Lennox glanced at me, and I dropped my gaze to my shoes and smiled shyly.
“I’m going up to the car,” Mabel said, then tightly spun around like a soldier holding her rifle against her shoulder, and stalked back toward the path and railing.She didn’t look back, and her attention was only diverted from walking when a small bird, too small for me to identify, landed on the railing eight feet ahead of her.She stopped, whipped out her sketchbook and pencil, and began to furiously sketch in her book.
“Mabel has autism spectrum disorder, classified as 2e gifted, or twice exceptional.She is incredibly brilliant.I’m talking thirteen years old and almost finished the eleventh grade.She also audits college courses.”
My mouth dropped open a little, and my eyes widened.“Whoa.”
“However, her social skills and ability to pick up emotions and nuance are still something we’re working on.When she’s done doing something, she’s just done.”
My mouth twitched slightly.“I think there are quite a few adults out there who wish they could just get up from a boring, frustrating, or fruitless situation and be like, ‘I’m done.Goodbye.’And then just bounce.”
Chuckling, he glanced out to sea for a moment.“I mean, we’ve definitely used it to our advantage in certain situations.However, it can also come across as rude—like now.”
“That must have quite a few challenges.”
“It did in the beginning.It was what prompted me to get my master’s in special education.To better learn how to support my daughter and kids like her.She’s enrolled in an online school for gifted children, and it is all self-paced.She’s free to write her reports and produce her assignments on things that interest her, and in mediums and formats that work best for her.It’s been a game changer from the difficulties she faced in public school.The teachers just didn’t understand how to teach her, and the children just didn’t understandher.”
We glanced back toward where Mabel was on the path, but she wasn’t there anymore.
Lennox didn’t seem too concerned.
“I’d love to see this tasting room.Do you have a barn or warehouse with just casks of wine?”
That made me smile.“We do.”
His eyes lit up.
I jerked my head toward the path.“Come on,Ox, let’s go explore.”
The guy really showed his age—or lack there of—with the sudden onset of giddiness that overcame him.You’d think he’d never seen a grapevine before.
We reached the top of the path, neither of us out of breath, but both a little sweaty from the sun.
Mabel wasn’t in the front seat of his truck.
He still didn’t seem too concerned.
In addition to being gifted, was she also a “free-range” child?
We tried to let our kids roam the property and have freedom, but after some of the things that had occurred earlier this year—particularly with Marco getting kidnapped—we liked to at least know the general area in which the children planned to explore.
“How’s your cheek?”I asked him, desperate to fill the silence as we walked.
He rubbed at it, which forced his biceps to bulge right beside me as he bent his arm, and, fuck me, I swooned a little.The tattoos, the muscles, and even that scar—that faint white scar that split his upper lip—were getting sexier by the second.
“I might need reconstructive surgery, actually.Like twelve plates, Botox, possibly a new nose.It’s not looking good.I hope you have decent insurance.”His cheeky side-eye made some freshly hatched butterflies go berserk in my abdomen.
“Just send me the bill,” I said.“Though, I like your nose just the way it is.”
Maybe it was the sun, or maybe my compliment, but when color filled his cheeks, some of those pesky butterflies in my stomach started panting.
“Tasting room or barrel room first?”
“Barrel room,” he said without hesitation, his gaze roaming the property, probably in search of his child.
His shoulders dropped away from his ears a little when he spotted his daughter standing beneath a big madrona tree, gazing up into the branches, her sketchpad open.Austin was there too, kicking around the Hacky Sack.They appeared to be talking … kind of.
I unlocked the “barn” and flicked on the light.We weren’t a big operation like some wineries, but we weren’t small either.What had long ago been a barn for animals had been converted into a state-of-the-art, temperature-controlled aging room.Eight rows of barrels and demis took up the space, two shelves high.Everything was labeled and recorded.Year, grape, the works.Every couple of days, one of us would come out here and check on things.Today, it’d been Gabrielle, and like always, she was meticulous in her note-taking.
