Beneath the Sapphire Sky, page 1
Beneath the Sapphire Sky
A With Love, From Kurrajong Crossing Romance
Dakota Harrison
Beneath the Sapphire Sky
Copyright© 2022 Dakota Harrison
EPUB Edition
The Tule Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
First Publication by Tule Publishing 2022
Cover design by Lee Hyat Designs
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN: 978-1-957748-70-2
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Dedication
For
Vicki.
Thank you for being you.
Your support over the years hasn’t gone unnoticed.
Mwah!
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
The With Love, From Kurrajong Crossing series
About the Author
Chapter One
“I don’t want to,” Jem Davis groused.
Belle closed her eyes and put down the unopened envelope she’d received yesterday.
“Mum, we talked about this. Doc Farrell said you have to exercise. Just a little. Come for a walk with me. Jack’s getting the Mourvèdre ready for the International Wine Awards. We could swing past and talk to him on the way back.”
Jem’s face tightened in a thunderous scowl. “No.” She glanced outside. “It’s too hot. I’ll get sunburned.”
Belle resisted the urge to let out the exasperated sigh just waiting to burst from her lips. If she did, her mother would dig her heels in even further. Instead, she smiled and forced her voice into a cheerful cajole.
“Come on, it’s not even seven AM. It’s perfect out there. We’ll pop your big floppy hat on your head and you won’t notice the sun.”
Although it was true the relentless Australian sun could cook you to a crisp, lobster red, it was unlikely at this time of day. She threw a glance at the digital weather station readout on the wall. A lovely eighteen degrees.
“I said no.” Jem gripped the bottom of the dining chair beside her thighs. She pouted and let go long enough to shove at the still-half-full cup of tea on the table in front of her.
Belle surged forward, only to miss the cup by millimetres. Her heart caught as it crashed to the tiled floor, splintering into a thousand tiny shards of porcelain.
Her mother startled at the sharp sound and looked at the floor. She burst into tears at the mess of tea and broken cup.
“You broke my favourite cup! Why would you do that, Belle?”
Belle gritted her teeth. She’d learned the hard way to not react or try to tell her mother the truth. Jem wouldn’t believe her anyway. She grabbed a dishcloth and knelt to pick up the larger pieces, dumping them into her other hand, then swiped at the small slivers with the cloth. The last thing she needed was her mother stepping on one.
Belle shoved the rising frustration back where it belonged. Her mother couldn’t help it. If Belle was perfectly honest, Jem would be horrified to realise just how far she’d deteriorated in the last year. She loved her mother so much and seeing her memory disappear, almost as if daily, cut her to pieces inside.
“Belle? Can I trouble you for a cuppa? I haven’t had one yet this morning.”
Tossing the now-ruined cloth into the bin, she held her breath at her mother’s words. Her eyes stung. She blinked rapidly and gripped the edge of the ancient steel sink.
She and her brother, Jack, still lived at the family home. They both worked on the vineyard with their father, and with their erratic and sometimes long hours it simply made sense to be there. Why waste money on a rental in town and drive to work when you could just stay here and walk twenty metres?
Looking after her ailing mother also made moving out almost impossible, even if she’d wanted to. Almost all free time she had from the restaurant was spent with Jem, and when she had to work, her mother came to the restaurant with her until her father could take her back home.
The light breeze coming through the kitchen window in front of her soothed her stinging eyes. She folded and tucked the still-unopened envelope into her shorts pocket and pasted a happy smile onto her lips, one that she’d cultivated to perfection.
“Of course you can, Mum.”
*
Belle stepped into the vat shed. She smiled when she caught her father’s eye.
“Mum resting?”
She nodded. “She fell asleep for a change.”
She smiled at Jack, precariously perched on a ladder at the side of one of the huge stainless steel vats.
“You got in late last night.” Her dad’s soft voice held no inflection and drew her attention back.
“This morning. I slept on Dante’s sofa last night.”
Her best friend lived literally over the road. They’d grown up together, spent every free waking moment in each other’s company. Not that they had much of that these days, even living so close, but they tried to get at least one movie night a week at one of their places, just to relax and de-stress.
Her father’s eyebrow rose. “Oh? You couldn’t walk the two hundred metres home?”
She shrugged and glanced at Jack. His open grin suggested he knew exactly why she’d stayed at the house over the road. She frowned in his direction then let it wash from her face when her father looked her way again.
“I had a couple of drinks after we watched the movie. Just being responsible.”
Jack made a strange noise. “Yeah, because you’d surely get hit by a car walking across our extremely busy road at two in the morning.” Sarcasm dripped from his voice.
Callum Davis shook his head and turned his back on his son. “I’ll need you on the floor by ten. We have a bus due at eleven.”
Happiness bubbled up. “Tasting?”
He shook his head. “No. I need you cooking.”
Her happiness burst into oblivion. What use was her training as a sommelier if she was stuck in the kitchen? She’d grown up on the vineyard; she knew it all inside out. “But—”
“No buts, Belle. Janie called in sick. That’s where I need you. I’ll supervise the tasting. Dean’s coming in at midday to set up the music.”
Dammit!
While her dad could make a drinkable coffee when pressed, he couldn’t cook to save his life. Unless they wanted food coming back in droves, it was her or no food at all. They’d managed to build up a wonderful reputation both locally and interstate for their weekly Muscat and Music afternoons, although the muscat reserves had been severely reduced due to the lack of a suitable harvest in recent years. A resurgence of love for the older varieties of grape had ensured their success. It was something of a novelty for the busloads of tourists that flocked to the region each week.
“What about Mum?” she asked.
“We’ll take her over to the Barrel. You know how she loves Dean’s voice. Between us and Suze we should be able to keep her occupied until you can take her home again.”
“We really do need help, Dad.”
Her father waved a dismissive hand at her. “We can cope. We do fine looking after her.”
“Not we—me.”
Her father frowned, a shutter coming down over his face. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Which meant never.
Belle sighed and nodded. She caught Jack’s head shake as she turned to leave the shed.
She was almost thirty-two and, while she was happy working for the family business and wouldn’t want to be anywhere else, at times it seemed her life might never actually start.
Chapter Two
Dante straightened his back and breathed deep. He rolled his shoulders and laced his fingers together behind his head to stretch out the kinks. If he’d learned one thing from his father, it was that he hated weakness of any sort.
Better to pretend he was made of the same shiny, stainless steel as
The old way.
At least he’d managed to talk him into changing the old oak barrels over to the newer stainless ones for the majority of their vintages. The older seasoned oak they kept for their specialised fortified liqueurs. His father was such a contradiction in some ways. Old ways, but he’d wanted to embrace newer techniques.
He glanced at the magazine Belle had dropped off in a whirlwind visit at morning tea. A sticky note sat high out of the top of it marking the page containing the interview with the national wine committee. He flicked to the page and grinned at the neat handwritten note.
Don’t forget our picnic! I’m bringing cheese!
He couldn’t wait. Sure, she’d stayed last night on his sofa, but more and more he ached to see her every day, and not just for five minutes here and there.
As well as their regular movie night, he and Belle tried to have at least one other time during their insanely busy week to get together and chill. Through the warmer months, that often meant picnics. They messaged constantly, but seeing her smiling face and hearing her voice was something that always made his day that much brighter.
He laughed at himself. His anticipation might also have something to do with the fact that if they actually got their picnic, odds were she’d be in a bikini and want to go swimming.
That was something he could definitely look forward to.
“I’m sorry, mate, but you can’t be back here.”
Dante looked up and blinked a few times to focus, as their shedhand Jimmy’s voice caught his attention.
“It’s okay. I’m allowed.”
Dante’s gut somersaulted at the familiar male voice. He spun around, certain his ears were deceiving him. The spectre standing not three metres away was one he hadn’t seen in ten years. The quiet hum of machinery and the soft gurgle of vats of wine proved he hadn’t stepped into the Twilight Zone.
“Raph?” he whispered, through elated shock.
“I’m pretty sure you’re not. Just let me go get Mr Casellati. I’ll—”
As Raph patted the teenager on the back, Dante stepped jerkily forward. “It’s all good, Jimmy. I—”
“Who is bothering you out here, Jimmy? Please come back this way to the shop, sir.” Salvatore Casellati’s voice, Sam to his friends, rang out in the large shed.
Raph’s spine snapped straight at the sound of their father’s gravelly, heavily accented English behind him. He hadn’t seen Dante yet and he turned slowly, as if trying to delay the inevitable as long as possible.
The old man’s eyes widened in shock as Raph’s face registered. A face so like his own. “Raphael …?” Sam trailed off into silence.
Dante closed his eyes and resisted the urge to cross himself. He almost laughed. Him, raised a good little Catholic boy, who hadn’t seen the inside of a church in ten years. He certainly had no right to be asking for protection now, even if it was for someone else. If Raphael was coming back home with his tail between his legs, he had to own it and face their father without Dante’s help.
Raph inclined his head a little. “Hi, Dad. Long time, eh?”
A high-pitched squeal pierced the silence and rang throughout the predominantly metal room.
“Raph? Oh my God!”
Pounding footsteps slapped on the concrete. Raphael had enough time to lift his arms before his sister threw herself into them. Ria wrapped him in a vice-grip hug.
“I can’t believe you’re really here!” She pulled back and punched Raph hard in the arm. “You should’ve told me you were coming. I would’ve come and got you from the airport.”
Raph stepped back and rubbed his arm.
“I wasn’t sure I was.”
Dante cleared his throat quietly, watching the scene play out. Ten years was a long time to stay gone. Sure, Raph had kept in contact with his siblings—mostly Valeria and Leo—but he hadn’t spoken a single word to their father in that whole time.
Dante finally managed to make his legs move. He stopped behind the group and stood, wiping his hands on a cloth.
“Raph.”
His voice betrayed his happiness, now that the shock was wearing off. Raph turned, extricating himself from Ria’s bear-like grip, and held out his hand to Dante.
Dante grabbed it and dragged him into a tight hug. It was so good to have Raph there, right in front of him. They weren’t as close as he and Leo—being away for so long tended to do that to relationships—but he was family.
“What are you doing here?” Dante laughed and hugged him again.
A glance around the small group showed the same question echoed on each face. His gaze came to rest on his father’s face. Quiet contemplation regarded Raph from his faded hazel eyes.
“I thought it was time to come home.”
Silence greeted his statement. Expressions ranged from shock to his own grin.
“For real?” Ria whispered. “For good?”
“That depends on Dad,” Raph said quietly.
Their parting ten years earlier hadn’t been pleasant. Vicious words had been thrown at their mother’s funeral, from both sides. Words that had wounded so deeply that Raphael had left that same day and hadn’t returned.
His father straightened to his full six-foot height. One nod. He turned and started walking back toward the short hall connecting the winery to the cellar door café.
“You know where your old room is.”
Profound relief flooded Raph’s face. He must not have expected a yes. Ria slapped her hands over her mouth then burst into tears.
“I’ve wanted this for so long, Raph. I thought you’d never come home.”
Raph wrapped his arms around their sister and let out a shaky breath. “I didn’t think he’d let me through the door.”
Dante put the rag down and motioned toward the café kitchen door. “Come on. There are two other people who might like to see you.”
Leo and Angel would be stoked to have him back. The three musketeers reunited.
A mischievous grin widened his mouth. “Your turtle brothers are waiting, Raphael.”
Ria burst out laughing. “You’re going to be in so much trouble, Dante. I can’t wait.”
Dante wrapped his arm around his brother and shrugged.
“Me, either.”
Chapter Three
Belle swung the picnic basket in time with the beat pounding in her earbuds. She hummed along with the song, one of her favourites, and stepped through the front door of the Casellati home, slipping the strawberry-flavoured lip balm she’d just used back into her pocket.
She popped an earbud from her ear and smiled at Dante’s father coming out of the kitchen.
“Bella! So good to see you.”
She grinned and leaned up to kiss Sam’s cheek. She saw him most days, but he always said things like that. And he insisted on calling her Bella instead of plain Belle. She liked it, if the truth be known. The way he said it in his heavily accented English made her feel like she’d stepped back in time. He kissed both her cheeks, which always made her laugh. She placed the picnic basket on the coffee table and pulled out a tiramisu.
“Dessert for you, Mr C.”
He rubbed his hands together, delight flooding his face. “Ahh! You spoil me.”
“Not at all. You deserve it.”
He swiped a finger through the mascarpone on the top and moaned at the taste. “Favoloso! Perfect.”
It was far inferior to the tiramisu his late wife used to make, but it would pass the taste test. Sam had married later in life, choosing to remain single after his wife passed away, so Belle always made a point of bringing him something special.
“Dante around?”
Mr C waved behind him and nodded, far more interested in his tiramisu. “Inside.”
“Thanks.”
Belle moved through the kitchen and placed the picnic basket on the countertop, then entered the hallway toward the rear of the huge, sprawling ranch-style house. She wished Dante had more privacy, but Angel had moved into the old cottage on the other side of the shed, the original home that had been built on the farm way back when. He’d claimed, since he was the oldest of them there, he got to live in the one-bedroom weatherboard house, and the rest could suck it up at the main house.
