Chapter 1
Reese
Nine months ago
“No.”
I was about ready to pull my hair out, to say nothing of what I wanted to do to everyone else in the room. Each person in my family could be stubborn on the best of days, but it was like the older generation had fucking noise-cancelling headphones on and had simply tuned me out.
Had they even tuned me in?
I highly doubted it. Consequently, I was in no mood right now for any of them.
Looking around our winery’s tasting room, I was surrounded by my entire family, at least those who still lived in the town of Henley Falls.
It was one of the few places we had that could hold all of us, so we made use of the space when we were closed to the public.
The space was large enough, welcoming enough, functional enough.
I was sick and fucking tired of enough.
I wanted more.
Everyone here were people I loved most and knew the best. The ones who in turn knew me the best, which may be the problem. I was the one who’d gathered them all here. The one who knew even bringing this up might not go the way I wanted it to.
“You don’t even know what you're saying no to because you won’t listen to Reese,” Everleigh, my cousin and best friend, shot at our Uncle Randy. The last thing I needed was for Ever to get worked up. If I was bad, the two of us together would shoot down any progress I hoped to make.
“Okay, let’s everyone calm down,” Logan, my brother and ever the peacemaker, chimed in. “Let Reese explain some more.”
“What more is there to explain?” Uncle Randy responded as he paced back and forth between the ends of the tasting bar. “She wants to give away our property, our businesses. What we all worked so hard on. Over my dead body.”
Stomping across the room, I blocked his path back toward the rest of the family. The winery was only one of our family businesses.
“That’s not what I fucking said.” My words came out clipped, as I pointed his way.
“Watch your language.” Dad’s voice hung over me as a warning, but knowing myself, it wasn’t one I was going to heed.
“Sorry, Dad,” I tossed over my shoulder without taking my gaze from Uncle Randy, “but no.” I’m sure he thought I would apologize, but I wasn’t because I had done nothing wrong.
“I never once said that. Never even thought it.” I smacked my hand down on the bar top out of frustration.
“Why is no one actually hearing what I said?”
For months, I’d spent every spare minute I had talking to my cousins and brothers, learning and figuring out what each of us wanted out of this crazy idea I’d had.
I’d researched, learned more about profit margins and expenses and permits than I would have ever thought possible.
I’d put together a godforsaken slide deck presentation for the parentals.
What good was any of it if no one listened?
“We heard, sweetie,” Mom spoke gently, as if trying to rein in a temperamental horse. “We just don’t agree with it.”
Well, this filly wasn’t having any of it.
“You don’t agree with selling, right?” Nods all around from the older generation.
“That’s good because I. Never. Said. That.
” Apparently, I had been speaking into the void for thirty minutes.
If I wouldn’t be called overly dramatic, I’d bang my head on the bar top for good measure.
Giving myself a concussion may be less painful than dealing with the parentals. “Why do you think I want to sell?”
My gaze scanned the room, but no one said anything. They all looked at one another, either waiting for someone to jump in or trying to figure out why they actually thought that. I wasn’t in the mood for any of it.
“Okay then. Why don’t you want to expand?”
That was at the heart of what I wanted. My family had settled the town generations ago.
Now, Henley Falls bears our name and is home to multiple businesses the previous generations had started.
It was almost a family tradition to build on what was already here.
That’s what I wanted to do, what all of my cousin group wanted.
We didn’t have a family business here; we had a bunch of businesses.
There was a big damn difference.
I raised my hands in a questioning pose.
“So, no one can answer me?” I let my gaze move across everyone.
How I wished my Grams and Gramps could have been here now.
Lumps lodged in my throat and my heart at the thought of their absence.
I’d been telling myself they would love my plans, but I worried that was more wishful thinking than truth.
What if they would be like everyone else and think it was wrong?
“The only way to expand,” Uncle Randy, the most vocal and grumpiest of the parental units, huffed out, “is to sell, because we don’t have the money for it. What, you think some company is dying to come out to Virginia and help us do whatever it is you want? What is it you want?”
This time I didn’t hold back and dropped my head to the bar for a quick smack. With any luck, I’d knock myself unconscious.
“Dad, really?” Rand looked at his father like he couldn’t believe what he had just heard. I knew how he felt. “She did a whole fucking PowerPoint and shit.”
“One that was damn good, if I do say so myself.” I nodded Rand’s direction, a silent thank you for sticking up for me. “I want us to be a destination.”
I wanted that so badly I could practically fucking taste it.
It’s what I’d dreamed about when my eyes closed at night.
It was my first thought in the morning as I made my daily walk from my apartment to the B did they think I was just going to up and leave them? Leave our legacy?
But this was the worst.
I should be used to it by now, but hearing those words from family always hit me a little harder. They were the ones who sort of made me this way.
Too much, yet not enough.
Not a standout like my brother Kellan or a soldier like Logan.
I glanced around the room at my cousins.
All of them had their talents, and what did I have?
A personality that was always too much but apparently lacking the ability to do anything with it.
They tried to send smiles of encouragement my way, but it was pointless. The parentals wouldn’t listen.
I turned toward my dad and answered his question. “It’s nothing, Dad.”
A tear fell as I walked out, feeling like too little for once in my life.
“Fuck,” I cursed as I closed the door to my apartment behind me, dropping my keys and phone on the entry table.
My disappointment and sadness had flipped to anger and frustration on the short drive from the winery to the B&B property.
“Because, God forbid, we didn’t have fucking fences up between the two like a normal family.
The Storms don’t make people go out of their way.
” The Storm family up the road in Gracemont were a lot like us in terms of businesses, except they actually worked together. “AHHH.”