Be Mine Forever (A St. Helena Vineyard Novel) (22 page)

“You sure know how to sweep a lady off her feet,” she breathed, her cheeks flushed, when he pulled her into his arms. “That dance teacher worked wonders.”

Sara had worked wonders, in every possible way—even ones he’d never imagined. She’d made what should have been a difficult visit home…enchanting.

God, did he really use that word earlier?

Trey found himself smiling. He had used it. And meant it. Just like everything else he’d said in the garden. He’d had a lot of women over the years but he’d never had one he considered a friend. Sara understood him better than even his own family. She accepted him for who he was, faults and all, and that meant more to him than she could ever understand.

“Now, if you’ll all turn your attention to the floor for the sixty-ninth annual Winter Garden of the Year Finalists’ Waltz.” The MC gave the band leader a nod and then stepped away from the mic. The violins struck the first note and a soft melody filled the tent as all seven finalists and their partners began to move around the floor.

Trey had danced with Sara to this song during several of their lessons. In fact, she insisted that they practice to this specific song. She might pretend to be Switzerland with the grannies and Deidra, but she was more Team Trey than she’d let on.

With a practiced step forward, Trey led ChiChi right up the middle of the dance floor, wowing the crowd with a complicated turn combination. When ChiChi looked thoroughly impressed, and Deidra utterly shocked, he stealthily scanned the crowd until he found Sara sitting demurely at a table—with Super-Ro-Man and his rippling biceps. The good news was that her eyes were locked on Trey, sending him all kinds of secret messages. Roman’s eyes—the prick—were on the nonexistent back of her dress.

“You look so much like my Geno, it warms my heart,” ChiChi said, patting the handkerchief of his tux. “Thank you for doing this. You don’t know how much your being here, sharing this dance with me tonight, means.”

Trey broke the rules and looked down at his grandmother. Her smile was shaky, her eyes watery, and
he
felt like the prick—a selfish and cowardly prick.

“Ah, Nonna. Don’t cry. I want to be here, I was just…”
Just what? Being a chickenshit?
“Sometimes I get so caught up in my own shi…stuff it’s easier to assume that Gabe or someone else will handle things at home, and I don’t stop to think that they might be busy, or that you might need me.”

“I always need you, child. You’re my favorite,” she assured him and he rolled his eyes. “But tonight I needed you to help me say good-bye.”

That got Trey’s attention. “What are we saying good-bye to?” Please God, she wasn’t dying, was she?

“The past,” she whispered, and a point went to Sara for the semi-choreographed routine or this dance would have ended badly with those two words.

“You are so much like your grandpa,” ChiChi said reverently. “More so than any of your brothers. You have the same fire about you and boyish charm and you love your family with every ounce of your soul. He would have been so proud of the man you’ve become.”

Trey didn’t know about that. Geno had been loyal and reliable and would never have considered moving halfway around the world to be free of his family.

No, his nonno had been a family man who would do anything for his loved ones. Trey didn’t know how to love someone without disappointing them. If anything, the old man was in heaven wondering when the hell Trey was going to figure out his life.

“I don’t know if being loved by me is a good thing.” The moment the words left his mouth, Trey’s whole chest caved. It was the first time he’d admitted out loud his biggest fear.

“I do,” ChiChi said in that tone that dared him to argue. “You love selflessly, Trey. Unconditionally and more fiercely than anyone I’ve ever met besides my Geno. You make sure that the family business runs smoothly, even picking up the pieces when your siblings overindulge.”

“They just want to see it grow, make it the kind of company Dad and Nonno would be proud of.” Which was why he kept his head down, didn’t bitch when they screwed with his job—well, not too much—and just took care of business.

“They tend to jump in, and you smooth it over, make sure everyone feels taken care of,” she said. “Geno had the same uncanny ability to connect with people, only you care about their path until it consumes yours. It’s a blessing and a curse. You commit yourself with abandon, which means that just like your nonno, you’re selective of who you let in because once they’re in, they get all of you.”

He wasn’t just selective, he was shut off. And until recently, that had worked for him. But lately, ever since Sara and Cooper, shutting off had become more and more difficult.

“No one is more capable of loving than you.” Her voice went soft. “Which is why I wanted to dance with you tonight, Trey. To help me let go, say the kind of good-bye to your grandpa that I wanted to, so I can move on.”

“I don’t understand.” She wanted to move on? What did that even mean?

“I was still mourning my Geno when your parents passed.” ChiChi managed to make the sign of the cross and not even miss a step. Trey, however, nearly took out two other couples. “And you kids needed me so I had to put all my good-byes on hold.”

Trey never knew how to respond when people brought up his parents’ death, especially when it was one of his family members. He’d hoped that by now he would have figured out some magical phrase that would make it easier, because
“
sorry
”
didn’t even begin to make up for their loss.

“I forgot how close together it all happened.”

Geno had passed not too long after the Gala. His parents followed a few short months later. ChiChi moved into the family house to help take care of everyone. Trey had never once considered how difficult that time must have been for her, juggling five grandkids and her own loss.

“If I never said it before, thank you for being there for us,” he said.

“A busy household gave me something to fixate on. I wasn’t ready to let go of Geno or your parents. And you weren’t either. But carrying around all that emotion, all that pain, isn’t good for either of us. I’m ready.”

“To let go?” he had to ask, because he wasn’t ready. Letting go of the pain meant letting go of the guilt, and he couldn’t do that. Not without the fear that he would also let go of all of the memories, that they would fade with the anger.

“I’ve been ready for some time now. I’ve just been waiting for you.”

“Nonna,” he whispered, slowing his pace. She sounded so tired, so weary that Trey wanted to give her what she needed, but he didn’t know if he could.

“I came here tonight to have my final dance and remember my first love, my son, and my beautiful daughter-in-law. Your siblings are happy and settled for the most part, and I want to get to the next chapter of my life before I’m too old to live it.” She looked up at him and he saw something in her eyes that made his chest tighten to the point of pain. “But I promised myself at your parents’ funeral that I wouldn’t let go until you’re ready, Trey.”

Sara watched from her table as Trey waltzed his grandmother in circles around Deidra. Best fan kicks in Vegas or not, ChiChi and her partner were the Fred and Ginger of the evening. Hands down.

The tables’ crisp, white table linens played off of ChiChi’s red dress to perfection, and the crystal vases and flowers seemed somehow to accent her jewelry. Even the elegant chandeliers that hung from the main support of the tent seemed to be the perfect illumination for her complexion.

But watching Trey take his grandmother in his arms, giving in to the showy moves that she’d taught him, just to make ChiChi smile and impress the crowd, was what had Sara going dreamy.

“I see that someone already pinned you,” Roman said, fingering the petals of her flowers.

Sara nodded, remembering the way Trey had looked when she opened the box. Shy and vulnerable and like he was hers. “A friend gave it to me.”

“I had hoped to give you this.” Roman slid a clear box with a cluster of exotic red and orange orchids in it across the table. “But it seems I’m too late. Something that’s been happening a lot lately.”

“It’s beautiful,” she said. Beautiful, bold, and so not her.

He reached across the table and took her hand. “Am I too late, Sara?”

They both knew he wasn’t talking about the flowers anymore.

“I wanted it to be about time,” she said, “because then it could have worked with you. But I think it’s more about the right person than the right time.”

“Ouch.”

“No, I mean,” she placed her free hand over their joined ones, “you are a great dad who is nice and reliable and comfortable and…
safe.”

Sara looked out on the dance floor and spotted Trey with his nonna and realized that he made her feel safe too. But in a different way. He wouldn’t have waited six months for the “right time” or let her analyze them into the neutral zone. Trey took an interest in her, in what she needed to feel comfortable moving forward, and then gave her that. He also made sure to give her every reason to take the leap.

“I sound like a golden retriever.”

She smiled and gave his hand a squeeze. “You sound like me. Don’t you get it? We’re the same person. Kissing me would be like kissing yourself.”

“I’d like the chance to prove you wrong,” he said with a little smile.

“We agree on everything, we love our kids first and foremost, we’re so busy being polite and careful with each other that nothing would ever happen.” She lowered her voice. “I’m your safe bet, Roman, your excuse to stay in that protective bubble and not take a risk.”

Roman looked out at the dance floor, silently watching the couples. She was right, and he knew it.

“I tried passion once,” he admitted. “She left me for my best friend. Safe sounds nice.”

She looked down at the flowers. Roman didn’t want a girl-next-door dance teacher who drove a wagon. He needed someone to bring some fire into his world. “Maybe you just tried the wrong kind of passion.”

Sara closed the box and slid it back across the table. Roman tapped it once with his hand and then put it into his jacket pocket. “Promise me you’ll be careful. Trey is a great guy, and it’s obvious he cares for you, but the whole town knows he’s leaving. It’s what he does.”

“Maybe.” The music began to fade and the dance floor was coming to a halt. “Or maybe it isn’t so much that he leaves, maybe it’s that he hasn’t found the right reason to stay.”

With an understanding smile, that was in complete contradiction to the defeated grunt he released, Roman reached out and cupped her cheek. “Yeah, well, I hope he knows what a lucky son of a bitch he is.”

“It’s starting,” Charles said, hobbling up to the table, a little out of breath and interrupting their moment.

He looked dashing in a vintage, dark-gray tuxedo with a crisp white bowtie and matching kerchief. In one hand he strangled his silver cane, and in the other was a box much like the one Trey gave Sara earlier.

“Artie told me one more song and then it’s time. You’d think a hundred bucks would buy the right to pick what time the song played, but he said he’s the band leader so it’s his call. Artistic license or some baloney.”

Sara looked at Roman to apologize and he gave an understanding nod. “It’s all right, go.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Charles said, tugging her off by the arm. “That sneak Stan is making his move. I saw him buying petunias. The putz. Who would buy a woman like ChiChi petunias? Hurry up, he’s headed right toward her, box in hand. I’m not going to miss pinning her again.”

“Hey, Sara,” Roman said and she gave a last look over her shoulder. “If you ever want to test the ‘just friends’ theory, let me know, because I still think I can rock your world.”

Sara gave him one last smile before Charles, who was quite spry for a man with a cane, pulled her toward the dance floor. Together they moved through the swelling crowd and under the twinkling ball of roses that hung from the center of the party tent, cutting Stan off.

“Chiara Amalia Giovanna Ryo,” Charles said, dropping Sara’s hand and touching the top of his flower box.

“Charlie,” ChiChi turned around, her hand smoothing down her hair. The woman took one glance at the extended box and looked ready to cry.

Trey, however, looked so shocked to see Charles offering up his heart on a platter that he sputtered. Or maybe it was that ChiChi wasn’t batting him off with a broom.

Charles did some sputtering of his own. One glance at ChiChi and it was as though the walls were stripped away and all that was left was a man desperate to claim his true love.

“You look even more beautiful than the last time I stood here with a flower, hoping to pin the prettiest girl at the Gala.” He looked at her wrist and let out a breath of relief when he saw it was still bare.

“What took you so long?” ChiChi asked, her hand clutching her chest, her lashes fluttering. Sara could almost feel her heart thump with the music.

“Sixty years of stubborn pride,” he admitted and ChiChi’s eyes filled with tears. “I used to think that the biggest mistake of my life was not telling you how I felt before Geno did.”