CHAPTER FIVE #2
“Well, you came down here on a good day. By Memorial Day weekend, the beach will be packed and littered with naked people.”
Lennox’s brown eyes went wide. “Excuse me?”
“Relax, cowboy. It’s definitely not the naked people you want to see. This is a hippy island, remember? The ones who like to take off their clothes and avoid tan lines are the island OGs. The Island Elders.”
He made a quick face of horror, then stowed it. “Well, whatever floats their boat, I guess. Is there some kind of warning that goes up though? So we don’t subject children to—”
I shook my head. “It’s fairly well known. But there’s honestly not much we can do. The island kind of runs by its own code and laws. The Council has been judge, jury, and executioner since the seventies. Just shield your eyes and don’t get on their bad side.”
“Duly noted.”
Without saying anything, he fell in line beside me, and we continued to walk along the shoreline, the water tickling our ankles.
“How’d the rest of your day go?” he asked.
“Really productive. Raina helped me with the rest of the tasting room. If you asked her, she’d say we’re ready to open for Memorial Day, provided the glasses and plates I ordered arrive on time. And even then, it’s not like we don’t have any; we just need more.”
“You disagree?”
I shrugged. “The exterior needs a deep clean. Pressure wash the patio, weed, scrub, plant, replace light bulbs. All that jazz.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and nodded. “All I saw were rows and rows of grapevines in the fields when we drove here, but it’s quite the beautiful chunk of property you have.”
“Thanks, uh … our aunt left it to us in her will. Four single moms, all just trying to make a better life for our kiddos. We’re raising them together, which has been …
” I blew a wisp of hair off my face when the wind swept it across my lips.
“It’s been great. Having three extra adults that I trust with my kids. We’re really lucky.”
He rocked back on his heels a little, but it wasn’t easy considering the squishy sand and water.
“I get that. I was lucky enough to have help with Mabel for the first few years, but now it’s just us.
She’s old enough to stay home alone, and is fiercely independent.
Those hairy years of not having any time to yourself are behind me. ”
Curiosity burned like volcanic rock in the depths of my belly. What was their story? Where was Mabel’s mother?
“I’m done here,” Mabel said, walking up to us, her expression blank. “Let’s go.”
The young girl’s abruptness startled me, along with her neutral face. I wouldn’t say her eyes were dead inside, but there was an intensity to them that I could only describe as … free of emotion and ruled only by logic. It made me take a half-step back before even realizing it.
Lennox noticed though.
Shit.
“Well, how about you just sit on that log over there and enjoy the view and sunshine for a moment?” her father suggested. “I’m just chatting here with a friend, then we can go.”
“No. I’m done. There aren’t very many birds here right now. Just the sandpiper and gulls.”
Lennox glanced at me, and I dropped my gaze to my shoes and smiled shyly.
“I’m going up to the car,” Mabel said, then tightly spun around like a soldier holding her rifle against her shoulder, and stalked back toward the path and railing.
She didn’t look back, and her attention was only diverted from walking when a small bird, too small for me to identify, landed on the railing eight feet ahead of her.
She stopped, whipped out her sketchbook and pencil, and began to furiously sketch in her book.
“Mabel has autism spectrum disorder, classified as 2e gifted, or twice exceptional. She is incredibly brilliant. I’m talking thirteen years old and almost finished the eleventh grade. She also audits college courses.”
My mouth dropped open a little, and my eyes widened. “Whoa.”
“However, her social skills and ability to pick up emotions and nuance are still something we’re working on. When she’s done doing something, she’s just done.”
My mouth twitched slightly. “I think there are quite a few adults out there who wish they could just get up from a boring, frustrating, or fruitless situation and be like, ‘I’m done. Goodbye.’ And then just bounce.”
Chuckling, he glanced out to sea for a moment. “I mean, we’ve definitely used it to our advantage in certain situations. However, it can also come across as rude—like now.”
“That must have quite a few challenges.”
“It did in the beginning. It was what prompted me to get my master’s in special education.
To better learn how to support my daughter and kids like her.
She’s enrolled in an online school for gifted children, and it is all self-paced.
She’s free to write her reports and produce her assignments on things that interest her, and in mediums and formats that work best for her.
It’s been a game changer from the difficulties she faced in public school.
The teachers just didn’t understand how to teach her, and the children just didn’t understand her. ”
We glanced back toward where Mabel was on the path, but she wasn’t there anymore.
Lennox didn’t seem too concerned.
“I’d love to see this tasting room. Do you have a barn or warehouse with just casks of wine?”
That made me smile. “We do.”
His eyes lit up.
I jerked my head toward the path. “Come on, Ox, let’s go explore.”
The guy really showed his age—or lack there of—with the sudden onset of giddiness that overcame him. You’d think he’d never seen a grapevine before.
We reached the top of the path, neither of us out of breath, but both a little sweaty from the sun.
Mabel wasn’t in the front seat of his truck.
He still didn’t seem too concerned.
In addition to being gifted, was she also a “free-range” child?
We tried to let our kids roam the property and have freedom, but after some of the things that had occurred earlier this year—particularly with Marco getting kidnapped—we liked to at least know the general area in which the children planned to explore.
“How’s your cheek?” I asked him, desperate to fill the silence as we walked.
He rubbed at it, which forced his biceps to bulge right beside me as he bent his arm, and, fuck me, I swooned a little. The tattoos, the muscles, and even that scar—that faint white scar that split his upper lip—were getting sexier by the second.
“I might need reconstructive surgery, actually. Like twelve plates, Botox, possibly a new nose. It’s not looking good. I hope you have decent insurance.” His cheeky side-eye made some freshly hatched butterflies go berserk in my abdomen.
“Just send me the bill,” I said. “Though, I like your nose just the way it is.”
Maybe it was the sun, or maybe my compliment, but when color filled his cheeks, some of those pesky butterflies in my stomach started panting.
“Tasting room or barrel room first?”
“Barrel room,” he said without hesitation, his gaze roaming the property, probably in search of his child.
His shoulders dropped away from his ears a little when he spotted his daughter standing beneath a big madrona tree, gazing up into the branches, her sketchpad open. Austin was there too, kicking around the Hacky Sack. They appeared to be talking … kind of.
I unlocked the “barn” and flicked on the light.
We weren’t a big operation like some wineries, but we weren’t small either.
What had long ago been a barn for animals had been converted into a state-of-the-art, temperature-controlled aging room.
Eight rows of barrels and demis took up the space, two shelves high.
Everything was labeled and recorded. Year, grape, the works.
Every couple of days, one of us would come out here and check on things.
Today, it’d been Gabrielle, and like always, she was meticulous in her note-taking.
“So this is where the magic happens?” he asked.
“This is one of the places.”
We made our way down one row and across to the open space at the back where a set of double doors spilled out to behind the barn. I unlocked it and opened them, revealing the concrete slab space where we crushed the grapes and destemmed them. That all happened in September and October.
I explained to him the process, pointing out the machines we used, that were currently stored, clean, and ready for the end of summer, and how much sugar and yeast we added to things, how we had to stir the mash in the big plastic barrels, then strain the wine from the mash into the carboys.
The mash was great fertilizer, and we offered it up to several of the farmers around.
Those with livestock just had to be careful since we didn’t want anybody’s pigs getting drunk off the mash and crashing a tractor during a joyride.
“Huge process,” he marvelled. “And it’s just the four of you?”
“The kids help. And we hire seasonal staff that we train. Some of them have been returning to work here every summer since our aunt ran the place. Those people are invaluable. Not sure we could run the place without them, honestly.”
“I’d love to see the process when it actually happens, if you allow that kind of thing?”
“I’ll let you know, and you can come by. Though, if you’re here, you’re put to work. This isn’t a spectator sport. It’s an all-hands-on-deck thing.”
“Happy to pitch in wherever I can.” His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out, frowned, then stowed it away again.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
A big, fake smile flashed across his face.
“Yeah, totally.” He glanced around the shaded space, and his eyes widened before he walked ten paces toward the hidden shelf of plants I had on a shady ledge against the rocks.
The flower itself was protected by a cage of galvanized metal wire cloth so nobody could touch it.
“This is a pretty flower,” he said, wrinkling his nose before poking his pinky finger through one of the small square holes.