Once Upon a Wine Read Online Free

to me.”
    Cammie stopped fretting about the future for a few minutes and leaned toward the open window to breathe in the fresh air. She’d forgotten how green this area was. After just a few years of living in Los Angeles, she’d acclimated to palm trees and droughts, constant light and noise, and layers of smog so thick she couldn’t see the mountains or the ocean on the other side of the city. Without really meaning to, she’d gotten into the habit of rationing everything: Water. Money. The cell phone battery that always seem to dip into the red zone while she was stuck in gridlock on the 405 freeway. She rationed other things, too—love and hope and faith in herself. As if lowering her expectations would protect her from getting hurt again.
    Traffic got even heavier as they approached the shore. Cammie looked at all the drugstores and restaurants lining the highway, trying to get her bearings. Although she’d spent the entire month of July here throughout her childhood and adolescence, she hadn’t been back since the summer she’d graduated college, and the landscape had definitely changed. Franchises and big-box stores had sprung up from the marshes and forests.
    Then the car crested a hill, and the strip-mall ambiance gave way to a quaint, old-timey beach vibe. The ocean sparkled beyond the sprawling summer homes and hotels. And there, on the side of the road . . .
    â€œIt’s the Turtles Crossing sign!” Kat and Cammie both bounced in their seats as they approached the weather-beaten wooden sign. “It’s still here!”
    â€œPull over,” Cammie urged. Kat complied with the precision of a NASCAR driver making a pit stop. They clambered out of the car and snapped several selfies in front of the parade of yellow-painted turtles.
    As Cammie scrolled through the pictures she’d just taken, she succumbed to an unexpected wave of nostalgia. She and Kat hadposed by this sign every summer for years. Her mother had taken this picture, too, first with a Polaroid and then a disposable Kodak.
    When her mother died, everyone had assured her it would get easier. Cammie had hoped she would feel it less, think about it less, as time went by. But she actually missed her mother
more
now that she was an adult. Increasingly, she wanted to share questions and experiences with her mom now that life had gotten so complicated.
    But her mother was gone. By the time Cammie reached adolescence, Aunt Ginger had taken over turtle-sign photographer duties with a digital camera. Ginger had done her very best to keep the family close; she’d treated Cammie like her own child over the past fifteen years. And now it was Cammie’s turn to act like a real daughter. To love and care for her aunt, despite what seemed to be a disastrous mistake.
    â€œWhat?” Kat had put down her phone. “You look sad.”
    â€œI’m not sad.” Cammie gave herself a little shake. “I’m just thinking about our summers out here. A month used to seem like such a long time.”
    â€œI know.” Kat started back toward the car. “And now we’re old.”
    â€œWe’re not old. You’re, what? Thirty-two?”
    â€œThirty-three,” Kat corrected as she started the engine. “And my career is over.”
    â€œYour
first
career is over.” Cammie opened a wine magazine at random, skimmed an article about unoaked chardonnays, and glanced out the window as the scenery grew ever more familiar: the white clapboard sign welcoming them to Black Dog Bay, the saltwater taffy shop, the gazebo and bronze dog statue in the town square. “Ooh, let’s stop and get peppermint taffy.”
    But Kat was too busy cutting off several other cars as she veered across lanes and parallel parked with mere centimeters to spare on either end of the bumpers.
    Over the blare of honking horns, Cammie yelled, “What are you doing?”
    Kat pointed out the