Love You Always (Buttercup Hill #5)

Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

A rcher

It feels good to go for a run around the property, mainly because it forces me to breathe.

In, out.

In.

Out.

I never spent much time thinking about why I like to run. It’s not a contact sport like hockey, so I’m not getting my ass handed to me like I did the other day. But maybe it’s the solitude and the steady drumming of my feet on the pavement. A different kind of contact sport—me and the earth, each step letting me know I’m alive.

I round the bend behind Sweet Butter and stop to stretch my calves before going inside for a quick latte to drink on my walk back home.

Same routine as always—workout, coffee, shower, twelve-hour day. I don’t even question it anymore. I just show up and get things done.

Latte in hand, I walk slowly home, enjoying the quiet chirp of birds in the surrounding vineyards. The picking season is over, and it’s almost time for bottling. I can tell we’re within a week or two of the wines being ready. Then all hell will break loose. For once, I’ll welcome the distraction.

Even after the beating I took on the ice and the thinking I’ve done, I haven’t been able to shake myself free from inertia. Haven’t picked up the phone. Haven’t responded to Ella’s texts, the few she sent.

Her words were sweet, and she seemed forgiving of my limitations, which made me feel like even more of a bad guy. Why in the world would I deserve love, especially hers, when I’ve turned it away and hurt her? Am I really the only one who sees that?

All she asked was to talk things through. But I still don’t see a way forward for us, so what’s the point of talking? Or seeing her and opening up the wounds that have barely had a chance to scab over?

Better to acknowledge that I can’t do what everyone is asking of me and try to move forward.

I drop the coffee in a trashcan and walk faster. Then I run, pushing until my lungs burn with the pain I feel like I deserve. My lungs throb from the cool air ripping through them. Before I realize it, my route takes me around the back of the restaurant and the inn and I’m coming up on the lake. It’s impossible now to go anywhere without thinking about Ella.

The swans are back, floating along with me as I slow my pace to a jog on the path. “You too?” I ask, certain that they’re here to tell me all the things I’m doing wrong with my life. Fortunately, they can’t talk. Grateful for their silence, I stop running and take a seat on the bench that faces the lake, not feeling a need to rush back to work right away .

A light breeze filters over the hills, chilling the sweat from my skin. I take a deeper breath and let it out slowly, closing my eyes against the pale early morning sun.

“You’re not him.”

The voice comes from behind me, but I recognize my sister’s no-nonsense tone. A broad shadow looms over me from behind, now that she’s standing there.

I shake my head. “People have got to stop sneaking up on me and dropping ominous one-liners about my life.”

“Ha.” The shadow shifts as she drops onto the bench next to me, but it doesn’t disappear. Clouds, I guess. “It wasn’t meant to be ominous. I had half a conversation in my head first. The last part just came out loud.”

“What was the rest? You might as well tell me, since everyone seems to have opinions about what I’m doing wrong these days.”

Beatrix sits next to me and takes a sip from a coffee cup without a lid. Steam rises from the top of the light brown beverage and twirls in the breeze. “Honestly, what I said is really the gist.”

“I’m not him… Who is him?”

“Dad.”

I roll my eyes. “I know that.”

“Do you?” She turns to face me, but I stare out at the lake, willing myself not to get riled up. I’ve run myself to exhaustion this morning trying to keep the negative thoughts from taking over my mind.

“Of course.”

“You don’t.”

I try for a cleansing breath, but I only manage half an inhale before my frustration gets the better of me. “I would really like it if everyone would stop lecturing me.”

“Then stop acting like a child who needs a lesson.”

“What the?—? ”

“You’re not Dad and you don’t have to be Dad.” Beatrix starts talking again before I can get words out.

“Someone has to do the job.”

“Sure. Someone. Best case, someone who wants the job. Not you.”

“He picked me.”

“Because he respects you and knows you can carry on his work and grow the business, but guess what? It’s not up to him to decide your life for you.”

I’m about to argue back, but her words hit me differently than all the other well-meaning lectures I’ve been getting lately.

“I know that. Or at least, I thought I did.”

“Go on.”

This time, I get a full breath in and let it out slowly. “It’s complicated. You know that.”

It’s really not.

“And all this crap about you not wanting to be a father, what’s that?”

“It’s the truth, or at least it was.” I say the words, but I feel like they lack the conviction they had before I met Ella. Before I let the idea of being a parent—with her—edge its way into my thoughts and stick there.

Maybe I do have hopes and dreams.

“Right. Past tense. Now you have someone worth changing your mind, someone you love.” Beatrix was never one to mince words. “I see how you are with Fiona. We all do. You were meant to be a dad. I can’t understand how you don’t see it yourself.”

I swallow hard, not wanting to say the words out loud, even though they’ve been swirling in my brain for as long as I can remember. They’re as true as anything I know about when grapes are at the perfect time for picking.

“He wasn’t there for us. Work always came first. And when I look at how I am with my job—always chasing deadlines, always a day late and a dollar short, always worried about letting you guys down—I don’t see how I could possibly be everything Dad was and also be a good father. As Dad was not.”

Now it’s Trix’s turn to inhale a deep breath. She nods as the air leaves her lungs in a cloud through the morning chill. “It’s why we want you to leave the winery.”

Her words hit me like a shard of glass through my gut. “What? Why? You think I’m fucking it up?”

“No! We think you’ve saved the place from ruin six times over. But look at what it’s doing to you. You’re miserable and you’ve walked away from the one person who clearly makes you happy. You’re giving up on love because you think you’d be letting us down?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, hear this. The only way you’re letting us down is by walking away from the chance to be happy. Do you think any of us wants that?”

“We need to keep the winery going.”

“Fuck the winery.”

I startle at her harsh words. She’s never seemed to want anything except our family business and the inn and the restaurant. Surely, she doesn’t mean it.

“Seriously. Dad isn’t aware, and you don’t owe him anything. You’ve already preserved and grown his legacy in ways that would make him proud. So now, you owe yourself. Go back to LA, get your start-up going again. Or fanboy my husband around the country and be the Otters’ equipment manager.”

“Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Then talk to Ella. Give the idea of a life with her a chance. Open yourself up to the idea of being a dad. You’d be amazing, which is a pretty big feat, considering who you had as a role model.”

Her words hit me in a way they haven’t before. “He was tough on you too, huh? ”

“He was toughest on the ones he loved the most. Guess maybe that tells you something.”

I nod because she’s probably right.

And because life—or our dad—has an ironic sense of timing, both our cell phones start beeping at the same time. We look down to see the same message from Dad’s nurse, telling us she called the doctor to the house. Dad’s taken a turn.