Page 61 of Gone With the Wine

“To see if we need help?” I ask sweetly. “Do you have an extra capacitor?”

He laughs, but doesn’t answer.

I fume, heat swirling in my gut. I glance at Rosa, her cheeks pinker than usual.

“We’ll be fine, Uncle Geno,” she says calmly. “Would you like a cup of coffee? I made banana bread this morning.”

“I don’t have time for coffee and banana bread. It’s harvest.”

“We know that,” I say a little snidely. “Well, we should get back to work, then. Thanks for stopping by!” I grab Rosa’s arm and drag her across the yard.

We both mutter under our breaths.

“I have to go over to Bar Down,” I say.

“Okay. I’ll let you know when Jake’s back if he’s been able to find something.”

I walk over to the neighboring vineyard, still grumbling about Uncle Geno. He probably could have helped us, damn him.

I head straight to the crush pad to see how things are going here. Better than Caparelli. I’ve got my rubber boots on, my legs bare beneath the ragged hem of my cut-offs, and a stained T-shirt that sayswiney bitch. I wave away a bee drifting in front of my face.

Jansen is just walking toward the crush pad and sees me. His steps quicken and he stops in front of me. “What’s wrong?”

I stare up at him. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Bullshit. Has that dipshit Mark been around again?”

My eyes widen, and then the corners of my mouth quirk up. “No. Although he did call the other day to apologize.”

His jaw hardens. “Then what is it?”

I sigh. “Uncle Geno came by Caparelli a little while ago.”

“What happened?”

“I was hoping maybe he’d given some thought to giving us some of their wine. But he said he hasn’t had time. He wanted to check on us and see how we were doing. Like he was expecting us to be floundering.”

“But you’re not.”

“Well.” I bite my lip. “He did come just when Rosa and I were talking about the capacitor for our press breaking down.” I fill him in. “Wait.” My eyebrows snap together. “Is it possible…nah.”

“What?”

“Is it possible he did something to our capacitor?”

“Jesus.” Jansen’s mouth sets in a thin line. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“I don’t know. You wouldn’t think he would pull all the workers from Caparelli, but he did. You wouldn’t think he would spread rumors about us and tell people not to help us. You wouldn’t think he would try to sabotage our vines by not watering them and then shutting off the irrigation system. But he did.”

Jansen winces. “Yeah.”

I sigh. “I wanted to tell him to fuck off.”

He rubs a hand over his mouth. “I understand.”

“He just makes me feel like I’m a kid again. Like I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“You do know what you’re doing.” His tone is assured.

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