Chapter Twenty-Three
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I’m already in bed when Laine returns from dropping Rachel off. She climbs in beside me, wearing her boy-short briefs, a tank top, and a look of concern. We face each other, back in our parenthesis form, the first unease in months swirling between us.
She runs a hand up my arm. “You okay?”
I bite my lip and nod. “But, you’re buying a vineyard?”
“Not buying, not right now. Just looking for that next opportunity, remember?” She smiles sadly. “Business has been so good, my family has capital to grow. There’s a couple of competing proposals on the table now that I’m back, and Rachel’s furious about it, that’s all. She wants to open a brewery she’d manage on her own, but I put forward a few properties to consider instead. Existing vineyards looking to change ownership, places with good, established vines where it’d be easy to step in and get to work right away.”
I frown, trying to imagine both things. Laine running an expansion of Into the Woods is easier to picture, but Rachel? Drinking beer ?
My mind runs over every rumor and bit of gossip in the local wine scene. “But there aren’t any properties like that for sale around here. Are there?”
“No, but I’m keeping an eye out.” Laine’s hands fold over my hips, tugging me to her. “And none of this matters right now, anyway. We’ve got the showcase to plan, and I have to deliver on a delicious slate of reds for my demanding—”
She presses a warm, breathy kiss behind my ear.
“sexy—”
Her lips trail down my throat, teeth scraping into a bite where my shoulder meets my neck.
“— ferocious boss.”
Laine pulls me on top of her, until my legs are forked over her lap, stretching me apart. Her index finger runs along the outside of my panties.
With great effort, I push her hand away. “Laine, I—” But the words don’t come.
“You need to hear more.” Laine’s hands encircle my wrists. “You’re nervous, and you won’t feel better until you know every detail so you can run through all your worst-case scenarios and figure out how to protect yourself from them.” The pads of her thumbs run over my pulse points. “From me.”
I’m still wearing my T-shirt, but I feel completely naked. “Am I so easy to understand?” I mean it as a joke, but it comes out too soft.
“You’re a language that I’m learning, Zoe.” A stripe of bright moonlight falls over her face, so serious and intent. “Maybe I can’t speak you fully yet, but I will. I want to dream in you.” Her hands slide down to braid her fingers with mine. “But until then, please believe me when I say there’s nothing you need to worry about. These are just the twists and turns, boss, but I promise there’s more road for us up ahead.”
I blink, my eyes welling from the magnitude of how much I want to get to that straight line of road with Laine.
“I believe you,” I finally say. Or I want to, at least.
I lie down on top of her then, letting someone, for once, bear the full weight of me.
After that, the days move by in a blur, filled to bursting with preparing for harvest and the showcase. It’s the nights that slow down long enough for me to savor them. Nights spent in Laine’s arms, sleeping beside her, reading beside her. It’s unbearably endearing to find Laine with her thick-rimmed glasses on, propped up in bed poring over grape history. Did you know that the Norton variety was almost lost during Prohibition? she’d asked last night, and I smiled and shook my head. Fascinating , she murmured, then lit up once again with the next interesting fact. Did you know, did you know, did you know?
Did I know?
How easy this would feel? Falling into step with Laine as though our strides were perfectly matched to carry us from our shared past to some future destination?
No. I didn’t know feeling this way was something I could expect from life. Other people fall in love; I just fall.
When I wake, Laine’s already up and gone. She’s next-level busy right now, and while it’s amazing to watch her in her full glorious vintner element—guiding the slow, steady fermentation of the white wines, monitoring the fast and furious fermentation of the reds, pressing, filtering, racking over and over again—I have a to-do list a mile long, too. The showcase is in two weeks, and despite my careful planning, there’s no avoiding the crush of work that always comes right before a big event. By the time I get to my office, Matthew, aka Mr. Logistics, has called twice and left seven text messages. It’s like having a very concerned second head looking over all my planning and coordination efforts and tsk ing nonstop. The man thinks of everything that could go wrong. When was the last time your septic system was serviced? Have you changed the batteries in your fire detectors? Who’s your linen rental provider? Have you purchased special event insurance, or is your general policy sufficient? Are you making time for self-care? Can’t burn out now! The questions go on and on, and after every call, I have a new set of tasks to add to the ones still waiting from the day before.
I sigh into my coffee cup and set about destroying my to-do list. Around eleven a.m., a knock on my office door interrupts my hundredth email of the day.
“Yeah?”
The door opens, and Josiah sticks his head in.
I frown and fully disengage from the keyboard. Josiah’s one of our longtime vineyard hands, but I can count the number of times he’s entered my office during the workday on one hand.
“Hey, Zoe, you got a minute?”
“Sure, what’s going on?”
He wrings his faded orange ball cap in his hands so tightly his knuckles blanch. “Laine pulled down some white samples today. There’s something—off about ’em.”
This statement looks like it’s costing Josiah years off his life. Usually, he’s all smiles, tipping that ball cap for every woman, elder, and that one time, the TV as it flashed an image of Queen Elizabeth II. He and Laine immediately took to each other, so I know this isn’t mean-spirited. It must be extra hard for him to bring it to me.
“Did you share your thoughts with her?”
“I tried to.” He shakes his head forlornly. “She says it’s on purpose, but that ain’t what Georgia Girls is supposed to taste like. I been helping Cosimo make that wine for the last ten years, and it ain’t never tasted like … that.” His usual smile twists into a disgusted wrinkle across his face, and fear shoots through my veins.
I squash it down. Laine’s committed to a more organic style of winemaking, meaning less sulfur dioxide treatments throughout, giving an earthier quality to our wines. Maybe that’s all it is—a slight change to a well-known wine can feel momentous to a trained palate. I’m hoping it’s just Josiah’s long familiarity with Georgia Girls that makes any deviation from the standard product feel distasteful, and simultaneously terrified that Laine’s iteration of our best-selling crowd-pleaser will turn off our longtime customers, too.
“Thanks for telling me. I’ll check on it.” I give him a weak smile, letting him leave first. The way he looks both ways down the hall tells me he’s as nervous as I am to challenge Laine on her winemaking. God, how’s this going to go?
I wander into the vats area, the smell of fermenting yeast overwhelming even with the exhaust system on full blast. “Laine?” I call for her again, then feel her arms slip around me.
“Hey, boss!”
I force myself to face her. “Can we talk?”
She leads me by the hand with a wry smile to the quieter end of the winery, where the samples are conveniently still laid out. It’s a testament to her confidence that she doesn’t look fazed at all. If the roles were reversed, and my girlfriend asked can we talk? I’d have already dissociated from my body.
“What’s up?” She brings my hand to her mouth, sliding a finger between her lips. “I don’t have time for a quickie, but if you try to convince me … I might.”
“Are these the samples?” I ask, though I already know they are. “Can I try?”
Laine’s playful expression shifts a little, and then she appears, Beave, my chief vintner, shoulders thrown back, exuding a competence that turns me on more than her sucking my finger, and that’s saying something. “Sure. In fact, I was just about to try the new red blend.” Her eyes spark with the energy of expectation, that feeling the moment before your test scores load when you don’t know how you did, but you suspect you aced it. “I haven’t tasted it since I made all those changes to it inspired by your mother’s journals—it’s been killing me to give it enough time to get over the bottle-shock period. Wanna start there?”
She looks so excited, I can’t help but feel it, too. Please, let Josiah be wrong. “Absolutely.” I force myself to smile as she grabs the sample bottle and uncorks it, pouring us a glass of each. Already, the color is mesmerizing. This is a young red, fresh and fruit-forward, the color a pale ruby filtered by sunlight. If nothing else, Laine’s blended our bases into a beautiful wine.
The wine slides against the glass, leaving a wake the color of sunsets that promises a healthy alcoholic content. I bring the glass to my nose, sniffing lightly, then deeply in.
“I’m getting ripe strawberries laced with black currant, pomegranate, the forest after it’s rained.”
“ Yes! I get wild roses, strawberry jam, a field in early spring,” she says, the excitement in her voice growing. Unable to wait any longer, Laine closes her eyes and lets the wine kiss her lips. The liquid beads on the shell of her mouth before slipping in and down. It’s fascinating to watch—the thinking divot between her brows faint, then disappearing altogether as her eyes open, widen, and gleam. “It’s … Zoe , stop staring at me and try it!”
I laugh a little, lost in the happiness that’s rising on Laine’s face like the morning sun. I finally tilt the glass up, letting the wine tumble across my lips, pool into my mouth, splash against my tongue. My brows quirk up as the flavors dance across my palate. Balanced, its tannins rich but neutralized, creating a fuller body on my tongue than it has any right to have—everything I could want in a young red wine and more. It’s not my mother’s red blend, but it is, perhaps, its daughter. The similarities are there as much as the differences. I’ve only ever tasted my mother’s reds in their tawny old age, after mellowing in their bottle homes for years. Laine’s version has a delicious bite, softened by the faintest touch of sweet—like the wild blackberries I’d find along the creek at summer’s edge. Tart and light, a waking dream, and so, so complex . I sip again, trying to hang onto the feeling of it and all the memories it’s evoking as it trails down my throat. Fresh spring and lazy summer, crisp fall and the deep gray of winter—this is the kind of wine that takes your moment and builds upon it, whenever it is.
“Laine, it’s … perfect.”
Laine grabs me by the hips, then sinks one hand into my hair, pulling until my chin tips up to take her fevered kiss. The taste of her hard work, her genius mixed with my mother’s, of Bluebell Vineyards and all it can give the world, is shared between us. The press of her velvety mouth is as tart and sweet as the wine. “Really?”
“I love it, Laine. It’s incredible.”
I love you, Laine. You’re incredible.
Both thoughts swim through me, both true.
She laughs as she presses her forehead against mine. “God, I’m so relieved. After all those promises I made Everyday Bon Vivant … I’m so glad I came through for you, baby.”
“You did.” The smile she gives me is achingly tender as she brushes a loose tear from my cheek with the soft pad of her thumb.
“With a little help from your ma.” She throws her head up to the ceiling. “Thanks, Ma!”
My own laugh bubbles up at that, rising through the heady mix of emotions I’m making space for in my life now. Vulnerability. Love. Trust.
Yes. Thank you, Mom .
Laine gives me some of her seltzer water and a hunk of baguette she keeps on hand for palate cleansing, but even still, I’m not prepared for the switch to the Georgia Girls sample. I hold up a hand, spit the wine into the bowl, then take another long drink of seltzer.
“Okay, let me try that again.” Laine nods, but her demeanor’s changed, too. She watches me closely. I sniff the wine first, and there are all the telltale smells—honeysuckle and peach—but they seem muted somehow. A different presence rises above them, elbowing in at the table. Earthier, different. When the golden wine slides over my tongue, the earthiness is present in the taste, too. All the things I love about Georgia Girls take a back seat to this new flavor, and the effect is disconcerting.
I clear my throat. “This tastes a little …”
Off.
Wrong.
Flat-out bad.
“Different,” I finish weakly. Laine’s fully on edge—I see it in her stance, the pinch of her shoulders. “What’s making that … difference?”
“I cut back on the sulfur dioxide treatments, to give Bluebell’s offerings a more organic vibe. That’d help us stand out in the Blue Ridge market, give us a modern edge that’d appeal to eco-conscious consumers.”
“But don’t the sulfur dioxide treatments prevent bad yeast overgrowth that can … affect the taste? Could that be what’s causing this, uh, flavor?” I don’t have the heart to openly criticize what she’s done to Georgia Girls. After all, this is next year’s batch—it has a whole year after fermentation to settle and develop. Real criticism is premature at this point. But at the same time, Josiah’s right. Georgia Girls has never tasted like this, not at any juncture of its process. The bottom of my stomach drops out.
“Yes,” Laine grudgingly admits, “but I—”
“Should we do a sulfur dioxide treatment now? Head off this taste before it really digs in?” I know I’ve cut her off, but my courage is rapidly dwindling, and I need to get this out before the bliss I’ve been swimming in ever since that night in the grape-crushing barrel convinces me to stay quiet.
Laine frowns, and it feels like I’ve done something wrong. “I don’t think we should give up and turn tail at the first sign of something different. We discussed this—the wines will taste slightly different with more organic processing, but not worse. If anything, it will elevate Bluebell’s classic offerings.”
I bite my lip, the fear of tanking an entire season of our best-selling wine warring with my desire, my need to trust her on this. Finally, I nod. When Electric Daisy, C’est la Grigio, and the rest of our white wine samples present the same off-putting musty taste, I keep my mouth shut. I’m going to trust Laine. It’s just Bluebell Vineyards entering our hippie lesbian era, the wine equivalent of hot ladies with hairy pits.
It’s gonna be fine.
Laine’s relief at getting through all the samples with no more criticism is evident, and she shoos me out as soon as we’re done. No objections from me. It’s the first time we’ve butted heads over our professional differences since we started shacking up, and it’s left us both feeling shaky.
I step out into the warm October afternoon and force my shoulders to relax. The faded red boards of our barn stand in stark contrast to the bright blue of the afternoon sky. The rolling mountains have finally started to let go of summer, their dying leaves crisping into the reddish brown of a good Irish ale. Our vines have begun to turn, as well. Soon they’ll retreat into their roots and cozy up for the long winter’s sleep. Baahlzebub’s out in the field, munching away, and I join him at the fence, rubbing the space between his horns while he chews.
“What do you think, Bub? Will it be okay?”
But the damn goat just butts my hand to keep the rubs coming, no answers in sight. I’m still scratching his bristly fur when beyond the fence line, a figure appears in the trees, walking down the old trail between properties toward us.
I raise a hand over my eyes. “Mrs. Woods? Is that you, or some malevolent specter?”
“Hey there, Zoe!” Molly calls out. “No, it’s me—left Rachel at home!”
We both belly laugh at that as she draws closer, an envelope tucked under her arm. “Laine left this at the house the other day, so I thought I’d drop it by. Is she in?”
“She just left for the back fields, but I’ll give it to her for you.”
“I bet you will.” Mrs. Woods passes me the envelope, smiling. “You know, you’ve always been a part of my family, Zoe, one way or the other. First as Rachel’s closest friend, and now as Laine’s sweetheart, which Ezra and I cannot be happier about.”
My brows flicker together. “I—I’m touched to hear that, but at the soccer game, when y’all found out we’re together, why did you look so …” I struggle to find a word that’s not accusatory.
“Unhappy?” Molly smiles wistfully. “I’m sorry that’s how it appeared. We were more surprised than anything. It’s just, we know how tied you are to your mama’s vineyard. But if anyone can make long distance work, it’ll be you two! It sure is a beautiful property. Once she gets the new vineyard up and running, who knows? Maybe—”
But Molly’s words fade against the loud buzz filling my head. I rush through some excuses about needing to get back to work, accepting her hugs and promises to return for another family dinner soon. I’m barely inside my office when I undo the clasp of the envelope, slipping the documents out. The first is a legal description of a plot of land for sale, with pictures attached. A small vineyard rolls out before me on gentle green slopes, its address in Dundee, Oregon. The vines are shabby and unkempt, long neglected, but the property is beautiful. A rehab project, then. Notes are scribbled in the margins in Laine’s blocky, precise handwriting, including an amount circled with the words down payment? beside it, then earnest money paid September 15 , which was weeks ago.
I blink down at the words, willing them to disappear. I check the date against my memory. September 15th … that would have been a few days after we found Rachel in the winery, a few days after she’d promised me there was nothing planned yet, that I had nothing to worry about.
A few days after she lied to me.
Does she think she can convince me to leave everything behind? That I can just walk away from my vineyards, my dreams, my family?
A worse thought hits me in the stomach, taking my breath away.
Or does she know that I can’t, and she’s going to leave me anyway.
A vibration in my back pocket interrupts my increasing panic, but the calling number is unavailable. I almost let it go to voicemail, but a niggling sense of dread makes me answer.
“Hello?”
“Ciao, Zoe? It’s your uncle Paolo.”
I scramble to hold the phone up to my ear better, as though that will make the overseas connection clearer. Anxiety drums against my insides, tapping relentlessly against my pulse points, the back of my neck, my sternum. “Uncle Paolo! Is everything okay?”
The line is quiet for a beat, then Uncle Paolo’s words hit me in tall, rushing waves.
Nonna passed away this morning, Zoe Nicoletta.
Your father—he needs you.
You must come as soon as possible.