Page 27 of A Vineyard for Two

‘Slashed tyre?’

‘Whose bad side have you been getting on?’ Zoe joked.

‘Your sister’s apparently.’

She saw Zoe arch an eyebrow as she stared at Harper. ‘I leave the two of you for five minutes and you’re acting like toddlers.’

‘Is Leo up? I don’t want to leave the car here overnight.’

‘Why didn’t you just call?’

‘No signal.’

‘Yeah, Leo is up. He can give you a tow. I came back to check on you, glad I did, otherwise you might be walking home.’

Harper sat back and closed her eyes. Her head was starting to hurt. This visit was getting too complicated, and she was spending too much time with Brookes. She had to finish up whatever business she had left here and go back to the city. Which was going to be hard to do when they had to revamp a vineyard and organise a Christmas in July event in less than ten days. Avoiding Brookes had become an impossible endeavour.

FOURTEEN

Brookes stood with his arms folded, staring at the flat tyre. In the daylight, it was evident it hadn’t been an accident. Someone had stabbed the back tyre with a knife. He wanted to brush it off as someone making a Friday night prank, but that didn’t sit right with him. He had driven to the tavern without a problem and parked the car where he usually would before going inside. He would have been in the tavern all of an hour. It had to have happened during that time. The tavern was busy, and the car park had sections that weren’t lit up, so it could have easily gone unnoticed.

‘Who’d you piss off, mate?’ Leo said.

‘You mean other than your sister?’

‘She’s not the violent type.’

‘Harper isn’t that petty, and besides, we were inside the tavern the entire time.’

‘Hmm,’ Leo said. ‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘Did you settle your differences?’

‘Leo, Harper and I are ancient history. She can’t wait to get out of here. She even went to see a lawyer about rejecting the inheritance. Can you believe that?’ He knelt and ran his finger along the slash. Then he noticed another one. ‘Who the hell goes around stabbing tyres? It had to be premeditated.’

‘Maybe there are security cameras,’ he said. ‘A lawyer? Now that’s going to extremes.’

‘Not sure if the owners have invested in those, and if they have them, would they even work?’ He stood up. ‘You know Harper, she doesn’t do things in halves.’

‘It’s worth asking. She’s not going to reject it, is she?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, checking his watch. ‘They open in about an hour. No, I don’t think so. I hope not, then again, she hasn’t given any indication she wants to keep it.’

They replaced the tyre with a new one that Leo had brought around that morning.

‘Have you actually sat down and talked to her about the property?’ Leo asked.

‘She wants to sell it.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Just like that.’

‘I don’t think Harper has had the chance to really think things through. She’s been away for a while. This inheritance, well, it took everyone by surprise.’

‘Yeah, a warning from Georgia would have been nice.’

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