flushed a little. “It’s okay if you’d rather not.”
Glancing at Amy, seeing she was lost in what she was doing and not paying any attention to them, he said, “Most of the folks in Fawn Grove who have lived here all of their lives know my history with Raintree Winery.”
“Your history?” Plainly, Sara didn’t understand.
He didn’t confide in many people. He didn’t relive what he’d rather forget. That was true for childhood as well as some of his photojournalistic experiences. But Sara was living here and she might as well know the truth. It might make her feel better about Ethan’s attitude.
“As I mentioned, Ethan Cramer’s not my biological father. I was twelve and in the foster care system when he adopted me.”
Sara was looking up at him now, her golden-brown eyes compassionate, her attitude completely attentive.
Her understanding gaze and silent concentration on him urged him to go on. “My father and I have never been that … close. Maybe I was too old when I came to live here. Maybe he was too set in his ways. We’ve never really talked about it. But we also never had a normal father-son bond.”
“Is that the reason when you came back here two years ago that you didn’t know if you could find a life here?”
“That was a big part of it. The vineyard itself I’d always been drawn to. I started working with the grapes soon after I arrived. My father would show me what to do and I’d do it. Pruning and tying the vines weren’t just chores, because the whole process fascinated me. I learned quickly and easily about the varieties of grapes, the soil, the process of wine-making. My father and I found common ground with what he did here. But other than that— I don’t know if I was completely closed off or if he was. Maybe taking on a twelve-year-old was more than he bargained for. But anyway, since I’ve been back, except for the vineyard, we’ve had separate lives.”
“That’s a shame,” Sara said. “You’re living here together. You should be able to retrace some steps and find understanding.”
“Maybe that’s what neither of us wants.”
“But you should.”
“Sara,” he said with a warning note in his voice.
“Jase, I have no family, except for Amy. Do you think for a minute I’d ever let anything come between us?”
“You’re a good mom, Sara. Of course you believe that. But I wasn’t an innocent kid with no baggage when I arrived here.” He saw the questions in her eyes, but he wasn’t going to answer them.
“No matter what baggage you had, every child just wants to be loved. Heck, every adult just wants to be loved.”
When she said the words, she looked a bit embarrassed. Was she looking for love again? “You’d get married again?”
“Oh, no.”
The way she said it, Jase had a feeling her marriage hadn’t been everything she’d wanted it to be. “Do you want to elaborate a bit?”
“Not really.”
Of course she didn’t. He was treading into private territory and he knew it. “Want to rescind your offer of dinner?”
She looked tempted but shook her head. “No, we’ll just make a pact not to discuss anything too … personal.”
They’d already discussed some things that were personal when he was in physical therapy. After all, Dana’s infidelity had been a huge part of his pessimistic attitude when he’d returned home. “I’d like to stay. It will be a nice break before I head back to the office for the afternoon.”
“Working on a Sunday?”
“A vineyard is similar to a farm. Anything that grows doesn’t take a vacation, and neither does the work that piles up because of it. I have a meeting with Liam later to go over a new organic process. Have you met him yet?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“He’s a friendly guy, sometimes too friendly with the ladies. He dates someone new every weekend.”
“How old is he?”
“Older than I am—forty-five.”
“And you’re thirty-six.”
“You remember?”
“Therapists never forget some of their patients.”
Her words made his heart thump louder and that was silly. She could just mean his condition had been worse than most. She could just mean his emotional scars from the attack and his split with Dana had been more extensive than most. Or she could mean that she’d remembered him as he’d remembered her.
He stepped away. “I should be finished with this door by the time it takes you to make a stir-fry. We could have a race.”
“Or we could take our time and not worry about who finishes first,” she suggested.
Yep, he liked this woman’s positive vision of the world. He just wondered when, exactly, he’d lost his.
During lunch, Jase kept the conversation light, mostly answering questions Sara had about the vineyard and the types of wine it produced. After Amy finished, she scrambled from her chair and curled up with her new stuffed toy, paging through a picture book.
“So she’s in The Mommy Club’s day care program while you work?” Jase asked.
“Yes, she is. The staff are wonderful.”
“I didn’t realize until after a discussion with Marissa that she takes her little boy, Jordan, there, too.” His assistant had told him The Mommy Club day care program allowed for a sliding scale according to a parent’s income. “Marissa doesn’t seem to worry with Jordan there.”
“I think Kaitlyn was involved in hiring the staff,” Sara explained. “What I like is that I can stop in on my lunch hour. In the fall, Amy will be in kindergarten and I’ll have to figure out what to do when she gets off school.”
“Being a parent is never easy, is it? And being a single parent has to be doubly tough.”
Sara didn’t seem to want to comment on that and he wondered if she ever openly discussed her marriage. Her husband had been the manager of a home improvement store, but Jase didn’t know more than that about him. Sara didn’t seem to be in the mood to confide. In a flash, he remembered Dana and her penchant for keeping feelings and motives and even her life on assignments to herself. Most of all, he remembered her betrayal and easy desertion. He really should stay far away from Sara and her marriage and her past. His own past had forged who he was. Maybe everyone had secrets and stories they didn’t want to tell.
Picking up his plate, he stood and said, “I’ll help you clean up.”
But Sara stood, too. “No, of course not. You fixed my windows and screen door and I don’t want to keep you from the rest of your day.”
Subtext: she was ready for him to
