Chapter 22
“In fifty yards, turn right,” said the GPS.
“Here?” Esteban wondered aloud at an unmarked dirt road leading straight up through hills resembling humpback whales.
He pulled the truck off Napa Road and shifted into second to make it up the steep grade.
“Arriving at destination.”
At the open gate, Savvy peered behind them through the truck’s back window. “Wow,” she breathed.
He twisted around to see the late afternoon sun reflected off a puddle of blue. “That’s the bay!”
Their eyes met, sealing the moment in time.
“Look at the house,” she cried when the square, Tuscan-style stucco with the orange tile roof came into view.
A woman in jeans with long silver hair came out to greet them. Savvy introduced Esteban.
“I think I recognize you,” she said to him with a wry smile.
“From the lavender store?”
“Among other places.” At Savvy’s puzzled expression, she added, “I spend a lot of time on the computer.”
Anne led them behind the house where there were olive groves and a swath of land that had been tilled, once upon a time. “All my husband and I were looking for was a quiet place to write and paint. We got quiet, all right. Sometimes during the day the only sounds are the cattle lowing at the next ranch. At night, you can hear the coyotes howling up on the ridge. But after a couple of years we started feeling guilty about leaving those fat olives hanging there, begging to be picked. So now we hire someone to harvest them and send them out to be pressed. The lavender has completely gotten away from us, even though we did nothing to encourage it. It’s never been touched by chemicals, as far as we know.”
Esteban thrust his hands in his pockets and eyeballed the tangled field of last year’s crop that had long gone to seed. “How many acres you got here?”
“Eight.” She half laughed. “We’re from Cupertino. Eight acres sounded manageable when we first bought the place. What did we know?”
He crouched to scoop up a handful of crumbly soil, letting it sift through his fingers.
“ ‘Sandy loam.’ So says the guy from the UC Cooperative Extension.” She shrugged.
What I’d give for dirt like this, he thought.
“We’re right on the Sonoma–Napa line. We’ve got dry, hot summers and cold winters. Our fruit trees love it.”
“And you?” Savvy asked.
Her lips curled in a crooked smile. “Some days it’s a little more extreme than what we signed up for. We’re used to living in a city. It can be a little isolated out here.
“Want to look at the distillery?” She turned toward an outbuilding, Savvy close on her heels.
Esteban seemed rooted to the ground. “Okay if I wander around some? I see you’ve got a peach orchard.”
“Plums, too,” said Anne. “There’s nothing like fresh plum jam.”
But the orchards weren’t what interested him most. He walked into the middle of the rough field of Hidcote, the species and variety that had made up the bundles Savvy had bought at the shop in Napa, and inhaled the sweet, clean air.
A half hour later, he saw the women exit the distillery from where he stood atop the highest ridge, looking down on the roof of the farmhouse where a glass conservatory off the back opened up to a kitchen garden and a three-car garage.
“How’s the view?” Savvy waved and called to him. There was a lighthearted quality to her voice. She must have liked what she’d seen of the still.
“Primo.” He breathed in the southern wind, taking one last look at the undulating landscape beneath a dusky blue sky, memorizing the scene. Blinking low in the west of the celestial sphere were the three stars of Orion’s belt, the winter constellation, almost gone now that spring was here.
“You can see five counties from up there,” shouted Anne.
He turned in a slow circle. Starting in the east, there was Napa, followed by Solano to the southeast. Directly south, the bay water broke up the land mass. On its other shore was Marin. Sonoma fell to the west, and Lake, in the north.
Like Savvy said: Wow.
Fortified with Madre’s baked eggs and chorizo, Esteban carried his coffee mug out to the greenhouse bright and early Friday, squinting against the rising sun. Madre was getting ready for eight o’clock Mass. Padre had just left for the diner to have breakfast with his amigos.
Last night’s dreams of Savvy still swirled in Esteban’s head. From the back of his Chevy, he loaded up the first wheelbarrow full of Rathmell Ranch lavender. Anne had offered to let him dig up as many plants as he wanted after he’d told her about his struggle to grow the herb. She’d even shown him where to find some discarded plastic pots in her barn.
He’d considered building a whole new raised bed, but that didn’t make sense. If he was going to do this, he needed to go all the way, and he couldn’t make a raised bed to cover all five acres. All lavender liked well-drained, slightly alkaline soil, and there was no place on his property like that. He’d have to settle for amending what soil he did have. It could work.
Savvy had saved his life.
She’d given him something worth more than all the land in the world—her virginity. Him, Esteban Morales. In the month since, there hadn’t been an hour that didn’t fill him with awe.
He wanted to give her the respect due a queen.
He wheeled his young plants and supplies into an open area with full sun and good air circulation, his eye on the sky. The waxing crescent moon was in Scorpio, a water sign. No better time for planting.
He set down the wheelbarrow and measured the pH of the clay. Six-point-five. Some lime mixed in with the bone meal and composted manure might bring it up to neutral. He started to work on a bed, spading in his customized mixture as he went.
Before long, he heard footsteps and turned to see Madre wearing a skirt, her cloth purse slung over her shoulder.
“I’m leaving now. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
“This is my church.” He indicated his surroundings with his chin. “The earth. The trees.” He grunted, booting the spade into the dense ground. “The sky.”
“You haven’t been to Mass in a long while,” Madre lamented.
He scooped out another shovelful of dirt. “And not a single day goes by when I’m not thankful for what we have. This land has never failed to provide for us yet.”
Why should he invent sins purely to have something to confess to the priest? He had never intentionally hurt a single living thing: plant, animal, or human. Just minded his business, respected his parents, and worked each day until he couldn’t work any more.
“And who do you think made all those things?”
Huffing with his efforts, he gulped the last of his coffee, tossed his mug onto the ground, and wiped his mouth with his sleeve as he watched her stomp off to her car, shaking her head.
Besides, he couldn’t go to church right now. Not when his thoughts were full of Sauvignon St. Pierre, naked on a rocky, windswept beach.
She’d been totally pure until he’d left his mark on her. Maybe he was too earthy. He found himself wanting to mate with her in every sense of the word. Build a home with her. Plant his seed in her. Slay a mastodon and drag it home for her to eat . . .
Working and dreaming made the hours slip by.
“Welcome to your new home,” he whispered to each plant as he firmed down the soil around it. “Settle in good now, you hear?”
Then he stood back and looked at his handiwork, knowing deep down that if these robust specimens didn’t take root here, no lavender ever would.