Chapter 8
NOLAN
Alexa had been quiet over the past six weeks. Silent, in fact. If it weren’t for Marielle complaining that her website was glitching every other day, Nolan could almost believe he’d imagined the whole visit.
There was also the app on his phone. Yes, he’d threatened to delete it, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it, not until he’d drunk too much wine one night and found himself in bed with his hand on his cock and Alexa on his mind.
He’d tried pushing her out, replacing the bratty blonde with an imaginary brunette.
But when the brunette looked up at him, her face had morphed into Marielle’s, and Nolan deflated like a limp spaghetti noodle.
That was when he’d deleted the app, and then he’d spent the rest of the night regretting it.
The tossing and turning hadn’t mattered.
The app was back in the morning.
A black dot on his home screen, casting its shadow on the vineyard, quite literally.
Nolan had taken the wallpaper photo on a misty morning last spring, and any time he had an existential crisis and wondered whether he should just give up, he only had to look at his phone to remind himself all the hard work was worth it. Now, Alexa had even ruined that.
She hadn’t messaged him since the day she left, and he didn’t know what to say to her either. Marielle’s interruption followed by Alexa’s hurried departure had left a murky swamp of unfinished business between them.
“It’s doing that thing again.” Marielle shook her iPad as if that would help. “I hate technology.”
Today, she was working on the second cottage—Nolan couldn’t quite bring himself to call it Galega—albeit at a slower pace than the first. The theme was “Tuscan farmhouse meets Old Americana.” Think whitewashed oak, rustic stone floor tiles, a wrought-iron chandelier, checked fabric, and a rocking horse.
“What thing?” Nolan asked.
“My web store has a message saying ‘Sorry for the inconvenience, I’m on vacation,’ and it’s right across the homepage. When I spoke to the hosting provider, they said there isn’t even an option for that message as part of their default package, so I must have done it myself.”
“And you didn’t?”
She gave him a puzzled look. “I’d surely remember.”
Once again, Nolan considered messaging Alexa and asking her to stop tinkering, but the glitches mainly happened in the evenings, which meant instead of Marielle hanging around with fabric swatches or suggesting they get dinner, she went home to try and fix the problem. He was enjoying the peace.
Did that make him a bad person? Probably, but it wasn’t as if he were the one tampering with the website, and Alexa would only deny it anyway.
The same way she’d denied fucking with one of their former neighbours by sending a copy of the guy’s dating profile to his wife after the asshole made a pass at Ruby and seemed reluctant to take no for an answer.
She’d later suggested the neighbour as a suspect in Ruby’s murder, but it turned out he’d moved back to Idaho to live with his mom after his wife beaned him with a frying pan.
In a weird, sadomasochistic kind of way, Nolan missed Alexa’s meddling. She’d always looked out for them, even if her methods were usually unorthodox and often over the top.
And he regretted the way things had been left between them.
That day had preyed on his mind for years, the two of them sequestered in a hotel room while the cops searched Blackstone House and the media bayed for blood outside.
The photo of him walking away had featured on several news websites, a lasting reminder of how badly he’d handled things.
Alexa had come to him for support, for reassurance, and he’d given her the opposite.
Even Grey, king of the douchebags, had called him a moron when he heard what happened.
Not that Grey knew the whole story. Nolan had left out the part about the kiss.
Anyhow, he’d been halfway through an apology, one he needed to make as much as Alexa needed to hear, when Marielle had interrupted them in the study. At some point, he’d have to finish.
“Maybe you could try rebooting?” he suggested to Marielle.
“That was the first thing I tried.”
“Then I’m out of ideas. Sorry.” There was something different about Marielle this afternoon, and he hadn’t been able to put his finger on it. Suddenly, he realised what it was. “Did you lose a button?”
“Huh?”
He tapped his chest. “From your shirt.”
Her cheeks reddened. “Oh, it’s just a little hot in here.”
“I’ll turn the AC down a notch.”
“Why don’t we both finish for the day? We can forget the website and have dinner instead.”
“I thought Tuesdays were knitting club night?”
“You mean the quilting circle? Well, it turns out everyone except Joanne and Ada is on vacation, and Joanne’s husband ate a bowl of chowder that disagreed with him, so she had to stay home and take care of his needs. Ada and I decided it would be best to cancel.”
Couldn’t the man use the bathroom alone?
“Sounds sensible,” Nolan managed.
“Don’t you wish you had someone to look after you when you get sick?”
“I do. Teo’s wife sends food and checks up on me.”
Teodoro was Nolan’s foreman, a hardworking Guatemalan who’d moved to Amador County four years ago after working on the coffee plantations back home.
Nolan would be lost without him, although Teo working at Dionysus had caused some bad blood between Nolan and Roy Leland, co-owner of the Silver Hollow Vineyard and Teo’s former boss.
Roy swore Nolan had stolen his best employee, when in reality, Teo had quit because Roy tended to sample too much of his own product and start ranting about “those damn immigrants” while Teo’s wife and kids were in earshot.
Anyhow, not only had Teo quickly learned more about grapevines than any of his predecessors, but he also had an uncanny knack for predicting the weather.
This morning, he’d told Nolan there was a storm coming, and although NOAA said the chances were slim, Nolan had enough faith in Teo’s gut to adjust the irrigation plan they’d put in place during drought.
Grapevines weren’t thirsty plants, and too much water made the grapes swell, sacrificing quality for quantity. And Dionysus was all about quality.
They’d look at harvesting the Zinfandel toward the end of August if the conditions were right.
Picking the right moment was key to locking in all those rich flavours.
The Syrah would follow, and then finally the Viognier.
The Zinfandel was good, and the Syrah won awards, but the Viognier would mark the start of a new chapter for Dionysius.
They’d planted the vines four years ago, right after Teo joined the team, and this would be the first attempt at making wine from them.
Nolan wasn’t expecting much, not yet, as grapes from a young vine didn’t have the same depth of flavour as those from the more mature specimens.
But he had to plan for the future. The Syrah and Zinfandel vines were twenty-five to thirty years old, and for the past few years, Nolan had been cloning the Syrah using cuttings, growing them on ready to take over when the older vines stopped producing.
No rest for the wicked, his grandfather used to tell a young Nolan when he visited with his parents.
Ironic, seeing as his father got plenty of rest now—there wasn’t much for a man to do in a six-by-ten cell.
At least the harvest would give Nolan a valid excuse to skip breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Marielle for a couple of months.
“I meant a good woman,” Marielle said.
“Fernanda is a good woman.”
Teo said she was his sun, his moon, and his stars, and no matter how busy work got, he always made time to take her on a proper date night every week.
Dionysus might be important, he said, but Fernanda was everything.
And yes, Nolan had wondered whether he’d ever find a woman who made him feel that way, but one thing was for certain—it wasn’t Marielle or even Lisanne.
Once, he’d planned to marry Lis, but now he could look back and see he’d been chasing a dream, not following his heart.
“I tried that, and it didn’t work out.”
Marielle bumped him with a hip. “You shouldn’t give up so easily.”
“I prefer to think of it as a strategic retreat.” He glanced at his watch. “And speaking of strategic retreats, I have a bunch of emails to deal with tonight.”
It wasn’t a lie. Now that Nolan had a working laptop again, he didn’t want his inbox to fill up. Dealing with the backlog last time had been no joke.
“If you ever need help with the admin, just you let me know.”
“I’m sure you have enough to do with fixing your website. So, uh, good luck with that.”
He backed out of the room, and honestly, the refurb couldn’t be finished soon enough. Marielle was exhausting. The only girl in Nolan’s life at the moment was Juno, and that was the way he wanted it to stay.
But before he went to sleep that night, he finally typed out a message to Alexa.
Nolan
I just want to say I’m sorry for leaving the way I did all those years ago. My head was messed up after we found Ruby, and when the cops told me you were younger than you said you were, I directed my hurt at you, and I shouldn’t have done that.
The truth is, I’m still pissed about the age thing, but I also wish we could put it behind us.
My life’s less colorful without you in it, and I miss the way we used to talk about anything and everything, all those random facts you used to drop into the conversation.
I miss the way you pushed me out of my comfort zone in the kitchen, and I miss the way we could sit and not talk and still be at peace in each other’s company.
Yes, you were younger than me, but you were a friend, and you taught me a lot about the type of person I wanted to be.
For years, I lived under the shadow of my father, and I found it hard to move on.
But you managed it. Moving on, I mean. I don’t know what happened with your family (and yes, it also hurt that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me), but you made a new life for yourself in spite of them.
I’m pleased you’re doing okay, and I’m glad our paths crossed again, even if I didn’t show it. N.
He hit “send” before he chickened out. Maybe he shouldn’t have included the parts about being pissed and hurt, but it was the honest truth, and he wasn’t going to lie the way she did.
And he’d said his piece. It was out of his system, and he could get some sleep tonight.
Or not.