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 auctionand 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 drovedown on Friday afternoon. Five hours on the 101, watching the landscape shift from coastalredwoods 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 thecaballeros, 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 aViejo—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.
