Chapter 1
593 Words
1
Purple.
A purple so deep that it made her think of the purest fresh-pressed grape juice.
Purple grapes. Round globes of color so dark that they ate the brilliant sunlight until they were almost black.
Green leaves. Impossibly blue sky.
Katrina knew something was wrong, but it took her a moment to identify what was missing.
Birds. There should be birdsong. Her family’s vineyard was never quiet when the grapes were so close to harvest. This late in the season the bees had moved on to more flowery pastures, but the birds should be singing, arguing, playing.
Funny, she didn’t recognize this row of vines, she thought she knew them all.
It was hard to care, though. She’d always loved to lie on the rich soil between the rows of vines and stare at the deeply blue sky. She rarely spent that time thinking about the future or the past. In her memories it hadn’t been about some boy either. Of course when the boys came along, she’d spent less time alone in the vineyard watching the sky. No, the vineyard was always about the present moment.
A thread of black smoke slid across the blue sky. Burning a s***h pile? Too early in the season for that. The summer was still hot and dry.
She reached a hand up through the silence to pluck a grape. They looked ripe enough that half the cluster might fall into her palm at the lightest touch.
Except she didn’t recognize the hand. They weren’t her slender teenage fingers. Where was the silver thumb ring that Granny had given her at twelve that had finally moved to her middle finger at fourteen?
This hand was strong, with a shooter’s callus on the webbing between thumb and forefinger. And why was the hand, her hand covered in red, sticky…blood?
A face intervened between her and her view of sky, grape leaves, hand…blood?
It was a hard, male face.
One that needed a shave.
It should have alarmed her that he was so close, but she knew him. Or thought she should. He wore a close-fitting military helmet and anti-glare glasses. She flexed her jaw and could feel the familiar pressure of the strap of her own helmet. Squinching her nose revealed that she too wore sunglasses.
Why did they need helmets to lie in the vineyard to watch the grapes ripen in the sunshine? She didn’t like sunglasses, they changed the color of the blue sky. She tried looking around the edges, but they were wrap-around, just like his.
He was familiar.
Very familiar.
But never from this close. That wasn’t normal.
His lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear a thing.
“What?”
He clamped a hard hand over her mouth and his lips made a “Shh!” shape, but she couldn’t hear anything.
She studied his lips.
Words. They were forming words.
Kat! Are you okay? Not Katrina. Kat wasn’t a family nickname. Always her full name in the Melman family. Miss Katrina to the Mexican field hands as if her family were lords and ladies rather than third-generation Oregon vineyard owners.
Sure she was okay. Though it was weird to have the face asking it silently, especially that face. She associated it with a cold, emotionless tone that could slice concrete.
But why wouldn’t she be okay? She was lying in a lovely vineyard, the sun warming her face while she watched purple grapes, blue sky, and black smoke from a s***h pile fire. It was expanding though. Maybe the fire was out of control.
The bloody hand was still bothering her.
And the silence.
Maybe she wasn’t okay.
Maybe she’d been—
The memory slammed in like the blast of a mortar.
Which was exactly what had happened.
- Writer
