“You maytry.”
“I don’t think Laine’s the only one here who’s afraid of trying and failingand”—he lifts a finger before I can start in—“judging by the last eighteen years plus of grade A pining I’ve witnessed, I don’t think your horniness-induced insanity is all that temporary, either.”
My mouth drops open as River rises to his feet, grabs our empty bottles, and takes off toward the next viewpoint, whistling a Chappell Roan song, thenerve.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Just like that, the cool spring sun of May melts into June’s stormy heat, all blue skies and boisterous clouds that dapple the roads before unleashing bursts of quenching rain. In our blocks, the buds have swelled with life, burst into flower, and the tiniest clusters of grapes have begun to form. I have to give it to Laine—after the pruning fiasco, she’s been a devout student of Jamal’s, absorbing his lessons on canopy management, leaf-thinning, and the dangers of powdery mildew—all things she never had to worry about in the dry, arid climates of California’s wine regions but are critical to making grapes thrive in our humid, rainy mountains.
She’s doing great. The pride I feel for her is of a soft and grateful sort. I miss Dad ferociously, but it’s for his quiet voice, long hugs, and sad, loving eyes. It’s no longer accompanied by the fear that Bluebell can’t survive without him because with Laine here, I’ve started to believe we can.
Laine surprised me, though, when she asked to take last Friday off. “I know things are picking up right now, but I have to go back to California for the weekend.” She’d cleared her throat, as if asking for a day off was unthinkable. “I need to get some things I left in storage. That okay, boss?”
“Sure, no problem.” I tried to put extra kindness in my words. Le Jardin did a real number on her, and while Dad and I don’t take days off, we never hold our employees to that. “Will you let Josiah know so he can keep things going in the Pinot Noir blocks?”
She’d nodded, then a couple days later, left. I felt her absence keenly that weekend, my eyes sweeping the landscape for her again and again,even though I knew she was gone. Feeling disappointed anyway. Then, feeling a surge of glad relief when the lights flicked on in the Treebnb Sunday night when she returned.
I head to the back of the winery where Dad works on the red blends. Instead of his hunched shoulders, Laine’s there now, and my heart warms at the sight. Her long legs are perched on Dad’s thinking stool, folded on either side of her. She’s wearing a white lab coat and goggles on her head, reading one of Mom’s old wine journals intently. Judging by the getup, she must’ve been working with the sterile filtering agents earlier, but I don’t really care why. She can mad-scientist in here anytime.
I rap my knuckles against a barrel. “Knock, knock.”
She turns on her stool and gives me that heart-fluttering smile. “Hey, boss. What’s up?”
“Darryl and Trish’ll be here any minute.” When her face fails to register the importance of this, I add, “For the Redneck Wine Tour?”
“Oh, right.” She closes Mom’s journal and places it on the table with reverence. “You know, your mom was a genius. The way she manipulated every step of the process with such intuition …” Laine shakes her head. “Nothing short of witch-level.”
I smile ruefully. “That’s my mom, wine-witch of Appalachia.”
“Something to aspire to, that’s for sure.”
“Are you getting any closer to cracking the code for her red blends?”
“I’m trying, but so much of it depends on coaxing the grapes to the right acid and Brix, achieving the right length of fermentation, and adjusting everything else to what nature gave you that season. Your mom spoke her own language with the wine she made.” Laine looks at me then, her face softening. “Have you ever read her journals?”
I wave a hand at her, but it’s shaky. “I’ve tried, but you’re right—it’s like a different language. I love wine, but I’ve never wanted to make it myself.” The words come out clipped through the sudden tightness in mythroat, but it’s not Laine’s fault. She couldn’t know how much I tried to force myself to fit into Mom’s shoes exactly, to live the life she’d chosen but was cut short. When I was a kid, wine was this ocean I never knew how to cross to get to Mom. Obviously, I couldn’t drink it or make it myself—I was just a kid. But I hated feeling barred off from this big, beautiful calling she loved, and that feeling magnified by a multitude after she died, made worse by my complete lack of aptitude for farming and making wine. It was only through business and marketing that I found my way across that ocean, and she was already long gone.
My fingers are gripping the wrist of my other hand, and I force them to relax. Just then, a series of loud, canned honks punctures the stillness of our countryside. It takes me a minute to realize it’s the opening notes of Garth Brooks’s “Friends in Low Places.” The honking’s followed by the sound of heavy wheels crunching over our gravel parking lot, and a megaphone announcing, “Callin’ all y’allrednecks!”
I raise my eyebrows. “They’re here.”
“Listen, do you mind if I sit the tour out?” Laine smiles, but it’s apologetic. “I feel bad taking time away from the blends right now.”
I breathe in deeply through my nose because this isn’t about the blends waiting. Laine and I have been getting along so much better since the frost, but it’s not because we magically solved all our differences about wine. Laine still carries around this—thisgrudgeagainst Blue Ridge’s wine region. To her credit, she tries to temper her opinions more, but even what she considers polite commentary still digs beneath my skin.
Will Blue Ridge ever be good enough for her?
Or do I have toprovethat it is?
I give her a firm smile. “Nope. You’re coming.” I reach out my hand and to my surprise, she lets me pull her to standing. She’s close now, so close that my breasts lightly graze the front of her lab coat. I know I should step back and make room, or at the very least, let go of her hand,but now that we’re here, I can’t make myself move at all. She tilts her chin down so she can meet my gaze, and the look in her eyes is so immediately attentive, so interested, it’s like I flipped a switch within her toon.
“Is that a directive, boss?” Laine asks quietly, her lips still parted as though the question’s physically lingering there. Heat floods my body. It flips my switchon, too.
“Yes,” I breathe, unable to resist. “It is.”
Laine pulls her bottom lip in. “If you make me, I’ll come.”
Her words thrum deep and low in my belly, my muscles tensing with pleasure. God, does she know what she’s doing to me? Shedoes. A smirk lifts the corners of her mouth, and finally, she steps back, stripping off her long yellow gloves. I suddenly feel the need to spout off all the justifications I’d planned if she’d fought back. “You need to experience other vineyards here, taste their wine. It’s important to understand our scene, and besides”—I blow out a breath—“I’m nervous. I could use the company.”
