blackmailed.
“Please don’t give it a thought. I think I damaged myself, prancing around in the heat like that. What on earth was I thinking doing something so physical at my age?” She tried for dimples.
Edward’s smile was slight but seemed genuine and it eased some of the tightness around his eyes.
“I think I’ll be leaving you now,” Moira said suddenly. “We’re starting the harvest this evening and there is so much we need to get done, so.”
Juliet realized that this was the first time she had heard her speak. Her accent was stronger than her brother ’s and she wondered how long she had lived in the US.
“Thank you for coming,” Edward answered and sounded sincere. “I’ll be over before seven.”
Moira patted h is arm in a motherly way and started for one of the older buildings. About three steps on she checked violently and then did a hard right which turned toward the visitor center. Perhaps she had remembered that she had brought her car with her and couldn’t just walk across the acres of vines. Probably there was some way through, unless Edward had gotten the idea that good fences made for good neighbors. He seemed the type who would build walls. That would be worth checking on later. Was the entire estate fenced in, or was the gate and guardhouse at the front just for show?
“I’m not needed here,” Edward said abruptly as a motorized hand truck whizzed by. “I’m just in the way.”
“It all looks very … efficient,” Juliet said carefully.
“Yeah, it’s all of that. No need for me to stick around and get in their way.” This was said with marked bitterness.
Juliet resisted the urge to say something bracing about how everyone was born in pain and usually died in suffering, but what happened in between the re was their own doing. It might be true but it had never inspired or comforted anyone.
“So, have you any thought about what you will do now?” Juliet asked bluntly, but with enough kindness to rob the words of nosiness. She hoped that because she was staying in one of the cottages that he would assume that she had been closer to his father than she actually was and therefore had a right to ask. The ploy had worked with Schneider who didn’t know they were there because of Owens’ courtship of Raphael.
“I don’t know . Carissa will get some of the money, I think, and there may be other expenses, but the winery is so.…” He trailed off. He gestured at the new building and the tanker trucks beside them.
Expensive. The winery was expensive. And big. It was an industrial complex.
“It is a responsibility,” Juliet agreed and turned them toward the vineyard where the view was better and there was some shade. She thought Edward would talk more if he wasn’t upset by all the signs of massive business, though the shadeless, harrowed hills that trapped the breathless heat were not things of beauty at the moment. The vines were empty and mauled from the rough treatment of the mechanical pickers.
If Juliet painted it, she wouldn’t be able to resist featuring it as a suburb of Hell. Or maybe she wouldn’t resist.
“ Yes. And I don’t want to live here anymore. I never liked the house even before Carissa redecorated,” Edward said randomly as they walked around the stucco building. The nearby vines looked naked without their fruit, tired just as their new owner was. “It’s just too big. After my mother died I could feel it all around me. All those doors. All those windows in all those rooms. I never felt safe. I need to live in something more modest.”
He sounded almost childish ly petulant, but Juliet sympathized. Her own tastes ran to the small and Spartan. But the safety of small spaces was an illusion. Jails were small but not at all safe, at least for certain people, drug addicts among them.
“And I don’t know what to do about Blue Period. My father and I didn’t agree about the business at all. He was all about science and profit and
“Please don’t give it a thought. I think I damaged myself, prancing around in the heat like that. What on earth was I thinking doing something so physical at my age?” She tried for dimples.
Edward’s smile was slight but seemed genuine and it eased some of the tightness around his eyes.
“I think I’ll be leaving you now,” Moira said suddenly. “We’re starting the harvest this evening and there is so much we need to get done, so.”
Juliet realized that this was the first time she had heard her speak. Her accent was stronger than her brother ’s and she wondered how long she had lived in the US.
“Thank you for coming,” Edward answered and sounded sincere. “I’ll be over before seven.”
Moira patted h is arm in a motherly way and started for one of the older buildings. About three steps on she checked violently and then did a hard right which turned toward the visitor center. Perhaps she had remembered that she had brought her car with her and couldn’t just walk across the acres of vines. Probably there was some way through, unless Edward had gotten the idea that good fences made for good neighbors. He seemed the type who would build walls. That would be worth checking on later. Was the entire estate fenced in, or was the gate and guardhouse at the front just for show?
“I’m not needed here,” Edward said abruptly as a motorized hand truck whizzed by. “I’m just in the way.”
“It all looks very … efficient,” Juliet said carefully.
“Yeah, it’s all of that. No need for me to stick around and get in their way.” This was said with marked bitterness.
Juliet resisted the urge to say something bracing about how everyone was born in pain and usually died in suffering, but what happened in between the re was their own doing. It might be true but it had never inspired or comforted anyone.
“So, have you any thought about what you will do now?” Juliet asked bluntly, but with enough kindness to rob the words of nosiness. She hoped that because she was staying in one of the cottages that he would assume that she had been closer to his father than she actually was and therefore had a right to ask. The ploy had worked with Schneider who didn’t know they were there because of Owens’ courtship of Raphael.
“I don’t know . Carissa will get some of the money, I think, and there may be other expenses, but the winery is so.…” He trailed off. He gestured at the new building and the tanker trucks beside them.
Expensive. The winery was expensive. And big. It was an industrial complex.
“It is a responsibility,” Juliet agreed and turned them toward the vineyard where the view was better and there was some shade. She thought Edward would talk more if he wasn’t upset by all the signs of massive business, though the shadeless, harrowed hills that trapped the breathless heat were not things of beauty at the moment. The vines were empty and mauled from the rough treatment of the mechanical pickers.
If Juliet painted it, she wouldn’t be able to resist featuring it as a suburb of Hell. Or maybe she wouldn’t resist.
“ Yes. And I don’t want to live here anymore. I never liked the house even before Carissa redecorated,” Edward said randomly as they walked around the stucco building. The nearby vines looked naked without their fruit, tired just as their new owner was. “It’s just too big. After my mother died I could feel it all around me. All those doors. All those windows in all those rooms. I never felt safe. I need to live in something more modest.”
He sounded almost childish ly petulant, but Juliet sympathized. Her own tastes ran to the small and Spartan. But the safety of small spaces was an illusion. Jails were small but not at all safe, at least for certain people, drug addicts among them.
“And I don’t know what to do about Blue Period. My father and I didn’t agree about the business at all. He was all about science and profit and
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