Page 35 of Sweet Escape

My dad shakes his head. “No. It’s just a feeling. I know Keith, better than anyone. He seems ... worried.”

“But is there something that would make you think theirwhole farmmight go under? I mean, that would be a huge deal. I can’t imagine Keith wouldn’t talk to you about it, right?”

“Keith’s a kind man, but he’s also a proud one,” he eventually says, his gaze out the window. “And sometimes, you feel like there’s only so much you can do.”

He’s quiet for a few minutes, and when he doesn’t say anything else, I decide not to prod further.

Part of me wonders if my dad is thinking of hisownpride more than Keith’s. Even though we work together every day, that is not a conversation my father and I will probably ever have, especially when that pride is still a living, breathing thing.

At the end of last year, Dad lined up a buyer, planning to sell off the vineyard to some wealthy family that would probably see the operation as some weird pet project. I’d been shocked by the development and begged him to let me try to salvage things before he made a move. That’s when I pitched him the idea of the restaurant, something that I’d only been ruminating on until there was a reason to throw it out there.

He relented, but with a time frame and a budget. He gave me a year and $50,000.

From ideation to construction to opening several months ago, it’s been eight months. Thankfully, he hasn’t brought up the idea of selling again, but I don’t doubt it’s somewhere in the back of his mind. It’s an easy solution. One that allows him to pass the responsibility to someone else without having to face how he nearly ran the entire business into the ground.

Sure, the economy will always play a little bit of a role in success, but so does learning to adapt in an ever-changing market, or making smart choices when it comes to hiring and improving technology. Or even just knowing how to manage the finances and pay attention to the bottom dollar. All things my dad struggled with.

I’ll never understand why he didn’t ask for help. Why we all couldn’t have worked on remedying thingstogether, back before we were in such dire straits.

But I don’t have the same type of bullish pride that my father has.

While my dad would rather turn a blind eye to his own mistakes and never admit how he failed, I’m able to very clearly address both.

I’m bossy, sure. That’s a fault of mine.

But when push comes to shove, I’m more concerned with things being done right than with being right. I’m not so set in my ways that I’m unwilling to reach out for help. Or ask for advice. My sister might disagree, and I can admit it doesn’t always come easily, but I’ve done plenty of both.

If my dad had kept things going the way he had been, our vineyard would have gone tits up less than three months after I took over the finances and operations.

Instead, I faced his poor management head-on, righting as many wrongs as I could in as little time as I could manage. I have plugged up every financial hemorrhage and cleaned up the budget. And I got the restaurant up and running by the skin of my teeth.

But not with the budget my dad gave me. That number wasn’t even enough to hire a chef. So I took out a personal loan, deciding to go allin on saving the vineyard, even if I’ll be paying off that debt until I’m in my eighties.

Leveraging myself was a big risk, but so far, it has proven worth it.

I still worry, though. I worry it’s not enough. I worry that the decisions I’ve made weren’t the right ones. That my choices about how to restructure things will bite me in the ass.

What I refuse to do, though, is lay down and die.

I refuse to let the legacy I’ve worked so hard for crumble when I’ve barely gotten my chance.

I will not let us sink, even if that means I spend every waking moment kicking under the surface so we stay afloat.

It takes about fifteen more minutes to get home, but then another thirty to unload the truck with Dad and Wes. I race back to the house and hop in the shower, then pop into the kitchen to make a quick lunch before I need to head over to the cellar.

I’m stepping in for Naomi for a few days, covering some of her daily winery tours while she and Edgar are getting the property fully prepped for the harvest. Normally, Micah is the tour backup, but they need his hands as well. When harvest season comes around, everyone becomes a jack-of-all-trades. It doesn’t matter who’s doing something as long as it’s getting done.

It’s been a few months since I’ve needed to do a tour, and I’m always on edge right before I have to do anything forward facing, so my attitude is already sour when Vivian walks into the kitchen, looking as radiant and breathtaking as she does every time I see her.

“Do we need to have another conversation about how you’re stalking me?” I ask her, bracing my hands on the island.

She purses her lips, exasperation clear in her expression. “I’m here about last night. Can we talk in your office?”

“There’s nothing we need to talk about, Vivian.” I wipe my hands on a paper towel and chuck it in the trash. “I think we said enough, don’t you?”

We also don’t need to go anywhere more private, though I don’t say that part out loud.

“Well, tough. I have something important to say, and you are going to stand there and listen to me say it.”

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