“Do you still breed them?”
“My father does, but it’s a hobby at this point. Not profitable. That’s why I started the vineyard.”
“You?”
“Yes.” He looked at her quizzically. “Why are you surprised?”
“Well, you’re only thirty.” She blanched when she realized she’d assumed that the research was correct and he was in fact Tarrant’s son. “Aren’t you?”
“As it happens, I am thirty. But I was fooling around in the fields and growing things by the time I was eight. By age eleven, I’d hybridized a Syrah that got people talking. My neighbor Santos taught me a lot. He’s ninety now and one of the true geniuses of winemaking. He helped me persuade my father to let me plant grapes in our pastures. By the time I was eighteen, we’d planted seventy hectares of vines.” He nodded at her glass. “You’re drinking their fruit now.”
“So, you skipped right over watching Power Rangers and Real World TV shows.”
Amado smiled. “When the TV broke, no one cared—except Rosa. She missed her telenovelas.”
“Thank God your father finally came to his senses and bought a satellite dish.” The silvery voice made Susannah whip her head around. Rosa stood right behind her. A stern expression still tightened her inscrutable and impossibly ancient face.
Amado laughed. “Now she’s addicted to CNN broadcasts.”
She clucked her tongue.
“Someone’s got to keep the Alvarez family in touch with the modern world. Otherwise, all you’d do is fondle grapes and stick your hands up a cow’s backside.”
Susannah almost spewed her wine and Amado bent his head in laughter.
Rosa bustled away with an empty serving dish. Susannah leaned forward and whispered. “She’s a character. How old is she?”
Amado blew out a breath. “Probably older than the mountains. She’s certainly been here longer than anyone else. Every other person around here is her grandchild or great grandchild. For years I’ve been trying to convince her to retire and take it easy in her old age. She flaps her dishcloth at me and says she’d just as soon be dead.”
“What do you do around here for fun?”
“What could be more fun than testing the soil for nitrates?” Amado tilted his head and regarded her with mock seriousness. “What can I say? I love my work.”
“I know how you feel. I love mine, too.” She indicated the delicious meal spread before them. “I’m working right now. It’s a tough job, but, well, you know.”
“You traveled a long way. The least I can do is give you a good meal.”
“Much appreciated. I’m used to traveling though. I’m on the road about eighty percent of the time.”
Amado’s lips parted in dismay. “You’re away from home most of the year?”
Susannah shrugged. “My home is a featureless, one-room apartment in a busy part of Manhattan. It’s just a place to keep my stuff. I’m happiest when I’m out and about.”
He stared at her. “Where are you from originally? I mean, where did you grow up?”
She forced a bright smile. Here we go. “Everywhere. I was born in a tiny village in the Philippines where my parents set up a primary school. When I was eighteen months old, my parents moved to Burkina Faso to take over a mission there. When I was three, we moved to Papua, New Guinea. I turned six in a small village in Southern India, but that placement didn’t work out, so I had my seventh birthday in Columbus, Ohio while my parents attended a retreat there. Then we were back on the road to Honduras, El Salvador, Paraguay and Bolivia, which is why I speak fluent Spanish.”
The canned account of her strange childhood rattled out like a recorded recap.
“Your parents were missionaries?”
“You got it.” She raised her glass in a mock cheer. She was used to the sideways glances and snide remarks. Her parents were good people and they did what they thought was right.
Surprise trickled through her as she noticed Amado wasn’t mocking. He looked interested. “It must have been hard when you were a kid. To keep leaving your friends and your familiar environment.”
She shrugged. “I never lived any other way, so I guess I’m used to it. Their specialty is setting up programs and finding the right local people to run them. Then they move onto the next place. I guess the lifestyle shaped me, because I’m happiest when I’m moving from place to place.”
She realized Amado was staring at her with a look of…was it pity?
“What?”
He shook his head, as if shaking loose a painful thought. “Nothing. I guess it’s great that you love to travel. Everyone’s different.”
“You’re horrified, aren’t you?”
“No.” He laughed. “Okay, maybe a little. I don’t even like to go away on business for a few days. I feel like my roots have been pulled from the soil and I can’t wait to get back home and plant them among the grape vines again.” His wry expression suggested that he was a little embarrassed by his deep attachment to his home.
That touched her. What would it feel like to be so deeply rooted in a place—in one special place—that you felt like you truly belonged there?
Amado’s brows gathered. “Are you okay? More wine?”
Her face must be giving too much away. “I guess I’m just tired from all the traveling.”
He nodded, sympathetic. “Of course. Well, tonight, you are home in Tierra de Oro where I will take good care of you.” He rose and held out his hand to lift her from her chair.
His genial gaze rested on her face. “Come into the living room and we’ll light a fire. The nights are still cool and a fire warms the soul as well as the body.”
Susannah blinked as his words and the touch of his hand stoked a very different kind of fire.
He held her hand—casually—as he led her into the spacious living room and settled her into the butter-soft leather sofa in front of the grand carved-stone fireplace.
“Make yourself comfortable.” He offered her a knitted throw from a drawer. She shook her head.
He stroked it. “It’s pure alpaca, from the mountains. Soft as the clouds that gather in the foothills.” His sparkling gaze challenged her to resist.
“Well, if you put it that way.” She let him drape it over her shoulders. Soft as a breath. And somehow the caress of his strong hands transmitted through the lush fabric.
She slipped her shoes off, and put them on the floor. When she looked up, the fire was already lit and blazing.
“How did you do that? It takes me half an hour to get a fire going.” Sometimes even the fake logs sputtered out in her tiny apartment fireplace.
Amado shrugged. “Good kindling. Old wine barrels are the best.” He smiled. “And we have a steady supply.”
Without a word of warning, he seized her left foot and began to massage the sole with his broad thumb.
Susannah’s mouth fell open.
Sometimes she was ticklish, but right now she had no urge to laugh. The penetrating motions of his thumb and fingers sent sensations ricocheting through her foot, up her leg and all over her body.
She should protest. This was far too intimate. But no words came to her mouth,