Say You'll Be Mine

by Julia Amante

Genres: Family Life; Hispanic & Latino; Women's Fiction

Synopsis

Isabel Gallegos is only a handshake away from living her dream life. After years of putting everyone else's needs before her own, she's selling her family's vineyard and moving to a quiet cottage on the California coast. But just as she's about to seal the deal, a letter arrives from Argentina with shocking news: Her beloved cousin has died and Isabel is now the sole guardian of three young children. Still holding on to her dream, Isabel travels to Argentina. There she meets little Julieta, the cherubic baby of the family; eight-year-old Adelmo, as hot-tempered as his sister is sweet; and ten-year-old Sandra, whose heart-shaped face and quiet confidence remind Isabel so much of her late cousin. She tells herself to let the children go, to leave them in the care of their grandmother or perhaps their long-lost uncle who abruptly reappears. Or should she listen to her ex-husband, who is suddenly at her side, urging her to give the children--and him--a chance? If she's willing to take a risk, three tiny strangers just might change Isabel's life in ways she's never imagined.

Release date: October 25, 2011

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 384

Sample

Chapter One



Gallegos Winery buzzed with a nervous energy unusual for a workplace filled with year-round sunshine, fragrant scents, and a serenity imposed by the very employees who worked here. The staff had gotten to work early, making sure that everything was as it should be—the offices organized, hot coffee placed in the boardroom, and the steel vats cleaned, shined, and checked for bacteria.

Isabel Gallegos, owner and CEO of Gallegos Winery, sat quietly in her office. Today she’d be leading a group of investors on a tour of the winery. If they liked what they saw, their lawyers might be able to talk sale of the business. She’d waited a long time for this moment, and now that it was here, she felt…not sadness exactly, but a heaviness in her heart.

The winery had meant so many things to her through the years. Hard work. Obligation. Bondage. But also it stood for accomplishment and legacy. The success of the winery was the one thing, more than any other, that defined who she was. Everything she had went into creating Gallegos and making sure it became a powerful, prosperous, vibrant part of the community. So letting it go, even though it’s what she most wanted, was complex. Like leaving a marriage that had been comfortable even if it lacked love and passion. The end was welcomed, and yet she had to admit that some parts of the commitment would be missed.

The phone rang, two short bursts of sound, indicating the call came from her secretary Stephanie’s private line. Isabel answered it.

“Isabel, they’re here,” Stephanie said.

“I’ll be right there.”

Gallegos Winery was worth millions. Isabel had made her now-deceased parents proud. If she was lucky, she’d be able to sell the business at a healthy profit. At least she could look at the money and know that she’d gotten, if nothing else, a financial reward from a business she felt had devoured her youth and drained the life from her soul.

She looked across her desk to a quote that was pinned to a bulletin board hanging on the wall:

CEO Dexter Yager of multibillion-dollar-a-year Yager Enterprises, Inc. once said, When a man starts on the road to success, he’s an outlaw; he’s a nut. When he starts to have a little success, then they say he’s a little weird. When he’s really achieved success—he’s eccentric. They keep saying, ‘This guy doesn’t fit in!’ So 90 percent of the people in America are trying to fit in with people who aren’t makin’ it.

Isabel reached across and yanked the Yager quote, which had made her feel better about being different—about being a woman in a man’s business and being a Latina with an accent—and encouraged her to succeed. She crushed it in her fist and tossed it into the wastebasket. “Makin’ it” held a price no one ever warned you about. The things you give up for financial success, you never get back. Though maybe, just maybe, she could recover one or two.

Isabel picked up a file containing data for the prospective buyers and left her office. She passed by the other offices on her way out of the L-shaped building.

In one corner was Nick Reeves’s office. Gallegos’s co-owner usually found every excuse to be out of the office, but today he sat behind his desk, dressed in a sharp suit—unusual for the wiry six-foot California native who was more at home outside in the sunshine. When he saw Isabel approaching, he stood and joined her in the hallway.

“Mind if I tag along?”

Surprised, not only that he’d come into work, but that he wanted to go with her to the meeting, Isabel gave a stiff nod and continued walking down the hall. “Fine.”

“Gotta listen to the sales pitch one more time. No one can make a person fall in love with the vineyard like you can,” he said with a smile as he joined her.

A lump formed at the base of Isabel’s throat. Yes, she did have that talent, but she never could sell it to herself enough to love it like others did. “Hopefully one last time.”

“Hopefully,” he repeated.

She recognized that, for his own reasons, Nick would be just as grateful to be free of the business as she. “Congratulations on your engagement, by the way,” she said, pausing at the exit. “I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the celebration.”

His gaze didn’t linger on her long, and she couldn’t read the expression in his deep-set, dark green eyes hidden below thick eyebrows. “I didn’t really expect you to attend, Isabel. Invitations were sent out to everyone. Wouldn’t have looked right to exclude you.” He opened the door wide and stepped aside to let her walk past him. “We’d better get going.”

“After all these years, you’re worried about appearances?” she asked. Not waiting for an answer, she walked through the exit.

As they crossed the dirt path from their private offices overlooking the acres of vines and the production facility toward the public areas of the winery, Isabel tried not to think about the other night, sitting alone in her living room, a glass of white Zinfandel in one hand and Nick’s damned invitation in the other. So many emotions had filled her. So many memories too.

But now was not the time to dredge that up. Shaking her head quickly, she put aside thoughts of Nick and instead focused on her presentation. They entered the public offices through the back doors and let Stephanie know they were ready to rock and roll. A group of five middle-aged men in gray and blue suits were then escorted to the boardroom, where Isabel Gallegos shook their hands enthusiastically and introduced her partner—and ex-husband—Nick Reeves.

 

They began their tour out at the vineyards.

“Do you know,” Isabel said, weaving a story as they walked along the vines, “that Argentine and Californian vines have a common beginning?”

The men followed, some with hands in their pockets, others clasping them behind their backs, and listened. Isabel paused and lifted a small twig from a vine. “Back in 1556, a Spanish priest called Juan Cidron arrived in Argentina with vine stalks that he planted with great care and tended until they grew and multiplied over acres and acres. We consider him Argentina’s first winemaker. But the interesting thing is that that early Spanish-American grape variety is the same as the one introduced in California. Argentina’s stalk is known as Criolla; California’s is known as Mission.”

Nick smiled and winked as he stood behind the businessmen, and for a moment, she saw the man he used to be before alcohol had ruined his life and their marriage. The happy, carefree guy with adorable dimples. Back then he’d had hair that fell boyishly over his forehead. Today, his black hair was cropped short, spiking on the top, making him look tougher, more athletic, more like a man in control. He’d recovered from his downhill spiral and for that she was glad. They’d moved on separately, but they still worked together, and sometimes a glimpse of the past would seep into the present, like now, and it would make time stand still.

Isabel smiled back, because they both knew the presentation was going well—a little enchantment was needed in these sales pitches, even if in actuality the vines in this valley had nothing whatsoever to do with Mission grapes. That didn’t matter. These men didn’t care if Argentine and Californian vines were similar, but they did care that she and her family knew wines.

“My family felt it was natural to expand the family business to California and then to actually transfer our expertise and history to American soil. When you buy Gallegos wines, you are buying history, culture, old-world finery fused to new-world quality, and state-of-the-art production.”

She placed the twig in the hand of one gentleman, then continued the stroll through the vineyards, going into finer detail about the types of grapes and vines and explaining the early morning harvest procedures. She led them back to where the harvested grapes were crushed and juiced.

“The white grapes are deseeded and skinned, and we extract a clear juice when we crush them. With the red grapes we leave the skins. This gives the wine its red pigment and flavor as the tannins blend with the juice.”

The tour continued into the fermentation room and then the barrel room, Isabel educating the group with every step. Some details were a bit on the biology class side—the process of converting sugar into ethanol and carbon dioxide, the metabolism of yeast. Other details were more romantic—perfect aging, softening and smoothing out the wine, and the art of blending flavors. “It’s like making love, gentlemen. Like pleasing a perfect woman. Everything is in the touch. A master lover can make magic, as can a master winemaker with the creation of a complex wine that leaves the consumer satisfied, intrigued, and wanting more.”

She didn’t have to look at her audience to see the ecstasy on their faces. Her job was finished. She headed back to the boardroom with the men to discuss the actual dollars and cents of the business. Her lawyers were waiting with financial statements, and the reality of what it would take to become the new owners of Gallegos Wines.

 

Three hours later, the meeting concluded and Isabel was finally able to retreat to the privacy of her office, her longtime family attorney joining her. “Isabel, I have another matter to discuss with you.”

She stretched the muscles of her tight back. “Can it wait, Allen? I’m tired.”

“No, I’m sorry. It can’t.”

Isabel nodded once and sat behind her desk. “Okay. What is it?”

“This,” he said, handing her a letter from an attorney in Argentina.

She looked it over quickly with a frown. What she was reading couldn’t be correct. Her closest cousin, Brenda, had died in a devastating skiing accident caused by a weak slope that fractured while she and her husband, Andres, skied down the steep, unstable path in the mountains of Bariloche—a tourist outpost in the Patagonia. Once the fracture was instigated, the skiers who followed triggered a slide that caused the whole slope to avalanche. Brenda and Andres were unable to escape.

Bariloche had always held such fond memories. Hot chocolate, friends, a pristine winter wonderland at the end of the world where she had vacationed as a young teen. A winter paradise. Now, her cousin’s gravesite.

“Oh my God,” Isabel gasped in shock as the words on the page sank in. Brenda died. Isabel would never hear her voice or silly laugh again; she’d never receive another e-mail full of recipes when she knew Isabel didn’t cook; she’d never be able to look into those big hazel eyes that they both shared and hug her good-bye. Tears sprang to Isabel’s eyes. Brenda’s face, with that bright smile full of perfect teeth, flashed in her memory, and Isabel felt like she couldn’t breathe. She lowered the letter and covered her face with her hands, forcing herself to inhale deeply. Isabel prided herself on being able to master her emotions, but…Brenda? Why Brenda? She felt the beginning of a deep sob grow in her chest, and she took a deeper breath to stuff it back inside.

“Isabel,” Allen said gently. “You need to keep reading.”

She straightened behind her desk. Her hand shook as she continued to review the letter, until her eyes found the words full custody. Her cousin had entrusted her three children to Isabel’s care. A second blow that added fear to a thick cloud of sadness.

“I don’t understand,” she whispered under her breath. “What does this mean about the children? I can’t—”

“You’re expected to travel to and stay in Argentina until the immigration paperwork is complete, then—”

“Wait. I’m sorry.” She rubbed her temples and tried to control the tremble of her body. Travel? To claim them? The children? “I can’t stay in Argentina. Especially now with the possible sale of the vineyard and winery.”

“I know the timing isn’t good. I agree. But, Isabel, this could get bogged down in paperwork for months. Years, if we don’t handle it right. There will be countless forms to fill out before the children can be transferred to your care. Then you’ll have to deal with our immigration procedures through the embassy. This will be much easier to navigate considering the circumstances, but only if you’re there demanding it get done. You’ll contact your cousin’s attorney when you get there and…”

Isabel had stopped listening. Her mind was trying to wrap itself around the horrifying fact that her cousin and her husband had chosen her as the guardian of their children. What did she know about kids? She was forty-six years old and had hardly ever been around anyone under the age of eighteen. She’d certainly never been responsible for their care. She didn’t even have a pet. “Why? Why would she leave the kids to me?”

Allen leaned back in his chair and seemed to suppress a sigh. “Only you and your cousin can answer that question.”

Her cousin. Beautiful, tall, a head full of long, brown curls. “Oh God.” Tears welled up again. “I haven’t seen the kids in five years, since my mom died and I went to be with my aunt for a few weeks. I was barely in any condition to pay much attention to them then. I’m a stranger to them.”

Plus I don’t want them.

Ashamed, Isabel quickly pushed away that thought. The children needed someone who could be strong. Right now they were with their grandmother, and that was probably the best place for them to stay. She’d fly to Argentina and take care of the legal paperwork to reassign guardianship to the kids’ grandmother, then return in time to complete the sale of the winery. The company lawyers could manage the details for a few days until she returned.

She looked at the letter she gripped in her hands. Brenda couldn’t have really wanted her to take her children. Keeping them with their grandmother was much more logical. Isabel would see to it that it happened. This was a good plan and the only one available to her at this point.

 

Nick rolled out of bed, glancing over his shoulder at his fiancée, Beth. Cute as could be, she slept curled on her side, her blond hair fanning across her face and falling over her bare shoulder. He was so lucky to have found her. After the divorce from Isabel ten years ago and the painful years that followed recovering from his alcohol addiction, he never thought he’d be happy again. Never thought he’d find another woman to love. But he had. And this time he wasn’t going to mess it up, because Beth was perfect. Loving. Patient. Sweet. Pretty. Uncomplicated. Undemanding. She was happy barely getting by with her little shop in old town Temecula, renting bikes to tourists and selling artistic trinkets, dressed in a simple pair of shorts and tank top, with her hair in a ponytail. So unlike his ex-wife.

He stood, unable to sleep. His mind turning to Isabel now, he acknowledged that the day had gone well. Isabel did a fantastic job with the tour, and he had to admit that she looked amazing, like always. Her long hair pinned up, her flawless makeup making her look like a woman half her age. More than once, he’d caught the fascination in the prospective buyers’ eyes. They liked what she’d said about the business, no doubt about it, but they also liked what they saw. Isabel, so much like her vineyards, had a sexy, extraordinary essence that surrounded her. It came out in the way she talked, the way she walked, the passion that had somehow implanted itself in her soul, and those around her couldn’t help but be drawn in. So, after they had courted these buyers for months through phone calls and e-mails, they were all taking a serious step now that they’d met Ms. Gallegos.

In the kitchen, he made a thick ham sandwich with lots of mustard. And he took it outside in the cool night air. Pulling out a wrought-iron chair that scraped slightly on the tiled patio floor, he sat to eat. He stared out in the distance, unable to see the glimmering valley lights through the dense fog. Didn’t matter. He knew what it looked like by heart. He’d been living in a small caretaker’s home on the vineyard grounds since the divorce, and before that in the main house with Isabel and her parents. Half his life had been spent surrounded by organized rows of grapevines.

Although he looked forward to moving on, marrying Beth, starting a new life, he couldn’t help feeling sad about leaving the vineyard. He loved it here. This had always been home. Having loved not only Isabel but also her parents, whom he considered his family as much as hers, he felt like he was losing the only place that had ever really comforted him. No matter how much he’d screwed up, in his marriage or at work, the little vineyard house had been a haven.

“Hey.” Beth’s voice came from near the sliding glass door. “What are you doing out here?”

“Got hungry. Couldn’t sleep.”

“Are you worried about the sale?”

“No.”

She sat beside him and reached across to run her fingers through his short hair. Felt good to be touched. Beth always caressed him. With her hands, with her smile, with warmth that made him feel loved.

“What’s wrong, then?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Nothing really. Just thinking. Go back to sleep. I’ll be in in a few minutes.”

“Nick, don’t worry about the winery selling. And I told you, we don’t have to wait—”

“Yes, we do. Once it’s sold, I’ll move out of here and we’ll plan the wedding.”

“You can move now. We don’t have to wait.”

Beth had her own apartment in town, but most of the time she stayed with him on the vineyard grounds. She’d mentioned before that he could move in with her, but he had his own home here, and it worked out better to live close to work. But he knew they couldn’t live here after they were married. “I can’t start a new life until I’m free of this one. I’ve explained this to you.”

“I know, but—”

He rose from his seat and leaned in to kiss her. “Be patient just a little longer. I need to do it this way. Okay?”

“Of course it’s okay. I love you, Nick. You know that.”

Yes, he did. He took her hand. “And that’s why I want everything to be perfect. Once this is all gone, I can concentrate on making our life exactly the way it should be. Let’s go back to bed.”

Rather than worry Beth with his irrational fear about leaving this cocoon, he carried her to bed and made love to her.

Chapter Two



The next morning Isabel had an early meeting with her staff. She explained her upcoming absence as a family emergency. “I’ll only be a phone call away.” Stephanie and Doug, her public relations manager, would be in charge. No one mentioned that her choice was a slap in the face to Nick. They understood her reasons. Even Nick understood. After making a financially damaging error during his drinking days that took Isabel and her father an entire year to repair, Nick lost his position as CFO. He couldn’t work with money, and he couldn’t work with the wine itself for obvious reasons, so instead he supervised staff. Sometimes he worked in packing operations or helped out the harvest techs, even cleaning barrels and harvesting grapes. He worked—hard. But he really had no official responsibilities. His job title, president of operations, was something her father gave him to try to make Nick feel like he mattered.

Regardless, when Isabel was gone, he was not in charge.

As the meeting ended and everyone filed out, Nick stayed behind. “Question, Nick?” she asked as she lifted her pen and straightened her papers.

“Just curious about what’s really going on. What’s serious enough to make you leave the country now?”

She gazed at him from across the long conference table, considered offering a stock response, avoiding the question. He wouldn’t challenge her, she knew. But as she stared at him, she couldn’t do it. Nick was still like family. Her parents had loved him like a son, so much so that they had left him part of the business even though she’d begged them not to. And, of course, she’d loved him once too. He’d been more than a husband; he’d been her best friend, and she would have shared all her worries and problems with him in the past. Woke him in the middle of the night. Cried on his shoulder. But that had been a long time ago.

“My cousin Brenda, from Argentina, died. I’ve got to go make sure her children are cared for.”

“Brenda?” he asked, and frowned. “Oh hell.”

“Yes. Hell.”

“How? What happened? She was so young.”

“Skiing accident. I don’t know much yet.”

“So…what are you going to do? Travel to—”

“I’d like to ignore it all and let Brenda’s more immediate family handle this, but…”

“She doesn’t have anyone,” he muttered.

“No. Well, her mother, but she’s in her seventies and…when I talked to her this morning, she was a mess.”

“I bet.”

Her aunt had sounded vacant and numb. Perhaps she’d been medicated. She admitted to having broken down completely the day it happened. “Brenda died a week ago, and I didn’t even get a phone call. My aunt was so distraught and she had to deal with the kids and…well, thank God the family attorney stepped in. I’m thinking maybe I can hire a nanny for them. Give my aunt some help.”

Nick frowned, a look that turned dark, even accusatory.

“What?” she snapped.

“Hire a nanny? You and Brenda were more like sisters. I would have thought…” His voice grew deep and quiet, incredulous. “Didn’t she have a will? Did she leave any indication of what she wanted?”

“It’s complicated.”

He stood and turned his back on her. She stared at his back as he looked out the window. Knowing Nick, there was more he wanted to say, but how could he? Where her personal life was concerned, he didn’t have a say anymore.

“When are you leaving?” he asked without facing her.

“Tomorrow.”

He dropped his hands into his pockets and faced her. “What can I do?”

“Nothing. There’s nothing anyone can do. It’s a tragedy.”

“I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

Tears threatened to spring to her eyes, and she fought to hold them back. She didn’t want to cry in front of him. She’d broken down when her father died, and he’d held her and comforted her and it had almost been too much to bear. “Okay?” She clasped her hands together and stared down at her fingers, trying to summon anger. Anger was better than sadness. “She and my aunt were all the family I had left,” she said, her voice losing its hardness, unable to maintain the pretense and hide the pain.

“Isabel.” He took a step toward her.

She stood and took a defensive step back. “And I didn’t need this problem right now when the sale of the winery hangs in the balance.” She drew a breath. Better. Her control was coming back. No wild emotion. Much better.

He stopped his approach, apparently realizing that she wouldn’t welcome any tenderness from him. “Don’t worry about this place. Just think about your family right now and do what’s right.”

“I’ll do what’s necessary. And I’ll be back as soon as I can. If anything comes up, call me and I’ll fly back immediately.”

When she looked at him, she saw that his gaze had returned to its earlier hardness. Suddenly she remembered all the cruel things he’d said to her at the end of their marriage. The words were still etched in her heart. A heartless, cold bitch that he wished he’d never met. And even more painful, how grateful he was that they’d never had children. He’d been angry and probably drunk, but those words still cut deep, more so now, when she feared they might be a little true. But he didn’t say anything hurtful now.

He said, “Right,” and “Have a good trip,” and turned away.

As he walked out the door, Isabel collapsed into a chair and dropped her head into her hands. Pain consumed her from the inside out. Her head pounded and her back ached. She wanted to go after Nick and apologize for being that cold bitch she played so well. Tell him that it wasn’t really who she had become. That her heart could still bleed and that it was doing so now from every open sore. But instead she closed her eyes and remembered when it had been easy to ask him for what she wanted. When they were younger and their dreams had been ahead of them.

Footsteps alerted her that someone had walked back into the boardroom. Before Isabel could alter her dejected appearance, Stephanie said, “Sorry, Isabel. I came back to clean up. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Isabel shook her head. “It’s okay. I was just thinking of a past long gone.” She rubbed her hands up and down her face one more time, as if it would wipe away her memories.

Stephanie offered a sympathetic look. “Missing your parents?”

“No.” She sighed. “I mean, I always do, of course, but that’s not it.”

Stephanie waited for more.

Isabel was too drained to mask her feelings, and tears blurred her vision. “All my life, I’ve tried to do the right thing, be there for everyone that needed me, and…here I am without a soul I can reach out to.”

“Isabel, you have—”

But she sniffed and stood. “Listen to me. Pat. . .