Chapter 1 #2
“You’ll be fine,” Maverick said, attempting to lighten his mood.
After all, it was his fault he had to work the damn festival.
His brother had mistakenly double-booked the weekend, forgetting about the festival when he and Ella scheduled a bunch of wedding stuff, like the cake tasting and meeting with the florist.
“Not sure why Ella needs you with her. Like you have a fucking clue when it comes to flowers.”
“Ella wants my opinion,” Maverick replied. “And I want to stay engaged. So I’m going and pretending I have a preference when it comes to roses and lilies and whatever other flowers she shows me.”
“You’re whipped.”
“Happy,” Maverick corrected. “There’s a difference. And trust me, bro, you’ll survive the festival. It’ll be good for you to get off the mountain and see a bit of the world.”
“Norfolk counts as the world?” he grumbled. “Besides, still not sure why you’re in such a big damn hurry to walk down the aisle.”
Rather than take his time, Maverick had insisted on a November wedding, which, at the time of the proposal, would have left him and Ella less than three months to organize what was starting to sound like one hell of an event.
Ella had put her foot down on the race to their nuptials, but only by a little.
Now, they were tying the knot in early December, though Grayson wasn’t sure what the hell difference a few weeks made in terms of planning.
According to Ella and his cousins, however, it made all the difference in the world, allowing them to do God only knew what. He’d already heard the words Wedding Pinterest Board more times than he cared to, and he wasn’t even sure what the fuck that meant.
Grayson suspected there wasn’t a person in Gracemont not on the guest list, and he knew that was Maverick’s doing.
At the beginning, Ella said she’d be just as happy flying to Vegas to elope, but Maverick soon changed her mind.
Because it was his brother who’d lost his caveman mind, demanding the huge party.
As Maverick said, “There won’t be a man in town who doesn’t know by the end of that wedding reception that Ella is mine and only mine.”
“It’s two full days of noise and people asking questions they could answer themselves if they just read the damn signs, and drunk people who wouldn’t know good wine if it smacked them in the face.
Hell, half the people who come to these events are just looking for cheerleader wine, that pink shit that’s so sweet, it makes your teeth hurt. ”
Maverick laughed. “Yeah. You might want to work on your customer service skills, bro.”
“I make the wine. I don’t need to babysit people while they drink it.”
Maverick winced. “Maybe you shouldn’t do any of the talking at the festival. You just pour and leave the PR part to Lark.”
As soon as his brother said the woman’s name, Grayson growled. “If you’re trying to make me feel better…”
Maverick held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry. Forgot that Lark is a sore subject for you. Though I don’t know why.”
“She’s loud,” Grayson retorted.
“She’s engaging,” Maverick countered.
“She’s chaotic.”
Maverick lifted a shoulder casually. “Some people call that fun. Besides, customers love her.”
“That’s because she treats everything like a party.”
“And?” Maverick prompted. Because his brother also treated life like a party.
“This is business,” Grayson snapped, even though he was wasting his breath.
“She brings people to the farm with her personality and her singing.”
Grayson couldn’t argue with that. For all her faults—like her chronic lateness—Lark was an extremely talented singer.
That was how she’d started working at Stormy Weather Farm.
Nora had hired her to sing on weekends during their peak seasons, and the customers loved her.
When Lark asked for more hours, Nora expanded her role to server in the wine-tasting room.
Because she had personality for days, Lark excelled in that position.
Earlier this spring, they’d changed Lark from part time to full time, and she spent some of her mornings helping his cousin Remi clean the rental cabins and B&B.
That was when Lark’s restlessness and inability to start work on time began to make itself known.
“She’s late. Constantly,” Grayson listed.
“She does her job and she does it well.”
“When she’s here,” Grayson added, because he was feeling particularly grumpy about the festival and having to spend so much time with the obnoxiously vivacious woman. Just thinking about spending two days with her wore him out.
Maverick nodded. “Nora said she’s going to address that.”
While Maverick and Grayson ran the winery, making the wine, Nora ran the tasting room, dealt with distributors, and managed the employees, budget, and payroll. All those “stuck at a desk” tasks Grayson would hate.
He shrugged, letting the conversation end there. He and Maverick made their rounds, then consulted with Boone about the harvest schedule. The morning passed quickly and before Grayson knew it, it was lunchtime.
“Tasting room?” Maverick asked.
Grayson’s brows rose. “What? You’re eating lunch with me?
” That was another thing that had changed since Maverick got engaged.
Pre-Ella—which was how Grayson was beginning to refer to the time before his brother reclaimed the love of his life—he and Maverick had lunch together in the wine-tasting room a few times a week.
Lately, that had changed, as Maverick spent his lunch hour racing home to eat with Ella—and to squeeze in the occasional quickies. Apparently, getting laid every night and every morning wasn’t enough for the smug, lucky bastard.
“Ella’s having lunch at Edith’s today,” Maverick said.
Edith Millholland was the unofficial first lady of Gracemont.
At eighty-two years young, Edith, who had run a boarding house before retiring, was like a grandmother to the Storms. She and her nephew, Manny, ate Sunday dinner with them every week, and it was Edith who’d been instrumental in Ella’s return to town.
Grayson nodded. “I don’t mind being second choice,” he joked. “I’m in the mood for one of Mila’s grilled cheese sandwiches.”
Maverick rubbed his stomach. “Me too.”
They made the short walk from the winery to the tasting room together, entering via the kitchen door.
Mila looked their direction when they walked in, took one look at their faces, and grinned. “Let me guess. Grilled cheese.”
Maverick crossed the space to give their sweet cousin a kiss on the cheek. “I don’t think either of us would complain if you tossed a few of those homemade potato chips on our plates too,” he said, like the charmer he was.
Mila rolled her eyes. “Two super-starch specials, coming right up.”
Grayson thanked her as they walked out to the tasting room.
Because it was a weekday, there weren’t more than a dozen customers.
He recognized the Grants, a local retired couple, who waved as he and Maverick entered.
A few folks at a couple other tables nodded at them as well.
Grayson didn’t know the three women standing next to the bar, looking at the wine-tasting menu.
They got a lot of visitors from D.C., so it wasn’t unusual for him not to recognize customers.
Soft voices drifted through the open space, warm and lively, punctuated by quiet laughter and the clink of glasses. Sunlight streamed through the huge sliding doors. When the weather was nice, Nora opened the doors so that even the people seated inside felt as if they were outdoors.
He and Maverick each helped themselves to a glass of wine, Maverick offering a red wine suggestion to the women standing there, answering a couple of questions about the grapes.
Then, as usual, his brother stopped to chat with the Grants, flashing that easy smile that made people feel like they’d just run into an old friend.
Sometimes, Grayson was jealous of his brother’s people skills, but that feeling passed quickly. He was fine with his quiet life just the way it was, happy to let his brother run the conversation, while he simply nodded and smiled pleasantly in the appropriate places.
They’d just claimed their usual table when Mila came out and placed their sandwiches and chips on the table.
“Bon appétit, guys,” she said, before heading back to the kitchen.
Grayson and Maverick moaned in unison as they took their first bites. Gooey cheese, butter, and crispy homemade bread had to be the greatest combination ever. They ate in silence, blissfully lost in the flavors, enjoying the downtime.
Everything was peaceful and normal.
Until it wasn’t.
The door to the wine-tasting room burst open with a gust of energy that didn’t belong in the calm rhythm of the space.
Nora, who’d just come downstairs from her office, sighed as Lark appeared. She swept inside like a spark in human form—long blonde hair bouncing, cheeks flushed like she’d run all the way here.
“I know I’m late. I’m sorry! I swear I thought I set my alarm last night,” Lark said hastily.
Ah…so she had run.
Nora crossed her arms. “Lark. We just talked about this.”
“I know! And I really, really am sorry. I’ll stay late to make up for it. I’ll even mop the floors after closing.”
That was clever, offering to do the shit task no one ever wanted.
“You can make up the time with the mopping. But please, Lark, don’t be late again.”
Lark nodded somberly. “I really am sorry, Nora.”
Nora gave her a tight smile. “I know you are.”
Lark walked into the kitchen, where there was a secured closet for employees to stash their coats and purses while they worked. It didn’t take her long to rebound, because when she returned, she was all smiles again.
“You’re back!” Lark said cheerfully to the three women doing a wine tasting at the counter.
“Yes,” one of the women said. “You told us last weekend you’d be here today. We were debating what to do this afternoon, and we all decided we needed more Lark time.”