18. Emma
Eighteen
Emma
I ’ve spent another night reading until 4 a.m., a habit as comforting as it is detrimental. Now, as Ethan expounds on some new wine he’s starting to make here—a Tempranillo-Syrah blend, I think, inspired by his recent trip to Rioja—I find myself drifting. His words, usually as engaging as our best vintages, blur into a soothing hum. The leather couch in his office, with its scent of old books and oak barrels, beckons me toward oblivion.
“Want some candy?”
The deep, gravelly voice, as rich and complex as our oldest Port, jolts me from my semi-conscious state. In my startled awakening, my head collides with what feels like a wall—a warm, flannel-covered wall that smells of sawdust and pine. “Oww,” I grumble, as two deep laughs reverberate through me, one from above and one from across the room.
I blink away the vestiges of sleep, my vision slowly focusing on the expanse of plaid mere inches from my face. The pattern is a bold tartan—deep greens interlaced with threads of gold, reminiscent of our vineyard rows at the height of autumn. My gaze travels upward, past the sturdy buttons, until it locks onto a pair of eyes that mirror the flannel’s hues.
Ridge.
His presence in Ethan’s office, in my semi-conscious bubble, feels surreal—like finding a robust Cabernet in a flight of delicate Rieslings. But his words finally penetrate my foggy brain: “Did you say candy?”
“Yes,” he replies, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement. Those lines—a topographical map of laughter and squints into the sun—deepen as his lips curl into a smile that’s equal parts tender and teasing. “Want some?”
“Yes, please.” The words tumble out, tinged with the unguarded eagerness of a child. Or perhaps, more fittingly, like a sommelier offered a taste of a legendary vintage.
Ridge extends his hand, palm up, transforming it into a makeshift offering plate. There, nestled in the calloused landscape of his skin—a canvas that tells stories of mended fences and tamed horses—lies a collection of candies. They’re a vibrant assortment, each wrapped in crinkly, jewel-toned foil that catches the office’s soft light.
I reach out, plucking the sweets from his palm. Our fingers brush, and it’s as if I’ve completed an electrical circuit. A current runs through me, starting from that point of contact and racing along my nerves, leaving a trail of goosebumps in its wake. The sensation is startlingly similar to that first, electric sip of our Sparkling Rosé—all tingles and effervescence.
Ridge straightens to his full height, a movement that’s both fluid and imposing. In Ethan’s book-lined office, with its intellectual, almost monastic atmosphere, Ridge’s rugged physicality stands out like a gnarled old vine in a manicured garden. He turns to my brother, and the shift in his attention feels like stepping out of a warm sunbeam.
“You ready to go, Ethan?” His question hangs in the air, casual yet somehow weighted.
“Yeah,” Ethan replies, already shrugging into his field jacket—the one he reserves for hands-on vineyard work.
My drowsiness evaporates, replaced by a spark of curiosity. “Where are you going?”
Ethan’s response is a smirk, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
Ridge shakes his head, a gesture that’s part exasperation, part fondness—the look of a man well-acquainted with sibling idiosyncrasies, have to raise Cody and Lily who act exactly like Ethan and I. “He’s helping me fix a fence at the ranch.” Then, his gaze swings back to me, green eyes luminous in the lamplight. “You wanna join, little flower?”
The endearment, delivered in that low, husky timbre, does something to my insides—a feeling akin to the moment a complex red wine opens up, revealing hidden depths and nuances. It’s a warmth that spreads from my core outward, like the legs of a high-alcohol Zinfandel running down the glass.
Join them? The proposition hangs in the air, as tempting as a rare vertical tasting. On one side, there’s the allure of watching Ridge in his element—sleeves rolled up, muscles working beneath that flannel as he mends boundaries, both literal and perhaps metaphorical. On the other, there’s the comfort of this couch, the promise of more sleep.
I glance down at my hand, still clutching the candies Ridge offered. “Let me grab my boots,” I murmur.
I glance down at my hand, still clutching the candies Ridge offered. Each piece is a tiny, sugar-coated promise, whispering of shared secrets and unspoken invitations. My fingers close around them, as if by holding them tighter, I can capture the essence of the man who gave them to me.
“Let me grab my boots,” I murmur, my voice low, almost lost in the room’s wine-soaked acoustics.
Ethan’s laugh ricochets off the oak-paneled walls. “We’re going to fix a fence,” he says, his tone laced with the kind of brotherly mischief that used to precede frogs in my bed or spiders in my grape baskets. “Not paint nails!”
The jab is so unexpected, so delightfully absurd, that it cuts through my Ridge-induced haze. Ethan knows—better than anyone—that asking me to paint nails is like suggesting we pair our reserve Cabernet with gas station hot dogs. My patience for such meticulous tasks evaporated years ago, somewhere between calibrating refractometers for brix measurements and adjusting our vine canopy for optimal sun exposure.
Moreover, he’s well aware that when it comes to fixing things around our estate, I’m not just competent—I’m the vineyard’s own version of a Swiss Army knife. Leaky fermentation tanks, temperamental grape presses, even that ancient tractor Dad refuses to replace? All purr like kittens after I’ve worked my magic. Next to me, Ethan’s mechanical skills are about as refined as our first attempts at making sparkling wine. (We don’t talk about the Great Cellar Foam Incident of 2018.)
So, in response to his quip, I do what any self-respecting little sister would: I flip my hair, making sure the ends brush across his face like errant grape vines. His exaggerated sputtering is music to my ears.
“Thank God,” I retort, my words warmed by the laughter bubbling beneath. “Painting nails with you would be the death of me. I can just see it now—you’d mistake the top coat for base coat, and we’d end up with a manicure disaster rivaling that batch of Merlot we tried to age in whiskey barrels during high school.”
Ethan’s grimace at the memory is priceless. That particular experiment had resulted in a wine that tasted like it couldn’t decide whether to be a robust red or a prated Scotch. We’d jokingly labeled it “Identity Crisis” and hidden the bottles in the deepest, darkest corner of our library cellar at our old home.
“Hey, at least that…creation…didn’t strip the enamel off our wine glasses,” he counters. “Unlike a certain someone’s attempt at DIY barrel cleaning solution.”
I narrow my eyes at him, but there’s no real heat behind it. We both know that for every failed experiment, we have a dozen successes.
Our sibling dynamic is like our vine training system: a lot of back-and-forth, some tangled moments, but ultimately guiding each other toward growth.
As I move to leave Ethan’s office, my gaze drifts to Ridge. He’s been watching our exchange with an expression I’m still learning to read—like trying to decipher the potential of a young vine by studying its first tiny clusters. There’s amusement there, certainly, crinkling the corners of his eyes. But also something deeper, more contemplative.
* * *
Ridge
My heart is still racing, a stallion breaking free from its corral. The cause? Emma’s smile—a radiant, unguarded thing that appeared when she took the candies from my hand. Our fingers brushed, a whisper of skin on skin, and in that fleeting moment, I swear I felt every callus, every line of her palm. A topographical map of hard work and hidden strength.
Now, I can’t keep my eyes off her. Emma stomps around my backyard, a fucking force of nature wielding a hammer with surprising authority. She’s fixing my fence—a task I’ve postponed for weeks—dressed in a way that makes my mouth go dry. Tight jeans hug every curve, every dip and rise, like they were painted on by an artist obsessed with perfection. Above, an oversized sweater swallows her torso, the sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms that are surprisingly toned. A vintner’s arms, I realize, accustomed to lugging bins of grapes and wrestling with barrel bungs.
Upon arrival, she corralled Ethan and me onto the porch with a mix of stern commands and playful eye rolls. “You two, sit. I’ve got this.” Any time I offer advice—born from years of ranch work—she huffs and rolls her eyes. But it’s not dismissive; it’s… cute. Like a hummingbird trying to boss around a pair of old oaks.
I take a long pull from my wineglass, savoring the complex bouquet. It’s one of Emma’s creations—a Syrah that opens with black pepper and violets, then unfolds into layers of blackberry and smoked meat. Bold, yet nuanced. Much like the winemaker herself.
As I contemplate the wine’s evolution on my palate, Emma hammers a nail into the weathered wood. Suddenly, there’s a resounding ‘thwack’ followed by a soft curse. She’s hit too hard, leaving an angry scratch mark beside the nail.
She turns back to me, her face a canvas of dismay. Those caramel eyes, usually sparkling with wit or warm with empathy, now glisten with unshed tears. Her lower lip juts out in the most endearing pout I’ve ever seen.
“Jesus, this girl,” I mutter under my breath. One moment, she’s all confident swagger and eye rolls, fixing my fence better than half the ranch hands I’ve hired. The next, she’s on the verge of tears over a scratch. It’s like watching a filly—all grace and fire one second, then startled by her own shadow the next.
I rise from my seat, the motion as natural as a tree swaying in the breeze, and walk towards her. My shadow falls over her, not menacingly, but like a sheltering oak. “Looks great,” I say, my voice low and steady.
“Really?” Her question is barely a whisper, fraught with uncertainty. Gone is the woman who confidently swirls wine in her glass, discussing malolactic fermentation like it’s casual dinner talk.
“I scratched the wood.” The admission tumbles out, soft and vulnerable. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s fine.” I crouch down beside her, my knees popping slightly—a testament to years of hard living. My finger traces another, larger scratch on a nearby plank. “See this one? I made it when I was fixing up a dollhouse for Lily.”
Her eyes follow my hand as it moves across the fence’s weathered surface. “Lily scratched these because the wood was too plain.” A watery laugh escapes her lips, a sound that tugs at something deep in my chest.
“And that,” I continue, gesturing to a cluster of marks that resemble abstract art, “was all Scoby.” Right on cue, my loyal companion’s bark punctuates the air, as if he’s proud of his artistic contributions.
Emma’s laugh grows stronger, the sound as refreshing as spring rain after a long drought.Our eyes meet, and for a heartbeat, the world narrows to just us. Her, with a hammer in hand and wine-dark shadows under her eyes. Me, weathered by years and responsibilities, finding unexpected solace in her presence. Around us, the ranch hums with life—horses nickering, cattle lowing, my children’s laughter drifting from the house.
In this tableau of imperfection—a scratched fence, a watery smile—something shifts. It’s subtle, like the first hint of fermentation in freshly pressed grapes. A promise of depth, of complexity yet to unfold.
I stand, offering my hand to help her up. As she grasps it, her fingers—cool, soft, long, yet undeniably strong—intertwine with mine. For a heartbeat, we’re connected, like two vines that have grown together over seasons, impossible to separate without causing harm.
I pull us to our feet, our bodies momentarily aligned. She’s so close that I can smell the interplay of scents that define her—sun-warmed skin, the earthy tang of soil, and underneath it all, a whisper of her signature Cabernet. A bouquet that speaks of hard work, passion, and something uniquely, intoxicatingly Emma.
“You’re really awesome, you know that?” The words escape before I can rein them in, honest as a child’s laughter.
She smiles shyly, ducking her head in a gesture that’s become achingly familiar. A loose curl falls across her cheek, and every fiber of my being yearns to brush it back, to let my weathered fingertips trace the line of her jaw, to tilt her chin up until those caramel eyes meet mine.
I wish I was ten years younger.
The thought strikes with the suddenness of a summer storm, its intensity catching me off guard. In my mind’s eye, I see a different version of myself—fewer lines around the eyes, less silver in the stubble, the weight of the past decade lifted from my shoulders. In this alternate reality, would I be the man Emma comes home to? The one whose kisses she craves after a long day in the vineyard?
I can see her here, in my space—this ranch that’s been more fortress than home since Mellissa left. But with Emma, the rooms would breathe again, filled with her lively presence. I picture her stomping around in those work boots, equally at ease in worn jeans or a sundress that flutters like butterfly wings. She’d steal my shirts, I bet, claiming they’re more comfortable for late-night wine tastings on the porch.
In this fantasy, there are no echoes of a failed marriage, no whispers of “not good enough.” The rooms where I once felt like a stranger now resonate with Emma’s laugh as she chases the kids—Jack teaching her to lasso, Lily doing her hair, little Rosie always underfoot. My children, who’ve known too much loss, would bask in her nurturing warmth.
I wish I didn’t come with so much baggage.
But wishes are like last year’s grapes—once harvested, they can’t be put back on the vine. The reality is, I’m not that younger man. I’m a widower with three kids, running a ranch that’s as beautiful as it is demanding. My past isn’t neatly packed away in some attic; it’s strewn across every corner of this land, every facet of my life.
Emma… she’s like one of her young vines, just starting to produce fruit—vibrant, full of potential, unburdened by harsh seasons. She deserves someone equally unblemished, someone who can grow alongside her without the twisted complexities of an older plant.
I wish I could make her mine.
The longing hits me with physical force, a sharp pain shooting behind my sternum. It’s a hurt both foreign and familiar—like tasting a beloved wine and finding it corked. I rub my palm against my chest in a futile attempt to ease the ache, but it persists. No, more than that—it makes a home there, nestling between my ribs like it belongs.
We move to my porch, Emma taking a seat beside Ethan. I lower myself onto the weathered wood, feeling every creak, every groove—a tactile history of years past. Scoby, ever attuned to my moods, rests his muzzle in my lap. His weight is grounding, a reminder of simpler affections.
Together, we three gaze up at the evening sky. The sun is setting over my vineyard—no, our vineyard now—painting the heavens in a palette that would make Emma’s finest Syrah seem pale by comparison. Streaks of amber, violet, and a red so deep it’s almost black—nature’s own wine flight, offered in silent majesty.
We sit in silence, but it’s not the oppressive quiet that followed Melissa’s departure. This silence is… textured. A cool breeze carries the scent of flowers, wine and something uniquely Emma—Sweet and tangy. This has to be enough: shared silences, collaborative projects, and the occasional spark when our worlds collide. I can’t offer her the unblemished future she deserves. But here, in this space between day and night, between what is and what could be, there’s a harmony that defies explanation.