Drew cleared her throat. “Just wait until you taste our Zin.” She set them off down the hill.
“Did you always want to be a vintner?” Annie asked. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine Drew in any other profession.
“As a child, yes, but not as I got older. I grew up here, and my father always said I have grape juice running through my veins. But there was a time when I was trying to find my own way, independent of the generations of Corbins before me. I went off to college and got my MBA, not sure what I would do with it once I finally had it—anything but take over the family business. I didn’t want to follow the well-trodden paths.”
If anyone could understand that, it was Annie. After it had become clear that Jake’s interests didn’t lie in music or art but sports and having fun, her parents had set all their hopes on Annie. They had sent her to piano lessons and encouraged her to try her hand at drawing, but Annie had no interest or talent in either. As soon as she was old enough to make her own choices, she escaped into the well-ordered, logical world of numbers.
“I almost went into business with Jake when he opened his rock-climbing gym,” Drew said.
“Really?” Annie stared at her. “I didn’t know you were that close.”
“Well, we’re not best friends, but he’s a fun guy to hang out with. And a rock-climbing gym is as far from a vineyard as you can get without entering a convent.” Drew stopped and turned and whistled at Cab, who was digging in the earth.
Annie let her gaze trail over the vines and then to Drew’s tan face. “Yet here you are.”
“Here I am,” Drew said with a smile. “I tried to fit in with Jake and his partying friends, but I never did. So I came home and stopped running from who I am.”
Drew’s contentment warmed Annie as much as the rays of the setting sun.
She’s bonded to this land. It must be incredible to be so sure about who you are and where you belong.
“Hey, why the sad face?” Drew stopped at the bottom of the hill and tilted her head to look at Annie.
Annie forced a smile. “It’s nothing. I’m just glad you’re happy with your life.”
“And you aren’t?”
“Of course I am,” Annie said. “As I told you before, I love my job.”
“But life is more than just work, isn’t it?”
The wind rustled through the leaves behind them.
Annie wrapped her arms around herself.
“I’m sorry,” Drew said. “That was too personal.” She gently touched Annie’s elbow. “Come on. Let’s go to the tasting room.”
Annie gave her a reluctant smile. “You think the wine will loosen my tongue?” She tried not to tense up at the thought.
Laughing, Drew directed her toward a small building next to the house. “We’ll see.”
* * *
Annie looked around the tasting room, taking in the wood floor, the large windows overlooking the lake, and the fireplace opposite the long bar. Small tables that looked like wine barrels were placed at discreet distances from each other, but all of them were empty.
Almost six o’clock on a Saturday evening. Shouldn’t the tasting room be brimming with people?
She looked at Drew, who had taken up a position behind the bar. “Are you closed on Saturdays?”
Drew glanced up from the bottle of wine she had just uncorked with efficient movements. “Just today. I promised you a private wine tasting, so having other customers around wouldn’t do, right?” She grinned, her white teeth flashing against her tan face.
Annie gaped at her.
She closed the tasting room just for me?
When she had told Jake that she would be going to a private wine tasting, she hadn’t expected it to be this private.
“Here.” Drew poured an ounce of white wine into a glass and slid it across the bar.
“What about you?” Annie asked.
“I never drink when I pour. We’ll take a bottle and sit on the patio after you decide which one you like best.”
“I can’t have too much,” Annie said. “I still need to drive home.” Besides, she was a lightweight when it came to alcohol and didn’t want to get drunk in front of Drew.
“Don’t worry. We’ll find a way to get you home safely. Come on, try this one.”
When Drew kept looking at her expectantly, Annie stepped up to the bar and lifted her glass. “I have no clue how to do this properly.” Heat crept up her neck at the admission. She had wanted to do some research on the Internet so she wouldn’t embarrass herself, but then her mother had asked her to drive to Fresno and help her clean the attic, so Annie had run out of time. “I like wine, but I’m not a connoisseur or anything.”
“First, you tilt the glass and look at the wine’s color,” Drew said.
Annie tilted her glass toward herself.
“The other way.” Drew reached across the bar and turned the glass away from Annie. Their fingers brushed against each other; then Drew pulled back. “Do you see the greenish-yellow color? That means it’s a younger wine. White wines tend to get darker with age. Okay, now swirl it around. The swirling releases the aromas of the wine.”
Gently, Annie moved the glass in tiny circles. She had always wondered when she had seen people do that but never wanted to embarrass herself by asking. Again, she realized that Drew often went out of her way to make her comfortable and not make her feel stupid.
“Go ahead and smell it,” Drew said.
Annie bent, held the glass up to her nose, and inhaled. She lifted her brows and looked at Drew. “It smells like freshly mowed grass.” That couldn’t be, could it?
Drew leaned on the bar and grinned like a proud teacher whose student had gotten the answer right. “Yes, it does. Now take a sip and let it roll around your mouth.”
The wine left a sharp taste in Annie’s mouth as she swallowed.
“What do you taste?” Drew asked.
“Uh ... wine?”
Drew laughed. “Close your eyes.”
Annie hesitated.
“Come on.” Drew flashed the charming smile that probably got her whatever she wanted most of the time. “Try it. Close your eyes and take another sip.”
Slowly, Annie lifted the glass to her lips again and closed her eyes. She focused on the layers of flavor as the wine wet her tongue.
“What do you taste?” Drew asked again.
When Annie opened her eyes, she met Drew’s gaze. “It tastes a bit like lime.”
“Very good.” Drew beamed at her as if she had predicted the winning lottery numbers. “Are you ready for the next wine?”
* * *
Half an hour later, they had progressed through three more white wines and four different red wines.
Drew smiled as she watched Annie. With every sample Drew poured, Annie’s cheeks reddened more and her eyes became more glazed. She had repeatedly told Annie that it was perfectly fine if she wanted to spit out the wine after tasting it, but Annie apparently thought it impolite to spit out wine with the vintner watching.
“So,” Drew asked when Annie set down her empty glass, “which one did you like best?”
“The last one,” Annie said without hesitation.
“You’ve got great taste. That was a thirty-year-old Cabernet Sauvignon.”
“Your father’s favorite.”
Drew smiled, pleased that Annie remembered.
Dad would have liked her.
The thought was bittersweet.
“May I ask where he ...?” Annie looked around as if searching for Drew’s father.
The smile faded. “He died this spring. Probably missed my mother too much. She died last winter.”
Annie squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, the color of her eyes had darkened to a mossy green. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s all right.” Drew picked up the bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and two glasses. “Come on. Let’s go get the cheese from the fridge and sit on the patio. You ordered the vegetarian lasagna in the restaurant, so I assume you eat dairy products, just not meat, right?”
Annie stared at her for a moment as if she was surprised that Drew remembered what she had ordered, then she nodded and followed Drew to the kitchen.
* * *
Twilight had settled over the lake. The rows of vines threw long shadows down the hills. A cool breeze ruffled Annie’s hair and Cab’s fur. The dog had settled down across Drew’s feet after licking up crumbs of bread and cheese that fell off the table. The waterfall gurgled on the other side of the lake. Below the stone patio, water splashed whenever fish broke through the surface to see if there were more of the bread crumbs Drew had tossed into the water.
Annie settled back in her chair, a glass of Cabernet in her hand, and enjoyed the peaceful feeling. Her mind was pleasantly buzzed, and her thoughts drifted lazily like the leaves drifting on the lake.
As darkness fell, the temperatures dropped and Annie shivered in her thin blouse.
“Are you cold?” Drew asked. She seemed comfortable, even with her sleeves rolled halfway up her forearms. “Want to go inside?”
“No, it’s nice out here. I’m fine.” Annie realized she had to focus to pronounce her words clearly.
I’d better lay off the wine
.
After studying Annie for a few moments, Drew shook her head. “I’ll get you a jacket.” She stood and disappeared into the house. A minute later, she returned. As Annie leaned forward to set her glass on a small table, Drew settled a jacket across Annie’s shoulders.
“Thank you.” Annie slid her arms into the jacket sleeves. The jacket was a bit short, and she drew the fabric more tightly around herself. The movements made the world around her spin. She grabbed the armrests of the chair until the spinning stopped. The scent of Drew’s perfume drifted up from the jacket’s collar, mingling with the aroma of the wine.
Drew settled back into her chair and poured the rest of the red wine into her glass. “Want me to open another bottle?”
“Oh God, no, are you trying to get me drunk? I’m already a little tipsy.” In fact, she was more tipsy than she could ever remember being. She took another piece of French bread, hoping it would help to soak up the alcohol.
Drew’s teeth glinted as she smiled. “Don’t worry.” Her voice rumbled through Annie. “I won’t take advantage of it.” She picked up a piece of goat cheese from the tray, leaned back, and chewed while her gaze swept over the small lake and the surrounding hills.
Annie turned to look in the same direction.
The sun had disappeared now; just a stripe of orange remained on the horizon. A light wind blew a layer of clouds eastward and revealed the crescent-shaped moon. The surrounding hills were just dark shapes, but Annie imagined that Drew could still point to each of them and tell her exactly what kind of grapes grew on top.
She turned and regarded Drew across the small table.
Drew was more lying than sitting in her chair, her legs sprawled, her face relaxed. In the light from the tasting room, Annie thought she saw a glow of contentment in Drew’s eyes.
“You have a beautiful home,” Annie said, lowering her voice so she wouldn’t interrupt the peaceful silence. “I can tell how much you love it.”
Drew looked up. “I do.” She picked up her glass and studied Annie while she swished around the wine. “Do you have a place that makes you feel like that?”
Annie fought the urge to squirm under that intense gaze. It took her longer than normal to think about her answer. Her apartment? No. It was cozy, but she was barely home anyway. And her parents’ house had stopped being her home the moment she had moved out. Not even three days later, her father had made her old room into an office. She shook her head. “Not really.”
“Then maybe a person who makes you happy?”
How often had Annie warded off questions like that—from Jake, her parents, her colleagues. Even mere acquaintances felt entitled to ask personal questions and judge her for the answer. She shook her head again, hoping Drew would back off.
Drew didn’t say anything, but the regret—or even pity—in her eyes cut deep.
To Annie, it seemed like a criticism of the way she lived her life, as if she couldn’t possibly be happy with what she had. Heat shot up from the pit of Annie’s stomach, where the red wine warmed her, until she felt words bubble out of her mouth. “Why does everyone keep thinking that I need someone to make me happy? That I can’t be happy with my life just because I’m single? Life isn’t Noah’s ark, where everyone needs to line up in pairs or drown, you know?”
Drew’s eyebrows hiked up, but she said nothing.
“I like my life just fine.”
Cab lifted his head off Drew’s feet and whined.
Annie snapped her mouth shut and sank against the back of her chair.
Oh, Jesus, I drank too much.
Normally, she had much better control.
“I didn’t mean to imply anything else,” Drew said. “I’m just trying to understand why nobody has snatched up a woman like you.”
A woman as awkward as me? As boring as me?
She pressed her feet to the ground as the world started to spin again.
As drunk as me?
But the warm look in Drew’s eyes said that she had a more positive description in mind.