Chapter 13
NOLAN
“Boss, there’s a problem,” Teo told Nolan.
Too damn right there was a problem. Right now, Alexa was probably in the air en route to Amador County, and she wasn’t answering her phone. No way had she lost it. She’d always been surgically attached to the thing.
A couple from Wisconsin were gushing over the decor in Guest Cottage Number One, aka Beldi, because Marielle had taken it upon herself to help with the marketing, and her artfully lit photos had ensured the place was booked solid for the next month.
Cottage Number Two was still a ways off being finished, which meant the only place to put Alexa—assuming she was staying—was in the house, in one of the guest rooms he used for potential buyers who wanted to learn more about the wine they’d be investing in.
And even that wouldn’t have been so much of a problem if his own bedroom wasn’t out of commission.
He’d made the mistake of asking Marielle if she knew a good plumber, and a simple fix for a leaking shower had turned into a whole new bathroom because allegedly, the plumbing in that part of the house wasn’t fit for purpose.
Then his bed disappeared. Apparently, he was supposed to replace the mattress every six years, so Marielle was just being helpful when she had the old one hauled off and recycled, and what better time to replace the bed frame as well?
All of this meant Nolan had been forced to move into the guest wing, and he wasn’t sure his blood pressure would take being that close to Alexa, not if Chase was with her.
How good was the soundproofing in those rooms?
He didn’t want to find out.
Nolan’s feelings were all kinds of wrong, and he knew it, but much like his broken shower, he couldn’t turn them off.
And as well as Alexa’s impending arrival, he had to help Teo wrangle several dozen seasonal workers and make sure they picked the right grapes at the right time, and also take a trip to the feed store to buy more chicken feed.
At least the harvest was going well. They had six fermenters full of what promised to be an excellent Zinfandel, with the promise of more to come.
This part of the job was always nerve-racking.
Not the harvest itself, because Dionysus paid above-average wages and Nolan had no problem attracting a skilled team of pickers, but the part where he turned grape juice into magic.
The business relied on Nolan’s palate, on the tweaks he made throughout the process.
The intensity of the pressing, the type of yeast to use, the fermentation temperature, the duration of the maceration, when and if to add sulphur dioxide, the filtration technique…
Those all depended on him, and his growing reputation in the industry put additional weight on his shoulders.
“What problem?” he asked Teo, putting down his coffee cup.
Was that the sound of rotors? Nolan walked out of the house to the pool terrace with Teo following.
“The temperature on fermenter six is a hundred and thirteen degrees.” Nolan stopped short at his words. “And the others are set to eighty-four.”
The first word that flew through Nolan’s mind? Fuck.
The second? How?
But what came out was a shaky, “How long?”
Teo shrugged. “A while, I think? I went in to do the manual punch-down, and the cap didn’t look right.”
Nolan was already heading to the winery.
The cap—the layer of grape skins that rose to the top of the must in the open-top tank—needed to be pushed back down into the liquid two or three times a day, and it was a job only Nolan or Teo performed.
Nolan didn’t trust anyone else to do it properly.
Hell, he hadn’t even trusted Teo for the first two years he worked at Dionysus.
Cap management was such an important part of making a good red.
Tannins, anthocyanins, and flavour compounds, those ethereal elements that gave a wine its character, were all found in the skins.
And there were risks in the cap too—the combination of acetic bacteria, fermentation, and oxygen could turn a vat to vinegar if it wasn’t treated right.
Nolan had learned his skills through a winemaking course, from his grandpa’s detailed notes, and with a lot of trial and error.
It was only in the past four years that the vineyard had finally begun turning a profit.
Until then, he’d been dependent on the money Alexa had stolen.
Guilt still ate away at him for spending it, but until she emptied their bank accounts, Levi’s parents had been using their wealth and influence to pin their son’s crime on anyone but him.
Which meant turning either Nolan or one of his friends into the prime suspect.
As the only housemate without an alibi, Justin had borne the brunt of their lies, with Nolan a close second thanks to his father’s proclivities.
Without money, Linus and Mary Sykes had fallen silent, and the blessed relief Nolan felt had been enough to make him keep the money temporarily. But when he needed to get the vineyard up and running, no bank would lend him the amount he needed, and the Sykeses’ cash had been sitting there…
Dammit, Teo was right. The cap was just…
flat. The carbon dioxide bubbles produced by the fermentation were missing, which meant the yeast had died, and fifty thousand bucks’ worth of Zinfandel was only good for the drain.
How the hell had this happened? Quickly, Nolan checked the temperature controls on the other fermenters.
The process itself produced heat, and in order to keep the conditions optimal, each tank was jacketed by a digitally controlled glycol cooling system.
Could the controller have malfunctioned?
Or the temperature probe? Nolan had done the last punch-down himself at approaching midnight, and everything had been working just fine then.
Hadn’t it? He’d made a handful of tweaks, set one tank a degree higher and another a degree lower, and he’d also been frustrated and tired and texting Alexa and…
Could he have fucked this up? Punched in the wrong number?
Leaned on the control panel? Misread the digits?
He didn’t think so.
But it wasn’t impossible.
And now three hundred gallons of wine were ruined. He leaned his forehead against the tank as stress and exhaustion washed over him. He’d put his all into this place, and a setback like this one… He felt it to his core.
“Why is there a car outside the guest cottage?”
Nolan turned slowly to see Alexa standing behind him with her hands on her hips, flanked by Chase and a statuesque blonde who looked as if she’d stepped out of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.
“Because there are people staying in it.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? I ordered a desk.”
Give me strength. “Because you weren’t answering your fucking phone,” Nolan practically growled.
“So they booked yesterday evening?”
“They’ve been here since Sunday,” Teo not-so-helpfully interjected.
“So you had ample time to mention it,” Alexa said.
“Why? Why would I tell you that? People staying in the cottage had zero impact on your life.”
“Well, where am I supposed to stay?”
“In a hotel? In a tent? I have a cave available if you want to keep channelling your inner fucking dragon.”
The blonde gave a soft snort, and Chase’s lips twitched as Alexa drew herself up to her full height of four feet eleven.
“You know how many stars the hotel in Mason’s Hill has? Two. Two freaking stars and an alleged roach infestation. What got your goat this morning?”
Deep breaths. “Alexa, you dropped the bomb that you were coming, then went incommunicado.”
Nolan had almost forgotten how exasperating Alexa could be.
How she didn’t view the world the way others did.
How she saw black and white but not grey, how she felt loyalty but not guilt.
How she was determined but stubborn and inflexible, even as she fought the current of fear that underpinned her psyche.
Nolan hadn’t come up with that last part—no, that was Grey, who had a minor in psychology as well as a major in political science.
“I told you I’d fix your data issue.”
“Yes, but—” What was the point in arguing? Alexa never backed down, and the copay on his anxiety meds was yet another expense. “Just stay in the damn house, and no, I’m not shutting Juno outside.”
“Well, I’m not sharing space with a dog.”
“It’s her home, not yours. And like I said, there’s a spare cave if you prefer.”
Nolan wasn’t kidding about that. One of Dionysus’s more unusual features was the old gold mine that wound into the hill behind the winery.
The seam of gold was long gone, but the old tracks still remained, and a chunk of the Sykeses’ money had been spent on making sure the place was safe.
Then, rather than blocking off the entrance, he’d turned the mine into a talking point.
Cool and dark, the tunnels and caves provided the perfect space to age barrels of wine, and visitors oohed and aahed over the cavernous, well-lit tasting room, complete with its minimalist decor.
Think stainless steel tasting sinks, a white ash table circled by leather stools, and a twinkling chandelier.
It was the first space Marielle had styled, and venturing inside was like visiting another world.
A short walk took guests from the sunny vineyard into a cool, elegant sanctuary where the wine was the focus.
When potential customers balked at the price of a bottle of Dionysus wine, a visit to the tasting room often swayed them in the right direction.
“But—” Alexa started, only to be interrupted by Marielle.
“Antonella Cranston swung by with an invitation to a cookout next Friday. Isn’t that sweet of her? I accepted for the both of us, of course.”
Just when Nolan thought things couldn’t get any worse…
“We’re right in the middle of this year’s harvest.”
“Oh, I understand that, but you have to eat.”
He did, but not at the Cranstons’. Their get-togethers lasted all night, Nolan’s face didn’t really fit among the equestrian set, and he always felt awkward when he tried to leave early.
“Is Antonella still here?”
“Well, no. She was riding that beautiful chestnut stallion of hers, and he didn’t want to stand still.”
So that was another problem to deal with, but it would have to wait until later.
“Could you do me a favour and show Alexa to the guest wing? I’m busy dealing with a crisis here.”
Marielle’s brows pinched. “What crisis?”
“The temperature on this fermenter is too high.”
“So can’t you just turn it down?”
If only it were that straightforward… “It doesn’t work that way.”
“The yeast gets stressed and dies,” Alexa surprised him by saying. They’d been trading wine facts for a week, but Nolan hadn’t mentioned the logistics of fermentation.
“So you can add more, right?”
Alexa rolled her eyes. “That depends on whether you want your wine to taste like soy sauce.”
Marielle just looked puzzled. “Can I help with anything?”
Yes, she could stop stencilling gold leaves on the tiles in his fucking shower and prioritise finishing the second guest cottage. Nolan forced himself to take a deep breath before he spoke. “Yes, you can show Alexa to the guest wing, and then feed the chickens.”
“The…chickens?”
“You just need to throw them some grain from the bin over there.”
“Is that safe? I mean, what if they peck me?”
Another surprise, this time from the blonde. “I’ll feed the chickens.” When Alexa laughed, she narrowed her eyes. “What? My mom keeps chickens.”
“I thought your mom was a vegan.”
“She is. But she started rescuing leftover chickens from battery cages, and now they run around her yard like a pack of scrawny lunatics.”
“Don’t they lay eggs?”
“She gives those away because, you know, principles. Last time I visited, I made myself an omelette, and she threw out the pan.” She offered a hand. “I’m Barbie.”
That had to be a nickname, didn’t it?
Marielle giggled. “Aw, cute. What’s your real name?”
Barbie fixed her with an icy blue gaze. “Do you have a problem with the one I gave?”
Her tone stayed sweet and a little breathy, but now there was an edge to it that reminded Nolan of Jerry. He took a step back.
“Marielle, please show Alexa to the guest wing.”
Finally, she got the hint. “Well, okay then.”
Hell, it wasn’t even lunchtime, and the day had already gone to shit.