AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“He trying to apologize?”
I shrug. “Don’t know. Don’t care. I’m done.”
Fortunately, Dash is so easygoing that I barely notice the ten-minute drive to the vineyard. He rambles about wanting to learn to surf and offers me a latte I didn’t notice sitting in his cup holder.
“Picked it up from Sweet Butter. Heard you haven’t been in this week.” He doesn’t ask why, and I don’t offer my sad story about not having the stomach for the place because it reminds me of Colin.
“Yeah. Been busy.”
The glance he casts my way is the only indication he knows I’m full of shit. Other than that, he goes out of his way to talk about anything but Colin, and I wonder if my sister sent out an all-points bulletin to the others, telling them to leave me alone.
When we arrive at Duck Feather, the driveway curves around and takes us under an archway with the winery’s name spelled out in capital letters with a duck pond beneath it. One duck, tail feathers in the air and head underwater, sits next to a floating duck on the logo.
“How have we never been here?” I mutter, looking around at the scattered oaks and haphazardly planted rosemary bushes. It doesn’t have nearly the manicured look of Buttercup, but it’s much smaller and charming in a rustic way.
When we reach the front of the tasting room, we find a single door leading to a small gift shop chock-a-block with everything from bathing suits to stiletto heels. Unlike our gift shop, which mainly sells wine, wine openers, charcuterie boards, and anything wine-related that we can stamp our logo on, this shop has just about everything but wine-related items.
“Never had a need,” Dash says, looking around. “Guess it hasn’t been here long. Less than a year.”
“What was here before?” I rack my brain to recall.
Dash shrugs. “Land?” He snaps his fingers, realizing. “Oh, wait. It was that small winery that imported grapes from Sonoma. Weird place?”
I vaguely know what he’s talking about, but a lot of the smaller wineries come and go. Some are vanity purchases by wealthy people who don’t really want to be in the business of farming, so they sell the place after a couple of years. Or they rebrand and hire other people to run them. So there’s lots of turnover.
We exit the gift shop and wander down some outdoor pathways leading to a small vineyard I recognize as cabernet grapes. The vines are well-manicured—all most too well-manicured, which tells me they don’t farm organically here. Not a crime. Not uncommon.
Dash points up at some handmade road signs pointing in different directions—toward the vineyard, a small apple orchard, and the tasting room. They have different street names like Hayden Lanes, Tollman Meadows, Bergen Avenue. None of the names have any meaning to me other than Hayden Lanes, which was a riddle Jackson couldn’t solve after our dad mentioned it. But it’s brought us here now, looking for answers.
“Hopefully, the owner’s here. Let’s ask in the tasting room.” Dash turns and walks a few paces ahead of me. We’ve done some research and come up empty. The winery is owned by a corporation with an accounting firm as the only named contact. We don’t even know the owner’s name.
In the small tasting room, we’re greeted by a guy who looks like he’s about my age, maybe a couple years older. He’s stacking cases of wine against one wall and tips his head at us. “Hey guys, you looking to buy some wine?”
Dash takes the lead. “We were hoping to talk with the owner. Any chance of that happening?”
The guy stands to his full height, and he’s tall like Dash. He gives us a canned smile, designed neither to welcome nor offend. “What’s this regarding?”
I take a step forward and extend my hand. “I’m PJ Corbett. We’re neighbors down the road.” I point in the vague direction of our winery, but if this guy’s been around the wine business for more than five minutes, he’ll recognize my name.
His smile fades slightly. “Hello.” He moves a few paces away and leans on a wooden bar where several bottles of Duck Feather wine are displayed. “So you’re from Buttercup Hill.”
“Yes. Is the owner here? We just want to introduce ourselves since we’ve never met, and we’re neighbors, like I said.”
The guy doesn’t budge. It gives me a chance to study him. Dark hair brushed off his forehead, tanned skin, dimples when he smiles. Dressed in faded jeans and a chambray work shirt over a tee, he looks fit, like he spends time working out—or maybe working in the vineyard. There’s something familiar about him, and I think back to the winery events we’ve hosted. He must’ve come to at least one of them.
“Yeah.”
The way he leans against the bar with his arms crossed reminds me of my brothers. I guess it’s a universal guy thing, that smug assessing posture. Dash must see some kinship because he takes a step forward, crossing his arms the same way. “Yeah, meaning the owner’s here?”
The guy points at himself with two thumbs. “Graham Garcia. I own the joint.”
I don’t know why it takes me by surprise that he’s the owner. Maybe it’s because he’s bustling around the tasting room, not sitting in an office somewhere. Maybe it’s his chill demeanor. He doesn’t seem nearly as stressed as we all are, but maybe that’s because his vineyard isn’t in debt.
“Have we met before? At Buttercup Hill?” I know his name hasn’t been on our guest lists, but something gnaws at me.
He shakes his head. “This is a first.”
The words hit me like a rock plummeting to the depths of my gut, bottoming out everything I took at face value a moment earlier. It’s the words, sure, but also the tone—a deep boom that reminds me of only one person—my dad.
