A Fine Year for Love

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.