Chapter 17
SADIE
Iam standing on the Beaumont porch with my hand flat against Rhett's chest, and I press it harder until he feels it and stills.
Every part of me wanted to lean back into that kiss instead of pulling away. That's exactly why I have to.
My whole body is arguing with the decision my head just made.
"Rhett."
His forehead drops to mine. Neither of us moves.
"I know," he says.
"You don't."
"Then tell me."
I step back far enough that the porch light isn't lighting up every feeling on my face. Moths circle the bulb overhead in slow, restless orbits. Somewhere behind us, through the window, I can hear Knox laughing at something Beck said, oblivious to what just happened ten feet from the dinner table.
"I need time," I say.
He waits. He doesn't fill the silence the way most men would, doesn't rush to fix it or talk me out of it. He just stands there with his hands loose at his sides, watching me like whatever I need to say is worth the wait.
"The last time I let myself believe a Beaumont meant what he said," I start, and then I stop, not wanting to finish that sentence out loud.
"You don't have to explain it to me." His voice roughens at the edges. "I know exactly what I cost you. I don't need you to spell it out."
"This isn't about punishing you."
"I know that too."
I wrap my arms around myself even though the night is warm. "I want to believe this is real. I do. But wanting to believe something and actually trusting it are two different things, and I only just started letting myself want you again. I'm not ready to hand you the rest of it yet."
Some part of me is already measuring the distance back to the highway, the easy math of how fast I could be gone if this goes sideways again. I hate that math. I do it anyway.
Something moves across his face, quick and quiet, and disappears before I can place it.
"Then don't," he says. "Take whatever you need. I'm not going anywhere this time."
The word settles heavier than he means it to. This time. Like he already knows the difference between the man who stood in this house and said nothing years ago, and the one standing in front of me now refusing to let me walk away without a promise.
"You say that easily."
"I mean it easily." He tucks his hands into his pockets like he's giving himself something to do besides reach for me again. "I'm not asking you to trust me tonight. I'm asking you to let me earn it. However long that takes."
I look at him for a long moment. The porch light catches the line of his shoulders, the stillness he's holding himself in, like every part of him wants to close the distance between us and he's making himself stay put out of respect for what I just asked him for.
"Okay," I say.
It isn't a promise. It isn't even close to one. But it's honest, and right now honest is the only thing I have to give him.
He drives me home without reaching for my hand again, both of his staying steady on the wheel, and I feel the loss of it the whole way down the driveway. At my door he finally breaks and brushes his knuckles once against the back of my hand, barely a touch at all.
"Goodnight, Sadie Collins."
"Goodnight, Rhett."
I stand at the door until his taillights disappear past the cattle guard, replaying every second of that kiss until I have to force myself to stop.
Inside, the house settles quiet around me. Somewhere between the porch and the stairs I catch myself smiling at nothing, at no one, at a memory only minutes old.
I follow the kitchen light down the hall. My mother is still up. She's sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of decaf and the crossword she never finishes.
She looks up when I come in. I watch her take in whatever is written all over my face.
She doesn't ask.
"There's coffee if you want it in the morning," she says instead. "Made extra grounds today."
"Thanks, Mama."
My phone buzzes inside my clutch, an unfamiliar number lighting the screen before it goes quiet again. I silence it before she can ask, though her eyes flick toward the bag like she noticed anyway.
She doesn't ask about that either.
She goes back to her crossword, pencil tapping against the edge of the page. I stand there a second longer than I need to, grateful for a woman who knows exactly when not to pry.
She raised me in a house full of gossip and scandal, neighbors who couldn't wait to whisper about us at the feed store. She learned a long time ago how to leave a door open without walking through it herself.
I kiss the top of her head on my way past and head upstairs. I fall asleep still tasting Rhett Beaumont on my lips.
The Crush Pad is loud and chaotic by eight the next morning. Crates stack up faster than the crew can sort them, the smell of crushed fruit thick enough to taste.
I spend the morning running quality checks on the incoming Cabernet. Checking sugar levels. Walking the line between Beaumont staff and my own two employees, work I've known my whole life, even if this particular season is anything but ordinary.
Rhett keeps his distance in front of the crew. Professional. Steady. Exactly what we agreed to be in daylight hours.
But every time our eyes meet across the Crush Pad, something passes between us that has nothing to do with grape sugar levels or oak barrels.
Once, reaching past me for a hose coiled at my feet, his arm brushes mine, and he pulls back before I even register the contact, quick and clean, like he'd rather lose the moment than take more than the job needs.
I clock it anyway. He said he'd earn my trust instead of demanding it. Apparently he meant it, even with no one around to give him credit for it.
Beck ambles past with a crate of empty bins, grinning like he's been waiting all morning for exactly this moment.
"You two are real convincing with the professional distance thing."
"We're working," I say.
"Sure you are." He sets the crate down without breaking stride. "Rhett's been looking at you the way most men look at a scoreboard."
Rhett doesn't even glance up from the clipboard in his hands. "Get back to work, Beck."
"See? Convincing." Beck winks at me and heads off toward the barrel room before either of us can throw anything at him.
I bite back a laugh and go back to my sugar readings, though the smile takes its time leaving my face.
Around noon I catch a whiff of something off in one of the Beaumont Reserve barrels. I pull the wine thief without thinking, drawing a small sample and swirling it under my nose before Rhett even notices I've stopped working.
"Problem?" he asks, coming up beside me.
"Maybe." I hold the glass up to the light, watch the color, then taste it slow, letting it sit on my tongue the way I was trained to. Tart cherry up front, a little too much heat on the back end.
"This barrel's running warm. You'll want to move it off the south wall before it throws off the whole blend."
He studies me for a second instead of the wine. "You could do this with your eyes closed."
"I basically do." My phone buzzes against my hip, one sharp pulse, then stops.
I already know the area code without checking, a callback from the same unfamiliar number that lit up my clutch last night.
I ignore it and hand him the glass so he can taste it himself, and his fingers close over mine for half a second longer than the handoff needs. Neither of us moves to break it first.
"Sommelier training changes how you taste everything. I taste every bottle of wine I ever drink like I'm being graded on it."
"Sounds exhausting."
"It's a gift and a curse." I watch him take a sip, throat moving as he swallows, brow furrowing when he catches the same warmth I did.
He's standing close enough that I catch the scent of crushed grapes and salt on his skin, and my pulse answers before I can stop it, every trained instinct of mine scrambling to find something, anything, to focus on besides him.
"See it now?"
"I do." He hands the glass back, and this time his fingers linger too, deliberate, like he noticed exactly what he did the first time and decided he liked it. "Move the barrel. Anything else?"
"Give it two more days before you bottle. Let it settle."
He nods, already signaling one of the crew to reposition the barrel. For a second I forget entirely about the porch, about the kiss, about everything except how good it feels to be trusted with something I'm good at.
By four, the crew starts clearing out, trucks rumbling down the gravel drive one after another until the Crush Pad goes quiet except for the drip of the last press cycle finishing its run.
I'm gathering my clipboard and sample kit, ready to head home myself, when Rhett appears at my elbow, quiet enough that I don't hear him coming until he's already there.
"Stay a little longer," he says.
"I've got a full day tomorrow. I should get home." It's the truth, and also the safest thing I can say to him right now.
"An hour." His eyes hold mine, steady, no trace of the easy charm he uses on everyone else. This is different. Quieter. "There's somewhere on the property I want to show you."
I hesitate, clipboard still balanced against my hip. Whatever's behind his eyes right now, it isn't business, and we both know it.
"Rhett—"
"I haven't taken anyone there in years."
The way he says it, quiet and certain, tells me this isn't a request he's used to making twice.
Something in the way he says it stops every excuse in my throat. I set the clipboard down on the Crush Pad railing.
"Show me."