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“I wasn’t.”
Winemaker, winemaker. Who cares? “Okay…but how did my grandmother end up with the ring?” I press.
“I refused to leave Snow Creek until I had an answer about Patty,” Ennis says.
ENNIS
“Ennis will be working with you as your assistant,” Brad said to Bruce. Then, to me, “Daphne tells me you’re thinking about staying in the States.”
“If I can get a green card.”
“Consider it done,” Brad said. “I’ll have my attorneys handle it.”
“This is a big step,” I said.
“If you’re going to turn me down, tell me now,” Brad said. “That way, Bruce can bring in his own people.”
“I don’t have any people,” Bruce said.
“Seems like kismet, then. What do you say, Ennis? You can both hire who you need.”
I stood and held out my hand. “Deal, Brad. Thank you.”
The next night, Daphne and I had dinner together at her house. Brad wasn’t there—he rarely was—and Daphne’s mother-in-law had excused herself early.
I got right to the point.
“Has Brad checked with the Peace Corps yet?” I asked Daphne. “About Patty?”
“Not that he’s told me.”
Damn. Was Patty a priority to Brad Steel at all? Was Daphne? His child? He was never home, and he basically gave the responsibility of his up-and-coming winery to me, an Englishman.
Daphne sighed. “Maybe it’s time to let her go. Maybe we both need to let her go, Ennis.”
Let her go?
The Australian diamond ring sat in the pocket of my jeans, and I absently touched it through the denim.
I couldn’t let her go.
I just couldn’t.
But perhaps Daphne was right.
I finally nodded. “You’re right, love. I just didn’t want to think our relationship meant nothing to her, and when I had that dream, I had a sliver of hope and a sliver of dread at the same time. I don’t want her dead, of course, but part of me wants to believe I meant something to her.”
“Of course you did.”
“Perhaps. But the Peace Corps apparently meant more. Something she never even discussed with me.” I threw my gaze to the floor. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t. But like I said, Patty isn’t the first friend who’s left me in the dust, never to be heard from again, which makes me think maybe it’s not that abnormal of a thing.”
Again I felt horrid for her at that thought.
Why should anyone think it’s normal to lose people they love? Young people.
I pulled the ring out of my jeans pocket and stared at it.
