Chapter 8
EIGHT
Blackwood Estate
Mabel’s House
The morning sun broke over the Blue Ridge Mountains in a heavy, blinding glare, instantly baking the humidity into the valley.
Inside the guest room, Aubrey woke up all at once, her heart hammering against her ribs. She sat up, running on three hours of fractured sleep.
Downstairs, the heavy brass lock clicked.
Aubrey froze, her mind instantly flashing to the folded note tucked into her coat pocket downstairs.
6:42 a.m. She wasn’t dressed. She was still tangled in the white duvet, wearing nothing but tiny black silk sleep shorts and an oversized, faded gray college sweatshirt. Her hair was a soft, disastrous cloud around her face.
Heavy footsteps scuffed the hardwood in the foyer.
“Aubrey?” Bennett’s low, gravelly baritone boomed up the stairwell. “You awake? We’re losing daylight.”
“I’m upstairs!” she yelled back. “And you don’t walk into someone’s house without knocking!”
“I have a key, remember?” His voice drifted up, entirely unbothered. “And it’s Mabel’s house. I’ve walked in here at dawn every Tuesday for five years to go over the sulfur schedules. Get moving.”
Aubrey threw back the sheets, marched out onto the landing, and stopped dead at the top of the stairs.
Bennett stood in the center of the foyer, looking up.
He’d traded his funeral suit for dark jeans and a faded charcoal T-shirt that clung to the broad set of his shoulders. Brown work boots, already dusted with dried red clay, grounded him.
His gaze traveled slowly up the staircase, landing on her.
Aubrey didn’t move. She stood there, her legs bare, the sweatshirt sliding farther off her shoulder to expose the line of her collarbone.
Bennett drew in a slow breath, his knuckles tightening on the strap of the canvas field bag slung over his shoulder. The ghost of the Drift Bar patio flared between them so sharply Aubrey could practically taste salt and tequila on her tongue.
His eyes darkened, a muscle ticking once in his cheek as he tore his gaze away, focusing instead on the grandfather clock.
“You’ve got ten minutes,” he muttered, his voice dropping into a rough growl. “I’ll be in the kitchen.”
“I’ll take twenty,” Aubrey snapped. “And next time, use the brass knocker like a civilized human being.”
She retreated into the guest room and slammed the door.
When she walked into the kitchen fifteen minutes later, she wore narrow black heels, slim black tech pants, and a crisp, sleeveless black linen top. Her hair was pulled back into a high ponytail.
Bennett stood by the marble island, a steaming mug of black coffee in his hand. He didn’t look at her, but his shoulders went rigid.
On the floor beside the range, Moose lay like a deflated snowdrift. The moment Bennett took a step closer, the dog’s ears twitched. Moose lifted his massive head, his dark eyes fixing on Bennett, and his heavy tail gave a single, dull thump against the soapstone floor.
“Hey, buddy,” Bennett murmured. He sank to one knee, burying his large, calloused hand in the dog’s white ruff. His face softened completely. “Yeah. I miss her too, boy. You gotta eat today, you hear me?”
Moose let out a long, trembling sigh and rested his chin back on Bennett’s boot.
Aubrey paused by the sink, something in her chest cinching at the sight of Bennett with the dog, his big hand buried in Moose’s fur.
She crossed to the coffee maker, reached for a mug—and caught a faint, expensive note in the air.
She sniffed once, eyebrows lifting.
“Oh. Nice perfume,” she said lightly as she poured. “What is that?”
Bennett straightened, a small frown creasing his brow. “What?”
She didn’t bother to hide her small, knowing smile.
“Yeah. Tom Ford. Jasmine Rouge, right?”
Bennett went still.
Slowly, he rose to his full height, his broad frame eclipsing the light pouring through the kitchen windows.
“How the hell do you know that?” he demanded.
Aubrey took a slow sip of coffee, unbothered.
"I used to share an office with three Manhattan publicists," she said. "I can identify Tom Ford at twenty paces."
Jasmine and rain. The woman in the black raincoat at the funeral. Fingertips resting on his forearm.
Of course.
The muscle in his cheek jumped again.
The man had practically unraveled her on a dark bar patio, looked at her like he wanted to drag her back against the staircase banister twenty minutes ago, and now he was standing in her kitchen smelling like another woman’s sheets.
He stared her down until the air in the kitchen felt combustible.
“Let’s see the winery,” Aubrey snapped finally, lifting her mug.
“Fine,” Bennett barked. “Move.”
Blackwood Winery
Bennett’s truck climbed the narrow paved road behind the Victorian, winding upward through rows of grapevines that curved along the mountainside in neat green lines.
Aubrey sat quietly in the passenger seat, one elbow propped against the window as she watched the estate unfold around her.
Yesterday, she’d only caught distant glimpses of the winery from the house below—dark shapes and rooflines swallowed by the ridge. But as Bennett’s truck climbed the winding road behind the Victorian, the entire property opened beneath them.
Aubrey sucked in a breath.
“Oh…"
The sprawling winery stretched across the mountainside below like a luxury resort hidden inside Appalachia.
One hundred and eighty-seven acres of terraced vineyards rolled down the ridges in dramatic green rows broken by stone retaining walls, black fencing, and winding access roads disappearing through the vines.
Morning fog still clung to the valley, softening the distant Blue Ridge layers into hazy blue silhouettes.
And at the center of it all—
The barn.
Massive. Three stories tall beneath a soaring gambrel roofline.
The matte black structure sat against the mountainside as though it had always belonged there, wrapped in rustic cedar, black steel, and walls of glass.
But it was the front of the building that held her attention.
The Tree of Life quilt square stretched high across the center peak in muted cream, sage, and soft plum.
The same colors as the Victorian.
Aubrey stared through the windshield as Bennett slowed the truck near the crest of the hill overlooking the entire estate.
She stepped inside and stopped.
The winery opened up into a vast vertical space beneath the gambrel roof, all polished concrete, black steel, glass, and warm wood wrapped inside the rustic mountain shell she’d just walked through.
It hit her like a punch.
To the right, the tasting room spread beneath a suspended bar that seemed to float under iron light fixtures. Behind it, a wall of glass rose nearly two stories, overlooking terraced vineyards marching down the mountain in perfect green rows.
The entire valley lay beyond.
Blue ridges stacked in the distance.
Aubrey turned slowly.
“Oh my God.”
Bennett watched her for a second. He'd forgotten what it was like to see Blackwood for the first time.
Above the tasting room, a black steel catwalk ringed the upper level. Glass-walled offices lined the mezzanine, sleek against the reclaimed beams.
Right in the center, overlooking everything—
Mabel’s office.
Larger than the others.
Double glass doors framed in black steel.
Every office looked down on the operation.
Everything visible.
“This is insane,” Aubrey said.
Bennett shut the door behind them.
“It’s functional.”
“No,” she said quietly. “It’s Architectural Digest.”
One corner of his mouth twitched.
At the sound, the tasting room staff looked up.
A brunette stepped around the suspended bar with an iPad and a stack of reservation folders tucked against one hip—mid-to-late twenties, dark ponytail, cream silk blouse, black tailored pants. She looked like she belonged in Charlotte or Atlanta, not a mountain winery.
“Morning,” she said to Bennett, then glanced at Aubrey.
A brief pause.
Then the smooth professional smile snapped back into place.
“So,” she said, “the mystery niece finally arrived.”
Bennett took the folders. “Savannah Cole. Hospitality director.”
Savannah offered her hand. “Which means I manage events, reservations, guest relations, wine club complaints, and occasionally Bennett’s personality.”
“That’s impossible to manage,” another voice called from behind the bar.
A blonde woman appeared with a wine crate on her hip. Mid-twenties, soft curls in a messy knot, sage blouse with rolled sleeves, dark jeans and ankle boots. Where Savannah was polished, this one was pure warm chaos.
“Chloe Bennett,” she said, setting the crate down and reaching for Aubrey’s hand. “No relation. And yes, we’ve heard every joke.”
“She handles branding, wine club marketing, social, merch, and creative,” Bennett said.
Chloe grinned. “Mabel hired me because everybody else’s ideas were ugly.”
Savannah sighed, tapping her tablet against her hip. “That is not what she said.”
“It’s emotionally what she said.”
Aubrey laughed.
Movement on the catwalk drew her eye.
An older man stepped out, a thick ledger under one arm—late sixties, silver hair, wire-rim glasses, pressed blue button-down.
“Well now,” he drawled, peering over the railing. “That does look like Anne’s daughter.”
Aubrey looked up.
“Walter Grady,” Bennett said. “Bookkeeper. Financial manager. Human calculator. He’s the one who tells us when we’re broke.”
Walter came down the stairs, one hand on the black steel rail.
“Somebody around here has to know where the money’s going,” he said.
“And where is it going?” Chloe asked.
Walter looked at Bennett.
“Mostly into French oak and whatever ridiculous vineyard toy he wants this month.”
“That equipment keeps your salary paid,” Bennett said.
Walter pointed at him. “Exhibit A: personality issues.”
Aubrey’s mouth tugged into a smile.
Another man stepped out of a glass office upstairs—tall, sun-browned skin, ball cap, work boots. He looked built out of the mountainside.
“Jack Lockwood,” Bennett said. “Field operations manager.”
Lockwood lifted two fingers in greeting, leaning on the railing.
“He means I keep the grapes alive while he spends money.”
“Everybody’s a comedian this morning,” Bennett muttered.
“Morale’s good,” Chloe said.
Aubrey looked back up at the offices.
“What’s upstairs?”
“Operations,” Bennett said.
He pointed as he spoke.
“Walter’s on the west side. Lockwood’s beside him. Savannah’s front office overlooks the tasting room. Chloe’s is next to Mabel’s—she worked under her.”
Chloe’s expression softened.
“And yours?” Aubrey asked.
Bennett nodded toward the far corner office with a view of the vineyards and production floor.
“That one.”
Of course. Corner office. Best view.
Her gaze slid back to the center office.
Mabel’s.
Even from below, it felt different.
Glass walls made it visible from nearly everywhere in the building.
Like the whole place had been designed around her.