That was all Lily knew for a while, marvelling at the dusty pearly grapes, so natural and pure and in their element. She smiled. Henry had been right. A few days later and they could have lost the whole crop. The gentle hum of quiet conversations between the pickers washed over her as Lily took a moment just to feel the sun on her face, to take in the scent of earth and grapes, the sound of the birds in the sky. Had it really been nearly a year since she’d last done this? When Blake had been the one driving the ATV? Yes, it was hard work, but it never felt like that. Not really. It felt like she was giving something back to the world. Allowing a crop to have ripened, removing the grapes before they spoiled, allowing the vines to direct their energy into growing new fruit.

Which was why she ignored the calls for coffee and bacon rolls. If this was going to be her last harvest, she wanted just a moment alone. Here. With her memories. It was then that she truly understood Henry’s need to send away the staff. She hadn’t lied when she told him that at the restaurant. She knew what it was like to have her grief on display for others. But this …

She felt him approach, even before the long shadow he cast fell over her skin.

‘Not hungry?’

She smiled, her face still turned to the sun.

‘Not yet,’ she replied.

Henry didn’t think he’d ever seen anything more beautiful than Lily’s upturned face, eyes closed, basking in the warmth of the sun. It glinted off the natural highlights in her auburn hair, painted a rosy glow on her pink cheeks. The sight of it all hit him like a punch to the chest. And he drank it in. Imagining a hundred more summers like this one, harvesting the grapes, Lily with him, helping him. Loving him.

Dammit.

‘Don’t go,’ she said before he could even get his mind to listen to his wayward body. He wanted to run, but as she opened her eyes, the look of hope in them cut him to the quick. He nodded, incapable of forming words, incapable of refusing her this, when he knew he would refuse her so much more.

‘I love it out here.’

‘I can see.’

‘Can you see why?’ she asked, her eyes sombre.

‘I can see why you do.’

‘But you can’t see yourself loving it?’

I can see myself loving you.

‘This was his, Lily. Not mine. It was never mine,’ he ground out, walking away before he said something, did something that couldn’t be taken back. Like promise her he would stay. Like taking her in his arms and kissing her.