The Sometime Bride

Chapter Nine


Mike hoisted Carrie down from the top of the split-rail fence and led her into the vineyard.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked, clutching his mystery paper bag to his chest.

Carrie inhaled deeply, absorbing the scent of summer hills and lilac. For acres before them, rows upon rows of trellised vines bloomed in lush splendor, their endless trails spilling toward the tumbling Blue Ridge. Mountain upon haze-tipped mountain fell backward in smoky array, blending infinitely with the settling twilight.

“It’s gorgeous, just gorgeous,” Carrie said, talking not only of the scenery around them. For in this afternoon alone, she’d seen something altogether different in Mike. Not the tempting bachelor, nor the friend with a penchant for making her smile. But a regular family man. Carrie was certain now he hadn’t been fabricating his desires for that white picket fence. Mike was good in a crowd, great with people—young and old alike. And playful to boot. Carrie was sure he’d make an excellent father.

“Care to sit?”

Carrie looked down, realizing Mike had removed his jacket and laid it as a cushion on the ground for her to protect her clothing.

“You know,” she said, taking a seat and arranging her dress on the jacket to defend it from the spreading clay-dotted grass around them. “Alexia was really a very stupid woman.”

Mike grinned in surprise and scooted in beside her on the splotchy earth. “Kind of you to say so.”

“I mean it,” Carrie assured him. “But she was smart in one regard.”

Mike raised his brow in expectation.

“Picking you out in the first place.”

Mike sputtered a laugh. “Alexia always was a good shopper.”

Carrie tried to keep her eyes focused ahead of her, but it was impossible not to be drawn to the man beside her. Never in her life—nowhere in the world—had Carrie St. John come across the likes of Mike Davis. He was handsome and charming, absolutely. But much more importantly, he was genuine.

“You know the thing about Alexia—”

Carrie reached out and latched on to his rugged chin. “Mike.”

He stopped midsentence and questioned with his eyes. Beautiful, earth-moving, sea-green eyes.

Carrie settled her other hand at the side of his face. “Shut up and kiss me.”

“Thought you’d never ask,” he hummed, closing in.



After they’d necked like teenagers for nearly twenty minutes, Carrie felt something moist and clammy seeping onto her outer thigh.

“Oh my God!” Mike said, looking down in horror at the leaking paper bag pressed up against Carrie’s leg. “Your beautiful dress!”

Carrie puzzled at the mysterious green stain on her leg. She wiped a hand against the sticky mess, then brought a palm to her nose. “Mint?”

“Mint chocolate chip,” Mike said, sheepishly unrolling the bag. “Ice cream sandwiches.”

Carrie threw back her head with a belly laugh. “Ice cream sandwiches! And there I thought you’d gotten us another elegant vintage of wine.”

“Carrie,” he said, pulling a clean handkerchief from his pocket and dabbing the side of her clothing. “I’m so sorry about your dress. I forgot all about—”

“That’s all right,” she said, giving his chin an affectionate nuzzle. “I did too. And no worries. The dress will wash.” And if it didn’t, she could always get another. But Carrie was as certain it wouldn’t be so easy to replace Mike Davis. “Think they’re still any good?”

“Of course! A little soggy, maybe,” he said, pulling the soppy package from its dripping bag. “But edible, nonetheless. How about it?”

“I’d love one.” Carrie smiled. “Mint chocolate is my absolute favorite. How on earth did you know?”

“Wild guess,” Mike said, grinning naughtily. “And your Grandma Russell told me.”

“Cheater!” Carrie said, swatting him playfully across the chest. “You just wait till I corner some of those old high school chums of yours and get the dirt on you!”

“So, you’re not disappointed, then?”

Carrie warned herself to proceed with caution. “In…?”

“The ice cream. I mean, it may not be the rare vintage you were—”

“I love the ice cream. I don’t think any man has surprised me with ice cream before.” Much less spread it on my thigh, she heard herself thinking but thank God didn’t say. All of a sudden, Carrie was developing lots of innovative ideas about what she and Mike could do with ice cream. But not here, not now, not in the middle of somebody else’s vineyard.

“What is this place?” Carrie asked, taking a bite out of her dripping sandwich and delighting in its fresh minty taste. Nightfall was almost upon them, shadows stretching long over the vineyard. The top third of the mountains had already faded to black. If they didn’t head back soon, they might have difficulty finding the car in the darkness.

“Just a place I stumbled on long ago.”

“It’s yours?” Carrie asked, surprise and delight firing her eyes. “I should have known you were a vintner! Now, it all makes perfect—”

“Carrie,” Mike answered, crestfallen. “It’s not mine.” He couldn’t bring himself to tell her that he’d only worked here as a hired hand during his high school summers. That his background was much more modest that hers ever was. He and his dad never had a nice home—of any size—to call their own. They had rented and lived out of trailers. His graduation from Ashton had been thanks to a full athletic scholarship.

“Maybe you should buy it, then?” she continued, seeming happily excited by the notion. “It would make a wonderful investment!”

“Investment?” Mike had never been able to invest in anything beyond his next month’s rent.

Carrie appeared to pick up on his mood and halted. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said, wadding up her ice cream sandwich wrapper and balling it in her fist. “It wasn’t my place at all to suggest that.”

And why, indeed, would she suggest it? Just as breezily as if wishing could make it so. Did Carrie St. John actually have that sort of money herself? “Would you invest in it, Carrie?” Mike pressed, wanting to know if his hunch was accurate.

Criminy. Carrie had really painted herself into a corner this time. Here she’d been all this time not wanting to let on she had money, and then she went and said a stupid, unthinking thing like that. “Why, no. No.” Carrie felt herself growing warm in the chill of the evening. “Just making conversation, that’s all,” she lied, scrambling to her feet. “You know, it’s getting late…”

“I know,” Mike said, looking deep in her eyes as if trying to discern something.

“Think you could drive me back to the inn so I can collect my car and get on home? I have to work tomorrow and I’m sure—”

“No problem,” Mike said, scooping their litter off the ground and trying to discern what she was hiding. Mike weighed the dichotomy of her simple, small-town roots against the exceedingly preferential treatment Carrie had been afforded by Charles Gilpatrick back at the inn. Was Carrie St. John filthy rich, someone famous to be reckoned with?

“Who are you, Carrie St. John?” Mike asked as the breath of night threaded silken silence between them.

“Just a simple old girl from Virginia,” she said, needing him desperately to believe it.