“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.”
Ahouseful?
“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.Thisis 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 onehelluvasign.”
By the timewe 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 thatI can take care of myself too. I faced the person who intimidated me more than any other, and Iwon.”
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 driveto 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.
