Free The Vineyard by Barbara Delinsky Page A

Olivia thought, she is smart. What she lacked was a sense of distance, which had more to do with inexperience than dyslexia. She didn’t realizethat driving slowly, climbing and twisting, they had crossed barely a quarter of the peninsula that the Seebring family owned.
    Then the Great House appeared. It rose with surprising suddenness, and actually had been there all along, but was so neatly framed by trees at the very top of the hill that it had been hidden for a bit. Then again, Olivia may have been so taken by the sight of the vineyard that she had missed it. The Great House looked different from the photographs she had restored. It appeared nowhere near as large or as bright in person. The first floor was clad in large slabs of stone held together by mortar, deeply shadowed where a sloped roof covered the porch. The second floor wore wood, weathered gray by the sea air. The two blended into one hard, craggy face.
    It hadn’t been like that in pictures. Bottom and top had seemed gentle and distinct. For a second, Olivia had the horrible thought that she had created something in the darkroom that hadn’t existed at all—worse, had created something in her
mind
that hadn’t existed at all.
    All right, she reasoned. Without a point of reference, perspective was often lost in photographs. In the case of the pictures of the Great House, she had relied on the trees. But trees could be larger or smaller. If Olivia had imagined them larger than they were in real life, the Great House would have seemed larger as well.
    And then there was the age factor. The Asquonset she had worked with was many years younger than this one. Some things were bound to be different. But the windows were the same—large, handsome, multipaned casement windows angled open. The peaked gables were the same. The shingled roof was the same.
    The face the house wore might be craggy and hard, but its eyes were open, its brows raised in curiosity as they approached. With clouds floating in wisps above the roof and the vineyards spilling beneath it, Natalie Seebring’s Great House was still an impressive sight.
    Driving that final short distance, Olivia allowed herself a final dream. She pictured pulling up at the door and having a beaming Natalie run out, followed by a flock of household staff, lining up on the walk, eager for introduction.
    Olivia pulled up in the semicircle at the end of the stone walk and parked the car. A low stone wall marked the crescent. A nearby flagpole flew the American flag on top and the Rhode Island flag beneath it.
    She sat for a few seconds, waiting. The front door was a wood-framed screen, much as she had imagined, but it remained empty and dark.
    Climbing out, she rounded the car. Taking Tess’s hand, she went up the walk. Her heart was in her throat. So much was at stake here.
    The front steps were stone, five in all, and wide. They climbed them, crossed the darkness of the porch, and peered inside.
    â€œIs anybody home?” Tess whispered.
    Olivia put her ear to the screen. “I hear voices.”
    â€œTalking about us?”
    â€œI doubt it.” If she was wrong, they were in trouble. From the sounds of it, there was an argument going on.
    She knocked softly on the wood frame of the screen door. The distant voices were joined now by the jangle of the telephone.
    They had come at a bad time. Given her druthers, Olivia would put Tess back in the car, drive out to the main road, waste five or ten minutes, then rearrive. It was a foolish thought, of course. It would be ridiculous to turn back now. Besides, they had already been seen by the man in the vineyard.
    Mustering courage, she pressed the doorbell, an ivory button encased in a swirl of wrought iron. The chime was resonant. The voices inside stopped. Seconds later, the sound of light footsteps approached. Seconds after that, Natalie Seebring appeared.
    When she saw them and smiled, Olivia felt a wave of relief. Everything was