That was the thing I kept coming back to during the drive and after. He didn’t yell, grab, or threaten me. He just stood in the doorway of the bedroom in the cottage I’d thought of as home last night, blocking the gray morning light, and said, “Ms. Van Orr. Your father sent us. We need you to come with us now.”
I was still half asleep, still reaching for the warmth Kick had left behind. The pillow he’d tucked against me was a poor substitute for his body, and I’d been drifting back toward consciousness, vaguely aware that he’d left, vaguely planning to get up and find him.
And then there was a stranger in my bedroom.
I sat up, pulling the blankets to my chest. “Get out. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
The man didn’t move. Behind him, I could see another figure in the hallway. Two of them. Maybe more.
“Ms. Van Orr.” He sounded almost kind. “Your father anticipated your reluctance. He asked me to tellyou that if you don’t come willingly, we’ll wait for Mr. Avila to return. And we’ll make sure he understands how serious your father is about bringing you home.”
My blood went cold.
“What does that mean?”
“It means your father has resources, Ms. Van Orr. And he’s prepared to use them. Mr. Avila seems like a good man. It would be a shame if something happened to him.”
I had no idea where Kick was, only that he’d left. When he returned, he’d be unsuspecting and unarmed, walking into an ambush, because of me.
“You have five minutes to get dressed,” the man said. “I suggest you use them.”
I used two.
I put on a sweatshirt and jeans, shoved my feet into the rubber boots by the door, and walked out of the cottage without looking back. I didn’t take my phone. I didn’t take my purse. I didn’t leave a note. There wasn’t time, and even if there had been, I didn’t want to give them any reason to stay. Any reason to be here when Kick came back.
The SUV was waiting right outside. I climbed in without being told. One of the men sat beside me in theback. Another drove while a third sat in the passenger seat in front of me.
We left Whitmore as the sun crept over the hills, and I watched the cottage disappear in the side mirror. Watched the vineyards blur past. Watched the life I’d been building shrink to nothing behind me.
I pressed my hand to my stomach. Our daughter shifted beneath my palm, restless, as if she could sense my fear.
“It’s okay,” I said silently. “We’re going to be okay.”
I didn’t believe it. But I said it anyway, because that’s what mothers were supposed to do. Give comfort. Not that mine ever had.
The drive was shorterthan I expected.
We wound through back roads, past vineyards I didn’t recognize, until we turned onto a private drive marked by a stone pillar half hidden by overgrown hedges. The name carved into the stone was weathered, barely legible.
Miremont.
My heart stopped when he drove through the gates of the place I’d always believed would become mine when my mother passed away.
Then, a few months after she did, my father told me he’d sold it. He said the upkeep was too expensive, the property too far from our other holdings, and the memories too painful. He’d taken the money and invested it “on my behalf.” Every cent of which he controlled.
I’d grieved this place like a death. Like losing my mother all over again.
The SUV rolled up the long drive, past rows of dormant vines that had clearly been neglected for years. Weeds choked the spaces between the rows. The trellis wires sagged. The cover crops had gone wild, reclaiming the land in tangled masses of brown and green.
But the bones were still there. The gentle slope of the hillside. The old stone walls that marked the property boundaries. The winery building in the distance, its windows dark, its doors chained shut.
And the house.
The house where my mother had spent her summers as a girl. The house where she’d married my father in the garden, surrounded by roses and grapevines and all the hope of a young bride who didn’t yet know what her husband would become.
The house looked as abandoned as everything else. Paint peeled from the shutters, and the gardens wereovergrown. The fountain in the circular drive was dry and cracked.
But lights glowed in the windows. Someone was here. Someone was waiting.
