Chapter 13
Rosa
I shake my head and shove my hair out of my face, no doubt getting dirt on my forehead from the gardening gloves.
But I can’t stop thinking about everything, so much so that I finally gave up on trying to work in my office and decided to clean up the front yard instead.
Most of the time, a little physical labor gets me out of my head and turns off the thoughts whirling around inside.
Today? Not so much.
Jake wants me to prove we’re not married. I’m pretty scared whatever I find will prove the exact opposite.
Either way, I’m ignoring the whole mess for today. Hell, I’ve been ignoring it for the past week. I just can’t bring myself to do anything about it. Not yet.
When my cell phone rings, I’m tempted to ignore that, too. But curiosity gets the best of me, and I check the screen.
“Hey, Legs,” I say, clicking the Accept button. “What’s up?”
“Rosey Posey!” Allegra chirps, her voice light and cheerful. “Just missing my big sister. How are things at Caparelli?”
I tuck the phone between my ear and shoulder and tug at a stubborn dandelion. “It’s fine,” I say. “How’s…what country are you in right now?”
She laughs. I can hear the bustle of city sidewalks in the background. “Croatia at the moment. The Dalmatian coast is mind-blowing. You should come hang with me! You’d love it.”
I’m sure I would. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from lecturing her—I’m her sister, not her mom. “Little busy at the moment,” I say wryly.
“Later, then,” she says blithely. “I’d love to see you.”
“Ditto,” I say, shading my eyes from the sun that’s burning overhead. It’s probably time to go inside before I get the world’s worst sunburn. “Do you know when you’ll be coming home?”
I can almost hear her shrug over the phone. “At some point. Don’t worry, though. I’ll be there eventually.”
I could use the help now, but I don’t say that.
She’ll keep working temporary jobs and crashing on couches across Europe until she’s ready to pitch in at Caparelli.
I just have to wait until that happens.
“So, what are you working on at the moment?”
She sounds like she’s actually interested, not just making small talk, so I set aside my resentment and put on my partnership cap. “Currently I’m pulling weeds in the front yard,” I say, wandering over to the porch and sitting in the shade. “Not my favorite chore, but needs to be done.”
“Oh, yeah! You’re staying in Nonna’s old place, aren’t you?” A car honks in the background of her call, and I hear a conversation in a language I don’t understand as I assume people walk by. “Hang on—I’m going to change this to a video call. I want to see how it looks!”
I start to protest that it’s not that impressive yet, but the request to shift to video pops up on the screen, so I sigh and accept. “Keep in mind I’m mostly focused on the business side of things,” I warn her.
She waves a hand dismissively. “I’m sure you’re rocking it. So good to see you, Rosey Posey! You look far less stressed than I expected.”
It’s a backhanded compliment, to be sure, but I’ll take it.
“Seriously, you’ve got a nice glow about you.”
I hope the blush isn’t obvious on the tiny phone screen. “You know the California sun,” I deflect.
“It looks good on you,” she says. “And things are really going okay? Caparelli’s a big job, Rosey. I’ve been worried about you.”
“Thanks,” I tell her. “It’s a lot, but I’m okay for now.” And oddly enough, it’s not a lie. Up until Jake arrived, it was hard handling this without my sisters here. But sharing the burden with someone else—someone who cares about Caparelli almost as much as I do—has been a game changer.
I can feel the heat rising in my cheeks at the thought of Jake, so I shove that train of thought aside and focus on Allegra. “You look gorgeous as ever,” I tell her.
She smiles and pushes a hand through her riot of curls. They’re lighter than the last time I saw her, and she’s lightly tanned as well. “I think it was the two weeks on a yacht in the Adriatic that did it,” she says with a laugh. “Sun, surf, and the food! You’d love it.”
“Sounds amazing,” I say honestly, because if I can’t be out there adventuring, at least my sisters are, and that counts for something. I can keep the home fires burning and Nonna’s legacy alive for all three of us.
“So show me everything,” she says now, dodging out of the way of a scooter that’s weaving its way through traffic on the road beside her, motoring onto the sidewalk briefly. “I want to see what you’ve done with the place.”
I turn the phone so she can see the front yard. I’m about halfway done with the weeding, so it looks slightly better than it would have if she’d called yesterday. “Still a bit to do here,” I say, then walk up the steps to the porch. “Eventually I’ll need to have this porch evaluated, maybe replace the wood in some places. But so far it’s holding up.”
She hums in agreement. “I used to love playing out there in the evening,” she says. “Such a beautiful view, and so peaceful.”
“Now it’s a great place to have a glass of wine and watch the sunset,” I agree. “I’ll probably get a new seating setup at some point.”
“Sounds good.” Allegra leans out of camera range and rattles off something that definitely isn’t English to someone I can’t see. She pops back into view. “Sorry—just finishing up plans for later tonight.”
“No worries,” I reply. “If you need to go, I understand.”
“Not yet! You haven’t shown me the inside.”
I plaster on a smile once again and head for the door. “Again, manage your expectations. I don’t have a lot of time to remodel.” Or funding, I think but keep that part to myself.
The interior is dark after the brightness outside, and I blink a few times to adjust. “Okay, the main room I’ve fixed up is the office.”
Allegra oohs and aahs as I turn in a slow circle in the middle of the room, showing off the workspace setup. “Oh, I remember that chair! Is it still as comfortable as I remember?”
I nod. “Yeah, but I had to leave it on the porch for a few days to air it out.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Ooh, I bet. Probably smelled like an old museum in there when you started out.”
“Exactly.” I look around. “So what else do you want to see?”
“Kitchen,” she says immediately. “My favorite room in the whole place.”
It probably was for all of us, back when Nonna would bring us down to bake cookies or enjoy some fresh-pressed grape juice during harvest time. “It’s not quite up to speed yet, but it’s getting there.”
She exclaims as I walk the phone into the kitchen. “Rosey! It looks amazing. So homey!”
I turn in a slow circle, letting her see the tidy little room and the few touches I’ve been able to add—cheerful towels with a grape-cluster design on them, sheer yellow curtains over the kitchen sink to brighten up the plain white blinds.
“Wait, what’s that?”
I stop turning and look at the wall in front of me. “Oh. That’s—that’s just an old advertisement for Caparelli,” I say haltingly.
“Where did you find it?” She leans close to her phone, her face getting bigger as she peers through the screen. “Take me closer. I want to see it.”
I take a deep breath and move closer to the tin hanging. It really is gorgeous—and makes me feel warm and happy every time I look at it.
But I really, really don’t want to tell her Jake gave it to me.
“Wow.” For a moment all I can hear is the background noise of the city behind her. “I’ve never seen it before. Where on earth did you dig it up?”
“It was in storage,” I say, crossing my fingers behind my back. I’m not lying. I’m just not including the fact that it wasn’t in our storage.
“I can totally see that as the foundation for our new rollout,” she muses.
I’m a little startled. “I was thinking the same thing!”
“Great minds think alike,” she teases. Then she looks over her shoulder again. “Okay, I’ve got two more minutes. Show me upstairs, and I’ll let you go.”
“Checking to make sure I made my bed this morning?” I tease as I climb the stairs.
“As if you’d ever leave your bed unmade,” she jokes back. “Not our Rosey Posey.”
God, I hate that nickname. But my family will stick with it until the end of time.
Also, she’s not wrong about the bed.
I turn left at the top of the stairs and head into my bedroom. She makes positive comments on how it looks, which is gratifying.
Looking at the house with fresh eyes, I realize I’ve actually gotten more done than I thought. In some ways, I miss my studio apartment back in town, but in other ways, this feels more like “home” than anything has since Nonna passed away.
Maybe since Mama left all those years ago.
“Wait,” Allegra says as I pass the bathroom door. “Let me see how you upgraded the bathroom, too. Knowing you, it’s amazing.”
I don’t know that I’d call it amazing, but I am pretty proud of how it turned out. “The shower curtain was ridiculously on sale,” I brag, showing off the thick white curtain with grapevines trailing down either side. “I love it.”
At some point I want to paint those grapevines on the walls as well, but for now I’m content with the green-and-purple matching towels and the grapevine-design toothbrush holder and cup.
“Hold up,” Allegra says abruptly, and I stop mid-turn.
“What is it?” I look around.
She’s quiet for a minute. “Rosa, why are there two toothbrushes by the sink?”
Oh. Shit.
“And two towels. And an extra hairbrush.” She bursts out into delighted laughter. “Rosey Posey, do you have a man staying with you?”
I open and close my mouth a couple of times before words actually come out. “I, uh, it’s not what you think,” I stammer.
“It better be what I think, or I’m going to be seriously disappointed in you.”
I’m silent for a minute.
“Rosa, turn this phone around so I can see you.”
I’d pull the older sister card, but she’d just tell Bianca and they’d gang up on me, so I sigh and rotate the phone.
“Do you or do you not have a man staying in the house?”
“I do. But it’s complicated.”
“I have time.” She walks over to a sidewalk café and sits down at an empty table.
I back out of the bathroom and go into my bedroom, taking a seat in the comfy chair in the corner. “You said you had two minutes before you had to go.”
She waves a hand. “Eh, they’ll wait for me. This is more important.”
Dammit.
“I don’t know if Bianca told you about the first guy I hired…?” At her nod, I continue. “Well, after he took off, I needed someone to manage the fieldwork, and I was getting desperate. So when Jake Wright offered to help out for room and board, I agreed. He’s staying here for a little while as we get our feet under us.”
“Wait, Jake Wright? As in Take Flight?”
I nod. “He was in the area after his parents sold their place. He’s got the experience to handle it.”
“I don’t doubt that. So just room and board, huh? That’s very… generous of him.” She leans into the last part, filling it with innuendo, but I ignore it.
“Yeah, I know. We’re very lucky.”
We really are, even more than she knows.
“But that’s all it is? Housemates while he works for Caparelli?”
“Yep,” I lie. No way I’m telling her about the whole he-thinks-we’re-still-married thing.
She purses her lips. “That’s too bad.”
“What?”
“Oh, come on, Rosey. He’s hella fine. Or at least he was back when he was in high school. Wait, is he a troll now? Did he have an unfortunate disfiguring accident and now has to hide himself on a vineyard, away from society?”
I laugh despite myself. “No, he’s still good looking.”
Understatement of the year.
“And he’s single?”
No, but not in the way she’s thinking. “Allegra.”
“Is he?”
I nod, reluctantly. Too complicated to explain.
“You should go for it, then.”
“Stop it. He’s my employee.”
She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. You guys were, like, hashtag RelationshipGoals in high school. Maybe now is your opportunity.”
Downstairs, the door slams, and I jump. “I gotta go,” I say in a rush.
“Wait, is that him?” She sits up, her eyes sparkling. “Let me talk to him.”
I shake my head so hard I can feel the start of a headache coming on. “Nope. I’ve kept you long enough.”
“Please, please, please? I just want to say hi.” She makes puppy-dog eyes at me, but I ignore her.
“We’ll talk again later,” I say, glancing toward the hall. “Take care, Allegra.”
I go to push the End button as Jake reaches the top of the stairs.
“Hey, Rosa,” he says, his voice low and seductive.
“Hi, Jake,” Allegra yells over the phone, her voice tinny through the speaker. “Don’t let Rosey hang up on me.”
He walks down the hall, the hair at his temples dark with sweat. He tucks his work gloves into his back pocket. Peering over my shoulder, he smiles at Allegra through the video call. “Hey, A,” he says. “Wow, it’s been a while.”
“Years,” she says, leaning back in her café chair and grinning. “I was just a bratty kid last time I saw you.”
“Still bratty,” I mutter, but she just laughs.
“So I hear you’re saving us from disaster and ruin,” she continues, turning all her attention to Jake and ignoring me completely. “Thanks for that, by the way.”
“Happy to do it.” He scratches the back of his neck. This close, I can smell his earthy, just-got-in-from-the fields scent, and it’s driving me insane. “The three of you deserve a fighting chance.”
“Hope you’re still around when I get back,” she says, and I straighten my spine.
Jake slants a look at me, then turns back to the phone. “It’s possible,” he says. “Depends on when you’re planning on being here.”
“Well.” She waves a hand dismissively. “Who knows about that. Eventually, though.” She turns and looks off-camera again, and her shoulders slump. “Sorry, guys. Duty calls. I’ve gotta go. Chat with you later, Rosey?”
I nod and blow her a kiss. “Take care, Legs,” I say. “Don’t be a stranger.”
She waves at both of us and says, “Ciao,” then clicks out of the call.
The silence once she’s gone is loud.
“She still calls you Rosey?” Jake shakes his head. “I thought you hated that nickname.”
“Oh, I do,” I say with a groan. “But it’s stuck, despite my best efforts. I think my family is going to call me that until the day I die.”
“And you still call her Legs?”
I pull up short at that. “Yeah, I should probably make sure she’s still good with that nickname,” I say.
“Makes sense.” He’s too close to me, both physically and emotionally. I take a few steps toward the staircase. Jake steps back, giving me a little room.
I’m both happy and disappointed about that.
“Everything good with Allegra?” He tilts his head toward my phone. “Sorry to interrupt, by the way. I didn’t realize you were on the phone until it was too late.”
“No worries.” I start down the stairs and sense more than see him follow. “Yeah, she’s fine. Better than fine. Definitely living her best life.”
“You’re not doing so bad yourself,” he says.
I can’t help but scoff a little at that.
“No, I’m serious. Yeah, things are stressful right now, but you’re putting in the work that will pay off down the line. You’re managing a full-on business with very little support—besides Emi, Javier, and me. Seriously, I’m impressed. And someday soon, everyone else will be as well.”
I swallow past the lump in my throat. “Thanks.”
“So I guess the cat’s out of the bag with Allegra about me staying here, huh?”
“Well, she saw your toothbrush and got ideas.”
He laughs, his footsteps echoing down the stairs behind me. “Caught out by oral hygiene. Who would have thought.”
I can’t help but laugh a little as well. “I told her you were helping us out for room and board.”
“Hmm.”
I reach the bottom stair and turn around. He’s got this look on his face that I can’t interpret.
“I’d better get back to weeding,” I say, stuffing my phone into my back pocket.
“A little outdoor time. Good call,” he says, heading toward the kitchen. “I’m just grabbing some snacks for the crew.”
He washes his hands at the kitchen sink and fills a tall glass with water from the fridge.
I feel a little guilty. Shouldn’t I be the one bringing snacks out to the team that’s saving our vineyard?
He narrows his eyes and waves a finger at me. “None of that.”
“None of what?”
“None of your overstimulated guilt complex. The three of us in the field are fully grown adults who can see to our own needs. You are not responsible for the world, Rosa.”
No, but it does feel like it sometimes.
He finishes his water and sets the glass down with a thunk. Then he opens the fridge and starts rooting around in it.
I open the cabinet and pull down a box of crackers and some cookies. Then I grab the big wooden tray Nonna used when she would bring out a midday snack to the workers back in the day.
Jake smiles when he sees it. “Man, that takes me back.” He adds mandarin oranges, apple slices, and some bottles of water to the mix.
“Remember when we’d sneak fresh-baked cookies off this tray when we thought Nonna wasn’t looking?” I put some napkins on the side. “I’m pretty sure she put extra just for us.”
“Of course she did.” He hefts the tray and starts to leave. “And Rosa?”
“Yes?”
He looks me in the eye until I start to squirm. “It’s okay to set the burden down for a little while and let someone else carry it.”
He’s gone before I have a chance to respond.
* * *
Of course, Bianca calls within the hour.
“Are you kidding me?” she screeches. “Jake is living with you?”
“Hello to you, too,” I say drily, giving up on yard work for the foreseeable future. “How’s Argentina?”
“Forget about Argentina. Jake is living at Caparelli with you?”
“Yes, and you knew he was working for us. We talked about it last week, remember?”
“ Working for us and living together are two very different things,” she says.
“I’m aware of that, yes.” I grab a yogurt and a spoon from the kitchen and head to the backyard. Somehow I missed lunch completely. “He needed a place to stay. His parents sold their place, you know.”
“Yeah.” She’s quiet for a minute. “That sucks.”
“It does.” I sit at the picnic table, grateful for the arch of tree branches overhead, shielding me from the worst of the sun. “Anyway, he agreed to stick around and help us out but didn’t have anywhere to stay without spending a fortune. And it’s not like we could pay him enough to make that worth his while.”
Bianca says, “Our budget’s still a disaster, isn’t it?”
“It’s not the greatest, no.” I take a bite and swallow. “Especially after I paid the permits to take Caparelli out of inactive status. But Jake was willing to work for room and board, and I couldn’t say no.”
“Just be careful,” she says. “I don’t want him breaking your heart. Again.”
“He didn’t—” I start, but she interrupts.
“You graduated high school, and he fucked off to parts unknown almost immediately. After years of dating. I’m surprised you’re even talking to him, to be honest.”
“It’s complicated.” I shove another spoonful of yogurt into my mouth. I’m almost tempted to tell her about the whole We might actually be married—surprise! thing, but it’s too convoluted for a phone call.
Plus, I’m starting to wonder if the broken heart was mutual and not just me.
Maybe I need to face the situation head on, finally, instead of shoving my head in the sand and pretending it’ll go away.
“I bet.” She sighs. “Well, if he screws you over again he’ll have to deal with me.”
“Change of subject, please.” I finish off the yogurt.
“Okay, fine. Actually, I was hoping I could talk to Jake. Is he around?”
I sit up straight, my eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Jeez, suspicious much, sis?”
“Maybe the fact that you just threatened him has something to do with it,” I argue.
“Whatever. I just want to talk with him about harvest and what he thinks we should do with the grapes this year.”
“You’re the winemaker,” I remind her. “You don’t need anyone’s approval.”
“But I would like his input. Let’s face it, he has years of experience we don’t, thanks to Uncle Geno, and I’d love to brainstorm some ideas with him. So could you pass my number on to him tonight, please?”
Well, when she puts it that way… “I’m sure he’d be happy to bounce some ideas around.”
He would, I know. He’s just that kind of guy.
“Okay, thanks. Love you!”
I hang up and take my empty yogurt container into the kitchen, turning the conversations with my sisters over and over in my head. Yeah, I can’t keep ignoring the elephant in the room. It’s time for me to do what Jake challenged me to do and look into our annulment myself. At least then it won’t be a question mark anymore.