Epilogue
Juliet
"You've checked the tables three times," Eileen said from the kitchen doorway.
"The centerpiece is crooked."
"The centerpiece is fine."
I straightened it anyway, stepped back, and looked at the room properly.
Twelve settings for our first twelve guests.
The candles threw a warm light over the white linen.
The flowers Nate had cut for me from the garden that morning were neatly arranged in vases along the center of the table.
Everything was perfect, yet my stomach kept churning.
Behind me, I could hear Nate and Ramon in the kitchen, ostensibly helping, but actually getting in Eileen's way. She'd put Nate to work on the bread baskets and Ramon on the cheese board. From the sound of things, neither task was going particularly well.
Something clattered heavily, and Eileen said something I didn't quite catch about people who couldn't be trusted with a bread knife. Ramon said something back in Spanish that made Nate laugh.
I went back to the kitchen doorway and watched them for a minute.
Ramon, who was no doubt regretting his offer to help, was attempting to arrange cheese prettily on a wooden board.
Nate was leaning against the counter watching him with his arms folded, entirely unhelpful.
Eileen was at the stove with her back to both of them, stirring the chestnut velouté with the precise, unhurried movements of someone who had made it a dozen times and knew exactly what she was doing.
"The bread," I said to Nate.
He looked at the loaves on the board in front of him. "What about it?"
As much as I loved this man, I despaired of him sometimes. "It needs slicing."
"I was just about to do it."
"Uh-huh." I didn't try to disguise my skepticism.
He picked up the bread knife and got to work. Restless I returned to the dining room and walked the length of the table one more time, adjusting a glass here, straightening a fork there. I knew I was fussing but couldn't stop myself.
This was our first supper club. Whatever happened tonight would set the tone for everything that came after it, the weekly dinners we'd planned through to spring.
I stopped at the window and looked out over the valley. The sun had dropped behind the ridge now, and the light was soft and flat, the vines casting long shadows across the slope. I could see the winery buildings down below.
I thought about that fateful night I arrived at Mist Hollow in a red silk dress and five-inch heels.
I thought about being in the east sitting room with a borrowed blanket around my shoulders, waiting for a man I barely knew to offer me his protection.
I thought about the night of our first kiss, the harvest dance.
You're one of us now, Ramon had told me that night.
I hadn't believed him then. I did now.
My phone buzzed on the table behind me. I picked it up. The message was from the security guards on the gate. Our first guests were pulling up now.
I set the phone down, took a breath, and looked at the room one last time. Nate appeared in the doorway. He looked at the table, then at me, and smiled. Crossing to where I stood, he reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
"You've got this," he said.
I looked up at him. This man, who'd given me a home when I hadn't known I needed one, made room in his life for me without hesitation.
He pulled me close, and I pressed my face against his chest for a moment, allowing his calmness to soothe me.
"I love you," he said into my hair.
"I love you too," I said.
From the kitchen, Eileen's voice carried through to us. "If the pair of you are done canoodling, or whatever it is you're doing out there, could someone come and help with the cheese?"
Ramon said something in Spanish. Eileen told him she knew exactly what that meant, and he could think again.
Nate looked at me once more, his face searching mine to check I was all right.
"Go," I said, nodding toward the kitchen.
He went. Smoothing down my dress, I rolled my shoulders back and walked down the hallway to the front door. Through the glass panel beside it, I could see headlights coming up the driveway. A moment later, I heard footsteps on the gravel outside.
This was it. Thanks to Nate, Eileen, and even Ramon, a new chapter in my life was beginning. My first guests were here. Smiling with a happiness I hadn't felt in a long time, I opened the door and let them in.
The End