Chapter 1
Rosa
Two months later…
I stare glumly at the spreadsheet on the computer screen in front of me.
Nope. The numbers haven’t changed since the last time I looked at it. Dammit.
It was nice of Nonna to leave us a little nest egg to get started, but there are two problems with it.
One, it was a little nest egg when she’d set it aside, and it hasn’t gotten any bigger in the intervening years. It just sat there in a neglected bank account, earning next to nothing in interest. We have enough to make it to harvest time, if that.
Two, we need staff. Employees. But employees require payment, and, well…
See issue number one.
Wait, make that three problems. I’m the only sister currently trying to make soup out of this stone, and the broth so far is pretty damn watery.
I can’t believe it’s the end of June already and I’m still spinning my wheels. I wish one of my sisters was here to help carry the load.
Or someone. Anyone. I managed to hire one guy, and he’s already bailed. Argh.
It’s not Bianca’s fault. She still has another three months to go on this year’s contract at Castillo Lorenzo in Argentina, and I refuse to let her bail before the grapes are crushed and pressed at the very least. The work she puts in now will do a world of good for Caparelli at harvest and beyond. She’ll be a full-fledged winemaker with the skills and training we need to actually make a go of this winery.
If I can convince her to stay.
I’m so, so glad she was able to get some time off to come home before Nonna passed, to have a chance to say goodbye in person. But I shoved her back on that plane as soon as I could, sending her back to Argentina until the end of the season. I’m not letting either of my sisters make the same mistakes I did—not if I can help it.
They can make their own mistakes, and they probably will. But sacrificing their dreams for the family won’t be one of them.
At least I don’t have to worry about Allegra doing that. Allegra’s off being Allegra, somewhere out in the wide world. Gallivanting around the planet, following in Mama’s footsteps, being the footloose youngest child. I don’t begrudge her for it.
Much.
Oh well. I already had my rebellious phase—brief though it was—and set it aside years ago to do the right thing.
That’s me. “Do the Right Thing” Rosa. Put everything I want aside for the good of—well, everyone else.
I’m still doing the right thing. Maybe. I hope so. Because right now, this entire operation is a cluster. And I’m not talking about grapes.
Three days ago, the guy I hired to look after the vines and grounds—while I did everything else—up and quit. His friend opened a surfboard shop out on the coast, and that apparently sounded like more fun than looking at plants all day long.
And none of Uncle Geno’s employees are willing to jump ship to work at Caparelli, even the ones who tended the grounds before we inherited.
Not a chance they’ll risk offending one of the top winery owners in the region by choosing the wrong side.
I push away from the desk and stand, stretching in place. My neck’s tight after too much time researching vineyard irrigation on the computer. I can’t quite tell if there’s something wrong with the irrigation schedule or what, but the ground is a little too dry for my liking. I just don’t know what I’m missing. I’ve got more articles to go over, but right now, I need to get outside and check the vines.
I open the front door and cringe, the bright sunlight assaulting my eyeballs. Good Lord, this is turning me into a vampire. Shaking my head, I stride across the wide wooden front porch and bound down the stairs, breathing in the glorious scents of almost summer.
The once-pristine front yard is choked with weeds and almost down to dirt in places. After Nonna got sick, Uncle Geno moved her back over to Belmonte where they could “keep an eye on her.” The home at Caparelli soon turned into a holding place, somewhere to keep resources that weren’t needed on the bigger property. It stopped being a home at all.
He’d already stopped using the winery and wine cave after Papa died…might as well close down the homestead as well. Too much work, too much effort. Why have two tasting rooms when all the wine is being sold under one label? Why hire duplicate staff when you can just combine efforts and do the same work with the same crew? Why develop the product in two locations when it’s more efficient to produce all the wines in one place?
Logically, it made a lot of sense. I’ve always—well, almost always—been a pragmatist. I get what Uncle Geno was trying to do, and he’s damn good at it. But logical doesn’t always mean it’s the right thing to do.
Nonna always said she was fine with whatever Geno wanted to do. Just because Papa kept both wineries open and successful didn’t mean Geno had to do the same thing.
But I could tell it bothered her, at least a little. The way she got that faraway look in her eyes whenever she’d talk about the old days. How she stopped asking us to take her to walk the vineyards for the day. The way her lips pursed a little when Uncle Geno boasted about how Belmonte’s most popular wine was Carleo.
Carleo, using Caparelli’s grapes. Carleo, with the fake backstory the public eats up with a spoon.
It’s possible I’m more than a little irritated on her behalf over that one.
And the house.
Oh, the house. It was so gorgeous once—I’ve seen pictures from when Nonna was a kid—and she loved it so much. Even when Nonna’s parents passed, Papa put so much time and energy and love into keeping it up, making it a decent winery space, somewhere we all loved to spend time.
I hold up a hand to shade my eyes. The house looms over me, in all its worn-down, dilapidated, turn-of-the-century glory. The beauty it could be, with unlimited time and funds, hovers over the building like a heat vision.
Let’s be honest—so many years of neglect is a lot to overcome, especially when it comes to the house and grounds. Sure, the place is still standing, but it hasn’t been painted in years, the porch is sagging in sections, the inside smells like something died in one of the walls.
Something probably did.
I don’t want to think about that, so I walk around the perimeter, taking mental notes of what needs to be done. A little bit of daydreaming time before tackling the business side again.
One: Dig out the gardens next to the house. Everything is overgrown and weedy and gone to seed. Pull it all out, put down some mulch, plant a couple of rose bushes like Nonna loved.
Two: Spend a little of the start-up money on getting the front porch fixed. It would do no good to get Caparelli up and running again just to lose it all in a lawsuit because someone fell through the rotten wood.
Three: Clean up the rest of the interior, one room at a time. The weather’s nice enough to keep the windows open most days, which should help with airing the place out.
Four: Spend a little more of the start-up money on getting whatever dead animal is in the walls out .
I frown. Too much spending of the start-up money. This list sucks.
And that’s just the house. If I can’t find someone to replace Surfing Dude, like, yesterday, the vines are going to be in bad, bad shape come harvest time.
I know a little—not much, but a little—about tending the vines. My skill set leans toward organization and planning and management, not trimming and feeding and, God forbid, pruning. I’d kill the damn crops if it was left to me.
Oh, right. It has been left to me. Dammit.
That’s enough worrying-slash-daydreaming for the day. Squaring my shoulders, I cross to the fence at the front of the yard (new hinges needed for the gate, I add to my invisible-yet-still-expensive list) and step out onto the dirt road that borders the property. Starting at the edge of the yard, the vineyard stretches up the hill and over the rise. I suck in a deep breath. The breeze is full of early summer heat and growing things.
I walk down the road, letting my mind wander over the long rows of grapevines. No matter how stressed I get over the money or the lack of employees or the overall impossibility of the whole thing, it all fades away when I’m walking on Caparelli.
The house is a ways behind me now, and I breathe, letting the worries of the day flow out of me like water.
Across the road, I see the start of Take Flight Winery’s vineyard, the mirror image to Caparelli. The Wrights started it around the same time Nonna’s parents started ours, and the vineyards—and families—grew up together over time. Two hundred and fifty acres of perfectly manicured vines, tended by a winemaking family that was as well-respected in Oak Creek Canyon as our own.
I used to spend almost as much time at Take Flight as I did at Caparelli, once upon a time. Haven’t set foot on that property in ten years, though.
And now it’s been sold, according to the Oak Creek Canyon rumor mill, to some athlete with more money than sense, wanting to play winemaker, and all those generations of effort are—gone.
I can’t let that happen here.
A part of me is so scared we won’t be able to make it work. That I won’t be able to make it work. I’ve known the Wright family forever, and they were as good a winemaking family as you’d ever find. But even they gave up and sold out.
For a moment, I feel sorry for Jake and his family. I can only guess how hard it was to sell. Selfishly, though, I’m kind of glad it happened. At least I don’t have to worry about running into any of them ever again.
Makes working on Caparelli a little bit easier.
My back pocket buzzes, then buzzes again. I toy with the idea of ignoring it, but it keeps on buzzing, so I finally pull the phone out and click Accept on the call.
“Hey, Bee,” I say, squinting into the distance. “How goes the harvest?”
Bianca sighs happily. “Living the dream, Rosey Posey. Living the dream.”
I hate that nickname, but you know how family is. Once they land on something, it sticks forever.
“Good to hear it,” I say. And I mean it. As much as I hate doing this all alone right now, it would be seven thousand times worse if Bianca felt like she had to give up the opportunity of a lifetime.
“How about you? Things going okay?”
I hesitate. No need to worry her unnecessarily. And it’s not like she can do anything about it anyway.
But I wait too long to answer, and her voice sharpens. “Rosa Martinelli. Don’t try to hide it from me. What’s wrong?”
I keep walking down the road, shoving a hand through my sweat-dampened hair. It’s warmer than I expected out here. “It’s fine.”
“Liar.”
“Rude.” I kick a rock out of my way, watch it skitter into the scrub grass lining the road. “But you’re not wrong.”
“Spill.”
“You know the guy I hired to take care of the vines?”
“Mm-hmm.”
I shrug, even though she can’t see me. “Bailed a couple days ago.”
“That bastard .”
As worried as I am about the situation, I still have to smile at that. “Yeah. We need to hire a replacement, like, immediately, but we don’t have the money to pay for an actual professional. At least one who won’t also bail at the first opportunity.”
“Yeah, that’s not ideal.” Bianca pauses for a minute. “I could?—”
“Nope.”
“It’s only a couple months early.”
“Are you done with your wines for the season?”
She hesitates, and I pounce.
“No, Bee. Don’t even think about it. You’re in Argentina . It’s not like you can split your time between here and there. We’ll figure something else out.”
“Maybe you could put an ad online?”
I shake my head, then remember Bianca can’t see me. “Tried that. How do you think I ended up hiring Damien?”
“What about Will? He’s been working on the property for years.”
“You know his loyalty is to Uncle Geno.” Already tried that, too.
Bianca is silent for a long moment. “Well, you’ll come up with something. You always save the day.”
I bite my lip. If only it were true.