Chapter 19 Isabel
ISABEL
We continued through the house, room by room, and with each doorway I crossed, the weight on my chest lifted a little more.
Kick held my hand as we climbed the stairs to the second floor. The banister was dusty beneath my free palm, the carpet runner faded and worn, but this house was waiting for someone to bring it back to life. I could feel it.
The first bedroom had a view of how the estate got its name—Miremont’s direct translation was “look at the mountain.” The second overlooked what had once been a rose garden, now overgrown with wild tangles of thorny branches.
The third door stood partially open, and when I pushed it wider, I stopped breathing.
A nursery.
The walls were painted a soft yellow that had aged to cream.
A crib stood against one wall, its white spindles dusty but intact.
A rocking chair sat near the window, positioned to catch the morning light.
Above the crib, someone had painted a vine of delicate flowers that wound across the ceiling, each petal rendered with such care it made my heart swell.
A small dresser stood against the opposite wall, and on top of it, there was a porcelain music box shaped like a carousel.
“Isabel?” Kick said from behind me.
I stepped into the room. My hand found the edge of the crib, and I traced the smooth wood with my fingers. The grain was worn where countless hands must have gripped it during late-night feedings and early-morning risings. A mobile of dancing angels hung above it.
“I’ve never been in here,” I said. “At least not that I remember.”
Kick moved to stand beside me. He gazed around the room, then his hand came to rest on my lower back. “Do you think it was your mother’s?”
“I do.”
He stood behind me, wrapped his arms around my waist, and rested his chin on my shoulder. “Our baby will be so well loved, Isabel. So loved.”
Something broke open in my chest. I turned into him, pressing my face against his shoulder, and let myself feel the enormity of what was happening.
This house. This man. This baby growing inside me.
For so long, I had believed I didn’t deserve any of it—that wanting too much would only lead to losing everything.
But Kick was here. He hadn’t left. And maybe that meant I could finally stop bracing for inevitable pain.
All of this was mine. Ours. But not because it was property, because it was a home.
“Show me the rest,” he said against my hair. “I want to see everything.”
As the afternoon stretched toward evening, we walked through the vineyards that climbed the gentle slope of the hillside up to the mountain.
The vines were dormant and neglected, the trellis wires sagging in places, but I could see what they had been.
What they could be again. So could Kick.
I knew it without him needing to say so.
Resting vines were a luxury few could afford.
These had ten years of maturation in them.
The fruit they produced would be exquisitely rich, and the wine, magnificent.
“Pinot Noir, mostly,” I said as we walked between the rows.
Kick crouched down and examined a gnarled trunk, running his fingers over the bark. “Old vines. Good root systems. They’ve survived this long without care. With the right attention, they’ll produce amazing juice.”
I watched him study the vineyard the way a doctor would study a patient—looking for signs of life, assessing what could be saved.
“Did you mean it when you said this place was perfect?” The question came out smaller than I intended.
He stood and turned to face me. The late-afternoon light caught the angles of his face, and I saw nothing but certainty in his eyes.
“I meant it.”
“It’s a lot of work. Years of it. The house needs everything, and the land—” I gestured at the neglected rows stretching out around us. “Look at it. The winery hasn’t been operational in over a decade.”
“Isabel.” He took my face in his hands. “I grew up in vineyards. My brothers and I have been working harvests since we could walk. There’s nothing here that scares me.”
“But it’s not just the work.” I needed him to understand. Needed to be sure this wasn’t just adrenaline and relief talking. “It’s the commitment. To this place. To me. To building something from nothing when you could go back to Paso Robles and step into a life that’s already built.”
His thumbs brushed my cheekbones, and his eyes never left mine.
“Paso Robles was the place I grew up. Where I became a man. It isn’t my home now, Isabel.
The two of us here. Making wine. Raising our daughter here”—a smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—“raising a houseful of children, if that’s what you want. That’s home.”
A houseful?
“You’d want that?”
“I’d want one child or ten, as long as it’s with you.”
I kissed him because I couldn’t describe what I was feeling. Because the future he was painting was everything I’d been afraid to want. A home. A family. A life built on love instead of obligation.
When we broke apart, I rested my forehead against his. “What about your family? Paso Robles is five hours away. Your mother, your brothers—”
“You’re my family now.” His gaze bored into mine. “You and our baby. That doesn’t mean I love them any less. But my place is with you. Wherever you are.”
I raised my head to look at him. “You’re sure?”
“I’ve never been more sure of anything.”
We continued to the winery building, a stone structure tucked into the hillside behind the vineyard.
The doors were padlocked, with rust blooming around the metal, but we peered through the dusty windows at fermentation tanks, oak barrels, and equipment that had sat unused for too long, waiting for hands that never came.
“It’s all here,” Kick said, shading his eyes to see better. “It needs to be cleaned, major maintenance, probably some replacement parts. But the infrastructure exists. The bones are good.”
“My grandparents made wine here for decades, yet I know so little about it.” I pressed my palm against the cool stone wall, feeling the history embedded in it.
“We’ll learn it together.” Kick’s hand covered mine against the stone, his fingers warm where the wall was cold. “We’ll bring it back.”
I turned to face him. “Promise me something.”
“Anything.”
“Promise me that if this gets too hard—if the distance from your family becomes too much, or if you start to resent being here—you’ll tell me. Don’t just pretend everything is fine.”
He held my gaze for several seconds. “I promise. But, Isabel, I need you to hear me. This is what I want. Since Snapper and I left the rodeo circuit, I haven’t been able to figure out what the rest of my life was going to look like.
It was as if I was waiting for some kind of sign to point me in the direction I was meant to take.
” He put his hand on my belly and splayed his fingers. “Turns out it was one helluva sign.”
By the time we returned to the house, the sun was sinking toward the hills and the driveway stood empty. The men who had come to find me had left hours ago.
Kick squeezed my hand. “What would you like to do? Should we head back to Whitmore?”
“We should.”
“You’re sure? Will you feel safe there?”
“As long as you’re with me—” I stopped myself. “No, that’s not right.” I put my hands on his chest. “You do make me feel safe, Rascon, but today, I learned that I can take care of myself too. I faced the person who intimidated me more than any other, and I won.”
His eyes bored into mine. “What happened when you went back inside with him?”
“Before you arrived, I gave him an ultimatum. Actually, first, I said everything I’d held inside all my life.
When he asked to speak with me, I had nothing left to say, but I was ready to listen.
If I told anyone else what he said, it wouldn’t sound like much, but to me, it was everything.
Everything I needed. Including to tell me that Miremont had always been mine and how sorry he was to have kept it from me. ”
Kick nodded, and I got it would be hard for him to understand, especially with how demonstrative his family was. But I didn’t expect that of Baron—of my father—it was all he was capable of.
The drive to Whitmore was quiet. I watched the landscape roll past, lit by moonlight—vineyard after vineyard, hills giving way to valleys and rising again. My hand rested on my stomach, and I felt the baby shift beneath my palm. A flutter, nothing more. But real. Alive. Ours.
When we arrived at the Whitmore estate, Thomas was standing on the porch. Bas paced beside him, his body tight with tension, and the moment our car came into view, he stopped moving. His hands dropped to his sides. Even from a distance, I could see him exhale.
I barely had the door open before he was there, crossing the distance in long strides and gathering me into a hug that was brief but fierce. His arms tightened around me, and I felt a tremor run through him—something that might have been fear finally releasing its grip.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he said against my hair. “Don’t ever disappear like that.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“I know.” He leaned away, his hands still on my shoulders, and I saw something in his face I’d never noticed before. Something raw and unguarded, something that looked almost like grief. His eyes searched mine with an intensity that made my breath catch.
Then his jaw tightened, and whatever I’d glimpsed was gone, shuttered behind the easy smile I’d known since childhood.
Then I felt Kick’s arm snake around my waist.
Bas looked over my shoulder at him, back at me, then he stepped away, putting distance between us that felt deliberate.
“Thank God you’re safe.” Thomas descended the porch steps and embraced me with the gentleness of a father.
“I’m fine. I’m more than fine.” Kick moved to stand beside me. “We have a lot to tell you.”
Thomas led us inside, and we gathered in his study—the same room where he’d offered me a job what felt like a lifetime ago. Bas stood near the window, arms crossed, while Thomas settled into his chair behind the desk.
“I understand Miremont is yours?” he began.
“It is, and we want to restore it. The house, the vineyards, the winery. All of it,” I told him.
“That’s a significant undertaking.”
“We know.” Kick’s hand found mine. “But we’re not planning to abandon Whitmore. We want to stay through this year’s harvest. Help with everything we committed to, the initiatives we’ve been developing. We have a presentation ready whenever you want to see it.”
Thomas was quiet for a moment, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. Then he looked at his son.
“What do you think, Sebastian?”
Bas blinked. “What do you mean?”
“No time like the present, I suppose.” Thomas began. “I’m retiring. Stepping back from day-to-day operations. Whitmore is yours now—it has been for a while, really. I’ve just been too stubborn to make it official.”
The silence that followed was heavy with surprise. Bas stared at his father, his composure cracking for the first time since we’d arrived.
“You’re serious.”
“I’m sixty-three years old, and I’m tired.” Thomas smiled. “You’ve been running this place better than I have for years. It’s time I stopped pretending otherwise.”
Bas turned to look at me, then at Kick. The raw expression I’d glimpsed earlier flickered across his face again before he steeled his expression.
“Then, I hope we can work together,” he said. “All of us. Whitmore and Miremont.”
“We’d like that,” I said. And I meant it. Bas had been my friend since childhood, and whatever complicated feelings might be lurking beneath the surface, our partnership would work. I didn’t doubt it.
Thomas’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, and surprise flickered across his face.
“Everything okay?” Bas asked.
“That was your father,” Thomas said, looking at me. “He’s asked if we might meet and talk through some things.”
Kick’s hand tightened on mine.
“How did you respond?” I asked.
“Baron—your father—and I were friends for thirty years before our falling out. Good friends. I’m not saying I’ve forgiven what he did to you—that’s not mine to forgive. But if he’s genuinely trying to make amends…” He shrugged. “I suppose I’m willing to hear him out.”
I nodded slowly. “That’s between the two of you.”
“It is.” Thomas held my gaze. “But I wanted you to know.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“It’s been a long day for everyone. You two should rest. We can talk more tomorrow.”
My body ached with exhaustion I hadn’t let myself feel until now. The adrenaline that had carried me through the confrontation, the tour, and the drive back—all of it was fading, leaving only bone-deep weariness behind.
“Thank you again,” I said to Thomas. “For everything.”
“You’re family, Isabel. Both of you.” He glanced at Kick. “Take care of her.”
“Always.”