Epilogue #3
I fold my arms. “Then why are you on a private vineyard road in a Mercedes that has absolutely no business being here?”
The smile never quite leaves his face. “I inherited it.”
I blink. “The Mercedes?”
“No.” His eyes drift to the car before returning to me. “The land.”
He said it with the quiet certainty of someone accustomed to solving difficult problems. The kind of confidence that probably worked beautifully in an operating room.
Out here, it wasn’t going to help him.
For a second I just stare at him. “Evelyn Dempsey left you land?”
His brow crinkles. “No, Lloyd Franklin left me land that’s somewhere up here.”
I shake my head. “That’s not possible. He promised my grandmother he’d sell it to her. And I’ve heard he promised it to the Paradise family too. Why would he give it to you? You’re obviously not a farmer.”
“It surprised me too.”
“Lloyd didn’t have children.”
“That’s what he told me.”
“And he wasn’t about to leave twenty acres on the best western slope in Black Bear Valley to a complete stranger.”
“I’m not a complete stranger.”
“Then who are you?”
“My name is Nathan Pierce.”
The name means absolutely nothing to me. “I don’t know a Nathan Pierce.”
“I didn’t expect you would.”
He walks to the open driver’s door and reaches inside, pulling out a leather document case.
Everything about him is unhurried, from the way he closes the door to the way he brushes a layer of dust from the case before opening it.
If our positions were reversed, I’d probably be apologizing for driving where I shouldn’t.
He simply looks like a man trying to solve a problem. He hands me a folded survey first.
I recognize Lloyd’s parcel immediately. The property lines haven’t changed since I was a kid. Black Bear Vineyard borders one side. Paradise Family Estate borders the other. The access road runs straight up the middle before splitting at the top.
Then I notice the name. Nathan Andrew Pierce. “What is this?”
“The survey my lawyer gave me.”
I unfold another page. Transfer of Title. Lloyd Franklin. Nathan Andrew Pierce. The registration stamp is dated three weeks ago.
“This…” I look back at him. “…is real?”
“It would be an elaborate prank otherwise.”
I ignore the attempt at humor and keep reading. The legal description matches the survey. Twenty acres. The access easement. The well. Everything. “Lloyd left you all of it?”
“He did.”
“Why?”
Nathan looks toward the unopened field beyond the gate before answering. “Lloyd was my patient. We got to know each other over the years.”
“You’re a doctor?”
He nods.
“Where?”
“I’m a neurosurgeon at Mercy General Hospital.”
That explains the Mercedes.
“Are you planning to build?”
“Possibly.” His attention follows the road.
“The access will obviously need to be widened.”
“Absolutely not.”
He looks over at me. “I want access to my land.”
“Good for you. But your land is landlocked, and unless you buy part of Black Bear and Paradise Hill, and last I checked, neither of us plans on selling one millimeter of land on this hill.”
“Surely provincial regulations would allow an access road.”
“Find out. Because they won’t go through a producing vineyard. The other side of your property is all provincial forest land. Maybe you’ll have better luck with them.”
“That would be a lot of red tape.”
I shrug. “That’s your problem.”
A corner of his mouth lifts. “I don’t know. I’ve owned the land for less than a month.”
“And before today, you’d never seen it.”
“That’s about the size of it. But I heard all about it from Lloyd.”
I shake my head and hand the survey back to him. “So Lloyd Franklin leaves twenty acres every winery in the valley has been trying to buy to a doctor from Vancouver.”
“When you say it like that…”
I cross my arms trying to tamp down my anger. “It sounds ridiculous.”
“I was going to say unexpected.”
I study him for another moment. He should irritate me. A stranger inherits the one piece of land everyone in the valley wants, and somehow he stays infuriatingly calm. Instead, I’m left trying to figure him out.
I can’t.
That bothers me far more than it should.
Unfortunately, none of that changes the problem sitting between us. I point at the Mercedes. “Legally, you may own the land.”
Nathan looks from the Mercedes to the road behind it. “It appears I do.”
“Are you planning to build?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he turns and looks past the gate toward the twenty acres stretching up the hillside.
The grass has grown waist high since Lloyd stopped maintaining it, broken only by a handful of weathered fence posts leaning at impossible angles.
Beyond it, our vines march down one side of the slope while Paradise’s climb the other.
“I honestly don’t know,” he says. “Until this morning, I’d never actually seen it.”
I follow his gaze.
Lloyd’s property has always been the missing piece of the valley.
Everyone wanted it because of where it sat, not because of what it was.
Twenty untouched acres on the best western slope in Black Bear Valley.
If he applied to build, the province would require safe access for construction and emergency vehicles.
, and there wasn’t enough room on this road without sacrificing vines.
A lot of vines.
“What?” Nathan asks.
I realize I’ve been staring at the road instead of him. “I’m trying to figure out how much damage you’d do.”
One eyebrow rises. “If you decide to build,” I clarify. “Legally, you own twenty acres.”
“That’s what the paperwork says.”
“Good.” I point down the hill. “Because until you figure out another way up here, your only access is through Black Bear Vineyard and Paradise Family Estate.”
His eyes follow mine. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“You will.”
Nathan turned toward the Mercedes, his gaze lingering on the narrow road before fishing the keys from his pocket.
There wasn’t a trace of panic in him. No muttered curse.
No complaint that the road was too narrow or the signs weren’t clear enough.
He simply accepted the situation for what it was and started looking for the most logical solution.
It should have irritated me. Instead, I found myself watching him. Most people who wandered onto vineyard property came armed with opinions. They wanted to explain why our roads should be wider or why we should’ve planted something prettier than rows of vines.
Nathan Pierce had inherited twenty acres that both our family and the Paradises had spent years trying to buy, yet he hadn’t asked what it was worth or whether someone might make him an offer. He’d spent more time looking at the land than the paperwork.
That struck me as…unexpected.
He opened the driver’s door and paused long enough to look back at me. “I think I’ve got enough room.”
I looked at the road. “You don’t.”
He smiled politely. “Let’s see.” He nods once, and settles behind the wheel and adjusted the mirrors before easing the Mercedes into reverse.
For the first few feet, I thought he might actually pull it off.
The car rolled slowly over the gravel, its tires hugging the edge of the road while he watched both mirrors with obvious concentration. He wasn’t careless. If anything, he was almost too deliberate, correcting every movement by fractions instead of inches.
Then the rear tire drops into a rut.
The Mercedes shifts toward the vines.
My pulse jumps.
The end post marking the first row of cabernet stood less than a foot from his rear bumper, and he couldn’t see it from where he sat. Another turn of the wheel and the passenger side would swing wide enough to catch the irrigation line before taking the post with it.
“Stop.” My voice isn’t loud.
He hits the brake instantly.
I was already moving before the car settles.
I don’t wait for him to ask why. By the time I reach the back bumper I can already see the problem. The driver’s side has less than a foot of clearance from the end post, and every correction he makes is forcing the passenger side closer to the vines.
I rest a hand against the trunk and sight down the driver’s side. Another six inches and he’ll catch the end post before the passenger side swings into my cabernet. I walk back to the driver’s window. “Can I help?”
A sheepish smile crosses his face. “Would you mind?”
“I’ve lived my whole life on this land and I’ve driven this road for years—not in a Mercedes but on four-wheelers and tractors.”
He looks in both mirrors before shutting off the engine. “I thought I had more room.”
“Can you drive the side by side?”
“I’m not sure. Is it just a golf cart with big wheels?”
Who is this guy? “Never mind. I’ll come back for it.”
For the first time since we’d met, he wasn’t looking at the paperwork or the Mercedes.
His attention drifted across the slope, lingering on the weathered end posts, the irrigation lines, and the rows of vines disappearing over the hill.
He wasn’t admiring the view. He was trying to understand why I’d stopped him.