Chapter 2
Tristan
The storm broke sometime before dawn, leaving the valley washed clean and raw.
From my office window, the vines glisten like wet glass under the gray morning light. The distillery’s copper stills hum in the distance, steady and predictable—everything I built this place to be.
Everything she’s threatening to undo.
I flip through the morning reports, pretending to care about production totals, but my mind keeps drifting to the ridge—to the faint glow I saw through the rain last night. The lights at the Voss Estate shouldn’t have been on. No one sane works on that property in weather like that.
And yet, she had.
Raine Voss. The niece. The complication.
My mistake was driving up there.
The second I stepped out of the truck, soaked and half-wild with adrenaline, old instincts took over. Control the situation. Reclaim the high ground. Remind her who owns this valley.
Instead, I let it slip.
Her face behind the glass—fear, then defiance—lodged somewhere in my chest and hasn’t left since.
The door to my office swings open without a knock.
“Morning, sunshine,” Calder drawls, stepping in with a cup of coffee and that smirk that makes women forgive him for everything. His hair’s a mess, shirt half-buttoned, the picture of effortless charm. “You look like hell.”
“Good morning to you, too,” I mutter, signing the report I haven’t read.
Calder sets the coffee down and drops into the chair across from me. “Heard the ridge flooded last night. You go up there?”
I glance at him, a slow warning in my stare.
He laughs. “So you did. Jesus, Tristan. Tell me you didn’t pull another one of your intimidation tours.”
“Just checking the drainage,” I lie. “Last thing we need is runoff hitting the mash tanks again.”
He leans back, balancing the chair on two legs. “You know she’s not leaving, right? Word’s already spreading that she filed for new permits. Weddings, tastings, all that tourist crap.”
“She doesn’t have approval yet.”
“Doesn’t mean she won’t get it. She’s got that look.”
I raise an eyebrow. “What look?”
“The kind that says she’d burn the place down before letting you win.” Calder grins, but it fades when I don’t return it.
“You could’ve just talked to her, you know. You didn’t have to go stomping around like—” He stops himself, smirking again. “Like Dad used to.”
The words hit harder than they should.
“I’m nothing like him,” I say, too evenly.
“Sure.” Calder sips his coffee, watching me over the rim. “Then maybe stop acting like you are.”
I stand, crossing to the window. Down in the valley, fog still clings to the river, softening the sharp lines of the distillery. Beyond it, the road snakes upward, vanishing into the trees where the Voss Estate sits hidden.
A shape moves there—maybe just a maintenance truck, maybe her.
“She’s reopening the vineyard,” I say finally. “She’s going to put tourists on that ridge again.”
Calder shrugs. “So? Let her. You’ll still own half the damn valley.”
“It’s not about ownership.”
“Then what is it?”
I don’t answer.
He laughs under his breath. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” Calder pushes up from the chair and heads for the door. “Try not to scare the new neighbor again, Tristan. Some of us like having customers who don’t think we run a horror show.”
When he’s gone, the silence closes in again.
I turn back to the window. The fog’s lifting. The Voss Estate is just visible now—roof glinting wet and silver against the morning light.
My pulse stirs, uninvited.
Last night should’ve ended it. A scare. A warning. Something simple.
But instead, I can still see her—barefoot in the rain, flashlight shaking in her hand, refusing to back down.
The valley may belong to me.
But I have a feeling she’s about to make me bleed for it.