Love's Harvest (A Salmon Run Novel Book 1) Read online

  She heard the Spanish-speaking people sing with hushed passion as the violinist played. Julia calmed down even further as Diego added his voice to the chorus. The vibration she felt as she lay across his chest comforted her and gave her the strength she needed to finally sit up. She lifted her head, grabbed her napkin to wipe her eyes, and smiled into the concerned face of her orchard manager.

  “I think it’s time for me to go. Thank you for listening and for allowing me to mess up your shirt.” Julia became all business. “Please let Rafael and your sister know the four of us must meet tomorrow morning to work out a strategy for the next few weeks. I’ll see you at the office, eight a.m. sharp?”

  Diego stood and helped Julia climb out of the picnic seat. In an effort to iron out the wrinkles in the skirt of her dress, Julia swooped the palms of her hands across her front. She felt somewhat embarrassed by her earlier actions, but realized no one else seemed to notice all that much. Or to even care.

  “May I walk you back to your door?” Diego asked. Julia sensed the man wasn’t quite sure of what to do or how to act. One moment he held her in his arms. The next she was ordering him about as if he were nothing more than her employee. Yet, the fact of the matter was she was his employer. Being reminded of that fact didn’t sit well with Julia. She could only guess Diego may feel the same.

  Diego’s offer took Julia by surprise. Part of her realized he was merely being thoughtful. Another part of her recognized how much she appreciated his attention and care. She chalked up her feelings to being physically tired and emotionally exhausted. Why else would she be having these crazy thoughts?

  “No. That won’t be necessary. You should stay here with your family and friends. And I should go home and get to bed early tonight. We have a busy week ahead of us. Good night. And thank you again, Diego, for everything.”

  Chapter 3

  Several hours passed before Diego fell asleep. He was worn out physically, but mentally his thoughts refused to stop racing through his mind. When he finally relaxed enough to be swept into unconsciousness, his dreams took on a life of their own. It has been months since he thought, let alone dreamed, of Paulina and the betrayal of his best friend Jorge.

  Why should he? That sad event happened years ago, even though the dream felt as if it’d occurred yesterday. The woman whom Diego had promised his love and life had left him. Who could blame her? What was supposed to take a few months lasted much longer.

  Eight years ago, when Diego left Mexico with a pregnant Mariela and a three-year-old Eduardo to meet Rafael in the States, he promised Paulina he’d send for her as soon as he was established.

  He was certain he’d get a job teaching with little or no problem, but that wasn’t the case. After months of interviewing and petitioning the local government to accept his teaching credential, Diego finally realized there was little or no hope for him to continue pursuing a teaching position. And even though he officially came to the United States, thanks to Rafael’s hard work, Diego might as well have been an illegal for all his teaching experience brought him.

  Paulina grew tired of waiting. It was as simple as that. Jorge always had a soft place in his heart for the woman. He was rich. He could offer Paulina what Diego would never be able to do, especially on a teacher’s salary.

  Usually the dreams repeated throughout the night. Paulina, buried alive, compelled Diego to dig furiously before she suffocated. Of course, he never dug fast enough. The more he clawed at the dirt, the faster the loose soil fell back into the pit. In another scenario, Paulina drowned in the ocean. No matter how fervently he swam, he couldn’t rescue her. The faster he flailed his arms, the farther she drifted from his sight.

  Tonight, his nightmare was unlike any before. This time he was the one trapped alive in a coffin. Julia, through her unrelenting digging, was the one to rescue and revive him.

  Diego awoke with a start. He remembered every detail clearly, as if the event had been real and not merely a dream. Sitting upright, Diego gasped for breath. His heart raced, and for a few seconds he believed he was having an attack of some kind.

  He rose and paced his room for nearly twenty minutes before his pulse quieted and his mind stilled. He glanced over at the clock. Four a.m. Far too early to get up, especially on a Sunday, so he returned to bed and tried to sleep. About ready to drift off, he thought he heard someone playing the piano. Julia. Who else besides himself would be awake on this sultry night?

  He lay in bed and listened to what he suspected was Chopin, perhaps one of the Nocturnes. With his eyes closed, he imagined Julia sitting at her piano in a sheer nightgown, her hair down around her shoulders rather than pulled back into the tight chignon she most often wore. She couldn’t sleep either.

  Diego began to think of all the ways he could help Julia let go the concerns of the day and surrender to the night. The first thing he’d do would be to bring her to his bed, pull her close to him, and stroke her beautiful blonde hair away from her creased brow. He’d cover her in soft kisses—her face, her neck, her long graceful fingers, the insides of her arms. His free hand would make minute circles against her back while his mouth found first one breast and then the other, determined to bring her to pleasure.

  Suddenly Diego’s startled eyes opened wide. What the hell was he thinking? Julia could never be interested in him. He was nothing—a mere field hand with little or no future. She, on the other hand, was an elegant and sophisticated woman—a professional musician and business woman. And a recent widow.

  How could he have forgotten that? How dare he cut in on Robert less than twenty-four hours since the man was laid in the earth? Was he that much of a brute to want a woman as beautiful and inaccessible as Julia?

  The piano music finally stopped. After what felt like hours of turning and tossing, Diego at last fell back to sleep. It didn’t take much time, however, before a new dream surfaced, even more real than the last. Surrounded by miles of ocean, he sensed he was in the middle of drowning, going down for the third time, and paddling madly to stay afloat.

  He heard his madre pray his soul to Heaven—to at last find the peace he so desperately sought. Sinking through the cool water to his death, Diego’s body surrendered to the inevitable. Just as he was about to give up, someone took him by the arm and pulled him toward the glimmering surface.

  As soon as he drew breath, he saw her. A woman in a sheer nightgown with long blonde hair. Damn if it wasn’t her: Julia. Diego wanted this moment to last forever. Instead he heard something which sounded a great deal like his alarm clock. What was an alarm clock doing in the ocean?

  Diego slowly opened his eyes to his sunlit room. He squinted at his clock. Eight a.m. He reached over and tapped the alarm button. It was obvious he was alive and wide awake. What a strange dream! To be salvaged by an angelic mermaid who happened to look a great deal like his employer.

  Dios mio! These dreams, although much better than the nightmares of his past, were all the more disturbing. He longed to discover what they meant. But, it was time to join Mariela and her family for Sunday Mass, thus the alarm.

  He couldn’t help but laugh at the irony of the situation. Here, he lay in bed. For the first time in years, his cock was stiffer than the wooden posts that held the wires over which grapevines grew. He didn’t have a woman in his bed to help him do anything about it. Least of all Julia.

  ~ ~ ~

  Julia stood in her bedroom and stared at her bed. It’d been months since Robert had slept with her in this room. The hospital had become his home away from home. Now, he was gone and their bed all the more desolate. While he was alive, Julia made sure when she did sleep at home, she did on the left, her side of the bed.

  What was she supposed to do? Stay on her side? Position herself in the middle? The longer she stared at the bed, the deeper the answer burrowed. She was too tired to work it out now, so she grabbed a pillow
and a few blankets from the hall closet and camped out on the sofa. Turning off the light and placing her robe on the nearby Queen Anne chintz-covered chair, she crawled into her makeshift bed and closed her eyes. Her body exhausted, the longer she lay there, the more active her brain became.

  What in the world is happening with Gayle and James? What’s he alluding to? The winery is as much his and Gayle’s as it is mine. Didn’t they want to see the winery succeed?

  Julia understood the financial pressure the winery had been on the entire family. She wasn’t a fool. The costs of her father-in-law’s stay at the Alzheimer ward of the local assisted living facility weren’t cheap, nor were Robert’s doctor bills and hospital stays—and now the funeral on top of that.

  At least, she’d had Robert buried in the family plot not far from the vineyard and next to the local cemetery. It was where his mother and grandparents had been interred and where she too would one day be laid to rest.

  The clock chimed three and still Julia lay awake. Clearly she wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight. Besides, the sofa was the most uncomfortable thing she had ever lain on in her life—far too short and narrow for Julia’s five-foot-eight-inch frame. Even with her recent weight loss—at least twenty pounds she judged from the way her clothes fit—the cushions on the sofa were too stiff and constricting.

  Finally, she got up, threw her robe on, and shuffled into the kitchen where she made herself a cup of hot chocolate. She sat down at the piano. The room was dark, save for the piano light. Nothing made her feel more at peace than the Chopin Nocturnes.

  Julia had successfully recorded all twenty, one of them a year prior to Robert’s diagnosis and still had them in her fingers. One of her favorites was “Opus 9, Number 2” in E flat major. Accompanying the right hand with the triplet figures in the left, she hummed softly along with its seductive melody.

  This particular nocturne always turned her inward, as if in private conversation with God. The empty, night-encircled house filled itself with the warmth of her piano playing. Julia closed her eyes and felt the tears once again rolling down her cheeks—each one washing her clean of worry and sorrow.

  When Julia woke later that morning, she found herself in her own bed, not remembering how she actually had gotten there. Her bedclothes were on the floor, yet neither could she remember taking them off. The sheets felt soft and cool against her naked skin.

  As if caressed by some unknown yet benevolent force, she recognized today was a new day. The time for mourning had finally come to an end. Julia loved the passage in the Bible which read, “There is a time from every season under heaven. A time to dance, and a time to heal, to build, to laugh and to embrace . . .”

  She looked at her bedside clock. 9:30 a.m. Actually, now was not the most perfect time to dance, but it was good enough to get up and dress for church.

  ~ ~ ~

  Diego hardly kept his eyes open at Mass. The droning voice of Father Juan was more effective than a mother’s lullaby inducing him to sleep. When the service ended, Diego rushed out of the chapel and into the fresh air. Slowly, he and Mariela sauntered arm-in-arm back to the workers’ compound while the children up ahead danced around their father.

  “You know what you’re thinking isn’t a good idea, sí?”

  “What are you talking about?” Diego slowed his gait even more.

  “I’m talking about you and the Señora. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m saying. What’s the matter with you? It’s still far too early for her to have finished mourning for her husband. And even if it wasn’t, she isn’t interested in some farmhand. She is a famous woman, not some poor girl waiting for some man to come along and rescue her. Don’t forget. She’s your boss, not your amiga.”

  Diego stopped in his tracks and stared intensely at his sister. His voice was soft but firm.

  “You need to mind your own business, Mariela. How I feel and what I do about those feelings are my business and mine alone.”

  Mariela touched his face. “I just don’t want to see you go through the same kind of pain you did with Paulina. True, it isn’t my business. But I’m your sister, and I love you. I don’t want to see any harm come to you, not if I can help it. You know, a man’s heart can only take so much.”

  He saw tears form in Mariela’s eyes as he placed his hand over hers.

  “I know. I love you, too, Mariela. You must trust that I know what’s best for me. Besides, because of you and the children and Rafael, my heart’s stronger now than ever. Whatever I’m meant to encounter in this life, right now in this moment, I’m ready. I’m not blind to the situation either, not like last time. I hear what you’re saying, and I’ll think seriously on it.”

  The two linked their arms again and continued their walk.

  “I pray you do, Diego. Pido a Dios que hacer.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Normally, Julia enjoyed Pastor Knudson’s Sunday morning sermons, but today she had trouble concentrating. Off and on she searched throughout the sanctuary for James and Gayle, but they weren’t anywhere to be seen. It was probably just as well.

  They’d said what needed to be said at yesterday’s reception. That still was only the tip of the iceberg. Church was simply not the place to air the family’s dirty laundry. Sooner or later she’d have to confront her brother-in-law and his wife if this tension between them was ever going to dissipate. Right now, she’d rather poke herself in the eye, twice even, than deal with either James or Gayle. James because of his expertise at intimidation and Gayle because she was more than a sister-in-law, she was a friend. Or at least she’d been one for a long time.

  Julia had asked the two of them for time, but exactly how long would to take to put the winery back on the map? A year?

  Six months? Less than that? The only person who could possibly give her the answer was Diego. And perhaps Mariela. Both of them had a far better idea of how to run the winery than Julia did. Yet every time she tried to talk to either one of them, they seemed distant, apathetic even. It wasn’t that they weren’t friendly.

  That was obvious from last night’s celebration. Julia could tell the two of them were holding back. Was it a cultural thing? Maybe it was the language barrier. Perhaps something about her presence interfered with the ability of Mariela and her brother to draw close to her. Whatever it was, Julia was determined to get to the bottom of it.

  The four hours of sleep she had the night before no longer gave her the energy she needed to continue with her day when Julia made her way home from church. Grateful Mariela had given her a plate of food before she left the party, Julia threw it in the microwave and ate it quickly so as not to fall asleep at the table. She stumbled into bed and slept for the greater part of the afternoon.

  ~ ~ ~

  That afternoon, Diego helped Eduardo and Felicia with their homework. It was summer, so the children obviously did not attend school. Even during the school year, many of the youngsters at the compound did not attend. Most of the workers were illegal immigrants and feared the public school authorities would notify immigration, which might mean immediate deportation.

  Eduardo and Felicia were lucky. Mariela and Rafael had legal permission to work in the States. It was difficult to force the legalized children to attend school when so many of their less fortunate friends did not. So they all stayed home.

  Diego, having been a teacher in Mexico, was not about to allow his niece and nephew to go without some kind of education. He and Rafael developed a home-school program for the children of the compound and made sure each of them read the materials and did their homework daily, except on Saturdays. If they didn’t, the children weren’t allowed to participate in their favorite activity, soccer.

  Today, Eduardo wasn’t in the mood to do much of anything, and that included his studies. “Uncle Diego, why do I have to know the names of all fifty of the United
States? I live in Washington. That should be enough.”

  Before Diego could get out a single word, Felicia added her two cents. “You’re so dumb. You live in the United States—not one state. If you live in this country, you have to know and understand it. Isn’t that what you always say, Uncle Diego?”

  “I am not dumb. You’re dumb. I can’t live in fifty states at the same time, and neither can you. It’s enough to know and understand Washington. Besides, I’m only living here for now. Soon, I’m going back to Mexico. I miss mis abuelos, my grandma and grandpa, and all of our cousins. In Mexico, everyone likes me, not like here where everyone is mean.” Eduardo wadded up the paper in front of him, threw his pencil across the room, and ran out the door toward the vineyard.

  Diego was set to run after him. That was until he heard Felicia whimper.

  “I’m sorry, Uncle Diego. I know I should not say anything to Eduardo, but he always makes everything so hard. When he gets angry and mean, I feel angry and mean, too.”

  The little girl reached up and Diego set her on his lap.

  “Are you unhappy here? Do you want to go back to Mexico, too?”

  Felicia thought for a moment. “No, I’m happy here. I have you and my parents. The Señora is very, very nice to me, too. I like her so much. Don’t you?”

  Well, that certainly put him on the spot. “Yes. Señora Julia is very nice.” Diego took in a deep breath. “Listen. I’m going to find Eduardo and talk some sense into that thick head of his. In the meantime, I want you to finish your homework. Okay?”

  Felicia glanced up at her uncle and smiled. “Okie dokie, artichokie! Señor Robert taught me to say that.”

  Diego affectionately mussed up the curls on the top of his niece’s head and took off toward the vineyard. Not wanting the boy to run away from him, he decided not to call out but rather to quietly search up and down the rows of vines. At last he saw a pair of barefoot legs stretched out across a pathway dividing two rows. As he neared Eduardo, he heard the boy sobbing.