Frankie studied his extended hand. “Deal. But keep that DeLuca Jedi mind-kiss to yourself.”

CHAPTER 7

One-hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”

Katie Baudouin looked up from Frankie’s loan application and pursed her lips. Her gaze was cold and bored, as though Frankie was cutting into her lunch break, as though they weren’t really related, as though Frankie hadn’t just spent the most humiliating hour of her life listening to a risk assessment that highlighted all of the 2,748 reasons her vineyard was destined to fail.

Number 2,749 was that Shady Katie was about to deny her the loan. Right there. In front of every employee of St. Helena Federal, who were all silently watching the situation unfold. Frankie knew it. She could see it in the way Katie patted down her helmet-hair and arranged the already meticulously arranged papers on her desk so that Frankie could see just how pathetic her debt-to-income ratio was. Even more pathetic was that it was less depressing than the estimate Walt had handed her earlier that morning, which outlined just how expensive the new irrigation system, trellises, and supplies would cost if they went through him.

It had taken him three days to put it together and two seconds for Frankie to realize that it wasn’t going to work.

She had told Nate about it over breakfast. He had been more understanding than she’d expected, even offering to buy some of the smaller parts through Walt. But she couldn’t. Even going with Tanner’s vendors and his wholesale hook-up, she had to more than quadruple her loan request. There was no way she was going to be able to afford Walt’s prices.

She planned on breaking the news to him later that afternoon. Not a conversation she was looking forward to.

“I know that the line I am asking for is two-fifths the value of the land as of now, but we both know that if I had the land reevaluated based on the recent sale of the parcel next door all of this would be a non-issue.”

“A non-issue?” Katie said, her penciled eye brows disappearing into her hairline. “It would be a non-issue if you actually owned the land.”

“I close escrow a week from tomorrow.”

“And the land you are comparing yours to won’t close for another three weeks,” Katie said. “That is, if it closes at all.”

“It will,” Frankie said, almost laughing at the irony. She needed a DeLuca to close on the land that a year ago she would have run him over with her motorcycle to keep him from owning.

“Yes, well until it does, you’d have to pay for another evaluation of your land.” Which would cost more money. “And I wouldn’t recommend doing that until you have running water and a functioning well. With no way to water the vines you have, let alone the vines you still have to buy and plant, it will be a lower evaluation.”

“Which kind of defeats the purpose of the loan, don’t you think? As for the vines, I already have my saplings.” The only thing that Charles still hadn’t gone back on. And she hoped he wouldn’t. Frankie had spent nearly every weekend and spare dollar over the past five years gathering cuttings from her family’s vines after the pruning season and growing them on a small patch of soil behind Luce’s lavender garden. The new crop of saplings in the greenhouse would be ready for planting this spring and slated for Red Steel Cellars. Frankie couldn’t wait to get them in her ground.

“I heard,” Katie said, and it was clear by her sour tone that she was not happy about Frankie taking vines from the family vineyard.

Well, too bad. They were hers, and she had just as much right to them as any of the other Baudouins. Actually, she had more rights, because she’d put in the time and sweat to splice the vines and nurture them to the beautiful saplings they’d become. They were hers.

“Have you considered entering that wine you are always fiddling with into the Cork Crawl?”

She had, but entry into the wine event was exclusive, by invite of the Wine Commissioner only. Most wineries selected family members to compete. This year Frankie had a winning wine, but no family and no sponsor-approved vineyard. Therefore no way to enter.

Which sucked poppycock. She had been waiting for this wine event all year, secretly working on a wine that, with its blend of two Cabernets and a touch of Syrah, tasted like the king of the king of wines. Red Steel Reserve was bold, fruity, and the best blend she’d ever crafted. Hell, it might even be the best blend ever made in the valley. It was perfect poetry in a bottle. And it was a shoe-in to be crowned the Cork King—a title that succeeded in elevating the price of the winner’s wine considerably.

Only Charles had fired her.

She had originally entered her wine in the Summer Wine Showdown, her way of trying to find the silver lining in a full septic tank after her grandpa had publically given her rightful seat on the tasting tribunal to his stupid-as-shit dog, Simon. But when Simon was pulled and they were short a judge, Nate had, once again accidently messing with her life, asked her to sit on the Tasting Tribunal. She agreed and, because judging a contest where you are also an entry was a big no-no, been forced to quietly pull her wine from the competition.

Again with the poppycock because if she had won that Wine Showdown, which she was certain she would have, she would be negotiating with wine collectors right now instead of Shady Katie.

“I don’t have a sponsor.”

Katie picked up each piece of paper and stacked them in a nice, orderly pile. Although it looked nothing like Holly’s “Whoops” pile, Frankie had a feeling it was headed there anyway.

“Can I be blunt?” Katie asked.

“Sure, because you’ve been so warm and nurturing up until now,” Frankie mumbled.

“Even when you close escrow, you still have no verifiable income. No customers, no sales or even prospective buyers willing to give you a note of commit for your futures. So you are asking us to give you a loan on a piece of property that you haven’t paid your first mortgage payment on.”

“What about Walt?” Frankie said, that familiar feeling of ineptitude bubbling up. “You gave him a loan when their store was having problems.”

“Yes, we did.” Katie lowered her voice. “Although other people’s loans have no bearing on your status.” Voice tuned back to professional distance, she continued, “But Walt’s family has over a hundred years of history in this town. A track record. You have nothing.”

“I worked for grandpa for years,” Frankie argued. “The last decade of Baudouin wine is all me and you know it.”

“No, you worked for him. His land, his grapes, his reputation. As far as I know, you aren’t even a shareholder,” she told her, going for the soft underbelly and digging in. It worked.

“At least if I had shares I wouldn’t have lost them on mail order kitty litter,” Frankie said, rounding the reasons her vineyard was going to fail to an even 2,750. Although, insulting the loan officer who happened to have her lips permanently transplanted to Charles’s butt might count double.

To be fair, this entire week had become one big, flaming ball of crap. Starting with an alpaca habitat and ending with baring her financial soul to the family devil. Oh, yeah, and there was a second never-going-to-happen-again kiss in there somewhere.

“Yes, well that’s changing,” Katie said and Frankie realized this was why her cousin, who was notoriously impossible to get face time with, had agreed last minute to forgo the usual chain of command and take over Frankie’s appointment. This was what the entire conversation was building up to. “Charles is announcing at the Cork Crawl that he is taking on Kenneth as his apprentice. In fact, if all goes well, Kenneth will stand to inherit all of Charles’s shares.”

And just like that, Frankie was going to throw up. She’d forgone college, friends, her entire adult life to help him make Baudouin Vineyards what it was today. Yet her grandfather would rather leave her meat-head of a cousin everything than forgive Frankie one misstep. One misstep over fifteen years of loyalty.

It wasn’t as though she had thought Charles would change his mind and forgive her just because she bought Sorrento Ranch. But she had hoped that over time her success with the land would prove to him that she was a damn fine winemaker, one worthy of taking over when he finally retired. And he was leaving it to Kenneth. A man-child who wouldn’t recognize a good Cab if it bit him on the palette.

“If the Cork Crawl goes well?” Frankie asked.

“Yes, Kenneth is representing Baudouin Vineyards this year, and of course Charles is entering his latest reserve, so we have a real shot at winning.”

Frankie rolled her eyes. The only reason they had lost was because Charles always entered his latest reserve. Well, the reserve that Frankie made as per his specifications. The man was so traditional he turned his nose up at anything remotely risky. In fact, he would rather lose to a DeLuca, year after year after year, than take a chance on something out of the box.

And that, Frankie thought with a sinking heart, was why Charles would have never left her the vineyard—ever. Even if she hadn’t had the kiss-that-launched-a-thousand-ships with Nate. That was just his excuse.

All those years had been for nothing.

Setting her hands on the table, she leaned forward, getting eye level with her cousin. She refused to allow Charles’s lack of faith in her to stop her. “So, you are going to stamp that big red ‘deny’ on my loan because I don’t have the land yet or promise of an income, correct?”

“Correct,” Katie said, victory swimming in her beady little eyes.