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“So what is he thinking?”
“He told Nate it’s good business,” Maddie explained.
“The Mattuchis have owned that land forever. I can’t believe Gabe would deprive them of their livelihood. This is just monstrous!” Liz exclaimed. “You know, if anything happened to me and my grandfather was left here all alone and some man-eating shark like Gabriel Barzonni came to steal his land away from him, I swear I would haunt these hills until the end of eternity to make sure the creep suffered the fires of—”
Maddie grabbed Liz’s arm and squeezed it. “Liz, honey, don’t you think you’re getting a little carried away? I mean, Gabe just bought part of their farm. We don’t know that he swindled them or hurt them.”
Liz was practically hyperventilating. She could see Gabe’s handsome, wicked eyes gloating at her.
“I’m just not believing this. The Barzonnis own enough land in this area to create a new state! They don’t need more land. And poor Mr. Mattuchi. I’ve known him since I was born. He and his wife are hardworking people, but he’s not a farmer. Never was. He’s repaired my equipment here for years. Best mechanic I’ve ever seen. Grandpa really likes him. Oh, I just can’t believe this!”
Maddie eyed her friend suspiciously and released her hand. “You know, Liz, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this. What’s really going on?”
“I’ll tell you. I caught Gabe Barzonni two weeks ago,” Liz replied breathlessly. She felt flushed, and her heart was tripping inside her chest at a mile a minute.
“Doing what?” Maddie asked.
“He was stealing from me,” Liz answered self-righteously.
“Stealing what?”
“Dirt.”
Maddie stared at Liz for a moment, then broke into laughter. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not.” Liz lifted her chin.
“Okay. Why is that important to you?”
Liz slapped her forehead. “Now I get it. It was never about a vial of dirt. It was about the components and the structure of the soil. Gabe was already thinking of buying the Mattuchi farm. Once he got his hands on my soil samples, he knew he could possibly have a gold mine over there.”
“Oh boy.” Maddie’s eyes narrowed. “If he planted grape vines in similar soil—”
“And with the Barzonni millions to back him up, he could put me out of business.”
“Dirty rotten scum.”
“The rottenest,” Liz agreed.
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_7a90924c-ecb0-5329-b095-302b8ea1d2c9)
POURING A FLIGHT of the vineyard’s best aged cabernet sauvignons for a Chicago-based investment banker, Sam Crenshaw watched his granddaughter out of the corner of his eye as she spoke to Maddie. Sam had learned since the day Liz’s father, Matthew, was born that a proper parent or grandparent needed to use high-level espionage tactics and have a boatload of intuition. Sam knew his granddaughter’s body language better than anyone, including Liz herself, he’d bet. From her consternation, the way she ground her jaw and the way her eyes had turned from sky blue to stormy indigo, he knew something was very wrong.
That girl looks ready to kill.
Sam smiled at his customer, who peered down his nose over his designer eyeglasses at the paper Sam had slipped toward him. “Here’s the list of your selections for this flight and a description of each wine,” Sam informed him. “Just let me know if you want to make a purchase,” he said. He did not take his eyes off Liz, who had just walked Maddie to the door.
The man carefully rolled the second selection, an oak barrel−aged cabernet, in its glass and held it up to the light. He tasted the wine and smiled. “This one has a smooth finish. Nearly like velvet. Remarkable.”
Sam turned his attention back to the customer. “Remarkable how? That you found such excellence here and not from a French burgundy?”
The man grinned merrily. “You’re very observant.”
Sam winked at him. “It’s my job.”
“I’ll take a case of this one,” the man said, sliding his credit card to Sam.
“Excellent taste. This is the best wine we’ve ever made. It’s my personal favorite.”
Sam continued to smile as he took the card, though he grumbled under his breath. The expensive sale should have made him happy. But he was much more interested in his granddaughter and her escalating irritation.
After the man signed his voucher, Sam used a walkie-talkie to call Aurelio in the warehouse. He would crate up the cases of wine for the customer and meet them at the front door.
Sam stepped outside and stood next to Liz under the porch roof to the tasting room. The rain was easing up. The storm clouds had nearly passed over them, and blue afternoon skies were beginning to poke through the cover.
Aurelio arrived with the cases just as Sam’s customer walked out the door. The man popped the trunk on an arctic-blue BMW sedan.
Sam stood with his granddaughter and watched the man drive away.
“Did you just sell him a full case of your prized cabernet?” Liz inquired with a tone befitting a prosecuting attorney.
“I did.”
“I thought you wanted to save it.”
“No, I said I would only sell it to an aficionado.”
She peered down the drive. “Really.”
“I believe,” Sam said proudly, “I have made a new friend. He’ll be back. And often. If he has friends and they like our wines as much as he does, you and Louisa better get busy producing some prizewinners,” he joked.
Liz scowled and the storm came back to her eyes.
“What is it?”
“Grandpa, we need to talk,” she replied glumly. “But later. All our customers will want to check out now that the rain is ending, so let’s help Louisa first.”
“I hate it when you say that. Is it me?”
“Not really. It’s just that there’s been a development.” She patted his forearm, opened the door and went inside.
“Development? That’s worse than ‘we need to talk.’”
* * *
THE SUNSET BLISTERED the horizon while Liz and Sam sat in their white wicker rocking chairs on the front porch of the big farmhouse. Maria was in the kitchen blending garden basil, oregano, chives and garlic into an Italian tomato sauce for their dinner. The smell wafted through the house and onto the porch.
Sam held out a glass of cabernet to Liz. “Here. With a sunset this intoxicating, the wine will only pale.”
“Stop being a poet,” she replied, but she took the glass. She sipped the wine and exhaled in appreciation. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I can’t let all the good stuff go to the semi-educated public.”
“Maybe we should.” Liz stared down into the wine.
“It’s an indulgence. Now tell me whatever it is you have to tell me,” Sam said.
Liz looked from the setting ball of fire in the west to her grandfather’s kindly face. He had the same eyes as she. Crystal blue, like the melting snow waters running down a rock spring. He was still a strikingly handsome man and she could see why her grandmother, Aileen, had fallen for him when they’d first met. He was kind, thoughtful and levelheaded. Liz was counting on that level head of his to help them now.
“Grandpa, today I got the property tax bill.”
“Ah,” he said. “It’s about that time again.”
“Something happened last year and the treasurer’s office never got our payment. We’re in arrears over twenty thousand dollars.”
“What?” Sam’s eyes grew wide. “Impossible! I paid it with our cashier’s check like you asked me to.”
She shook her head. “Apparently not. I called and talked to Jane Burley. She said there was no mistake. I’ve been all over the office, in the truck, even in your desk.”
Sam rubbed his face and sucked in a deep breath. “I know I paid it.”
“Let’s retrace your steps. First of all, I gave you the check the day before I left for France.”
He snapped his fingers and his face brightened. “That’s right! You were in France. I took you to the bus station the next morning.”
“And then you were going into town to run errands—and pay the taxes. You had the check with you in the truck.”
He looked at her quizzically with that cloud in his eyes she’d noticed lately. She had come to hate that look, and now she feared it.
“The truck. But I kept the check in my billfold.”
“Of course you would! I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe it’s stuck behind that secret flap you use sometimes?” Liz felt hope rising inside her like a warm spring breeze.
“Right!” Sam put down his glass of wine and reached in his jeans pocket for his wallet. He riffled through the wad of bills and peeled up the old leather flap beside the cash.
Liz felt her breath catch in her lungs. She leaned over the arm of her chair and peered more closely at the wallet.
“Nothing,” Sam announced.
Liz fell back in her chair and stared up at the porch roof. “It was my last hope.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t pay it,” he said guiltily.
Over the past year, Sam had been forgetting things a little more than usual. He needed afternoon naps nearly every day. He told her he was slowing down, and she had assumed that was all it was. He was fully engaged in his life and in their business, so she hadn’t considered there might be anything seriously wrong. Still...
“What did you do that day that would have caused you to forget?”
Sam was quiet for a long moment. “I was at the grocery store when Maria called me. She said the power had been cut—workers on the highway or some such. Our generator wasn’t functioning, either, which seemed impossible. I drove straight home and met Aurelio. We called Burt Thompson, who came out and showed us the breaker had gone bad. Then that horrible storm came in. Nearly a tornado. We spent the rest of the week cleaning up downed trees and inspecting the vines. It was a week I’ll never forget. Everything went wrong.”
“I remember you telling me about it,” she said. No wonder he’d forgotten to pay the taxes. He was trying to save the vineyard. And yet...a year later, they were facing a worse storm than a tornado.
“I’m sorry, Lizzie. Did you look in the safe?”
“Yes,” she replied glumly. “I even went through the hanging files in the desk drawers. The problem is that there’s no way to know if someone else cashed it.”
“I’m so sorry. This is all my fault,” Sam apologized. “I have to believe we’ll find the check.”
“I hope we do!” Liz replied. “In the meantime, I have to call the treasurer’s office and see what I can work out. The problem is the taxes for this year are due at the same time. We don’t have that kind of money in our savings.”
Sam looked down at his prized wine. “I’m glad I sold that case of my cabernet today.”
“That will help,” Liz said, patting his arm affectionately. “There’s something else I need to talk to you about.”
His left eyebrow ratcheted up. “Losing twenty grand isn’t enough?”
Liz felt her heart flip. She hated seeing even the first smidge of consternation in his eyes. This man had meant the world to her almost her whole life. All she wanted was for him to be happy, and in the span of one conversation, she had hit him with two pieces of devastating news.
She knew Sam didn’t have the enthusiasm or the energy for the kind of expansion Liz envisioned for the vineyard. Sam had worked hard on the land all his life, but her gambles on Louisa, the chardonnay grapes, the riddling and fermenting rooms—even the tasting room and the plan to make champagne—were all a crapshoot. A big roll of the dice. Sam had gone along with her not because he thought it was good business, but because he loved her.
Liz had to wonder what kind of twisted and sick blunder of fate would allow these catastrophes to befall them. Sam had walked the conservative route his entire life. He’d maintained the vineyard and ridden the roller coaster of drought and flood, and he hadn’t lost the land. He didn’t believe in banks, borrowing money or building for the future. He believed in holding on, but that was all.
Sam had often told her she would inherit everything when he died. His greatest fear had always been leaving her with a great pile of debt. But with Gabe Barzonni in the equation now, all bets were off. Liz’s decisions alone could bring down Crenshaw Vineyards. With Gabe Barzonni as competition, they were about to enter the fight of their lives.
Liz crossed her arms over her chest as if she were afraid she’d be shot through the heart. Losing her vineyard, even a portion of it, would break her heart. She exhaled.
“Tell me what else is going on,” Sam urged her. “Because it sounds to me like this one is worse than losing the tax money.”
“I’m afraid it is. Or could be. I just learned from Maddie that the Mattuchis sold their vineyard to Gabe Barzonni.”
“Barzonni?” Sam repeated in disbelief. “What would Angelo Barzonni want with that cruddy little chunk of land half a universe away from his tomato farm south of town?”
Liz shook her head. “Not Angelo, Grandpa. Gabriel, his eldest son, bought it.”
“Same darned thing. Trust me, the old man put him up to it!” Sam slammed his balled fist on the arm of his chair.
“That makes no sense. Besides, it was Gabe who was out here trying to take our soil. Now I know why he was here.”
“Why?”
“It’s so obvious. Our land has the same soil as Mario Mattuchi’s. He grows Nebbiolo grapes, which are fine in Italy, but the climate here is all wrong for them. They have to ripen so late, even after our cabernet sauvignons have ripened. But he would never give them up.”
“Mario is from the old country. He likes what he likes. Some years he did okay. But he never really sold his wine, anyway. I just don’t understand why he would sell out to Angelo. Mario always told me he didn’t like Angelo.”
“He told you that?” Liz asked.
“He did. Many times, back when Matthew was alive and he and your mom...” Sam trailed off, clearly noticing Liz’s pained expression. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring all that up.”
“It’s okay, Grandpa. If we can’t talk about Mom and Dad, who can? Especially now, when we’re facing all this.”
