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Suddenly, Liz felt her entire back break out in icy chills. She should have realized Nate would want his three brothers to be his groomsmen.
“Rafe is going to be the best man,” Maddie continued. “He’ll be escorting Sarah.”
“That leaves Gabe to be my escort,” Liz said, feeling her mouth go dry.
“Yeah,” Maddie replied gleefully. “You two will look great together. You’re both tall, and he’s just so handsome.”
“What Barzonni isn’t handsome?” Sarah laughed. The boat came ashore and they got out.
As they took out their oars and lifted the boat onto their shoulders, the full impact of Liz’s commitment to Maddie hit her. She would have to sit with Gabe at the rehearsal dinner for the pictures. At the wedding, he would walk her down the aisle and back out again. They would be seated next to each other at the reception. That was something she couldn’t wangle her way out of. But it was just one dinner. One night. She could deal with it. It wasn’t going to be so bad.
“Yeah,” Maddie was saying. “Both Liz and Isabelle will have the awful burden of being around those handsome boys for my engagement party at the Barzonnis’ house and the couples’ shower at Mrs. Beabots’s. Then there’s a cocktail party being thrown by the hospital doctors, which is going to be a really big deal. Tuxedos and gowns and the whole thing. I’ll love that. I figure that through the rest of the summer and fall, we’ll all be doing something special together on the weekends. Doesn’t that sound great?”
Liz was silent as they stored the boat and oars and locked the boathouse, a smile plastered on her face.
She’d just promised herself she would pretend Gabe Barzonni didn’t exist. Now she was going to be thrown together with him for months. Then an idea hit her. She rushed up to Maddie’s car just as Maddie was getting in.
“Hey, I just had a quick question,” Liz said. “Was it you or Nate who decided on which groomsman would be with Isabelle and me?”
“Nate,” Maddie assured her. “Funny you should ask, though.”
“Why?” Liz cringed. That word again.
“Last night Nate told me he and Gabe had been having a beer at the Lodge and decided it would be cute to pair up Isabelle and Mica, even though Scott Abbot would be the obvious choice for her. She’s always giving Scott a hard time. Maybe if she made Scott a bit jealous, he would make a real commitment to her instead of beating around the bush all the time. Isn’t that the cutest idea? Do you think it would work?”
Ire rekindled its flame in Liz’s belly and exploded inside her. She felt an acid burn all the way up to her throat and she could hardly get out her words. “Gabe.”
“He’s been such a help to Nate with the plans,” Maddie said.
“A help.”
“Nate’s so busy with surgeries, so Gabe’s just been great. Organizing the engagement party with their mom. He even got the Tom and Jason Big Band to play until midnight,” Maddie said effusively.
“An orchestra.” Liz swallowed. There would be dancing. Arms entwined. Her head nuzzled in the crook of his neck. Liz felt the heat inside her boil over. She hadn’t trusted Gabe when she’d found him skulking around her vines. Now he was deliberately manipulating her social life.
“Isn’t it great?” Maddie asked.
“Sure. Yeah,” Liz said, trying to cover her shock and frustration. “I was just curious.”
“You know, I didn’t ask you, but have you ever met Gabe?”
“Uh. Only in passing.”
“Well, I’d better get to the café. Chloe can only do so much without me. Call me later.”
Liz watched her friend drive away, then went over to her pickup. She stared out the windshield at the lake.
Her grandfather believed all Barzonni men were up to no good.
Guess Grandpa’s right.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_a81baf4f-7a74-5e07-80b8-2b62808a3e39)
FOR THE NEXT several days, Liz was busy with a hundred tasks. Because she was the general manager, the winemaker, the sales manager and the office manager all rolled into one, her list of duties was like a black hole. She never got it all done. On summer days, she worked dawn to dusk at the vineyard, and though she relished every moment of the work, it was still exhausting.
On Thursday morning, a series of semitrucks barreled up the country road that ran between the western edge of her property and the Mattuchi farm. Semis weren’t unusual on that road, which led to the highway, but a constant stream of eighteen-wheelers was out of the ordinary. Trucks carrying large loads of lumber, pipes and building materials could only mean one thing. Someone up the country road was building a new house or barn.
Liz didn’t have time to be curious or to gossip with neighbors. She had her eyes on the clouds gathering over Lake Michigan. She took out her cell phone and opened her weather radar app. Unfortunately, radar or not, the fickle westerly winds had a mind of their own once they reached the lake. The rain could easily pass her over and fall just north of her vineyard, showering her northern competition and jilting her vines. Again.
They were in desperate need of a good soaking. It had been nearly three weeks without rain, and this kind of summer heat would only do one thing—produce inferior grapes.
Liz lifted a cluster of Seyval blanc grapes she’d personally cluster-thinned three and a half weeks after fruit set. Though this grape produced the fresh and dry white wine they sold midseason in the tasting room, Louisa had suggested they experiment with it to produce a sparkling wine cuvée. Liz loved the idea—making something new out of a longtime standard grape in the vineyard.
As Liz slung her long leg over the seat of her ATV, she heard yet another truck downshift as it began its trek up the country road hill.
Natural curiosity urged Liz to ride over to the edge of her property to inspect the scene.
The semi was hauling a long flatbed trailer that held what looked like a mountain of lumber and three pallets of cement bags. She noticed there were piles of steel framing and insulated metal sheeting.
“Not a house,” she said to herself. The materials on this truck were used for warehouse and commercial buildings. Because their area was primarily farmland, she assumed one of her neighbors up the road was upgrading his or her silos. She’d heard from her grandfather last summer that Gerald Finstermaker, who owned a large apple orchard, had opened up a fifty-acre area, though no one knew exactly what he intended to plant there. The joke in town was that Gerald, paranoid and intensely secretive, was the only person who could keep his crop a secret until after the harvest. Five years ago, Gerald had experimented with roses and raised them under enormous grow tents, not so much to increase the productivity and excellence of the roses as to keep prying eyes out. After that fiasco, few in Indian Lake paid much attention to what Gerald Finstermaker did or didn’t do on his farm.
Liz was turning away from the fence to head back to the tasting room when she saw a second truck, also hauling a long trailer stacked with building materials. She laughed to herself and wished Gerald all the luck in the world with his new venture, whatever it was. She tossed the driver a friendly wave and then froze.
Following the last truck up the country road was a very familiar black Porsche. The top was down, and she could clearly see Gabe inside. He did not seem happy.
No doubt he was angry because the trucks were moving slowly up the grade and she’d already learned that Gabe liked to drive a bit on the fast side. But Gabe didn’t honk or try to pass them. He must not be in a hurry after all, she thought.
As Liz drove her ATV back down the slope, the first drops of rain stung her bare arms. Then the dark storm clouds moved over her property and opened up with a vengeance... The next second, the drops were huge, pelting her with enough force she found it difficult to see.
She bumped her way across the vineyard and smiled to herself. If she was caught in the rain, so was Gabe. And that meant both he and the interior of his expensive car had been deluged. She couldn’t help laughing a little. Served him right. Even if she hadn’t had a chance to pay him back for trespassing and stealing from her, Mother Nature had taken restitution into her own hands.
By the time she got to the utility barn, Liz was completely soaked. Her white shirt looked like a second skin and her shoes squished as she walked across the gravel to the tasting room, where she always kept a fresh shirt and a long black apron to wear when serving the tourists.
Liz noticed with satisfaction the parking lot was full of cars. The tourists would be trapped inside to avoid the downpour. That could only mean one thing. Increased sales.
Opening the door, Liz found the place packed. Sam was engrossed in one of his sales pitches with a man dressed in a golf shirt and khakis. Louisa was at the bar, pouring a flight of white wines for a strikingly beautiful, auburn-haired woman who wore a business suit and designer shoes.
The woman was not a local, but she was buying a lot of wine, if the smile on Louisa’s face and twinkle in her eye were any indication.
“I’ll be right there,” Liz told her chef de cave. Louisa nodded and continued talking to the customer.
Liz rushed into her office, shut the door and pulled out a clean white blouse from the closet. She towel-dried her hair and rolled it into a twist. She didn’t have a smidge of makeup left after the rain pelting, but she didn’t care. As she tied her apron on, she noticed the morning’s mail. As usual, Louisa had left it on the old leather desk blotter.
Sitting on top of the stack was the familiar green paper envelope from the County Treasurer’s office containing the yearly property tax bill. Always diligent about the vineyard’s accounting, Liz reached for the envelope and opened it.
What met her eyes was a shock.
“Twenty-three thousand four hundred dollars...past due?” Liz read the numbers again. Twice.
This was impossible! They were not a year in arrears.
“I paid this bill,” she groaned, sinking into the desk chair. She could remember purchasing the cashier’s check from the bank to pay the taxes. “There has to be some mistake.”
Liz called the Indian Lake County treasurer’s office and spoke to one of the clerks. The woman assured Liz that although the Crenshaw taxes had always been paid promptly each year, there had been no payment in the past twelve months. Liz thanked the woman and hung up.
She dropped her face to her hands, feeling as if the world had just crashed down upon her. There was no mistake. Liz now owed not only her taxes, but a penalty, as well. According to the bill, she had ninety days to pay in full.
How could I have forgotten to pay this? Liz berated herself. I’m always so careful...
She drew in a quick breath and clamped her hand over her mouth. “Sam.”
Last year, the taxes had been due when Liz was in France. She had left the cashier’s check with Sam for him to take to the treasurer’s office. Amid the flurry of her decisions about Louisa, the champagne vines and the newly built tasting room, she hadn’t given the taxes a second thought. And because she’d always paid the taxes with a cashier’s check, she had no record of the check being cashed.
This was about the same time she’d begun to notice the first signs of Sam’s forgetfulness, she realized with a lurch in her stomach. His slips were always minor, and she’d thought they were more of a nuisance than a real danger. But this...
Losing over twenty thousand dollars could ruin them.
Liz had already taken out two new mortgages to pay for the tasting room and all the improvements to the fermenting barn and the cellars. She doubted any bank in town would advance her any more money on her harvest. Liz had yet to prove herself and her wines’ abilities to bring in big sales. Though they were doing well—even better than she’d hoped with the tourist trade—she still hadn’t secured a large retailer. That was her plan for next year. Not this summer.
She had to find the check.
Panic overtook Liz as she scrambled through her desk drawers. Her search was in vain. She went to a small wall safe that Sam had installed behind a family portrait. In the safe, she found the deeds to the vineyard, copies of the mortgages, Sam’s will, her father’s will...but no cashier’s check.
Where would he have put it? she asked herself as she scanned the room. Through the office window, she saw the rain was dissipating. Then she spotted her truck.
She left the office through the side door and rushed across the parking lot to her pickup. She took everything out of the glove box and examined the papers. No check. She crammed everything back inside, then looked under both visors and checked under and between the seats.
She raced up to the farmhouse and went to the living room. She hoped she could find the check before she had to bring the incident to Sam’s attention. Then she would simply pay the taxes and Sam would be spared any concern or embarrassment. She rifled through the drawer in the end table next to Sam’s recliner. Suddenly she stopped. There was only one place he would have put the check for safekeeping.
His rolltop desk.
At the far end of the living room was a hundred-year-old burled walnut desk with a glassed-in upper library case that soared to the ceiling.
Liz pulled out every drawer and checked the contents. She went through old papers, newspaper clippings from her father’s high school years, her parents’ wedding announcement and their eulogies. She found old receipts and outdated warranties for appliances they’d long ago donated or thrown away. There were stacks of Christmas cards and sweet birthday cards her grandmother had given to Sam. But no check.
She took over half an hour to examine everything in the desk. Liz grew more concerned as she rifled through each drawer and cubbyhole with no results. At this point, Sam’s humiliation was only one of her concerns. Liz now realized that unless Sam could remember where he’d put that check, they would be facing a grave situation.
Someone else could have found the check and cashed it. If it had been destroyed, the money would be unrecoverable.
Liz wanted to scream, cry and curse. She had to believe she would find the missing money. She had to stay positive, even if it felt as if the world had just gone black.
* * *
LIZ’S MIND WAS REELING with the consequences of losing the check as she walked back to the tasting room, where Louisa and Sam were expecting and needing her assistance with the tourists who were continuing to drive up to the vineyard. Liz opened the door and nearly ran into Maddie.
“Liz!” Maddie exclaimed. Her broad smile instantly fell away. “What’s wrong?”
Liz tried to erase the worry and concern from her expression. “Huh?”
“You look terrible. Are you sick?”
“Sick? No. I just got caught in the rain is all. What are you doing here?”
“Ordering wine for the engagement party on Saturday.”
Saturday? That soon? Liz felt her stomach roil. On top of the new situation with the taxes, she’d have to see Gabe.
Maddie peered closely at Liz, disappointment filling her face. “You forgot.”
Liz grinned sheepishly. “You told me next Saturday.”
“This is next Saturday, you goof,” Maddie said, giving her friend a hug and mushing Liz’s still-wet hair. “You got caught in the rain, but I bet you’re glad for this downpour.”
“Love it.” Liz glanced at Maddie’s extensive list. She’d ordered two cases of chardonnay, two pinot grigio and two cabernet sauvignon. Hmm. Four white to two red. The preference for white was a trend Liz was noticing more and more. It further confirmed her decision to bring French chardonnay grapes to her vineyard. If this kind of market buying kept up, her Vignoles, Seyvals and Vidal blanc grapes would help her produce more white demi-sec and dry barrel fermented, and excellent ice wines. Liz smiled broadly. “Yes, the rain...” The vision of Gabe in his convertible shot across her mind. Something wasn’t right. “So, tell me about the engagement party. It’s still being held at Gabe...I mean, Nate’s parents’ house, right?”
“Yes, and Gina is like a field marshal with a battle plan. Honestly, Liz, I didn’t have to do much at all. She wanted Italian imported wines, and there’s nothing wrong with that—”
“I love them,” Liz interrupted.
“Yes, but I insisted on buying the wines because I wanted them to be yours. I love your wines and so does Nate—we wanted to show off your expertise. By the way, Nate has a lot of friends from Chicago who are going to spend the entire weekend in Indian Lake. We’re going to show them around on Sunday, but I was hoping we could bring them out here then. They’ll buy tons from you. You should see the orders they’ve been sending me for cupcakes.”
“You’re mailing them now?”
“Sure. I overnight them. It’s amazing. My bottom line is getting very happy,” Maddie gushed.
Liz knew her smile was a bit forced, but it was all she could manage. Maddie was one of her best friends, but she couldn’t possibly come right out and say her future brother-in-law was a thief. “Thanks for networking and marketing for me.”
“You already do the same for me,” Maddie said, lifting one of her Cupcake and Cappuccino Café brochures off the counter. “My Chicago franchise opened well. My investor told me nearly a dozen people have walked in with this brochure in their hands. The only place they could get them was out here at your winery.”
“True,” Liz said, admiring the brochure she’d made for Maddie, which was similar to one she’d designed for the vineyard. Liz had laid it out herself, using photos she’d taken of the vineyard, tasting rooms, fermenting barn and, of course, photogenic Louisa and even Grandpa Sam. She was proud of the natural talent she had when it came to selling. She liked success, and even tiny victories added up to big ones over time. But with her love of success came her fear of failure.
She rubbed the back of her neck. She hoped she’d feel better after she had a chance to talk to Sam about the cashier’s check. But still, she felt unsettled—as if some other secret was hanging in the air. Oddly, each time these feelings clutched at her, Gabe’s face flashed in her mind’s eye.
“You know what’s crazy, Maddie? I thought I saw Gabe earlier today.”
“Here?” Maddie asked, glancing around the tasting room. Her smile melted and was replaced with a serious expression.
“No. On the country road that runs along my western property line.” Liz scrutinized her friend’s green eyes. Maddie was hiding something. “What is it, Maddie?”
Maddie turned her gaze to a group of tourists. The women, young and tan, were laughing together. Louisa had just gone to their table, and they’d ordered another bottle of wine and more cheese and crackers. Liz waited for Maddie to look back at her. “You’re one of my very best friends...”
“Oh, this is going to be bad,” Liz said. “Gabe is up to something. I can feel it in my bones.”
“He just bought the Mattuchi vineyard.”
Shock hit her like the thunder rolling outside. “What? That’s impossible. First of all, the Mattuchis don’t have a vineyard. They have a farm. They grow a few grapes every year and make grape jelly and some horrible wine that my grandfather says even Boone’s Farm wouldn’t buy.”
“I know.”
