Still, I promised myself that I wouldn’t take advantage of his kindness. I wouldn’t be a bother to him. I wouldn’t show up there every day expecting him to pay attention to me.

But of course, that’s exactly how it happened.

No matter how little or how much time I had to spend with him, he made it feel like a gift. He was patient and funny and kind. He answered all my ignorant questions thoroughly and never once got irritated when I asked him to repeat things. We laughed often. We told each other stories. We confessed our guilty pleasures—his were cheerleading competitions on ESPN, Krispy Kremes, and Restoration Hardware. I giggled every time I thought about him secretly surfing the RH website and holding himself back from purchasing a reclaimed oak table or Italian leather chair.

He made fun of my list too.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I have to disqualify your food item. A salad is not a guilty pleasure.”

“Have you ever had a Greek salad at National Coney Island?” I demanded. “It’s drowning in feta cheese! The beets are canned!”

“Canned beets? My God, the horror!” He reached over and pulled my hair, making me giggle.

But other than that, he never laid a finger on me. Not once.

Sometimes I caught him looking at me—and he would catch me looking at him, but we never said a word about what had gone on between us . . . or what was happening still. Somehow, in my mind, if we just didn’t give it a name or put a label on it, we were safe.

But we weren’t. Of course we weren’t.

I burst through the tasting room doors and saw Chloe behind the counter, unpacking new glasses from shipping boxes.

“Hey,” she said, “how did it go with the house?”

“Good,” I answered breathlessly. “Is Henry around?”

“Downstairs. Too cold to work in the vineyard today. Do you want to—”

But I was already rushing across the cement floor toward the cellar steps. I spotted him right away, standing over a barrel with a long glass tube I now knew was called a “wine thief.”

He heard me bounding down the stairs and looked up, a grin breaking out on his face. “Hey, you.”

When I reached him, I was breathing heavy and I thought my heart was going to burst right through my chest, but it wasn’t just from exertion. “Hi.”

“How was the rest of your trip?”

“It was good.” I was dying for him to hug me and couldn’t help feeling disappointed when he kept his arms to himself. My entire body was like one huge live wire being so close to him.

“Kids do okay?”

“Yes. It was tough, and Whitney cried a lot, but I was expecting it.” My hopes began to wither . . . He wasn’t going to touch me. Not even an informal, good-to-see-you elbow nudge.