The Wine Train – Part 2: Cottage in the Vines

He kissed her in front of the whole carriage. A few people clapped. The violinist played a few bars of something from a wedding. Michelle blushed to the roots of her hair and kissed him back anyway.

The train slowed at a tiny station, a white wooden platform lit by lanterns. A man in a straw hat waited with a golf cart. "Mr and Mrs Reyes? Your cottage."

The cottage stood alone between two rows of vines, a whitewashed cabin with a porch and a lantern burning on a post. Inside it was cool and quiet, with a four-poster bed, a bottle of sparkling wine in a bucket of ice and a card on the pillow: Happy anniversary. The children say do NOT call.

"They're enjoying this," said Michelle.

"They've been planning it since February."

"I'm going to cry."

"You can cry in the bath. It has jets."

She laughed, kicked off her shoes and let him take her hand. They stood on the porch for a while in the cool night, with the frogs singing in the vines and the stars thick overhead. His arm round her waist. Her head on his shoulder.

"Michelle."

"Mm?"

"May I take you to bed?"

"Twenty years in, and you still ask."

"I always ask. It's the best part."

They went inside. The four-poster was soft and wide, with white linen and a heavy quilt. They undressed slowly, laughing at zips and knees, and then not laughing, with the slow absorbed attention of two people who knew each other better than anyone alive and were still, delightfully, learning. The night was warm. The window was open. A breeze stirred the curtains. Everything was tender, unhurried, funny and sweet, and the vines stood silent outside under the stars.

In the morning she woke to sun in the window and the smell of coffee. David stood at the little table with two cups and a basket of fresh pastries.

"Happy anniversary," he said.

"Twenty-one years in June," said Michelle, sitting up in the big bed. "Same train?"

"Same train. Same cottage. Possibly a little less crying into the cake."

"I make no promises," said David.

More married couple romance: The Cruise · Couples Retreat · The Second Honeymoon