Page 104 of Red Mountain Burning
Anger Brooks wasn’t aware he had rose up from inside and settled on his tongue. “I told her I’d give her a job if you guys approved.”
Carmen shook her head. “All you’ve done is encourage her to stay. You and Otis both, putting Emilia under your trance, ignoring what I told you. She wants to give up her entire potential to be a farmer.”
“First of all, you told me not to offer her a job. I can’t control Emilia’s decisions. She’s not a little girl anymore.” He could so easily raise his voice but didn’t want to. Not for Carmen’s sake but for Jake’s and Emilia’s. “She’s got talent. Can’t you see that? She’s falling in love with the art of wine farming. You said the wordfarmerlike she’s learning to be a thief.”
“You don’t get it, do you?”
“I really don’t, Carmen. Please enlighten me, I beg of you.”
She welcomed the opportunity. “Wine might be everything to you and Jake and that crazy old man down there, but Emilia can do so much better. She’s meant for bigger and better things. I don’t want her throwing away her twenties living in the desert of eastern Washington learning how to drive a tractor.”
“Just because you hate it here doesn’t mean she doesn’t belong.”
“This is my husband’s stupid project, and for some reason, I went along with it. If we hadn’t moved here, Emilia wouldn’t be settling for a life out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Settling? Have you not seen the transformation I’ve seen? Your daughter has found what she’s meant to do. Do you know how rare that is? Most people search their whole lives and never find it. She’s nineteen and knows what she wants to do with the rest of her life. You make her go to New York, and you might as well clip her wings.”
“I’m not sure you’re qualified to give parental advice.”
Brooks was getting closer and closer to blowing a gasket. “I’ve been around Zack long enough to know that you can’t smother their dreams.”
“I’m not going to waste my time arguing with you,” she said.
“Why the hell did you come up here in the first place?”
“Because I apparently needed to remind you that I’m your boss—just as Jake is. I told you that Emilia is leaving this mountain at the end of the summer and that you were not to sway her decision.”
He wanted to pull his hair out. “Have you once considered thatyou’rethe one who doesn’t belong here? Maybe you’re projecting all your own issues? Have you even once walked down to her vines? Do you know how much this vintage means to her?”
“They’re grapes,” Carmen snapped, and Brooks was starting to wonder if maybe she’d gone back to the bottle. No sober person could be so mean.
He chose not to explore that idea and said, “They’re more than grapes. Until you understand that fact, you’ll never get what we’re doing here. I can appreciate that you and alcohol have a problem, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing.”
Carmen shook her head in disgust. “Maybe it’syouwho doesn’t get what we’re doing here. This winery is Jake’s and mine, not yours. Don’t you ever forget that. We’re the ones signing the checks. Somehow in the last few years, Jake has misled you into thinking otherwise.”
“I guess he has.”
They both stared at each other. Brooks was done talking. There was nothing he could say to get through to her. They were two very different people.
* * *
Once she’d left,Brooks called Jake. “Can we chat for a few minutes?”
“I’m in the studio with Jasper,” Jake said, “but he’s about to take off. Can you give me fifteen?”
“See you then.”
Hoping he didn’t run into Carmen again, Brooks snuck out a side door and meandered through the vines. When he reached Emilia’s rows, he saw Jasper leaving and waved. Passing through the open gate, Brooks circled around the house toward the studio, hearing Jake still playing his guitar.
As Brooks passed the pool, he heard a voice from the main house cut through Jake’s blaring guitar work. Abby poked her head out the door. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, hey.” He met her near the house so that they could speak over the dark chords Jake was hammering out fifty feet away. “I thought you were taking time off to be with Wyatt,” he said, referring to his nephew.
“There’s no time off around here. Now that Carmen’s working at the winery, I feel like I have a million more things to do. She has me cleaning out cabinets today. I welcome the money, though. Shay and I are closing on the house in three days and have next to nothing to furnish it with.”
Making a joke he knew she’d get, he said, “I can’t believe you don’t want to stay here forever.” She and Shay were still living in her villa on the other side of the Forester property.
Abby made a show of looking around and whispered back, “I want out.” Returning to regular volume, she said, “Anyway, I’ve turned into Luca’s professional driver. Tennis. Music. Sailing. Well, not that I mind, of course. Well, not that much. Can you believe he’s ten now?”
