Dreaming of Love (25 page)

He wondered if she’d still want those things if he demolished the building she’d come to love. It had been a hell of a long day, and he was so tired and jet-lagged his eyes were crossing, but he knew he had to ask the nagging question.

“Em, I’m really glad you’re having such a good time, and I want all those things with you, too, but are you sure you can handle it if that property comes down?”

His stomach knotted when Emily’s silence stretched a beat too long, telling him everything he needed to know.

“Em?”

“Yeah. I…I think so. It’s just a house.”

Her tone told him that the house had already become anything but
just a house
to her, and the knot in his stomach clenched a little tighter.

LATER THAT AFTERNOON, after spending the morning cooking with Adelina and Serafina again, Emily visited the vineyard in Chianti. The Chianti estate encompassed hundreds of acres atop a hill, with vineyards stretching as far as the eye could see. In the center of the property was a massive, multilevel estate, with heavy wooden doors and multiple terraces, where the winery was housed. Giovanni was expecting Emily. He was a gracious, balding man with a gray goatee, narrow shoulders, and a voice as elegant as the wine he served. He gave Emily a tour of the facilities, which were spectacular for too many reasons to count, but as Giovanni explained how the grapes were cultivated and the wines were made, her mind was tied up in thoughts of Dae. She wished he were there with her, holding her hand, flashing his sexy smile, stealing kisses. She could hardly believe that he’d taken the time to schedule this private tour for her. But then again, Dae had yet to stop surprising her. She missed his voice, his touch, and of course, his kisses, but most of all, she missed the feeling of completeness she had when they were together. She’d been pushing away thoughts about his making a decision on whether or not to demolish the House of Wishes, and as it threatened her good mood again, she closed her eyes and pushed it farther away.

Giovanni led her out the back doors of the winery onto a slate patio overlooking the vineyards. The fresh air brought Emily’s mind back to the present. It was too early in the season for the grapes to ripen, but she swore she could smell them in the warm summer air.

The view from the patio was breathtaking. The property rose high above other fields and farms. In the distance, hillsides boasted trees, farmhouses, and roads that snaked through the land. The estate itself was surrounded by rows of abundant grapevines.

“Dae mentioned that you would like to walk through the vineyard without a host. Is that so?”

“Oh.” The word came easily, as did the image of Dae’s seductive gaze every time she said it. She blinked away the picture in her mind and tried to sound as if she hadn’t just experienced a full-body shiver with the memory.

“Sure. Yes, okay, thank you.” She wondered why Dae would have wanted her to spend time alone in the vineyard, but he’d surprised her in so many ways already that she didn’t hesitate to accept his offer.

“As you wish.” Giovanni nodded and his thin lips curved into a smile. “Please take your time. If you need anything, you can ask for me at the front desk.”

“Thank you.”

After Giovanni went back inside, Emily took a selfie with the stone mansion behind her and texted Dae.

I’m here and Giovanni is lovely. Thank you. The vineyards are beautiful, but I miss holding your hand. Xox.

She tucked her phone into her purse and strolled through the vineyard. The vines held bunches of tiny green grapes. Emily imagined how beautiful the vines would be in a few short months, when plump, juicy grapes would decorate them. When she reached the end of the rows, she paused to take in the view. It really was beautiful here and visually not so different from Colorado. Rolling mountains gave way to bountiful pastures, with telltale horizontal lines of farms outlined by brush and unplowed fields.

But it sure feels different from home
.

She pulled the journal Dae had given her from her purse and wrote down what she remembered from the tour so she could share it with him. She’d been too distracted to remember much about what Giovanni said, so she described the wine cellar and the taste of the wines. She smiled as she jotted down the mannerisms that she found quirky about Giovanni, like the way his eyelashes fluttered as he sipped the wine and how he continually flicked nonexistent dust from his slacks.

Her mind traveled back to the evening before, and she described the way the women’s voices and faces were filled with so much emotion throughout the evening and how it created a pulse in the air. She wrote about how Serafina’s hope was renewed overnight and how Adelina had never looked happier than when they’d arrived back home that evening and she’d fallen into Marcello’s open arms as she whispered,
It’s done. We did good.

She set her pen down in the center of the journal and exhaled. She knew it was silly for her to feel so attached to a house that she hadn’t even known existed two weeks ago. And it was even more unlike her to let something like that have such a big impact on her life decisions. She adored Dae. He’d waltzed into her life as if he belonged there, and her heart had responded by opening up and embracing everything about him—almost. She was still stumbling over his career, and more specifically, over the darn House of Wishes.

Why had that house become so tethered to her heart?

She pulled out her cell phone and scrolled through the pictures that Dae had sent her. How had her life changed so much? How had she changed so much so fast? She couldn’t imagine a life without him by her side. Was she feeling so different and so in love because she was in Tuscany, where every breeze smelled of romance?

She scrolled through the pictures of them together. It wasn’t Tuscany.

It was him.

“I do love you, Dae.”

She stared at the picture of them in front of the cathedral and touched her lips with the memory of their first kiss.

Emily thought about Adelina and Serafina and the way Adelina seemed to know just what Serafina needed. Emily was a capable woman, and she thought of herself as having very few issues she couldn’t handle on her own, but this one felt a little too big and a little too emotional to try to wade through alone.

She drew her shoulders back and dialed her mother’s number.

“Emily? What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

“Nothing. Why do you sound so frantic? I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Emily, honey, do you realize it’s only five in the morning here? You scared the daylights out of me. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Oh no! I forgot about the time difference. Mom, I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.” How could she have been so wrapped up in her own turmoil that she’d forgotten she was a million miles away?

“Oh, no, you don’t. Now that my heart has leaped from my chest and flopped on the floor a half dozen times? No way, honey. Now you have to talk to me. How are you? How’s Italy? Daisy tells me that you’ve been shot by Cupid’s arrow.”

Catherine Braden had raised six children on her own after her husband had taken off with a woman from a neighboring town. He’d had the nerve to come back to try to squeeze Catherine’s inheritance from her, but from what Emily had heard over the years, her uncle Hal, who lived in Weston, Colorado, had gotten wind of her father’s underhanded ways and put a stop to them. At six foot six, Uncle Hal was a formidable man, with shoulders as wide as a stairwell and a barrel chest that even in his sixties still roared of virility. Emily didn’t want to know what he’d done to her father. Braden loyalty ran deep, and Catherine was every bit as protective of her brood as Uncle Hal was of those he loved.

Emily heard that protectiveness in her mother’s voice now, and for some reason it made her feel as though she might cry.

“Italy is amazing, and yes, Daisy’s right. That’s really why I’m calling.”

“Hold on, honey. I need to be up for this.”

She heard her mother shifting on her bed and breathing a little harder. She was on the move. Emily imagined her walking through the sprawling house on top of the mountain that Emily had grown up in, making her way down the stairs to the kitchen.

“Okay, coffeemaker is on, sweetie. What’s going on?”

Emily sighed, suddenly feeling both a little foolish for having woken her mother up and relieved to be talking with her.

“I don’t even know where to start.”

“The beginning is rarely best when it comes to matters of the heart. So why don’t you start with what’s going on right now. I assume if you’re calling me at the crack of dawn, then you’re having a hard time.”

“Kind of, yeah. His name is Dae Bray, and, Mom, he’s the most wonderful man I’ve ever met. We met the first night I was here, and we’ve spent every day together since.” She realized her lips were curved in an effortless smile.

“This is good news. He treats you well, he’s a good man, and all that, I assume? Someone your slightly overprotective brothers won’t want to clobber?”

“Oh my goodness, yes. Total alpha, but with a tender side, like they are.”

“I’m not an expert on love, Em. You know this. Obviously there’s a
but
coming, so lay it on me.”

Emily inhaled deeply and blew it out slowly. “He’s a demolitionist. He tears down or blows up things. Houses, buildings, whatever.”

“Okay. I see. Well…that’s not the end of the world. We need demolitionists in our world; you know that.”

“Yup.”

“You’re not a small-minded person, so I can’t imagine that you’d feel like you were at odds with this man’s career.”

Emily closed her eyes.

“Oh, my word. Emily Braden, what has gotten into you?”

“Nothing!” She stood and paced. “I’m not at odds with his career in general. He loves what he does. I’d never try to change that.”
Would I? Am I?

“Then I need coffee more than I thought.”

She heard the clank of silverware to cup and imagined her mother in her sleeping shirt, sitting down at her large dining room table, staring out at the mountains and shaking her head at her bullheaded daughter.

“There’s this house here that has this myth attached to it. They call it the House of Wishes. Women come from all over to make wishes that supposedly come true. It’s an amazing property with an old house that has this massive tree growing right in the wall. And, Mom, I went last night with the women who run the villa where I’m staying, and there must have been fifty women there. It was as warm as a family reunion, only most of these women didn’t even know one another. But they came together to wish for the property to be saved from demolition, and the energy, the sense of community and caring…It was amazing. And that’s the house that Dae was here to tear down.”

“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. This is the Emily I know and love. You’ve fallen in love with what that house represents. With the sense of community and the mythical qualities that it brings with it. Em, don’t you see? That’s how you were raised. We care about family and traditions above all else. It’s in your blood. Think about college breaks, when everyone came home, or even now, when Pierce and Jake come into town.”

“And we all get together? I love that so much.”

“Exactly. It’s what has always made you the happiest, being with those you love. I’m the same way. You’re so used to our attitude of family and traditions trumping all else that you expect Dae to be the same way. You probably don’t even realize it, but a part of you wants him to prove he loves you by not tearing down a house that is attached to something you’ve come to cherish.”

“You don’t have to make me sound so selfish.”
I seem to be doing that just fine on my own.

“Oh, Emily. First of all, I know you well enough to realize that you don’t actually
need
him to prove his love by not tearing down that house.”

“Thank you.” She held her chin up a little higher.

“But…I also know you well enough to know that you’ve been this way your whole life. You see things in black-and-white. Since you were little you judged right and wrong based on what your heart felt, rather than, well, in some cases, what made sense. And you’ve never had much tolerance for those who didn’t see things your way.”

Emily hadn’t counted on her mother knowing her better than she knew herself, which was stupid, really, because Catherine Braden not only made it her business to know her children well, but she also had no issue pulling them back down to reality when they needed it.

“I think I’m very reasonable.” She had to at least try to defend herself.

“Reasonable, yes. But tolerant? Not so much.”

“Mom,” she huffed.

“Think about it, Em. You’re in a field where perfection counts, and you’re rarely tolerant of builders straying from your plans. You have always spoken your mind, and when you think you’re right, it takes a lot to convince you otherwise. Not that that’s bad. I admire your tenacity. I think everyone who knows you does, but, Em, what do you really want from Dae? Do you really want him to make his career decisions based on you?”

“No, of course not.”
Maybe a little?

“You sound certain, but I’m not buying it.”

Her mother had always been straightforward, and usually she appreciated that. Today Emily wondered if her mother could try to buy it. Even if just a little?

“Emily, you are a kindhearted, sensitive woman. You’re intelligent, successful, and as strong and stubborn as any of your brothers. And as much as I love you, I’m not going to pretend that those qualities won’t sometimes cause you trouble in a relationship. No relationship is easy.”

“I know, but Luke, Wes, Pierce, and Ross make it look easy.”

“Oh, honey. They adore their girls, but it’s never easy. We don’t know what goes on behind closed doors. Think about it. Do you think Callie loves Wes coming home with stitches or broken bones from wrestling cattle or mountain climbing or whatever else he does?”

Emily laughed. Callie was very sweet and demure while Wes was a thrill seeker. They’d all seen the way Callie gasped and turned away when he was bull riding or roping steer and how Wes softened when he was around her.