Chapter 3 Saffron
SAFFRON
When I arrived at the Olallieberry Diner at nine forty-five, the morning fog had rolled in from the Pacific, wrapping Moonstone Beach Drive in a gray blanket that muted the crash of waves across the road.
Through the diner’s windows, warm light spilled onto the sidewalk, and I could see the breakfast crowd filling most of the red vinyl booths.
My stomach churned. Not from hunger—I couldn’t eat if I tried—but from what I had to do in the next hour. Ask Snapper Avila, the man who made my heart race every time he walked into a room, to save my family. Without letting him know we needed saving.
The smell of bacon grease and coffee, along with the comforting chaos of clinking plates and morning conversations, wrapped around me when I walked inside.
Marcy Delgado looked up from behind the counter and grinned.
We’d gone to high school together, though she’d been two years ahead of me.
Her dark hair was up in a messy bun, and she had new purple streaks that hadn’t been there the last time I was here.
“Saffron! I haven’t seen you in here for weeks.” She grabbed a menu. “Table for one, or are you meeting someone?”
“There will be two of us, thanks.”
She wriggled her eyebrows. “Snapper Avila, by any chance?”
My cheeks heated. “It’s not like that, Marcy.”
“Sure, it’s not.” She tilted her head toward the back. “Want your usual seat?”
“Please.”
She led me to the corner booth where I’d sat through too many heartbreak coffees with my sister to count.
The vinyl, while replaced not that long ago, was already showing signs of wear.
Above me, faded photographs of Moonstone Beach decorated wood-paneled walls, and someone had strung the tiny shells between the frames after they’d fallen down last Christmas.
I took Marilyn’s journal out of my bag and set it on the table, then changed my mind and put it back. I didn’t want to appear too eager.
“Coffee while you wait?” Marcy had returned, pot in hand.
“Please. With cream.”
She poured and set a small bowl of creamers on the table. “How’s the family?”
“Same ol’, same ol’,” I said. “How about yours?”
“Dad’s as stubborn as ever.” She shook her head. “Mom wants him to slow down, and he tells her he isn’t dead yet.”
She chuckled, then headed off to refill other cups. I dumped three creamers and an equal number of sugar packets into my mug and stirred, watching the cream swirl.
The bell above the door chimed, and Snapper filled the doorway, scanning the diner until he saw me.
Behind him, the fog had started to lift, and weak sunlight outlined his frame.
My breath caught. Last night in his tux, he’d been devastating in a polished, untouchable way.
This morning? The faded jeans that hung low on his hips and the charcoal-gray Henley that clung to his chest and arms had my focus unraveling.
The fabric stretched across his shoulders when he raised a hand to push his hair, still damp from a shower, back, and when he smiled at me, my traitorous heart flipped.
Did the man have to be the very definition of hot-as-fuck?
Stop it, I scolded myself. He’s here as a friend. Nothing more.
He made his way through the tables with an easy grace that came from years of this place being his second home, just like it was mine.
I noticed how women’s heads turned to track his movement as he dodged a toddler who’d escaped his high chair and stepped aside for a waitress balancing a full tray.
Of course they stared, not that he noticed.
Snapper had absolutely no idea the effect he had on people. Especially on me.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” he said, sliding into the booth, across from me. The endearment meant nothing. He called everyone sweetheart, darlin’, or honey.
“Morning.”
Marcy appeared at our table. “Hey, Snapper. How’s that shoulder?”
“Getting better, thanks.” He smiled up at her. “How’s the breakfast rush treating you?”
“Same chaos as always.” She tapped her notepad with her pen. “Coffee?”
“Black, please. And I’m starving—can I get the lumberjack special with extra bacon, eggs over easy, wheat toast, and a side of buttermilk pancakes? Oh, and two olallieberry muffins, heated.”
“I don’t know where you put it all, Avila. Some day, it’ll catch up with you,” she commented.
He rubbed his stomach. “Still got my washboard abs, don’t I?”
She laughed. “Yeah, you do.” She turned to me. “What about you, Saff?”
“Just coffee, thanks.”
Snapper’s eyes scrunched. “When’s the last time you ate?”
“Last night—”
“No, you didn’t.” His gaze sharpened. “You didn’t touch your dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“She’ll have scrambled eggs and wheat toast.”
“Dammit, Snapper, I said I wasn’t hungry.”
Marcy looked between us, then scribbled on her pad. “How about I bring an extra plate?” She walked away, shaking her head, not waiting for either of us to argue.
Snapper rested his forearms on the table. “What’s got you tied up in knots?”
“Nothing. I just don’t feel like eating.”
His nostrils flared, but he sat up and rested against the booth. “So, what’s the favor?”
I set the journal on the table. “Does the name Concepción Avila mean anything to you?”
His expression shifted to curiosity. “She’s my great-grandmother on my father’s side. Why?”
“I found this in our attic a few days ago.” I opened the journal to the page I’d marked. “It was my great-grandmother Marilyn’s, and in it, she mentions something about her, Concepción, and their husbands making wine.”
“The Christmas Blessing?”
“Yes. Exactly,” I said, somewhat surprised he knew about it.
“It’s been a long time since anyone’s mentioned it. Everyone thought it was an urban myth.”
“According to this, I think it was.”
He leaned forward, and I turned the journal around. His finger traced what was written and I watched those hands, trying not to imagine them touching me with the same focus.
“Wow. This is wild,” he muttered. “So, how does this relate to all the favors I owe you?”
I flipped through the pages. “Here, my great-grandmother says that she kept her half and Concepción kept hers. She goes on to say something about maybe having a falling out and that’s why the wine was only made once.”
Snapper’s food arrived in a clatter of plates. The lumberjack special covered half the table—eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and a stack of pancakes that could feed three people.
“This is incredible,” Snapper said, but I wasn’t sure if he meant the food or the journal. He picked up his fork, then set it down and pushed his plate of bacon between us. “Have some of this.”
I picked up a strip to appease him. The salt and grease actually tasted good enough that I reached for another piece.
“I keep asking what the favor is, and you keep avoiding answering me.” He cut into his pancakes, but his eyes stayed on me.
“I need you to find Concepción’s half of the formula.”
“Of course.” No hesitation. No questions about why or what for. Just instant agreement. “When were you thinking of making it? Next year’s harvest?”
“No.” I grabbed another strip of bacon from his plate, needing something to do with my hands. “It has to be this Christmas.”
He set down his fork. “Next year maybe, but this year would be impossible.”
“You’re wrong. The journal says they used carbonic maceration—”
His finger moved down the list, stopping at each grape varietal. “Gamay, Syrah, and Zinfandel—those would work. But still…” He shook his head, and when a lock of dark hair fell across his forehead, my fingers itched to brush it back. “This takes planning—”
“We have Zinfandel. A reserve block we left unpicked for late bottling. And we have some Syrah, but not much—maybe a quarter acre.”
“But no Gamay.”
“Right. And not enough Syrah.” I met his gaze directly. “I need your Los Caballeros’ grapes.”
He rested against the back of the booth. “That’s not a small ask.”
“I know. And there’s more.” I might as well lay it all out.
“I need winery space—our tanks are all full from this year’s fermentation.
I need the carbonic maceration equipment, the CO2 injection systems, and I need a crew for handpicking.
The clusters have to stay completely intact, which means no mechanical harvesting. ”
“Jesus, Saffron.” He ran a hand through his hair. “This isn’t just a favor. This is—”
“A partnership,” I finished. “Fifty-fifty split on everything. The costs, the work, the profits. Both families, just like the journal says.”
“The part about both families is interesting,” he said, returning to the journal. “Sounds like our grandmothers each had specific knowledge that had to be combined.”
“That’s why I need you to find Concepción’s half.
The percentages, the temperatures, the timing—whatever else she kept in her notes.
” I reached over and tore a piece off of one of his pancakes.
The olallieberry syrup he’d poured over them was tart-sweet and perfect, but I barely tasted it.
“Can you please just look for anything Concepción might have left behind? Papers, journals, formulas?”
His dark eyes searched mine as he watched me eat his food. “I don’t understand the rush, sweetheart. What aren’t you telling me?”
Everything. I’m telling you absolutely nothing that matters.
“I just…I want to do this, and I don’t want to wait.”
His fingers drummed against the table. But before he could push harder, the waitress reappeared with more coffee.
“How’s everything?” she asked.
“Great,” Snapper said, not looking away from me. “Can we get another short stack of the olallieberry pancakes?”
“She always eats half your food. I’d think you’d know that by now.”
I looked between the two of them. “I didn’t—”
“You did, and the second order is for me, not you.” While what he’d said was harsh, the way he spoke—soft and knowing—made my heart skip a beat. If I didn’t know better, I’d add loving. But I did know better. Snapper was kind to everyone. I wasn’t special.
Marcy walked away shaking her head. I looked down at his food. I’d eaten more than I realized. The bacon was gone, most of his pancakes, and I’d made a serious dent in his hash browns. “Sorry,” I muttered.
“I don’t care about the food, Saffron. You keep eating, and I’ll keep ordering more.”
I held up both my sticky hands. “I promise I won’t.”
“You will, but like I said, I don’t give a shit.”
“You sound like you do.”
“No. I don’t. What I want is for you to talk to me.” He lowered his voice. “Whatever’s going on, I can help.”
His hand moved across the table, stopping just short of reaching for mine. The gesture was so Snapper—offering comfort while respecting boundaries. That space between our hands felt like the Grand Canyon and a whisper all at once.
“There’s nothing to tell.”
His hand withdrew, and I could see the flex of his forearms where he’d pushed up his sleeves and the way his chest rose and fell with each breath. Even the way he held his coffee mug—fingers wrapped around it completely—made heat pool low in my belly.
Marcy set the second stack of pancakes in front of him a few minutes later, then walked away without saying anything else.
Snapper pushed them across the table.
“You said those weren’t for me.”
“I lied. Now, tell me what’s going on.”
I clutched the journal to my chest. My desperation had to be showing. The naked need for this to work.
“All right. I’ll do it,” he said. “But, Saffron?” His eyes bored into mine. “Whatever you’re holding back, whatever has you so worked up—you can tell me. You know that, right?”
A long silence stretched between us. The diner noise faded to background static, and I couldn’t speak.
He reached for my hand, his gaze never leaving mine. “I’ll grant your favor, but this is how it’s gonna go down.”