Ellen Crosby - The Riesling Retribution

I looked closer at him. Who was he?

“Uh, no. No, not my boyfriend. He’s my…friend,” I said. “Do I know you?”

“Yes, ma’am. My granddad’s Seth Hannah. I’m Corey.”

Last time I’d seen Corey Hannah I swear he’d been in diapers.

“Well, Corey. What a surprise. I didn’t recognize you.” I smiled without explaining about the diapers.

“Hey, fellas,” Quinn said, “if I gave you a couple of dollars, maybe you could buy something to eat. You know, ice cream. Or candy. They must be selling something here this evening.”

“You got Confederate money?” Corey asked. “That’s all that works around here.”

I looked at Quinn. “I told you that you were on the wrong side.”

He grunted.

“I’ve got a better idea,” I said to the boys. “How about if we give you our stump? It’s a good place to sit. Actually, we were keeping it for you.”

Corey nodded. “Okay.”

Quinn stood up and caught my hand.

“Hey, mister?” It was one of the older boys.

“What?”

“You going to kiss her some more?”

Quinn cleared his throat. “I might. Do you think I should?”

“She’s real pretty,” he said. “I guess so.”

“I’ll think about it, then,” he said.

We left them giggling and whispering.

“I know Corey’s mother,” I said. “She always gets coffee and a newspaper at the General Store on her way to work.”

“She’ll tell Thelma.”

“No doubt.”

“It’ll be all over town we were necking like a couple of high school kids just now.”

“That’d be my guess.”

We reached his car and he helped me in. He got in beside me and ran a finger along my cheekbone.

“Want to give ’em something to really talk about?” he asked.

I caught my breath. “What did you have in mind?”

He started the engine. “Nothing I’d like those kids to watch us doing.”

“I think I’d like that.”

“Where should we go?” he asked.

His place was as spartan as a monk’s cell. Mine was likely to have a chaperone if Eli was there.

“What about the summerhouse?” I knew he had slept there in the past when he stayed out late stargazing.

He seemed surprised, but he said, “Yes. The summerhouse.”

“Can I ask you something?” I said.

“What?”

“You and Savannah?”

I watched him in profile as he smiled, and my heart stopped beating for a few seconds. Here it was.

“She’s a cute kid. You know she’s engaged? He’s overseas in Afghanistan with the marines.”

“No.” My voice was faint. “I did not.”

“We could use her help, Lucie. She’s smart and she’s willing to work for us. I’ve been trying to teach her everything I can. It’s a pleasure for once to have someone who is as quick a study as she is.” He paused and glanced over at me. “You thought there was something going on between us?”

I couldn’t con him. He knew me too well. “Yes.”

“Nope. Nothing.”

He pulled into my driveway. Eli’s Jaguar was parked by the old carriage house. Quinn helped me out of the car and then pulled me to him and kissed me.

“I always wondered what your kisses would taste like,” he said.

“Me, too.” I gasped and grew breathless as he bit my ear and began moving his hands over my body. “I mean, about your kisses. Oh, God, please don’t stop.”

We walked to the summerhouse with our arms wrapped around each other, stopping to trade long, slow kisses.

“Wait here,” he said when we reached the screen door. “I think I put some candles in the drawer of that old table your mom left out here. I’ll get them.”

“Where’s the flashlight?” I asked.

“The car. I was too busy thinking about ravishing you to remember it. Here they are.” He struck a match and lit a fat pillar candle that he set on the table.

“This is nice,” I said, as he lit more candles. “I’m up for a little ravishing.”

“Or a lot. Come here. I want to see you by candlelight when I undress you.”

I caught my breath again. “Quinn—”

He did not let me finish speaking.

After three years of working together, day in and day out, I thought I knew Quinn and there were no surprises left to uncover. I had seen the parade of his girlfriends come and go, even his ex-wife, just as he had watched my erratic relationship with Mick Dunne wax and wane. I did not expect to be swept off my feet by someone as familiar to me as breathing. This was no first love. We were not giddy young kids.

I thought I would find comfort in his arms. Tenderness, maybe. Companionship, surely. What I did not expect was that he would leave me breathless, craving him again each time we finished, and that making love with him would be unlike loving any other man I’d known. When he whispered my name, the eroticism in his voice made me shiver, and he was, by turns, rough and gentle. I closed my eyes and wrapped my legs around him, terrified and awed by what was happening between us. The feeling spread like warmth through my veins, as seductive and addictive as drugs, and I knew there would be no going back to the way it had been between us before tonight.

We dozed intermittently, between lovemaking. Once, when he was sleeping and I was still awake, I turned on my side and studied him, wondering how he could still be such an enigma. Then, I think he felt the weight of my gaze. He opened his eyes and pulled me to him, crushing his mouth down on mine. I clutched him closer as though I could somehow imprint my body on his, leave my mark so he would not forget me.

I don’t remember the last time I fell asleep, but when I woke up he was gone. I felt a small stab of pain in my chest. When did he leave and why didn’t he wake me to kiss me good-bye? No note, no nothing.

I found my phone in the pile of clothes near the sleeping bag we’d lain on. Twenty before seven. I sat up and clutched the blankets around me. It probably wasn’t that cool, except that I was naked.

I dressed quickly. The rains would come today for sure. I smelled coffee as soon as I walked in the house. His note was there, propped up by the coffeemaker.

Didn’t want to wake you. Went to the barrel room. Call me.

A man of few words. I poured a cup that looked like sludge and tasted like rocket fuel. He must have used the entire bag of coffee I just bought.

I slurped some coffee and called him. He answered on the second ring.

“Just wake up, sleepyhead?”

“Thanks for making the coffee. Why’d you leave so early?”

“You’re welcome. I didn’t want to make it too strong since I know you don’t like it.”

I smiled. “That was considerate.”

“Can you get over here?” He was back to all business.

“Sure. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. The Riesling again. It’s stopped fermenting. I don’t want to lose it all, but it’s bad.”

“Give me a few minutes. I need a shower.”

In the shower the steam brought Quinn’s scent back to me all over again. I watched the water sluice off my breasts and shuddered, remembering what we had done.

He was standing next to one of the stainless-steel tanks when I walked into the barrel room twenty minutes later. Like me, he’d managed to shower and change into desert camouflage pants and a T-shirt with our logo on it. He turned around when he heard me, and our eyes met.

What passed between us was like a jolt of electricity, but I managed to say in a calm voice, “What’s going on?”

He picked up a Dixie cup and turned the lever handle of a small faucet a few inches under the label that listed Riesling and the strain of yeast we’d used. An opaque brownish green liquid spewed out into the cup.

“Smell this.”