I matched Josie’s wicked stare as I unplugged a red wine barrel. The pop made us both giggle. We were up to no good, which was what we did best together. Josie and I often argued about who corrupted who more, and in the end, we always agreed that I was the one.
She grabbed two wineglasses while I searched for a long syringe extractor to suction out the wine. After squirting a glassful for each of us, we crouched in a corner beside the row of barrels, hiding in case anyone decided to pay the cave a surprise visit.
“So, how does it feel to be sixteen? Is it as sweet as they say?”
I smiled and batted my lashes while placing a hand over my heart. “I do declare it’s just the sweetest,” I said, putting on my deepest Southern belle impression.
Josie giggled and sipped from her glass. “I should have waited a few months to kiss Emilio, then I could have had a sweet sixteen birthday party too.”
Grimacing, I said, “Don’t remind me. At this rate, I’ll never get my first kiss.”
“Because you’re in love with a stupid boy. That’s why. You need to take your mind off him, Camila. He’s not worth your time. Not after what he did to you.”
After that night on the gondola, I’d confessed everything to Josie while crying my eyes out in her arms. She was such a good friend.
“Technically, he didn’t do anything to me. He just told me the truth.”
Josie’s eyelids widened with surprise. “Don’t do that. Don’t go giving that boy the benefit of the doubt. He told you that you meant nothing to him. He’s a liar. Clearly, he didn’t mean it, but he hurt you. I hate him for hurting you like that.”
Just talking about Ridge made my chest tight, and it became hard to breathe. I should have moved on already, leaving all thoughts and feelings for Ridge behind and opening my eyes to all the other boys around town. Surely, someone else out there could make my heart beat just as fast. And as we sat there in the cave, surrounded by aging barrels, and got drunk on grapes, I decided I would do everything in my power to move on from Ridge Cross.
“Where are you going?” Josie hissed at my back.
We had just stumbled out of the cave after talking and giggling for too many hours. I was getting worried that we had missed the entire festival, but the second we opened the door and the warm evening wind blasted us, merry music and laughter drifted from where the crowd still gathered.
I slammed my pointer finger over my lips to shush her while holding on to her shoulders for support. “Don’t judge me.”
Her face was flushed and her eyes wild, just like how I imagined mine were after the amount of wine we’d just consumed. “No, Camila. You said you were over him.”
“I am,” I huffed, feeling indignant as I spoke. I was still furious at Ridge for treating me the way he had, and I was just drunk enough to tell him. “I’m going to tell him what an asshole he is.”
She looked doubtful as she turned to the large crowd then back to me and sighed. “Someone could see you.”
Josie had no idea how easy it had become for me to sneak away. “No one will even notice I’m gone. You’ll see.” I started my jaunt down the hill before she could stop me, but I could still hear her final words at my back.
“I know someone who will notice,” she warned.
Ignoring the fact that she was right and that Trip had probably been looking for me for hours, I continued on my path, already relaxed at the thought of being shrouded by the vines on either side of me.
Fall was my favorite season in the vineyard, when the grapevines were fully in bloom and perfectly ripe for picking. There was nothing like seeing a year’s work spread out for hundreds of acres right before your very eyes. Snipping those grapes from the vines gave me a heaping dose of satisfaction.
But fall was also a bittersweet time. Once winter came along to lay snow on the fields and the vines grew dormant, it would be at least six months before buds began to sprout fresh fruit. That left six months in between for pruning, an act to encourage new growth. In those six months, grape production turned into a plentiful winery season.
While my family lived for our summers and falls, the majority of visitors in Telluride lived for the winter, when the slopes were packed with snow and the entire town shifted into tourist mode. The season was great for our winery, which held tours by the hour every single day. They were always full, bringing in large amounts of our profit while the newly stocked barrels of wine hibernated with their juices fermenting in the cave cellar.
While trying to hold in my drunk giggles, I passed by some guests who were perusing the grapes and made my way down to the first landing. Drunk or not, the vineyard was where I would rather be—getting lost in a sea of purple and green, breathing in the sweet scent around me, and on my way to him.
Once harvest season began, sneaking off to the hilltop always became a lot harder. While the vineyard’s branches became bare, the cornfield went through a change of its own. The field slowly flattened to nothing but an empty plot of land with rolling hills and a white ranch-style house off in the distance where Ridge and Harold lived.
“Where are you sneaking off to, young lady?”
My pulse raced, and I snapped my head around to find Gus, our groundskeeper, who was walking the property. I laughed as relief flooded me, then I smiled at him. I’d always suspected he had turned a blind eye when I jaunted off on my adventures. Raising a finger to my lips, I said, “I’ll be right back. Please don’t say anything to Papa.”
He raised his hands, indicating he wasn’t about to get involved. “Not my business. I didn’t see anything. Just be careful out there.”
“I always am.”
Once I reached a section of the vineyard where I lost sight of the party above, I started to run faster. I entered the woods and was immediately shrouded in darkness, but I made it all the way to the bridge before stopping. Squeezing my eyelids shut, I took in a deep breath. That was usually the point in my journey when I got my second wind. Something felt different that night.
My heart was just beginning to steady when I caught movement in my peripheral vision. A rustle of branches sharpened my focus as I slowly searched my surroundings. For a second, I thought it might be a deer or bird cutting through the woods. I’d been galivanting around those woods for years, and I’d never seen any wildlife bigger than that near the bridge. Even though the surrounding land had been fenced in decades ago, that didn’t stop the occasional creature from wandering in. But something about the icky feeling that entered my chest told me whatever I was hearing was something else.
A crunching noise caused my heart to jolt. I knew what a boot sounded like when it stepped on dry leaves and sticks. I jerked my head up and looked around to find that I was still completely alone. “Gus?” I called, wondering if he had decided to follow me.
No one responded.
All my senses were on high alert. Just because I acted reckless at times didn’t make me a novice when it came to the wilderness. If anything, being more adventurous had taught me how to be hyper-aware of my surroundings. And I knew when I was being watched.
13
The Hunter
The hunter’s lips curved into a wicked grin when he spotted the deer through his night goggles. He had been tracking the beautiful buck for the past ten minutes while it drank from the stream and journeyed slowly through the woods. With his arrow readied and his fingers already pulling the bowstring, he waited for the right moment to release it.