Chapter 10
“Are you doing okay, Daddy?”
“What? Who? Me? Fine. I’m doing fine, Ice Sweet.” Vic Knowles tried to retreat back into his book, but Cassidy could see that he knew he wasn’t fooling either of them, so he closed it without even remembering to put in a bookmark. “It’s just mid-winter. Nothing worse than a vintner in mid-winter. No harvest, no pruning until March. Other than tending the young wine every now and then, it gets awfully quiet.”
Cassidy sat in her habitual overstuffed chair, just a side table away from her father’s worn armchair. Been sitting in it since before you were born, girl. I’ll be dying right in this same chair someday if I’m lucky. They shared a smile over his habitual phrase without either of them saying it aloud.
“I’m sorry that I’m so far away.” She stil
