Chapter 41
Forty-one
Kingston
Ididn’t sleep last night. I drifted through the kind of half rest that loosens bolts in my head instead of tightening them. But I still manage to feel better this morning. Since my epiphany with Greyson, my mind has been flooded with plans of what I want to tell Elise today.
By the time I land at Paradise Hill, the sun hangs pale behind thin clouds, the vines washed in that flat morning light.
From a distance, the rows look perfect. But up close, the restoration work continues.
The crew moves quietly. No banter. No music.
Everyone’s likely saving their energy for whatever goes wrong next.
I’m scanning for Elise when a shout cuts through the stillness. One voice, then more. Urgent. I’m already running, boots pounding gravel, past the shed and down into the lower block where the sun hits hot and sound bounces between the posts.
The scene snaps into focus. Workers rushing forward, arms raised. Wire whipping loose across the row. A trellis pulled half out of the ground, the whole line unraveling.
And then I see her. Elise is right by the break, wrench in hand, hair shoved behind her ears, dust streaked across her cheeks. She’s gripping a post, reaching for the wire, trying to catch it before it tears through the next row.
The snap is sharp, like a gunshot. The post jerks, wire lashes, and she slips. Her boots skid on loose dirt, her hand slamming against the clamp. The crack of knuckles on steel hits like it’s mine.
I’m there before I can think. One hand grabs her elbow, the other her waist. Her body jolts against mine, and then she’s steady, breath catching between us.
I force myself to breathe. “What happened?”
Elise pulls in air. “We checked the tension at dawn. Everything was tight. Then one line gave way. Just snapped. It shouldn’t have.”
Her voice shakes, barely holding. I look over at the break. The wire’s frayed, the ends curled unevenly, like it tore instead of slipped. The clamp’s twisted halfway off, metal gouged deep where it shouldn’t be. I crouch, running a hand over the edge—fresh scrape marks, too clean to be from wear.
She kneels beside me. “Could be us,” she says quietly. “Overtightened the section. Or maybe…”
I find the broken piece of wire in the dirt, edges shiny, as if cut, not snapped. My body goes hot, then cold. Anger. Fear. I reach for Elise’s hand.
After a moment, she tries to pull it free, but I don’t let go. Not yet. I scan for blood. Her knuckles are split, a shallow line beading red. I lift her hand, and she flinches. Not from pain. From me. It strikes harder than my worry.
I keep my grip light and wrap her fingers with the clean edge of a rag. “You should be wearing gloves.”
“I am.” She lifts her other hand. The glove hangs from her back pocket.
“This was not an accident,” I say.
“I know.” She nods. “We had it fixed last night. Those threads didn’t wear out in a few hours.”
She crouches, careful, and touches the stripped screw head with the tip of the wrench. The mark is too neat. Not a tension stretch. A choice.
Elise straightens, wiping her injured hand on her thigh like she refuses to give the pain any space.
“I’ll log it,” she says, already moving toward the truck where she has the maintenance binder.
Her good hand flips through the thick folder until she finds the page for this exact piece of equipment.
She kneels again and lines up the binder beside the stripped screw, comparing last night’s repair notes with the current damage. “The torque readings don’t match,” she murmurs. “Someone backed this out deliberately.”
Before I can tell her to stop moving or to let me handle it, she pulls her phone from her pocket and snaps two clean photos—one of the screw head, one of the rag wrapped around her hand. “Evidence,” she says. “In case anyone decides to rewrite what happened.”
Then, she braces herself and works the wire back into place. No fumbling, no panic. Just calm, careful movements. She pulls the slack out, resets the fastener, and tightens it enough for the row to stand straight again. The vines rise, supported once more.
She stands and wipes dirt from her palms. “There. That’ll hold until we replace it.”
I can only shake my head in wonder. She stepped in without hesitation, even with her knuckles split open and the threat still hanging in the air.
“Everyone stays clear until I finish the full inspection,” she calls.
She did it calmly. Efficiently. Like someone who refuses to be a victim.
“You could have been hurt,” I say, low.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
Her chin lifts. “We’ve got work to do.”
“We do.”
Out in the yard, the sun lifts higher. The morning looks calm again. But that’s a lie. Still, I am here now. And I am close enough to catch her if the world tilts again.
The crew gets back into their work. Elise checks the tension one last time, jaw set, shoulders squared like nothing rattled her.
But I’m rattled. “You could have been killed.”
She doesn’t look at me. “I’m fine.”
“You keep saying that,” I bite out. “But I saw you fall.”
Her head snaps toward me. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn this into some heroic rescue. I had it handled.”
“Handled?” My voice sharpens. “The clamp was stripped. Someone set that up. You were standing inches away when it blew. You think I’m going to just shrug and pretend it doesn’t matter?”
“Why does it matter to you?” she demands.
“Because—”
“Because what? You’ve spent more than a week ignoring me. And now I’m supposed to believe you care if I slip in a puddle?”
Pain stabs my heart. “I was not ignoring you. You asked me to step back, and I gave you room. I do care. I just don’t know how to—”
“No.” She shakes her head. “You care enough to show up when there’s chaos. But not enough to actually let me in.”
Her rag trembles. I want to take it from her hand, but she’d pull away.
“You don’t understand—” I start.
“You’re right,” she cuts in. “I don’t. Because you never let me. Every time I get close, you throw up a wall.”
I grit my teeth. “I don’t want to do that anymore.”
“Then tell me,” she whispers. “Tell me what’s so bad that you’d rather keep me in the dark. Is Hope pregnant?”
My eyes nearly bug out of my head. “No! Absolutely not.”
“Then what?”
“I’m afraid, Elise. I’m petrified by my own past, and it paralyzed my ability to see the way forward when things went wrong. I’ve already been broken once. But that’s no fault of yours.”
Her eyes widen. “Broken?”
“My marriage,” I rasp. “My best friend.”
Her face softens for half a second before she shutters it again. “I know how despicable Cara and Tim were. You don’t get involved with someone until you’re done with everyone else.”
“It’s more than that.” I take a deep breath. “I fix people for a living. I worked hard to save my marriage, and I couldn’t. I failed.”
She shakes her head. “You didn’t fail. It takes two people to save a marriage.”
“That’s what the therapist said. But it was my fault Cara went to Tim.”
“Why was it your fault?”
I take a deep breath. “I couldn’t be there for her when she needed me.”
“What happened? Where were you?”
“I was with my family or working. She didn’t like hanging out with my family.”
Her body language has softened, though her tone remains cold. “They can be a bit much, but that’s not on you either.” She pauses a moment, and I brace for a dismissal, but then she asks a question, continuing the conversation. “What happened with Hope?”
I sit down on an empty bucket. “She was my lawyer. We’d flirt, and one day I needed a date to a fundraiser, so I asked her to come.
I ended up spending the weekend with her.
We decided we were both career-minded and could be just casual.
We agreed that when the time came to end things, we’d tell the other, and that would be that.
It seemed perfect for me. That’s what I thought I was capable of.
We did that for four years, and then I told her I was getting involved with you, so we needed to stop. ”
“You told her about me?”
“Not by name, but I told her I just wanted her to be my lawyer, that the personal aspect of our relationship was over. I made it clear that I’d fallen for someone and our being together needed to end.
She wasn’t happy about it, but I thought she understood.
Then while we were in Paris, she started calling and texting.
I ignored it, hoping it would resolve itself, and then she came to my house. ”
Elise’s eyes narrow. “She has some balls. But you pushed me away that night. You made me wonder what I’d done wrong.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I was horrified by what happened, and I thought I was protecting you from it—and protecting myself.”
Her voice breaks. “By keeping me in the dark?”
“I realize now that wasn’t right, but yes. I panicked, I suppose. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s me. All of it is me.”
Elise stands still as glass, the rag trembling in her fingers.
I draw a breath that tastes like rust and sap.
“Cara wasn’t just my wife. She was my best friend.
Then she betrayed me with someone I trusted.
I thought if I buried the truth deep enough, maybe it would stop bleeding.
” I shake my head, seeing it all so differently now.
“My family wasn’t crazy about her, mostly because she rarely came to Sunday night dinners.
So when things fell apart, I kept most of it to myself.
Telling my family seemed like handing everyone proof of how blind I was.
So I swore I’d never, never let anyone get close enough to do that to me again. ”
Elise’s jaw trembles. The rag slips from her fingers and lands on the dirt with a damp slap. Her hand twitches like she might reach for me, and then curls into a fist.
“I’ve been a coward,” I say. “Too scared to tell you. You deserve someone who isn’t afraid.”
Elise takes a shaky breath. “All this time…”
“I know.” I brush my fingers across her hand. “I should have trusted you.”
She doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t close the distance either. She just looks at me, hurt and angry, but maybe with a sliver of understanding.
“You should have told me,” she finally says.
“I know.”
“I’m still angry.”
“I don’t blame you.”
She swallows. “I don’t know if I can forgive you. Not yet.”
“I understand. I just needed you to know the truth.”
Her fingers twitch against mine, a small, unconscious brush. It jolts through me.
“You scared me today,” she whispers. “Your hands are the way you do your job. You rushed in without thinking, and if that had gone wrong, it could’ve threatened your ability to work, to operate.”
I nod. “I scared myself. Watching you go down with that line snapping— I thought I’d lose you before I ever got the chance to tell you.”
She shakes her head and steps back. “This doesn’t fix everything. And I have to think about Hope.”
“That’s perfectly understandable,” I say, steady this time. “But it’s a start.”
She bends to pick up the rag she dropped, wringing it between her hands. “In the meantime, we still have a vineyard to protect.”
“We will,” I promise.
She meets my eyes. No forgiveness yet, but no wall either. Just a thin crack of possibility. After a moment, she turns away, shoulders straight, already slipping back into motion. I let her go, not because I want to, but because it’s what she needs.
I look for a way to busy myself, to stand in solidarity with those rebuilding the vineyard, even as I cling to a fragile thread of hope like it’s the only thing keeping me upright. Because maybe it is.