Autumn in the Vineyard shv-3 Read online

  “I don’t need you to fight my battles and—”

  And they were back to arguing.

  “—I don’t do sneaky ever.”

  “Never said you did.”

  “And you telling my uncle some lame story is sneaky,” she continued as though he hadn’t spoken.

  How did she do that? One minute he felt as if she was letting him in, the next she was ripping him a new one—when all he was trying to do was help.

  Nate stared silently at her lips, listening to her rant about men this and controlling that. Less than a foot separated their mouths, separated him from silence, from trouble. He realized the second she knew he was going to kiss her quiet. She stopped talking and the air practically crackled between them.

  Eyes wide, Frankie slapped her hand over her mouth.

  Better. Now, “Making the smart decision when your heart is involved would be difficult for anyone. And you’ve had a hard time with your family lately, partly because of me, so let me help you.”

  “Fine,” she drew out. “Tell Tanner to go ahead with the ten-thousand gallon tank and I’ll call Walt about the rest. But if he can’t match Tanner’s price I’ll be the one to tell him we are going with another bid.” Of course she would. It would break her heart, but she would rather tell her uncle herself than have him feel embarrassed that his company was too small to compete. “We do it on your credit, but when the bill comes we split it like you said. And I don’t owe you anything?”

  “Nope.” He wondered what he’d do if she faulted on the debt and had to sell the grapes. Or the land. Both were distinct possibilities. Not that he was setting her up. They needed those tanks and she was a business owner now. Owning a winery and making wine on someone else’s dime were two different things. She wanted to join the big boys, then she’d have to step up if she was ever going to make this work. And if she did default, he’d get what he wanted, right?

  “The way this land deal worked out, it’s almost like we are business partners so I doubt this will be the only time we have to go in together on something. Today it’s my connections and credit that secured the water, maybe next time it will be yours.” He shrugged. “Who knows? But when it concerns the crop, we have to work together and make it happen. Deal?”

  Frankie studied his extended hand. “Deal. But keep that DeLuca Jedi mind-kiss to yourself.”

  CHAPTER 7

  One-hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”

  Katie Baudouin looked up from Frankie’s loan application and pursed her lips. Her gaze was cold and bored, as though Frankie was cutting into her lunch break, as though they weren’t really related, as though Frankie hadn’t just spent the most humiliating hour of her life listening to a risk assessment that highlighted all of the 2,748 reasons her vineyard was destined to fail.

  Number 2,749 was that Shady Katie was about to deny her the loan. Right there. In front of every employee of St. Helena Federal, who were all silently watching the situation unfold. Frankie knew it. She could see it in the way Katie patted down her helmet-hair and arranged the already meticulously arranged papers on her desk so that Frankie could see just how pathetic her debt-to-income ratio was. Even more pathetic was that it was less depressing than the estimate Walt had handed her earlier that morning, which outlined just how expensive the new irrigation system, trellises, and supplies would cost if they went through him.

  It had taken him three days to put it together and two seconds for Frankie to realize that it wasn’t going to work.

  She had told Nate about it over breakfast. He had been more understanding than she’d expected, even offering to buy some of the smaller parts through Walt. But she couldn’t. Even going with Tanner’s vendors and his wholesale hook-up, she had to more than quadruple her loan request. There was no way she was going to be able to afford Walt’s prices.

  She planned on breaking the news to him later that afternoon. Not a conversation she was looking forward to.

  “I know that the line I am asking for is two-fifths the value of the land as of now, but we both know that if I had the land reevaluated based on the recent sale of the parcel next door all of this would be a non-issue.”

  “A non-issue?” Katie said, her penciled eye brows disappearing into her hairline. “It would be a non-issue if you actually owned the land.”

  “I close escrow a week from tomorrow.”

  “And the land you are comparing yours to won’t close for another three weeks,” Katie said. “That is, if it closes at all.”

  “It will,” Frankie said, almost laughing at the irony. She needed a DeLuca to close on the land that a year ago she would have run him over with her motorcycle to keep him from owning.

  “Yes, well until it does, you’d have to pay for another evaluation of your land.” Which would cost more money. “And I wouldn’t recommend doing that until you have running water and a functioning well. With no way to water the vines you have, let alone the vines you still have to buy and plant, it will be a lower evaluation.”

  “Which kind of defeats the purpose of the loan, don’t you think? As for the vines, I already have my saplings.” The only thing that Charles still hadn’t gone back on. And she hoped he wouldn’t. Frankie had spent nearly every weekend and spare dollar over the past five years gathering cuttings from her family’s vines after the pruning season and growing them on a small patch of soil behind Luce’s lavender garden. The new crop of saplings in the greenhouse would be ready for planting this spring and slated for Red Steel Cellars. Frankie couldn’t wait to get them in her ground.

  “I heard,” Katie said, and it was clear by her sour tone that she was not happy about Frankie taking vines from the family vineyard.

  Well, too bad. They were hers, and she had just as much right to them as any of the other Baudouins. Actually, she had more rights, because she’d put in the time and sweat to splice the vines and nurture them to the beautiful saplings they’d become. They were hers.

  “Have you considered entering that wine you are always fiddling with into the Cork Crawl?”

  She had, but entry into the wine event was exclusive, by invite of the Wine Commissioner only. Most wineries selected family members to compete. This year Frankie had a winning wine, but no family and no sponsor-approved vineyard. Therefore no way to enter.

  Which sucked poppycock. She had been waiting for this wine event all year, secretly working on a wine that, with its blend of two Cabernets and a touch of Syrah, tasted like the king of the king of wines. Red Steel Reserve was bold, fruity, and the best blend she’d ever crafted. Hell, it might even be the best blend ever made in the valley. It was perfect poetry in a bottle. And it was a shoe-in to be crowned the Cork King—a title that succeeded in elevating the price of the winner’s wine considerably.

  Only Charles had fired her.

  She had originally entered her wine in the Summer Wine Showdown, her way of trying to find the silver lining in a full septic tank after her grandpa had publically given her rightful seat on the tasting tribunal to his stupid-as-shit dog, Simon. But when Simon was pulled and they were short a judge, Nate had, once again accidently messing with her life, asked her to sit on the Tasting Tribunal. She agreed and, because judging a contest where you are also an entry was a big no-no, been forced to quietly pull her wine from the competition.

  Again with the poppycock because if she had won that Wine Showdown, which she was certain she would have, she would be negotiating with wine collectors right now instead of Shady Katie.

  “I don’t have a sponsor.”

  Katie picked up each piece of paper and stacked them in a nice, orderly pile. Although it looked nothing like Holly’s “Whoops” pile, Frankie had a feeling it was headed there anyway.

  “Can I be blunt?” Katie asked.

  “Sure, because you’ve been so warm and nurturing up until now,” Frankie mumbled.

  “Even when you close escrow, you still have no verifiable income. No customers, no sales or even prospective buyers willin
g to give you a note of commit for your futures. So you are asking us to give you a loan on a piece of property that you haven’t paid your first mortgage payment on.”

  “What about Walt?” Frankie said, that familiar feeling of ineptitude bubbling up. “You gave him a loan when their store was having problems.”

  “Yes, we did.” Katie lowered her voice. “Although other people’s loans have no bearing on your status.” Voice tuned back to professional distance, she continued, “But Walt’s family has over a hundred years of history in this town. A track record. You have nothing.”

  “I worked for grandpa for years,” Frankie argued. “The last decade of Baudouin wine is all me and you know it.”

  “No, you worked for him. His land, his grapes, his reputation. As far as I know, you aren’t even a shareholder,” she told her, going for the soft underbelly and digging in. It worked.

  “At least if I had shares I wouldn’t have lost them on mail order kitty litter,” Frankie said, rounding the reasons her vineyard was going to fail to an even 2,750. Although, insulting the loan officer who happened to have her lips permanently transplanted to Charles’s butt might count double.

  To be fair, this entire week had become one big, flaming ball of crap. Starting with an alpaca habitat and ending with baring her financial soul to the family devil. Oh, yeah, and there was a second never-going-to-happen-again kiss in there somewhere.

  “Yes, well that’s changing,” Katie said and Frankie realized this was why her cousin, who was notoriously impossible to get face time with, had agreed last minute to forgo the usual chain of command and take over Frankie’s appointment. This was what the entire conversation was building up to. “Charles is announcing at the Cork Crawl that he is taking on Kenneth as his apprentice. In fact, if all goes well, Kenneth will stand to inherit all of Charles’s shares.”

  And just like that, Frankie was going to throw up. She’d forgone college, friends, her entire adult life to help him make Baudouin Vineyards what it was today. Yet her grandfather would rather leave her meat-head of a cousin everything than forgive Frankie one misstep. One misstep over fifteen years of loyalty.

  It wasn’t as though she had thought Charles would change his mind and forgive her just because she bought Sorrento Ranch. But she had hoped that over time her success with the land would prove to him that she was a damn fine winemaker, one worthy of taking over when he finally retired. And he was leaving it to Kenneth. A man-child who wouldn’t recognize a good Cab if it bit him on the palette.

  “If the Cork Crawl goes well?” Frankie asked.

  “Yes, Kenneth is representing Baudouin Vineyards this year, and of course Charles is entering his latest reserve, so we have a real shot at winning.”

  Frankie rolled her eyes. The only reason they had lost was because Charles always entered his latest reserve. Well, the reserve that Frankie made as per his specifications. The man was so traditional he turned his nose up at anything remotely risky. In fact, he would rather lose to a DeLuca, year after year after year, than take a chance on something out of the box.

  And that, Frankie thought with a sinking heart, was why Charles would have never left her the vineyard—ever. Even if she hadn’t had the kiss-that-launched-a-thousand-ships with Nate. That was just his excuse.

  All those years had been for nothing.

  Setting her hands on the table, she leaned forward, getting eye level with her cousin. She refused to allow Charles’s lack of faith in her to stop her. “So, you are going to stamp that big red ‘deny’ on my loan because I don’t have the land yet or promise of an income, correct?”

  “Correct,” Katie said, victory swimming in her beady little eyes.

  Frankie thought of Susan Jance and her client, and knew what she had to do. She leaned across the desk and snatched back her application. “Then, I am withdrawing my application.” But before Katie could smile, Frankie added, “I’ll be back next week when I close escrow. Oh, and with a signed letter of intent for all my barrels. So get that big black ‘approved’ stamp ready.”

  * * *

  Frankie was mad. In fact, frustration and fury were two of the main reasons she wound up at the yoga studio Get Bent, drenched in spandex and sweat, joining the Mommy and Me Yoga class at the request of her friend Jordan. Oh, and Nate. Nate was the third part of that equation.

  Even thinking about him—combined with her earlier meeting with Susan Jance and the woman’s easy dismissal of Frankie’s wine—made her stomach burn and every muscle in her body cord with tension. And here she thought things had been going so well between them. They’d managed to work side by side installing the new tank, to cohabitate for three days without a single argument—or kiss.

  “Will you stop fidgeting?” Jordan hissed from the mat to her right. “This is supposed to be relaxing, and how can I relax when I can feel your inner confliction stinking up the entire room?”

  “That stink is the unsanitary amount of dirty diapers.” She turned her head and glared at Jordan. Her best friend, and the reason Frankie was currently surrounded by screaming ankle-biters in Gerber poses, glared back in a very un-zen-like way.

  “I have thirty minutes. Thirty minutes to relax and enjoy today, so don’t you dare ruin this,” Jordan threatened, in a strained whisper. Yup, zen was definitely absent.

  Properly chastised, Frankie looked out over the sea of yoga-clad backsides sticking up in the air and focused her attention on the instructor at the front of the room twisting herself into knots, and took a deep, cleansing breath.

  It didn’t help.

  The kid directly in front of her let out a low, concentrated grunt and Frankie felt a rash break out on her arm. Death grip on the mat, legs stretched in some inhumane position, she lowered her head to the floor and averted her gaze.

  Maybe if she focused on her breathing, she would forget that Susan Jance had all but shot down any chance Frankie had at saving her vineyard, forget that nearly every mat was taken, and forget that half the population was wearing diapers. She also wouldn’t have to admit that the two-foot-tall-tot next to her, who had applesauce on her face and was in desperate need of a tissue, was better at yoga than Frankie.

  “Why did you drag me here, again?” Frankie whispered to Jordan—the only other person in the room without an infant.

  “You called me and threatened to light Nate on fire. I couldn’t let you do that. Not today, because then I’d have to bail you out and I would miss Mommy and Me yoga.” Jordan was toned, insanely flexible, and indeed a mother. “Ava and I have been looking forward to this for weeks, right honey?”

  “Whatever,” Ava mumbled, looking as though she’d rather light herself on fire than be in the same room with good old Mom. Today Frankie’s goddaughter was sporting blue streaks in her red hair, white dance pants that barely covered her butt and finished off the proud-to-be-an-American look, and enough teenage angst to fuel a revolution.

  “I heard you got another acceptance letter,” Frankie said quietly, thankful they were in the next to last row, so as not to disturb the class. Although it was hard to disturb when half the students were gurgling, crying or chanting, “Binkie.”

  “Yup, NYU.” Ava flashed a satisfied smile at Jordan before going into plank. “As in New York and Not Here.”

  For years, Jordan had overlooked Ava’s bad attitude, her hoochie wear and body piercings, blaming her ex-husband for their daughter’s less-than-sunny disposition and self-expression for her stripper-like persona. She’d put up with the below-average grades, the rolling of the eyes, even the constant use of words like “Whatever” and “Meh.” But the moment she’d walked in on Ava and her study-buddy playing pirate and the fair maiden in the bathtub, Jordan had gone DEFCON-freak-the-fuck-out. She’d nearly castrated the kid, put Ava on house arrest, and became the founding member of the purity-for-eternity coalition.

  Ava, realizing the only way she’d ever get to date was to move away, far away, spent her incarceration hitting the books and memorizi
ng mathematical theory, resulting in straight As, a near perfect SAT score, and early admissions into every college she applied to—all conveniently located a cool three thousand miles from home, and her mom.

  With graduation only a year away and acceptance letters piling up, Jordan, desperate to give her daughter the correct foundation for school, had signed up for every class and event that being a young, single mom hadn’t allowed for.

  “Which is why I was hoping you could talk to Jonah. See if he would give us a tour of the Sheriff’s Station,” Jordan asked.

  Frankie looked at Ava, who rolled her eyes. But instead of her usually mopey mumble, she actually spoke. “My school went to the sheriff’s station when I was a kid. Mom couldn’t come because she was working, so she wants to recapture that precious family moment. And maybe if I’m lucky, she’ll bring juice boxes and sliced oranges and we can all pretend that I’m not sixteen.”

  “Maybe if you stopped acting like a shit, she’d stop acting like some psycho helicopter mom,” Frankie said, none too nicely. Too bad every mommy in a three foot radius skewered her with a glare for the profanity.

  “Gee, and maybe you can even come along, like one big happy family, and show me what cell you were held in.”

  She got Ava. Understood why she was so angry. Her dad had walked out, married someone else and started family 2.0, forgetting that he had already had a kid who wanted nothing more than to be Daddy’s little girl.

  Only Ava wasn’t a girl anymore, and even if Steve managed to pull his head out of his ass, which Frankie highly doubted, it was too late for Ava to be his little anything. And that had to hurt.

  “Or maybe you can treat your godmother with some respect, go to the station with me and I’ll consider letting her take you to the city on her motorcycle and pick out matching tattoos?” Jordan offered on an exhale.

  Ava dropped her arms to her side and blinked. “Are you serious?”