Baby, It's You Read Free Page A

he wasn’t sure he believed them. He knew he’d better believe them, though, if he expected to get any sleep for the next four years.
    Angela gave him a little shrug. “It’s okay. That guy looked like a jerk, anyway.”
    That was Angela. So forgiving. Sometimes a little too forgiving. He wanted to shout at her, If you meet a guy who behaves badly, don’t you dare excuse it! But if she hadn’t learned that lesson already, was repeating it now going to make any difference?
    As they walked to his truck, Marc dreaded every step he took more than the one before it. He clicked open his door with the remote, then turned back to Angela.
    “Do you want me to stay for a while? Maybe take you and your new roommate to get a bite to eat?”
    Angela looked back over her shoulder. “Uh…”
    Marc held up his hand. “Never mind. You already have plans.”
    “It’s just that Kim and I thought we’d walk around campus and check things out a little. Just to see what’s going on. You know.”
    Silence.
    “I don’t like missing harvest this year,” Angela said.
    “You hate harvest.”
    “Yeah, I know,” she said with a little shrug, folding her arms and staring down at her blue-frosted toenails. “But it’s all hands on deck, you know?”
    Marc felt a stab of remembrance. That was what he’d told her from the time she was old enough to snip grapes off of vines. At this vineyard, everybody pulls his weight. And that goes double if your name is Cordero.
    “Uncle Daniel is coming back,” Marc said. “We’ll get it done.”
    She nodded, then smiled briefly. “Do you remember the time when I was six and I ate fifty-four Tempranillo grapes?”
    That felt like a hundred years ago. Had it really been only twelve? “I was thrilled you could count that high.”
    “Purple puke isn’t pretty, is it?”
    “Not in the least.”
    “Why didn’t you stop me?”
    “Because experience is the best teacher.”
    Angela looked over her shoulder at the sea of students, then back at Marc. “Then maybe I’d better go experience some stuff, huh?”
    This is it. It’s time for you to go, old man. So go.
    “Call me if you need anything,” he told Angela.
    “I will.”
    “Or even if you don’t.”
    She nodded. For a few seconds, neither one of them spoke. Then Angela’s face crumpled. She took a step forward and wound her arms around his neck in a desperate hug. Suddenly she was six years old again, with her little hands holding on tightly because of a bad dream or a scraped knee, or sometimes just because he’d been twice as important to her because he was Dad and Mom all rolled into one. As he held her tightly, she whispered, “I love you, Dad,” into his ear, and he whispered that he loved her, too.
    Finally she pulled away, sniffing a little. He opened the door to his truck and got inside. She took a few steps back from the curb and wiped tears from her eyes. As Marc started the car, he was pretty sure he was going to cry, too, and he hadn’t done that since he was seven years old.
    No. Get yourself together. This is a good thing. For the first time in eighteen years, your life is your own.
    He put the truck in gear. Angela waved good-bye, and he waved back. As he drove away, he glanced in his rearview mirror to see her turn around and walk away from him and into her new life.
    It was time for him to do the same.
    By the time he was heading back toward Rainbow Valley, he was ticking off all the reasons why this new chapter in his life was going to be a good thing. But before he could change his life completely, he had to get through harvest. Daniel would be there in a few weeks. That had been their agreement. As soon as Angela was in college, Daniel would come back to Cordero Vineyards to assume responsibility for the family business for the next three years, carrying on the tradition Marc had guarded all this time.
    Once his brother took over, Marc intended to hop on his motorcycle and hit the open road. Where he’d go, he