He rubbed his stomach, but the queasiness he felt there had nothing to do with the fact that he’d forgotten to eat.
Dear Mrs. Favor,
I’m sixteen and a couple months ago I tryed to kill myself because I think I might be gay. Somebody left this book you wrote at Starbucks, and I picked it up. I think you might of saved my life.
As he settled down at the table, he realized he’d started to sweat.
Dear Isabel Favor,
Could you send me an autographed picture of yourself? It would mean alot. When I got laid off at work…
Dr. Favor,
My wife and I owe our marriage to you. We were having money problems, and…
Dear Miss Favor,
I never wrote a famous person before, but if it hadn’t of been for you…
All the letters had been written after Isabel’s fall from grace, but the writers didn’t care about that. They only cared about what she’d done for them.
“Pretty pathetic, right?” Isabel stood in the doorway, knotting her robe at the waist.
The constriction in his stomach had risen to his throat. “Why would you say that?”
“Two months. Twelve letters.” She sank her hands into the robe’s pockets and looked unhappy. “In my golden days, sonny boy, they came in by the boxload.”
The letters hit the floor as he shot up from the table. “Saving souls is based on quantity rather than quality, is that it?”
She regarded him oddly. “I only meant that I had so much, and I blew it.”
“You didn’t blow anything! Read these letters. Just read the fucking things, and stop feeling so goddamn sorry for yourself.”
He was acting like a bastard, and any other woman would have torn into him. But not Isabel. Not the fucking Holy Woman. She didn’t even wince. She just looked sad, and it cut right through him.
“Maybe you’re right,” she said.
She turned away slightly. He was starting to apologize when he saw her eyes drift shut. He couldn’t handle this. He knew how to deal with women who cried, women who yelled, but how was he supposed to deal with a woman who prayed? It was time to think like a hero again, no matter how much it went against his nature. “I have to get back. I’ll see you in the morning at the vendemmia.”
She didn’t look at him, didn’t answer, and who could blame her? Why talk to the devil when God was your companion of choice?
21
Only Massimo beat Ren to the vineyard the next morning, and not because Ren had gotten up so much earlier than everybody else, but because he’d never gone to bed. Instead, he’d spent the night listening to music and thinking about Isabel.
She appeared as if he’d conjured her, stepping out of the early-morning mist like an earthbound angel. She wore new jeans that still had fold marks across the knees. The flannel shirt she’d buttoned over her T-shirt belonged to him, and so did her Lakers cap. Still, she somehow managed to look tidy. He remembered the fan letters she’d received, and something burned in his chest, right behind his breastbone.
A car door slammed and Giancarlo arrived, sparing Ren the need to do more than give her a brief hello. As the others appeared, Massimo started issuing orders. The vendemmia had begun.
Isabel discovered that harvesting grapes was a messy business. As she tossed the heavy clusters into the basket, or paniere as it was called, juice threatened to trickle under her sleeves, and her pruning shears became so sticky they might as well have been glued to her palms. They were also treacherous, mistaking flesh for the tough grape stems. It wasn’t long before she had a Band-Aid on the end of one finger.
Ren and Giancarlo traveled the rows picking up the overflowing baskets and dumping them into the plastic crates that had been stacked on the small flatbed hitched to the tractor. They unloaded these at the old stone building beside the vineyard, where another group began crushing the grapes and pouring the must into vats to ferment.
The day was overcast and cool, but Ren had stripped down to a T-shirt printed with the logo from one of his films. He appeared beside her to collect the basket she’d just filled. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
In the next row one of the women held two bunches of grapes in front of her breasts and jiggled them, making everybody laugh. Isabel waved away the bee that kept buzzing her. “How many chances do I get to harvest grapes in a Tuscan vineyard?”
“The romance is going to wear off pretty quickly.”
It seemed that it already had, she thought, as he wiped his forehead and walked away.
She stared at the bee that had landed on the back of her hand. He hadn’t come to her last night. Instead, he’d phoned from the villa and told her he had work to do. She needed to work, too, but she’d brooded instead. The dark side of Ren’s past clung to him like cobwebs, getting in the way of any hope they had of a future together. Or maybe he’d just decided she was too much for him.
She was grateful when one of the younger women appeared to work next to her. Since the woman’s English was as limited as Isabel’s Italian, their conversation took all her attention.
By evening, with half the vineyard picked, she headed back to the house. She didn’t speak to Ren, who’d gone to share a bottle of wine with some of the men. When Tracy called to invite her to dinner, she declined. She was too tired to do more than eat a cheese sandwich and fall into bed.
Morning arrived before she was ready, and her muscles protested as she rolled over. She considered staying in bed, but she’d enjoyed the camaraderie yesterday. She’d also liked the sense of accomplishment she’d felt. It was something she hadn’t experienced for a long time.
The job went faster the second day. Vittorio showed up to help. Tracy appeared with Connor and filled Isabel in on the children’s first day of school, as well as Harry’s phone call from Zurich the previous night. Fabiola used her limited English to tell Isabel about her struggles to get pregnant. But Ren barely spoke to her. She wondered if he was working harder than everyone else because he owned the vineyard or because he wanted to avoid her.
The sun sank closer to the horizon. When there were only a few rows left, she made her way to the water table. As she filled her cup, a burst of laughter made her look up. She saw a group of three men and two women approaching from the villa.
Ren set down the crate he’d been unloading and waved as he walked toward them. “It’s about time you got here.”
Two of the three men were of the Adonis species, and they both spoke with American accents.
“When the big guy calls, the cavalry comes to the rescue.”
“Where’s the beer?”
An expensive-looking redhead with a pair of pricey sunglasses pushed on top of her hair threw Ren a kiss. “Hey, babe. We’ve missed you.”
“Glad you made it.” He brushed her cheek, then did the same to the other woman, a Pamela Anderson look-alike.
“I’m dying for a diet Coke,” she said. “Your heartless agent wouldn’t stop.”
The fourth man was small and thin, maybe in his mid-forties. His sunglasses dangled from a sport strap around his neck, and he held a cell phone pressed to his ear. At the same time he managed to pantomime to Ren that the caller was an idiot and he’d be off in a minute.
The redhead gave a throaty laugh and ran her index finger down Ren’s bare chest. “Oh, my God, sweetie, look at you. Is this real dirt?”
Indignation swept through Isabel. That was Ren’s chest the woman was making free with. Isabel took in the redhead’s low- riding pants, killer shoes, endless legs, and perfectly exposed belly button. Why hadn’t Ren mentioned that he’d invited these people?