Rainshadow Road

Twenty-one

Everyone on the island, including Sam’s vineyard crew, had heard about the cancelation of Kevin and Alice’s wedding, and all the subsequent fallout. Everyone was talking about it. The only reason Sam had listened to the gossip was in hopes of catching any little crumb of information about Lucy. But her name was seldom mentioned. He’d heard that the Marinns had gone ahead and given the rehearsal dinner, and the next day they had held the reception that had been planned for after the wedding. There had been music and food and drinking. Sam had also heard that the Marinns were considering suing Kevin for at least part of the expenses, including the plane ticket he’d used to go on his self-bestowed vacation.

It had been three days since Lucy had visited Rainshadow. Mark, Maggie, and Holly had just come back from the honeymoon, and Sam and Alex had helped to move them into their new place, a remodeled three-bedroom farmhouse with a pond.

When Sam couldn’t stand it any longer, he called Lucy and left a short message, asking if he could talk to her. She didn’t return the call.

Sam was at wit’s end. He couldn’t eat or sleep. Not thinking about Lucy took more energy than thinking about her.

Mark had talked to him at length about the situation. “This Mitchell Art Center thing sounds like a big deal.”

“It’s as prestigious as hell.”

“So you don’t want to ask her to turn it down.”

“No. I’d never want Lucy to make that kind of sacrifice. In fact, I’m glad she’s going. It’s good for both of us.”

Mark had given him a sardonic glance. “How exactly is it good for you?”

“I don’t do commitment.”

“Why?”

“Because I can’t,” Sam had snapped. “I’m not like you.”

“You’re exactly like me, idiot. Trying like hell to avoid a repeat of what we went through growing up. Do you think it was easy for me, admitting that I was in love with Maggie? Asking her to marry me?”

“No.”

“Well, it was.” Mark smiled at Sam’s baffled expression. “Find the right person, Sam, and the most difficult thing in the world becomes the easiest thing in the world. I had the same problems as you. No escape from that, in the Nolan family. But I’ll tell you this—there’s no way I could let Maggie go without at least telling her I loved her. And once I did that … I had no choice but to hold my breath, and take the leap.”

* * *

Approximately eighty-five and a half hours after Sam had last seen Lucy—not that he was counting—a delivery was made to the house at Rainshadow Vineyard. A couple of guys with a pickup truck carefully unloaded a large flat object and brought it up the front steps. Coming in from the vineyard, Sam reached the house just as the men drove off. Alex was in the entrance hall, staring down at the partially uncrated object.

It was the tree window.

“Is there a note with it?” Sam asked.

“Nope.”

“Did the delivery guys say anything?”

“Only that it was going to be a bitch to install.” Alex lowered to his haunches, looking at the window. “Look at this thing. I expected something kind of flowery and Victorian. Not this.”

The window was strong and bold and delicate, layers of glass fused in natural colors and variegated textures. The tree trunk and branches, made of lead, had been incorporated into the window in a way Sam had never seen before. The moon seemed to glow as if from its own light source.

Alex stood and reached for the phone in his back pocket. “I’m going to call some of my guys to help me put the window in. Today if possible.”

“I don’t know,” Sam said.

“About what?”

“I don’t know if I want to install it.”

Alex responded with an impatient scowl. “Don’t give me that crap. This window has to go into this house. The place needs it. There was one just like it a long time ago.”

Sam gave him a quizzical glance. “How do you know that?”

Alex’s face went expressionless. “I just meant that it seems right for the place.” He walked away, dialing his phone. “I’ll take care of it.”

* * *

Thanks to the accuracy of Lucy’s measurements, Alex and his workmen were able to fit the stained-glass window against the existing panel, and seal the edges with clear silicone caulking. By late afternoon, the majority of the installation had been completed. After the silicone had had twenty-four hours to cure, they would finish the window with wood trim around the edges.

“Just installed the window,” Sam texted Lucy. “You should come see it.”

No reply.

* * *

Usually Sam was slow to emerge from sleep, but this morning his eyes flipped open and he sat bolt upright. He felt annoyed, uneasy, like he was about to jump out of his skin. Trudging into the bathroom, he shaved and took a shower. A routine check in the mirror revealed a taut, bitter expression that didn’t seem to belong to him, but was oddly familiar. Then he realized it was the expression Alex usually wore.

He dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, and headed down to the kitchen for coffee and breakfast. On the way, however, he saw the stained-glass window at the second-floor landing, and he went still.

The window had changed. The glass sky was now flushed with pink and apricot dawn, the dark branches covered with luxuriant green leaves. The restrained hues of the window had given way to radiant color. Brilliant colors had infused the glass, the sight entering his eyes like visual music, reaching a place in him where deepest instinct resided. It was more than beauty, the effect of this window. It was a form of truth that he couldn’t deny. Truth that broke apart his defenses, and left him blinking as if he’d just come from a dark room into sunlight.

Slowly Sam went outside into the quiet vineyard, to see what kind of magic Lucy had made for him. The air was perfumed from growing things, and salted by the ocean. To Sam’s heightened senses, the vines were greener than usual, the soil richer. Before his eyes, the sky turned a shade of blue so radiant that he had to squint against the sting of tears. The land was idealized as a painter might have conceived it, except that it was real, art you could walk through and touch and taste.

Something was at work in the vineyard … some force of nature or enchantment, a wordless language that summoned the vines in a canticle of respiration.

Dreamlike, Sam wandered to the transplanted vine that no one had been able to identify. He felt its energy before he even touched it, the trunk and vines thrumming, flourishing with life. He sensed how deeply the rootstock had delved into the ground, anchoring the plant until nothing could have moved it. Passing his hands across the leaves, he felt them whispering to him, felt the vine’s secret being absorbed into his skin. Picking one of the blue-black grapes, Sam put it between his teeth and bit down. The flavor was deep and complex, evoking the bittersweet shallows of the past, then rolling into the rich dark mystery of things still just beyond his reach.

Hearing the sounds of an approaching car, he turned to see Alex’s BMW proceeding along the drive. Alex never came to the house this early. Slowing, Alex rolled down the car window and asked, “Want a lift?”

In a trance, Sam shook his head and motioned for him to go on. He couldn’t explain what had happened, couldn’t begin to find words … and Alex would discover it soon enough.

By the time Sam made it back to the house, Alex had already reached the second-floor landing.

Sam went upstairs and found his brother staring fixedly at the window. There was no wonder in his face, only the baffled tension of a man who related to the world on his own visceral and literal terms. Alex wanted an explanation when there clearly was none. Or at least none that he would accept.

“What did you do to it?” Alex asked.

“Nothing.”

“How did—”

“I don’t know.”

They both gazed at the stained glass, which had continued to alter as Sam had walked outside … the burnt-ash moon had disappeared, and the glass sky had turned gold and blue, intoxicated with sun. The leaves were even more profuse, emeralds embedded in spindrifts that nearly obscured the branches.

“What does it mean?” Alex wondered aloud.

Emotion made visible, Lucy had once said about her stained glass.

This, Sam thought, was love made visible. All of it. The vineyard, the house, the window, the vine.

The realization was so simple that many people would dismiss it as being beneath more sophisticated minds. Only those with some remnant potential for wonder would understand. Love was the secret behind everything … love was what made vineyards grow and filled the spaces between the stars, and fixed the ground beneath his feet. It didn’t matter if you acknowledged it or not. You couldn’t stop the motion of the earth or hold back the ocean tides, or break the pull of the moon. You couldn’t stop the rain or pull a shade over the sun. And one human heart was no less a force than any of the rest.

The past had always surrounded him like the bars of a prison cell, and he’d never understood that he’d had the power to walk out at any time. He’d not only suffered the consequences of his parents’ sins, he had voluntarily carried them with him. But why should he spend the rest of his life being weighted down by fears, hurts, secrets, when if he just let go, he would be free to reach for what he wanted most? He could have Lucy. He could love her madly, joyfully, without limit.

All he had to do was hold his breath and take the leap.

Without a word to his brother, Sam bounded downstairs and grabbed the keys to his truck.

* * *

Both the condo and Lucy’s studio were ominously still and dark, the way a place looked when it would be vacant for a long time.

A cold feeling settled into Sam’s chest and at the back of his neck. The urgency that had driven him to town had gathered in a desperate knot that constricted his heart.

Lucy couldn’t have left already. It was too soon.

On impulse Sam went to Artist’s Point, looking for Justine. As he entered the inn, comforting breakfast smells wafted around him, hot flour-dusted biscuits, pastries, applewood-smoked bacon, fried eggs.

Justine was in the dining room, carrying a stack of used plates and flatware. She smiled when she saw him. “Hi, Sam.”

“Can I talk to you a minute?”

“Sure.” After carrying the plates to the kitchen, Justine returned and went with him to a corner of the reception area. “How’s it going?”

Sam shook his head impatiently. “I’m looking for Lucy. She wasn’t at the condo or the studio. I was wondering if you had any idea where she was.”

“She’s gone to New York,” Justine said.

“It’s too soon,” Sam said tersely. “It wasn’t supposed to be until tomorrow.”

“I know, but her professor called, and they wanted her there for a meeting and some big party—”

“When did she leave?”

“I just dropped her off at the airport a little while ago. She’s taking the eight o’clock flight.”

Sam yanked out his phone and looked at the time. Seven-fifty. “Thanks.”

“Sam, it’s too late for you to—”

But he was out of the inn before Justine could finish.

Leaping into the truck, he drove toward the airport and called Lucy on his cell phone. The call went to an automatic voice mail box. Swearing, Sam pulled over to the side of the road and texted her.

don’t leave

He pulled the truck back onto the road and floored it, while the words ran through his mind in a constant loop.

Don’t leave. Don’t leave.

* * *

The Roy Franklin Airport, named after the World War II fighter pilot who had founded it, was located on the west side of Friday Harbor. Both scheduled and chartered flights took off from the airport’s single runway. Passengers and visitors who were obliged to wait for one reason or another could usually be found in Ernie’s cafй, a blue-painted coffee shop right next to the airfield.

Sam parked beside the terminal and went to the door in ground-eating strides. But before he had even made it inside, the snarl of a Cessna turbine engine filled the air. Shading his eyes, Sam looked up at the yellow and white nine-passenger plane, climbing high and fast on its way to Seattle.

Lucy was gone.

It hurt more than he’d expected to watch the plane carrying her away from him. It hurt in a way that made him want to go to some dark corner and not think or talk or move.

Making his way to the terminal building, Sam propped himself beside the doorway. He tried to straighten out his thoughts, tried to think of what to do next. His eyes were burning. He closed them for a moment, letting the fluids soothe away the sting.

The terminal door opened, followed by the rattle of suitcase wheels. Through a blur, he saw the small form of a woman, and his heart stopped. He said her name on a breath.

Lucy turned to face him.

For a moment Sam thought she was a figment of his imagination, conjured from the magnitude of his need to see her. In the past few minutes, he’d gone through lifetimes.

Reaching her in three strides, Sam hauled her against him, the impact spinning them both. Before Lucy could say a word, he covered her mouth with his, devouring every word and breath until the suitcase handle dropped from her fingers and clattered to the pavement.

Her mouth yielded and clung to his, her arms lifting around his neck. She fit against him as if she’d been made for him, so perfectly close, and still separate from him. He wanted to pull her inside himself, to make them one being. He kissed her harder, almost savagely, until she turned her face away with a gasp. Her fingers came to his nape, stroking as if to soothe him.

Sam took her face in hands that weren’t quite steady. Her cheeks were fever-colored, her eyes hazed with bewilderment. “Why aren’t you on the plane?” he asked hoarsely.

Lucy blinked. “You … you texted me.”

“And that was enough?” Sliding his arms around her, Sam asked huskily, “You got off the plane because of two words?”

She looked at him in a way no one ever had before, her eyes lit with brilliant tenderness. “They were the right two words.”

“I love you,” Sam said, and set his mouth against hers, and broke off the kiss because he had to say it again. “I love you.”

Lucy’s trembling fingers came to his lips, caressing them gently. “Are you sure? How do you know it’s not just about sex?”

“It is about sex … sex with your mind, sex with your soul, sex with the color of your eyes, the smell of your skin. I want to sleep in your bed. I want you to be the first thing I see every morning and the last thing I see at night. I love you the way I never thought I could love anyone.”

Her eyes flooded. “I love you too, Sam. I didn’t want to leave you, but—”

“Wait. Let me say this first … I’ll wait for you. There’s no choice for me. I can wait forever. You don’t have to give up New York. I’ll do whatever’s necessary to make it work. Long-distance phone calls, cyber-whatever. I want you to have your dream. I don’t want you to give it up or have less of a life because of me.”

She smiled through her tears. “But you’re part of my dream.”

Sam wrapped his arms around her, and rested his cheek on her hair. “It doesn’t matter where you go now,” he murmured. “No matter what, we’re together. A binary star can have a distant orbit, but it’s still held together by gravity.”

Lucy’s chuckle was muffled in his shirt. “Geek love talk.”

“Get used to it,” he told her, stealing a hard kiss. He glanced at the terminal. “You want to go in and reschedule your flight?”

Lucy shook her head decisively. “I’m staying here. I’m going to turn down the art grant. I can do my glasswork here just as easily as I can there.”

“No you’re not. You’re going to New York, to become the artist you were meant to be. And I’m going to spend a fortune in plane tickets to see you as often as possible. And at the end of the year, you’ll come back here and marry me.”

Lucy looked up at him with round eyes. “Marry you,” she said faintly.

“The formal proposal comes later,” Sam said. “I just wanted you to be aware of my honorable intentions.”

“But … you don’t believe in marriage…”

“I changed my mind. I figured out the flaw in my reasoning. I told you it was more romantic not to get married, because then you just stay with each other for the good times. But I was wrong. It only means something when you stay during the bad times. For better or worse.”

Lucy pulled his head down for another kiss. It was a kiss about trust and surrender … a kiss about wine and stars and magic … a kiss about waking up safe in a lover’s arms as the morning climbed past the flight of eagles and the sun unraveled silver ribbons across False Bay.

“We’ll talk about New York later,” Lucy said when their lips had parted. “I’m still not sure I’m going. I’m not even sure that I need to, now. Art can happen anywhere.” Her eyes sparkled as if she were pondering some secret knowledge. “But right now … would you take me to Rainshadow Road?”

For an answer, Sam picked up her suitcase and put his arm around her as they walked to the truck. “Something happened to that window you made for me,” he told her after a moment. “The vineyard is changing. Everything is changing.”

Lucy smiled, seeming not at all surprised. “Tell me.”

“You have to see it for yourself.”

And he took her home, on the first of many roads they would travel together.