The words land like a fist to the gut. Hill Country Distributing handles close to forty percent of our wholesale revenue, supplying most restaurants in the region, half the wine shops between here and San Antonio, and three hotel chains that order in bulk. Without them, those accounts don't shrink. They vanish.
"The end of the month." My voice comes out steadier than the rest of me feels. "That's less than thirty days."
"Twenty-eight, to be exact." Diego finally turns from the window. The lines around his eyes are deeper than they were yesterday. "I called David this morning. He wouldn't pick up."
Isabelle pulls a folder from beneath the mess on her desk and opens it. The spreadsheet inside is covered in red ink where she's been working the numbers by hand. "Without that revenue, we can't make the loan payment in June. We're already carrying the equipment upgrade from last year, and property taxes went up ten percent." She slides the folder across to me. "I've beengoing over these numbers all night. We can cut expenses, delay maintenance, but the gap is too wide to close."
I pick up the spreadsheet and scan the columns. My heart stutters with every line. These numbers aren't next-year bad. They're lights-off, gates-locked bad.
"How much are we short?" I ask.
"Eighty thousand dollars." Isabelle's eyes meet mine. "Minimum, and that’s only the June loan payment, not the rest of the bills. And that's if we don't lose more accounts once word spreads that we were dropped."
Diego leans over Isabelle's shoulder and points to a line. "If we can replace even half the distribution revenue within sixty days, we might be able to restructure the loan payment. But we'd need a new distributor or a direct-sales strategy that doesn't exist yet."
"We could push tasting room traffic," I say, but even I hear how thin it sounds as the words leave my mouth. We're already packed on weekends. Doubling weekday numbers would take marketing money we don't have and staff we can't afford.
"I've thought about all of it." Isabelle's palms press flat on the desk. "Event rentals, wine club expansion, direct-to-consumer shipping. Every option takes money we don't have or time we've already run out of."
The room goes quiet. Through the window behind Diego, the vineyard stretches green and orderly across the hillside, and the contrast between how peaceful it looks and how fragile it actually is makes my throat tighten.
"What are you saying, Isabelle?" I ask, because someone has to.
"I'm saying we need help." The words visibly cost her. Isabelle Navarro has never asked for help in her life. Her great-grandfather built this winery from sixty-five acres and stubbornness, and her father turned it into one of the mostrespected operations in Hill Country. Isabelle spent every day since he died proving she could carry it forward. Admitting she can't is its own kind of wound.
Diego squeezes her shoulder. "We'll figure it out."
"Not this time." Isabelle shakes her head. "Not without money we don't have."
I stare at the red ink on the spreadsheet, and panic rises hot in my chest. My mother's house in Austin never felt like mine, and my college apartment was just a place to sleep between classes.
But this place, these vines, these barrels, this work that I've poured myself into for five years until my hands knew every inch of it, this is home. The idea of losing it lands like a blow.
"We're not losing this winery." The words come out harder than I intended, and both Navarros look at me. "I don't care what it takes. We are not losing this place."
Isabelle's jaw loosens a fraction. "I love you for saying that," she says quietly. "But conviction won’t cover the gap."
"Then we find something that does." I set the spreadsheet on the desk. "Give me a few days to look at the production budget. Let me see where I can cut without compromising the wine. And let me think about the direct-sales angle, because there might be options we haven't explored. I can check with the sommelier at my mother’s restaurant. He may have some ideas."
Isabelle nods, but the exhaustion in her face tells me she's already gone through every option and found them all wanting. "We have a month. Maybe six weeks if I can talk the bank into extending."
"Then we have a month."
Diego follows me out of the office and catches my arm in the hallway. "She didn't sleep last night," he says, low enough that Isabelle won't hear. "She was at that desk at three in the morning."
"I figured as much."
"She won't ask for help twice."
"She doesn’t have to, Diego. You two aren’t alone in this."
He nods and lets me go, and I walk through the barrel room with the weight pressing down on my shoulders and the taste of fear sharp in the back of my throat. My hand brushes along the nearest barrel as I pass, the oak smooth and cool under my fingertips. Each one represents hundreds of hours of careful work.
Pressing my palms flat against the cool steel of the counter, I map out possible scenarios for new revenue. I grab the production binder and flip it open. The numbers blur on the page, and I blink hard and force myself to focus.
Close the gap to June, find a way to survive. Eighty thousand dollars in twenty-eight days. There has to be a way.
But somewhere between the columns and the weight pressing down on my chest, a voice surfaces that I can't push away. Low and steady, standing on a porch in candlelight.
