Chapter Eight
CHAPTER EIGHT
The hangover from the worst Queer Mountaineers gathering in history lasts a full two weeks. Tristan claims that’s impossible, but how else to explain the headache that’s gripped me ever since I drunk-sobbed all the way home in the one ride-share car in town? The driver blared heavy metal to give me some privacy, and maybe all that excessive guitar soloing helped, because eventually my tears transformed into righteous anger at all the many ways Laine sucks. The only way I’ve gotten through these last two weeks is that she literally turns and walks in the other direction as soon as she sees me. Which, good. Great.
The fact is this arrangement with Laine isn’t working out. While she hasn’t made any more rookie errors since she started meeting with Jamal, having her help isn’t worth the physical illness I feel knowing she thinks my vineyard isn’t good enough for her. The threesome just makes everything more complicated, leading to weird moments like outside the wine bar where her hate and my hurt mix with leftover lust, and I’m so tired of feeling broken and confused in the one place that’s always given me strength. The day after the Queer Mountaineers gathering, I finally put out discreet feelers for someone to take her place. She can’t wait to leave, so why make her stay?
I’m stepping out of the shower when my phone buzzes on the bathroom counter.
Gloria
U HOME 2DAY
Then, an instant later:
Gloria
I STG, ZOE, I SWEAR. TO. GOD.
Zoe
Yeah, I’m home. What’s wrong?
Gloria
SEE U SOON
Huh. I try asking Gloria, then Maeve, what’s going on a few more times, but they both leave me on read. I’m still puzzling down at my phone when it rings in my hand, right on time. It’s Wednesday at nine here, but three p.m. Dad’s time in Montepulciano, and we have a standing date to chat.
“Hey, Dad.” I pull my wet hair out of the way and cradle the phone to my ear. “How are you? How’s Nonna?”
“Zoe Nicoletta! It is so good to hear your voice,” he says, just like he does every week, his words a warm, lingering hug. “I am doing well, and your Nonna is having one of her better days.” He says that every week, too, which makes me wonder about all the bad days he doesn’t tell me about. I want an honest report, for him to finally give me some details about what’s going on over there, but just like I do every week, I bite the questions down, too scared to ask. I never know how far I can push Dad before he’ll topple over and shut down completely.
Once, a few days before the first anniversary of Mom’s death, I asked him if we could do something special for her. I had this idea that we’d take her ashes and sit beneath her favorite tree. From dawn until dusk, we’d tell our favorite stories about her, and then maybe, after the moon rose, her ghost would come and visit with us. Mom believed in ghosts, after all, and I thought maybe the strength of our memories would pull her back to us, if only for one night. I was twelve, incredibly maudlin, and I’d just lost my mother. It seemed like the best idea I’d ever had. Life took her away, but what if magic could bring her back? Then Dad would be better, and I would be better, and after a long, wretched year, everything would finally be better .
It took me all day to summon the courage to share my idea. Maybe some part of me knew he couldn’t handle it. When I finally did, he just … left. It was like the person inside his eyes slammed a door, shutting me out and locking himself in. He didn’t speak for two whole months after that, and I became the ghost in our house. He didn’t look at me, or talk to me, or anything. I could be standing right in front of him, but he didn’t even see me.
It was terrifying.
I wasn’t sure what scared me more—losing Dad, too, or being lost from him myself. When the anniversary came, I took Mom’s ashes and sat beneath her tree alone. I told story after story about her to our vineyard and the birds singing in the trees, until my voice was hoarse, and I had to whisper the memories into the night. I sat there late, waiting for the moon to rise and for Mom to come back and finally make us whole again. But the moon never rose, and of course, Mom never came. Her urn was warm in my arms, but the heat was from my flesh and blood. Not hers.
I’ve walked lightly around Dad’s grief ever since.
“So, how is the vineyard? Is Laine enjoying the work?” Dad prompts, and I let him change the subject away from the harder things. Like always.
“Honestly? It’s going terribly.”
“ What? No, I can’t believe it! Laine is such a lovely person, so qualified!”
“She’s a complete wine snob, Dad.” I comb my fingers through my still-dripping hair, then blot it with the towel, weighing whether I should confess I’ve put out feelers for a replacement. He’d definitely disapprove, and do I want his opinion?
Hard no.
“It’s not snobbery to have standards for your wine, Zoe Nicoletta.”
“Standards are one thing, messing with how we make our best-selling wine is another.” My thoughts drift back to the one interaction we’ve had since the wine bar, when I happened to catch her doing some weird shit to (Wish They All Could Be) Georgia Girls. Dad always ensures that the finished product goes into the bottle crystal clear and free from any unpleasant particulate, but instead of following his directions, Laine was bottling up wine the color of cloudy gold.
“It strips the flavors if you over-filter, boss,” Laine explained in this tight, miserable tone when I confronted her about it.
“Not everybody likes a mouthful of sediment when they’re drinking wine, Laine,” I’d replied, and she’d heaved a sigh and started over. But what would’ve happened had I not decided to lightly stalk her progress through the bottling? An entire season’s worth of our bestseller would’ve been unrecognizable to our customers’ palate, the strange organic cousin that brings pickled beet kombucha to the church potluck and gets hurt when nobody tries it.
“So what if she’s shaking things up a bit? Bluebell Vineyards needs a fresh outlook in its wine offerings, Zoe. My heart hasn’t been in it for some time, and I’m ashamed to admit that it shows in our declining quality.”
I squeeze my eyes closed, willing my blood pressure to fall. I get that every day, Dad holds himself up against what Mom could do and finds his work pitiful in comparison. I understand that’s the baggage he carries to his work, his own personal impostor syndrome.
But it still completely pisses me off.
“Dad, I’ve got to go. Busy day and all.”
Dad exhales into the phone’s receiver. “Okay, Zoe Nicoletta. I miss you.”
“Miss you, too, Dad. So much.” I sniff, the tears prickling against my will. “Give my love to everyone, especially Nonna.”
“I will. Ciao, Zoe.”
After the call disconnects, I let my head fall back onto the couch. Despite the conversation leaving me sour, Dad sounded lighter than usual. Brighter, even. Maybe things with Nonna aren’t as bad as we initially suspected. Maybe she’ll make a full recovery, and Dad doesn’t want to jinx it by talking about it. Then Dad could come home, and this purgatory with Laine would finally end without it having to mean something terrible for Nonna. The thought is so comforting, I hold onto it for a little longer, letting myself imagine it into being.
Loud cursing erupts outside, followed by a crash of metal, and inexplicably, bleating . A barrage of frantic knocking sounds upon my cottage door. I open it to find Gloria who, still wearing her softball gear, is clutching a leash attached to a belligerent, bucking goat.
“What the hell’s going on?” I tie my bathrobe tightly around my waist, looking between Gloria fuming on my step and Maeve running up the path to my cottage, desperately trying to catch up.
“Zoe, you’ve gotta take this goat RIGHT NOW!” Gloria’s tanned face is tomato red, sweat beading all over. She thrusts the leash at my hands, which I stupidly take.
“What do you mean, take the goat?” My eyes widen as the goat does a double backkick and baa s aggressively at Gloria. “Take it where?”
“Good morning, Zoe!” Maeve wheezes, fully out of breath. “Turns out we’re in dire need of a foster for this here goat!”
An incredulous huff of laughter bursts from my mouth. “Can not do, my friend.”
“Temporarily?” Maeve pants. “For my marriage’s sake? Come on, Laine already agreed!”
“No, she didn’t!”
“You have to take ’im, Zoe!” Gloria yells like an angry umpire calling an out, right in my face. “He ate my best mitt!”
“Baby, I told you, I’ll get you a new one,” Maeve says, as much in the doghouse as the goat.
“That mitt was three hundred dollars, Maeve!” Gloria spits out. “ Three hundred dollars! ”
“Y’all know I love you, but I can’t take your goat. Where would I even put it?” I try to shove the leash at Maeve, but she’s grabbed Gloria’s arm and is dragging her backward. Panic bubbles in my chest. I don’t know the first thing about animals. I don’t do pets!
“You’ve got a barn! Goats love barns!” Maeve hisses something to Gloria, and they both break into a full run back to their truck. “Thanks, Zoe! We’ll get this goat out of your hair ASAP!”
“Don’t you leave me with this goat, Maeve Jenkins!” I holler, but the screech of tires drowns me out, and Maeve and Gloria disappear in a cloud of dust .
I stare at the goat.
It stares back. Worse, it has the audacity to remain my problem. “Goddammit, come on.” I slip on my tennis shoes and tromp down the rows of vines, still in my damn bathrobe because how could I possibly change? Bring the goat into the cottage? Leave it to wander in my vineyard? Not happening. The goat trots behind me willingly enough until he sees the tempting new leaves on the Chardonnay vines.
“Come on, goat!” I tug the leash, trying to get him to leave my vines alone. Miraculously, he stops and turns his bearded chin toward me. With an ominous bleat, he rears up suddenly on his two back legs, yanking the leash from my grip. When he lands, he angles his head down, those demonic eyes flashing. I have a split second to notice his curvy horns before I realize they’re pointed at me and quickly approaching.
A shriek rips out of me as I take off down the rows, my short bathrobe flapping in the wind. Am I faster than a goat? Only time will tell.
“HELP!” I shout as I run pell-mell toward the winery, the goat hot on my tail. “MAD GOAT!!”
Tristan peeks his head out the glass patio doors, spots me, and his eyes jack wide open. “Why’s there a goat chasing you?”
“WHO THE FUCK CARES, GET IT OFFA ME!!” I wheeze-shriek as I beeline toward the barn next to the winery. It’s full of barrels and other equipment in storage, but goats like barns, apparently.
Tristan takes off after us both, but while he’s strong, he’s not fast. My survival is up to me.
I push my lungs to their limits, and with a last burst of speed, I fly through the barn’s planked door, its rusty hinges screaming. I hit something painfully solid on the other side of it, a person , knocking the air from my lungs with a loud oof . I tumble to the ground on top of them, their hard stomach and soft chest heaving and rustling beneath me, trapped.
Oh god! No. NO! I squeeze my eyes shut.
“What the—hell?!” Laine grunts from underneath me, trying to push me off. My mouth’s still opening and closing like a fish, trying to suck in air that my lungs momentarily refuse to accept, like haha, air, what’s that?
I manage to push myself up to sitting, still gasping for breath that won’t come. Laine’s angry face quickly turns to concern as she hoists herself onto her elbows, still beneath me. “Are you okay? Why are you—” Her eyes flicker down to my chest, where my pink bathrobe gapes wide open, exposing my breasts, the smooth line of skin all the way to my navel, thighs spread on either side of Laine’s hips. The fact I’m not wearing any panties is quite evident. Color darkens her high cheekbones, and we both realize at the same time that her hands are gripping the sides of my thighs.
That does it. The sheer mortification forces air into my stubborn lungs, and I scramble to close my robe. “Mad—goat! Chasing—me!”
Laine’s brow furrows, and she peers past me, out the open barn door, to where the devil goat stands peacefully grazing on some overgrown grass. She turns her dubious gaze back on me.
“He was—chasing me!” I wheeze. “I swear!”
“Sure, boss.” Then, she has the nerve to smirk . It’s not lost on me that neither of us has moved, and is it my imagination, or have her hands slid higher up my legs? Heat emanates from where her fingers rest against that tender space between ass and leg, just enough pressure there to part me good and proper. She bites the corner of her lower lip, staring up at me, that blazing firelight returned to her eyes. I’m spread wide open against her, and it feels so good, it hurts . Apropos of nothing, her breathy, intense words from the pruning debacle spring to mind: “ Are you my boss?”
My hand itches to dive into her hair, pull her head back, and slide my tongue up the tender skin of her neck until I wipe that smirk off her face.
“Um, Zoe?” Tristan says, hands on thighs and breathing heavily, having finally arrived on the scene.
“Hmm?” The voice that answers sounds dreamy, far away. I can’t seem to rip my eyes from Laine’s right now.
“That goat’s running down the road.”
“Fuck!”
“Well?” Laine’s voice holds an urgent edge to it as she hunches over the steering wheel of my truck, her eyes scanning from left to right and back again. “Do you see him?!”
Of all the things Laine Woods could care about, I did not see Maeve’s goat coming. But Tristan barely got the words out that he was cantering down the road before Laine was scrambling up off the barn floor, bringing me with her.
“Come on! We’ve gotta catch him!”
“Us?” I’d asked incredulously. “ Why? ”
“He’s from that petting zoo Maeve rescued, remember?”
“Yeah, so?”
“That means he’s domesticated , Zoe! He can’t survive out there!”
I’d started to say nope , that I’d call animal control or better yet, Maeve, to come fix the mess she’d made, but Laine looked so worried in that moment, her eyebrows raised in a fitful rainbow of concern, that I just … couldn’t.
“Can I change first?” We’d both seen what was under my scanty bathrobe, aka nothing.
“ No! ” Laine yelled like I was the world’s biggest idiot for asking, then threw herself into my truck and revved the engine to life. And that’s how I ended up here, riding shotgun in nothing but a bathrobe and sneakers, while Laine barrels down the highway on the hunt for a damn goat.
But I don’t have to like it. I glare at her.
“Don’t look at me, look for him !” Laine demands.
I groan and lower the passenger side window. “Slow down! If he wandered into the woods, I won’t see him with you flying down the road like this!” I tuck my legs beneath me, rise to my knees, and stick my head out the window.
“What are you doing ?” Laine yells at my ass, which is probably fully on display judging by the breeze I’m feeling.
“What do you think? Here, goat!” I yell out at the blur of green, but no goat appears.
Hmph. So much for domesticated.
“If you lean much farther out that window, you’re gonna fall out.” Laine’s voice breaks in over the choppy air beating against my face. “Saying it now: I will not be held accountable!”
“Just take your heavy-ass foot off the gas pedal, and I’ll be fine.” I clasp my pink bathrobe a bit tighter around the neck, as if that will magically transform it into appropriate, ass-covering attire.
It doesn’t.
The truck swerves suddenly, then corrects, sending me jolting upward in the window frame. “ Jesus. Are you trying to hit every pothole in Georgia?” I glare over my shoulder at Laine. “I said slow down!”
She waves wildly with one hand at my ass without taking her eyes off the road. “You’re distracting me! Can’t you aim that thing somewhere else?!”
“It only points in one direction, Laine!”
But then, a dark blur darts from the edge of the road across Into the Woods’s parking lot. “There! Up ahead!”
Laine slams on the brakes, taking the turn into the parking lot with too much speed, and the sudden shift in momentum sends me falling backward, ass first, right into Laine’s lap as the truck comes to a screeching halt.
We sit there a minute, both breathing heavily with the truck idling as I process that once again, I’m bare-assed atop Laine Woods. When I landed on her, her arms went around me protectively, wedging me between the old, knobby steering wheel and her. This close, I can feel the rapid patter of her heartbeat against my shoulder, and the intimacy of the sensation tugs something deep in my core.
Our eyes meet like magnets, my south pulled inexorably to her north, however unwillingly. A lock of the golden-brown hair she usually keeps swept to the side tumbles over her forehead, and my fingers yearn to touch it, push it back, insist it keep a business-professional posture here. That achingly soft wave of hair. How dare it so casually remind me of Laine mussed up from sex, her long limbs stretched languidly across the bed? But I can’t trust my hand to correct. Not when that impulse’s evil twin is right there, too, commanding me to bury my fingers into that naughty lock of hair and pull her to me, crushing my mouth to hers. Laine watches me, breathless, like she’s waiting to see what I’ll do, too.
“You drive like a batshit maniac,” I murmur, thoroughly annoyed at the cacophony of feelings she manages to produce in my once-quiet life.
She doesn’t deny it. Instead, she leans her head back against the headrest, eyes locked on mine. The strong line of her eyebrows and nose, her high cheekbones—all these perfect, angular features contrast starkly against the lush pout of her lips, so full and soft and sensuous it strikes me as obscene and entirely inappropriate. Laine Woods may be an insufferable snob who’s upended my life, but she is inconveniently gorgeous. My head feels light.
“We’ve got to find him,” she finally says, her voice so low it thrums in my belly.
“Who?”
The corners of her mouth lift, just a bit. Her eyes slide away from mine, down my neck, her arms flexing subtly to pin me in place, tighter. When her gaze returns to mine, it’s like melted chocolate, sticky and rich and delicious and wonderfully messy .
“Our goat, boss.” The words slowly drawl across my skin.
“Wait.” My chin jerks at an angle. “ Our goat?” When Laine doesn’t immediately answer, my brow creases into a demanding line. “Laine Woods, what did you do?”
She shrugs, a sly smile appearing. “Goats are amazing at clearing brush.” Then she slides out from beneath me for the second time today and out the car door.
My eyes widen. “I thought Maeve was lying! Tell me you did not adopt that damn goat—” I jump out of the cab after her when a loud banging sound, like hooves upon metal, comes from up ahead.
Rachel’s sparkly white SUV is parked alongside the employee entrance to their tasting room, the trunk hatch open, revealing the telltale brown of grocery bags. Something loud crashes from within the car.
Oh, shit .
The employee door swings open, and there’s Rachel in expensive leggings and impeccably white tennis shoes, her hair pulled up into a long, swinging ponytail. She reaches the trunk before we do, and grabs the last two bags while staring at us.
“What the hell are you two doing here?” Rachel pauses to squint at me, then clicks a button on her key ring that closes the trunk. “And why are you in a bathrobe?”
A shadowy figure darts around the back seat, visible through the windows behind her.
Laine and I exchange a quick glance. You tell her , her gaze seems to say.
No way, it’s your damn goat! I glare right back.
Laine clears her throat. “Um, Rachel? There’s something of mine in your car. I need to get it out real quick.”
One of Rachel’s eyebrows quirks as she heads for the driver’s door. “Like hell there is.”
“Please, Rachel, I’m telling you—”
“Look, I don’t know what you’re up to, but I’m not letting you root around in my car.” She opens the door, still shaking her head, and hoists herself inside. “Now, leave. The winery is not open to the public right now.” She aims that barb at Laine before slamming the door shut.
One second passes. Two. The ignition turns, then the car starts to pull out. My breath stutters in my chest. Doesn’t she realize there’s a goat in her back—
The brake lights blink on as the car lurches to a stop.
A scream. “WHAT the FUCK!”
The door opens and Rachel tears out of her fancy SUV, loud bleating behind her. Laine grabs the leash as the goat rips past, horns now aimed at Rachel’s ass. But Rachel doesn’t realize the suspect’s been apprehended, because she’s still running and screaming her head off, all the way to the road.
I press a hand to my mouth.
“ You assholes! ” Rachel screeches from thirty feet away. “You put a wild animal in my car!”
“Not on purpose,” Laine says, which makes a single, wild laugh burst through my fingers. Laine’s chest rumbles once, her mouth quivering as it desperately wants to grin. I have to turn away, or I will lose it.
Rachel rage-stomps back to her SUV where the door’s still open, the engine idling. Her eyes grow wide. “ My car! ”
I peer in after her and grimace. Squashed bananas in the back seat, a distinctly chewed headrest, the overall eau de goat lingering in the air …
She wheels on us, her face a riot of fury. “I’m calling the police!” She squeezes both hands into fists.
“Oh my GOD!” I exhale another laugh, my blood heating. “You left your trunk open, and the goat climbed in! It was an accident!” I fold my arms over my bathrobe. “Or karma, can’t rule that out.”
Rachel’s eyes flare wide before narrowing, and she steps forward. “You just can’t handle that Mayor Esposito has endorsed Into the Woods over your crappy vineyard, you jealous, little bitch .”
“Rachel.” Laine steps in front of me. “You need to stop talking to her like that, right now . Do you understand me?”
Rachel barks out a small, hard laugh, and like the minutes before a storm, the air is thick with vicious current. “Oh, I see.” She flicks a finger up and down at my skimpy bathrobe, then at Laine’s messy appearance. “The Hayseed Vintner and Lady Wine Cooler, rolling around in the barn when you’re not making shit wine. What a match!” She turns those heartless eyes on me. “Just like you always wanted, eh, Zoe ? Still got that box of yours?” Her teeth glisten through her sneer.
My heart threatens to stop beating altogether. “Rachel, shut up.”
“You even tried to fuck our brother just to, what , squint your eyes and pretend you were really with Charlaine?”
“Stop it,” Laine snaps.
“No, really, I’m happy for you both! It took Laine imploding her entire career out west before she’d look at you, but it’s all working out!” She flings a hand at Laine. “Now you’re working minimum wage at the illustrious Bluebell Vineyards, but hey, at least you get to fuck your boss while you shake down your family, right?”
I suck in a breath. What about Le Jardin? I search Laine’s eyes for confirmation, but they dull and deaden on the spot.
A burst of fury engulfs me. Good thing the river’s miles away because I have the sudden urge to throw Rachel into it.
“Come on, Laine.” I tug at her arm, and after a second, her body complies. The goat trots willingly behind her.
“You may’ve fooled Mom and Dad, but I see you plain as day, Charlaine!” Rachel yells at our backs, still desperate to wound. “All you do is take , but I’m not giving you shit! D’YOU HEAR ME?!”
Laine hands me the truck’s keys without meeting my eyes. “I’ll walk him home.” Before I can protest, she disappears down the road, the goat trailing beside her. I want to yell after her to come back, that Rachel’s stupid, and for some reason, that everything’s going to be okay.
But Laine Woods doesn’t need my comfort.
Does she?