Wanting What She Can't Have

* * *

Over the next few days Raoul remained pretty scarce, which served as a source of major frustration. Alexis wanted to gently include him in more of Ruby’s routine here and there, but he always managed to duck away before she had a chance. On the bright side, the brief interaction Ruby had shared with her father seemed to have piqued her curiosity about the stern-faced man who hung around the fringes of her little world. Instead of crying every time she saw him she was more inclined to drop everything and barrel forward on all fours toward him if he so much as made a step into her periphery.

It was both highly amusing to see him realize that Ruby had fixated on him, and a bit sad, as well, that he distanced himself from her again so effectively afterward.

One step forward at a time, Alexis reminded herself. She and Ruby fell into an easy daily routine, helped in no small part by the fact that Catherine had enrolled the baby into a playgroup down in town where she happily interacted with other children her age and slightly older. It was good for both of them to get out of the house and interact with other people. Despite having been born a little early, Ruby was only marginally behind her peers when it came to developmental markers, Alexis observed.

One of the young mothers came over to Alexis and sat down beside her.

“Hi, I’m Laura,” she said with a bright smile. “That’s my little tyke, Jason, over there.” She pointed to a little boy in denim jeans and brightly colored suspenders busily commando crawling toward the sandpit.

“Alexis, pleased to meet you,” Alexis replied with a smile.

“Have you heard how Catherine is doing? We all have been wondering but didn’t want to be a nuisance.”

“The surgery went well. She’s at her sister’s home in Cashmere, recuperating. If you’re heading into Christchurch at all, I’m sure she’d love it if you called by to visit.”

“Oh, thanks, that’s good to know.”

Laura sat back and watched the kids playing for a while. Alexis sensed she was trying to drum up the courage to say something but was perhaps figuring out the best way around it. Eventually, though, she seemed to come to a decision.

“We were surprised when we heard that Ruby was staying with her dad. Especially given...” Her voice trailed off and she looked uncomfortable. “Look, I don’t want you to think I’m prying but is everything okay at the house? We were, most of us, friends with Bree during our pregnancies and our partners and Raoul all got along pretty well. We had our own little social group going. Aside from missing Bree, we really miss Raoul, too. All the guys have tried to reach out to him since Bree died, but he’s just cut ties with everyone.”

Alexis nodded. It was hard to come up with what to say, when it wasn’t really her place to say anything.

“Things are going well at the house. We’ve settled in to a good routine,” she hedged.

The fact that routine didn’t include Ruby’s father went unsaid. Raoul continued to spend the better part of most days in the winery. He’d made his displeasure clear on the few occasions when, at the beginning, Alexis and Ruby had walked down to bring him his lunch.

“Oh, oh, that’s good,” Laura said with a relieved smile. “Better than I expected to hear, anyway. You were friends with Bree, weren’t you?”

“Since kindergarten,” Alexis said, swallowing against the bitter taste of guilt that rose in her throat. “We went through school together near Blenheim and kind of drifted apart a bit when she went up to Auckland for university. We used to catch up whenever she was home, though, and stayed in touch until she married and I went overseas.”

Even as she said the words, she was reminded again of how she’d jumped on the opportunity to leave the country rather than remain and witness her friend’s happiness. Shame shafted a spear through her chest, making her breath hitch and a sudden wash of tears spring to her eyes.

“We all miss her so much,” Laura said, misunderstanding the reason behind Alexis’s distress.

Laura reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. Alexis felt like a fraud accepting the other woman’s sympathy. She hardly deserved it when she’d been the one to abandon Bree. She hadn’t been here, hadn’t even known what was going on, when her friend had needed her most—and all because she hadn’t been able to keep her wretched hormones under control. She owed Bree a debt. It was why she was here now, and why she would stay as long as Ruby needed her, no matter what Raoul chose to throw at her.

Laura continued on. “Look, weather permitting, the playgroup is having a family lunch at the beach this Sunday afternoon. We’re not planning to swim or anything, it’s far too cold already this autumn, but there are barbecues and a playground and tables and it’s so much easier to clean up afterward with the little ones. You and Ruby should come. And bring Raoul along, too, it’ll do him good to mix with his mates again.”

“I—I’m not sure. Can I confirm with you later on?”

It was one thing to accept an invitation for herself and Ruby, but quite another to do so for a man who’d clearly chosen to remove himself from his social circle.

“Sure,” Laura said with an enthusiastic smile. She gave Alexis her cell number. “Just fire me a text if you’re coming.”

When Alexis got back home, Ruby was already asleep in her car seat. She carefully lifted the sleeping infant and transferred her into her crib, taking a moment to watch her. Her heart broke for the wee thing. No mother, barely a father, either. Alexis’s hands gripped the side rail of the crib, her knuckles whitening. She had to try harder. Somehow, she had to get Raoul to open his life, to open his heart again. If she didn’t she would have failed everyone, but most of all this precious wee scrap sleeping so innocently in front of her.

Four

Sunday dawned bright and clear. Raoul eyed the cloudless sky with a scowl. He’d been adamantly opposed to attending this thing today. Adamantly. Yet Alexis had barreled on as if he hadn’t said no. In fact, when he thought about it, she hadn’t so much asked him if he would go along, she pretty much told him he was going.

For a fleeting moment he considered disappearing to the winery, or even farther into his vineyards. Not that there’d be many places to hide there as the vines headed into their seasonal slumber, the leaves already turning and falling away. It was a shame it was still too early to start pruning. He could have lied and said that the work absolutely had to be done and right away, but he knew Alexis had grown up on a vineyard, too. She’d have known he wasn’t telling the truth the instant he opened his mouth.

His stomach tied in knots. He really couldn’t do this. Couldn’t face the well-meaning looks and the sympathetic phrases people trotted out—as if any of it would change the past. And he really didn’t need to be within fifty meters of Alexis Fabrini for the better part of an afternoon.

Each day she was here he was reminded anew of how his body had reacted to her ever since the first time he’d seen her. About how his wife might now be dead and gone but his own needs and desires certainly weren’t. After losing Bree, he’d believed that part of himself to be dormant to the point of extinction, until the second Alexis had walked into his winery. The discovery that all his body parts still worked just fine was a major, and often uncomfortable, inconvenience.

“Oh, good, you’re ready!”

Alexis’s ever-cheerful voice came from behind him. Instantly, every cell in his body leaped to aching life. Since that incident in the nursery the other day, he’d struggled to maintain a semblance of physical control. Even now the vision of her long legs and the curve of her pert bottom filled his mind. He slowly turned around.

Ruby was in Alexis’s arms. Dressed in pink denim dungarees with a candy-striped long-sleeve knit shirt underneath and with a pale pink beret on her little head, she was the epitome of baby chic. She ducked her head into the curve of Alexis’s neck, then shyly looked back at him, a tentative smile curving her rosebud mouth and exposing the tiny teeth she had in front.

His heart gave an uncomfortable tug. God, she was so beautiful, so like her mother. Ruby’s smile widened and he felt his own mouth twist in response before he clamped it back into a straight line once more.

“Should we take your car or mine?” Alexis asked breezily.

His eyes whipped up to her face. She looked slightly smug, as if she’d just achieved some personal goal.

“I—I’m not sure if I’m going—I need to check something in the winery,” he hedged. “How about you go ahead and I’ll join you later in my own car if I have time.”

Alexis’s lips firmed and he saw the disappointment mixed with determination in her eyes. Eyes that reminded him of melted dark chocolate, complete with all the decadence and promise that brought with it.

“You’re chickening out, aren’t you?” she said, her voice flat. “You don’t want to go.”

Ruby picked up on her change of mood and gave a little whimper.

Chickening out? He instinctively bristled, programmed to instantly deny her accusation, but he had to admit she was right about him not wanting to go. If she insisted on putting it that way then sure, he was chickening out. Personally, he preferred to think of it as more of a strategic avoidance of a situation that would only bring him pain. Only a fool sought pain at every juncture, right?

“No, I don’t.”

“Fine,” Alexis said with a sigh. “We’ll go on our own. I just thought you were a better man than that.”

“Better man? What do you mean?” he retorted, his pride pricked by her words.

“Well, I know you’ve been busily wallowing in your solitary world for at least nine months now, but you weren’t the only person to lose Bree. I’m sorry to be this blunt, but you have to remember, all your friends lost her, too, and it was a double whammy for them when you shut them all out at the same time. I know they miss you and they’re your friends, too, Raoul.”

“I didn’t...”

He let his voice trail off. He wanted to refute what she’d said but he knew she told the truth. He had cut all ties deliberately. At the time, he hadn’t wanted platitudes or sympathy or help, particularly from people who would advise him to “move on” or “embrace life again” when he had just wanted to be left alone with his memories and his regrets. And that hadn’t changed.

Or had it? He missed the camaraderie of his mates—the beers and insults shared over a game of rugby, the discussion between fellow wine enthusiasts over one varietal trend or another. But he wasn’t ready to get back out there, to reconnect with people...was he?

The idea was pretty terrifying. He’d been insular for so long now. Even if he could muster the energy to try, would his old friends even want to talk to him again? He had been outright rude on occasions. When he’d surfaced from abject grief he’d been filled with resentment instead, especially that their lives could go on unsullied while his had fallen into an abyss. And once he’d fallen, it had become easier to remain deep down inside the abyss rather than to claw his way back out and into the light.

Clearly Alexis had had enough of his excuses because she picked up the picnic bag she’d obviously packed earlier and headed to the door. He stood there, frozen to the spot as she blithely walked away.