Chapter 5 #2
Of course, this is when my brain fires up a reel I don’t approve of—Kingston beside me on the pad, jaw shadowed with stubble, moving with that economical precision he gets when he’s focused.
The flash of humor he tried to swallow. The feel of his hand around my elbow, steadying me.
The way we worked—synchronized without having to talk about it, like we’d done this a hundred times, and maybe we have, in different costumes.
Sprinkler lines. Fence posts. Teenagers trying to move a fallen pine because waiting for adults was unbearable.
Stop it, I tell myself. He’s practically your brother.
You grew up together. He made you cry, and he was a bully about who did chores.
My mouth quirks, remembering the story I told him last night, the way his face fell, real remorse cracking through his certainty.
He is carved from this land in a way I understand down to the marrow.
But he’s also damaged, closed, uninterested in seeing me clearly.
Our common history is not at all the same thing as being made for each other.
Simone’s leggings slide on with a soft whisper, and the sweatshirt is heavy enough to be called a hug. I towel-twist my hair, rub warmth into my calves, and catch my reflection. Pinker cheeks. Softer eyes. I look…like me. Maybe even a me that slept well, finally.
The kitchen is warm and smells like buttered toast and chocolate and cinnamon, like holidays and childhood and good decisions.
Simone stands at the stove, whisk in hand, cocoa already at that perfect edge of steaming but not scalding.
She pours it into two mugs, white porcelain with a clean blue rim, then shakes a dusting of cocoa over the tiniest cloud of whipped cream and slides one across the island toward me.
“There,” she says. “Prescription strength.”
I wrap both hands around the ceramic and nearly whimper. The heat seeps into my fingers and up my wrists to the sore places. The first sip is ridiculous. Silky. Deep. Not too sweet, with something like vanilla at the end.
“Oh,” I say, eyes closing. “That is…unfair.”
“I know,” she says. “It’s the good cocoa.” She leans her elbows on the counter across from me, chin in hand, studying me over her own mug. “So. Tell me everything. I hear you’re running off on an exchange. Tarryn’s still trying to decide whether to chain you to a barrel or bless the plane.”
I laugh, surprised. “That tracks. But it’s not forever.
Just a few months. Maybe a season if it’s a good fit.
The truth is…aside from four years in Vancouver for school, I’ve only ever known Paradise Hill.
I know my vines the way some people know a favorite hymn.
I want… I don’t know…more ways to listen. ”
“More ways to listen,” Simone repeats, as if tasting the words. “I like that.”
I shrug, embarrassed by how earnest I sound.
“Tarryn and I met the red wine vintner and owner of Chateau at the International Wine Festival. They liked the wine I designed, and they were kind enough to offer the exchange. They do things differently over there—new clones, different pruning philosophies, fermentation tweaks I’ve only read about.
Maybe I’ll come home with better hands.”
“You already have good hands,” she says plainly.
Warmth blooms within me, unexpected and big.
“And the guy?” she adds because, of course, she does. Her grin turns sly. “What about the guy coming in your place? Tarryn is convinced half the valley will camp at your crush pad to watch him breathe.”
“I’ve never met him.”
“Hmmm… What about the master vintner? Is he a hot French guy?”
“I won’t be working with the master vintner. The exchange will have me shadowing the vintner for some of the reds, and he’s Italian.”
“I hear Italians are incredible lovers. Not that I would know.”
I cough on a mouthful of cocoa, which is a tragic waste. “I don’t know either, but he was a good kisser.”
“You don’t say…” A sly smile stretches her mouth.
“He’s very competent,” I try, feeling my cheeks heat as I try to steer us back to business. “He—he seemed interested in what we’re doing. And in me. Professionally. Maybe…more.”
“Ah,” Simone says, seeming delighted. “So he’s not just smart. We love a brain, but when they have eyes, they’re more fun.”
“Simone.”
“What?” Her eyes widen. “I’m rooting for your happiness in any form it wishes to present.”
I scrape my spoon across the rim of my mug to avoid answering. “How’s your brother?” I ask, deflecting. “Last I heard he was leaving for. Was it Laos?”
“Guatemala,” she says. “He’s building houses with a team. Sends pictures that make my heart stop. We were not built for the same level of chaos. He comes home every few months, eats everything not nailed down, tells me I need to travel more, and then leaves again with my good sunscreen.”
“That sounds right,” I say, smiling. “I remember him from school, and he never did sit still. I’m glad he found a way to make that a calling.”
She lifts a shoulder. “We’re all just trying to find the thing that quiets the noise in our heads.
For me, it’s a well-run house and a clean boot tray.
For him, it’s a muddy build site and a sunset.
For you…” She gestures at me with her mug.
“I suspect it’s a row of vines you nursed through a bad week and the exact moment a ferment tips from worry to promise. ”
Something in me opens, like she’s seen me clearly, perhaps more clearly than I’ve seen myself. “Yes,” I whisper.
“And Kingston?” she asks lightly, as if she isn’t dropping a pebble into a still pond to watch the ripples. “What quiets his head?”
“Work,” I say. “Building things that last. Fixing what’s broken.” I hesitate, and then add, “Family. Whether he admits it or not.”
Simone’s mouth tilts. “He would die of mortification before he said that out loud.”
“He would,” I agree, and we both laugh.
She taps her nail against her mug. “When I worked at the vineyard when we were kids, you two were funny,” she says. “Oil and water unless there was a job to do. Then you were…a well-oiled machine.” She winks. “Pun intended.”
I can’t help smiling. A memory surfaces of building a booth for a lemonade stand out of scrap wood and cinderblocks—Kingston bossing, me arguing, Tarryn rolling her eyes and making the lemonade so strong the first sip kicked like whiskey.
There’s a sound behind us, and Kingston strides into the kitchen with damp hair, a gray sweater, and that unavoidable gravity he carries. He looks clean in a way that makes clean dangerous. He smells faintly of cedar and soap. My brain notes all of this with scientific detachment. My body doesn’t.
He takes us both in—Simone perched like a benevolent cat, me clutching a mug like it’s a life preserver—and one corner of his mouth tucks, like he’s trying not to be charmed and failing a little.
“I talked to my mom,” he says, all business. “She wants you to come for dinner. That’s in a few hours, so we should get there so we have time to do other things. I heard on the radio that the road’s closed. We can check it out on our way.”
“Okay then,” I say, pushing away from the island. If I stay in that chair any longer, I’m going to start thinking about the way that sweater fits his shoulders like it grew there. “I’ll go grab my boots.”
“Leave the truck keys,” Simone says. “Maybe my uncle’s boys will come tow it out. They owe me.”
“Simone, you’re—”
“Not a saint,” she says. “Just very persuasive and in possession of embarrassing photos from my cousin’s wedding.” Her eyes sparkle. “Go. I’ll send you with muffins. If your mother is cooking, you’ll need backup sugar.”
“She bakes just fine,” Kingston says, appearing injured.
“She burns toast,” Simone says.
“She doesn’t.”
“I ate it,” Simone says flatly. “It was carbon with butter.”
I can’t help it. I laugh out loud, and Kingston slides me a look that is part warning, part helpless amusement. Vicky loves big family dinners, but she mostly orders in. Her house runs on a pecking order and a certain quality of love you can trip over if you aren’t watching your feet.
I duck back to the mud room to tug on boots and grab my coat.
My muscles are already beginning to tighten, the post-adrenaline tremble a reminder that I will pay for this morning’s exertion with a chorus of aches tomorrow.
Worth it. The helipad is clear. The vines are checked.
The truck has a plan. There’s a line in the day I can step over and call it progress.
Kingston joins me in zipping on a jacket, his whole attention bent to the motion, the usual way he gives himself to tasks. “Ready?” he asks when he’s finished.
“As I’ll ever be,” I say. “Full disclosure, I’ve never flown in a helicopter. If you pull any stunts, I might never forgive you.”
“No promises,” he says, and the smile he doesn’t quite unleash is infuriating and fantastic.
We step out into the cold again, the air bright. Our footprints from earlier have softened at the edges, but the pad still gleams dark and clean as we approach, its doors locked open, the platform flush with ground, the machine sitting patient and precise like a hawk at rest.
Kingston moves with an easy certainty around his bird. He’s done this a thousand times—checks a tie-down, runs a gloved hand along a seal, taps a gauge through the glass like he can communicate via osmosis.
“Come on,” he says, opening the door and offering a hand I pretend I don’t need but absolutely take because my pride doesn’t want to test gravity today.
The step up isn’t high, but my muscles voice their dissent anyway, and the heat of his palm leaks through my glove and skin into some place I won’t name.
Once inside, the world shifts. Sound is different in here, padded and close.
Leather and resin and a faint, clean note of machine fill my nose.
I settle into a seat that hugs without apology and fumble with the four-point harness until Kingston reaches across and snaps the last latch.
His sleeve brushes my arm, and I hold very still.
He hands me a headset. “Put this on,” he says. “It’ll keep the noise from eating your brain. And we’ll be able to talk to one another.”
“Tragic,” I say.
“You love it,” he says, deadpan, and for a second, it’s exactly like being fourteen again, except absolutely nothing is the same.
I fit the headset over my hat. The muffs seal around my ears with a gentle, authoritative pressure.
My own breath suddenly sounds intimate, like I’ve been moved to the inside of my body.
Kingston slips on his headset and flips a row of switches.
Systems come alive in a polite cascade—lights that blink, a soft whir beneath us, the rotor above beginning to turn slowly and then faster until the blades blur to a pale halo that makes the world look like it’s trembling.
“Last chance to bail,” his voice says in my ears, warm and richer through the headset. “We can just stay here and have dinner and roast marshmallows.”
“If I say yes, will I still get Simone’s muffins?” I ask.
“Nope. For that you have to fly, but if we crash, I’m sure she’ll bring them to your hospital bed,” he says with a smile.
“Up we go,” I say, trying for brave but feeling somewhere near reckless.