Kathleen O'Brien - The Vineyard of Hopes and Dreams

“Ms. Watson. Hayley. I’m sorry I didn’t know your father better, but—”

Don’t be.

The words were on the tip of her tongue. But why say them? Why say anything except the most basic conversational conventions? She wasn’t here to make friends or right wrongs. She wouldn’t be attending this man’s church or seeking his counsel. She was here to sell the neglected vineyard, if anyone was dumb enough to buy it, pocket the money and go home.

Home to Florida, where she had a life, and new dreams. The best dream of all was waiting for her there.

“It’s all right, Pastor Donny.” He’d asked her to call him that. He must not realize how silly it sounded. “You did a wonderful job. It was lovely.”

He beamed. “Thank you. I’m sorry, too, that the day was so…” He waved at the restless trees, as if they were an added insult. “And the fog—if we’d held the service later in the morning…”

“It probably won’t lift before noon,” she said.

The sudden certainty shocked her. She hadn’t set foot in Sonoma County for seventeen years. She’d made a home an entire country away, in the flatlands of Florida. So why did she remember this fog so clearly? Why did she remember its tickling intimacy against her ankles? Why did she know, in her bones, that it wouldn’t disperse for hours?

“I guess not.” Pastor Donny shook his head. “Well, I should let you talk to your friends. I’m glad so many people came. It’s good that you’re not alone today.”

She heard his unspoken disapproval of whoever had let her make this trip alone. She wondered who he thought she should have brought. Her mother died several years ago. Just two weeks ago, she’d broken off her relationship with Greg Valmont, the only serious boyfriend she’d had since leaving Sonoma. Genevieve had recently been promoted at her CPA firm, and was working eighty-hour weeks.

After that, there was no one else to ask. The kind of life the Watson women had lived since they ran away didn’t exactly encourage intimate friendships. Her coworkers at the dress shop where she did the books would have been shocked to hear she even had family back in California.

She followed the pastor’s gaze toward the cluster of people who stood awkwardly by, clearly waiting to offer her their final condolences. She’d greeted them briefly at the funeral home, but the number had swelled since then. God knew who all had arrived while she was lost in thought.

When she’d decided to attend the funeral—and not just let the prepaid package carry on, like a bad play, without her—she’d known she’d have to cope with this.

So she put a smile on her face, just the appropriate amount of lip curve, and turned toward them. She’d practiced this expression in the mirror of the airplane bathroom a mere three hours ago. She wanted to convey gratitude, and a sense of the solemnity due at the burial of any human being.

Even Ben Watson.

But she had no intention of pretending grief. Her pride wouldn’t allow it. And besides, a few of these people undoubtedly already knew her story and were here purely for the lip-smacking entertainment of seeing how she handled herself.

She caught a glimpse of a small, thin man moving toward her. Roland Eliot—definitely not one of the gawkers. He had worked for her father since she was a little girl. When she’d arrived at the funeral home this morning, a full half hour late, she’d been shocked to see him here, waiting patiently with the others. She thought surely he’d retired or come to his senses years ago.

“Miss Hayley,” Roland said, his voice somber and his round gray eyes shining. “It is a joy to my heart to see you again. I thought I would never—”

“Roland,” she responded with her first real emotion of the day. The week. The decade? She reached out and hugged him. He smelled the same as ever, soap and earth. “It’s wonderful to see you, too.”

“This is my granddaughter, Elena.” With nudging palms, he ushered forth a preschooler who had black curls and his round gray eyes. She couldn’t be more than four. “Elena, this is Miss Hayley, the girl who sleeps in the treetops.”

The little girl’s eyes grew even wider. She nodded gravely, but she didn’t speak.

Hayley wasn’t sure she could speak, either. She had forgotten that Roland used to call her that. Suddenly she felt the wind in her hair, and the rough oak bark of her favorite perch against her cheek. She could almost see the blues and greens and browns of Foggy Valley Vineyard spreading out below her, the hills dipping and swelling and the rain on the green leaves sparkling under the summer sun.

She shook herself free of the trance. Old memories, even this one, were like ghosts. They would float in front of your eyes, and bring sights and smells and pains. But in the end, they were not real. Phantoms, with no more power than this fog.

“Would you come by the house and visit us later, Miss Hayley?” Roland’s face was more lined now, but as sweet as ever. “Later, when you’ve had time to rest? We could talk. Miranda has made a casserole.”

“Of course,” she said. “I’d love to catch up.”

Other people were waiting, so she contented herself with that. She pressed his hand and smiled her goodbye. And, touching his callused fingers, she felt a little stronger.

Over the next few minutes, she greeted half a dozen well-wishers. Some were vaguely familiar. Others were people who must have entered her father’s life long after she left it. She found her rhythm, and luckily everyone was on his best manners. No one asked overly personal questions. A couple of glances were full of pity, and she caught whiffs of the expected curiosity, but overall nothing she couldn’t handle.

Then she heard a voice so familiar it made her heart skip.

“Hayley?”

She looked to the left, and stopped breathing. She’d been doing so well. But now the facade of calm dignity fell from her shoulders like an unzipped, oversize dress.

There he was, the ghost of all ghosts, the man who had haunted her dreams for at least a decade—and still strolled into a stray one occasionally, even now.

Colby Malone.

A barrage of images assaulted her. Black-haired and blue-eyed. Expensive and dangerous and divine.

Seventeen years older, of course—thirty-five now, though it was hard to believe. But he was somehow shockingly the same. Tall, athletic, still not an inch of fat. Shoulders broader than before, broader than a dream could capture. The faint prettiness he’d possessed in youth had made way for a powerful virility.

“Hello, Hayley,” Colby said. His voice was deeper, too, more polished and yet more intense. And his jaw, though freshly shaven, hinted of a sexy stubble he’d have to work hard to repress.

He was, in some ways, a stranger. And yet, even under all this new virility, he was still the boy she’d known. He put out his hand. She twitched, as if she needed to avoid an invisible slap. A weak sensation passed liquidly through her knees—and her first truly coherent thought was, how could she ever have believed that what she felt for Greg Valmont was love?

Somehow, she held herself rigid. She was tougher than this. Naturally, she had considered the possibility of running into Colby Malone while she was here. But she hadn’t really believed he’d bother to drive forty minutes to attend the funeral of a man he had despised.

She’d told herself she would be fine, no matter what. She’d loved him, and then she’d hated him, and now she simply didn’t give a damn.

“Hello, Colby,” she said politely. She gave him exactly the same measured tone, practiced smile and cool hand she planned to give everyone here today. “How nice of you to come.”

He shook her hand. It pleased her to note that he seemed more uncomfortable than she was. As he should be.