maybe I’m made of stone. Maybe when I lost my parents when I was younger, something inside me shriveled up and died.
My silence is louder than any response she’s waiting to hear.
She huffs out an angry sigh and turns to stare out the front windshield.
“I drove three hours in Friday after-work traffic to see you, and you dragged me to a winery.” I open my mouth to defend my actions, but she doesn’t give me the chance. “You realize the last four times I’ve come up here, we’ve done the exact same thing? You aren’t taking me on dates—you’re dragging me around wine country on research trips.”
That’s not entirely true.
“What about a few months back when we went out to Fredericksburg? I took you to that little bed and breakfast.”
“Conveniently connected to a vineyard.”
Is that what that was?
“To make matters worse,” she continues, “I sat there tonight, openly flirting with Vince, trying to work up some fire in you, and in the end, I got nothin’. Nada. Squat.”
I shrug. That was a waste of her time. “I’m not the jealous type.”
She laughs acerbically and shakes her head. “Of course you aren’t. To get jealous, you have to actually value something. You have to be scared of someone else having what you want. You’re not scared of losing me.”