by Marina Adair
“Let me guess, you read that in one of your fancy magazines,” Frankie said with a small smile and Nate didn’t respond because she was right, he’d read it in the Wall Street Journal—and because she didn’t look like she was about to cry anymore.
Then her smile faded and her eyes narrowed, and damn it if he hadn’t imagined the whole vulnerable woman act. “Wait! Just what are you accusing me of robbing?”
“My alpacas,” he finally said, ignoring the way the two men exchanged shit-eating grins, and felt even stupider. “Last week there was a herd of them and I noticed this morning that they were all gone. Well, except for her.”
Nate jerked his chin toward the animal who immediately started stomping her hooves in typical female fashion. Then her lips started working overtime and Nate took a giant step back. “Is she going to spit? I read online that alpacas spit when they get mad.”
“So then you called to file a stolen property report?” the sheriff asked, his bushy eyebrows furrowed, his mustache twitching.
“The property, being the house and the alpaca, is mine,” Frankie said, stroking the fluffball’s head.
“So, there’s no report then?” the sheriff asked.
Frankie ignored the sheriff and glared at Nate. “And she is male, which explains the need to stomp his hooves and spit when he’s mad.”
With a loud exhale, the sheriff unclipped his walkie-talkie. “Dispatch, this is Sheriff Bryant. Tell all units responding to Sorrento Ranch that they can go available.” There was some squawking back, and then, “Nah, it’s just a domestic dispute, we can handle this call.”
“Domestic?” Frankie spat. “There is nothing domestic about us. I don’t even like him.” She flapped a hand furiously back and forth.
Nate leaned in. “That’s not what I remember you panting a few months ago.”
Frankie leaned in too, her full mouth so close he could feel her breath tease him—from his lips all the way down to his dick. Damn, he usually had better control.
“I was drunk and bored. You misunderstood. Plus, I like my men to pack a bigger set than me.” She glanced down and then back up through her water spiked lashes. “Never going to happen, DeLuca.”
“Who owns the land?” the sheriff interrupted loudly, taking off his hat and rubbing at his forehead.
“I do,” they both said in unison. And Nate meant it. He was tired of being fucked with.
“So let me get this straight. You are both claiming ownership of the house, guardianship of… that there,” Sheriff Bryant nodded at the alpaca, who nuzzled Frankie’s hair and started humming. “And there’s arguing, threats, and loaded weapons on the premises?”
Frankie shrugged.
“Sounds like a domestic dispute to me.” The sheriff looked at Jonah, who ran a hand down his face.
“God damn it, Frankie,” Jonah said on a long exhale, his cool fading. Nate found himself relating to the guy. “I have to haul both of you in.”
Hell, no. That was not going to happen. “How about I drop the charges? Francesca and I can settle this like rational adults.”
“Rational?” The deputy pushed his sunglasses down to the end of his nose and looked at Nate over the rims. “We are talking about the same girl and the same piece of land, right? Because my sister knows how to use that thing and she will shoot you if you try to take this place.”
“I wouldn’t shoot him,” Frankie said. Jonah spared her a disbelieving glance. “Fine, I might shoot at him, but I wouldn’t shoot him.”
Nate had to smile. Gun or not, it was hard to feel threatened by a woman who had once, long ago, cried herself hoarse in his arms.
“Either way, I’d be called back out and the town would think that I was somehow aiding in this stupid old feud.” Jonah walked around the back of the cruiser and opened the back door. “Now you both going to go easy or do I need to get out the cuffs?”
CHAPTER 2
Investment-quality wine?” Jonah placed his hands, palms down, on the assessor’s map and slid it across the table in the Sheriff’s station break room, making sure to shove all of his big-brother disapproval in her face. “Please tell me this isn’t why you cashed out your trust account?”
“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes,” Frankie said, shoving a little something of her own back.
“Christ, Frankie.” Jonah unfolded himself from the too-small seat, rose to his full, six-foot-two height and started pacing. He did that a lot when dealing with her. “What were you thinking?”
“Gee, Jonah, I don’t know.” She leaned back in her metal chair and kicked her boots up on the table, going for unaffected. It was hard to pull off since Jonah never got agitated unless he was really pissed. Or worried. And Frankie hated worrying him. “That it couldn’t be any more risky than Grandpa slapping one of the most respected names in wine on a bottle of supermarket Syrah? Or maybe, that one of the best plots in St. Helena Appalachian history went on the market and I actually had a shot at owning it.” She paused. “Wait? How did you know?”
Jonah walked over to the coffee pot, but not before raising an eye at her feet, which she ceremoniously dropped to the floor. He filled two paper cups with coffee and went about doctoring them up. “Phoebe called. I guess she had to sign off on the transaction.”
“What?” Oh my god, her mother knew. Frankie couldn’t imagine a worse situation. Other than Nate owning that other parcel of land, which she was pretty sure he did. “She isn’t coming here, is she?”
“No.” Jonah rubbed the back of his neck. “Thankfully, she has an art show in Mendocino this weekend that she has to prepare for. Then she leaves Monday for a three week commune with her inner goddess.”
“A commune with her inner what?”
“God, don’t make me repeat it.”
Frankie smiled and felt her shoulders relax. In the craziness of the morning, she’d forgotten about her mom’s yearly trip to her favorite artists’ commune in Arizona. A trip that couldn’t have come at a better time. The last thing she needed right now was her mom to pay her a visit and discover that Frankie had been fired. Phoebe would go all mama bear on Charles, who’d say something hurtful in return, then her brothers would feel obligated to intervene—and once again her family would get caught up in some nasty fight with Frankie at the center.
She studied Jonah, who was adding copious amounts of sugar and cream to the cups. “Why’d she call you?”
Although Frankie and her brothers shared a dad, they had different moms. Phoebe was wife 2.0 and quickly learned that loving a man who was clearly in love with his first wife, dead or not, only led to resentment. Especially when that man admitted that marrying a replacement after you’d had the real thing never worked.
“She called me because you haven’t bothered to return any of her messages and when the bank informed her about your latest purchase she got worried.”
She was worried? Frankie knew that her brothers wouldn’t understand why she had to do this, but she never imagined that her mother wouldn’t believe in her. She hated that the only time she felt like a loser was when it came to her family.
“That doesn’t make sense. She hasn’t been on that account since I turned eighteen.”
Jonah set the coffee on the table between them and then seated himself. Resting forward on his elbows, he leaned in, eyes serious and full of concern. Frankie shifted in her seat.
“Katie told her.” Jonah lifted the cup closest to him and took a sip. “Claims that Mom’s name is on the account and she was doing her due diligence by notifying the executor.”
“Shady Katie” was married to Charles’s other grandson, Kenneth, a man who was more interested in the value of the land than actually working it. Unfortunately for him, his dad lost his ass in a pet supply dot-com company and was forced to sell their portion of Baudouin Vineyards to Grandpa Charles and, as Katie so often claims, robbed her Kenneth of his rightful legacy.
“She’s so full of it,” Frankie said, picturing Katie brownno
sing the old man first chance she got. “She just wanted an excuse to rat me out to Grandpa. Show him he made a bad decision in choosing me over Kenneth as the enologist for the winery.”
Not that Frankie was Baudouin Vineyard’s head grape expert anymore. Actually, she wasn’t even employed by her grandfather’s company. Nope. Nate had ruined that too.
“Well, she’ll be happy to know that Charles hasn’t spoken to me since the Summer Wine Showdown, when I apparently disgraced the family.”
Then, instead of apologizing, she explained why buying a four hundred acre vineyard when they were already having cash flow problems was a bad move. Especially when said vineyard specialized in bulk wine intended for wholesale warehouses across the country and Baudouin was known for their higher quality and higher price points. That was when Charles told her that her opinions, expertise, and services as head enologist for Baudouin Vineyards—the place she’d dedicated her entire career to—were no longer required.
“Aw, Frankie.” Jonah rested his hand on hers and there it was. That familiar sucker punch to the stomach. The one that reminded her of the scared little girl who, once again, hoped that this was the moment when everything would go back to before the divorce, when everyone pretended that they were a happy family and that she belonged.
Uncomfortable, Frankie dragged her cup closer and studied it so she wouldn’t have to maintain eye contact. It was more milk and sugar than coffee, and was enough to squash the urge to care.
“Is that why you’re doing this? As some kind of screwed up apology?” Jonah asked, his voice steady. It was always steady, controlled. “Or is this your way of proving him wrong for not listening to you about going after the collectors’ market?”
“Neither,” Frankie said. This was about her dream. About making the kind of wine that only the top percent of enologists ever got the chance to make. She was good enough and wanted to compete with the best and this was her chance. “How do you know I’m not doing this for me?”
“Because if you were, you wouldn’t have blown your entire savings on a piece of land that is too small to be anything other than boutique. I know the kind of vineyard you want to run. That land isn’t it.”
Which went to show how little her brother really knew her. She knew he cared, but had a hard time listening. A boutique winery was Frankie’s dream. Had been for the past ten years.
“I didn’t blow all my money.” Just most of it.
She hated how his eyes probed her and how his department issued tactics made her feel like spilling her entire life story. Which would be stupid, because he’d been there for most of the gory parts.
“Good, because I’d hate to find out you were doing all this to prove to Gramps what we already know,” Jonah said softly.
“This is a smart move. It might be a small parcel, but it’s the best in the valley. Plus, Saul had vines. Nothing big, barely a gentleman’s vineyard, but they’re old and well taken care of and about ready to be harvested.” She knew this to be a fact because she had been secretly buying Saul’s grapes for the past three years.
“There is enough to make about four hundred cases and my saplings will be ready for planting this upcoming spring. Until then, Aunt Lucinda’s letting me keep them in the greenhouse,” she said, thinking of the nearly two thousand saplings she’d grown from collecting cuttings that came from her family’s hundred year old vines.
“Those saplings will take at least three years to produce. Another two to age. Even longer if you’re considering collectors and boutique wine shops as your target buyers.”
Frankie stuffed the urge to roll her eyes. “I’m not stupid, Jonah. I’ve done my research and have a respected wine broker interested in buying my entire bottled inventory. As for my wine skills, I’ve been working Grandpa’s vineyard since I could say ‘merlot’.”
“Yeah, well you should still be working it, especially with harvest coming up.” Jonah shook his head. “I give it two weeks before Grandpa comes crawling back. He needs you, Frankie.”
Which was what made this whole situation so screwed up. Charles needed an heir to take over the vineyard and the only one qualified or interested was Frankie. Too bad she wasn’t “man” enough.
“Look, we’ve been talking,” Jonah said. We meant everyone but Frankie had been a part of a discussion about her. “And we all agree that a united front is the best bet. So unless Grandpa apologizes, he’s on his own for harvest. We all walked away from that bullshit once before and we’ll do it again.”
Something she’d do anything to avoid. After her dad passed, his assets were divided among his four kids—all of his assets except the shares in the family business. Those went to only his three sons as per her dad’s wishes.
Frankie was crushed and in a moment of weakness, she did something she’d never done before: confided in someone—who went directly to her brothers. And everything went to hell.
“I never asked you to walk away,” Frankie said.
“I never said you did.” Jonah’s face went from confused to soft understanding. Frankie would have preferred the first. “Is that what you thought?”
She shrugged. What else was she supposed to think? She blabbered to a nosy Italian and her family had imploded.
“Frankie, Dad cutting you out of your shares in the vineyard and Grandpa refusing to equally redistribute them was part of it, a small part.” Frankie straightened. She’d never heard this before. “You were too young to remember, but that vineyard destroyed this family.”
She may have been six, but she remembered. Remembered sitting in the courtroom while her parents argued, her mom demanding custody, her dad saying the boys would be raised with him on the family vineyard. Frankie was too young to determine what words like ‘prenup’ and ‘divorce’ meant, but old enough to understand that she was an object to argue over, just like her dad’s motorcycle and the beach house in Pacific Grove. She remembered the day her parents divorced was also the day their dad had stopped loving her.
“It destroyed Dad and Grandpa’s relationship, their marriages, their connection with their kids, and in the end they wound up alone. We didn’t want that kind of life.” Jonah reached across the table and gently nudged her hand with his. “And I sure as hell don’t want that for you.”
“And I don’t want you guys to make this any harder on Grandpa. He’s had a rough year and things are already strained enough between everyone. As for why I bought Sorrento Ranch, I’ve waited my whole life for this chance. It’s what I want, for me.”
“As long you aren’t doing this to prove to Grandpa what we already know, you’ve got my support,” Jonah said softly and something inside Frankie warmed.
And just when she almost leaned across the table to give the guy a hug, he added, “Because Adam, Dax, and I all agree that living outside the old man’s world of grapes is nice and it’s about time that you tried it.”
That was easy for him to say. He had his brothers. Always had. Always would. Whereas Frankie was always too female, too young, and after the divorce, too limited to weekends and rotating holidays to be anything but peripheral in her half-brothers’ lives.
She was pretty much on her own. And as long as she remembered that, she wouldn’t be let down.
“Now that this kum bay ya moment is over, can I go?”
Jonah smiled. He actually smiled. “Not until you tell me what all that was about back at the ranch.”
“All what?”
“The name calling, the pissy stares, shanking DeLuca with your elbow in the back of the cruiser.”
“It’s called irritation.” That much was true. The man irritated her into warm fuzzies.
“Really? Because from where I stood, it looked a lot like foreplay. Especially since everyone is talking about how the two of you were sucking face at the Showdown.”
“Who says ‘sucking face’? What are we, twelve? And he kissed me!” Frankie snapped, her face going red.
Jonah just smiled bigger. “Have you seen
the picture?”
Yes, she had. Everyone in town had after Nora Kinkaid insisted on including it in her Summer Wine Showdown Facebook Photo Album. “I am so not having this conversation with you.”
Frankie stood, grabbing her plastic bag of personal items that Jonah had confiscated when taking his sweet time locking her in a cell. Unzipping the bag, she started angrily pulling items out and shoving them in her pockets.
“Hey, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Smile gone. “Sit down, finish your coffee, and tell me how you’ve been.”
Without looking up, she smashed lip balm in her back pocket and jerked her chin toward the cup. “I assume that’s not soy.”
“No. And since when did you go all tree hugger?”
“Since I’m allergic to milk.”
“When did that happen?”
She lifted her head and stared at him. For a long moment, she couldn’t even speak. When she did, it came out harsher that she’d hoped. “At birth.” He opened his mouth, most likely to apologize since that guilt was now piling high on his oh-so-capable shoulders, which were starting to sag. “If you’re done with the touchy-feely shit, I have an alpaca to feed and property to defend.”
Jonah looked at her for a long minute. His expression said I’m worried about you. Frankie knew that look. Knew it meant he was going to try to fix her life. Which meant he’d call in reinforcements.
“You aren’t going to tell Mom and Grandpa about me going to court Friday over the land, are you?”
Jonah was quiet, considering his options. Suddenly, her stomach felt way too small for the three ham and double cheese croissants she’d had at the Sweet and Savory Bistro. Having to argue with Nate in an open court of law over a piece of land that was rightfully hers was bad enough. Having her mom and grandpa there to witness the moment would only make it worse.
“I should,” he said. “Maybe she could talk some sense into you. But that would mean she’d be staying at my place and driving me insane. So you’re safe. For now.”