AllFreeNovel
Share Us
And my day sure as hell wasn’t helping anything.
Deep down I knew that I was taking out my anger on Jordan. He was an easy target.
I deflated a little at that. Jordan was doing me a favor. Maybe I could shelve my resentment for the next half hour and get through this day with his help.
I breathed out heavily. “Sorry,” I said with a sigh. “I’ve had the worst day. Like, honestly, the worst day in existence.”
He startled at my apology. He clearly hadn’t been expecting that. “What happened?”
My body relaxed back into the seat. I hadn’t even realized all the tension I was holding in my back and shoulders until he asked. “Well, my house flooded. Like, completely flooded, and I don’t have a room right now.” I got choked up at the thought. “I lost all my shoes!”
“Holy shit, Annie!”
“I know. I’m still recovering from the loss. The landlord is going to cover everything, and he has insurance, but it’s pretty terrible. Hence the impractical snakeskin shoes.”
He laughed softly. “And I just thought those were you.”
“I was about to donate them. It’s a mess.” I shook my head. “I almost got into a car accident on the way to the party. Then all of…this.” I shrugged. “Wine dilemma, car trouble…” You. I trailed off. Keeping him as the last problem to myself. Ten minutes ago, I would have slung it into his face, but there was no point now.
“I’m so sorry. That sounds terrible. No wonder you’re so mad. I would be, too.”
“Understatement,” I agreed. “So…what was your meeting actually about? What does Wright Construction have to do with a small wine business?”
“Nothing,” he said with a laugh. “You’re never going to believe this, but I’m considering going in with Julian and Hollin on buying a local winery.”
My eyes widened. “You’re going to go in on the winery?”
“I know. It’s ridiculous.”
“I thought that was all Julian.”
Julian had always been the wide-eyed dreamer to Jordan’s stoic business practicality. But their cousin Hollin Abbey had worked at a defunct winery on the outskirts of town, and at soccer matches for months, Hollin had cajoled Julian into purchasing it. I’d never have guessed that Jordan would actually want to invest in it, too.
“And how do you know about it?”
“Soccer.”
“Ah,” Jordan said with a nod. “Yeah, well, it was Julian’s idea. Hollin’s idea really. But Julian kept badgering me to run numbers and look into distribution and check something or another. I gave up fighting him on it. If I’m going to do all the legwork, then I’m going to get a piece of the pie.”
I laughed. God, that was so Jordan. “So, what you mean is that you can’t say no to your brother?”
He glowered at me. “Yeah, I guess.”
“How do you have time for this?”
He shrugged. Which meant that he didn’t have time for this. And like the workaholic he was, he was just going to push himself to death.
“Turn left here,” I told him.
The Spirit Ranch came into view. The trees were strung with fairy lights, and the tent glowed. I could see that they were nearly finished with setup. Inside somewhere, a very anxious Cézanne was pacing, waiting for all the wine to show the fuck up. She’d probably messaged me, but I didn’t have the energy to even check my phone and deal with her stress.
“Whoa,” Jordan whispered. “It’s actually…beautiful.”
“I know, right? I love it out here. You should see it in the spring when everything’s in bloom and all the peacocks are out.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Peacocks?”
I laughed at his expression. It mirrored mine the first time I’d been here and seen the strutting peacocks all over the property. “Yeah. For some reason, there are peacocks. They’re gorgeous.”
“Lubbock is weird,” he concluded.
“You are not wrong.”
Jordan backed into a spot in the rear of the building, nearest to the kitchen. I hopped down onto the gravel in my too-high heels, already cursing the stupid flood again for putting me in this predicament.
A bunch of eager med students flooded out of the back of the building when they saw all the wine in his truck. Jordan went into a managerial role and directed everyone as they unloaded.
“I’m going to look for jumper cables,” I told him and then headed inside without waiting for a response.
I found Cézanne pacing, just like I’d thought she’d be. Her clipboard was clutched tight in her hand, and she looked ready to bang it against someone if everything didn’t settle itself out. She’d have a real career in event planning if this doctor thing didn’t work out.
“Annie! Oh, thank God!” she said, pushing her one stray box braid behind her ear. “I’m assuming this means we have wine for the party.”
“We do. No thanks to Bryan.”
“He’s been handled,” Cézanne assured me.
I was sure that he had been. Until the next time he fucked up.
