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Natalie. Covered in necklaces.
“Seriously, what is going on?”
Lavinia got out of the Prius and lit a cigarette. “She’s in the mood to be stubborn. You get one side, I’ll take the other.”
Natalie nodded and put on her sunglasses. “Let’s do this.”
Hallie watched in horror as both women converged on the passenger side, clearly intending to drag her out of the car. She was so stunned and confused that she didn’t manage to lock the door in time, and truly, she didn’t stand a chance. Each woman reached for an arm and pulled Hallie from the vehicle despite her protests, the sketchbook dangling from her right hand uselessly. “Please!” Hallie dug in her heels. “I don’t know what this is, but . . .”
But what?
She wanted to avoid confronting her mistakes in person? She wanted to hide in her house for another two and a half weeks eating cereal?
No. If she’d learned anything from her time with Julian‚ it was that growing meant getting through the hard stuff, and coming out stronger on the other side. The sketchpad was proof she could confront her fears and tackle things she never thought herself capable of. So she could do this, too.
Whatever “this” was.
Hallie stopped struggling and walked between Natalie and Lavinia like a normal woman without avoidance issues. Obviously her friends had staged some kind of Hallie-themed cheer-up session, and they were welcome to try. Julian probably wouldn’t even be there.
That assumption popped like a tire rolling over glass when she heard his voice ahead.
He was . . . shouting?
“Anywhere you want,” boomed his deep voice, just as they rounded the corner of the welcome center. There was Julian. In jeans and a T-shirt. Messier than she’d ever seen him. Standing in the back of a flatbed truck that appeared to be transporting an entire nursery worth of flowers and shrubs and various wooden trellises.
A large crowd of people had congregated around the truck, and Hallie immediately recognized several faces. Lorna was there. Owen. Several of her clients. August, the SEAL turned vintner. Jerome. The waitstaff from Othello. Mrs. Cross, who owned the coffee shop across the street from Corked. Mrs. Vos. Two giant groups of tourists holding half-empty disposable wineglasses. Julian was handing down random pallets of flowers and potted shrubbery to the assembled mass, his hands almost black with soil.
He wore dozens of necklaces around his neck.
“Find a place for them. Anywhere in the vineyard. And plant them.”
“Anywhere?” Jerome asked, skeptically.
“Yes.” Hallie watched in disbelief as Julian swiped a filthy hand through his hair, leaving it standing on end. “No rules. Anywhere it feels right.”
What was this?
Hallie was still piecing it all together, but her legs were rapidly turning into cake batter. Was this a dream? Or had Julian organized a planting party at his family vineyard . . . in her honor? What else could the necklaces symbolize? Why else would he be instructing people to use the signature Hallie Welch method of having no method at all?
Julian’s head turned sharply to the right, meeting Hallie’s gaze.
They could hear the thump of her heart on Jupiter.
Looking into his eyes again, even from this distance, was so powerful that she almost turned and ran for the car. But then Julian was jumping down from the back of the truck and striding toward her, not debonaire and determined as he’d been the night of August’s wine tasting. No, this was a haunted version of Julian that was hanging on by a thread.
“Hallie,” he rasped, stopping a few feet away. Natalie and Lavinia let her go suddenly, which was not a good thing, because apparently they’d been propping her up in the face of this reunion. Hallie’s knees buckled, and Julian shot forward, catching her in his arms before she could hit the dirt. “Okay, I’ve got you,” he said gruffly, eyes racing over her face. “It’s okay. My legs want to give out, too, from seeing you again.”
She allowed him to steady her, but she couldn’t find the breath to say a word.
People were fanning out into the vineyard with bright, beautiful flowers in their hands, preparing to plant them at random—at Julian’s behest—and that meant something. It meant such a wonderful something that she couldn’t articulate it out loud just yet. But maybe . . . had he found it in his heart to forgive her?
“Hallie . . .” Julian’s big hands closed around her arms, fingers flexing. Head bowed forward, he released an unsteady breath. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Surprise jerked her chin up a notch.
What? Had she heard him correctly?
“You’re sorry?”
“I know that’s not enough after disappearing for seventeen days, but it’s just a start—”
“You have no reason to be sorry,” she blurted, still reeling in her disbelief that he was taking responsibility for anything that went wrong. “I’m sorry, Julian. I lied by omission. I let you believe you were writing back to someone else when I had every opportunity to be truthful. I pushed you into feeling a way you never wanted to feel again because I couldn’t help making a mess, like always, and I won’t let you claim responsibility for any of it.”
