“Which ones?”
“
“That’s because there isn’t one.”
The child looked aghast. “Why not?”
“The closest word they have is
Holly touched her nose to his. “When you start making wine from your own grapes, are you going to name one after me?”
“Of course I am. Should it be a red or a white?”
“Pink,” Holly said decisively.
Sam pretended to be appalled. “I do not make pink wine.”
“Pink and sparkly,” Holly insisted, giggling at his expression. Squirming free of Sam’s embrace, she crouched down to Renfield, who had padded over to her.
“What is Mark making for dinner?” Sam asked.
“I can’t tell,” Holly said, scratching Renfield’s neck. “It’s on fire.”
“It’s fish taco Friday at the Market Chef,” Sam said. “Why don’t you run back in and ask him if he wants to go out to eat tonight?”
Holly sent Alex a hopeful glance. “Will you come too?”
Alex shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”
The child looked concerned. “Are you still having your divorce?”
“Still having it,” Alex said.
“When it’s over, are you going to get married again?”
“Only if I manage to forget what it was like to be married the first time.”
“Don’t listen to Uncle Alex,” Sam said hastily. “Marriage is great.” He did his best to sound sincere.
“Marriage is like getting a box of raisins on Halloween,” Alex said. “Someone tries to convince you it’s a treat. But when you open the box, it’s still raisins.”
“I like raisins,” Holly said.
Sam smiled at her. “So do I.”
“Did you know that if you leave grapes under the couch for a really long time, they turn into raisins?”
Sam’s smile faded, and his brows lowered. “How did you find that out, Holly?”
A brief hesitation. “Never mind,” she said brightly, and disappeared into the house with Renfield hustling after her.
Sam considered his brother with a frown. “Alex, do me a favor. Don’t share your opinions about marriage with Holly. I’d like to preserve her illusions until at least the age of eight.”
“Sure.” Alex set the empty beer bottle on the porch railing and stood. “But if I were you, I’d be careful what you tell her about marriage. At worst it’s a mindfuck, and at best, it’s an outdated institution. The fact is, there probably isn’t someone out there who’s just right for you, and if you do find that person, it’s not likely the feeling will be mutual. So if you’re raising Holly to think that life’s a fairy tale, you’re setting her up for some painful lessons in reality.”
Sam watched his brother walk to the BMW parked on the graveled drive. “Dipshit,” he muttered affectionately as the car drove off. Setting his back against one of the sturdy porch columns, he looked from the closed front door to the planted fields beyond the house, where a former apple orchard was now crossed with rows of young vines.
He couldn’t help agreeing with Alex’s view of marriage—it was a losing proposition for a Nolan. Whatever genetic combination was required for a person to maintain a lasting relationship, Nolans didn’t have it, with the possible exception of their older brother, Mark. As far as Sam was concerned, however, the risks of marriage far outweighed the potential benefits. He genuinely liked women, enjoyed their company, and he had a hell of a great time in bed with them. The problem was that women tended to attach emotions to the sex act, which always messed up the relationship. And so far even the ones who had claimed to share Sam’s desire for a simple, uncomplicated affair eventually got to the point when they wanted commitment. When it became clear that Sam couldn’t give them what they wanted, they broke up with him and moved on. And so did Sam.
Luckily he’d never found a woman who had tempted him to give up his freedom. And if he ever did, he knew exactly how to handle it: Run like hell in the opposite direction.
Four
As the rain worsened, Lucy headed to the place she always went when she wasn’t sure where to go. Her friends Justine and Zoл Hoffman ran a bed-and-breakfast in Friday Harbor, just a two-minute walk from the ferry terminal at the port. The bed-and-breakfast, named Artist’s Point, was a converted mansion with wide porches and picture windows with views of Mount Baker’s blunt crown in the distance.
Although Justine and Zoл were cousins, they were nothing like each other. Justine was slim and athletic, the kind of person who liked to test herself, see how far she could bike, run, swim. Even when she was sitting still, she gave the impression of being on the move. She was incapable of coyness or dishonesty, and she approached life with a kind of cheerful fortitude that some people found slightly off-putting. When confronted with a problem, Justine didn’t like to dither, she took action, sometimes before she had thought everything through.
Zoл, on the other hand, measured her decisions as precisely as the ingredients she used for her recipes. She loved nothing more than to loiter at open markets or produce stands, choosing the most perfect organic fruits and vegetables, buying jars of berry jam, lavender honey, crocks of freshly churned butter from an island dairy. Although she had earned a culinary degree, she also relied on instinct. Zoл loved hardcover books and classic movies, and writing letters by hand. She collected vintage brooches and pinned them on an antique dressmaker’s mannequin in her bedroom.
After Zoл had married and divorced a year later, she had let Justine talk her into helping her run the bed-and-breakfast. Zoл had always worked in restaurants and bakeries, and although she had toyed with the idea of starting her own cafй, she didn’t want the responsibility of management and accounting. Working with Justine was a perfect solution.
“I like the business side of it,” Justine had told Lucy. “I don’t mind cleaning, and I can even fix the plumbing, but I can’t cook to save my life. And Zoл’s a domestic goddess.”
It was true. Zoл loved being in the kitchen, where she effortlessly turned out confections like banana muffins topped with snowy mascarpone cheese frosting, or cinnamon coffee cake baked in an iron skillet with a melting crust of brown sugar. In the afternoons, Zoл set out trays of coffee and sweets in the common areas. Tiered plates were piled with pumpkin cookies sandwiched with cream cheese, chocolate brownies as heavy as paperweights, tarts heaped with shiny glacйed fruit.
Zoл had been asked out by various guys, but so far she had refused them all. She was still getting over her disaster of a marriage. To Zoл’s chagrin, she had been the only one surprised by the revelation that her husband, Chris, was gay.
“Everyone knew,” Justine had told her bluntly. “I told you before you married him, but you wouldn’t listen.”
“Chris didn’t seem gay to me.”
“What about his obsession with Sarah Jessica Parker?”
“Straight men like Sarah Jessica Parker,” Zoл said defensively.
