CHAPTER 20
Colt
“Everything looks really good,” Lowe says as we walk down a row of freshly planted vitis rotundfolia, or muscadine grapes. In particular, I planted the Ison muscadine which is relatively new to the wine-making industry. I chose it because it gives greater yield. For a fledgling winery wanting to get quickly established, this was a good risk to take.
“Agreed,” I say. I reach out to touch one of the vines that will be trained to grow up the trellises we built. I’d taken to coming out here each morning to check on things. It’s unnecessary and overprotective, but it’s also my family’s future.
I decided to eat breakfast with Mama and Dad this morning, driving the Gator over to their house from my cabin. I found Lowe and Mely digging into biscuits and gravy, and Dad grumbling over an egg-white omelet because his cholesterol is too high. When I headed out to check on my newly established vineyard, Lowe hopped in the Gator and rode out with me.
This was unsurprising. Lowe may be a carpenter by trade, but farming is still in his blood. Out of all of us Mancinkus kids, heritage and tradition are the most important to him. That is totally evidenced by the fact he once boarded up all the windows and doors of Mainer House after Mely had bought it and defended the place with a gun even though our family didn’t own it anymore.
But heck… that turned out well for them as they’re married now.
Lowe asked a dozen different questions about wine making on the short ride over, holding onto the outside frame as we bounce along the rutted dirt road. He continues to ask them.
“What kind of facility are you going to build for the actual wine making?” he asks me.
I point to the western ridge of the property. “Over there. We’re going to have to clear some trees, of course. Bring in some fill dirt.”
“What size building do you need?”
“Maybe six or seven thousand square feet,” I tell him. It’s all laid out in my business plan, but Lowe hasn’t read it. He won’t, either. He’ll trust I know what I’m doing even if I’m learning a lot of this as I go along.
“I’ll handle it,” he says firmly, and this is also not a surprise.
My brother can build anything. He built the cabin I’m now living in as his first home, and he did it all on his own outside of having a few buddies helping him with the framing. I personally helped him lay the drywall and a few other things that required two sets of hands. But for the most part, every nail and shingle on that place was done by Lowe.
“I figure we’ll need to build at the end of year two, but we can really get started anytime since we got all the time in the world.”
Lowe nods. “Sooner, I say. That will let me tinker with something when Mely’s busy.”
“Busy doing what?” I ask curiously.
His wife is an interior designer and flips houses by trade, but she was going to cut the business way back, so she didn’t have to travel as much. She’s talented, highly sought out, and has clients all over the United States and even abroad.
Lowe shrugs and doesn’t answer me right away, and that hesitation means he’s hiding something. That just won’t do. “What, dude? What do you mean by Mely being busy?”
He still says nothing, but reaches above to test the strength of one of the load-bearing wires on a trellis.
My eyes round as a thought strikes me. “She’s pregnant, isn’t she?”
I thought she’d eaten a lot at breakfast.
But that’s not it as Lowe’s head snaps my way and gives me a look like I’m stark raving mad. “God no, she’s not pregnant. We just got married.”
“So,” I say with careless shrug. “People get pregnant all the time.”
Lowe just takes a couple of steps my way and lowers his voice so we can’t be heard, which is moot given we’re in the middle of a vineyard with no one around. “Mely made an offer on Millie’s about a month ago.”
I nod my head. That wasn’t a secret, and I think Larkin told me about it. “And?”
“And they accepted it,” Lowe says in a hushed tone. “And now it looks like we’re the proud owners of Millie’s Bed and Breakfast.”
“Why are you whispering?” I ask him.
“Because we haven’t told anyone yet,” he says with a roll of her eyes. “Mely wants to announce it to the family when we’re all together at the wedding Friday, so you better act damn surprised when she drops the bomb, you hear me?”
“I hear you,” I say with a chuckle as I clap him on the shoulder. “But that’s awesome news, brother. Does that mean she’ll give up the design business?”
“Yeah,” Lowe says with a soft smile forming on his face. “She’ll be here all the time now.”
I just stare at my brother while his eyes sort of gloss over with happiness and he looks dopey as all get out, but I love seeing him like this. We’re dudes, and we don’t really talk about dreams and aspirations about finding love, but when he did, it sure as hell made me happy for him.
I snap my fingers in front of his eyes. He blinks before giving me a sheepish grin. “Sorry.”
“You’re pathetic.” I try to put some condescension in my voice, but it totally fails because Lowe laughs.
“You’re just jealous,” he says with a jab to my shoulder with his fist. I’m bigger than Lowe so it doesn’t even rock me. “But hey… I should have asked. How was your ‘date’ yesterday with Darby at the fair?”
And when he said ‘date,’ he made air quotes with his fingers. I’d filled him in Thursday night while playing darts about my plans to take Darby and Linnie to the fair, and thus ensued a long argument over if it was really a date since Linnie was coming along. I insisted it was not, but every other person in Chesty’s that Lowe asked for an opinion insisted it was.
He literally asked every person in there, stating he was doing an informal poll.
“We didn’t go.” My glum tone has his smile sliding right off his face and worry replacing it.
“What happened?”
“Her husband happened,” I mutter as I head back toward the Gator. Lowe follows silently behind me, but I know he wants and expects more details. “Showed up at her house just as we were getting ready to leave. Made a real ass of himself and got Linnie all upset. So we cancelled, but maybe we can go next weekend.”
“You don’t sound so enthused about it,” Lowe muses as we climb into the Gator.
“Just not sure if this is workable,” I tell him as I head back down the road that will take us to the main farmhouse.
“Surely you’re not going to let some jackass stand in your way—”
I cut Lowe off, so he doesn’t misunderstand me further. “I won’t let it stand in my way, but I can see Darby letting it. She was really embarrassed about how he acted, and Lowe—this guy is a class-A jerk. He was talking about how Darby didn’t understand her place. It was like he stepped out of the fifties or something.”
“How did you not take a swing at him?” Lowe asks sort of serious but sort of joking.
“I about did,” I admit. “But Linnie was there, and I didn’t want things to escalate.”
“So what’s standing in the way if you’re not going to back down?” he asks.
“Darby will stand in the way of herself,” I reply. I drive past the front of the farmhouse and to the small detached garage where we keep the Gator. I don’t pull it in as I’ll be back on it later to do some fence repairs around the cattle pastures. “She told me I should walk away from her. She might just use him as an excuse to push me away.”
“So don’t let her,” he says simply as we get out of the vehicle.
When I look over at him, he nods at something behind me. I turn to see Darby’s BMW coming down the road. She still hasn’t gotten a farm truck, and I told her I’d help her look for one when she was ready.
Lowe comes around and claps his hand on my shoulder. Giving it a squeeze, he says, “Get her, tiger.”
My stomach rolls slightly even as I nod at my brother with confidence. If Darby is here to break things off, I’m prepared to talk her out of it.
I walk to the edge of the driveway. After she brings her car to a stop, I lean over to open the driver’s door for her. “Fancy meeting you here,” I quip.
She grins and extends her legs out of the car, gracefully exiting. I shut the door for her. “Hope I’m not intruding.”
“No at all,” I tell her. “Just finished breakfast and drove out to check out the vines with Lowe. Want something to eat?”
She shakes her head. “No, thank you. Linnie and I had waffles this morning.”
“How is she?” I ask, my voice lowering to a grave tone as I cross my arms over my chest.
“She’s fine,” Darby says with a brave smile, but I can tell by the haunted look in her eyes that although Linnie may be fine this morning, she wasn’t last night. Not after what happened.
“Does she understand that wasn’t about her?” I’ve never heard Darby utter a negative thing about Linnie’s dad in front of her, but the same can’t be said about what Mitch said last night.
Darby gives a wry laugh and tucks her hair behind one ear. “I wish it was more about Linnie, sometimes. I mean… that he’d show genuine interest in her, but as you could see… it’s not like that with him.”
“He’s definitely got an obsession for you,” I acknowledge, letting my arms drop away from my chest.
“He’s not going to go away quietly,” she whispers as she looks up at me. “It’s going to be a bitter battle. I wanted to come out here and tell you… maybe you should just move on from me.”
“Yeah,” I drawl out as if I’m considering her words. I shake my head. “Not going to work for me. I don’t want to move on.”
To my surprise, because I expected a bit of a fight, Darby lets out a relieved laugh. “Good. Because I don’t want you to move on either.”
“Then why did you drive out here to tell me to take a hike?” I tease. I take a step in closer to her, unable to control my own laugh.
Her laughter ceases, but her smile stays in place. “I wanted to give you one last chance to run. But I won’t do that again.”
“That works out nicely for me then,” I say as I step even closer to her. I bring a hand to her hip, the other to the side of her face. Her eyes are so clear and trusting as she blinks up at me. “I think I’m going to have that first kiss right now.”
“That would be an awesome idea,” she murmurs.
It doesn’t matter we’re in broad daylight in front of my parents’ house, or that we didn’t just finish a romantic date that would end perfectly with our first kiss.
No, this is absolutely the right time.
My lips touch hers, and I’m almost bowled over by the surge of adrenaline that floods my entire body. Darby feels it too because she gasps. We pull back, both of us wide eyed and staring at each other.
“That was—”
“Wow.”
“Just… wow.”
I kiss her again, and it’s so “wow”. Both my hands come to her face as I tilt my head and deepen the kiss. My tongue touches hers gently, and she makes a kitteny purr deep in her throat.
With my heart pounding and about to burst out of my chest, I reluctantly pull back from her mouth. There’s no doubt in my mind it could ignite into something that would be uncontrollable, and now is definitely not the time for that.
“So, um… that was… nice,” she says, her cheeks pink and her expression bordering on flustered.
I give a tiny cough to clear my throat, which is dry as the desert right now. “Yeah… nice.”
We stare at each other a moment, then both of us burst out laughing. I reach out and snag her by the shoulders, pulling her into me. She presses a hand, then a cheek, to my chest, and I wrap my arms around her back, giving her a hug.
“It was more than nice,” I murmur. “And I can’t wait to see how much nicer it will get in time.”
“Agreed,” she says softly.
“Few things we need to get straight,” I tell her, and she pulls back to look up at me curiously. “First, what days this week can you get away from the farm to meet me for lunch?”
Her eyes twinkle. “Any day.”
“Good answer,” I say thoughtfully. “And Friday night is Della and Jason’s wedding party. I’d like to take you and Linnie. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and Della told me to invite you.”
Darby smiles softly. “Okay… we’re in.”
“And finally,” I say dramatically. “We’re doing the fair on Sunday. Nothing is going to ruin those plans, not even Mitch. Got it?”
“Got it,” she says. By the tone of her voice, you’d think I’d just lassoed the moon for her. The resulting swell of satisfaction within me is something I’ve never quite felt before. It makes me want to beat on my chest and howl for some reason.