Marina Adair - Autumn in the Vineyard

“He lost half the vines in the fire and didn’t even make the Cork Court,” ChiChi added. “I can’t remember the last time he didn’t make the Cork Court. He must be devastated.”

“He’ll get over it,” Lucinda said quietly.

Nate noticed the way the older woman rubbed her cat behind the ears. Gentle and loving, stroking him as though the act provided her with as much comfort as it did the cat. It reminded him of Frankie and Mittens.

“I’ve got to find Frankie,” Nate said, standing again. He’d heard enough. “I can’t let her do this.”

“Frankie needs to do what she thinks is right.”

Nate froze. “Are you willing to stand by and watch her give up everything she has worked for, everything she’s achieved for some selfish son of a bitch who has done nothing but break her heart?”

“No,” Lucinda said quietly, but there was nothing passive about the look she was leveling him with. “I know my niece and she will bounce back from this. It might take her longer to get to where she needs to be, but she will survive. If Charles loses that property though, and she believes she could have saved it, she will never forgive herself. That is something I’m not willing to stand by and watch.”

“Well, then.” Nate grabbed his jacket, since it was better than punching a wall. “I guess we need to figure out a way to save the land and Frankie’s dreams, because I’m not going to do nothing while that bastard crushes her world. Again.”

Nate took the front steps three at a time. Frankie still wasn’t answering her phone, Mittens had chewed through the bay windowsill and was working his way through the front door, and Frankie’s bike was parked out front—engine cold. Meaning she’d been there for a while. Alone.

Son of a bitch, he should have gone looking for her earlier. Two hours is a long-ass time to finalize things.

“Frankie?” he called as he opened the door.

He quickly scanned the front room and kitchen. There wasn’t a single light turned on in the entire house. “Honey?”

That’s when he heard it. A small sob coming from his darkened bedroom. Nate flipped on the light and his heart nearly exploded. Frankie sat on the shag chair, her legs to her chest, and enough wadded up tissues to know that she’d been crying. His Frankie had spent the past few hours alone, crying.

“Frankie,” he said softly, taking a step forward stopping when she jerked to her feet.

Rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand did nothing to erase the red-rimmed eyes and wet cheeks. Those eyes made him want to go next door, grab Charles by the neck, and shake him until he admitted what an amazing granddaughter he had. Then shake him some more to put the fear of God into him in case he ever considered using Frankie again.

“Honey, I heard about…” The words died fast and hard. Frankie took a single step forward and held up her hand. Every thought left his head, and he couldn’t speak past all of the words on the paper staring him down. Words he had written.

He recognized the eight by eleven piece of paper that was crumpled in her hand, recognized the stubborn tilt of her head, but the one thing he didn’t recognize was the look of utter devastation and defeat on Frankie’s face.

“You’re crying.”

She choked out a mirthless laugh. “Is that something you want to add to your Frankie list? Because there’s room right here in the margins,” she held up the list he’d stupidly made in a moment of frustration and pointed to the middle of the page, between ‘is messy at best, a disaster at worst’ and ‘drinks from the carton.’ “Or even better, at the bottom of this page.” She flipped the paper over. “Right below ‘selfish with her emotions.’ ”

She wiped angrily at her cheeks again, but the tears fell faster than she could wipe. “Was this your goal all along? A way to get back at me for buying the land? Was this part of your game? Make the…” Her chin started quivering in an attempt to stop the flow of tears, and God, it nearly did him in. “Make the ‘socially awkward’ tomboy fall for you then crush her? Well, congratulations, once again. You win, golden boy.”

“Frankie,” he said, but knew there weren’t enough words on the planet to make up for the ones he’d so callously scribbled on that page. “When I wrote that list I was angry, trying to sort out my feelings.”

“Oh, you made your feelings more than clear.” Her chest started trembling and he could hear her struggle to get a breath in past her sobs. “I’m not worth your time or apparently,” she took in a shallow shaky breath, “your love.”

“That’s not true.”

But he could tell by the look in her eyes that regardless of what he said, she believed he didn’t love her. Couldn’t love her. “You promised never to lie to me.”

He stepped forward and took her by the arms. She stiffened but didn’t pull away. “Honey, I’m not lying.”

“Yes, you are. It says it right here in black and white next to every failing I possess as a woman, person, and partner.” She shoved the paper against his chest, hard enough that he stumbled back. “I might be ‘uninformed in the current political climate’ due to my ‘obsession with NASCAR’ and I might not have graduated from a fancy school like you, but I can read.”

Nate took the paper and looked down at the last line and felt his chest tighten to the point of pain. He blinked, but when he opened his eyes it was still the same heartbreaking statement staring back at him. The I LOVE FRANKIE in the pros column was scratched out, leaving it only on the cons’ side. Shit, he hadn’t remembered crossing it out.

She shook her head, sad and slow, so much fucking pain and heartache in her eyes that he felt his own begin to burn. She was slowly falling apart and it was his fault.

“I could have handled Charles, losing my grapes, everything you wrote on this list. But the last part, I just don’t know how to deal with, because everything else is true so this one must be as well.”

Frankie was the strongest woman he knew. She’d suffered on the outskirts of her family for a lifetime, bounced back after Charles publically humiliated her, even stood up to Nate and his family without even shedding a tear. And the one person who destroyed her world was him. And he had no idea how to make this right.

“You know what’s funny? You always say I’m not open with my emotions, that you never know where I stand?” She sniffed. “You want to know?”

No he didn’t. Not right now. Not when her eyes told him everything and the humiliation he saw there made his chest hollow out. Because for the first time since high school, Nate saw a flash of that girl who believed she was broken, undeserving of love.

“Right now,” she whispered. “I’m standing in your room with a list detailing every single insecurity about myself that I hate and don’t know how to change without changing me.” A fresh wave of humiliation spilled over her lashes. “I’m feeling like an idiot for believing that this could work between us and thankful that I didn’t tell you today that I was actually in love with you because that would only make this moment all the more awkward.”

“I don’t care what I wrote. That list is all bullshit, Frankie. Everything there is bullshit. What matters is in here.” He hit his chest. “This matters. We matter. And we can make this work.”

He reached out to cup her cheek but she turned her face. “No, we can’t. You have twenty, I mean thirty-seven, clearly outlined reasons why we can’t. Love can’t beat logic. I guess not my love, anyway.”

Nate’s gut clenched to the point of pain. He would have given anything to take back what he’d done. Because seeing her cry was breaking his heart. Watching her grab her helmet and keys and head for the door had his heart exploding out of his chest.

“Frankie, wait—” he grabbed her hand and she stopped, her shoulders slumped in defeat.

“Right, I nearly forgot, the need part of your emotional equation.” She turned around and wham, the look on her face shattered his fucking world. “I really need you to understand that this is over.”

He knew what this meant. The past, their friendship, hope of a future, all of it was gone. Frankie didn’t do things halfway and he’d just rationalized his way out of the most important thing in his life.

Am I awkward around kids?” Frankie asked, smashing soggy cereal against the side of her bowl with a spoon.

“Well, I’m not the best person to ask,” Luce said, ripping the kitchen curtains open. God, the morning sun was so bright; it practically flipped Frankie the big, fat sunny finger. “I showed up to Joshua’s Boy Scout badge ceremony with a male escort.”

“I bet grandpa flipped,” Frankie said, observing Luce walk to the counter in her fuchsia house robe and crocheted slippers, to watch waffles toast.

“It’s why I did it.” After buttering, plating, and dousing the toaster waffles with half the bottle of syrup, she set three plates on the kitchen table and pulled out the chair between Frankie and Mr. Puffins. “Now, what’s with all the questions? You got a bun in the oven?”

“No, I was just wondering if everyone had that, you know, maternal thing.” Frankie mumbled, digging into her plate.

The toaster waffles were warm, crunchy on the outside and soft in the center, and coated in liquid sugar. Too bad Frankie was too numb to notice.

“You went over to your house this morning after crying yourself hoarse last night to get your goat, didn’t you?”

Frankie looked out the kitchen window and saw Mittens eating Luce’s wagon wheel while tethered to the fence. “He’s an alpaca, and yes I did because I didn’t want him to worry. I left without telling him where I was going.”