Chapter 39
Thirty-nine
Elise
The porch at the main house smells faintly of cedar and tea leaves when I step outside.
Dad went to visit a friend who lives up north, and Tarryn insisted I not be alone so I’ve been sleeping in a guest room for the last two nights as I try to save what I can of the four blocks affected by the incident.
Even this early the air is thick, the kind that sticks to your skin and promises a hotter day ahead.
The rows stretch out behind the house, leaves dense and glossy, and clusters tight and green, soaking up the long June sun.
Tarryn is already out there, sunk back in one of the Adirondack chairs, an iced coffee sweating in her hand. Her hair is pulled up off her neck, dark eyes tracking the vineyard. Repairs are still underway on the damaged blocks, but from this distance, the trellis lines look deceptively straight.
The police came again yesterday, still talking about a drunk driver, though the lines were cut, not broken. It doesn’t add up, and every day without answers makes this feel worse.
Tarryn lifts her chin in greeting when she sees me. I can tell she knows what’s on my mind.
I fold my arms across my chest, but the pressure there isn’t enough to hold me together. “He shut me out,” I blurt. My voice cracks. “Just like everyone always does.”
Tarryn lowers her glass to the armrest and studies me. No softness, no surprise, just the calm scrutiny of someone who doesn’t let things slip by unnoticed. “Start at the beginning.”
I sink into the chair across from her, but sitting makes me feel small, so I push back up and pace the planks instead.
“He promised me honesty, and then…Hope. Her name on his phone. Messages. I feel like such a fool.” Saying her name tastes bitter.
My throat tightens, and I try to swallow it down, but it sticks.
“You think he’s still tangled up with her?” Tarryn asks.
“I don’t know.” My laugh comes out sharp and ugly. “He only shows me what he wants me to see. Everything has felt different since I came back from France. I don’t know what’s actually real.”
Tarryn’s gaze hardens. “You’re angry.”
“Of course, I’m angry.” I turn to face her, hands rising helplessly before I drop them back to my sides.
“I let myself believe I could finally be part of something that lasts, and now…” The words catch.
“Now, I feel like I’m twelve again, lying awake at night, praying to hear my mom’s footsteps, knowing deep down she’s gone. ”
Tarryn doesn’t flinch. She doesn’t reach for me either.
“I keep falling into the same pattern,” I whisper. My chest aches. “Maybe I’m the reason people don’t stay. Too much, not enough, always wrong.”
“Don’t do that,” Tarryn cuts in. “Your mother fought the cancer as long as she could, and the others… That’s on them. Don’t put the weight of other people’s choices on yourself. He’s the one who hasn’t been giving you what you needed. That’s on King.”
Her certainty rattles me. I grip the porch railing, the wood rough beneath my palms, trying to draw strength from it. “I don’t know if I can keep doing this, waiting for him to decide if I’m worth letting in. It feels like standing at the edge of a cliff.”
She leans forward, elbows on her knees. “So what are you going to do?”
I stare at her, heat rising in my throat. “What choice do I have?”
“You always have one. You can fight for him, or you can fight for yourself. But you can’t keep bleeding out in the middle.
” Her voice softens a fraction. “I know what it feels like to wait for someone who doesn’t choose you.
It eats you alive, if you let it. I don’t think that’s what’s happening here, but you have do decide you want to find out. ”
Her words slice through the fog in my head. I want to argue, but she’s right. Sitting in limbo is draining all the reserves I have.
“I don’t even know which fight is worth it,” I whisper.
“Then figure it out.”
Her bluntness should sting, but it focuses me instead. I drag in a shaky breath. The vineyard below is alive with light now, the sun climbing higher. The rows look endless, and there’s work to be done, work that doesn’t care about broken hearts or unanswered questions.
“I can’t sit around waiting for him to choose me,” I say, straighter now, firmer. “So I’ll choose myself. I’ll throw everything I have into the winery. If nothing else, at least, that won’t walk away from me.”
Tarryn’s gaze softens for the first time, though only slightly. “That sounds like a start. And hopefully, more clarity will come.”
I nod, clutching the railing until my knuckles ache.
But even as I steel myself, the truth pulses beneath everything else: I can pour myself into Paradise Hill, I can drown in work and sweat and sabotage, but the ache of missing Kingston is everywhere.
And until I find a way to address it, it’s still mine to carry.
The vineyard is quiet when I finally get out there later that morning.
Late-June sun presses against my back, and my boots sink into the soft soil as I head toward the storage shed beside the crush pad.
Water drips from a hose someone left running, cutting tiny channels into the dirt.
I roll up my sleeves and knot my hair at the back of my neck. I need my hands busy, my body moving.
The so-called drunk driver still gnaws at me. The car was stolen, the story doesn’t add up, and we lost four blocks overnight. Weeks of work gone.
I grab a hammer from the rack and head for the nearest row, where new posts lean stacked against the fence, waiting to be set.
Someone’s left a spool of wire half-unwound in the dirt.
My gut twists. Carelessness or something else?
I bend to rewind it, fingers catching on the steel, and shove the thought aside.
There’s too much work to be done to chase ghosts.
By the time the first truck pulls in, my arms ache and sweat sticks my shirt to my back. Workers spill out, nodding at me with expressions I can’t read—part respect, part pity. I force a brisk smile that feels brittle on my face.
“Morning. Start with the lower blocks. We’ll get the posts in first, then run the wires and check the irrigation,” I call, trying to sound like I belong in charge.
They obey without question, and that feels good. At least here, in the vineyard, effort equals results, not silence and secrets.
I throw myself into the labor, hefting posts heavier than I should, wires cutting into my palms, sweat sliding down my spine. My shoulders burn, my thighs shake, but it feels good to hurt in ways I can control. Every lift, every swing of the hammer is a distraction.
Still, the ache sneaks in. The tilt of Kingston’s smile when he teased me about perfectionism. His steady hands on a gauge or a valve. The warmth of his body when he leaned close to explain something I pretended I didn’t already know.
I grit my teeth and drive another post into the ground.
“Careful, Elise,” one of the workers warns. “You’ll strain something.”
“I’m fine,” I snap. He flinches, his gaze sliding to the ground, and moves on. My chest prickles with shame, but I don’t apologize. If I stop, if I soften, everything inside me will spill out.
Hours pass. The sun climbs higher, hot against my neck.
I haul posts, restring wires, and tamp soil around anchors.
Each time I pause, I see shadows of sabotage—posts splintered too cleanly, wires cut instead of snapped.
Maybe it was just a stolen car and reckless hands.
Or maybe someone is still trying to destroy everything the Paradise family has built.
I make notes in the logbook, my handwriting tight and cramped. Someone has to keep watch, and if I can’t control Kingston, at least I can control this.
By midday my muscles throb, and my head spins from the heat.
I force down water from a canteen, the metallic taste catching in my throat.
Across the block, crews move in rhythm, pounding posts, threading wire, tying vines back upright.
Life doesn’t stop for heartbreak. Grapes don’t care who leaves or who stays.
I need to be like the vines—rooted deep, steady no matter what storms roll in. One woman hauling a coil of wire makes a face at another, and they both laugh. I catch it, and for half a second, I smile too. The sweetness lingers, a fleeting moment of light. Then the shadow falls.
By the time the sun begins its descent across the sky, my arms are trembling with fatigue. I shove one last post into the ground and bend over, catching my breath, when a shadow falls across me.
I don’t have to look up to know who it is. My body reacts before my mind does, skin prickling, and heart jerking.
“Here,” Kingston says, offering me a bottle of water.
I straighten, wiping sweat from my forehead with the back of my wrist. He is too close, his broad shoulders blotting out the light, his gaze pinned to me like he can still read every thought I’m trying to bury.
For one dangerous beat, I want to take the bottle, tip it back, and let him care for me with that look he gives when he is all in. I want his hand brushing mine, his voice in my ear. The want flares hot and sharp. But I don’t know if that look is real. I clamp down on my emotions.
“I’m fine,” I say, reaching past him for the spool of wire on the ground. My voice comes out clipped, but sharp is better than shattered.
“Elise.” His tone carries a warning, but I don’t stop. I crouch beside the row again, tying off wire that doesn’t need tightening. Anything to keep my hands moving.
He crouches too, his presence filling the space, his scent of sweat and cedar cutting through the raw tang of crushed vine. “You’ve been at this since dawn. You need a break.”
“I said I’m fine.” The words snap like a whip. My throat burns as soon as they’re out, but I can’t take them back.
Silence stretches between us. Workers move around, pretending not to notice, but I feel their eyes flicking this way, curiosity buzzing like flies.
Kingston stays in place, crouched in front of me, his jaw tight. “You don’t have to punish yourself like this.”
I twist the wire harder, my hands slick, and my muscles shaking. “Better me than the vines.”
His hand brushes mine as he reaches for the tool. The rough skin of his palm grazes me, a scrape of heat that nearly undoes me. I yank my hand back like I’ve been burned.
“Don’t,” I breathe. My voice cracks. “Just—don’t.”
His eyes flare, pain and frustration flashing across his face. His throat works like he’s swallowing words he can’t risk saying. “You won’t even look at me?”
I keep my gaze locked on the post, though I can’t see it anymore, my vision blurred with sweat and something hotter. “There’s work to do.”
“Elise,” he begs. “Just let me explain. I know now is not the time, but—”
“I don’t know how to believe anything you say,” I tell him, unable to keep it in any longer. “I don’t know what’s real, if any of this has been real.” I stare at the ground for a moment before clearing my throat. “And I said, hand me the wire.” My tone is cold. I don’t even know what I want.
He sets the spool down gently, almost carefully, like he knows I’m about to shatter. Then he rises, his shadow pulling back, leaving me raw under the glare of the sun.
I don’t look up, but I feel him standing there a moment longer, watching, before his footsteps fade into the scrape and clatter of work.
My hand shakes as I grip the spool. All I want is to turn, to lean into him, to let him try to make sense of all this for me. But what if I do, and I’m still the girl left behind all over again?
So I force my feelings away and twist the wire until it won’t move another inch.
The vineyard quiets as the crews take a break. I flop onto an overturned crate by the edge of the block, my muscles throbbing.
Everywhere I look, Kingston lingers. The sound of his boots crunching beside mine in the rows.
His low voice pointing out irrigation leaks.
The way his hand brushed mine when we worked side by side, and how that simple touch made me feel less alone.
The memories press in until my heart feels like it might split open.
I press my forehead to the post and close my eyes, thinking of Tarryn’s words this morning. “Fight for him, or fight for yourself.” But here, surrounded by the ghosts of everything we shared, I don’t know how to separate the two.
I’ve always been the one left behind. My mother was gone before I was ready. The men I’ve dated decided I wasn’t worth the effort. And now, Kingston is secretive and hard for me to trust when I need him most. I can’t keep repeating this cycle.
The tears I’ve been holding back all day slip free. They track down my cheeks, hot in the summer air. I swipe at them with the heel of my hand, angry that I’ve lost control.
I’m stronger than this. I can bury myself in work. I can hold Paradise Hill steady no matter who tries to sabotage it. The vines, the soil, the rows—they won’t leave me.
But deep down, I know the truth. I want him. I want his steadiness, his impossible calm, and the way he makes me feel like I belong. Even if he isn’t perfect. Even if he fights his own ghosts and battles. I have to believe in the parts of him I know are true.
But that makes wanting him feel like the most dangerous thing of all. And I’m not ready. I’m tired of putting myself out there, of fighting. I need something to be simple, to make sense. So for now, I’ll have to learn to live with the hollow space he’s left behind.