of the young mothers came over to Alexis and sat down beside her.
“Hi, I’m Laura,” she said with a bright smile. “That’s my little tyke, Jason, over there.” She pointed to a little boy in denim jeans and brightly colored suspenders busily commando crawling toward the sandpit.
“Alexis, pleased to meet you,” Alexis replied with a smile.
“Have you heard how Catherine is doing? We all have been wondering but didn’t want to be a nuisance.”
“The surgery went well. She’s at her sister’s home in Cashmere, recuperating. If you’re heading into Christchurch at all, I’m sure she’d love it if you called by to visit.”
“Oh, thanks, that’s good to know.”
Laura sat back and watched the kids playing for a while. Alexis sensed she was trying to drum up the courage to say something but was perhaps figuring out the best way around it. Eventually, though, she seemed to come to a decision.
“We were surprised when we heard that Ruby was staying with her dad. Especially given...” Her voice trailed off and she looked uncomfortable. “Look, I don’t want you to think I’m prying but is everything okay at the house? We were, most of us, friends with Bree during our pregnancies and our partners and Raoul all got along pretty well. We had our own little social group going. Aside from missing Bree, we really miss Raoul, too. All the guys have tried to reach out to him since Bree died, but he’s just cut ties with everyone.”
Alexis nodded. It was hard to come up with what to say, when it wasn’t really her place to say anything.
“Things are going well at the house. We’ve settled in to a good routine,” she hedged.
The fact that routine didn’t include Ruby’s father went unsaid. Raoul continued to spend the better part of most days in the winery. He’d made his displeasure clear on the few occasions when, at the beginning, Alexis and Ruby had walked down to bring him his lunch.
“Oh, oh, that’s good,” Laura said with a relieved smile. “Better than I expected to hear, anyway. You were friends with Bree, weren’t you?”
“Since kindergarten,” Alexis said, swallowing against the bitter taste of guilt that rose in her throat. “We went through school together near Blenheim and kind of drifted apart a bit when she went up to Auckland for university. We used to catch up whenever she was home, though, and stayed in touch until she married and I went overseas.”
Even as she said the words, she was reminded again of how she’d jumped on the opportunity to leave the country rather than remain and witness her friend’s happiness. Shame shafted a spear through her chest, making her breath hitch and a sudden wash of tears spring to her eyes.
“We all miss her so much,” Laura said, misunderstanding the reason behind Alexis’s distress.
Laura reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Alexis felt like a fraud accepting the other woman’s sympathy. She hardly deserved it when she’d been the one to abandon Bree. She hadn’t been here, hadn’t even known what was going on, when her friend had needed her most—and all because she hadn’t been able to keep her wretched hormones under control. She owed Bree a debt. It was why she was here now, and why she would stay as long as Ruby needed her, no matter what Raoul chose to throw at her.
Laura continued on. “Look, weather permitting, the playgroup is having a family lunch at the beach this Sunday afternoon. We’re not planning to swim or anything, it’s far too cold already this autumn, but there are barbecues and a playground and tables and it’s so much easier to clean up afterward with the little ones. You and Ruby should come. And bring Raoul along, too, it’ll do him good to mix with his mates again.”
“I—I’m not sure. Can I confirm with you later on?”
It was one thing to accept an invitation for herself and Ruby, but quite another to do so for a man who’d clearly chosen to remove himself from his social circle.
“Sure,” Laura said with an enthusiastic smile. She gave Alexis her cell number. “Just fire me a text if you’re coming.”
When Alexis got back home, Ruby was already asleep in her car seat. She carefully lifted the sleeping infant and transferred her into her crib, taking a moment to watch her. Her heart broke for the wee thing. No mother, barely a father, either. Alexis’s hands gripped the side rail of the crib, her knuckles whitening. She had to try harder. Somehow, she had to get Raoul to open his life, to open his heart again. If she didn’t she would have failed everyone, but most of all this precious wee scrap sleeping so innocently in front of her.
Four
Sunday dawned bright and clear. Raoul eyed the cloudless sky with a scowl. He’d been adamantly opposed to attending this thing today. Adamantly. Yet Alexis had barreled on as if he hadn’t said no. In fact, when he thought about it, she hadn’t so much asked him if he would go along, she pretty much told him he was going.
For a fleeting moment he considered disappearing to the winery, or even farther into his vineyards. Not that there’d be many places to hide there as the vines headed into their seasonal slumber, the leaves already turning and falling away. It was a shame it was still too early to start pruning. He could have lied and said that the work absolutely had to be done and right away, but he knew Alexis had grown up on a vineyard, too. She’d have known he wasn’t telling the truth the instant he opened his mouth.
His stomach tied in knots. He really couldn’t do this. Couldn’t face the well-meaning looks and the sympathetic phrases people trotted out—as if any of it would change the past. And he really didn’t need to be within fifty meters of Alexis Fabrini for the better part of an afternoon.
Each day she was here he was reminded anew of how his body had reacted to her ever since the first time he’d seen her. About how his wife might now be dead and gone but his own needs and desires certainly weren’t. After losing Bree, he’d believed that part of himself to be dormant to the point of extinction, until the second Alexis had walked into his winery. The discovery that all his body parts still worked just fine was a major, and often uncomfortable, inconvenience.
“Oh, good, you’re ready!”
Alexis’s ever-cheerful voice came from behind him. Instantly, every cell in his body leaped to aching life. Since that incident in the nursery the other day, he’d struggled to maintain a semblance of physical control. Even now the vision of her long legs and the curve of her pert bottom filled his mind. He slowly turned around.
Ruby was in Alexis’s arms. Dressed in pink denim dungarees with a candy-striped long-sleeve knit shirt underneath and with a pale pink beret on her little head, she was the epitome of baby chic. She ducked her head into the curve of Alexis’s neck, then shyly looked back at him, a tentative smile curving her rosebud mouth and exposing the tiny teeth she had in front.
His heart gave an uncomfortable tug. God, she was so beautiful, so like her mother. Ruby’s smile widened and he felt his own mouth twist in response before he clamped it back into a straight line once more.
“Should we take your car or mine?” Alexis asked breezily.
His eyes whipped up to her face. She looked slightly smug, as if she’d just achieved some personal goal.
“I—I’m not
