Nate resumed his seat. “What’s going on, Jonah?”

The sheriff looked longingly at the beer. If the guy wasn’t on duty Nate was pretty sure he’d drink the entire pitcher. “This isn’t widely known yet, so what I say here doesn’t leave the table.”

After a silent agreement passed among the table, Jonah spoke. “The fire reached our South Yenz Vineyard.”

“Ah man, Jonah, I’m so sorry,” Gabe said. “How bad is it?”

“Bad,” Jonah said, his entire frame deflating. “Lost half the vines.”

Silence fell. Fierce competitors, ridiculous feud, Baudouin or DeLuca, it didn’t matter; when a fellow winemaker lost their vines it hit everyone hard. And this loss was enough to topple Charles’s entire legacy.

“Does Frankie know?” Jordan asked.

“That’s why I am trying to find her. Adam called me earlier this morning to fill me in and we both decided to wait and tell Frankie. We didn’t want to stress her out before the competition. I just hope we didn’t wait too long.”

“Kenneth,” Nate said, already on his feet. Son of a bitch. “Kenneth told her.”

* * *

Frankie pulled a bottle out of her secret stash and popped the cork. Holding the wine opener in her teeth, she grabbed a spare, because it was that kind of night, and walked out to the front porch. The heat of the day had disappeared with the sun but despite the chill in the evening air, the wood slats remained warm under her bare feet.

She dropped down on the bottom step and, not bothering with a glass, took a long swig. Red Steel wasn’t the kind of wine Frankie would normally pick when the sole purpose was to get as tanked as humanly possible, but tonight it felt fitting. Plus each swallow chased away the goosebumps on her bare legs.

“Wark,” Mittens nickered as he ambled over.

“Wine gives you gas, remember? Plus, you already took out my lemon tree. My new lemon tree. A gift from Luce.”

With another low, apologetic “Wark,” he looked up at her through those thick dark lashes.

“Fine,” she huffed.

Mittens took this as a sign of forgiveness and compacted his body to resemble the sphinx. Not having another fight in her tonight, she worked her fingers behind his ears. With a satisfied hum, he rested his head on Frankie’s thigh.

She looked out across the field, toward her grandfather’s house and the single lit window, and any hopes that she had harbored on salvaging their strained relationship died. He’d made it more than clear earlier that evening exactly where Frankie stood in the family—firmly on the outside.

Placing the bottle to her lips, Frankie tipped it on back and, damn, even guzzling it like a brown bag special didn’t diminish from what an incredible wine she’d created. Her dad would have been proud, Frankie thought, and had it not defeated the purpose of this evening, it would have been a sobering one.

After threatening Kenneth with bodily harm unless he told her where Charles was, her cousin dropped the bomb that the south half of the South Ynez Vineyard had burned through the night and was nothing but ash.

Frantic, and convinced that Kenneth was just being his usual lying sack of shit self, Frankie raced to her grandfather’s house. She found him sitting on his favorite porch swing, smoking his pipe, and staring blindly at the gently rolling fields of golden vines. He smelled like cherry tobacco and fresh cut grass, and, when she laid her hand on his shoulder, he felt like home.

It became clear in the first two seconds that Kenneth had been telling the truth, and that Charles wasn’t her home, not anymore.

“I suppose that you’ve come here to gloat about your win,” he’d said.

Frankie didn’t know what hurt more, that he wouldn’t even look at her or that he believed she’d purposefully do something to hurt him—especially under the circumstances.

“I just came to see how you were holding up. See what I can do to help,” she’d said and he laughed. It was low and bitter and filled with disgust.

“You could have helped by sharing the news that Susan Jance was looking to sign a deal that could have saved this winery, yet you didn’t say a word.”

Because it would have placed her between her family and Nate. A position that she’d officially given up. “We could have partnered up: your grapes, Baudouin’s name and wine. We still can. We only lost half the harvest.”

Frankie’s heart had cracked, right then. She thought back to when Trey had implied that Charles was playing her, remembered how Nate had defended her to his family, and knew that no matter what happened she wouldn’t let herself be thrown in the middle ever again.

“It wasn’t my place to share and it isn’t our deal to make, Grandpa. You can talk to Susan, but I already have plans for my grapes. And her collector isn’t looking to fill his cellar with two buck chuck.”

“Then your place is no longer here and the only way you can help is to leave.”

So she had. Fighting back the tears with every step she took through the vineyard, which she had spent most of her life working.

Frankie heard the sound of approaching boots crunching the gravel, drawing her attention to the end of the walkway. She looked up and saw six-feet-plus of pure unadulterated male.

Nate stood just a few feet away, his hands shoved in his front pockets and his attitude set to protect and serve. He was wearing the same clothes from earlier, but for some reason he looked bigger, stronger, and, the way the moonlight played off of his olive skin and dark features, like a walking ad for sex.

“I’ve got a bottle of Wild Turkey that will get you there in half the time.” Even his voice sounded like sex.

“Half the time, but not nearly as fun,” she replied.

“You don’t seem to be having much fun,” Nate said gently.

“It hasn’t been a very fun night.”

Nate studied her for a long moment, so long that she forgot what they were talking about. Then with a sad smile he said, “Jonah told me about the fire.”

Right. The fire. Her grandpa. And her crap of a night.

“Well, at least my brother bothered to tell somebody,” she said and even to her own ears she sounded bitter.

“He’s been trying to get ahold of you but you aren’t answering your phone.”

“It’s in the house.” Buried under a pile of dirty clothes where she’d shoved it after discovering that all three of her brothers had known about the fire since last night and hadn’t notified her. Not even a call.

In her heart, she knew they were waiting until after the Pick Till You Punt so she wouldn’t be distracted, but it still hurt that the entire family had a meeting to discuss the South Ynez Vineyard without her there.

According to Kenneth, even Dax had been Skyped in from some base in Germany while they all decided how to handle the latest blow to the Baudouin legacy. A blow that could very well be the end to the legacy that, as of two hours ago, she was no longer a part of.

“Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

“You sure? Because sometimes letting it all out helps.”

She frowned. “Are you asking me if I’m going to cry on you?”

“I could handle it if you did.”

Yeah, well she couldn’t. Which was why if he didn’t stop looking at her like she was about to snot all over his shirt, she was going to lose it. In fact, the longer he stared at her, the hotter her eyes felt until when she tried to focus really hard on Mittens, he got all blurry.

“I don’t cry. And I don’t want to talk about this.” But she also didn’t want him to leave. So she held out the… whoa, how had that happened? She held the bottle up to the moonlight and frowned—half empty.

Nate sat on the step next to her. Leaning forward, he rested his elbows on his bent knees, bringing his face eye-level with hers and his thigh flush with her bare legs. She wasn’t sure if it was the simple contact that was reassuring, or the idea that getting drunk with someone seemed less pathetic than drinking alone, but the panicky feeling that had been strangling her ever since Kenneth told her about the fire seemed to ease up. Not all the way, but enough so that every breath wasn’t followed by a sharp pain.

Nate took the bottle from her hand and, looking at the new and improved label, sent her a sidelong smile. “This looks great.”

“Regan designed it,” she said. “And it tastes even better.”

Nate raised an amused brow. His eyes never leaving hers, he made a big to do about smelling the wine and swirling it around in the bottle.

“No glass?”

“Not a glass kind of night. Or a glass kind of girl,” she added just in case he needed that in a woman. “I also don’t cook, clean, or fold laundry.”

“I know,” he said as though he didn’t care. He sounded so convincing that she almost believed him. And if she hadn’t paid witness to every Suzie Homemaker and pedigreed professional Nate had paraded around town with since college, she would have. But the kind of women Nate dated and the kind of woman Frankie was were polar opposites.

As though reading her mind, he smiled. But was it a you’re-my-dream-woman kind of smile or a dream-on smile? She didn’t know. And the fact she desperately wanted it to be the former didn’t help.

Without clarifying, Nate took a final sharp sniff and eyed her over the rim of the bottle. “Lavender?”

“The Syrah grapes came from my little vineyard behind Luce’s lavender garden.”

“And the Cabernet Sauvignon?”

“Right over there.” She pointed to Saul’s gentleman’s vineyard. When Nate sent her an impressed look she shifted on the step. “Glow has been selling me their grapes for the past three years. I took care of her vineyard and the house. In exchange she cut me a deal on the grapes that I could afford.”