Cadence of Cranberries - Valerie Comer Page 0,52

each other. That was good, at least. He’d hate to have their breakup on his conscience for life.

Charlie lowered himself to the foot of his bed. He’d sit for a minute and wait. Maybe Winnie was just screening her calls. Maybe she’d call back and tell him it was nothing to do with him. Maybe her parents had called and needed her. That could have happened, right? And then she’d simply forgotten to call Charlie?

Not likely.

With a big sigh, he went back to the kitchen as Dominic set the sour cream and butter on the table, looking over at him.

“Hey, Katri says you went out to the Cranberry Museum yesterday while she was at work. That’s just a few miles from where Mom grew up.”

That’s why he’d gone. At least the boy was willing to talk now, even though the subject was a throwaway. “Twelve hours is a long time to hang around in Seattle.” Amazing he’d lived there for over thirty years and had no real friends who would have welcomed him in. “So, yeah, I drove out there. I never gave much thought to cranberries before meeting your mom, and I wanted to learn more.”

He’d driven up one road and down the next, taking in the activity as cranberry farmers pruned and layered sand over their beds for winter. The woman at the museum had told him that in colder climates, the bogs were usually flooded for winter protection. Not so much out here.

Katri giggled. “I know, right? Just tart little berries somehow required on American tables for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Mom always served them, and none of us would touch them.”

“If they were that jelly stuff out of a can, no wonder.” Dominic grimaced.

“Oh, not for my mother. The caterers...” Katri’s voice drifted off as she looked between them.

Enough about Julia. “I didn’t realize how much goes into the rhythm of cranberry farming. And how good they are for you, practically a superfood.”

“Lots of antioxidants, for sure.” Dominic launched into the benefits of cranberries while Charlie pulled the chicken and potatoes from the warming oven.

He’d only known Winnie in that brief window between the two holidays when the cadence of cranberries was at its foremost. The time when cranberries were on everyone’s mind, the buzzword of the season.

But the cranberry farmers worked in their bogs for the long haul, nurturing new cuttings for several years before seeing any fruit from them. The berries didn’t naturally appear in perfect, lush abundance without plenty of experienced care. There was a science involved.

Charlie liked science. There was a lot of it in aeronautical engineering. There was even a taste of it in roasting coffee.

There wasn’t a whole lot of it in relationships. That’s probably why his marriage to Julia had stunk so badly. Was he busy trying to treat Winnie like an equation? Figuring that if he did x, y, and z, then he’d get the results he wanted?

Maybe she had the right idea. She deserved better than him.

Chapter Twenty

Michael glowered at her as she unlocked the house late that evening. “I don’t know why you got my hopes up, made me sit at the airport for six hours, and then dragged me home.”

Yeah, Winnie hadn’t thought that part through. Back in the day, standby was more of a thing, even during the holidays. The only option had been for one of them, and Michael was too young to fly alone when she couldn’t guarantee getting him from Dallas-Fort-Worth to Fort Myers.

Her son stalked to the head of the basement stairs then turned to look at her. “Dad was good at planning vacations.” Then he thundered down the stairs.

Winnie sank onto a stool at the kitchen island and cradled her head in her hands. She’d only tried to do something nice for him, and it backfired. Everything she tried to do for Michael lashed back at her. Why was she even trying?

But... had she been doing it for her son? Or had it been to get some distance from Charlie and the whole ridiculous situation with Dominic and Katri?

Dominic! She bolted upright on her seat. His car hadn’t been parked out front, so he’d be back from Charlie’s any time. She did not want to talk to her eldest. She didn’t want to talk to anyone at all for at least a week, until she’d had time to unscramble her emotions and frustrations. If that would ever even happen.

Winnie bolted to her bedroom and pulled the shades tightly before going