The Sweet Spot Read online

  Then again, there wasn’t a man alive who wouldn’t appreciate that long right angle from her nicely rounded rear-end to her sneakers when she’d climbed into his truck.

  With every grassy meadow, every swaying field of horsetail and dandelion they passed, her eyes had lit up anew. The way she gawked at the scenery reminded him of his first trip to New York. He’d gotten a neck ache from looking up at the skyscrapers.

  As the inn loomed into view, Jamie sat up straighter.

  Hank tried seeing the vineyard where he’d spent most of his life through fresh eyes. The eyes of someone for whom green and brown corduroy rows of vines were simply pretty scenery, not yet another reminder of the magnitude of his responsibilities that had fallen out of the sky onto his shoulders.

  Chapter Two

  “There she is,” Hank drawled as he slowed and turned left onto a side road. Tall pines on either side of the lane opened up to a clearing.

  Jamie leaned toward the windshield to take it all in.

  Across the road hung a weather-beaten sign on an iron-link chain. Burned into the wood was a heart shape with a bull’s eye in its upper right corner, pierced with an arrow. WELCOME TO THE SWEET SPOT.

  The ombré sky went from navy in the east to cornflower-blue where the sun had just dipped below the vineyards. Stars popped out before her eyes. And there was the rustic yet elegant inn, the stable, tucked within its paddock, and the little log cabins emanating out from them in a half circle. In the midst of it all, a still pond reflected the remnants of the day’s clouds.

  “Wow,” she breathed. “It’s even prettier than the pictures in the brochure.”

  Hank kept his eyes straight ahead. How could he not be moved? If this place were hers, she’d never get tired of coming home to it.

  Suddenly Hank veered right. Roaring down the middle of the lane came a black Escalade headed straight toward them.

  Jamie’s side of the truck dropped a foot when the tires descended into the roadside ditch concealed by knee-high weeds, narrowly avoiding getting sideswiped. Jamie’s hand shot to the dash. “Jeez, buddy,” she said, turning around to look at the vehicle disappearing into a cloud of dust. “Guess they didn’t see the SLOW sign.”

  A moment later they crunched to a stop under the extended porch roof.

  Before she had unbuckled her seat belt, Hank was already standing next to her, holding her door open.

  Jamie stepped out, her legs stiff from sitting for so many hours.

  Peering down the lane at the dust still settling behind the Escalade was a woman with a long white braid hanging over her shoulder and the same high cheekbones as Hank. In one ear she wore the latest-style Bluetooth headset.

  “There’s no land for sale around here,” she muttered. “How many times do I have to tell them that?”

  “Another Realtor?” asked Hank, depositing Jamie’s bags on the ground at the woman’s feet.

  She shook her head. “Every week it’s someone else. And every week, the offer goes up.”

  Tiny bugs hovered around the porch lights. A yellow Lab, tail wagging, sniffed at Jamie’s ankles. She bent to pat his head.

  “You’re Jamie Martel.” The woman swiped her electronic tablet. “I’m Ellie. Don’t worry about your bags, I’ll find someone.”

  “Where’s Bailey?” asked Hank.

  “Haven’t seen her all day.”

  Hank picked the bags up again. “Which cabin?”

  She peered at her tablet. “Looks like Chicory.”

  The woman lowered her readers to get a better look at Jamie.

  “You hungry, Miz Martel?” Before Jamie could answer, Ellie shifted her attention back to Hank. “Why don’t you two come in and have a bite? There’s some leftover chicken.”

  Hank flashed Ellie a puzzled look, and then lowered the bags yet again.

  “It’s Jamie. And you don’t have to do anything special for me.” Her stomach rumbled. She’d been considering the dry, crumbling cereal bar somewhere in the bottom of her purse. Real food sounded fabulous.

  “You been traveling all day. You need a decent meal in you. You can eat with Hank and me.”

  “If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  “Come on inside with me while Hank parks.”

  She followed Ellie up the porch steps, slowing her pace when the older woman groaned a little. “That’s my knees complaining. They don’t like these steps this time of day.”

  Easing the squeaky screen door closed, Jamie paused and got her bearings. In the cross breeze wafted the faint scent of pine. Recorded piano music played softly in the background.

  “Make yourself at home. I’ll see to supper,” said Ellie, disappearing through a side door.

  Jamie stepped deeper into the room. Her eye was drawn upward to an enormous moose head mounted above the river-stone fireplace that soared all the way up to the rough-hewn ceiling beams. Before the wood fire a young couple snuggled on a leather couch atop a well-worn Persian rug in muted hues of sapphire and ruby. Jamie eyed them wistfully. It’d been a long time since a man had looked at her like that.

  She fingered the rough texture of an amethyst geode the size of a grapefruit, containing a hollow cavity lined with crystals, catching a glimpse of her reflection in the glass case of a grandfather clock.

  No decorator had ever drenched a room with such a sense of cozy comfort . . . such solid reassurance. . . such contentment. The objects looked as though they’d been accumulated over years. Even decades.

  On the west side of the enormous room was a long trestle table. She went over and stroked the polished wood.

  The screen door squealed again and in strode Hank, letting it slam closed behind him. “C’mon back,” he said with a wave of his arm.

  Under the kitchen table the Lab looked up, then relaxed when he saw Hank and Jamie.

  Jamie’s gaze swept over ochre walls inset with stainless steel appliances. Harvest baskets heaped with cantaloupe and watermelons were arranged on the floor off to the side next to a couple cases of wine. Copper pots cluttered the commercial-size range. She breathed in the vanilla scent of freshly baked cookies.

  Ellie’s mittened hands carried a cast-iron skillet to the table. “You can wash up over there,” she said with a nod toward an apron sink.

  Jamie felt Hank’s eyes on her while she lathered her hands. But when she finished drying them and passed him the hand towel, he looked away.

  “Help yourself now, there’s plenty,” prompted Ellie.

  Greedily, she loaded up her plate.

  “Wine?” asked Hank from where he stood directly across from her, inserting a corkscrew into the neck of a bottle with his family crest boldly emblazoned on the label, as casually as Jamie opened a carton of orange juice.

  “You have to ask?”

  Ellie looked up.

  “She claims the 2015 gave her a wine epiphany.”

  The cork came out with a soft pop.

  “I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Ellie with a nod to Jamie.

  Hank poured the wine into three bell-shaped glasses, setting two down in front of Ellie and Jamie, then took his seat and raised his glass. “Cheers,” he said without undue ceremony. He took a sip and then lowered his eyes to his plate and began to eat.

  Slowly, Jamie raised her glass and peered through the translucent ruby liquid poured by none other than the owner of the Sweet Spot, in the family’s private quarters, no less. She wanted to savor this moment, to remember it on a day years from now when this trip was a distant memory and a part of her doubted that it had ever happened.

  It wasn’t about prestige. Not for a minute. It was the all-encompassing sensations the wine awakened. She could practically smell the freshly turned earth the grapes had been grown in. Feel on her shoulders the warm sunlight that had nurtured the vines. Taste the faint hint of minerals from the ancient seabed beneath the soil, like the time when she was little and she’d licked a wet stone after a rainstorm.

  While Hank focused
on his food, she swirled and watched the legs run down the sides of the bowl of the glass. Finally, she sipped, letting the wine wash over the tip of her tongue where the sweet taste-bud receptors were, the sides, which perceived salty and sour, and finally the back, which picked up bitterness.

  “Well?” Ellie had been studying her over her glasses.

  A grin spread across her face. “Tastes like happiness in a glass.”

  Ellie grunted her approval, then picked up her fork.

  “Your chicken is delicious, too,” said Jamie.

  “It’s just like the wine. It’s the love that goes into it. First you got to dredge it in cornmeal seasoned with paprika, then dip it in your egg batter, then dredge it again. Then you got to stand by the stove and watch the hot oil every minute so it doesn’t burn.”

  “Kind of like when I used to babysit the neighbor kids. I didn’t just plop them down in front of a video. I got down on the floor with them, gave them pony rides. Played board games. Read them stories. Guess that’s when I realized I wanted to be a teacher.”

  “You cook?”

  “My sister and I were each given our own little corner of the garden to learn how vegetables grow. Things like carrots and parsley. Sometimes, when I’m craving home cooking, I’ll order one of those meal kits,” she said sheepishly. “You know. The ones where the ingredients come premeasured and all you have to do is assemble them? But it never tastes anything like this. All that to say I end up eating out . . . a lot.

  “Given the business you’re in, I’m sure you know that Pennsylvania’s one of the last remaining closed states. There are only so many liquor licenses to go around, and when one does come onto the market, the price is through the roof. As a result, Philadelphia’s become known for its BYOBs. When a restaurant isn’t saddled with the huge overhead that comes with a liquor license, they can focus more on the food—and charge less for it. The upshot of that is when you have to go out of your way to shop for your own wine, you can’t help but eventually learn something.”

  She didn’t disclose that she’d become so knowledgeable her friends had begun deferring to her to buy the wine whenever they went out.

  A door to the outside swung open and a worried-looking man in Carhartts with a wisp of straw in his salt-and-pepper beard hurried in. When he saw them around the table he pulled up short, holding his rough, raw hands slightly out from his sides, as if they didn’t know how to be idle. “Miss Ellie. Hank.” He eyed Jamie curiously. “Sorry for interrupting. Thought you two ate earlier. When you’re finished up here, can you stop over to the barn?”

  But Hank was already out of his seat, headed toward the back door. “What’s up, Bryce?”

  “Gophers, that’s what. Bright green holes between rows six and eight in Block Nine.”

  Hank pushed on the old-fashioned, spring-loaded screen door.

  Bryce snatched a sugar cookie from the plate on the counter and followed him outside to the slamming of the door.

  * * *

  The men’s voices trailed away.

  “Did he just say gophers?” asked Jamie.

  “That he did. Make themselves right at home in the vineyards this time of year. Drives Bryce up the wall. He used to wipe em out in one pass with Molex before my son—Hank’s dad—started the long process of converting to organic about ten years back. Or, as Bryce calls it, voodoo viniculture. He knows better. Knows we’re trying to get certified biodynamic. That means no chemicals. He’s mostly good with it. But when it comes to those gophers, he’s got a fixation.

  “Hank is our vineyard manager. He oversees everything having to do with the grapes, from deciding what to plant to blending the wine along with our lead winemaker. I’m in charge of the housekeepers, the kitchen, and miscellaneous. That’s over a dozen employees during high season, not counting the field-workers. The faces change. Some come back year after year. Others move on or go back to school. But that’s only when everything’s running smoothly, which, truth be told, it rarely is around here. Hank has been known to help serve in the dining room. And I know how to prune vines with the best of them.”

  Jamie scooped a second helping of rice onto her plate. “Do you do all the cooking?”

  “Couldn’t if I wanted to. We plate between ten and twenty breakfasts and lunches a day, in season. When it comes to dinner, the guests are on their own. A bit of a boon for the restaurants down in Newberry and even the surrounding towns, depending on how far people feel like driving. I plan the menus, and there are certain jobs I keep for myself—like the twice-monthly campouts, and such. And I always make one last sweep through the kitchen at night to be sure things are all set for the next day. To tell you the truth, we’re a little shorthanded, what with Nelson’s broken ankle and all. That sure put a spoke in the wheel. Might even be picking up a part-timer to help in the tasting room if we can find one this late in the season. The problem is, most of the usual suspects are hired out by now.”

  “Nelson?”

  “One of our wine docents. That’s his official title, but he’s way more than that. He’s been working here since Hank was still in that highchair.”

  Ellie nodded toward the antique wooden chair with a tray, sitting in a corner of the kitchen. A scene from a Mother Goose nursery rhyme had been painted on the seat back. By the looks of it, Hank had been far from the first child to sit in it.

  “He helps with the horses, too, and I trust him with my banking and the mail.”

  When the meal was over, Jamie got up to help Ellie clear the table.

  “I’ll call someone to take you to your cabin. Won’t have you walking back in the dark your first night here.”

  Ellie punched in some numbers and waited, to no avail. “I’m sorry about this. I have no idea why Bailey’s not answering,” she muttered. “I’ll try again in a minute.”

  “Let’s get these dishes started,” replied Jamie as she carried her plate to the sink, cranked on the spigot and squirted some detergent into the rising water.

  Ellie held up the wine bottle to the light. “Might as well finish this. There’s just enough for each of us to have a sip. Little unusual, a woman your age coming here by herself,” she added, replenishing their glasses. “You were booked with someone else at first, weren’t you?”

  “My friend Kimmie. We work together. She was really disappointed about canceling, but she was just awarded a summer fellowship she’d applied for on a whim. I told her she’d be crazy to turn it down. I was going to cancel, too, but I was dying to get out of the city.”

  “I’ve been racking my brain, but for the life of me I can’t recall the last time we played host to a music teacher. You see the baby grand out in the great room?”

  “Hard to miss it. Do you play?”

  “Not since my arthritis started acting up. But the guy from Newberry still comes out and tunes it once a year. You’re welcome to play anytime you want.”

  Jamie withdrew the serving bowl from the suds and stared at the lush fruit and flower design. “This dish. My grandmother had this pattern.”

  “This is all that’s left of my mother’s very first set of dishes. She bought them at the old mercantile store in Newberry when she was a new bride.” Ellie took it from her, turned it over and rinsed off the suds, and read the mark. “Johnson Brothers. Harvest Fruit pattern.” She sighed. “Store’s not there anymore. So many changes.” She wiped it lovingly and reached to place it on a high shelf.

  “Here. Let me,” said Jamie.

  “Maybe you’ll get lucky and your grandmother will leave you hers one day.”

  “Too late,” said Jamie before she thought the better of it. “When our farm was sold I was living in a dorm. My sister was a newlywed but her apartment was the size of a shoebox, and Dad was looking at a town house. None of us had room to keep all the crap that had been gathering dust for decades up in the attic.”

  Ellie flashed her a look.

  “Not crap. I didn’t mean it that way.” Calling all those precious memen
tos crap in her mind made it somehow easier to deal with losing them. It had taken saying the words out loud to make her realize that.

  But Ellie’s expression held no judgment, only sympathy. “That’s a shame. You ought to go check the list of this week’s activities while you’re waiting. Anything catches your eye, there’s a sign-up sheet.”

  Behind her came the squeak of door springs.

  “You’re still here,” said a deep voice.

  Jamie whirled around to see Hank, and through the screen, the sky as black as ink.

  “Would you please take this poor girl to her cabin?” Ellie scolded. “I imagine she’s ready to drop. The whole day riding on planes, and then helping me with these pots.”

  Hank grabbed a cookie. “You ready?” he asked, biting off half.

  Jamie opened her mouth to reply, but no words came out. Her eyes were glued to the lips of the Sweet Spot’s owner, watching his tongue sweep a crumb neatly into his mouth.

  * * *

  After Hank showed Jamie where the light switches were and how the shower worked, he paused on her tiny porch.

  “It’s so peaceful here,” she said beside him, as they looked out on the paddock and the vineyards beyond, her voice soft as velvet on the night air.

  He jammed his hands into his pockets and listened. Only then did he hear the kree-ek of the tree frogs down by the pond.

  “You good then?” he asked Jamie.

  She glanced over her shoulder at the interior of the lamp-lit cabin, where her suitcase lay open on one of the beds.

  “Looks like I’ve got everything I need.”

  He struck out for the inn. “Breakfast’s at eight,” he called over his shoulder.

  But he didn’t get far before he swung back around. “One last thing,” he said, walking backward.

  She peeked around the door. “Yes?”

  “Oh.” At the sight of her bare shoulder, he cast his eyes to the dirt path out of a sense of propriety. “Sorry. What’d you sign up for tomorrow?”

  “Riding, in the morning. I left the afternoon open. I want to take my time unpacking, wander around and get my bearings.”