When I came downstairs, she was in the kitchen, wearing clean jeans and a Los Caballeros T-shirt I recognized as one of mine from a harvest party two years ago. Seeing her in it made my chest tight.
“That looks better on you than it ever did on me,” I said.
She glanced down. “Oh. I forgot I had this. I can change?—”
“Don’t you dare.” I put my arms around her and ran my hands down her back. “I like seeing you in my clothes. It means you’re mine.”
“Possessive much?”
“When it comes to you? Yeah.”
She rose up on her toes and kissed me, and I could taste coffee and toothpaste and home.
She stepped away and grabbed her phone from the counter. “I checked the forecast. Clear today and tomorrow, but there’s a system coming in on Saturday. Rain.”
“How much?”
“Enough to make a mess if we’re still picking.” She opened the weather app and showed me. “Looks like it’ll hit late afternoon. We need everything off the vines and into the tanks by then.”
“It’ll happen.”
“If nothing goes wrong.”
“When does anything go wrong during harvest?” I deadpanned.
That got a genuine laugh from her. “Fair point.”
I took out my phone and texted my brothers, making sure the crew was on schedule. A response came back immediately from Bit, saying they’d already gotten started.
“Should we leave now?” she asked.
“In a sec.” I kissed her one more time, then grabbed my keys and phone and headed for the door.
Outside, the October morning was cool and clear, the kind of day that made you grateful to be alive and working in wine country. I opened the passenger door of my truck, and she climbed in, then I got behind the wheel.
Saffron sat beside me and reached over to put her hand in mine.
“Nervous?” I asked as we got close.
“Terrified,” she admitted. “But in a good way. Maybe.”
I glanced at her and smiled. “That’s honest.”
“I’m trying to be.” She squeezed my hand. “About everything.”
“I know you are.”
I drove through the gates of Los Caballeros just as the sun broke over the eastern hills, turning the vineyard rows to gold.Like Bit had said, the crew was already there—trucks were lined up, bins were stacked and ready, and Cru was checking his clipboard.
I put the truck in park and looked at Saffron. “Ready?”
She studied me—this man who’d been her friend for years, who’d become her lover last night, who was now helping her fight to save everything that mattered.
“Ready.”
As I climbed out of the truck and went around to open her door, a feeling of foreboding settled in my gut like none I’d ever felt before. I just prayed it had nothing to do with the grapes we were about to pick or the wine that Saffron’s family’s future depended on.
14
