The Vineyard (31 page)

Not so Tess. He would be hand-leafing on his knees in the dirt, or riding the hedger with his work gloves on and a sharp eye on the vines, and suddenly there she would be, out of nowhere, a little ghost child watching him work.

He didn't have time to play. Without Paolo, he had to cover
extra ground himself, and the weather didn't help. Thanks to the lack of sun, he had to do added hedging to control every last lateral shoot. Thanks to the rain, he had to aerate the cover crops yet again. He wanted to do an extra round of fertilization, and more spraying, but the dampness lingered. And there was always leaf pulling, vine by vine, row by row, block by block. He was too busy to interview replacements, much less train one.

But there was Tess, watching him with her glasses at half-mast.

Glasses at half-mast. His mother used to say that when he was a kid. He wore contacts now. But he remembered those days.

He remembered something else about his mother. She hated dogs. They'd had a yellow Lab once. It was supposed to be man's best friend, but it hung around his mother. None of them knew why. She didn't feed him or brush him or bathe him. She didn't even pet him. But the more she shooed him away, the closer he crept. She finally gave up and let him follow her around. He lost interest after a while.

Simon wondered if the same might happen with Tess. He was up on the hedger when he saw her next. Putting the machine into neutral, he gestured her over. She shook her head and ran off.

But she was back the next day. Buck seemed to like her. He sat beside her, staring up at her while she stared at Simon.

Simon wasn't on a machine this time, but on his own two feet. “You can come closer,” he called. “I won't bite.”

“My mother said I shouldn't,” she called back.

His guess was that Olivia had told the child not to go
anywhere
near him, meaning that she shouldn't be in the field where he worked at
all
. He guessed that she wouldn't be happy if she knew Tess was there. She would worry that he would hurt the child again.

He wouldn't. He still felt bad about the first time.

He was about to say that he wanted to show Tess what he was doing when she vanished.

It did occur to him that teaching the child something about the vines would lure the mother. But Tess came only so close, and what could he say to Olivia?
Come see my grapes? Isn't this a neat hedger? Want to hold a grub?

He wasn't good at opening lines. He hadn't needed one with Laura. They had met at Cornell, and she had been intrigued with his work from the start. Before Laura, girls had just … been there. He hadn't needed any opening lines.

To a city girl like Olivia, his work would be boring as hell. Chores might change with the seasons, but it was a constant grind day after day, year after year. The beauty of it, to him, was that the routine was never the same. Bud break never occurred on the same date two years in a row. Waiting for it, watching for it, feeling the excitement when the vines suddenly burst into the palest of pale greens was … incredible. Same the critical few days when the buds burst into bloom. That was actually a little more hairy. He remembered seasons when they had lost an entire block of grapes because wind and cold had destroyed the petals before self-pollination could take place. A vintage was a precious thing, dependent on variables like the weather, the age of a particular vine, the size of the Japanese beetle population. Viticultural practices were changing so quickly that he was always trying out something new, but the overall picture stayed the same. He loved seeing the grapes grow and ripen, and never failed to feel a rush when the balance of sugar and acid was right and he made the decision to harvest the crop.

No, siree, there was nothing boring about what he did. It just didn't lend itself to opening lines.

So what to do instead? He could hang around the patio. But he wasn't the hanging-around type.

He could join them all for breakfast or lunch, or go out with them for dinner. But he hadn't done that in four years. Doing it now would be as good as waving a red flag in front of Natalie, because he didn't care
what
Olivia said, Natalie wanted the two of them together, and Carl was just as bad. He tried to be subtle. But he had made one Olivia comment too many to Simon.

Simon's only other thought was to ask her out. But that would be a date.

He wasn't going on a date. He just wanted to look at her. She was entertaining.

I
N THE END
, the solution that presented itself had nothing to do with any racking of brains on his part. It was all Buck's doing, and it came in the middle of the night. Simon had dozed off on the sofa with his glasses dangling from a hand and a book open on his chest when a strange noise brought him awake. Dropping his feet to the floor, he sat up, rubbed his eyes, and put on his glasses.

He heard the noise again. It was a plaintive meow the likes of
which he had never heard from Buck before, and it was coming from the direction of the bedroom, but he didn't even have to go that far. Three wicker baskets were lined up in the short hall leading there. The first was filled with books waiting to be read. The third was filled with clothes waiting to be washed. Between them, the second held clean clothes waiting to be worn. Buck had wisely chosen this basket to do … what he was … doing.

Simon watched in disbelief for a minute. There was more plaintive meowing, and several positively heartrending looks from Buck that might have held bewilderment, pain, or pure panic. Then again, the poor cat might have been begging for help, but there wasn't a thing Simon could do.

Smiling in amazement now, he went to the phone—only to realize that the phone wouldn't help. It would disturb everyone he didn't want to disturb. Talk about raising a red flag.

Flashlight in hand, he jogged through the woods along the shortcut to the Great House. Letting himself in the patio door, he took the stairs to Olivia's wing two at a time, and went down the hall.

Her door was shut. There was no sliver of light underneath. She was sleeping.

But this event was worth waking her for. It was a once in a lifetime thing.

He knocked softly and waited with a shoulder to the door frame and the flashlight trained on the floor. After several seconds, Olivia appeared. He redirected the flashlight so that she could see that it was him, but the beam lit her, too. He saw a nightshirt, hair that stuck up at odd angles, a wrinkle mark on her cheek, and sleepy eyes that registered surprise.

“There's something you have to see,” he whispered, gesturing at the next room. “Get Tess.”

Olivia looked like she thought he was daft. “It's after one.”

“I know. But this is incredible. Buck is giving birth.”

She didn't say anything for a minute, just stared up at him. Then, cautiously, she asked, “Giving birth to what?”

“Kittens.”

Another silence was followed by a confounded,
“Buck?”

Simon shot a look at the wall. “Yeah, well, I guess we made a mistake.”

“We?”

“Me. Come on. Do you want to see this, or not?”

“I didn't know you wore glasses.”

“Only when my contacts are out. Listen, I watched him—her—have one of them, and she looked like she was ready to have another. I don't know how many there'll be, or whether you even want Tess to watch. But it's pretty remarkable, and she does love cats. But I don't think Buck's going to hold the show off too long. If you want Tess to see this, you'd better hurry.”

“If I want her to see—Buck having
kittens?
Of course I do.”

Without further comment, or promises to be fast, she shut the door in his face. But he heard sounds inside—the pad of running feet, muted voices, the click of the bathroom door—so he knew they were coming.

Buck, you devil, he thought, and wondered if he should have stayed with the cat in its time of need. Not that he would know what to do if he—if
she
ran into problems. But they were pals. His presence was a show of support.

Anxious to be back, he glanced at his watch. Ten minutes had passed since he had left his place. Leaning against the wall, he folded his arms and tried to be only as excited as having a cat that was having kittens warranted.

Eighteen
 

S
IMON HAD TO GIVE
O
LIVIA
points for speed. He couldn't have been waiting for her in the hall more than a minute or two. Not that it took long to pull on a T-shirt and shorts. She was safely dressed when she opened the door. One look at Tess, though, and it was all he could do not to laugh. If the mother's hair stuck up, the child's was worse. Her sleepy little face was nearly lost in the mess of it.

But maybe that was good. She actually looked sweet.

Unfortunately, she grew less sleepy and more wary when she saw him there. But it couldn't be helped—he wasn't letting them traipse through the woods alone in the dark.

Gesturing that they should follow, he focused the flashlight behind him and went down the stairs and out the door. He crossed the patio and led them along the forest path, glancing back from time to time to make sure they were all right.

There was no moon. Other than the beam of his flashlight, the forest was pitch black, at its most dense this time of year. They were nearly into the clearing before the light from the cabin appeared.

He opened the door and let them in, then moved ahead again to show them where Buck was. The hallway was dim, lit only by the
spill of living room light, but it was appropriate for birthing and there was more than enough light to be able to see.

Tess gasped, gave a small cry of delight, and tiptoed closer to the basket. Olivia was right beside her, quickly crouching down, enthralled.

And Simon? All
he
saw was the pile of dirty clothes in the basket beside Buck. As unobtrusively as possible, he nudged it into the bedroom with his foot and shut the door. Then he took a closer look at the cat. Three kittens lay in the basket now, and judging from Buck's sudden resumption of meowing and another beseechful look, a fourth was on the way.

“Omigod, Mom,” Tess cried softly, “they're so little!” She inched closer. “They don't even look like kittens.” She put out a small hand, finger pointing in the general vicinity of one of the babies. “See those bumps? I think they're ears. And their eyes are still shut. How long before they'll be able to see?”

“Three days maybe,” Olivia said and raised questioning eyes to Simon. “Right?”

He was less than an arm's length away, leaning forward as he watched. “Don't ask me,” he replied. “I'm the one who thought she was a he.”

“Look,
Mom.”

“She's licking them. Cleaning them up.”

“No. There.” She pointed to the other end. “She's having another one, I think.”

“I think you're right.”

“It's slimy.”

“The whole process is actually pretty clean,” Simon offered. “Buck eats everything.”

“G-ross,”
Tess said and sat back on her heels. “How many more do you think she'll have?”

“Don't know that,” Olivia replied. “We'll have to wait and see.”

Tess looked at Simon. He thought he saw a bit less distrust. “How did you know she was having babies?”

“I heard meowing and followed the sound.”

“Did you put her in here?”

“No. But it's a great place. Lots of cotton. Warm and comfortable and clean. Sides that'll keep the babies in until she's ready to take them out.”

“When's that?”

He shrugged. “A week or two? Maybe three. Maybe
four.”

Olivia chuckled. “Good answer.”

“Do
you
know?” he asked.

“Not me. He's not my cat.”

“Who's the father?” Tess asked Simon.

“I don't know.”

“I'll bet it's Bernard. No—Maxwell. He's more Buck's size. Why didn't you know he was a girl?”

“I never needed to know. It's not like he's been here—not like
she's
been here that long, not even a year. And it wasn't just me,” he said, needing to share the blame so that he wouldn't feel so foolish. “Natalie was the one who named him Buck.”

“This explains why he was so fat,” Tess said.

Simon nodded. “I'd say so.”

The child settled down on the floor and folded her legs. “Can I hold one?”

Simon was thinking that it was too soon for that but that he didn't want to be the one to tell Tess when Olivia said, “Not for a few days, sweetie. They're very fragile.”

Tess was pensive. “Remember we saw a thing on TV about four little kittens that someone put in a plastic bag and tried to drown?” Her voice rose. “How could anyone do that? These are babies. They're
Buck's
babies. It'd be awful if someone did that to them.”