Chapter 11 Kick
KICK
Isabel didn’t respond to Baron’s message that night, or the next day, or the day after that.
I let her run, at least for a few days.
I understood the impulse. Baron’s message sat there like a grenade with the pin half pulled. Responding meant dealing with it, and ignoring it meant pretending, for a little while longer, that the outside world couldn’t reach us here.
But the outside world never stayed at bay forever.
On the fourth morning, I found her at the kitchen table before dawn with her laptop open. She’d been there for a while—the coffee in her mug had gone cold, and she’d surrounded herself with printouts and sticky notes covered in her neat handwriting.
“You’re not sleeping,” I said.
“I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t a question.” I dumped her coffee out and replaced it with a fresh one, poured one for myself, then took the chair across from hers. “Talk to me.”
She closed the laptop and, for a long stretch, just stared at the steam rising from her mug.
The circles under her eyes were darker than I’d realized, and she’d lost weight too—not much, but enough that I noticed the sharper angles of her collarbone above the neckline of the long-sleeve T-shirt she wore.
“I don’t know what he wants,” she finally said. “That’s what’s driving me crazy. With Baron, there’s always an angle, always a transaction. He doesn’t just want to meet. He wants something.”
“What do you think it is?”
“Control.” She wrapped her hands around the mug like she was cold, even though the cottage was warm.
“Maybe he wants to see if I’ve learned my lesson.
Maybe he wants to remind me what I’m giving up by staying here.
Maybe he wants to parade his disappointment in front of me one more time so I really understand how badly I’ve failed him. ”
Her bitterness stunned me.
“Or maybe—” She stopped.
“Maybe what?”
“Maybe he knows about the baby.”
The thought had crossed my mind too. Baron had resources, connections, and a network of people who owed him favors or feared his displeasure. If he’d wanted to find out what Isabel was doing at Whitmore, he could have, and he probably already had.
“Would that change anything for you?” I asked. “If he knows?”
“I don’t know.” She murmured. “That’s the problem, Kick.
I don’t know what I want from him anymore.
I used to think if I just did the right thing, said the right thing, proved I was worthy somehow—he’d finally…
” She shook her head, leaving the sentence unfinished.
“It doesn’t matter. It never mattered. Nothing I did was ever enough. ”
I reached across the table and took her hand.
“What if we went to Paso Robles?” I suggested.
She looked up, startled. “What?”
“A long weekend. You could take some time to think about whether you want to meet with him—and if you do, where. Because him coming here doesn’t make sense.”
“No.” She almost laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Baron Van Orr walking onto Thomas Whitmore’s estate would be a disaster. Although I doubt he’d be permitted entry.”
“So if you decide to see him, it should be on neutral ground. Or at least somewhere that isn’t enemy territory for everyone involved.”
Her eyes searched my face. “You want to go home.”
“I want you to have options. And yeah—I’d like to see my family, and I do want them to know we’re together and we’re going to have a baby.” I squeezed her hand. “No pressure. Just a visit. We can stay at my place or on the coast. Whatever you need.”
I could see her turning it over. The fear of facing what Paso Robles represented was written in the tension around her eyes.
It was a place where everyone knew her name and her reputation, where she’d spent years making herself the villain at every charity auction and winery event, where whispers would follow her down every street.
But there was something else too—a flicker of want she was trying to hide. She missed it. Maybe not the town itself, but the landscape, the golden hills, the ocean, and the particular quality of light that only existed in that part of the world.
“When?” she asked.
“We could go this weekend. Leave Friday, come back Monday or Tuesday. Thomas already said you could take the time—I asked him yesterday.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You asked him before you asked me?”
“I wanted to make sure it was possible before I offered. Didn’t want to get your hopes up if work couldn’t spare you.”
She held my gaze for several seconds, but her thumb tracing circles on the back of my hand gave me comfort, even if she didn’t realize she was doing it.
“Okay. Let’s go.”
We drove down on Friday afternoon. Five hours on the 101, watching the landscape shift from coastal redwoods to rolling golden hills dotted with oak trees. The February sun was bright but thin, casting long shadows across the road.
I kept the music low and let my mind work through what I needed to do while Isabel slept. This trip wasn’t just about giving her space to think. Tryst had called me two days ago, his tone serious in a way that had made me step outside before responding.
“Baron’s been making inquiries into Isabel’s whereabouts. While, by this point, I don’t doubt he knows where she is, my hunch is he’s trying to figure out how to get her to come home,” he’d said.
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“I’m uncertain, but the few times I’ve spoken with him, he seems increasingly agitated.”
“As a father who’s used to controlling his daughter through manipulation would be,” I’d said under my breath.
“Which is what worries me. What will his frustration lead him to do?”
My uncle’s next statement didn’t surprise me. I’d anticipated it.
“I sense there’s something you’re not saying, Rascon.”
“You’re right, but I need you to understand that, for now, I’m unable to.”
“Very well. The family is here, as are the caballeros, when you’re ready to talk.”
It was part of the reason I wanted to go home.
To make sure we had their support if Baron did something rash.
Given I was a current member of Los Caballeros, as were all of my brothers, and Baron was a Viejo—the generation that came before us—discord was unacceptable, and I hated that I might be the person responsible for it.
Isabel stirred as we crossed into San Luis Obispo County. She blinked awake slowly, stretching in her seat, and looked out the window at the familiar hills rolling past.
“Almost there,” I said.
“I know.” She watched the landscape for a while before speaking again.
“I used to love this drive. Before my mom died, we’d go to San Francisco for shopping trips, just the two of us.
On the way home, she’d point out all the vineyards and tell me stories about the families who owned them—the feuds, the romances, the drama. She made it sound like a soap opera.”
“Good memories?”
“The best ones I have of her.” She turned to look at me, her expression softer than usual. “She’d approve of us, I think. She always said I needed someone who wouldn’t let me get away with my nonsense.”
“Is that what I do? Not let you get away with things?”
“Sometimes.” She smiled. “When it matters.”
We drove in comfortable silence for a few miles before she asked about my mother. While our community was small, Isabel had always been more of an acquaintance than a family friend.
“She’s not easy to describe. Warm, loud, impossible to argue with.
She raised the seven of us basically on her own after my dad died, and she did it without ever losing her mind, which is a miracle, honestly.
” I smiled at the memories flooding in. “She’ll probably cry when we tell her about the baby. Fair warning.”
“Cry?”
“Happy tears. She’s been waiting for me to bring someone home for years.
” I grinned. “This weekend, all bets are off. She’s going to feed you until you can’t move, show you my baby pictures, and probably interrogate you about our plans for the future while pretending she’s just making conversation. ”
“That sounds…” She paused.
“Terrifying?”
“I was going to say nice,” she said barely above a whisper.
We drove up to the main house just as the sun was starting to sink toward the hills.
I’d barely put the car in park before the front door flew open.
“Mijo!” My mother crossed the distance in seconds, hugging me just as my feet hit the ground. “You’re here. Finally.”
“Hi, Ma.” I wrapped my arms around her, breathing in her familiar scent.
She leaned away, put her hands on my cheeks, and studied me the way she always did when I came home. “You look good. Rested.” Her eyes shifted to Isabel, who had come around the car and stood a few feet away, her posture uncertain. “And you brought someone.”
“I did.” I reached for Isabel’s hand, drawing her forward. “Ma, you know Isabel Van Orr. Isabel, this is Lucia.”
“We’ve met at various events over the years. It’s lovely to have you here, Isabel. Welcome to our home.”
“Thank you for having me, Mrs. Avila.”
“Lucia, please.” She waved away the formality and embraced Isabel in a way that clearly caught her off guard. “Any friend of Rascon’s is welcome here. Come with me, both of you. I have dinner almost ready.”
Isabel shot me a startled look over my mom’s shoulder. I just smiled.
Inside, the house smelled like garlic and tomatoes and fresh bread, as Ma ushered us into the dining room. “Rascon, get whatever you and Isabel would like to drink.”
I went to the kitchen and poured us two tall glasses of ice water.
“Sit, sit,” she said, gesturing toward the table when I joined them. “Talk to me. Tell me everything. How long are you staying? What have you been doing with yourselves?”
I let Isabel answer the questions about work while I watched the two of them together. Isabel was nervous—I could see it in the too-straight line of her spine—but by the time dinner was on the table, some of the tension had left her shoulders.
“Ma,” I said, once we’d made it through the first course, “there’s something I want to tell you.”