Free Crushing (The Southern California Wine Country Series) by J Gordon Smith

told the detective. He rubbed his forehead where he struck the gravel between the sparse tufts of lawn grass when his house exploded. His date sat on the ground with her dirty arms and legs crossed, looking at the burning house. The officer saw the anger that bunched her eyebrows and stabbed along her spine like a spike into the ground.
    Nicholas said, “I bought this house years ago and I only come out here on holidays or work vacations.”
    “Where do you work?”
    “I head up the IT department of a national trucking company. I work out of their Detroit headquarters.”
    “Who is your girlfriend? Seeing each other a long time?”
    “No. We met on the plane while sitting on the tarmac for an excruciating delay. A few drinks in the airport bar, I think that is a racket of theirs, and a taxicab ride stuck in LA traffic. Then, when we finally get out here, I find kids broke into my house, threw a huge party, and blew it up in front of me.”
    “You have quite a nice tan compared to most people I’ve met from Detroit. You must get out on vacation a lot?”
    “I negotiated six weeks of vacation. In addition, I can do remote telecommuting. I get a page on my phone if the servers go down or other problems happen so I log in from my equipment in the house.” He held up his pager. He shrugged; he needed to upgrade the computer systems at the house anyway.
    The detective asked him, “How can you prove your story?”
    Nicholas reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled slip of paper, “My bags are piled over there. This is my plane ticket and taxi receipt with the date and time stamp. See I just got here.”
    “Miss, do you have your ticket?”
    Her buzz from the bar had worn off. She replied flatly, “It’s in my purse with the other bags.”
     
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    Benjamin turned the wheel of his hybrid vehicle. He knew this gravel road led through several vineyards and would get him on the other major road back home faster. The regular route was a long drive west and then a tedious series of stoplights not timed together to make traffic flow. Set up to reduce traffic speeds but he knew they wasted huge amounts of fuel stopping and starting people. If those traffic engineers only knew how much energy they wasted then the government might fix it.
    He looked out the side window. The dirt road was a much better route with the moonlight caressing the grape leaves in their silent but anxious rows. He looked across the car to Ophelia, his girlfriend of six years, a gorgeous woman ten years younger than he. “Look at how the moonlight bounces off the vineyard. Too bad my camera is at home.” He slowed his vehicle to a stop.
    “Are you going to propose to me here?”
    Benjamin looked at Ophelia, “We’ve discussed that. I don’t want to get married because it didn’t work out before.” He scrubbed his fingers in his blond hair. He looked at Ophelia with his pale gray eyes that might have been bright blue when he was younger before all the heartaches and sadness.
    “That was twenty years ago. I’m in my thirties and I want a family – a married family.”
    “I know you want that. However, I’m committed to you. Look at how we have been together for six years. It’s working, right?”
    Ophelia nodded, “Yes, but I want a ring on this finger.”
    “– and the noose of a ring around mine.”
    “If that is what you think it is then yes. I want you and I want the world to know you are taken. That I have taken you.” She pushed back her bleached blond hair and reset her glasses.
    “Knowing you took my heart is not enough?”
    Ophelia slumped back in the seat, “I love you Benjamin, but I want something permanent.”
    “I’m permanently yours. A ring does not ensure that. Standing in front of all our friends and family does not ensure that. Only you and I ensure we are permanently each other’s.”
    “I want you thinking about kids. I do not want to be one of those pining forty year olds that wonder if