Love You Truly (Buttercup Hill #3)

Chapter 4

Mallory

My Jeep idles in front of my house, warming up before I take her on the open road. It’s the only thing that will give me some clarity. That and yelling at my parents.

The first thing I do is calculate the time in Europe. Three in the morning.

The next thing I do is call my parents anyway. At least in the middle of the night, I know where they are.

“Mallory! We’re just getting up to cook breakfast before we milk the cows.” How my mother sounds this delighted when she should be fast asleep is beyond me. We seriously have nothing in common.

“It’s three in the morning.”

“Yes, I’m letting your father sleep for another hour. I think he was up late reading.”

We make small talk for another minute before I can’t stand it anymore and ask her what in the hell she and my dad were thinking.

“He has good business sense, and he’s always looked out for you. I think he’s still in love.” She says the last part quietly, like she’s divulging a secret.

“I highly doubt that. And I can’t stand him, so there’s that.” I wish my mother didn’t bring out the sassy teenager in me. It won’t help convince her I can rationally manage a business.

“Oh, he’s harmless,” she says, which only proves how little she knows him.

“He’s horrible, and he’ll micromanage me, and he’s not even that smart.” As I’m saying the words, my mom hums back at me as though she agrees with my account. “On top of that, we’re not married anymore!”

“Well, I know that.”

A flickering sound on the other end of the line could be knitting needles or a piece of taffy. I try not to let it distract me.

“Great. So since we’re no longer married, you can assume I don’t want him to have anything to do with my life. Or our family business.”

More humming. I assume she agrees.

“You see, I disagree. I think you can be helped by the support of a partner. A husband. The way your dad and I have each other. It would be different if you were married to someone else, but Mallory, you’re all alone. That’s why we made the deal with Felix. Like I said, if you were married, you wouldn’t need Felix?—”

“I don’t need him now,” I interrupt.

I hate the way she talks about my lack of husband like it means I’m sad and lonely. I’m not. I have a busy social life that includes lots of time spent wining and dining fancy winery owners who might make good business contacts. I spend so much time getting dressed up for industry meet-and-greets and galas that I wouldn’t mind a little sad and lonely time. No reason to get married again. Ever.

“I know what I’m doing, Mom. I don’t need a husband or a partner.”

“Agree to disagree. Isn’t that what people say?”

“Yes, but I don’t agree. I really wish you’d see me as capable without having a ring on my finger.”

“It’s not about a ring. It’s about the support a real partner can give you. A husband. I want that for my daughter. Is that so bad?”

“Yes. When you make a deal with my ex that keeps him in my business, it’s bad. It’s really, really bad.”

I hear grumbling, which means my mom is now summarizing the past five minutes of our conversation for my dad so he can catch up. If he’s awake, I know they’ll be off to sheer a sheep in a matter of moments, so I need to say my goodbyes.

“When are you coming back? Can we sit down and talk about this when you’re home?”

More mumbling, and then my dad picks up the phone. His voice is raspy and deep, and I’m not sure he’s fully awake. “Do me a favor and check the mail, will you? It should be right in front of the house inside the?—”

“Mailbox?” I interrupt because we’ve had this conversation before also. My dad is always afraid the mail carrier is holding out on him, not delivering valuable postal gems and keeping them for his own or something. “I’ll check, dad.”

My mom grabs the phone back. “Gotta run, sweetie. Sixteen cows need our help emptying their udders.” Damn, she’s cheerful as she smothers my dreams in Felix’s smarmy brand of ketchup.

I gun the engine of my Jeep, which seems to want an up close and personal relationship with every bump in the road. I love it anyway. When it’s warm and I can put the top down, nothing makes me feel more free of worry than driving along the Silverado Trail with the mountains fanning out on one side and miles of vineyards on the other.

Some of the mountains still bear the scars of a huge fire a couple of years back. It will take a while for the larger trees to repopulate the hillsides. I notice some new rows of grapevines crawling up a hill and wonder how long that new winemaker will persist before realizing the sloping terrain isn’t right for growing grapes.

Often, it’s wealthy newcomers who buy a piece of land with designs on being winemakers. They don’t understand much about the business, only that having a vineyard in Napa is some sort of prize like owning a jet or a share of a pro sports team. It’s easy enough to find people who will convince them they can grow grapes anywhere.

They mount fancy signs at the highway entrance to their property and take selfies in front of them for their social media. I swear, half of these people just want to own a sign with the word ‘vineyard’ on it.

The old-school winemakers know better. They’ve been here for generations in many cases, and they take pride in the terroir of their fruit. That basically means they spend a lot of time playing with dirt. It’s the soil on the valley floor that gives the best grapes their ability to grow without a lot of intervention, and that allows them to make the best wine.

It’s the minerals and stones left over from more than a million years of volcanic activity. Not something that can be reproduced with a machine.

Our property has only a small winery on acres and acres of land. We’re pretty much the opposite of most vineyards around here, where there’s always a scramble for more places to grow grapes. Winemakers are always jockeying to find a few more parcels of land so they can expand their businesses.

Land like ours.

But the system my parents have used all these years is barely keeping this place afloat. Our family business has generated losses for the past few years because the money we spend to keep up the land isn’t covered by what we sell in wine. Nowhere close.

There are ways to change that. My business school education has helped me put muscle behind some of my ideas. I either need to sell some land, which I see as a last resort, or start growing a lot of grapes. We have one of the most sought-after appellations in the region, so we can sell grapes at top prices.

It will take some time to get vines grafted and producing fruit, and in the meantime, I need to curry favor with a lot of people around town and make deals that keep us afloat. I’ve been dancing that jig in my sleep for so long that I’m just about out of energy.

I shake my head, again thinking about Felix and his nerve.

As I pull back into the driveway of Autumn Lake, I let out a long exhale. Even though the place causes me stress, I’m still at peace when I arrive here. It’s home.

Rufus comes bounding over and puts his paws on the window ledge. “Down, buddy. I need to open the door.” It’s a ritual between me and my giant newfoundland who still acts like a puppy at age two—he greets my car before loping away and circling the Jeep.

“Hey, was it a madhouse out there?” My friend Mary walks over with her arms crossed. It’s then that I notice her red pickup truck parked around the side of my house.

She calls it Cherry and sometimes affixes a bow to the grill. Currently, the bow sits on the dashboard. The truck clicks and whirs as it cools down, so I know she hasn’t been here long.

“It’s a party,” I say as Rufus trots over and licks Mary’s hand. “Usual afternoon traffic on the highway, but I was just looking to drive. Wasn’t going anywhere specific.”

Swinging the Jeep door open with my foot, I grab my purse from the passenger seat. Before I have one foot on the ground, Mary starts giving me jazz hands. “It’s pub night.”

I blink at her and force a smile. “Right. Yay.”

“You forgot.”

“Because you switched days on me.” Normally, we go out on Monday nights because most places are empty.

Her shoulders slump, and she tries to pout, but she’s too excited to pull it off. “No matter. We’re still going.”

I nod. No point in trying to dissuade her, even though going out is the last thing I feel like doing. I just want to slink upstairs and spend an hour soaking in my tub. Maybe that’ll get the Felix smell off me.

I look down at my wide-legged jeans and oversized, pale yellow tee. They’re fine for the pub. I spend most of my time dressed to the nines because I’m trying to develop relationships with anyone and everyone who could be a potential business contact. People—yes, by people I mean men—seem to like it when I show up looking like a hot date. I used to hate using my looks to get what I want, but after enough years of being judged for them, I leaned in. The same way some men use their bank account and their swagger.

Once I turn Autumn Lake into a thriving business, I plan to give twenty percent of our profits back to the community of workers who can’t afford to live in the area. They’re the reason our town is thriving, so they deserve it. If I can accomplish that more efficiently by wearing makeup and flirting a little bit, so be it. No one needs to know who I am underneath the facade.

The only person I’ve let in a tiny bit is Mary, and that’s only because she’s a newcomer in town who doesn’t judge. The gossip mill gave her an earful about me, informing her I’m desperate for a husband and willing to offer false promises about selling family-owned land as a way to seduce the men around here. To her credit, she decided to get to know me before believing everything she heard.

Mary arrived a year ago from England, where she spent her entire life in one small town. Her brother plays soccer for the San Francisco Strikers and lured her across the pond after their dad passed away. He expected her to live near him in the city, but she decided she liked small-town life better.

She found an au pair job with a family that lives next door to our property. Her hours vary, so she spends a lot of her free time at Autumn Lake, helping me with the food garden I’m trying to establish. It’s off the back of my house, which separates it from the rest of the land my parents basically ignore when they’re not chasing a sheep through a meadow.

Mary has proven to be a far better gardener than me, and I’ve learned a lot from her instinctive sense of plants and what they ‘want.’ If I’m going to grow grapes, I need to understand their needs and desires, according to Mary. For some reason, coming from her, it sounds less loony than when my parents wax poetic about some bean they harvested in England.

For years, Mary worked in a pub and did a lot of their cooking. She claims she misses it and pops over here regularly to cook meals for our small team of workers. And she refuses to let me pay her.

That makes her the best of all worlds—labor I can afford and a friend I never knew I needed.

She checks the back of the Jeep and sees a giant bag of dog food I’ve been avoiding lifting for days. She’s half a foot shorter than me, but she hefts the bag like it’s full of cotton, and I wipe the sheen of sweat from my forehead. “Long day?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.” I fake a smile and twirl a lock of my hair. I’m so accustomed to these habits that they come without effort.

Mary crosses her arms again and nails me with a stare, shaking her head. “That’s a bloody lie if I’ve ever heard one. You can tell me all about it at the pub. First pint—or four—is on me.”

There’s no use trying to fool her. She’ll see right through me if I try to pretend I’m not frazzled. It’s the beauty and the curse of Mary Cheltenham. I can’t lie to her.

“Felix stopped by again…” I say.

Mary’s face twists into a scowl. “That bloody cocksucker?” Her accent makes even those words sound charming. Mary detests Felix almost as much as I do. “Man responsible for you losing faith in love, bloke has no business stopping by,” she mutters.

She’s exaggerating.

Felix is the reason I’ll never trust my heart to make decisions for me again, but I haven’t lost faith in love. Not entirely. Just mostly.

Casting a look across the vast field of untended farmland that abuts the main house on our property, I see a flat expanse of dirt and wild greenery. At moments like these, I imagine what that farmland could be someday—acres of vineyards growing cabernet grapes and more acres of sauvignon blanc, all under the Autumn Lake Winery label. I envision a sea of staked vines growing in neat rows, the soil beneath them ruddy and dry.

“Fine. I’m not going to get any more work done at this hour anyway.” I haul a case of canned dog food out of the back of the Jeep, and Mary follows me, chattering all the while.

“Great. Can we go to that cowboy bar? I really liked it the last time we went…”

It’s a good choice, I decide. Understated, definitely not trendy. It’s the last place in town I’ll run into my ex.