Blush - Jamie Brenner Page 0,68

No luck. She could backtrack and go all the way around, but it was so dark out.

Really, the gate was mostly ornamental. She could scale it. Sadie grabbed hold of a pergola beam and climbed onto one of the gateposts. She balanced atop the post, holding on to the beam, gauging the jump onto the other side of the gate. It was so dark, she couldn’t see what was on the ground. She reached into her pocket for her phone, trying to turn on the flashlight with one hand.

The phone fell onto the other side of the fence.

“Damn it!”

Now she had no choice but to jump. She let go of the beam and landed on something hard, then bounced onto the grass. Whatever she’d fallen into kept moving until it made a shattering sound on nearby concrete.

An external house light turned on. Now she’d done it. She scrambled to her feet. The back door opened, and a flashlight shined on her—a strong beam, not a little phone light.

“Sadie?” Mateo said, incredulous.

“Um, yeah.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I got lost.”

“Lost? Oh, man. Did you knock over this potted plant?”

“I might have, um, bumped into it.”

He walked around the small patio adjacent to the lawn, surveying the damage. “This thing shattered.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, mortified. She wanted to just slink off into the night. But her phone. “Um, can you help me find my phone? I dropped it.”

“Where?”

“I’m not sure. Somewhere around here.”

He moved closer, shining the flashlight on the grass. They walked in circles, but the phone was nowhere to be seen.

“Wait, try over here,” she said, reaching for the light to point it closer to the gate. Their hands touched, and her phone was instantly forgotten. She experienced the slight contact as a shiver through her entire body.

Sadie pulled the flashlight from his hand and turned it off.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“I didn’t get lost. I came here to see you.”

“Sadie . . .”

“Look, if you tell me you don’t feel it, too, then I’ll go. But I have to know.”

He was quiet. An animal scurried around in the bushes. She felt herself holding her breath. After what felt like forever, he said, “I feel it. But it’s impossible.”

She stepped closer to him. “Why do you say that?”

“Because I work for your grandparents. My father would kill me.”

“Kill you? Why?”

“It’s disrespectful.”

“Oh, come on. What year is this, 1950?”

The truth was, Mateo’s employment never even crossed her mind. She thought of Javier, not Mateo, as the one who worked for the winery. When she was growing up, Mateo was just an older kid hanging around, keeping his distance.

Now that she thought about it, since he worked for her family, was this sexual harassment?

“I don’t mean to put you in a bad position,” she said. “I’m sorry. But the thing is, you’re already interviewing to leave. The winery is sold. I mean, you’re worried about what my grandfather would think—or your dad would be worried—but it doesn’t seem he’s worried about you.”

“You studying to be a lawyer?” he said, stepping closer to her. Her heart pounded. The porch light cast his face in shadows, enough for her to make out the angles of his chiseled features, but not enough to see the intensity of his black eyes. She wanted to reach out and touch him so badly.

“No,” she breathed.

He took the flashlight from her, his fingers grazing the back of her hand in a way that had to be deliberate. Once more, she felt it through her entire body. But to her disappointment, he turned the light back on and resumed the search.

“There it is,” he said, following the beam to a spot a few feet away. He handed her the phone. She’d never been less happy to see it.

“Great. Thanks.” She didn’t move. “Look,” she said. “I get that there’s weirdness with the whole work thing. But we could still hang out as friends, right? I mean, there’s only so much time I can spend with my mother and grandmother.”

He hesitated, just long enough that she knew he was at least considering it.

“Goodnight, Sadie,” he said.

Thirty-two

Leonard’s desk was covered with spreadsheets and maps of the various crops throughout the vineyard. He was already thinking about the harvest coming in mid-September.

“I need you to stop shutting me out of the decision-making around here,” Vivian said. “There has to be something more we can do.”

He looked up at her. “Don’t you think I wish there was? All we can do is sell a