Page 57 of Blush
“I’ll explain on the way.”
Leah tugged shorts and a T-shirt out of her canvas bag, pulled them over her bathing suit, and followed Vivian down the path to the vineyard.
“Your father called a meeting, and I want you there.”
They circumnavigated the veranda—already filling with visitors—and cut through the loading dock behind the oak room. The office door was closed. Vivian knocked once before opening it. Inside, she found the usual suspects: Marty Pritchard, Harold Feld, Leonard, and Asher. Surprisingly, Bridget wasn’t there. Maybe Asher had asked her to sit this one out. Her son might not be the brightest bulb, but he was smart enough to know to keep the family problems within the family—at least until after the wedding.
The wedding. She’d been so preoccupied with thoughts of losing the winery, she’d barely had time to think about it. Or maybe she was just trying to forget.
Leonard looked up when she walked into the room, doing a double take when he saw Leah. Before he could say anything about it, Vivian said, “Leah is part of this family. She has a right to be part of this conversation.” In the past, she never would have made such a move. Maybe rereadingChanceshad had an effect on her. Whatever the reason, she couldn’t afford to sit on the sidelines any longer.
“Mother,” Asher said.
Leonard started to say something and then stopped, perhaps deciding he was embattled enough; he didn’t need to fight with her. “We have a problem,” he said instead. Marty Pritchard shuffled a few papers.Harold Feld steepled his fingers and looked at him intently. Asher checked his phone.
“Obviously,” Vivian said. “Our estate is for sale.”
“The buyer backed out,” Leonard continued, his jaw tense. The hand gripping his pen was white with the pressure of his grasp.
“The offer fell through?”
“Yes.” Leonard looked stricken, but Vivian couldn’t help but feel relieved. A stay of execution.
“What happened?” Vivian asked.
“They bought the brewery down the road,” Leonard said.
“See, Dad,” Asher said. “I told you we should serve beer—”
“Shut up!” Leonard snapped.
The stress was getting to him. As infuriated as she was by this whole situation, she felt a rush of empathy for her husband. She had not always agreed with him, but she knew he’d always tried his best. It was all she could ask of him.
“So now what?” Vivian asked.
“So we’re back to square one,” said Marty.
“We need to focus on whatever we can do to make this vineyard appealing to buyers. Which we’re already doing,” Leonard said.
“Are we?”
Everyone looked at Leah in surprise.
“Yes, we certainly are,” Leonard said, his voice gravelly and low. It was his “I’m barely keeping my temper under control” voice. “So let’s just keep that tasting room full all summer and focus on having a strong harvest. And in the meantime, considering this setback, I don’t want any talk of the sale around our staff. We don’t want to scare off valuable members of the team when we need them the most. John Beaman is already asking me questions. The last thing we need is to lose our sales rep.”
Did Leonard look pointedly at her when he said this? No, it was Vivian’s imagination.
And yet it was difficult not to think that she had been the one toinsist they hire Delphine as their wholesale rep. She was their first female employee at the winery—and it had ended disastrously.
Until Leonard fired Delphine, the baron’s aversion to the United States had kept him on the other side of the Atlantic. After nearly four years without seeing him, she could pretend her attraction to him had never existed. And yet, the morning of his arrival on a bright day in late May, she found herself dressing with particular care. With fumbling fingers and a shiver of guilt, she tied a navy-and-gold equestrian-patterned Hermès scarf around her neck.
Leonard apologized for firing Delphine, explaining that he had tried his best to employ her but it hadn’t worked out.
“I need a man in that position, as you can surely understand,” Leonard said. The baron had responded convivially, and both Vivian and Leonard felt a crisis had been averted. Together, she and Leonard took the baron on a tour of the vineyard. She was relieved to find herself feeling calm and professional. Until the baron turned to her and said, “I’d like to see your stables.”
“What?” She thought for a moment that she’d heard him wrong.
“Back when you visited the château, you mentioned you had horse stables.”
