Chapter 4 Snapper
SNAPPER
Ialmost took the words back; that was how hard the look on her face hit me. Whatever the fuck was going on with her was bad. Except nothing I imagined made any sense.
“I’ll grant your favor,” I said again. “But we’re gonna do it my way.”
She clutched her great-grandmother’s journal tighter against her chest. “What do you mean?”
“This isn’t a decision I can make alone. You’re asking for a ton and a quarter of Los Caballeros grapes, our winery space, our equipment, and a crew. That involves my brothers—especially Cru, since he manages the vineyards. I need to talk to them first. Get their buy-in.”
“Of course,” she murmured, but her face had paled.
God, I wished she’d just talk to me about what made her react that way. For now, though, I’d let it go. Later, once I knew if what she was asking could even be done, I’d press the issue.
“I’ll see if he and Daphne are available now, then get back to you.”
“Understood.”
When her eyes filled with tears, I reached across the table and took her hand. “I’ll do everything I can to make this happen. I promise.”
She tried to pull her hand away. I squeezed her fingers. “Know this, Saffron; this matters to you, which means it matters to me too.”
“Thank you,” she said so quietly I had to strain to hear her.
When she squeezed my fingers back, an inexplicable sense of relief overcame me, and with it, another feeling I’d been pushing down for far too long.
It was time I let it rise to the surface and did something about it.
While I admitted that she mattered to me—in a roundabout way at least—the truth was, the way I felt about her went far deeper.
I wanted Saffron in my life and not just as a friend or a hookup.
I wanted more. A helluva lot more, and if we were going to spend the next six to eight weeks working side by side, maybe she’d see me as more too.
More than the guy she bid on every year to save him from Isabel’s clutches.
Maybe as a man she could be interested in.
“What are you thinking about?” she asked.
You. How I’m ready to go all in—not that I could say any of that.
“Everything I need to do today. Who I need to talk to.”
While she indicated she agreed, I saw the skepticism in her expression. She always called me out on my shit. Except now, she wouldn’t. And dammit if I wasn’t more than happy to take advantage of it.
The thought should’ve felt wrong. She was asking for help, not hitting on me.
But I’d been half in love with this woman since we were teenagers, and I was tired of keeping my distance because I thought she wasn’t interested.
If she needed me, I’d be there. And if spending every day together gave me a shot at showing her how I felt? I’d take it.
I stood and took my wallet out, leaving enough cash on the table to cover our meal three times over. “I’ll call you later.”
“Okay.” She sounded uncertain.
“Hey.” I waited until she looked up at me. “We’ll make this work. If it isn’t with our grapes, with someone else’s.”
The ghost of a smile touched her lips. “I hope you’re right.”
We walked out to the parking lot where my truck sat next to her beat-up Ford.
Every instinct screamed at me to pull her into my arms, to promise her everything would be okay, to kiss away the worry lines etched between her brows. But I couldn’t. Not yet.
“Drive safe,” I said instead.
She climbed into her vehicle and I stood there, watching until her taillights disappeared around the curve, then got into my own SUV and headed for Los Cab.
When I arrived at the main house, my mother’s car was in the driveway, along with Cru’s truck. Since he and Daphne lived a few minutes’ walk from the main house, my guess was Ma had a honey-do list for him, and that’s why he’d driven over.
I was headed toward the porch steps when I heard another vehicle approaching. I looked over and saw Bit pull in. While Sunday was family dinner day, people didn’t usually start showing up until late afternoon.
“How’s it going?” I asked when he climbed out.
“Cru needs some help with the water heater. I don’t know why Ma didn’t call me in the first place, since I’m the one who fixed it the last time. What about you? Why are you here?”
“I need to talk to Cru and Daphne about something.”
“What?” he pressed.
I kicked at the dirt in the driveway. Bit had the kindest, gentlest soul of anyone I knew, so his direct approach had never bothered me. In fact, running into him first was probably a good thing. I could explain it all to him before Cru and get his take on it.
“Saffron Hope just asked me for a massive favor.”
“What kind of favor?”
I laid it all out—the Christmas Blessing Wine, the grapes, the equipment, the partnership, the insane timeline. “It’s weird, Bit. She’s desperate. Scared even, and I can’t figure out why.”
“I’ve heard some things,” he said as we walked toward the house.
“What?”
“About Hope Family Winery.” He rested against the rail of the porch steps. “They’re in trouble.”
“How bad?”
“Foreclosure.”
“Jesus Christ,” I said under my breath.
“I don’t know all the details, but from what I’ve heard, the bank is ready to act.”
Everything clicked into place. The desperation. The tears. The insistence that it had to be this Christmas. Which meant I had to convince my brothers and sister to go along with it.
“What would you do?”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “For the woman I loved? Everything humanly possible.”
“Is it that obvious?”
Bit chuckled. “To everyone but you. At least until now.”
My eyes widened. “Everyone?”
“Except you and Saffron.”
We found Cru exactly where Bit said he’d be: in the basement, looking at the water heater.
“Time to replace it,” Bit muttered.
“Figured that out,” Cru responded. “I got one on the way. I’m just trying to piece this one together enough that Ma can get through until tomorrow.”
“Let me do it. Snapper needs to talk to you.”
Cru looked up at me, then moved out of Bit’s way.
“What’s up?” he asked after I led him up the cellar steps and out onto the porch.
I reiterated everything I’d just told Bit.
When I finished, Cru leaned against one of the barrels and crossed his arms. “That’s quite an ask.”
“I know. Do we even have the grapes?”
He thought for a moment. “Yeah. We’ve got Gamay in Block 9—about two acres that we planned to let hang longer for a late-harvest project.
And the Syrah in Block 12 is still on the vine.
We could spare three-quarters of a ton of Gamay and the same amount of Syrah without impacting our production targets. ”
“What’s the timeline on ripeness?”
“The Syrah needs another week, maybe ten days. The Gamay, closer to two weeks. If she’s got Zinfandel that’s ready sooner, we could do this in three waves.”
“Equipment?”
“We have a couple of tanks that aren’t being used that would work for carbonic maceration. The CO2 injection systems are all functional.” He paused. “Space won’t be an issue either. The east wing of the cellar has room.”
“So we can do it.”
“Technically, yes.”
Technically. The word said plenty. “But we need to get the go-ahead from the rest of the siblings.”
“It’s only fair. That Saffron’s willing to split the profits should be enough. Still, I wouldn’t feel comfortable unless we took it to them,” he agreed.
I pushed off the porch rail. “There’s another issue we need to talk about.”
“What’s that?”
“According to Bit—”
“They’re about to go under,” Cru finished for me.
“I guess you heard too.”
“I did and my guess is that Saffron wants to do this without Lucas knowing.”
“She hasn’t admitted the financial trouble to me, but yeah, that would be my guess too.”
“If that’s the case, then we need to think about the crew we use.”
He was right, and that wasn’t something I’d considered. We could hardly ensure the day workers we brought in for the harvest would keep what we were doing confidential. They moved from vineyard to vineyard during the harvest, and it would be too much to ask.
“Got any ideas?”
Cru looked up at me and grinned. “Of course I do.”
“You gonna tell me?”
“Los Caballeros,” he said quietly. “If we’re going to pull this off without Lucas finding out, at least until Saffron is ready to tell him, we’ll need absolute discretion, and that means calling in both current members and the Viejos.”
“Understood. What’s the next step after we talk to our sibs?”
“Don’t wait. They’ll agree. It’s just courtesy that you’re asking.
Call an emergency meeting now. Preferably for this afternoon, since everyone’s still in town from last night’s ball.
” Cru put his hand on my shoulder. “This is what we do, Salazar. We help those in need even when they don’t know they need it. Especially one of our own.”
He took out his phone, sent a group alert, then waited as responses came in. “Everyone who’s in town will be at the caves in ninety minutes. Which means you need to get our brothers and sister here before that.”
“On it. You said everyone who’s in town. Who isn’t?”
“Van Orr is in Europe, and Cullen is in Australia.”
“Right. What about Lucas?”
“I took him off the distro list for now.” He’d looked away, but turned to face me. “Glad to see you wised up.”
My eyes scrunched. “What’re you talking about?”
“You and Saffron. ’Bout time.” He slugged my shoulder, and I laughed. “Yeah, Bit said the same thing.”
“Is she on board?”
“If you mean is she into me as much as I’m into her, then no. Not yet anyway.”
“She is. She’s just as unwilling to admit it as you were.”
“So seriously, it’s that obvious?”
“Since high school, bro.”
My brothers all arrived within a few minutes. Alex said she couldn’t get here right away but to video her in for whatever I wanted to talk about. I did, and as Cru predicted, everyone was all in.