Who the hell had written it?
Who knew about his habit of taking this shortcut between home and town?
A lot of people, he supposed. Anyone he jogged past on Grapevine Way in the afternoon. Shop owners. Or people who lived in the residential houses closer to the top of the path. It could be any number of women. Or men.
He shook his head, scanning the lines one more time. Nobody wrote secret admirer letters these days. Contact was made through social media, almost exclusively, right? This had to be some kind of joke at his expense, but why? Who would go to so much trouble?
As soon as Julian arrived at the guesthouse to find his sister loitering in the driveway, the mystery solved itself. “Wow. How long have you been in town? An hour?” He waved the letter. “Barely made it off the plane before kicking off the psychological warfare?”
He didn’t buy her confused expression. Not for a second.
“Uh. Thanks for the warm welcome,” Natalie said, skirting the bumper of her hatchback. Rented, based on the window sticker. “Tone down the emotion before this family reunion gets embarrassing.” Sauntering toward Julian, she eyed his letter as if she’d never seen it before. “Yes. It is I, the prodigal daughter. I would give you a hug, but we don’t do that sort of thing . . .” Her smile was tight-lipped. “Hi, Julian. You look well.”
The way she said it, with a hint of measuring concern in her eyes, made the back of his neck feel tight. The last time they’d been together in St. Helena, on the soil of Vos Vineyard, was never far from his mind. The smoke and ash and shouting and flames. The worry that he wouldn’t do what needed to be done in time. He could taste the acrid burn in the back of his throat, could feel the grit that seared the backs of his eye sockets. The hundred-ton weight pressing down on his chest, making it impossible for him to breathe in the smoky air.
Natalie scanned his face and looked away quickly, obviously remembering, too. How he’d lost his composure in a way that was so physical, he could only remember it happening in snatches of sound and movement. One moment he’d been capable of thinking critically, helping his family, and the next, when he knew Natalie was safe, he’d simply gone dark. He’d retreated into the sooty house, closed himself in a back bedroom, and gone to a place where he was comfortable. Work. Lessons. Lecture notes. When he came up for air, days had passed while he’d been in a state of numbness. Leaving his parents and Natalie to deal with the fallout from the fire. Unacceptable. He’d never go to that place again.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, a little too sharply.
Her chin snapped up. Fast. Defensive. With her face to the morning sun, he catalogued the differences since the last time they saw each other. Natalie was younger than him by three and a half years, making her thirty now. She had his mother’s ageless complexion, black hair down past her shoulders, messy from the wind constantly moving through the valley, although she continuously tried to smooth it with impatient palms. She’d arrived dressed for New York City, where she’d moved after attending Cornell. In black dress pants, heels, and a ruffled blazer, she could have walked straight off Madison Avenue into the front yard.
As for why Natalie was in St. Helena, Julian expected a practical explanation. She was in town on business. Or here to attend the wedding of a colleague. He definitely wasn’t expecting the reason she gave him instead.
“I’m taking a break from work. A voluntary one,” she rushed to add, picking lint from the sleeve of her jacket. “And if I have to stay in the main house with our mother, I’m pretty sure we’ll fight enough to invoke the apocalypse, so I’ll be crashing here with you.”
The muscle directly behind his right eye had begun to spasm. “Natalie, I am writing a book. I came here for peace and quiet.”
“Really?” Genuine, surprised pleasure crossed her face before she hid it behind amusement. “My brother, a novelist? Very impressive.” She studied him for a moment, visibly evaluating the information. “Who says I’m going to mess with your process?” She pressed her lips into a line, seemingly to suppress a laugh. “You call it your process. Don’t you?”
“That’s what it’s called.” He folded up the prank letter, already planning on tossing it into the trash can as soon as he walked inside. “And it’s your track record that says you’d mess with it.”
Natalie rolled her eyes. “I’m a grown woman now, Julian. I’m not going to throw a kegger on your front lawn. At least not until I lull you into a false sense of security.” When a rumbling sound started coming from his throat, she reached for the rolling suitcase waiting behind her on the driveway. “Oh, come on, that was a joke.”