Chapter 6 #2
Das Edelgarten sits in a converted old stone house with arched windows and warm light spilling onto the sidewalk.
Inside, the space is elegant without being fussy, with dark wood, exposed brick, and white linen tablecloths.
The hostess seats us at a corner table where the candlelight plays off the walls and the noise from the main dining room fades to a pleasant murmur.
Sunny settles into her chair and runs her fingertips along the menu.
"This is one of my favorite restaurants," she says, and the admission comes with the same careful weight she gives every personal detail, like she's testing whether it's safe to share.
"I came here once, years ago, not long after I started at the winery.
Isabelle brought me to celebrate my first vintage. "
"That sounds like Isabelle."
"She ordered champagne and a schnitzel the size of a serving platter, and by the end of the night she'd told me her entire family history back to her great-grandparents.
" Sunny's expression softens at the memory.
"That was the night I realized I wasn't just an employee to her.
She treated me like family before I'd done anything to earn it. "
"Some people don't need you to earn it. They just decide."
Her gaze meets mine across the candlelight, and the vulnerability behind her eyes grabs my attention. "That hasn't always been my experience."
I want to ask who taught her that care came with conditions. But the waiter arrives with water and a wine list, and the moment passes. Sunny takes the wine list from him before I can reach for it, scanning it with a practiced eye.
"Do you trust me?" she asks, looking up from the list.
"With my life."
"I meant with the wine order." She tells the waiter something about a particular German Riesling that I don't entirely follow, and when the bottle arrives she swirls her glass with the same careful authority I've watched her use at the winery.
We order, and our conversation drifts naturally.
She asks more about the ranch, and I tell her about the stock show Mason and I are attending.
She tells me about a new white wine she's been experimenting with, and the way her eyes sparkle when she talks makes me want to sit here all night and listen.
Somewhere between the appetizer and the main course, the banter finds its edge.
"You know, for someone who tried to get rid of me every time I showed up at the winery, you're being awfully pleasant tonight," I say, leaning back in my chair.
"Don't get used to it. This is a temporary ceasefire, not a peace treaty."
"What are your terms for a permanent agreement?"
"I haven't decided yet. I'm still evaluating the opposition." She lifts her glass and studies me over the rim, her gaze sharp with humor. "So far the intelligence report is inconclusive."
"What would it take to tip the verdict in my favor?"
"Keep making me laugh. That's working better than it should."
I file that away and grin. "Noted."
The main course arrives, and for a few minutes we're quiet as we eat. The food is good enough that Sunny closes her eyes on the first bite and makes a sound that shoots heat straight down my spine.
"Good?" I manage.
"Exceptional." She opens her eyes and catches me staring. "Stop looking at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like I'm the most interesting thing in this restaurant."
"You are."
She huffs and shakes her head, but the flush on her cheeks gives her away. "You know what your problem is, Hayden? You're too good to be true." She says it lightly, wrapped in the dry humor she uses to keep the world at arm's length. But underneath the tone, there's a real question.
I set my fork down and hold her gaze. "No, I'm a man who works too much, takes on projects my sister rightfully calls impulsive, and is a doormat because I apparently can't refuse a three-year-old who wants a pink bridge for ducks.
" I lean forward. "But I'm very real, Sunny.
And very interested in you. That part isn't going to change. "
Her breath catches, and for a moment the restaurant noise falls away and it's just the two of us and the candlelight and the honesty sitting between us on the white tablecloth. She swallows, and her fingers tighten on the stem of her wine glass.
"You're making it hard to keep my guard up."
"That's the plan."
She laughs softly. "At least you're honest about it."
"I told you. I don't see the point in being anything else."
The waiter clears our plates, and the conversation deepens the way it does when two people stop circling and relax. I tell her about my parents, something I don't share with many people.
"They died in a car accident when Rachel and I were ten.
We'd always lived on the farm with my grandparents, so they took over.
" I turn my water glass slowly on the tablecloth.
"They were already both in their sixties, raising two grieving kids and running a large-scale thoroughbred operation at the same time. They never complained."
Sunny's expression softens, and her hand moves across the table before she catches herself and draws back. "That must have been incredibly hard. For all of you."
"It was. But they made sure we had structure and purpose.
My grandfather put me to work in the barns one week later, said the horses needed me and I needed them, and he was right.
" I meet her eyes. "He passed away a few years later and by the time I was eighteen, I was running the program.
Not because I had to, but because it was the only thing that made sense to me.
The horses gave me something to build when everything else felt like it was falling apart. "
"I understand that more than you know." Sunny's voice is quiet, stripped of its usual sharpness.
"My father left when I was five. He walked out one morning and never came back.
My mother raised me alone, worked two jobs to keep us in a decent apartment, and never said a bad word about him in front of me.
" She pauses, and I watch her organize the next words carefully.
"I spent most of my childhood wondering what I'd done wrong.
It took me a long time to understand it had nothing to do with me. "
The weight of what she's sharing settles over me, and I sit with it, not rushing to fill the silence, not trying to fix what isn't mine.
"I went to UC Davis for winemaking," she continues.
"I needed to be somewhere that had nothing to do with Texas or my father or any of it.
I wanted to start over, and be good at something that was entirely mine.
" A faint smile crosses her face. "When Isabelle offered me the job at Willow Sage, I drove straight from California to Stone Creek without stopping except for gas.
I walked into that production room for the first time and I knew I was home. "
"That's how I felt pulling under the Twin Oaks arch that first time," I say. "Like everything I'd been building toward finally had a place to land."
She nods, and the understanding between us in that moment doesn't need any more words.
The waiter brings the dessert menu, and Sunny waves it off. "If I eat anything else, you'll have to carry me out of here."
"I could manage that."
"I'm sure you could, and I'm sure Gran would approve, but let's save the heroics for the second date."
"Is that a promise of a second date?"
"It's a possibility. Don't push your luck, Hayden."
I settle the check while Sunny excuses herself, and when she crosses back through the dining room the blue dress catches the lamplight. She has no idea how beautiful she is, and for some reason that detail gets me more than the dress does.
Outside, the evening air is warm, carrying the faint scent of lavender. The Saturday crowd moves easily around us, couples arm in arm, kids trailing ice cream drips, live music drifting from somewhere down the block.
Sunny falls into step beside me, and the tension she carried at the start of the evening is gone.
In its place is something looser, warmer.
We pass galleries and shops, and she points out a wine bar she's been to once and a German bakery that makes strudel she describes in terms that would make Chef Delany jealous.
"This town has more character in one block than most cities have in a mile," I say, pausing to look at a mural on the side of a building.
"Fredericksburg has been reinventing itself for a hundred and fifty years without losing what makes it work.
" She tucks her hands into the crook of her elbows and looks up at the old buildings.
"That's harder than it sounds. Most places try to modernize and end up gutting the soul out of everything. "
"Sounds like you're talking about more than architecture."
Her mouth curves. "Maybe I am."
We walk another block, and our arms brush as we navigate around a group of tourists. Neither of us moves away. The contact is small but electric, and the buzz shoots to my shoulder.
"Can I ask you something?" she says after a stretch of comfortable silence.
"Anything."
"Why me?" She stops walking and turns to face me, and under the streetlights her expression is open and earnest. "You could have any woman in this valley.
You're rich and kind, you're annoyingly good-looking, and you own a ranch with a duck pond.
That's basically a romance novel hero checklist. So why are you spending your Saturday night with the prickly winemaker? "
"Because it’s you," I say. "I’ve met a lot of people. None of them have ever gotten under my skin the way you do. You don’t try to.
You don’t even seem to notice it’s happening, but it is.
" I take a step closer, close enough to catch the faint scent of rose and watch the shift in her eyes.
"You make me want to pay attention. And I can’t seem to stop. "