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I’d let bitterness and my emotions overrule all else.
Paisley has a flat white scar over her sternum where a surgeon stitched her back together. She’s healed.
But as I disengaged our bodies, a decade of scrambled memories flooded my consciousness, making it obvious that I’m…not.
Still out of order, the flashes of Paisley and Liz have me squinting like I’m staring it into the sun. They continue making my head hurt. The shock hasn’t worn off.
Guilt swells over my horrible reaction and the irrational need to put distance between me and the woman I was sure I loved.
What if it’sherheart?Echoes between my ears.Who is the woman that I’ve been with all these months? Why weren’t you man enough to stay there and ask her about the scar?
The pinch of another migraine rushes at me as the memory of my confession replays.
“I threw the rock.”
It was out of my mouth almost before it was on the tip of my tongue. I couldn’t stop it.
If Paisley has heart problems, then she belongs with Laughton, a cardiologist.
And in my current state of mind, the last place I should be is in Texas. This is where Cris escaped the band, L.A., and the Sunset Strip, after I put those reeking lilies on Liz’s coffin. Kingsbrier is his haven. I deserve to suffer a lifetime of purgatory for bringing my wretched troubles to his doorstep.
As I’m about to restart the car’s ignition, two kids run out from between the rows of grapes. The older boy has dark hair. The younger one is a towhead. They shout with glee, chucking handfuls of something at one another the way kids pelt one another with Nerf guns.
The blond boy dashes the way he came, using the vines for cover. About to give chase, the older boy pauses. He looks my way. My car is the only vehicle in the lot.
Our eyes meet and I swallow hard. He’s nothing like her and yet the air surrounding him proves he’s everything like his mother.
Liz’s son, Mateo.
I get out of the car, and the boy wanders toward me. He kicks his heel high bringing it to his toe, walking an invisible tight wire.
“We’re closed Tuesdays,” the boy I think is Mateo Sanchez says in a voice that is too old to be a kid’s and not quite ready to crack. He reminds me a little of Holly’s son.
“I was looking for a man named Cris Sanchez. Do you know where I can find him?”
“Are you a wine distributor?”
“Would it make a difference if I were?”
“Not really… Only if you’re planning to rat me and Corey out for having a grape war.”
“Throwing grapes is kid stuff. You are a kid, right?”
“That depends on how much trouble I’m in. Sometimes grown-ups tell ya to cut it out because you’re too old to act a certain way. But it doesn’t take long for them to flip the script and say you’re too young to do something else.”
The kid is smart.
“I’m not a distributor, and I won’t rat you out. ” I wink. “Cris is an old… friend.”
He shrugs before he speaks, confirming what I’ve already surmised. “He’s my dad. Come on, I’ll show you this office. You gotta name?”
“Jake Ballentine. You?”
“Mateo,” he replies, unimpressed. Not that I expected his dad to have mentioned me.
When I’ve thought of this kid, Mateo’s still been an infant, cooing up at Liz.
Inside the barn building, we take a few twists and turns. He guides me past some shiny fermenters and raps on an open door. “Dad, this Jake guy is here to see you.”
