When I got back to the winery, I noticed that his truck wasn’t parked in its usual place.

I headed to my room and found that housekeeping had already cleaned it. There was no record of Jamie and me in bed. It was made with the perfect hotel folds.

A feeling started building in my chest. I looked out the window and searched for Jamie among the many rows of vines. It started to occur to me that he hadn’t called or left a message. His truck was gone and it was getting late. I picked up the phone and called the front desk.

A man’s voice came through the receiver. “Hello, Ms. Corbin. How can I help you?”

“I was wondering if you could connect me to Jamie, uh . . . Jamie, the guy who works here.”

Oh my god, I don’t know his last name. I’m so stupid!

“One moment.” I exhaled, relieved that the phone was ringing.

“This is Susan, how can I help you?”

“Susan, hi, it’s Kate.”

“Hello, Kate.” She sounded weirdly apprehensive.

“I’m looking for Jamie.”

“Oh . . . well, Jamie had to leave.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure I can . . .” her quiet voice trailed off.

“Can you give me his phone number?”

“Kate, let me get back to you.”

“Get back to me?” I wanted to say, Give me his goddamned number, I just spent the last two nights naked in bed with him. “Never mind.” I hung up and slumped onto the bed and waited for him to call.

What began as a tired sadness eventually morphed into anger. All of my feelings of insecurity came rushing toward me at once. The memories of our last conversation in the tub, Jamie acting dodgy, the girl in the restaurant—all of those thoughts hit me at full speed. I began breathing loudly, anxiety coursing through my veins, my heart beating out of my chest. He wasn’t coming back, I convinced myself. Who would want me? I was a shell of a person, plain and simple, not worth coming home to. Within a matter of a few days, both Stephen and Jamie had proven that to me.

I wouldn’t need to learn how to be alone. I knew how to do that, but I was mad at myself for believing that Jamie and I had something. He was too good to be true, all good things . . . blah, blah, blah. When I saw him on the edge of the bed the night before, I should have known he was contemplating something that weighed heavily on him. It’s not easy to crush someone’s heart, no matter how spineless you might be. I wondered if he had snuck out just moments after I had given myself to him in such a raw and emotional way. He had rested his head on my chest as I fell asleep. I had thought he was mine. Then he had left, and now I was alone again.

In roughly four days, I had gone from believing that I should live a solitary life to having faith in love. With every inch closer to Jamie, I had approached a greater sense of peace. I couldn’t explain how he had taken the pain of being alone away, but he had. Yet he had made no promises to me. I had believed that we had something bigger than words, that there was no need for conversation. I had believed, like a fool, that it wasn’t possible to walk away from what we had. I guess the pull I had felt was stronger than what we’d actually had, which was quickly turning out to be nothing. Isn’t that how it always is? The two parts inevitably make up one hundred percent, but that doesn’t mean that the parts are equal. Someone is always giving more to make up for the deficit from the other. That’s what blinded me—my own silly, romantic fantasy about a guy whose last name I didn’t even know. I had given myself entirely to Jamie, and he had left without even asking for my phone number. I stood in the middle of the room, stunned.

I threw on jeans and a sweatshirt and scurried down the stairs to the inn lobby, where George was now manning the desk. “Hi, George. Have you seen Jamie?”

“No, dear.”

“So you didn’t see him sneak out of my room in the middle of the night?”

With a look of pity on his face, he slowly sucked air in through his teeth. “I just got in a half hour ago, so no, I didn’t.”

“Okay.”

I marched over to Susan’s office. As usual, she was tucked behind her computer and already peering at me over her glasses.

“Where’s Jamie?” Without knocking, I opened the door to R.J.’s empty office and peeked in while I waited for her response.

“I’m not sure I’m the person to answer that.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it’s not my place to discuss his personal matters with you.”

Heat, anger, and embarrassment flooded all of my senses. I could barely hear her because the sound of my own rapid heartbeat was pounding in my ears. “Do you have any idea what a colossal waste of time this entire thing has been for me? I came here to get a story on R.J., who is never fucking here.” I started to raise my voice, but she didn’t cower. “I got five rude minutes from him and one abrupt e-mail. Did you guys plan this? Did you use Jamie to distract me? Lighten the blow of not getting what was promised to me? Your ‘resident jack-of-all-trades’—well, that’s no lie, is it? He’s here to fuck lonely women and then fuck them over? Poor diabetic Jamie who lives in a barn and picks fucking grapes all day can fuck you against a wall like no one else.” She didn’t even raise her pencil-lined eyebrows at me, so I continued my rant. “What is this place? Is this some kind of joke? How could Jamie do this to me? I thought he was one of the good ones.” Tears I had forced back finally sprung into my eyes.

In a low voice, she simply said, “It’s not what you think. I’m sorry, Kate.” In my mind, that was enough of an admission for both of them.

“Me, too. This thing with Jamie just made it all worse.”

“That wasn’t the intention. I didn’t ‘sic’ Jamie on you.” She made air quotes around the word “sic.”

“Well, maybe not, Susan, but I still need to write an article about this godforsaken place. I’m leaving for Chicago tonight.” I’m not going to lie down and take it. I’ve done enough of that.

She didn’t try to stop me as I left the building. I spotted Chelsea lying on her bed outside.

“Bitch,” I said under my breath and then kept walking, determined to continue my streak of vengeance.

I left a note for Chef Mark that said:

Thanks for the whipped cream. I’m sure it wasn’t the first time you fulfilled a special request like that from Jamie.

Poor Guillermo was my next victim.

“I don’t know anything, mija. I just work here.”

“Does Jamie have a lot of women in and out of his barn?”

“No.” He shook his head convincingly. “Maybe your curiosity is getting the best of you,” he said.

“I’m not the one with the problem.”

I turned to walk away and stumbled past the row of vines where Jamie had kissed me so passionately. I paused and pressed my fingertips to my lips. Through tears, I wondered how I could have been so stupid. I promised myself that after I wrote the article, I would never think about that place again. I wouldn’t think about how he took the pain away for a little while, like a needle in the dark.

It all came back as the sun blasted me that morning in the vineyard. The dream was wrong. I wanted to believe that Rose prayed for me to find someone to share my life with. I wanted to believe that there was a cosmic force drawing Jamie and me together, but that’s not how things work. I shivered, even with the morning sun blaring down on me, because I realized there was no room for pain in love. Love is not the same thing as a marriage or a relationship or having children. Love is not work. Love is a feeling, pure and simple. It’s a feeling you can have one moment, in which you believe you could throw yourself in front of a speeding train for someone; and it can vanish the next, when they tear your heart out and steal every last beat for themselves. If I had any love for Jamie inside of me, I ripped it out of my heart that morning as I stood there among the sea of vines. Every last bit of hope I had for a relationship evaporated into the atmosphere like a memory forgotten.

I walked toward the inn thinking, I’m all I’ve got. I never should’ve let go of that mantra.

No one would ever know what Jamie and I had shared. The moments of closeness, the things he whispered to me, the way he said I was beautiful with so much conviction. Who could prove or deny it? Back in my room, I stared at the bed, thinking it had only been hours since we had lain there wrapped and tangled in each other, the way lovers do. I felt like we had grown together like a couple of trees planted too closely together, our branches mingling so that we didn’t know whose limbs belonged to whom. But it didn’t matter now because Jamie had uprooted himself. I had thought there was a chance we could stay that way forever. How naive of me. How sad. How pathetic.

The maid had tossed all of my belongings into a neat pile on the dresser and desk. It made packing up simple. I dialed Jerry.

“Jerry Evans.”

“Can you get me a flight tonight?”

“What? You and the winery guy want to elope to Cancun or something?”

“No.” Don’t cry, don’t do it, Kate!

I started crying.

“Oh shit,” he said, quietly. “Go to the airport. I’ll text you the details in a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” I said through sobs, and then I hung up.

I stuffed all of my belongings into my tiny suitcase, including the numerous pages of notes and doodling. I drove all the way to San Francisco International Airport with a newfound confidence. I honked at shitty drivers; I even gave the finger a few times. It was only after I began screaming at an elderly woman in a green Chevy Nova that I decided I had a legitimate case of road rage and should probably cool it before I got myself shot.