Chapter 2
TWO
The Cotton Exchange
Aubrey Langford
Aubrey woke up in her hotel room with the phantom scent of last night clinging to her hair.
She spent twenty minutes in the shower trying to wash away the memory of the patio, but the hot water only worked against her.
As steam filled the small stall, her mind betrayed her.
She closed her eyes under the spray and, instead of thinking about why she’d come to Sylva, she felt the lingering press of his mouth.
When she reached up to rinse the shampoo from her hair, her thumb brushed her lower lip.
It still tingled, as if her nerves hadn't gotten the memo that last night was over.
She was not here to be rattled by a man who dressed like a lumberjack, drank whiskey like anesthesia, and probably thought a board meeting was something you built with nails.
Get a grip, she told herself, twisting the handle hard to cold. The icy shock hit her chest, forcing a sharp breath from her lungs, and shattering the memory.
Ten minutes later, she pulled her damp hair back into a smooth chignon, not letting a single strand escape. She slipped into a charcoal suit that screamed executive, painted on blood-red lipstick, and put her game face back on.
The red brick loomed over Main Street, soaked to a deep charcoal by the morning mist. Inside, the brass directory gleamed like it had been polished every hour.
Harper it looked like a high-end firm in Charleston curated for a magazine spread.
Tall windows framed the Blue Ridge peaks like expensive art.
Aubrey stepped out, her heels clicking a sharp rhythm against the wood. Three days after Mabel Blackwood’s death, the entire town still seemed wrapped in a strange hush beneath the mountain rain. She’d expected dusty files and floral wallpaper.
Instead, she found a minimalist sanctuary.
A woman in her sixties, dark hair threaded with silver and swept into a lethal twist, looked up from a glass desk.
“You must be Aubrey,” she said, voice warm but efficient. “I’m Frannie. Frances, technically, but nobody calls me that unless I’ve misplaced a filing.”
Aubrey managed a smile. “Aubrey Langford. For the reading.”
“Ms. Harper is finishing a call. Can I get you coffee? Tea?” Frannie paused, eyes twinkling. “The book club is already in there. Lord help us all.”
“The book club?” Aubrey asked.
Through the glass doors of the conference room, three women sat in a row like colorful, judgmental birds. Pearls. Bright spring florals. Lace-trimmed tissues.
“Mabel’s inner circle,” Frannie whispered. “Mary Lou Jenkins, Helen Bishop, and June Wheeler. They meet every Wednesday to drink too much Chardonnay and dismantle the reputations of everyone in Jackson County.”
As if on cue, a sob erupted from the room.
“She was the best of us!” Mary Lou wailed.
“She absolutely was not,” Helen snapped, dabbing her eyes. “She cheated at bridge for twenty years. Used a signal with her rings. I saw it all the time.”
“She only cheated because Harold cheated first!”
“Harold’s been dead since the Clinton administration, Helen. Let it go.”
Aubrey went still.
“Ye left out the part where they terrify the local police,” a deep voice rumbled from behind her.
Aubrey spun around.
A tall man with sun-weathered skin and dark auburn hair streaked with copper and silver stood there, a file folder tucked beneath one arm. His eyes were sharp, but the easy smile beneath them softened the impression.
“Declan O’Rourke,” he said, his hand enveloping hers, a faint, musical trace of Ireland in his vowels. “But call me Deck. I do the heavy lifting for Eleanor.”
“Heavy lifting?”
“Private investigations, mostly,” Deck said, his gaze lingering on her a beat too long, sharp but kind. “When people decide to lie, disappear, or die without leaving a clear trail. Mabel was a gem. She thought the sun rose and set on ye.”
Before Aubrey could answer, another man stepped through the conference room doorway. A faded Blackwood Estate cap sat low on his brow, rain beading along the bill. He pulled it off as he stepped inside.
“Well,” he said quietly, “There she is.”
Something in his voice made her straighten.
“You probably don’t remember me,” he said. “But I remember you.”
Aubrey blinked.
“Red Stephens.”
Recognition flickered around the room immediately. Even the book club ladies softened.
“Red’s been with Blackwood longer than the vines,” Mary Lou announced tearfully.
“Longer than some of our marriages,” Helen muttered.
Red ignored them, his gaze staying on Aubrey.
“You used to sit on the back porch with a suitcase full of Barbies,” he said. “Would line ’em all up along the railing while your aunt hollered at the farmhands for cussing too loud around you.”
The memory hit Aubrey so suddenly it stole her breath—summer heat shimmering over pasture grass.
A glass bottle of Coca-Cola sweating against her small palm.
Pink Barbie shoes scattered across weathered porch boards.
Mabel’s laugh carrying across the fields while cattle moved slowly beyond the fence line.
Underneath it all, the rich, sweet scent of heavy purple grapes ripening in the summer sun.
For one brief second, she remembered being happy here.
Red’s expression gentled slightly, like he saw the memory land.
“Mabel was awful proud when you came to visit,” he said quietly. “Didn’t matter how long it’d been.”
Emotion climbed unexpectedly into Aubrey’s throat.
Deck shifted the file folder beneath his arm, expression turning thoughtful.
“Truth be told,” he said quietly, “your aunt had me looking into a few things before she passed.”
Aubrey looked up. “What kind of things?”
Deck gave a small shrug.
“Nothing concrete. A few odd calls. Questions about the property. She said she had a feeling somebody was circling Blackwood.”
Something dark flickered across Red’s face near the doorway.
“Mabel trusted her instincts,” he muttered.
Deck nodded once. “Aye. She did.”
Before she could respond, the office door swung open.
Eleanor Harper walked in, and the room seemed to realign around her. She wore a navy sheath dress that cost more than Aubrey’s first car, her blonde hair pulled back in a way that made her look both elegant and untouchable.
“Aubrey,” Eleanor said, her hand warm and firm. “I’m Eleanor. I am so deeply sorry for your loss.”
She guided Aubrey into the lion’s den of the conference room. The book club ladies went silent for exactly three seconds before Mary Lou announced, “Mabel left me her lemon cake recipe. It’s legally mine now.”
“You’ve been stealing it for a decade, Mary Lou,” June sniffed.
Eleanor smoothed her dress and sat at the head of the walnut table. “We’re only waiting on one more.”
Aubrey reached for her water, her hand trembling slightly.
Then, the door opened.
The air in the room didn’t shift; it vanished.
Bennett McCrae stopped dead in the doorway.
For one stunned second, he stared at her. Shock flashed across his face—brows lifting, mouth parting slightly, like he’d walked into the last person on earth he expected to see.
Then it vanished beneath a hard, controlled mask.
He’d traded the rumpled flannel for dark jeans and a charcoal sport coat over a white button-down.
He looked rugged, polished, and—to Aubrey’s horror—even more handsome in daylight.
Up close, he looked less like a stranger from a bar and more like a man who hadn’t slept in days.
Dark hollows smudged beneath his eyes; he looked like he’d tried to outrun the night and lost.
His gaze stayed on hers a beat too long, and her body betrayed her with one sharp, unwelcome memory of the night before, no matter how hard she’d tried to wash him off in the shower.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she said.
The book club ladies leaned in as one, looking from Aubrey to Bennett and back again.
“Miss Langford,” Bennett said slowly, his voice dropping an octave.
“You,” Aubrey snapped, standing up so fast her chair screeched. “You knew. The whole ‘mysterious local’ act at the bar? You knew exactly who I was.”
Red frowned. Deck went still. Even Eleanor paused before saying another word.
Bennett’s mouth pulled tight, a muscle flickering along his cheekbone. “The hell I did. If I’d known you were the niece Mabel was always talking about, I would have stayed home and drank in the garage.”
“Well, that’s charming.”
“Sit down, both of you,” Eleanor said, her voice like silk over steel.
"Oh, don't stop," Mary Lou whispered to June. "This is better than anything we've read all year."
Bennett sat across from her, his presence taking up far too much space. Eleanor began to read, her voice steady as she moved through the bequests of signed books and diamond brooches.
Then she turned the page.
“‘To my niece, Aubrey Langford, I devise and bequeath the real property known as Blackwood House, together with all contents, outbuildings, business interests, investment accounts, and the remaining one hundred and eighty-seven acres of the Blackwood property…’”
The room went still. Even Mary Lou stopped crying.
Aubrey stared at her. “The what?”
“Blackwood Estate Winery,” Eleanor said.
“I’m sorry,” Aubrey said, her brow furrowing.
“I knew she made wine, but... a full winery?” A sharp memory pieced through her shock: damp cellar stone, the sticky-sweet scent of fermenting grapes.
She remembered her aunt bottling hobby wines in the basement years ago, her mother always dismissing it as 'Mabel’s little mountain pastime.
' She hadn’t realized it had grown into anything beyond a few rows of grapes and a tax write-off.
“Honey, you didn’t know?” June blinked.
“You mean she truly didn’t know?” Helen hissed.
Mary Lou clutched her pearls, delighted through the tears. “Lord, Mabel would love this.”
Aubrey looked from face to face. “Know what?”