The Apple Orchard. Сьюзен Виггс

staring, she ducked her head and tried to hold a blush at bay. “Archangel is inland, isn’t it? So I was wondering where this plane will land.”

      He opened the door. “She’s amphibious.” Grasping Tess’s hand, he helped her into a seat, then climbed up behind her.

      Turning to him, she frowned. “Where’s the pilot?”

      “You’re looking at him.” He started flipping switches on the intricate array on the dashboard.

      “You’re a pilot?”

      “Yeah. Want to see my license?”

      “Not necessary. Or should I be more skeptical?”

      “Seat belt,” he said. “And put this headset on. It’s going to get noisy in here.” He got out and shoved off, expertly balancing on a pontoon as he stowed the mooring lines. In one fluid movement, he swung himself into the pilot’s seat, put on his seat belt and headset and started the engine.

      The twin propellers spun into translucent circles, pulling the small craft past the flotillas of sea lions and out into open water. Tess gasped as the takeoff stole her breath. For the next few minutes, she was glued to the window, admiring the view. San Francisco Bay was always a sight to behold, but from the air on a sunny day, it was pure magic. As the plane climbed through the sky, she looked over at Dominic, and the entire experience took on a surreal quality. She had flown all over the world, but this felt different, like a forbidden intimacy with a man she’d just met.

      Once again, he caught her staring. He turned a dial on his headset. “Everything all right?”

      His voice sounded distinct yet tinny in her ears.

      “Under the circumstances,” she said. “It’s not every day I go flying with a strange man in a private airplane.” I could get used to it, though, she thought.

      “I’m not strange. I’m a banker,” he said.

      “You must be a really good one.”

      “Why do you say that?”

      “I assume most bankers don’t have their own private planes.”

      “This doesn’t belong to me,” he said. His expression changed just a little, but she didn’t know him and couldn’t read his face. There were things about this guy that didn’t add up, and she found herself wanting to put him together like one of her most challenging puzzles.

      He was uniquely distracting in a number of ways. He had brought her some extremely hard-to-digest news, yet he’d delivered it in person, and with compassion. He’d waited through her ordeal at the ER. Now Tess was about to find out about a whole part of herself that had been in the shadows until now. It was like cracking open a door and peeking through to an unknown world within. She’d yearned for family all her life, and it turned out they were here, all along, just a short distance away. The thought of all she’d missed made her heart ache. Her mother had a lot to answer for.

      “Down there on your left,” Dominic said as the city fell away behind them. “It’s the Point Reyes lighthouse.”

      The slender tower of the light, perched on an outcropping of rock at the end of a precarious twist of steps, passed in a sweep of color. The plane seemed to skim along the craggy cliff tops while the ocean leaped and roared as it crashed against the rocks. They went northward along the craggy coastline, ragged fingers reaching out into the ocean. After a while, the plane banked and turned inland, over hills and ridges of farmland. The orchards, vineyards and dairies formed a crazy quilt of impossible shades of green and autumn colors, the sections stitched together by the silvery threads of rivers, flumes and canals, or the straight dark stretches of roads. The small towns of wine country sprang up, toylike, almost precious in their beauty, yet robust with commerce. She could see cars and utility vehicles on the roads, and farm equipment churning across the fields. Tess felt herself getting farther and farther from her life in the city.

      They passed over the town of Sonoma itself—she’d never been there, but Dominic pointed it out—and after a while, descended into Archangel, a place she knew only by name. The town looked very small, a cluster of buildings at the city center, surrounded by a colorful patchwork of vineyards, orchards, meadows and gardens.

      The landing strip was located between two vineyards that swagged the hillsides. The plane touched down lightly, then buzzed along the tarmac, coming to a halt near a hangar of corrugated metal. A few other aircraft were tethered to the ground there.

      Dominic switched off the radios and controls. “Welcome to Archangel.”

      “Thanks for the lift. It was...unexpected.”

      He got out and came around to help her down, his strength giving her a secret thrill. He had large hands and a firm grip, and he handled her as if she weighed nothing.

      “This way,” he said, slinging his suit coat over one shoulder and heading for the parking lot. Away from the landing strip and hangar, the air smelled sweet, and the atmosphere was aglow with autumn light. He opened the door of a conservative-looking SUV and she got in. The car was as neat as everything else about him. She’d never quite trusted pathologically neat people.

      She rode along in silence, watching out the window. Neelie had always tried to get her to explore the wine regions of Sonoma County, but Tess never had time. She’d seen pictures, but nothing could have prepared her for the opulent splendor of the landscape here. The undulating terrain was cloaked in lush abundance, the vineyards like garlands of deep green and yellow, orchards and farms sprouting here and there, hillocks of dry golden grass crowned by beautiful sun-gilt houses, barns and silos. And overhead was the bluest sky she’d ever seen, as bright and hard as polished marble.

      There was something about the landscape that caught at her emotions. It was both lush and intimidating, its beauty so abundant. Far from the bustle of the city, she was a complete stranger here, like Dorothy stepping out of her whirling house into the land of Oz. Farm stands overflowing with local produce marked the long driveways into farms with whimsical names—Almost Paradise, One Bad Apple, Toad Hollow. Boxes and bushels were displayed on long, weathered tables. Between the farms, brushy tangles of berries and towering old oak trees lined the roadway.

      Tess felt a strange shifting inside her as the dark ribbon of the road wound down into the town of Archangel, marked by a sign where a bridge spanned a small waterway designated Angel Creek.

      She told herself not to worry. Not to feel freaked out by the situation. She was used to unorthodox situations. In pursuing the provenance of an object, she had faced all sorts of people, from highly placed cultural ministers to art middlemen who were little more than gangsters, and she’d held her own. The prospect of meeting her half sister should not bother her.

      But it did. She tried to remember the instructions the doctor had given her for breathing. Apparently she was an upper chest breather. This seemed to be a bad thing. She was supposed to inhale all the way down to her lower belly, until her stomach expanded, then exhale slowly, emptying her lungs. She took a breath, placing a hand on her stomach to see if it was puffing out.

      “What are you doing?” asked Dominic, glancing over at her.

      “Breathing.”

      “Glad to hear it.”

      “I’m doing the breathing technique they showed me in the ER.”

      “Anything I can do to help?”

      “Don’t make me talk. I need to breathe.”

      “Got it. But...is something upsetting you?”

      “No. Of course not.” Just this whole crazy situation, she thought. “I’ll be all right.” She practiced her breathing as they drove through the town. Archangel seemed quaint without being too self-conscious about it, with a subtle air of rustic elegance. The center of town had a pretty square surrounded by beds of white mums and Michaelmas daisies, a broad green lawn with iron benches, some sweeping eucalyptus trees, their sage-colored leaves fluttering on the breeze. In