“I do,” they both said in unison. And Nate meant it. He was tired of being fucked with.

“So let me get this straight. You are both claiming ownership of the house, guardianship of… that there,” Sheriff Bryant nodded at the alpaca, who nuzzled Frankie’s hair and started humming. “And there’s arguing, threats, and loaded weapons on the premises?”

Frankie shrugged.

“Sounds like a domestic dispute to me.” The sheriff looked at Jonah, who ran a hand down his face.

“God damn it, Frankie,” Jonah said on a long exhale, his cool fading. Nate found himself relating to the guy. “I have to haul both of you in.”

Hell, no. That was not going to happen. “How about I drop the charges? Francesca and I can settle this like rational adults.”

“Rational?” The deputy pushed his sunglasses down to the end of his nose and looked at Nate over the rims. “We are talking about the same girl and the same piece of land, right? Because my sister knows how to use that thing and she will shoot you if you try to take this place.”

“I wouldn’t shoot him,” Frankie said. Jonah spared her a disbelieving glance. “Fine, I might shoot at him, but I wouldn’t shoot him.”

Nate had to smile. Gun or not, it was hard to feel threatened by a woman who had once, long ago, cried herself hoarse in his arms.

“Either way, I’d be called back out and the town would think that I was somehow aiding in this stupid old feud.” Jonah walked around the back of the cruiser and opened the back door. “Now you both going to go easy or do I need to get out the cuffs?”

CHAPTER 2

Investment-quality wine?” Jonah placed his hands, palms down, on the assessor’s map and slid it across the table in the Sheriff’s station break room, making sure to shove all of his big-brother disapproval in her face. “Please tell me this isn’t why you cashed out your trust account?”

“Not that it’s any of your business, but yes,” Frankie said, shoving a little something of her own back.

“Christ, Frankie.” Jonah unfolded himself from the too-small seat, rose to his full, six-foot-two height and started pacing. He did that a lot when dealing with her. “What were you thinking?”

“Gee, Jonah, I don’t know.” She leaned back in her metal chair and kicked her boots up on the table, going for unaffected. It was hard to pull off since Jonah never got agitated unless he was really pissed. Or worried. And Frankie hated worrying him. “That it couldn’t be any more risky than Grandpa slapping one of the most respected names in wine on a bottle of supermarket Syrah? Or maybe, that one of the best plots in St. Helena Appalachian history went on the market and I actually had a shot at owning it.” She paused. “Wait? How did you know?”

Jonah walked over to the coffee pot, but not before raising an eye at her feet, which she ceremoniously dropped to the floor. He filled two paper cups with coffee and went about doctoring them up. “Phoebe called. I guess she had to sign off on the transaction.”

“What?” Oh my god, her mother knew. Frankie couldn’t imagine a worse situation. Other than Nate owning that other parcel of land, which she was pretty sure he did. “She isn’t coming here, is she?”

“No.” Jonah rubbed the back of his neck. “Thankfully, she has an art show in Mendocino this weekend that she has to prepare for. Then she leaves Monday for a three week commune with her inner goddess.”

“A commune with her inner what?”

“God, don’t make me repeat it.”

Frankie smiled and felt her shoulders relax. In the craziness of the morning, she’d forgotten about her mom’s yearly trip to her favorite artists’ commune in Arizona. A trip that couldn’t have come at a better time. The last thing she needed right now was her mom to pay her a visit and discover that Frankie had been fired. Phoebe would go all mama bear on Charles, who’d say something hurtful in return, then her brothers would feel obligated to intervene—and once again her family would get caught up in some nasty fight with Frankie at the center.

She studied Jonah, who was adding copious amounts of sugar and cream to the cups. “Why’d she call you?”

Although Frankie and her brothers shared a dad, they had different moms. Phoebe was wife 2.0 and quickly learned that loving a man who was clearly in love with his first wife, dead or not, only led to resentment. Especially when that man admitted that marrying a replacement after you’d had the real thing never worked.

“She called me because you haven’t bothered to return any of her messages and when the bank informed her about your latest purchase she got worried.”

She was worried? Frankie knew that her brothers wouldn’t understand why she had to do this, but she never imagined that her mother wouldn’t believe in her. She hated that the only time she felt like a loser was when it came to her family.

“That doesn’t make sense. She hasn’t been on that account since I turned eighteen.”

Jonah set the coffee on the table between them and then seated himself. Resting forward on his elbows, he leaned in, eyes serious and full of concern. Frankie shifted in her seat.

“Katie told her.” Jonah lifted the cup closest to him and took a sip. “Claims that Mom’s name is on the account and she was doing her due diligence by notifying the executor.”

“Shady Katie” was married to Charles’s other grandson, Kenneth, a man who was more interested in the value of the land than actually working it. Unfortunately for him, his dad lost his ass in a pet supply dot-com company and was forced to sell their portion of Baudouin Vineyards to Grandpa Charles and, as Katie so often claims, robbed her Kenneth of his rightful legacy.

“She’s so full of it,” Frankie said, picturing Katie brownnosing the old man first chance she got. “She just wanted an excuse to rat me out to Grandpa. Show him he made a bad decision in choosing me over Kenneth as the enologist for the winery.”

Not that Frankie was Baudouin Vineyard’s head grape expert anymore. Actually, she wasn’t even employed by her grandfather’s company. Nope. Nate had ruined that too.

“Well, she’ll be happy to know that Charles hasn’t spoken to me since the Summer Wine Showdown, when I apparently disgraced the family.”

Then, instead of apologizing, she explained why buying a four hundred acre vineyard when they were already having cash flow problems was a bad move. Especially when said vineyard specialized in bulk wine intended for wholesale warehouses across the country and Baudouin was known for their higher quality and higher price points. That was when Charles told her that her opinions, expertise, and services as head enologist for Baudouin Vineyards—the place she’d dedicated her entire career to—were no longer required.

“Aw, Frankie.” Jonah rested his hand on hers and there it was. That familiar sucker punch to the stomach. The one that reminded her of the scared little girl who, once again, hoped that this was the moment when everything would go back to before the divorce, when everyone pretended that they were a happy family and that she belonged.

Uncomfortable, Frankie dragged her cup closer and studied it so she wouldn’t have to maintain eye contact. It was more milk and sugar than coffee, and was enough to squash the urge to care.

“Is that why you’re doing this? As some kind of screwed up apology?” Jonah asked, his voice steady. It was always steady, controlled. “Or is this your way of proving him wrong for not listening to you about going after the collectors’ market?”

“Neither,” Frankie said. This was about her dream. About making the kind of wine that only the top percent of enologists ever got the chance to make. She was good enough and wanted to compete with the best and this was her chance. “How do you know I’m not doing this for me?”

“Because if you were, you wouldn’t have blown your entire savings on a piece of land that is too small to be anything other than boutique. I know the kind of vineyard you want to run. That land isn’t it.”

Which went to show how little her brother really knew her. She knew he cared, but had a hard time listening. A boutique winery was Frankie’s dream. Had been for the past ten years.

“I didn’t blow all my money.” Just most of it.

She hated how his eyes probed her and how his department issued tactics made her feel like spilling her entire life story. Which would be stupid, because he’d been there for most of the gory parts.

“Good, because I’d hate to find out you were doing all this to prove to Gramps what we already know,” Jonah said softly.

“This is a smart move. It might be a small parcel, but it’s the best in the valley. Plus, Saul had vines. Nothing big, barely a gentleman’s vineyard, but they’re old and well taken care of and about ready to be harvested.” She knew this to be a fact because she had been secretly buying Saul’s grapes for the past three years.

“There is enough to make about four hundred cases and my saplings will be ready for planting this upcoming spring. Until then, Aunt Lucinda’s letting me keep them in the greenhouse,” she said, thinking of the nearly two thousand saplings she’d grown from collecting cuttings that came from her family’s hundred year old vines.

“Those saplings will take at least three years to produce. Another two to age. Even longer if you’re considering collectors and boutique wine shops as your target buyers.”

Frankie stuffed the urge to roll her eyes. “I’m not stupid, Jonah. I’ve done my research and have a respected wine broker interested in buying my entire bottled inventory. As for my wine skills, I’ve been working Grandpa’s vineyard since I could say ‘merlot’.”