Page 40 of A Vintage of Regret
“Then you’d better make her want to stay,” Mason said. “Because from where I’m sitting, that’s the only move you’ve got.”
Bryson stared at the bottle in front of him, the glass cold against his palm. He wanted to believe Mason was wrong. But deep down, he knew the man was right.
Eight
The chair was deep enough to swallow her, the kind of comfort she could lose hours in if she let herself. Riley sat sideways in it, knees hugged to her chest, a half-empty wine glass on the windowsill. Her favorite Pinot. The very first wine she’d ever tasted at seventeen. Outside, the half-moon draped the vineyard in an eerie white glow, and every vine danced in the breeze.
She remembered sitting in a very different chair—harder, splintered from years of use—on the porch of her childhood home. She’d been maybe ten, swinging her legs, waiting for her father to come home from his shift. The smell of crushed grapes had been thick in the air that evening, drifting in from the winery, a comfort she hadn’t understood then but had carried with her everywhere since.
Now, that same scent crept through the partially-opened window, and instead of comfort, it carried an ache. She reached for her wine and took a slow sip, staring past the rows of vines, wondering if it would ever feel like home again.
Her phone buzzed against her thigh. Grant. She’d been avoiding him. Avoiding everyone.
She hesitated, thumb hovering over the screen. Their last conversation had ended well enough, but one never knew. However, this was all about new beginnings. Fresh starts. Mending fences. She owed it to her family to try more than she ever had before. She swiped to answer. “Hey, big brother.”
“You busy?” His voice was tight.
“No. What’s going on?”
His sigh was heavy, like a dense fog, thick and difficult to see through.
She sat up taller.
“This autopsy… Sandy poking around the vineyard… now Mom’s dragged Erin and me into the middle of everything.”
Riley felt like she was drowning in regret. She'd come home to bury her father and somehow managed to turn his death into a battleground. Her mother's histrionics, the family taking sides, Grant looking like he was ready to crack—all because she'd needed answers that maybe weren't hers to seek.
“I’m getting it from all sides. I can’t take the pressure anymore. I feel like I’m going to explode. I just know that it will be at the wrong person,” Grant said.
She set her glass on the coaster. “What can I do to help?”
“It’s not that. Mom’s gone off the rails.” He didn’t even try to soften it. “Erin and I knew she wouldn’t welcome you with open arms. The longer you stayed away, the more bitter she’s become.”
The words confirmed what Riley had always known but never wanted to face—that her mother's love came with terms and conditions. Stay close, follow the rules, be the daughter her mother wanted, or forfeit your place in the family. Riley had chosen freedom over approval, and now she was paying the price her mother had always promised she would.
“Erin and I, we never wanted you to stay away. For our relationship with you to suffer. We’re tired. We want to makethings right with you. To see you. To have you in our lives. Our kids' lives.”
All this time, she'd been the one keeping the distance, thinking she was protecting everyone from more disappointment. But her siblings had wanted her. They'd been waiting for her to come home.
“But then mom gets involved, and she clings to her pain like she won it in a war. She can’t let it go. One wrong move and you’re out. She even said she’d stop seeing my children if I didn’t either get you to start making the right decisions or stop talking to you. Can you imagine? My kids are old enough to have some understanding of emotional blackmail, but not so old that this wouldn’t mess with how they process love, like it did with us.”
The words hit Riley like ice water. Her mother was holding Grant's children hostage to force him to choose sides. Those kids would grow up thinking love was conditional, that family came with threats and ultimatums—exactly the toxic legacy Elizabeth had passed down to her own children. “Grant?—”
“I’m tired,” he cut her off. “Tired of being the one holding it all together while you blow back into town after years away and start stirring things up. And I’m pissed, because it feels like you’re still choosing the Boones over your own family. Just like before.”
“That’s not fair,” she said, heat rising in her chest. “I’m choosing us. How can you not see that? And dad. All I want to know is how he died.”
“You think I don’t want that too?” His voice cracked, low and raw. “You think I’m not hurting? You think I didn’t love him?”
She closed her eyes. Grant had always been the kind of person to lash out at others when he hurt and right now, he was carrying a heavy burden. “I never said you didn’t.”
“Jesus, Ry. I know. I’m sorry. I was so angry. You left. You didn’t call. You didn’t write. It took us a couple of years for usto manage a single call without one of us hanging up. And now you’re back, and it’s done something to Mom. I can’t explain, but that’s what Erin and I have to deal with.” He sighed. “There’s a part of me that wishes I could just walk away from that, like you can. But I can’t.”
“I get I have some big boundaries and higher walls,” she said quietly. “It’s the only way I can survive Mom without feeling like I’m not a worthy human.”
“I know that feeling, but I guess I handled it differently. I’m sorry I came into this conversation so hot,” he said. “To be fully transparent, I just ran into Bryson, and we had… words.”
“What does that mean?”
