“You seem to have expected it.”
“I heard you were coming. I manage a bunch of properties around the lake in the wintertime, and I thought I ought to check, just in case you didn’t know any better than to ignore a storm warning.”
She didn’t seem to take offense. “It’s a different world here in the winter. But I should have known better. I just wanted...”
“To be here?”
“It’s been a long time.”
“I heard about your aunt. I’m sorry she’s gone.”
“Me, too.”
Brody realized he hadn’t taken a sip. Instead he had been drinking in Jo’s lovely, familiar face. Her hair had been longer the last time he’d seen her. Now straight and shiny, it just touched her collar. The oval face, dark brows and lashes and straight nose were the same. So was the wide mouth that once had smiled so easily.
Not so much anymore.
“You probably need a good night’s sleep.” He held up his mug. “And I probably can’t drink this fast enough. Maybe I ought to just go.”
Instead of answering she settled on one of the love seats flanking the fieldstone fireplace and motioned him to the other.
“I still have to warm up hash for dinner, and I’m on California time. Keep me company a few minutes, unless somebody at home is expecting you?”
He thought she had managed that neatly. Was there a wife? Kids?
“In the winter I’m here alone,” he said. “Mom goes to Arizona to stay with Kaye. She and her family live outside Phoenix. It gets Mom out of the cold, and she loves being there.”
“How are they? Your mom and Kaye? Kaye was only, what, sixteen when—” She stopped herself. “She must be, what, twenty-six or so, yes?”
“Happily married, with a two-year-old and another on the way. Mom babysits while Kaye’s at school. She teaches third grade. How about your mom?”
She seemed to relax a little, even smiled. “Still wacky after all these years. Sophie’s on her third marriage, but my stepfather is remarkably patient, adamant she stay on her meds, and madly in love with her. Plus he has money, which means she’ll try harder. I think this one might stick.”
“Does that let you off the hook a little?” He realized how personal the question was, how much it said about how well they had known each other, but it was too late to call it back.
“I’m allowed to have my own life, yes.”
In for a penny, in for a pound. “Does that include a family?”
“I’m not married, if that’s what you’re asking.”
He had always liked the way Jo laid her cards on the table. Of course in contrast, there was another part of her that carefully played the rest of her hand close to the chest. Anything really important stayed deep inside her, but that habit had suited him, since he operated the same way. For survival she had been required to keep a part of herself from her mother. Brody’s traditional upbringing and parents had been very different, but as a boy he had realized that they had many burdens and didn’t need his, as well.
“So why did you come back?” he asked. “At Christmas, too. There must be a hundred better places to spend the holidays.”
She launched into a story about her cousin Olivia’s bridal quilt, her own desire to get away for a while and work on her part of it in peace, and a desire to see if she might find some baby quilts or clothing of Eric’s in the Grants’ attic.
She finished up on that note. “If I was going to do this, I wanted to do it right. I thought the quilt would be that much more special if we had some of Eric’s childhood quilted into it, too. Lydia says there are boxes in their attic I can go through. Once I’m settled I’m supposed to call her about a key. Then I’ll go through them until I find what I’m looking for.”
“I have the key. I look after the Grants’ house, too.”
Jo leaned back. “Well, you’re a busy boy, aren’t you? Nothing to do in the vineyard this time of year?”
“I have a bargain with the owners. For a nominal fee I watch their houses in winter, and in the fall they come to my place and pick grapes. We make quite a party out of it.”
“You don’t have machines for that?”
“We harvest the juice grapes by machine, but these are more fragile. Vignoles grapes for wine.”
“I always loved seeing all those acres of grapes.”
“And eating them. The summer we met.”
She had been smiling, but that died now. “You know, Pacific time or not, I really am wiped.”
He had been dismissed, so he stood. “The snow’s going to continue through the night. You have some staples in the pantry, a little flour, sugar, salt, that sort of thing, along with some canned soup. But not a lot else. It might be some time before you can shop. I’d ration.”
“Uncle Albert said somebody plows the driveway after it snows.”
“That would be me. But not until the snow stops long enough for it to make sense.”
She uncurled her legs and gracefully rose to follow him to the door. “Thank you for the fire and coffee.” She stuck out her hand.
Surprised, he took it, but the contact was brief. “What are old friends for?”
“I guess we were friends, weren’t we?”
“Maybe we can be again.”
When she didn’t respond he smiled, as if the lack didn’t matter, as if friendship went without saying when, of course, it was probably impossible.
More things left unsaid, their mutual talent.
“Be sure to close the doors on the fireplace before you go to bed,” he said. “The chimney’s just been cleaned, so it’s safe enough, but that’s a hot fire. You don’t want any sparks popping into the room.”
“Thanks, I have a fireplace in my condo.”
“Then you’re an expert.”
She tilted her head. “At lots of things. I’ve been taking care of myself for a very long time.” She paused. “But thank you for taking care of me tonight. I’m not sure where I would be right now if you hadn’t come along.”
He considered those parting words on his way home. She had been talking about tonight and where she would have been without his help. But Jo was a survivor. She would have found a way to keep from freezing even if she’d been forced to dig out the whole driveway to get back on the road.
Now he wondered where she would be if he had never come along at all, if he had never met her the summer she turned sixteen, if they hadn’t made a thousand plans together, all canceled summarily four years later. Had she stopped trusting men after that? Was that why she’d never married? Had she stopped coming to Hollymeade because she had been afraid of running into him? How many choices had she made that stemmed from their past?
How many had he made?
He found himself at the Grants’ house instead of his own. It was more than six miles from Ryan Vineyards, so he hadn’t simply made a wrong turn. No, the wrong turn had come a long time ago. Now there was no telling where this one might lead.
He jumped down and went through his ring of keys on the way to the front door. Inside he took the steps upstairs and then those to the attic two at a time. The Grant house wasn’t as large or lovely as Hollymeade, but it was a pretty Colonial with banks of windows looking over the water and decks all around, well cared for and loved.
Unlike