The Vineyard by Barbara Delinsky Page A

He was Seamus then. Somewhere along the line, people started calling him Carl. He doesn’t have any of the brogue that Jeremiah did.”
    Geography wasn’t the half of it. Olivia was talking about social status. She had pictured Natalie marrying someone very upper crust.Not that she could say that without sounding like a snob, which, Lord knew, she wasn’t. But this being a fantasy, she had imagined a prince.
    â€œI pictured him as a longtime wine person,” she said with some tact.
    Natalie smiled a sweet smile. “Ah, but he is. He’s more of a wine person than anyone else I’ve met in the last seventy years. Not that I knew it that first day. It was a while before I learned what was being grown on the far side of the hill. Remember, this was 1930. Prohibition was still in effect. We didn’t talk about growing grapes or making wine, and we surely didn’t talk about selling what we made. We weren’t supposed to be doing what we did.”
    Olivia couldn’t get over the idea that Carl Burke had been a hired hand. The more she looked at his picture, though, the more familiar he felt. She had seen his face before. It had been in some of the pictures she had restored. He had been a grown man then, but the eyes were the same. They were calm to the point of impassivity, feeling more familiar to Olivia with each minute that passed.
    â€œWhat about that first memory?” she asked. “What did he say out there in the field?”
    But Natalie had lowered the snapshot. Her eyes were on the door and had taken on a special light. Olivia followed her gaze. Recognition was instant.
    Carl Burke was a good-looking boy who had grown into a good-looking man. He was approaching eighty now and had earned the right to be craggy and slouched. But he stood tall, and if being craggy meant having a shock of silver hair, a ruggedly handsome face, and an air of dignity, Olivia was all for it. She might have fallen in love with the man on sight herself, if he hadn’t been taken already.
    Natalie reached for his hand. “Carl, come meet Olivia.” Seeming eminently pleased with herself, she drew him forward. “Carl Burke … Olivia Jones.”
    â€œWelcome,” Carl said. His voice was quiet. Taken alone, it would have been dispassionate. Taken with the warmth in his eyes, it was—
yes
—kind and very definitely sincere. “I just met your daughter. She’s a little sweetie.”
    â€œAnd Olivia just met your son,” Natalie injected with pride.
    Olivia frowned. “His son?”
    â€œSimon. Downstairs in the hall.”
    Oh dear. Simon. The vineyard manager. The man with the midnight blue eyes. “He’s the dark, silent type,” Natalie had said with fondness. “Like his father.”
    Olivia had simply assumed that the Seebrings took pride in hiring families. Not having heard Simon’s last name—and believing Carl to be royalty of sorts—she hadn’t made a connection between the two men. Suddenly, though, it made perfect sense. It also explained Greg Seebring’s remark about a Burke conspiracy to take over the vineyard.
    Olivia saw the resemblance now as she looked at Carl. Father and son had the same quiet eyes. Granted, Carl’s were warmer than Simon’s, but neither man looked sly.
    Of course, Olivia had thought Ted was interesting. She had thought Jared was responsible, and that anyone who could cook as well as Peter had a homing instinct. She had been wrong on all counts. She might well be on this one too.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she told Carl awkwardly. “I hadn’t realized that Simon belonged to you. I guess I’m not too quick on the uptake today.”
    He brushed aside her apology. “Did he show you around outside?”
    Natalie answered. “He didn’t have time. He was heading for Providence. He thinks we have a problem with mold.”
    Carl made a frustrated sound.