In Your Dreams (Blue Heron #4)(75)
“Please give me another chance!” The sobs were tearing out of her.
He hadn’t expected that.
He got a washcloth and wiped her face, held her tight, feeling like an absolute prick...and wondering how exactly that had happened. Poured her a hefty glass of wine, and another for himself, and assured her he didn’t want a divorce.
And he didn’t. He just wanted a better marriage.
The next day, Hadley wasn’t home when he got back from Blue Heron. She came through the door a half an hour later, her face bright. “Guess who just got a job!” she said.
She was sorry about the credit cards. She would pay them off. He was right, she’d gone a little crazy, but now she had a job and all would be put right as rain.
Her job was clerking in the gift shop of Dandelion Hill, another winery on Keuka, run by Oliver Linton, a transplanted Wall Streeter who’d retired at the age of forty and bought a vineyard. Nice guy, as Jack knew from the wine association meetings and various events all the vineyards participated in. Oliver even took them out for dinner, and they reciprocated by inviting him up to the house one night, and it seemed that, finally, things were on the right track.
Jack was stunned at the relief he felt. Hadley had a job, a place to go every day, and it seemed like exactly what she needed. She laughed more and had more to say, funny little stories about the people she met or Dandelion Hill’s grouchy shop manager. Things became more down to earth, more normal...happier.
It was almost liberating, her feet of clay. When they’d first met, she’d been perfect. Now she was real. Yes, yes, she spent too much money and played the victim when she felt defensive. But no one was perfect. She was happier now. She even started talking about kids.
“Jack, I have the best news!” Hadley said one night, bursting into the house, and his heart leaped. She was pregnant. It had to be. “Oliver wants me to redecorate! At last!”
Ah. Well, that was nice, too.
“What?” she said.
“I thought you might be pregnant.”
Something flickered across her face. “Oh. No. Not yet. But it’s still good news! Oliver wants me to redo the tasting room!”
Hadley threw herself into the job. Spent huge amounts of time on her laptop, talked about fabric choices and stool styles and glasses, all the stuff that Jack pretty much ignored at Blue Heron, as it fell under Honor’s reign.
Oliver took to calling her in the evenings, and she’d apologize to Jack and then skip upstairs to the room she’d made into her office. She took even more care with her appearance, and when he teased her about it, she slapped his arm and said, “Jack! I’m not just a clerk anymore. I’m a decorator, baby. I have to look the part.” Finally, she started making female friends, a couple of women who also worked at Dandelion Hill. Hadley joined their weekly book club, though they never seemed to read anything.
Jack hadn’t seen her this happy since the wedding.
The only fly in the ointment was, oddly enough, sex. They just weren’t doing it as much these days. “Oh, sugar, I’m sorry. I’m just exhausted,” she explained. “And don’t ask me why, because when there’s news, mister, you’ll be the first to hear it. I’m not one of those women who tells the whole wide world ten minutes after she conceives.”
A baby. No, it was smart to be sure first, but Jack felt something huge move in his chest.
“Stop looking at me with that goofy face, Jack Holland,” she said teasingly. “What did I just tell you?” Her phone rang, even though it was after nine. “Oh, dang it, it’s Oliver, I swear that man cannot find his car keys without a flashlight and a blue heeler hound dog. Hello? Oliver, honest to goodness! I have no idea!” She smiled at Jack and left the room, still gabbing.
About two weeks after she hinted about the pregnancy, Jack decided to leave work early. He and Dad had been checking the tanks and doing some projections for the spring planting with Pru, but it was a quiet time of year. He stopped at the horrifyingly expensive gourmet market that had just opened, bought some filet mignon and cheese and asparagus. Allison and Charles Whitaker were there, too; they lived near Pru and came to Blue Heron all the time. “Making dinner for your bride?” Allison asked.
“I sure am,” Jack said.
“Why don’t you ever make me dinner?” she asked Charles, giving him a sharp elbow in the side. Her husband gave Jack a dark look and muttered something, and Jack left them, bickering in front of the beautiful, organic, locally-grown-and-prayed-over-by-the-monks-of-Saint-Benedict’s vegetables.
Next, he swung by Laura Boothby’s shop, flirted with her for a few minutes and got a bouquet of red roses. “Young love.” Laura sighed. “You sicken me, Jack. But keep coming in, hon. You’re good for business.”
Last stop was the package store in town. Granted, he had a vast collection, but Hadley liked French champagne. Tonight, he wanted her to have something special, because since the big credit card debacle, she hadn’t bought one thing that wasn’t strictly necessary, and Jack was feeling a little miserly.
Also, they might have something to celebrate, in which case he’d put the champagne in the wine cellar and open it on their child’s birthday. If she wasn’t preggers, then hell. This would be her little treat. She was mighty cute when she was tipsy. (And mighty horny, too, so maybe Jack would finally get a little, because it had been a couple of weeks. An eternity, in other words.)