6

Luc was a complete and total idiot. He’d seen that lip, poking out all pink and lush and sweet. In a trance, he’d let himself touch it, had watched his hand as if it hadn’t even been his decision.

As they approached the end of the last row of the day, things awkward now that he’d gone and touched her, he wanted her in a way he couldn’t control.

It felt so terribly wrong.

“What is it you do up there? In the barn?” she asked, breaking into his tortured thoughts.

“Nothing.”

“Oh. I thought…I thought maybe you made wine with your grapes.”

“Not really.”

She looked unhappy at that answer, blinking away what might have been hurt. He’d said something wrong, as usual.

With a sigh, he explained, “I’m not a winemaker.”

“You’re not?”

“No. I’m a grape farmer.”

She squinted at him and said, “It all looks to be in real good shape.”

He shrugged. “I like to work on things.”

“Machines and stuff? Like that tractor I’ve seen you tinkering with?”

“I enjoy making things work. The tractor gives me problems.”

“I know someone who could fix it.” She nodded slowly. Her body worked efficiently, which he couldn’t help but admire. “What are you growing all these grapes for, if not for making wine?”

“I sell them. To wineries.”

“Is there a lot of money in that?”

“Enough,” he lied.

“But there’s more in winemaking?”

“Yes,” he conceded. “Not just making the wine, but selling to…a group of people. Wine clubs, they call it.”

“How’s that work?”

“People sign up to receive a few bottles at a time, regular shipments throughout the year.”

“So, what? You’d send it out to them? Or they’d come pick it up?”

“Either. It’s a very American thing. We don’t do this in France.”

“Did you make wine in France?”

“No,” he said with finality. “I’m a farmer.”

But, of course, she pressed on. “What if you did make wine? What if you did one of those clubs? That would be a big deal, right?”

“My wine is no good.”

“Wait. You do make wine?”

He shrugged casually, a sudden tightness in his belly. Why had he let that escape?

“Not really.”

“But you know how.” She paused, eyes too intense on him. “You have made wine.”

“I’ve…experimented. Not to sell. Just for fun.”

She didn’t immediately answer, leaving him scraped raw in the silence. He hated the doubt she’d stirred up, resented her for stirring it. Everything had been fine until she’d shown up and picked at his scab. In fact, there’d been barely a scar before she’d come here. She’d gone and destroyed his calm.

“This thing used to happen at the market with our customers,” she said. “Especially with the cinnamon buns, ’cause people were crazy for those things, but I’ve seen it happen with anything. You’d get down to two or three of something, and suddenly, customers would just about tear each other up to get it. Some days, I swear we could have charged five times the price for one of those last buns.”

He didn’t think he liked where she was going with this, but he kept silent.

“Seen tons of folks heading to the other wineries in the area. All kinds of people down from the city, limousines and big buses, too. You could do that, couldn’t you? Make your wine and—”

“I’m not a winemaker, Abby.” He stopped and turned, abruptly enough to startle her. “Come. We need to finish.”

He hoped his irritation would fade away, but instead it built over the next few plants, leaving him fidgety and inefficient. They should have been done with this section by now. Instead, they’d only gotten through about two-thirds. Dammit.

It was almost a relief when a fat drop landed on his cheek.

“Rain,” he grunted. He met her eye for the first time since they’d spoken and found her…sad. She looked sad. Putain, that was the last thing he needed.

“It’s time to go.”

“Now?”

“It’s raining.”

After a moment of hesitation, she pulled off one glove and the other, her eyes knowing and compassionate.

“Good-bye, Luc.”

She started to turn away, and instead of relief, he felt something frantic climb up his throat, pushing him to reach out and grab her. His hand landed on her elbow, and she froze. They both did, eyes locked where his hand held her. Slowly, his gaze rose to meet hers, expecting fear, disgust.

What he saw instead were big, black pupils swallowing up her irises, that unbelievable mouth pursed and slightly open, her bottom lip lusher than the ripest cluster of grapes. Suddenly he had to taste it. Had to. Instead of loosening his grip and letting her go, he tightened it and pulled.

She didn’t resist, even for a second. He wondered if that was good or bad before letting his other hand—the one with blank space where there’d once been a finger—grasp the side of her face and pull it toward his.

You cannot do this.

With a pained huff—hers or his, he wasn’t sure—he removed his hands, although he couldn’t make himself step away. She’d have to do that.

“Go,” he whispered.

But she didn’t. She shook her head, eyeing his mouth like… Hell. Probably exactly the way he’d looked at hers—like she wanted to eat it.

Quiet surrounded them, but here, in the space between their bodies, their breathing was a hailstorm, her exhalations loud enough to heat his face and tighten his groin.

She swallowed and leaned in to whisper, “What were you gonna do?” The voice sounded nothing like hers. It was tight and hoarse, older than her twentysomething years.

“No idea. Keep you here.” Slowly, as gently as his body knew how, he leaned in and nudged her nose with his. Her gasp felt like an invitation, and he took it. Up and back down the other side, until their mouths lined up and sweat broke out across his back and he wondered what in the hell had come over him.

She was the one, though, who finally pressed her lips to his. They were as soft as he’d imagined, but also solid, as if she were more real than he’d realized. Stronger. Just lips, dry and cold, the feel of them sensuous after more than two years without. When she didn’t move, he did it for her, pursing and waiting for her to do the same. She didn’t, and he shifted away. Did she not want this? Had he misread it?

Oh, but no. Not with that look in her eyes, all vague and heavy-lidded. That flush across her cheeks hadn’t been there before, had it? And that expression? What would you call that look?

Dazed. She appeared dazed. He was about to step away, about to give her space, when she whispered, “I… I don’t know what to do.”

God, he wanted to show her. Badly, desperately. Somehow, that single touch of their lips had been the hottest kiss of his life. And it hadn’t even been a kiss, had it? Not a real one. Nothing but that brief brush of skin to dry skin, so small in such a wide-open space.

Luc couldn’t blink the haze away.

What the hell was it about this woman that made him like this?

Okay, stupid question, he thought as he took her in. Funny, though, that it wasn’t the usual things that attracted him to her. It was something else entirely. Considering the way she watched him—tense or expectant—maybe he’d underestimated the lust hiding beneath that drab dress.

It was the thought of the dress that finally snapped him out of it.

This wasn’t someone whose mouth you shoved your tongue into. This wasn’t a woman you had passionate sex with.

He stepped back, pulling himself away, and turned his face to the side.

“You have to go.”

“I don’t—”

“Go, Abby.” She looked so hurt. Had she been another kind of woman, she might have realized that it wasn’t because he didn’t want her—quite the opposite.

“I thought we could—”

“No. You need to go.”

She nodded, head down, shoulders bowed. This wasn’t the woman to play around with, and he certainly had no intention of being her gateway to temptation or earthly pleasure or whatever he was to her.

After she’d taken a few steps up the slope, she turned and said, “I won’t see you tomorrow. We’re one short for the market, so, much to Isaiah’s annoyance, I’ve got to fill in.”

He nodded and waved good-bye, wondering if this was a lie—her way of saving face, maybe.

The funny part was that he bet he’d suffer the most from cutting it off. Because while she may be experimenting or sowing her wild oats or whatever, he was on his own, stewing in the mess she’d leave behind.

He didn’t watch her stomp up the hill with Le Dog by her side. Instead, he turned to clip listlessly at his vines. But once he was sure she’d made it to the crest, he turned and caught sight of her getting down on hands and knees to crawl through the fence. The animal, who appeared to enjoy the game, followed her progress with high, curious ears, his tail a wagging blur.

She’d cut through, hadn’t she? Why hadn’t it occurred to him before? The cult people hadn’t sent her. In fact, now, he’d bet they had no idea she was coming here. To him.

He gave her a few more minutes before heading up the hill to where Le Dog stood by that tear in the fence. It was tiny and jagged. How had she not cut herself on those edges?

And wouldn’t they catch her sooner or later?

* * *

The air on this mountain was too thin for Abby. She trembled as she made her way home, rain and wind battering hard at a body that felt anchored to nothing, flyaway and unsure, as the clouds scuttled madly across the darkening sky.

Breathless, she arrived beside Isaiah’s cabin, unaware of how she’d gotten there so fast.

The door opened, and Mama looked out, as if she’d been waiting.

Abby blinked at how crisp everything was, especially Mama, whose bright eyes were almost blinding.

“Heavens, what’s got you so worked up?”

How on earth could her mother tell from a single look?

“Nothing,” she said, although words burned the inside of her mouth, trying to get out. Questions begging for answers.

“Come on in and help me make dinner,” Mama ordered with that look that said she wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Abby followed her inside. And then, because she couldn’t help it, she asked, “What was it like for you? When you first met my father? Or Isaiah? Was it special?”

Mama set down her knife and covered the onion bowl with a towel before focusing on Abby. She set her hands firmly on the table, head tilted at an odd angle.

“Why do you ask?”

Abby should have guessed, from the stillness in the air and the forced quality of Mama’s voice, that things were not as simple as they seemed.

She forced a shrug. “I was… Now that Hamish is gone, I was thinking about who I’d be joined with next. I wondered if—”

“You wondered what, Abigail?”

Abby blinked, surprised by the edge to her mother’s tone.

“I wondered how it would feel to choose a husband.”

“Choose?” Mama’s face puckered in confusion.

“Well, like you picked my father and—”

“Look no further than our Savior, Abigail, for the answer to your questions.”

“But, Mama, you wanted to be with Isaiah, right? You chose to come here. I mean, you could have—”

“Where, may I ask, is this curiosity coming from?”

Mama’s breathing was loud in the silence that followed. There was a moment—just a second or two—when she’d have told the truth, perhaps. Whatever that truth might have been. That she’d changed, or the world had, and she wasn’t sure she knew how to change it back.

“Just wondering who God will pick for me, is all.” Or if, perhaps, God had already chosen.

“It is not your job to wonder, child.” Mama’s jaw was hard, her words crisp. “It is your responsibility to submit.”

“Yes, Mama,” she mumbled.

It wasn’t long before Isaiah arrived, opening the door to the cabin and letting in another draft of that icy wind.

“I’ve got to go,” Abby muttered. She made to move past him, and he stopped her.

“What’s this?” he asked, reaching to touch her.

“I don’t—”

“Got something in your hair here, Abigail.”

He touched her hair and came away with a dry leaf on a branch. He squinted at it, hard, before looking at her.

“Grape leaf?” he asked.

“Must have blown over from next door,” said Abby, throat tight with fear.

He examined it, and her, before tossing it to the wind, muttering something about the weather. Abby didn’t wait before following one step behind. She had to get away from his all-seeing gaze and Mama’s all-knowing one.

At her own cabin, she closed the door behind her and leaned against it, shaking. Why, oh why, had she spoken of this to her mother? Why had she gone into their cabin tonight at all?

She shut her eyes hard against the memory of that leaf crunching in Isaiah’s hand, his yellow eyes on hers.

In the dark, something moved.

“Who’s there?” She scrambled to light the candle beside the door, hands trembling so hard she needed a second match to do the job.

A moan, followed by a thud, led her to the kitchen. Dread heavy in her stomach, she turned the corner to see Sammy, curled up on a floor stained with blood and vomit.

Oh Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord. No, no, no. Please don’t do this. Not to Sammy. Please, not Sammy. She dropped to her knees, heedless of the filth seeping into her skirt, and pulled Sammy’s soft, golden head into her lap. His hair was matted brown, and crusty. Was he breathing? Yes. Yes, he was breathing, but—

His eyes opened, sweet and lucid. Oh, thank you.

“Sammy.”

“Abby.” His voice was thin as a thread, but his smile was real. Good. Thank you, Lord. Oh, thank you. She loved that smile, loved his gentle face with its high forehead and button nose. He was different, she knew. She’d seen people like him outside. But it didn’t matter to her. There was no one in the world she loved more than this boy who couldn’t be mean if he tried.

“What happened, Sammy-Boy?”

“Don’t know, Abby. Don’t know.”

“Did you fall?”

“Uh-huh. Fell, shaking like the last time. Hurt my head so bad. Hurts bad.”

He tried to sit up, and she held him tighter, stilled his body. “Hold on, pumpkin. Just hold on for a sec. Let’s make sure you’re in one piece first, okay?” He was getting worse. Just a week ago, he’d had one of these episodes, and she’d had no idea what he needed. No idea how to help. An image of Hamish flashed into her mind, so real it blinded her: those last dark months when his begging had gotten to be too much to bear and she’d finally done something about it.

Help me, he’d tried to scream over and over again. Only he’d lost his lung power, so the sound had been a howl, quiet and breathy and insufferable.

The voices blended in her mind—Hamish’s becoming Sammy’s—and she came close to weeping. So close. But it wouldn’t help him if she cried, would it? It would do nothing but worry him, and that was pointless.

“Hurts, Abby,” he said, a scared little boy with a man’s voice. “My head.”

“It’ll be okay, sweetheart,” she said, scared, truly scared. “Everything’ll be just fine. I promise.” Abby rocked him in her arms and wondered how she was going to make it better when she didn’t have the resources to get herself away, much less another person.

Fear filled her chest, nearly drowning her. The only thing strong enough to push it back was shame. At her own behavior—the way she’d fallen so quickly into her own sensuality, forgetting why she’d left this place to begin with.

What kind of person let herself get distracted from a mission that could mean life or death for Sammy?

She got him up and cleaned the wound on his head, fed him, and set him up in her bed for the night. All of it hiding behind a mask of serenity while her insides were a mass of turmoil. How would she get Sammy out? And once out, how would she take care of them?

Once he’d fallen asleep, she got down on her knees and prayed. For Sammy. For absolution and understanding. But mostly, she prayed for an answer. She refused to think of Luc and the things he stirred up in her—it was too complicated to untangle. And not important enough when faced with Sammy’s worsening situation. God might not forgive her for leaving Him behind, but if she didn’t succeed, she would never forgive herself.