Chapter 10
SADIE
Rhett calls an hour after he drives off, asking if I want to see the cut line myself instead of just hearing about it, so I head out to the East Vineyard while the crew's still working on it.
I am standing at the fence line of the Beaumont East Vineyard at seven in the morning, looking at the cut line Rhett found hours earlier before dawn, and the only thing I can think is that this is starting to feel exactly like the year everything went wrong for my family.
My stomach drops the way it did back then. That same cold, sinking feeling of watching something crumble before anyone will admit out loud what's happening.
I remember exactly how it started the first time. Small things. Whispers. A door quietly closing somewhere I couldn't see, until the whole life we built came apart in a matter of weeks.
I am not ready to watch that happen twice.
He called me out here himself, wanting me to see what he'd found with my own eyes instead of just hearing about it secondhand.
Photos on a phone screen are one thing. The cut line coiled in the dirt in front of me is another.
It's dry now, but ringed with a wide stain where water pooled and stood before anyone caught it. Enough standing water to drown the roots on this whole row if it had gone unnoticed another day.
The morning is cool enough that I can see my own breath, the sun barely clearing the ridge behind us. A couple of ranch hands work further down the row, close enough to see but far enough not to overhear.
"You didn't have to have me come all the way out here," I say.
"Wanted you to see it before the crew finishes patching it up." He crouches down and runs his thumb along the severed edge, no ragged pull, no animal, no weather, exactly like the photos. "Figured you'd trust your own eyes over mine."
"I trust you." The words are out before I fully decide to say them, and I don't take them back.
Some old, careful part of me wants to snatch it right back. Trusting a Beaumont this fast is exactly how my family lost everything the first time. I let the words stand anyway.
He looks up from the cut line, his expression shifting, just barely, before he stands. Behind him the sprinklers tick along every line except this one, working fine on every row but the one somebody wanted dead.
"Any word back from Ashford's office?" I ask.
"Not yet. I'm not holding my breath."
"Neither am I." I cross my arms against the morning chill. "Whatever she wants, this feels bigger than a water rights inquiry."
"That's what worries me."
Rhett shoves his hands in his pockets and looks at me for a long moment, like he's deciding something.
"There's something I should have said a long time ago," he says.
I go still.
"When the accusations came for your family, I knew what my father was doing was wrong." His voice comes out low and even, like he's rehearsed it and still can't make it easy.
"I told myself staying quiet was loyalty. That I owed him that." He shakes his head. "But it wasn't loyalty. It was cowardice. I let it cost you everything."
The words hit somewhere deep. Somewhere I built walls around a long time ago.
I have pictured this apology a hundred different ways over the years. Rehearsed a hundred different responses. None of them prepared me for how much it hurts to hear it out loud.
My throat goes tight before I can stop it.
I can't say anything at all. I look at him standing there in the morning light, waiting for me to say something, anything, and all I can think about is the girl I used to be. The one who trusted every Beaumont without question, right up until the day that trust cost my family everything.
He doesn't fill the silence. He just stands there and lets me have it, like he knows he doesn't get to rush this part.
Somewhere behind him a rooster calls out from the direction of the stables, ordinary and unbothered, like the whole world hasn't just tilted a few degrees under my feet.
"You're the first Beaumont who's ever said that to me," I say.
"I should have said it a long time before now."
I don't tell him it's fine. It isn't fine. That kind of silence doesn't undo itself with one honest sentence at a fence line, no matter how badly I want it to.
"I'm not going to pretend that fixes anything," I say.
"I'm not asking you to."
"Good." I meet his eyes. "Because it doesn't."
He nods, slow, like he expected exactly that and respects me more for saying it plainly. Neither of us moves. The wind picks up down the row, rattling the leaves, and for a second the whole vineyard feels like it's holding its breath along with us.
I don't forgive him. Not out loud, not yet. But I don't walk away either. That alone feels like an answer.
"I want to know what you find out about her," I say finally. "Whatever it is."
"You'll be the first call I make."
We start back toward the trucks, the ground uneven under the tall grass, and my boot catches a rut hidden in the dirt. I stumble half a step before his hand finds the small of my back, steady and sure, like he'd already been watching for exactly that moment.
I don't pull away.
His palm stays there a moment longer than the stumble requires, warm through my shirt, and neither one of us mentions it. My whole body goes aware of him at once, the heat of his hand, the way his fingers curl slightly like he's fighting the urge to pull me closer instead of just steadying me.
I glance up at him. He's already looking down at me, and for a second neither of us moves at all.
He says my name once, quiet enough that it barely carries past the two of us, and neither of us breathes.
I don't step back. I don't trust my voice enough to say anything at all, and the not saying it feels like its own kind of confession.
He leans in, just slightly, close enough that I catch the warmth coming off him in the cool morning air, close enough that for one full breath I am certain he is going to kiss me right here at the fence line. My eyes drop to his mouth before I can stop them.
Then he stops himself. I watch him do it, watch the decision cross his face like it costs him something to make it, and he straightens instead, putting careful distance back between us.
"Not here," he says, rough, like it's a promise instead of a refusal.
The air between us goes thick and I forget, for one dangerous second, exactly why I'm supposed to be careful with this man. Then his hand slides away, slow, reluctant, and we keep walking, the space where it was feels colder than the morning air has any right to make it.
Three steps from his truck, his phone rings.
He checks the screen and something tightens across his face before he even answers.
"Harrison." He says the name flat, his whole posture changing before he even lifts the phone to his ear.
His uncle. The one who stepped in as board chairman after Rhett's father died, and the one everyone in town still assumes decides what gets buried and what gets handled.
I stay where I am, close enough to catch his half of it.
"I know," he says. "I found it myself before dawn." A pause. "No, I haven't called the sheriff yet."
Another pause, longer this time, his shoulders going rigid.
"Because I want to know who's behind it before half the county starts speculating." His voice stays level, but there's an edge under it now, something I haven't heard from him before. "That's not how I'm handling this."
Whatever comes back through the phone makes his mouth go tight in a way I haven't seen from him before, not even when Camille Ashford's name first came up.
"With respect, that's not your call to make anymore," he says. "I'll handle the Collins situation the way it needs to be handled. Quiet isn't the same as buried, and I'm done pretending those are the same thing."
He doesn't raise his voice, not once. He doesn't have to. There's something steady and immovable in the way he holds his ground, calm as anything, and I understand for the first time why half this county still doesn't cross the Beaumont name.
There's a longer stretch of silence where I can hear the tinny rise and fall of a voice on the other end, though not the words themselves.
"I understand what you're asking," Rhett says finally, quieter now, almost gentle, though nothing about his face matches that tone. "I'm doing it anyway."
I watch him listen, his expression set in a hard line, one hand braced against the truck bed like he needs something solid to push against.
"I hear you," he says. "I'm still doing it my way."
He ends the call and stands there a second, staring at the screen like he's still working through what Harrison said.
"Everything okay?" I ask.
"Fine," he says, too quick, sliding the phone into his pocket. "Family business."
I don't push. I've learned enough about Beaumont silences to know when one has just closed a door, even if I can't see exactly what's behind it.
"I should get back," I say instead. "The equipment loan payment is due Friday, and Mom's expecting me for the morning delivery before the bank calls again."
"I'll call you the second I know anything about Ashford."
"I'll hold you to that."
He almost smiles, and the tension from the phone call slips off his face entirely. I climb into my truck before I can read too much into it, and when I check my mirror halfway down the drive, he's still standing there, watching me go, his hand raised in something that isn't quite a wave.
I think about that call the whole way home. Family business, he said, but I know what a man sounds like when he's fighting for something he isn't ready to explain.
Whatever Harrison told him to do, Rhett refused it in front of me instead of waiting until I'd driven off. That has to mean something. Men who are ashamed of a fight don't have it where the person it affects can hear every word.
But I also know exactly what it costs a Beaumont to go against family instructions, because I watched what silence cost mine. If Rhett is choosing me over whatever Harrison wants handled quietly, that puts a target on both our names, not just his.
Collins Cellars can't survive another scandal. Not with the loan payment due Friday, not with our name already hanging by a thread in this town.
I heard that same fight in my own father's voice once.
Whatever Harrison Beaumont wants handled quietly, I have a feeling I'm the one he wants buried under it.