I closed my eyes. If it was like this, then I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear it.
“You’re right that I did talk to Quinn that morning after I left you,” he went on. “I met him by that magnificent tree where your lane branches off. He’d been out jogging. We got talking and he invited me to his place for a coffee, so I went.”
“Did he ask where you were coming from at that hour of the morning?”
Mick looked at me sharply. “Yes, as a matter of fact, he did. Why? Is that a problem?”
I said no too quickly.
“Lucie,” he said, “is there something going on between you and Quinn? Are you two involved with each other?”
The humidity had loosened the label on the water bottle. I busied myself peeling it off. “Nothing other than a working relationship. And he’s involved with Bonita. It’s just that I like to keep my private life private, that’s all.” I set the soggy label on the coffee table.
“That’s all but impossible around here. Especially with the old dear who runs the general store and that lot who call themselves the Romeos.” He tipped my chin with his hand so this time I had to look directly into those clear green eyes. “And what about you? Before this goes any further. Are you seeing someone?”
I moved my head slowly back and forth. “No.”
His kiss was long and lingering and I closed my eyes, surrendering. Did I want this? It seemed like he did. Besides, what was not to like about him? Reason enough…wasn’t it?
When he pulled away, I rubbed at the dirt I’d transferred to his cheek. “You never finished your story about Quinn.”
He sat back in the love seat and slipped his arm around my shoulder. “I didn’t, did I? Well, we had a coffee at his place. I said I was meeting the architect I’ve hired to design my winery. After that, the conversation got ’round to hiring a winemaker. For the next few years all the work will be in the fields, so we talked about that.” Mick kissed my hair, then said quietly into my ear, “One thing led to another, love. He said the job sounded right up his alley.”
I turned to face him. “So that’s when you offered it to him?”
“I told him,” he said gently, “that I didn’t intend stealing him away from you. But if things ever worked out that he was looking around, he should come talk to me first.” He paused, then said, “He said he might be looking around now.”
“I see.”
“Lucie,” he said, “I was under the impression that things weren’t going well between the two of you. I can hire another winemaker, you know. There’s a chap I’m interested in out in Sonoma and an Aussie I spoke with the other day who was very keen on the position.” He kissed me again. “I don’t want to ruin this with you. I’ll tell Quinn I’m going to hire someone else.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Don’t do that. If he’s interested in the job and you want him, it’s not right for me to stand in the way. We have completely different opinions on how to do things. Different personalities. Plus I’m a woman. With Quinn, that’s another complication.”
“Are you sure about what you’re saying?” he asked.
“Absolutely.”
“What will you do, then, if he leaves and takes the job with me?”
I leaned back against the love seat and rubbed my temples. “I don’t know. Maybe talk to your other candidates in Sonoma and Australia. If I could possibly afford them.”
“Why don’t we cross all those bridges when we come to them?” he said. “I’m not altogether sure Quinn wants to leave you.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Just the way he was talking about it. It seemed he hadn’t made up his mind what he wanted.”
“Well, I guess we’ll both know when he does,” I said. “And I owe you an apology for the other night. I was upset and rude.”
“You were,” he agreed, “but I’m going to let you make it up to me. Over dinner. Tonight. My house.”
“You haven’t even moved in.”
“The last time,” he said, “we spent the night in that hammock. I happen to have a mattress, which is only slightly less rustic. I figure we’ll work our way up to an honest-to-God bed.”
I showered and changed while he went to Middleburg for groceries. Then he picked me up and drove me to his new home.
The grounds of the Studebaker place always reminded me of a large English park and the lane leading up to the Georgian-style house with its magnificent two-story columns was lined with saucer magnolias and dogwood trees. In the spring, thousands of tulips and daffodils bloomed along the edge of their private road. Jim Studebaker had employed a professional horticulturist to identify all the trees—copper beech, tulip poplar, Japanese maple, English elm, golden larch, and others—with landscape labels.
Mick gave me a complete tour of the house, which had been built in the late 1700s, around the same time Hamish Montgomery had built Highland House. With the place empty of furniture—except for the mattress on the floor of the master bedroom—the rooms echoed eerily.
“Did you know this was a hospital during the Civil War?” he asked, tracing a finger around an old hole in the dining room door. “See this? It’s an old bullet hole. They never repaired it.”
Though I knew the house well, I didn’t want to spoil his pleasure in showing it to me. “It’s fascinating,” I said, smiling. “And I did hear about the hospital.”
He looked sheepish. “I reckon you know more about what went on here than I do. Your family’s been here for…what, two hundred years?”
“Longer,” I said. “But I do know a thing or two about its history. When is your furniture arriving?”
“In about a fortnight,” he said. “I’m flying back next weekend to sort out a few details.”
“I thought you were leaving tomorrow or the next day.”
“I was,” he said, “but I gave Ross use of the place and my boat to get away for a few days. He needed a break. I don’t know if he told you that he’s seriously considering relocating to Florida.”
I nodded. “He really is going to leave, isn’t he?”
“Looks that way.”
We toured the grounds, finishing in the sunken rose garden, with its fountain surrounded by perennials. “It’s like Versailles,” I said. “You really bought yourself a palace.”
“Wrong country,” he said. “It’s like Queen Mary’s Garden in Regent’s Park in London.”
“‘Oh, to be in England now that spring is here’?”
He laughed and kissed me. “Not England,” he said. “Right here.”
We had dinner outdoors. The stone fireplace from the original summer kitchen had been converted into an outdoor grill, so we fixed chicken and skewers of vegetables, eating everything with our fingers. I brought the wine—a Pouilly-Fuissé from Leland’s wine cellar.
“I thought we’d go for a moonlight swim,” he said after we cleaned up.
His house—like mine—was built on a hill so that part of the backyard fell away to a breathtaking view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, much like ours. Jim Studebaker had taken advantage of the steep slope of the land to put in what was called an infinity pool—a swimming pool with no edge or rim on one side. As a result it seemed as though the water flowed out and disappeared, almost as if it joined the sky. In reality it cascaded like a waterfall into a smaller pool below. The effect, however, was stunning.
The other night Mick hadn’t really seen my twisted foot in the dark when we were lying together in the hammock. But if we went swimming it would be so…visible.
“I don’t think so—” I began.
“Lucie,” he interrupted, “it’s all right. My oldest sister had cerebral palsy. She was one of the most beautiful women I knew.”
“Was?” I could feel the color in my cheeks.
“She died of a brain aneurism when she was thirty,” he said.
“Oh, God, Mick, I’m so sorry.”
He stood up and scooped me up in his arms. “About that swim…”
