Deal From The Past

The doctor said stress induced like it was simple.

Like stress was something you could decide to have less of. Like I hadn't spent the last five months rebuilding a life from nothing, alone, and pregnant, with a man who had almost run me over as my closest ally and a vineyard that had needed everything I had and then asked for more.

Stress induced. Right.

"The baby is fine," he added, which was the only sentence in the room that actually mattered, and I let out a breath so long and so ragged that Rosa reached over from her chair and put her hand over mine without saying anything.

"You need to significantly reduce your activity."

The doctor looked at me over his glasses. "Rest properly. Not the kind where you sit for twenty minutes and then go plug grapes."

"I don't do that," I said.

Rosa made a sound from the chair in the corner.

"She does that," Alice confirmed, from the doorway, in the serene tone of a woman presenting evidence.

"I have a vineyard to run," I said.

"You have a baby to carry," the doctor said. "And right now, the baby is asking you to slow down." He pulled a notepad from his coat and began writing.

"Regular check-ins from here until your due date. Scans, blood pressure." He tore the page off and held it out. "These are the medications. Rosa—" he glanced at her "—make sure she takes them."

"I take my medications," I said.

"She forgets," Rosa said, taking the paper.

"I don't forget, I just sometimes—" I stopped. Three pairs of eyes looking at me. I was five months pregnant, I had nearly lost my baby in a vineyard row two hours ago. "Fine," I said. "I'll come in for check ins.

The doctor nodded with satisfaction and stood to leave. "Rest today. And tomorrow." He looked at me one final time. "The estate will survive without you for a few days, Sarah."

With that, he left. The room was silent for a few minutes before Rosa spoke again.

"I told her." Rosa folded her arms. "Weeks ago I said, that girl is going to work herself into the ground and nobody listened—"

"I'm in my own bed," I said. "Not the ground."

"You were almost on the ground hours ago, if not for Norman. Same thing."

"It is genuinely not the same—"

"Sarah." Alice's voice was quieter than Rosa's. She came and sat on the edge of the bed beside me and folded her hands in her lap and looked at me with soft eyes. "Why are you working so hard?"

"Because the vineyard—"

"Is growing beautifully." She didn't let me finish. "The season has been extraordinary. The proposals are coming. Norman has it in hand on days you step back. None of that is why."

She tilted her head. "You're working the way you are because of that baby. Every early morning and late night and distribution deal— you're doing it for the child growing inside you right now." She held my gaze. "So it would make sense to take care of the thing you're doing it all for."

I looked at the window.

Outside, the afternoon had gone pale and still, the vineyard sitting quiet under a low sky. I could see the new section from here — all the evidence of eight weeks of work that had come from nothing and a stubbornness I had apparently inherited from a woman I barely knew.

I pressed my hand flat against my stomach.

"Four days," I said quietly. "I'll rest for four days."

"A week," Rosa said immediately.

"Three days."

"Five."

"Rosa..." I argued.

"Four and I don't tell Alice what you were doing at half five this morning."

I looked at Alice, who looked back at me with a confused expression. 

"Four days," I agreed.

They were still reorganising their victory when the door opened.

Norman stood in the doorway with his jacket still on, which meant he'd come straight from the fields. He looked at me. Then at Rosa and Alice. Then back at me.

"The doctor—" he started.

"Stress-induced spotting," I said. "Baby's fine. Four days rest, medications, regular scans, and I'm back to work."

He nodded slowly. His eyes moved to my stomach — briefly, almost involuntarily — and then back to my face.

Rosa and Alice exchanged a look they, and gathered themselves with quietly, and moved toward the door.

"Soup," Rosa said, to the room in general "I'll go make the house something warm," 

The door clicked shut behind them.

Norman stayed where he was, just inside the doorway, jacket still on, looking at me with something I didn't quite have the vocabulary for yet.

"You're pregnant," he said.

Not a question. But not entirely a statement either. It sat somewhere between the two.

"Five months," I said.

Something moved across his face. "Five months," he repeated. "You've been here for three months."

"I'm aware of the timeline."

"And I didn't know." He said it carefully. "I manage this property. I sit across from you in every meeting, I walk every row of that vineyard with you every other afternoon, and I didn't—" he stopped. Started again. "You didn't say anything."

"I wasn't aware I was required to." I kept my voice even. "My personal life isn't the estate's business."

"I'm not asking as the estate manager."

The words landed quietly and stayed there.

The room felt different suddenly smaller. I looked at him standing in the doorway with the rain still on his jacket and genuine worry behind his eyes.

"I didn't tell anyone," I said, after a moment. "It wasn't about you."

"I didn't think it was about me."

"Then why does it matter that you didn't know?"

He was quiet. He looked at the window, then at the floor, and when he looked back at me there was nothing that belonged to the version of himself he kept carefully for meetings and morning walks and every other structured thing we did.

"Because you've been carrying it alone," he said. "All of it. The estate, the vineyard, whatever you left behind in the city, and this." His jaw shifted. "For five months. Alone. And I was right here."

I didn't have an answer for that. I wasn't sure I was supposed to.

He straightened. The composure returning steadily, deliberately, like a man who had shown what he intended to show and was done now. He reached into his jacket and produced an envelope.

"This came for you this morning." He crossed the room and set it on the bed beside me. "I would have brought it earlier but—" a pause that didn't need finishing.

He moved toward the door.

"Norman." He stopped but didn't fully turn. "Thank you," I said. "For earlier in the field."

A beat of silence.

"Rest," he said. And left.

I sat with the envelope in my hands and listened to his footsteps move down the corridor until the house swallowed them.

Then I looked at the return address.

*Vane Group. New York.*

Something shifted in my stomach that had nothing to do with the baby. I opened it slowly.

The letterhead was heavy and expensive — the kind of paper that announced itself before you read a word. I had seen this letterhead before. On Tyler's desk. 

*Dear Ms. Hale,*

*Following receipt of your wine samples, the Vane Group would like to formally express significant interest in Hale Vineyard. We were deeply impressed by the quality and character of what was submitted. Our Head of Acquisitions and Partnerships, Mr. Julian Vane, will be leading a delegation to the estate personally.*

*We propose next week, should that suit.*

I read it twice.

Then I read Julian's name one more time.

One look at my face and he would know exactly who I was. One phone call and Tyler would know exactly where I was. One conversation and everything — the vineyard, the estate, the pregnancy, the five months I had spent building something real from absolutely nothing — would land in Tyler Rider's lap before I was ready.

My door opened. Norman leaned in "Rosa said the soup is—" He stopped. Looked at my face. "What is it?"

I looked up at him. "I need you to cancel the Vane visit," I said.

Something shifted in his expression. "Sarah. The Vane Group is one of the most significant—"

"I know what they are." My voice came out quiet and final. "Cancel it."

"That's not a decision we can make without seriously—"

"It's my estate, Norman." I held his gaze, challenging him to defy my order. "Cancel it!"