The Spark Between Us by Stacy Travis

Chapter Thirty-Three

Braden

Goingto the winery had always made me happy, but not today. Not now that every bit of the place reminded me of Sarah. How had that happened?

She and I had only been there a handful of times, and I’d been working weekends at the place for years. The math didn’t add up. This was my retreat from the world. It had been long before I’d ever met Sarah, and it would be for years to come.

Why did the crunch of the gravel under my running shoes remind me of the way she danced with Bella in front of my truck? It was just gravel.

But it wasn’t. It was her.

I’d driven Bella out for the day because she needed some real exercise, and I didn’t feel like jogging outside. With other humans. I’d pounded out eight miles on the treadmill in the dark hours of the morning while Bella snored under my bed. Now, with the leftover endorphins still trying to elevate my mood, I watched the streak of golden fur charge through the vineyard and marveled at her boundless optimism.

In the cruddy shed behind the pressing room, I was cursing a blue streak at the drip system that had stopped watering sixteen rows of plants, which were now withering on their vines. The crew who tended the grapes a couple times a week hadn’t said anything, so they either didn’t notice, or it happened since they’d last worked.

Now it was my problem unless I wanted a bunch of dead plants.

The scrape of tires made me pick my head up, but the billowing dust from the driveway had already obscured whatever car had pulled up to the vineyard property.

Bella came barreling out of the vineyard in excitement, probably hoping to see Sarah. She seemed to figure out before I did that the car in the drive wasn’t going to get her what she wanted, and after a moment, she sulked off and sat down in the shade.

I had to wait for the dirt to settle and the air to clear before identifying whether the visitor was someone I knew or a wrong turn off the highway. When I recognized Mitch’s white pickup, I groaned. A map-challenged stranger would be more welcome than a half-brother who no doubt came armed with opinions about my life.

Without waiting for him to walk up the drive and push through the gate, I went back to examining the drip watering system as though I were a plumber and had any fucking clue how to fix it.

“Dude, I thought you owned a bar. What’s this giant garden all about?” Mitch stood in front of me wearing jeans, a denim shirt with rhinestone snaps, and a belt with a huge silver buckle that sparkled.

For the first time in a week, my spirits lifted enough that I laughed. Hard. “What in the fucking name of bedazzlement are you wearing?”

He looked down at his outfit and up at mine, which was a pair of workout shorts and a long-sleeved T, and seemed to realize he’d missed the mark. “I thought you had a ranch. Doesn’t that indicate horses?”

“It’s a vineyard, not a ranch. And even if it were, you wouldn’t show up looking like a sparkly urban cowboy. Where’d you even get these clothes?”

He shrugged. “I have clothes.”

“So you do.” I stared at him, wondering if he’d feel the need to tell me why he’d suddenly shown up when he’d never been set foot on the property in the time I’d had it. “Mitch?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s up? Why’re you here?”

“You invited me.”

I did? When had I done that? I was losing my mind.

“Regardless, now’s not a good time.”

“Oh, I beg to differ. It’s the perfect time. Now, where’s the wine? And not the cheap stuff you give to strangers. I want the good vintage stuff.”

He walked past me into the pressing room like he owned the place. I followed him because I was confused.

Once my eyes adjusted to the dark room, I saw Mitch walking down the rows of wine barrels thumping on the occasional side and whistling at the vastness of the place. I felt a surge of pride at how much I was producing this year, though he had no frame of reference since he hadn’t seen the place at the beginning.

Leaning against the cold stone wall, I waited for him to finish his self-tour and explain his unannounced visit. “Well?” he asked expectantly, looking around. “Where’s the booze? Or is all this just for show?”

He threaded his thumbs into his belt buckles and thrust his hips forward like a Halloween cowboy.

“Mitch, why are you here? If all you want’s a free glass of wine, you can have that at your house. It’s hardly worth the drive out here.”

He smacked the back of my head. “I know that, you stupid jerkoff. I’m here to help you extract your head from your asshole because clearly an intervention is needed.”

This again? He’d been harping on me for a week to stop acting like a depressed asshole, but I’d refused to indulge him in a conversation.

“Incorrect. Nothing is needed, so I’ll grab you a couple of bottles to go, and you can drink on someone else’s time. I’ve got a wonky drip watering thing that needs sorting out.”

He held up a hand. “Say no more. I installed one at my mom’s house a while back. I can take a look at yours, so you’re not dicking your way out of the conversation.”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means grab us some wine and let’s go water some grapes.”

* * *

Before we workedon the drip problem, I gave Mitch a tour of the place, trying to block the memories of walking down the same rows of vines with Sarah a couple months earlier. It was just one of a host of thoughts I’d been blocking, trying forcefully to keep my mind focused on anything but thoughts of her. What was the point in letting my mind go there now?

“All good with Molly?” My voice came out monotone like I didn’t care.

With anyone else, I’d worry about sounding like a dick, but not with Mitch. “Yeah, we’re solid, thanks for checking in.”

It was one of those ideal Saturday afternoons when the powder blue sky seemed to reject the idea of clouds. All I saw for miles were rows of green vines twirling around their posts and sunning their grapes like points of pride.

Mitch had finished one glass of cabernet and was halfway through his second, and we’d walked up and down a dozen rows of vines. There were probably a hundred more, and I wondered how long he planned to wait until he started giving me shit about Sarah.

As it turned out, not that long.

We sat down in the shed, and Mitch refilled his glass and topped off mine. The first thing he noticed was the valve. “You know this is turned off, right? Is it possible you’re that dumb?”

“Normally, no. But I don’t have my head on right.”

“I can see. Now, what are we going to do about that?” He turned the valve until it was completely open and turned on the water. We waited for a minute, and then a trickle of water started flowing out through the pipe.

“We? We’re going to drink our wine, and then I’m calling you an Uber.”

Mitch pointed to the valve and smiled, impressed with himself for saving my vines from an unnecessary drought.

Then all hell broke loose. Out in the fields, one of the hoses went flying up in the air, waving around like one of those air puppets outside a car dealership, water spraying everywhere. Bella popped her head up, apparently thinking we were throwing some kind of party, and began racing around after the hose, trying to bite the water.

Mitch indicated an orange bucket. “Something tells me one of your guys was trying to fix the problem, hence the valve being off.”

“Yet he said nothing.” Irritating. I turned off the valve. The one requirement I had of the guys tending to the vines was that if they found a problem, they needed to let me know or get it fixed without my involvement. It might cost me a little more, but neither of those had happened here.

“Maybe he figured he could fix it before you saw the problem. Kind of like someone else I know.”

I emptied the bottle into my glass and drank half in one gulp. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Asshole.”

“What’s with the name calling?” I was too irritable to figure out what had crawled up his rectum and died.

“Just because I’m younger than you doesn’t make me unaware of what’s going on.”

His directness left something to be desired. “What’s going on?”

“You’re punishing yourself for something that wasn’t your fault. For two years, you’ve closed yourself off from having any kind of a real relationship with a woman, and I can’t fault you for that. I get it. Ellie left, and you convinced yourself you deserved it. Then you decided if you ever did open yourself up and love someone else, it would happen again. But Sarah . . . she’s different and I’m here telling you not to screw it up.”

“I hate to break it to you, but she days ago. And she’s not coming back.”

“So you fucked it up.” He shook his head at me.

“I faced reality is what I did. Which is that everybody leaves. And even if she thinks she wants to stay here, eventually she’ll come to her senses and resent me even more for all the lost opportunities in her life. And then she’ll leave. I saved us both the trouble. I love her too much to see her sacrifice her life for me.”

“She wanted to stay?” Mitch asked, incredulous.

“Yeah, believe it or not.” I huffed out a hollow laugh.

“What I can’t believe is that you’d let her go. That’s not what you do when you love someone.”

“It’s what I do.”

Mitch rolled his eyes and hauled off and punched me in the arm with his fist. Hard.

So I tackled him to the ground, and pretty soon we were rolling around like a couple of middle schoolers, trying to throw punches and wrestle each other to offset their raging hormones.

Because I’m bigger, I got him into a headlock, but the little fucker was fast and landed another punch to my jaw.

“Fuck!” I threw him off me and sat up.

“Yup. You think that hurts, you should try being me and having to look at your ugly face.”

“I should deck you again.” I lunged for him but he moved.

“No, you should not. You should pour me some damned wine and work your shit out. Whatever you did, man, fix it.” Mitch got up and brushed himself off. “You deserve to be happy, and that’s not me telling you as the son of the same dad who fucked everything up with our moms. I’m saying it as a guy who sees that you’re a better man than him.” He wagged a finger in my face. “If you choose to be.”

His words hit me hard. Almost as hard as his damn fist.

But they were just words. I still wasn’t sure I believed them.