No matter what.
Her plan was to leave here a changed woman, one who remembered how wonderful it was to be on her own, empowered and . . . not anxious or stressed. Finding confidence would be a bonus. Being happy would be a pipe dream.
I don’t care what you grow up to be, as long as you’re self-sufficient and no longer need us for anything, her mother had said when Lanie had gone off to college.
She squeezed her eyes shut, shoved that very unwelcome memory far away, and tried to think of something else, anything else.
Am I hard to love, Kyle?
Maybe a little when you’re overworked. Or tired. Or hungry . . .
Yeah, so that had been hard to hear from the man who as a beverage sales rep to all of Southern California had only been home two days a week, but she’d come to understand something. It wasn’t about being unlovable. It was that she couldn’t trust someone to love her. It’d started with her parents. Both physicists, they’d expected her to follow in their footsteps. Only problem was she’d hated math and science, instead preferring the arts.
Being the square peg had made her an enigma to them, and not in a good way. It wasn’t that they’d been on her to change. It’d been worse than that. Once they’d realized how different she was, they’d given up on her completely.
And apparently, so had Kyle. She’d really thought she’d known everything about him and their relationship, and yet he’d betrayed her. So she no longer believed in her own judgment and other people. “Gah,” she told the dark cottage and flopped over, redirecting her thoughts to the only thing she could do something about.
The present.
DAY TWO OF Lanie’s job went much like the day before. She had a nice big space they’d created for her to do her thing. It was an open floor plan, meaning everyone working had their own corner but they were all together.
Peaceful and quiet, it wasn’t.
It turned out that Alyssa handled sales and hospitality, and spent most of her time on the phone charming the socks off people. Which had been fascinating to watch because Lanie herself hadn’t gotten the charming-the-socks-off gene.
Mia was the tasting room manager, and in spite of not having the sunniest of dispositions, she was also head of tours. Mostly because no one else wanted to be, she’d told Lanie as she’d flitted in and out of the office a hundred times an hour, sprinkling sarcasm and cynicism every time she came and went.
“When life knocks you down,” she said to Lanie after getting yelled at by a very rude customer, “calmly get back up, smile, and very politely say ‘You hit like a bitch, bitch.’”
Lanie was pretty sure that wasn’t Cora-approved.
“I hope my future husband looks at me in the mornings like I’m looking at this leftover pizza,” Mia said after raiding the employee fridge. “Like, yeah, maybe it’s looked better, but it still makes my heart happy.”
There were others around too, many others, and everyone knew everything about everyone. And whether Lanie liked it or not, she knew things too now because she couldn’t not hear them. Like about Cora’s brother, who ran the company’s social media platform. Uncle Jack had Crohn’s disease and was supposedly on a strict diet, but he constantly cheated and then locked himself in the employee bathroom for hours at a time, during which, if you had a Twitter account, you could read his ongoing thoughts. Such as: Inhaled four Cinnabons. #TacticalError #RookieMistake. And then the one that had Cora finally changing the password so he couldn’t sign in:
Dear people who type in all lowercase, we’re the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse & helping your uncle jack off a horse. Capital Letters.
In essence, Capriotti Winery was a small town all on its own where there were no secrets and the gossip mill was alive and well.
Not that anyone was going to learn Lanie’s secrets. You’re just playing a part, she reminded herself. Just like you did with being a daughter. A wife . . . There’s no need to let anyone know just how unsuccessful in love you’ve been.
That night she got into bed and was nearly asleep when there came a quiet knock.
Cookies, she thought, and leapt out of bed. Her cottage was all one room—a kitchenette in one corner, bed in another, small couch and coffee table near the front door. She peeked out and found . . . no one. Then she nearly jumped out of her own skin when the knock came again, accompanied by a giggle. Actually, make that two soft giggles, and she relaxed as she opened the door and yep, found the cute little cupcake twins.
They wore matching Wonder Woman PJs, matching bare feet, and matching contagious grins. They had dark unruly hair and dark chocolate eyes like their dad’s, and sweet, innocent smiles—unlike their dad. “Uh, hi,” she said and peeked out past them to see who was in charge.
But there was no one with them. “You guys okay?”
They gave matching bobblehead nods. The one on the right had her hair in a bun on top of her head. Her twin’s hair was loose and in a complete riot around her face.
“So,” Lanie said and paused, waiting for them to fill in some gaps.
Didn’t happen.
“Is there something I can do for you?” she asked.
“We were wondering something,” the one on the left said. Wild Hair. She looked at her twin. “Right?”
Her twin, missing her front teeth, nodded.
Lanie was at a loss. She knew nothing about kids. Less than nothing. She was an only child, and actually she couldn’t remember ever even being a child, at least a carefree one with cute PJs and crazy hair and a silly, adorable smile. “Are you out here by yourselves?”
Twin nods.
Lanie had no idea who their mom was. She’d met a lot of people over the past two days, but not one of them had been introduced as Mark’s wife. And since he’d joked about asking Lanie out, she was kind of assuming there was no wife.
Which didn’t solve the mystery of their mom. “Maybe I should call your grandma—”
“Oh, but you can’t!” Wild Hair said and slipped past Lanie into her cottage, tugging her sister along with her.
“Well, sure, come on in.”
They giggled and Lanie resisted thunking her head to the door before turning to face her late-night intruders. “And why can’t I call your grandma?”
“’Cuz we’ll get in trouble,” Wild Hair said. “We’re supposed to be asleep.”
Toothless nodded.
“Okay,” Lanie said. “And you’re not asleep because . . .”
Wild Hair bit her lower lip. “Can you keep a secret?”
“No,” she said, not willing to be an accomplice.
The twins exchanged disappointed looks with those huge expressive eyes that nearly had her caving. She crossed her arms. “Listen, I might not know the first thing about little kids, but I do know when my leg’s being pulled. You two are up to something. Spill.”
“We, um . . . sorta took something from your purse earlier,” Wild Hair said.
“You stole something from me?”
“No,” Wild Hair said. “That’s what bad people do. We . . . um . . . borrowed.”
“What did you ‘borrow’?”
“When you were working earlier, your purse fell over under your desk and stuff spilled out all by itself.”