Chapter 3
THREE
Blackwood Estate Winery
Aubrey Langford
Aubrey gripped the steering wheel of the rental car hard enough to make her fingers ache.
She sat in front of Harper & Associates a full minute after Bennett stormed out, staring through the windshield at Main Street and the slow drift of tourists with shopping bags and coffee cups.
A year. Stuck in one place for an entire year.
She had a job in Garnet Valley. A sleek condo in West Chester, a Peloton, and exactly one plant she routinely forgot to water.
Clients. Deadlines. A favorite wine bar in Media where the bartender always started pouring her pinot before she even sat down.
Fall drives through horse country past stone fences and old estates, weekday mornings inching down Route 202 with coffee and a podcast.
She had a life that made sense.
And now some eccentric relative she barely remembered had apparently left her a winery, a giant house, hundreds of acres, and a legal hostage situation in the middle of the North Carolina mountains.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she muttered.
Sylva was annoyingly picturesque.
The courthouse sat high on the hill with its white columns glowing in the late-afternoon sun.
Downtown looked like a postcard—brick storefronts, flower baskets, people strolling with ice cream and dogs and absolutely no visible urgency.
From where she sat, she could see a bookstore with a chalkboard sign, a café strung with lights, and an antique shop with quilts hanging in the window.
This town had no right to be charming. The prettiness felt like an insult.
It made her furious.
Her mother had shown her pictures once. Old, curling photographs pulled from a shoebox during one of her more sentimental benders—cows in a misty pasture, a weathered barn, a tall blonde woman laughing on a porch.
Her mother had reeked of Chardonnay and cheap perfume that night. Ted—her stepdad, the man who had adopted her and quietly handled every real parenting task—had stood in the doorway with his arms folded, watching like he didn’t trust the nostalgia.
Her mother had stayed long enough to flip through a handful of photos and say, “You’re not missing anything but mud and cows, baby,” before disappearing again with a new boyfriend and a glass in her hand.
Ted had stayed. Ted always stayed.
Aubrey tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
She glanced at the clock on the dashboard.
Tomorrow.
Two o’clock.
She sighed and picked up her phone.
No matter what had happened between them over the years, Mabel had been Anne’s sister.
Anne deserved one last chance to say goodbye.
The call connected on the third ring.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
Anne sounded distracted.
“Hey.”
“You finished already?”
“They just finished reading the will.”
“And?”
Aubrey let out a short laugh.
“I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Try the beginning.”
Aubrey looked through the windshield toward the courthouse perched above town.
“The funeral’s tomorrow. Two o’clock. First Baptist.”
Silence.
Then a soft sigh.
“Oh, honey...”
“I know.”
“I wish I could be there.”
“You still can’t come?”
"I can't." Anne's voice cracked. Aubrey wasn't sure what to make of it. “Dennis had surgery yesterday. He’s doing fine, but I can’t leave him alone yet.”
Dennis. Right. The latest addition. Six months ago it had been a guy named Ron who owned a jet ski rental business.
“I figured.”
“I hate missing this.”
Aubrey looked out at the mountain road stretching away from town.
“Something else happened.”
“What?”
“There was a will reading.”
“Oh?”
“Mabel left me Blackwood.”
The silence this time lasted longer.
“...She what?”
“The entire estate.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
“My goodness.”
“I think that’s about what everyone else said.”
Anne laughed softly.
“I imagine they did.”
“There are conditions.”
“Of course there are,” Anne said softly.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing. What kind of conditions?”
“I have to live here a year and help run the business.”
“A year?”
There it was—something tight and old beneath her mother’s voice.
“A full year.”
“And if you don’t?”
“If I don’t stay, it goes into some kind of conservation trust.”
Another pause.
“So...”
“Did you know she had a business partner?”
“A partner?” Anne repeated, like the word had snagged on something.
“Bennett McCrae. He owns forty percent of the winery.”
Silence stretched over the line.
“No,” Anne said finally. “I didn’t know that.”
“You’re sure?”
“Aubrey, I haven’t known much about Mabel’s life in a long time.”
“I honestly don’t know what to say.”
“I don’t either.”
“I’m headed to the house now.”
“I wish I could be there with you.”
“I’ll be okay.”
“I know you will.”
Aubrey smiled faintly.
It wasn’t exactly comforting.
But then, it never had been.
“I’ll call you after the funeral.”
“I guess I’ll see you in a few days.”
“Count on it.”
“Bye, sweetheart.”
“Bye.”
The line went dead.
Aubrey stared at the phone for a long moment before tossing it onto the passenger seat.
Then she shifted the rental into Drive.
By the time she left town and wound onto the narrow mountain road, her mood had gone from furious to numb.
The asphalt narrowed, shouldered by trees and guardrails. Windshield wipers squeaked once across glass gone dry. Podcasts and email and 202 traffic might as well have belonged to another planet.
The road curved through deep green woods and along the edge of a ridge.
Then the trees broke.
Aubrey hit the brakes.
“Oh my God.”
Blackwood Estate
Blackwood spread below her in two halves.
On the far side of the road, the cattle operation unfurled across the hillside—a wide sweep of pasture dotted with black and brown bodies.
Cows grazed with their noses buried in grass while calves bounded awkwardly on too-long legs.
A rusted metal gate leaned crooked between weathered fence posts.
The old red barn sagged in the middle, its roof patched in places with tin, like the photos her mother had flipped through years ago.
That side looked exactly like the past she’d been told about—muddy, worn, stubbornly alive.
On the other side of the road, something entirely different rose out of the valley.
Black four-board fencing curved down the hill in long, elegant lines, corralling rolling fields and terraced vineyards that climbed the opposite slope in precise green rows. The vines marched up the mountain, neat and disciplined, disappearing into the folds of the Blue Ridge.
And at the center of it all sat the house.
The Victorian was painted a soft sage green with cream trim and intricate gingerbread lacework beneath the eaves. A wide wraparound porch circled the house, its white rockers facing the mountains like an audience.
Tall windows caught the late light and glowed molten gold.
It looked like something out of a movie. Not a real place where people tripped over laundry and paid electric bills.
Her aunt had lived here.
Her aunt had owned all of this.
Finally, she eased her foot off the brake and followed the long drive down between the black fences.
Tires crunched over gravel. The front of the house was framed with white hydrangeas, old boxwoods, and climbing roses.
A fountain burbled beside the porch steps like something out of a bridal magazine.
On the bluff beyond the house, the big black barn loomed—weathered wood, high gambrel roof, massive sliding doors. Painted on the front, beneath the peak, was a quilt square in cream and faded green—a Tree of Life pattern, intricate and old-fashioned against the black.
Behind it, more black buildings tucked into the hillside—production, bottling, storage.
Trucks. Employees. Forklifts.
A real business. Not some hobby vineyard run by a little old lady with too much time and a Pinterest account.
“Oh my God,” Aubrey said again, but softer this time. More like a prayer. Or a warning.
She turned off the engine, and in the sudden quiet, her heart started throwing heavy punches against her ribs.
Ted would have told her to breathe. To count to five. To read the contract.
Her mother, if she’d been herself, would have told her to sell it and take the money to the beach.
A movement at the edge of the property caught her eye.
A man stood beside a maintenance truck near the edge of the vineyard. Older. Lean. A ball cap shadowed his face. He watched the house for a beat—still and intent.
The moment Aubrey noticed him, he turned away and disappeared between two rows of vines.
She told herself it was just one more employee.
Aubrey climbed the porch steps and unlocked the front door.
The inside should have been old-fashioned. Dusty. Full of mothballs and old people.
Instead, it was stunning.
The foyer opened into wide, airy rooms with pale walls, dark hardwood floors, and enormous windows that flooded everything with light.
The original staircase curved gracefully toward the second floor, but everything else had been updated.
Beyond the living and dining rooms, a library and sunroom spilled light toward the back porch.
The kitchen nearly took her breath away.
White cabinets. Soapstone counters. Brass fixtures.
A huge black range that looked expensive enough to require its own security detail.
Open shelves lined with cream pottery. A farmhouse sink under a window overlooking the vineyard.
A marble island the size of her first apartment.
“What the hell,” Aubrey whispered.
She walked slowly through the rest of the rooms, past the dining room and library, through the sunroom with wicker furniture and French doors opening onto the back porch.
This wasn’t a house. It was a dream.
And somehow that only made her angrier.
Because now she could see exactly what Mabel had done.
Walking away didn’t feel nearly as simple as it had an hour ago.
Aubrey wandered upstairs, her heels quiet on the runner. The master bedroom was enormous. Soft cream walls. A four-poster bed. French doors opening to a balcony with a view of the vineyards and the mountains beyond.
She hovered in the doorway, fingers still curled around the frame.