“But Santa Rosa’s not that far away, and it has a sizable African-American community. We’re not that isolated from our culture,” Jason said reasonably.
“Hasn’t that always been the place to go when you wanted soul food, or had to get your hair cut, or your hair styled? Or actually wanted to date a sister or a brother? I didn’t date anybody from here when I was in high school.”
“I know. The first guy who kissed you came from Santa Rosa. I remember Kyle Bailey, that little pipsqueak, he was two grades behind me.”
“That little pipsqueak shot up several inches over the summer of his junior year and led the basketball team to the state finals his senior year. For a hot minute I was the most popular girl in school because he was my boyfriend. Then, he dropped me for Susie Kent, and my moment of fame fizzled so quickly it made my head spin.”
She laughed at the memory now, but back then, like most sixteen-year-old girls would have been, she was devastated. She’d wound up going to the senior prom with her father. Her mom had insisted that she would regret it if she did not go. She’d been right.
Her father, a big, handsome brown-skinned man made the girls swoon with envy. Some of them had even asked him to dance with them, but he told them his dance card was filled. He and Sara danced every dance together.
That still was her favorite memory of her father.
“Where is he now?” Jason asked of Kyle Bailey. “I’ll go kick his butt right now.”
Laughing, Sara said. “Forget it. Last I heard, he was happily married with a houseful of kids. More power to him.”
“Did he marry Susie Kent?”
“No, she married a pro basketball player, got divorced two years later, married another jock, divorced him and decided to give marriage a rest for a while. I saw her at our tenth-year class reunion. She said she owned a boutique in San Francisco. Her divorce settlements had left her pretty wealthy, so she didn’t need to work but liked to stay busy.”
Jason chuckled. “You believed that?”
“The point is, she did,” Sara told him. “I had no way of knowing if she was telling the truth or not, but I hoped that she was happy. She had this kind of desperate look in her eyes that made me wish for something good to happen to her. That was two years after Billy died, so I wasn’t in the best mental health myself.”
In the beginning of their relationship, Jason had tensed up whenever she mentioned Billy Minton, but now, after learning how good he had been to Sara he no longer felt uneasy listening to her talk about him. He was sure that if he had met Billy he would have liked him. He was glad that Sara had had a good marriage.
He’d known too many women who felt that they had been damaged by their marriages. He had represented some of them.
Thinking about Billy sometimes put Sara in a melancholy mood, though. In fact, he felt her slump against him now, a sure sign that a blue mood was building. He quickly changed the subject. “Guess who sends you his regards?”
She sat up straighter, her curiosity engaged. “Idris Elba?”
Now, that irked him. Elba was Sara’s favorite actor of the moment. No, not just her favorite actor. He was convinced that the British actor lived in her sexual fantasies.
He chuckled. “No, and if he called I wouldn’t give you the message. So quit hoping. No, your secret admirer is your former tormentor, Erik Sutherland. I saw him in the supermarket this afternoon.”
“What do you mean by secret admirer? I haven’t even seen him since I moved back.”
“He said you’d really blossomed. He called you pretty.”
“That makes my skin crawl. Where could he have seen me and I wasn’t aware of being seen by him?”
“That’s another mystery,” Jason said. “Anyway, he seems to regret his past behavior towards you and said that God was punishing him for it by allowing his own daughter, who happens to be a little overweight, to be picked on by kids at school.”
“I know Melissa,” Sara said sympathetically. “She’s a sweet girl. She’s grown attached to Frannie who thinks she’s a work of art in progress.”
“There’s another mystery,” Jason said. “Your friend, Frannie Anise. Doesn’t it strike you as unusual that when you left New York she quit her job and followed you to California? That’s not something most girlfriends would do, not even best friends.”
“Northern California is home for her, too. I told you, she grew up in San Francisco. Her parents still live there. It wasn’t such a stretch for her to move back here.”
“Are you sure she’s not in love with you?” Jason asked seriously.
“Frannie’s not gay.”
“I’ve never seen her with a guy.”
“You’ve got a suspicious mind.”
“It’s one of my many faults,” Jason admitted. “I wonder about those trips you take. I wonder about those women who work in the bookstore for short periods of time and then disappear as if they never existed. I’m wondering when the new woman, who I think is from South Africa, will disappear. I have questions that need answers, and you have all the answers and won’t give them to me. Excuse me if I’m suspicious.”
“I understand how you feel.”
“But you have no answers.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“That’s what I thought.” He made a noise with his tongue, a signal for Indigo to break into a canter. The big stallion seemed to have been waiting to stretch his strong legs and for the next twenty minutes he got a good workout while his riders clung to each other in silence.
Later, as they slowly rode into the yard, Jason said, “I’ll take care of Indigo. You can go on inside, I know you must be tired.”
“No, I’m not tired at all. I’d like to help.”
In the barn, after Jason had removed Indigo’s bit, stirrups and saddle, Sara gently wiped the sweat off him with a soft cloth used specifically for that purpose. Afterward, they took turns brushing him down.
Finished, Sara patted his strong neck. “Good night, handsome.”
They left him in his clean stall where he had fresh oats and water.
Silently, they walked to the house from the barn. The full moon illuminated their path. Even if there had been no moon tonight, there were security lights at the top corners of the back of the barn and at strategic points around the house.
Jason was in a pensive mood. Everything about Sara, lately, was a mystery. She seemed to delight in helping him rub down Indigo moments ago. Last year, she’d gone into the vineyards and helped with the harvest, working as hard as anyone else.
It was obvious that she knew what becoming a vintner’s wife would entail. It also appeared as if she would welcome that kind of life. Therefore it continued to puzzle him as to why she’d turned down his proposal. He was irritated with himself to still be dwelling on it, but he couldn’t help himself.
He would have to change his way of thinking. He was basically a future-focused person. The present concerned him only for its momentary pleasures. He looked at life as in constant flux, and unless you planned for the future, you would be caught unawares.
He didn’t like surprises. He knew that it was impossible to predict the future. But those who prepared for it were better equipped to cope with unpleasant surprises. In his future-focused mind he saw himself and Sara together. He had been seeing himself and Sara together ever since that night he had kissed her in the wine cellar during Erica and Joshua’s wedding reception here at the winery.
Once in the house, they went to separate bathrooms and freshened