Sooner or later his father would have to speak to him.
Grant scowled. More than once he’d wished he’d never seen that damn TV show. He’d come in from working on the older of his two tractors, showered and settled down with a cold beer. The game hadn’t started yet, so he’d been thinking about the weather while some documentary about winemaking finished up. A perky young reporter had been interviewing Spencer Ashton of Ashton-Lattimer, a corporation that owned vineyards and a large commercial winery.
Ashton Estate Winery. The name had snagged Grant’s attention, naturally, since it matched his own surname. But it was the face that had riveted him.
Spencer Ashton’s face looked like the one he saw in the mirror every day. Not in any one feature, maybe, but something about the way they were grouped. That had been spooky, but it hadn’t occurred to Grant the man might be his father. Even though the names were the same, he’d known it was impossible. His father had died when he was barely a year old.
Then the interviewer had mentioned Spencer’s Nebraska upbringing. They’d flashed a picture of him as a young man—and the man in that photo had been identical to the one standing beside Grant’s mother in the yellowed wedding photo she’d kept by her bed until the day she died.
Two weeks later, Grant had climbed in his pickup and started for San Francisco, leaving Ford in charge at the farm.
Ford had asked what he expected to accomplish. Grant had told his nephew he wanted to meet the half brothers and half sisters he’d never known existed. That was true, if only a partial truth.
So far he hadn’t mustered the nerve. He’d driven out to The Vines one morning, but hadn’t been able to bring himself to ring the doorbell. It was weird to walk up to a bunch of strangers and say, “Hi, I’m your brother.” Their money complicated matters. They were likely to think he wanted something from them.
He did, but it had nothing to do with money. Family mattered. These strangers were family. He needed to know what they were like.
What he hadn’t told Ford was that he also needed to look the man who’d fathered him in the eye and say, “You can’t pretend I don’t exist. I do.”
What good that would do, he couldn’t say. But he was going to do it. Maybe today, maybe later, but he wasn’t leaving California until he did.
On Friday, Cole took Dixie to Charley’s restaurant in Yountville for lunch.
“I can’t believe I let you finagle me into this,” Dixie said, sliding out of Cole’s suvvy.
“You lost the bet.” Cole was entirely too pleased with himself.
“That part I understand. How I let you talk me into making such a dumb bet, I don’t.”
“Maybe you didn’t really want to win.” He held the door for her.
“I knew you were going to say that. The fact is, Hulk’s gone over to the Dark Side. He conspired with you.”
“You’re talking about a cat, Dixie.”
“I’m talking about Hulk.”
“I get your point. Table for two,” he told the hostess. “I have a reservation.”
“Of course, Mr. Ashton. This way.”
Dixie raised her eyebrows. “They know you here.”
“We sell them wine.”
She nodded. “And just when did you make that reservation?”
“The same day we made the bet, of course.”
Dixie wouldn’t have admitted it for anything, but she was glad she’d lost the bet. Charley’s had been around awhile, but she couldn’t afford the place back when she lived here before and somehow she’d never made it here on her visits home.
The restaurant was set on twelve acres of olive groves, vineyards and gardens brimming with seasonal flowers, herbs and vegetables. Most of the herbs and produce used in their dishes came out of the ground the same day it was cooked. Plus they had an exhibition kitchen.
Dixie considered cooking every bit as much of an art as painting. She was looking forward to watching the pros at work.
“I’ve been thinking,” Cole said after the manager stopped by to welcome them. “If I’d lost the bet, I would have had to donate money to a charity of your choice. Having won the bet, I’m still spending money. What’s wrong with this picture?”
She chuckled. “You set the terms, not me.”
He shook his head. “What was I thinking?”
As they debated their selections, Dixie admitted to herself that she wasn’t just enjoying the place. She was enjoying the man. Had she had this much pure fun with Cole before?
All week, the present had been poking holes in the preconceptions of the past. Dixie remembered an ambitious, rather grim young man who’d had little time to spare for anything except business. This Cole was intense, yes, but he possessed a keen sense of the ridiculous. Even his pursuit of her had been flavored with humor.
And that, she told herself as she placed her order, was more dangerous than a sexual buzz, however potent. She had to be on her guard…because she was beginning to hope. She was trying not to define that hope, but it fizzed around inside, a giddy effervescence that bubbled up into smiles and easy laughter.
Cole selected the wine—one from another vineyard, so he could see what the competition was up to, he said. She picked the entrées. They argued about home schooling, sushi and a recent action movie, and found themselves agreeing about reality TV, garlic and childproof safety caps.
Dixie had a wonderful time until the waiter took their desert orders and left. All at once, Cole’s face froze.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing.” He was staring over her shoulder in a way that should have turned whoever he was looking at into a Popsicle.
She craned her head around. A small knot of people blocked the entrance. Her eyebrows rose. She recognized one of them—the Western-looking man who’d been wandering around the vineyard earlier that week. The manager seemed upset with him.
The other two she’d never seen before, yet she recognized one. Not the curvy blonde in the red power suit. The older man resting a possessive hand on her back.
He had silver hair and an impeccably tailored suit over a lean body. His eyebrows were straight, his nose strong, his small, neat ears set flat to his head. His features were symmetrical, possessing the kind of balance people call handsome in a man, beauty in a woman.
He looked exactly like Cole would in another thirty years.
“Dammit, Dixie, don’t stare.” Cole’s voice was low and angry. “He doesn’t matter.”
That was blatantly false, so she ignored it. “That’s your father, isn’t it?”
“My real dad is married to my mother. That man is nothing. Nothing at all.”
The problem, whatever it was, appeared to be resolved. The manager was escorting Western Man out of the restaurant—and one of the waiters was leading Cole’s father and the woman with him their way.
The woman’s hair woke envy in Dixie’s heart. It was long, pale blond with a hint of curl. Her situation didn’t. She looked as if she didn’t appreciate the hand resting on her back. And the man escorting her didn’t seem to know his son existed.
The waiter stopped at their table, looking flustered. “My apologies, sir. There’s been some mistake. This table is reserved.”
“I know,” Cole said in his refrigerator voice. “I reserved