Wright Rival

by K. A. Linde

  “I see,” I said with a laugh. “And y’all are talking?”

  “He lives in Midland.”

  “A thirst trap in Midland, Texas. Now, I’ve heard everything.”

  Blaire shrugged. “I live in Lubbock. Anyway, that’s how we started talking. Because he’s only an hour and a half away.”

  “Have you met?”

  “No. I’m sure it’s not going to go anywhere.”

  Honey giggled. “Not the way he talks to you.”

  “And what is this guy’s name?”

  “Nate,” she offered.

  “Nate King,” Honey volunteered. “You can look him up @nateistheking. His family is into oil money. They run Dorset & King.”

  “Thank you, Honey,” Blaire said sarcastically.

  I’d look him up to see if he was everything Honey was going on about. It would be nice for Blaire to look at someone other than Campbell Abbey. She hadn’t been in a relationship in a while. And look at me, suddenly happy and wanting my friends to have this ounce of freedom.

  I parked the Jeep next to Hollin’s truck and hopped out. Blaire grabbed her bag out of the back and fell into step beside me.

  “Honey wants something to work out for me,” Blaire muttered.

  “So do I.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll find someone in this small town eventually.”

  I laughed. “You will.”

  “They’re a bit close, aren’t they?” Blaire asked, jutting her chin toward where Hollin stood on the sidelines next to Tamara. “I can kick her ass if you’d like?”

  When needed, Blaire could flip to defensive best friend mode in the blink of an eye. And I didn’t doubt for a second that she’d get into it with Tamara for touching Hollin. Not that it was necessary. I already knew that Tamara made Hollin uncomfortable.

  “I can handle it.”

  Blaire nodded and jogged off toward the field.

  I walked right up to where Hollin stood. His smile brightened at the sight of me. I grabbed Tamara’s hand and removed it from Hollin’s arm.

  “No,” I said flatly.

  Tamara’s cheeks flamed bright. “Uh…I…we were just talking.”

  “Of course.”

  Tamara bit her lip and then scurried away over to August and Nora.

  Hollin’s smile only grew. “Jealous?”

  “I am not jealous of the child.”

  He dropped a kiss on my lips. “Yes, you were, and it was hot.”

  “No. She just can’t touch what’s mine.”

  “So, I’m yours?”

  I blinked at the words. I hadn’t even considered them before saying it out loud. I hadn’t liked the idea of someone else touching him. We hadn’t had a conversation about what we were, but considering we were spending every minute of our free time together, it was pretty clear—at least to me.

  “Are you mine?” I challenged right back.

  He pushed my hair back out of my face. “Yes.”

  “Oh,” I said, turning to mush at the way he’d said that one simple word.

  “Well then, yes,” I agreed. “You’re mine.”

  “That sounds damn good out of your mouth, Medina.” He brushed his nose against mine. “Maybe I can have a taste of what is mine later.”

  “You’re filthy.”

  “No, I’ll be filthy later. Maybe we should take a shower.” He winked at me.

  “Get out here, Abbey!” Isaac called from the field.

  “Yeah, Hollin,” Julian shouted. “Get your head in the game.”

  “My head is somewhere else entirely,” he said, planting one more kiss on my lips.

  The guys called out to him as he kissed me. He winked at me and ran out onto the field.

  “Yeah, yeah, fuckers. I’m coming.”

  I watched him go with a shake of my head. He was mine. Mine.

  26

  Hollin

  “You’re whipped,” Julian said when I stopped by his office to tell him I was going to lunch with Piper…again.

  “Pot, meet kettle.”

  “Yeah, but Jennifer is my girlfriend. What is Piper?”

  “She’s…well, we’re dating.”

  “Exclusively?”

  I scratched the back of my head. “Yeah.”

  Julian leaned back in his chair and tapped a pen against his seat. “You’ve shot to hell the three-date rule.”

  I snorted. “True.”

  “So, girlfriend?”

  “She’s mine. We haven’t defined it beyond that,” I said with a shrug. “Right now, I’m enjoying the fucking ride.”

  “Are you bringing her to the gala?”

  “I’m asking her today. She was shaky the first couple dates. Maybe the first dozen dates.”

  “Can’t blame her. Considering your history.”

  “No. It’s fair.” And it really was. She had every reason to be skeptical because of my history. Especially considering what she’d told me about her friends. I’d been such a dick back then. I’d thought I’d gotten better, but until Piper, no one else had mattered. “I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. Make sure she understood what I wanted before I dropped a black-tie event on her.”

  “And what do you want from her?”

  “Dude, I feel stupid for even saying it, but…everything.”

  “Who are you, and what have you done with my cousin?” Julian laughed. “Are there wedding bells in your future after all?”

  “Shut up. I just mean, I want to see where this goes. I’m not pumping the brakes.”

  Julian stood and held his hand out with a wide grin. I shook his hand.

  “Good. That’s what I wanted to hear.” When he released my hand, he slapped a letter into my palm.

  “What’s this?” I asked, turning the letter over to read the header—IWAA Texas Wine Award Competition.

  “See for yourself.”

  I tore into the envelope and pulled out the letter. I read it in a daze. My eyes shot to Julian’s. “We’re in?”

  He nodded. “We’re in.”

  “Holy shit. We’re finalists for the wine award.” My eyes bulged as I scanned the letter a second time. “This is the official invite to Austin for the finals.”

  “Yep.”

  “Fuck, man. I wasn’t sure it’d happen. I hoped, but…”

  “I get it,” Julian said automatically. “But if anything was going to work, it was the Abbey vintage.”

  I hugged my cousin tight for a second. “Guess I’d better go find out if Piper made it in, too.”

  Julian laughed. “Good luck with that.”

  “No kidding.”

  I pocketed the letter and headed to my truck. I drove to Sinclair Cellars to pick up Piper for lunch. I was thinking something more celebratory than our usual. Or maybe we could celebrate tonight with a fancy dinner. Something I wouldn’t normally go for, but it wasn’t every day this sort of thing happened.

  I barged through the back door and knocked on her closed office door.

  “Come in,” Piper called.

  She looked up from her desk when I entered.

  “Hey, babe.”

  “Hey,” she said with a smile. “Just finishing some paperwork. Where are we going for lunch?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  I withdrew the letter. “Did you get one of these?”

  Her eyes widened. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Wright Vineyard is in the finals,” I declared.

  “I haven’t looked through the mail.” She reached for the stack that someone had apparently deposited on her desk. She rifled through it all until, miraculously, her own golden ticket dropped into her lap.

  Her eyes were wary yet excited as she sliced the top open with a letter opener. She reverently took out the letter and read the contents.

  “Oh my God,” she gasped. “We made it!” She jumped up. “We made it!”

  “Congratulations!”

  “We’re real enemies now, Abbey.”

/>   I laughed as I scooped her up into my arms. I twirled her around in a circle before dropping her back down on her feet. She drew my lips down to meet hers.

  “Maybe we should…drive down together,” I offered.

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “No point in both of us driving to Austin.”

  She considered it. “Might be fun. Like a getaway.”

  “I’m into it, if you are.”

  “I am,” she said with a small smile.

  “Good. And…about the gala this weekend,” I said, brushing my hand across the back of my neck. Might as well get this over with. “Do you want to go with me?”

  Her eyes lit up. “As your date? To a black-tie event?”

  “Well, yeah. I know you were already planning to go to see Peyton perform and…”

  “Yes,” she said, taking my hand in hers. “I want to go with you.”

  I smirked down at her and captured another kiss. “Yeah?”

  She nodded. “I was hoping you’d ask.”

  “Yeah? What number date is that?”

  She slung her arms around my neck and leaned into me. “You know, I’ve completely lost track.”

  My smile widened. I liked that. At first, she’d been counting religiously, as if waiting for the bottom to fall out. Now, I felt none of that from her at all. I’d had no real reason to worry about the gala.

  “Does that make you my girlfriend?” I was teasing but also serious. The words stuck to the roof of my mouth like peanut butter. God, it had been years since I’d ever thought that word out loud without a joke behind it.

  “I don’t know.” She arched an eyebrow at me. Always defiant. Always pushing. Just how I liked her. “Does that make you my boyfriend?”

  I pressed my mouth to hers until she sighed against me. “What do you think?”

  “Yes,” she all but panted. “Yes to everything.”

  “Good girl,” I purred.

  She laughed and kissed me again. “So, celebratory lunch?”

  “Or I could take you out somewhere nice for dinner.”

  “Or both.”

  “Both,” I agreed easily. “Whatever my girlfriend wants.”

  She squeezed my hand. “I like that.”

  “Me too.”

  Her brows knitted together. She lifted her nose into the air. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “Do you smell that?”

  “Smell what?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Smoke?”

  “I don’t smell anything.”

  But I stopped thinking and scented the air. She was right. There was a hint of smoke. I hadn’t seen any on the horizon when I drove in. But I wasn’t exactly paying attention. I’d been buzzing from the news and too excited to see her. I couldn’t even remember the drive.

  “No, I do smell it,” I told her.

  “Maybe someone burned popcorn or something,” she said. But there was doubt on her face. It didn’t smell like popcorn. “I should check it out.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “It’ll only be a minute.”

  “If there’s smoke, there could be fire. No way I’m letting you investigate that alone.”

  She huffed in that I am woman, hear me roar way of hers but eventually relented when it was clear I wasn’t letting my fucking woman walk off into a potential fire alone.

  “Fine.”

  I followed behind her out of the office. As soon as we were out of the safety of her office, I could see that the hallway was hazy with smoke. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t noticed the smell before. I pulled my T-shirt up to cover my mouth and nose and gestured for Piper to do the same.

  “We should get out of here,” I told her.

  “In a minute,” she said, rushing faster forward.

  The deeper we veered through the maze of offices, the thicker the smoke got. We didn’t see anyone else. Either everyone had left or they were all gone for lunch already.

  We reached the door that opened to the barn. The door was cracked, and smoke billowed out of it. I coughed and crouched down to escape the worst of it. It was getting hotter, too.

  “Piper!” I cried. “We have to go. It’s not safe.”

  “Peyton’s wedding dress,” she gasped.

  “What?”

  “She was…she was keeping it here.” Tears formed in her eyes from the smoke. “It’s just in the closet. I can get it!”

  “No, that’s crazy,” I said, grabbing her arm.

  “It’s from a New York designer. She had it made for her. I need to rescue it.”

  “It’s a goddamn dress. You’re not going in there.”

  “I’ll be quick.”

  A stubborn look of determination crossed her face. She was going to go into a burning building to save her sister’s wedding dress. It would have been funny if it wasn’t so goddamn dangerous. Who knew what the next room looked like? It could be engulfed in flames. The ceiling could collapse. The smoke could suffocate her.

  She was going to do it anyway.

  I saw the moment when she made up her mind. And it was the same moment that I made up mine that we were fucking done here.

  I grabbed her around the waist. She screamed as I tossed her over my shoulder and stepped away from the billowing smoke. She hit her fists against my chest and coughed harder as she tried to speak. The smoke was getting thicker. We needed to leave. We never should have come this way. It was way past time for us to be able to do anything to fix this. And I didn’t care if she beat me to a pulp; I was going to get her out of there.

  The door I’d come in from earlier was standing ajar. I kicked it open and inhaled my first gasping breath of fresh air. I carried Piper a dozen feet away from the building before dropping her on her feet.

  She collapsed to her knees and hacked up a lung. “Hollin! I could have gotten it.”

  “Look!” I snapped, pointing back to where we’d come.

  She gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth as she stared at the barn she’d grown up in, the barn she loved, go up in flames. The fire was primarily on the opposite side of the building from where we’d been, but it was spreading fast. The building was old, and it went up like tinder.

  Tears streamed down her face. “Oh my God.”

  “I know.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  I dropped onto the ground next to her. “We wait.”

  And then we both heard the sirens in the distance.

  27

  Piper

  My home was burning to the ground. And my heart shattered into a million pieces as I watched the flames engulf it. I’d grown up in that building. I’d worked in it for years. It was as much a part of me as the vines and fields.

  At least they were safe. The fire hadn’t jumped to any of the fields. Our entire crop could have been destroyed in a matter of hours if that had happened. I had no idea how we would have come back from that. A whole year of wine would have been gone.

  Luckily that hadn’t happened. That was what people were saying.

  We were lucky.

  I didn’t feel lucky.

  I felt empty.

  The firefighters had shown up and were trying to control the raging fire within. We still had no idea what had caused it. Everyone was speculating it was an electrical fire. The building was old and could have used some maintenance, but I hadn’t thought anything like this could happen.

  My dad rushed up to me. “Mija, you’re all right.”

  “I’m fine, Papa,” I said, letting his warm presence envelop me.

  He brushed back my hair. “I was so worried. I was down at the cellar when it started. You’re not hurt?”

  I shook my head. “Shaken up. Some smoke inhalation. I’m fine.”

  Hollin stood next to me with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the fire consume my entire life. More tears came to my eyes as I glanced at him. I was okay because of him. He’d saved me. He’d carried me out of the smoke and flames when I was
too stubborn and stupid to listen to reason.

  “Thanks to Hollin,” I told my dad. “He carried me out.”

  My dad held his hand out to Hollin. “Thank you, Hollin. Thank you for saving my daughter’s life.”

  Hollin balked at the words but shook my dad’s hand. “Yes, sir. I acted on instinct.”

  “Mine disappeared,” I said. Tears came to my eyes again, and my dad wrapped me in a hug. “Peyton’s dress.”

  I was being irrational. It was just a stupid dress. But in the midst of the inferno, when I should have backed off, all that I could feel was panic. This was Peyton’s day. This was something I could do. I hadn’t known how bad the fire was. I’d thought I’d had time. Thank God that Hollin had seen reason when mine had flown from my head.

  “Shh, mija. All that matters is that you are well. We can all live without a dress but not without you.” He kissed the top of my head. “I’m going to check on the other employees who got out. Stay with Hollin.” He smiled at my boyfriend and hugged me again. “Te amo.”

  “Y yo a ti, Papa.”

  He released me and walked around to the employees scattered around the outside of the burning building.

  “I’m sorry,” I blurted out.

  Hollin looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

  “I was an idiot.”

  “Hey,” he said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “You didn’t know how bad it was. You’re not an idiot.”

  “Thank you for getting me out.”

  “I’m here to take care of you,” he said, pressing a firm kiss to my lips.

  I nodded and snuggled up against him.

  We waited for the next hour as the firefighters did all they could to put out the flames within. My mom and Peter showed up sometime in the middle of that, hugging me and watching the damage.

  “I can’t fucking believe it,” Peter said with a shake of his head.

  “Peter,” Mom hissed.

  “He’s right,” I said. “It’s terrible.”

  “We’re glad you and your dad are all right.”

  “Me too.”

  And then Peyton rushed in. It was the person I most and least wanted to see. Even though I’d told Hollin that I’d been stupid, I still felt unbelievably guilty about what had happened. And what I was about to have to tell Peyton.