Chapter 20
Jake
“H ey, boss man.” Javier claps me on the shoulder as he passes by, heading to the corner of the vineyard where he left off last Friday. “How was your weekend?”
I shrug. “Not bad,” I answer. “You?”
“Nice to have a couple of days off,” he replies as he heads up the hill.
I nod and keep weeding. Emi and Javi had Saturday and Sunday off, but I worked over the weekend, partly because there was work that needed to be done, calendar be damned, and partly to keep myself busy and out of temptation’s way.
So I worked from dawn until sundown, ate standing up in the kitchen, then found reasons to be out of the house—and out of Rosa’s orbit.
My get-together with Wade was fine but nonproductive. At least when it came to getting proof that Geno was behind the complaint about Caparelli. He either didn’t pick up on my hints or isn’t as tied into the rumor mill as he seemed last time we talked.
He did, however, notice how frequently I mentioned Rosa. And gave me all sorts of shit about that.
Wade, like pretty much everyone else in this town, thinks she’s just my high school sweetheart and ex-girlfriend. If he knew we’re actually married?
Now, that would be material to power the rumor mill for the next ten years, if not longer.
I didn’t fill him in, of course. The knowledge that Rosa finally accepts our current state of matrimony is too tenuous, too new for me to start blabbing it all over town. Instead, we talked about crops and harvest plans and who in our graduating class is pregnant or moving out of state or finally got married. Wade said Ben and Danny’s wedding was the social event of the year.
It was a good catch-up and I’m glad to be reconnecting with Wade, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t itching to get back to Caparelli.
Back to Rosa’s bed.
Which is why I stayed out the next two nights as well, finally heading home well past midnight. Much as I want to spend every waking moment rediscovering her body, figuring out what makes grown-up Rosa gasp and moan and squirm under me, it would be dangerous to give in to that urge. I have to parcel out those moments, pace myself. I don’t want to get addicted to her breathless sighs, and the other night I realized pretty quickly that it would be really, really easy to get to that point.
I’m leaving, and she’s staying, and we still have this goddamned mess of a marriage to untangle.
And yes, I’m aware that the mess is of my own making. But I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be dealing with it now that Rosa knows and what I want us to look like when the marriage part of it is untangled.
I move over a row and pull some more weeds, glad for the physical labor to help clear my head. That’s the plan, at least. Emi calls out a cheerful hello as she clomps her way up the hill to finish the last section with Javier.
Mid-morning, they’re done, so I call them over for a water break and pull a clipboard out of my backpack. “Next job is tracking pests,” I tell them and go over the different insects that are common to the area as well as the invasive and dangerous ones to keep an eye out for. “Start in the bottom left corner, work your way up and down the rows. The traps are numbered, so write down the number of the trap, the insects caught in it, and put the date at the top. Bring the clipboard over when you’re done.”
They nod in unison and head down to the lower left-hand corner of the fields, chattering as they go. Emi’s pulled out her cell phone and is showing Javier pictures of some of the more invasive insects, if their conversation is anything to go by.
Or it could be the latest viral video. Who knows.
My own phone buzzes in my back pocket, and I pull it out and frown at the screen. I don’t recognize the number, but I decide to answer it anyway.
“Hello?” I push my hair off my forehead and squint up at the clouds scudding overhead.
“Jake? It’s Tomás.”
I straighten. I haven’t heard from him since I was foreman for his vineyard in southern Oregon a couple years back. “Tomás! It’s been a while.”
“It has,” he says. “What are you up to these days?”
I fill him in on what’s going on with Caparelli, and he tells me all about his new property in Washington state, just over the border from Canada.
“So, do you have any plans for after harvest?” he asks. “Because I have a proposition for you.”
By the time we hang up, my mind is spinning.
I file it away to think about later and settle back into my weeding routine—bend, tug, toss. Bend, tug, toss. The rhythm helps me focus, pulling my thoughts away from the phone call and my relationship issues and onto the state of the vineyard.
Even with our skeleton crew, things are looking up for Caparelli. The vines are thriving, the grapes well past the tight green baby-marble stage. They’ve doubled in size in the short time I’ve been here. Soon, they’ll swell even more and start taking on color. Rosa and I will have to decide whether to water again soon or wait until later in the season. Too much water and the grapes could burst before harvest; too little and the vines will wither.
There’s a reason so few wine growers go to Vegas; growing grapes is one of the biggest gambles around.
Of course, Vegas makes me think of Rosa again, more, still . Our elopement was a gamble, too, but one I’d been so sure of before we ran off together.
I didn’t realize I’d rolled snake eyes until we got back home.
Although…
No, I can’t let the ceasefire that’s temporarily happening between us fool me. There’s an end date to my time here, just like there was an end date to our happily-ever-after.
I just didn’t know it back then. I’ll be more vigilant this time around.
As if my thoughts have conjured her, I catch sight of Rosa climbing the hill to the vineyard, a pitcher of ice water in one hand and some cups in the other.
I kick myself—again—for passing up the opportunity to spend time with her last night.
And by “spend time,” I mean “fool around.”
I wipe the sweat from my forehead and tug off my work gloves. I wave, and the way her face lights up when she sees me…
I know I shouldn’t read anything into it.
I don’t want to read anything into it.
I can’t help myself.
“You’ve gotten so much done today already!” Her eyes are shining as she looks around the fields. She sweeps an arm, indicating the vines and the tidy rows and the grapes that are just starting to turn color. “This is actually working!”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I say drily, but I know what she means.
I also know the look on her face was for Caparelli, not me.
It’s for the best.
She pours a generous amount of ice water for me, then calls over Emi and Javier. They tromp on over, smiling at Rosa and draining the cups of water twice over before finally joining the conversation.
“That was a lot,” Emi says, still breathing a little hard. “But we finished up right before you got here, Rosa.”
“Finished what?” Rosa glances down at the clipboard Javier is holding. “Oh, were you doing the insect report?”
“Yup.” Javier hands me the clipboard. “Got ’em all.”
I frown, checking my watch. There’s no way they got through all the traps this quickly. I flip through the pages. “Looks like you missed some,” I say.
Emi shakes her head. “We walked every row. That’s all of them.”
“No—see?” I point to the rows of data. “The numbers aren’t sequential. There are a bunch of them that were, well, skipped.”
Javier looks at Emi. “We checked every trap that was out here. I noticed the numbers weren’t all in order but figured those were just the ones you used.”
“That’s what was bugging me the other day!” Rosa says suddenly, then grimaces. “Pun not intended.”
I frown at her. “What?”
“When I was out here helping with the pruning, I couldn’t figure out what looked different. But that must be it. Some of the traps are missing.”
I look closer at the trap numbers on the clipboard, then stomp over a couple of rows to check.
She’s right. About every fourth trap is just—gone.
“Holy shit,” I mutter under my breath. Someone’s actually stolen our insect traps. “Do you have extras in the shed?”
Rosa shrugs. “Maybe? There’s a lot of crap in there. Sorry—I didn’t take inventory when I moved in.”
Right. Fine. I nod and turn to Emi and Javier. “Okay. One of you take my truck and go into town. Buy about—” I check the clipboard. “About thirty more traps at the farm store. We have an account there you can charge it to.”
Javier takes the keys out of my hand and jogs down the road to my truck, parked outside the Caparelli house.
“Emi, go check the shed to see if there are some we can start putting back up, fill the gaps. And Rosa, do you still have that trap map you made last week?”
“Of course. I’ll go grab it and give Emi the key to the shed.” She slings an arm around the younger woman’s shoulders. “Come on, let’s go.”
I watch them walk down the road together, chattering away, while my mind races.
Someone, probably on Geno’s orders, pulled our traps—not all of them, and not all in one spot. Just enough to make it look like we still had traps if you didn’t look too closely. Enough to make sure we’re out of compliance with insect control if someone were to?—
The growl of a truck engine at the bottom of the hill grabs my attention, and I groan.
Not again.
I wait at the edge of the vineyard for Deputy Romero to pull to a stop and get out of his truck. “Hello,” I say tersely.
He nods. His eyes are hidden behind his sunglasses, so I can’t read his expression very well. But something tells me he’s not happy to be here.
“What can I help you with, sir?”
He coughs. “We’ve received a report of invasive vine mealybugs on your vineyard.”
“Oh, really .”
The deputy raises one brow, arching over the upper rim of his sunglasses. “Yes, really. I need to inspect your traps.”
How convenient.
“Lucky for you, we just completed this week’s insect survey.” I hold up the clipboard. “But we noticed?—”
He steps forward and takes the clipboard out of my hand. What a jerk.
“As I was saying,” I start again, but he’s frowning at the paper and striding off to the next row of grapevines. I roll my eyes and follow behind, watching as he looks from the first trap in that row to the documentation in his hand, then back again.
He walks forward several paces and looks around. “You’re missing some traps. These are too far apart.”
I grit my teeth and hold on to my temper. “Yes, I know. We discovered that this morning. It’s being handled.”
He crosses his arms over his chest, clipboard trapped between his elbow and his side. “So you’re out of compliance.”
“Technically, yes, but?—”
He pushes past me and heads back to his truck. He’s opening the passenger-side door when Rosa walks up to join us, paperwork in hand.
“You’re back.” Her voice is halfway between ingratiating and wary. “Anything we can help you with?”
He turns and holds out a hastily scrawled ticket to her. “You can shut down until the invasive pest control board has a chance to verify your place is back in compliance.”
Her mouth drops open. “What?”
I jump in before he can continue. “Amazingly enough, Rosa, there’s been another complaint about Caparelli. This time, that we’re hiding invasive insect activity. Mighty convenient that it happened the same day we discovered a quarter of our traps are missing.”
“Are you kidding me?” She glares at Deputy Romero. “Another complaint?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He stands there, impassive. “Another complaint.”
“Wait.” She whirls toward me. “It’s about the traps?”
I nod. “Apparently so.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She whips out the documentation from last week and shakes it at Romero. “Here’s the trap map and results from last week’s study. You can see exactly where the traps are supposed to be—and were , up until recently.”
He looks at the papers in her hand skeptically. “You’re saying there are supposed to be more traps.”
“I’m saying we had more traps. We documented their locations and everything. And somehow they end up missing right before you’re sent out to check them?” She pauses and glances at me. “You know who did this, don’t you?”
I shrug one shoulder. “Seems like it.”
She turns back to Deputy Romero and glares at him. “What are you going to do about it?”
“Do about what?” He looks like he’d rather be anywhere than right here, right now.
“About the missing traps! Someone obviously stole them. And then called in a complaint.”
“You have no proof of any kind of sabotage.”
“And you don’t have a warrant.”
He crosses his arms over his chest. “Do you really want to go there?”
“If necessary, yes.” Rosa shakes the papers at him again. “I would also like to make an official complaint about the missing traps. Our proof is right here! We had the traps, we have the locations marked, there are obviously traps missing, and now you show up? It’s clear as day.”
He sighs. “It’s circumstantial at best.”
“I don’t care. I want a record that we reported it.”
He throws his hands up. “Fine. Get the new traps in place by nightfall, and I won’t shut you down. But I’m only doing this because you have documentation of coverage as recently as a week ago.”
“And you’ll make a note of our concerns?”
“Yes,” he grinds out through gritted teeth.
“Thank you for your generosity,” I say, with only a hint of sarcasm.
He whips his head around and looks over the top of his sunglasses at me. I guess that wasn’t as much of a hint as I’d intended.
“Can you tell us who reported us?” Rosa manages to hold on to her temper better than I did.
“No.” He crosses his arms. “And I’ll need copies of the insect reports. The control board will still need to verify that you aren’t hiding a mealybug infestation.”
“We aren’t,” I say. “But you’re welcome to send someone from the control board to go over our results.”
“Let’s just start with the insect reports, shall we? Have them ready by five p.m. I’ll stop by then to verify you’re back in compliance.”
He turns on his heel and saunters over to his truck, swinging into the driver’s seat without knocking his cowboy hat off his head. I’m almost impressed.
Rosa watches him drive off, her eyes narrowed. “He knows more than he’s saying.”
“Of course he does. He’s not going to share his sources with us. We’re the bad guys apparently.”
Emi passes the truck on her way back up the hill, arms filled with insect traps. Rosa and I head down to meet her, each of us taking some of the traps.
“I think that’s all that was in the shed,” she says, digging into her pocket for the key. She hands it to Rosa. “Pretty sure it’s not enough to make up for the missing ones.”
“It’ll be fine. Javier should be back with some more soon, too. We just need to get these traps up today.”
She nods, then gestures with her head toward the end of the drive. “Was that the deputy from the other day?”
“Yep. But don’t worry about it—we’ve got everything handled.”
My eyes meet Rosa’s, and I can see the worry she’s trying to hide.
We have everything handled?
God, I hope I’m telling Emi the truth.