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Her hand fell to her side. “Seriously?”

“My reaction exactly.”

“He and Mom just threw away all their responsibilities.”

“Grandpa was sick for a while. I think after two years of nonstop work and being caretakers on top of it, they need a break.” We’d all helped, of course, but Grandpa lived with them. We all got to go home, forget the deterioration of a once bold and vibrant man as best we could, but they never did. The constant reminder that the man we all loved and respected was slipping away stared them in the face every day. So while I wanted to give my parents shit for taking off, I couldn’t.

Besides, we were more than capable of running this place. We basically had been doing that for the last two years. Now we lost our safety net. But we didn’t need it.

“You’re right,” Char said. “They earned this vacation. But it would be nice to know when they were coming home. I mean, who does that? Who just buys a one-way ticket to another country with no real itinerary and awe’ll figure it out as we goattitude?”

Not Char, that was for sure. She was so busy planning every little facet of life, it made me wonder how much of life she was missing out on because of it.

“Mom and Dad, that’s who. But we don’t need them to make the decision. I already made it.”

“Were you planning on telling me?”

“I was, as a matter of fact. As soon as I was done with what’s on my desk, I was going to come find you. You beat me to it.”

Her hand came back to her notebook, pen ready. “What did you decide?”

“We’re going to go ahead with the bar. It’ll add to the customer experience, freeing up the main bar, without taking away from the integrity of the vineyard.”

“Exactly what I would have decided.”

“I’ll bring it up at the next town hall meeting.” Even though the addition would be within a thousand feet of the main building, and there were no legal issues, the town was important to the vineyard, and their approval mattered.

“It’s what Grandpa would have done,” Char said, an unmistakable sorrow in her tone.

“I know.”

She cleared her throat and brought her pen back to the paper. “I wanted to go over the next quarter’s budget. Do you have a minute?”

I checked my Rolex. I had an hour before I had to meet up with Phoebe, and Chardonnay could spend an hour just on projections.

“I have to head out soon. Can we do this tomorrow? Say first thing. Eight am?”

She took out her phone and tapped the screen, most likely adding our meeting to our calendars. “Perfect. I’m open until eleven, so that gives us enough time.”

I made a mental note to make a larger, stronger coffee for tomorrow.

“So, Phoebe Hodge, huh?”

“How the fuck do you know about this?”

Chardonnay dropped her notebook and shot me a glare. “After forty years, you haven’t figured out that the gossip mill in this family works faster and more efficient than any machine in the world?”

“I’m going to kill fucking Nero.”

“I actually heard it from Rose. She said she heard it from Wyatt, who probably heard it from Rhone.”

“You guys are ridiculous.”

“Don’t act like you’re not the conductor of this gossip train.”

“Me? No.”

“Oh okay, which is why when Rose and Wyatt were talking about moving in together, you became a crazed farmer digging for dirt.”

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