Marina Adair - Autumn in the Vineyard

“Well, look who it is,” Trey, the youngest, and at the moment the most annoying sibling, said, raising a frosty mug in greeting.

“About time,” Marco, the next oldest said, staring at his phone, thumbs flying over the keys.

“You’d better be texting me that your phone was broken and that’s why you didn’t return any of my calls,” Nate said, dropping down onto the chair across from Marc.

“Nope, telling Lexi that you made bail so she can stop trying to hide a fingernail file in one of her éclairs,” Marco said, a goofy grin on his face. The same grin that had taken up permanent residence ever since his high school crush Lexi moved back to town—and into his bed. Now that Lexi was wearing his brother’s ring, she was about to become family. And Nate couldn’t be happier for them. Although right now, he had a hard time feeling happy about anything.

“He’s been texting her all evening,” Trey said, exasperated.

“Yeah, well what the hell have you been doing?” Nate challenged, stealing his beer and draining it in a swallow.

“Besides trying not to gag on the level of domestication sticking up the family?” Trey didn’t even balk at the empty glass Nate set back down; he just flagged the waitress for another mug.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Marc shot back.

“I’m in town for two days,” Trey pointed out. “Two days, Marc. I haven’t seen Gabe since Sofia was born. Nate spent his day playing domestic dress-up with Frankie—”

“I was in jail.”

“And I wasted most of today trying to convince you to meet me for a drink,” Trey said to Marc.

“It took you all day to convince me because Lexi was cooking up something sweet in the kitchen.” Not only was Lexi a great chef, she was great for Marc.

“I thought the bistro was closed on Wednesdays,” Trey said.

“It is.” Marc grinned, way too big. His phone pinged. There went the thumbs again.

Trey shook his head. “Come on, I leave tomorrow and you haven’t stopped sexting since you got here.”

“I’m not sexting,” Marc said eyes glued to his screen. He smiled. The phone pinged. Fingers back to work. “I was just telling her that I miss her.”

“Aw, man don’t admit that,” Trey groaned, shaking his head. “At least sexting sounds manly.”

“Nope. Being a man is having the balls to admit that I’d rather spend the day with Lexi in the kitchen than drinking beer and watching ball.”

Trey froze, his eyes wide and accusing. “You drank the Kool Aid didn’t you? How many times have I told you sip, but never swallow?”

“If you two are done acting like a bunch of little girls, we have a problem,” Nate snapped.

“Wow, man.” Marc looked up from his phone for the first time since Nate sat down. “Jail made you hard.”

“Yeah,” Trey agreed. “You don’t have to yell.”

“I’m not yelling,” Nate said, using every ounce of control he had not to do just that.

“Okay, so you’re not yelling, but your eyes are all mean and there’s a hard edge to your voice. It’s hurtful.” Trey shrugged and Nate wanted to punch him.

“Kind of like how he was acting after the showdown when he kissed Frankie and she rammed his left testicle into his throat.”

Yeah, that had been a bad call. Not the kissing part, but the forgetting to protect his package part.

“This is serious. Can you focus for just one minute?” Nate ran a hand over his face and willed himself to focus. Problem was he’d been on edge since his encounter with Frankie. An afternoon arguing with the planning commissioner and an ill-equipped legal team hadn’t helped.

“Right. Sorry.” Trey elbowed Marc and they both bit back a smile. “What’s on your mind?”

“While you were here ignoring my calls, Charles snatched the land right out from under us,” Nate said, happy to see their stupid grins fade.

“What? But we close escrow Friday,” Marc said. “Wait, start from the beginning.”

Nate unrolled the assessor’s map and spread it across the table. His brothers huddled around. “Tanner delivered this earlier this morning.”

Jack Tanner, NFL legend and home-grown celebrity, was not just a booming land developer in the Napa Valley. He was also, luckily, not a DeLuca or a Baudouin, which was why after Saul’s wife filed for a divorce, Saul quietly approached Tanner and offered him Sorrento Ranch. Tanner had no interest in a twenty-acre vineyard. His interest lie in wine caves not vines, so he agreed to act as the front man with Saul, securing the land for Nate and his family, if Tanner Construction would be named the exclusive builder for all future DeLuca projects.

It was a win-win.

Except for the fact that Nate couldn’t do his usual background check on the land prior to escrow closing without risking their anonymity. And if Saul Sorrento discovered he was really selling to a DeLuca, he would have pulled his offer indefinitely.

“What am I looking at?” Trey picked up the map.

“It’s different from the one filed with the bank.”

“Different, how?” Marc asked, leaning forward, phone forgotten, focused.

“Different as in we are screwed.” Nate smoothed the assessor’s map across the booth top and pointed to a strange line on the map that cut diagonally through the property. “This wasn’t on the map Saul filed with the bank. That one didn’t have this easement dividing the property.”

“Dividing?” Trey said. “It hacks it in half. Are you telling me we paid seven and a half million dollars for twenty acres of cow pasture that the city is planning to cut a road down the middle of?”

If only they were so lucky. His brothers had been hesitant to pay Saul’s insane asking price to begin with. Thinking he was selling to a developer, Saul jacked up the price. And it wasn’t as though Nate could call the greedy twerp on it. This was the only chance Nate and his family would have to own this land and finish what Grandpa Geno had started. So he’d convinced his brothers of the long term potential and made the offer. Only he hadn’t done his homework and now they were screwed.

“Actually, we paid seven point five million for ten acres,” Nate said, sitting back in the chair. “That isn’t a road, it’s a property line. From what I can find out, about fifteen years ago Saul had the land split into two separate parcels. We bought the south parcel.”

“Holy shit,” Marc said, slumping back in his chair. Nate knew what he was seeing. Every plan they’d made was going up in a fucking cloud of smoke. “We need all twenty acres to make this work.”

As though Nate didn’t fully understand. This was the proposed site of their premiere winery, Opus. A vineyard that yielded small quantities of high-end wine.

Nate’s dad had spent every spare moment crossbreeding vines and experimenting with what he’d called his grand opus. As a teen, Nate had been right there with him, tinkering, as his dad called it, trying to find the perfect blend for an extraordinary wine. Nate never forgot those times with his dad, or their dream.

“Ninety percent of the vines are on the north parcel,” Marc continued. “Without those, we won’t have producing vines for at least three or four years.”

“I finalized those grapes yesterday,” Trey added, his face a little pale. “Susan Jance was so impressed with your pitch that she is positive her client will want every barrel.”

Marc whistled. “Every barrel? That’s a lot of wine for one collector.”

“Not when the collector is Pierce Remington,” Trey said.

“Of Remington Hotels?”

“The very same,” Trey said and everyone fell silent.

“Shit,” Nate sighed. Today was just getting better and better.