Page 16 of Que Será, Syrah

“Wait, what? She’s making wines for who?”

“Bar Down. The winery formerly known as Take Flight,” Jake says, smiling a little sadly.

I stare at him in dismay. “You mean your?—?”

“My family’s former winery,” he says, finishing my sentence, if not quite the way I would have. “Yes. Exactly.”

“When did this happen?” And how come I’m the last to know about this, too?

“Just since August.” Rosa frowns at me. “She did tell you. Remember? She said she was going to help out over there in exchange for using their lab?”

“Helping them out is one thing. Making wine for them is a whole different thing.” It’s huge. It’s a commitment and a conflict of interest and…oh. Fuck. This has got to be killing Jake. “So, she’s in bed with the competition?” I ask him. “Or should I say, ‘sleeping with the enemy’?”

To be fair, relations between winery owners in Napa are usually pretty good. Usually. But nothing about this situation is as usual, and I can’t help wondering just how hostile things may have gotten around here lately.

“You shouldn’t say either one,” Rosa scolds. “Not if you’re going to be saying it in front of Bee.”

“Although it is literally accurate,” Jake jokes.

Which earns him a stern look from my sister and a gravely toned, “Not helping.”

“What do you mean literal?” I ask, no doubt looking as puzzled as I feel. Because they can’t mean what I think they mean. Can they?

Rosa turns her frown on me. “Do we really need to spell that out for you?”

“I mean…yes?”

She stares at me for a moment and then says, “Okay, hold on a minute.” She shoves a hand through the heavy mass of her hair and peers at me through narrowed eyes. “I assumed that Bianca had already told you about Jansen; is that not the case? Are you saying that was just a really poor, random word choice, on your part?”

“I have no idea,” I say, feeling totally at sea. “Who’s Jansen?” If this is jetlag, I might need to go back to bed for the rest of the week.

“Jansen Beck,” Rosa replies.

“The hockey player?”

“Former hockey player,” Jake clarifies. “Current winery owner.”

“You follow hockey?” Rosa asks, looking totally mystified. “Since when?”

“I wouldn’t say I follow it, exactly. But I know his name. He plays—or I guess I mean played—for some team out of Long Beach, didn’t he?”

When you’re on an international cruise ship, someone is always talking about sports. You pick up a lot of gossip. Which, now that I’m thinking about it, had included the tidbit about Jansen Beck’s plan to retire from hockey and buy a winery in Napa. I guess it stuck with me because I was always on the lookout for any news from home. But then the other shoe drops. “Okay. Now I remember. She did mention him, didn’t she? I think she said he had all his teeth?”

Rosa smirks. “As I recall, she said she ‘thought’ he did. But only after you asked.”

“Right.” I nod, and slurp down another mouthful of coffee. I really need the caffeine to start kicking in. “It’s all coming back to me now. But are you saying he and Bianca?—”

“Are seeing each other,” Rosa says quickly, before either Jake or I can say something cruder, I suppose. “Yes, that’s what we’re saying. We don’t talk about beds or sleeping.”

“Or sex,” Jake teases. “Or Bruno.”

“Or boxed wine?” I suggest, apropos of absolutely nothing.

“You mean cardbordeaux,” Jake fake scolds me.

“Or anything that’s not our business,” Rosa says, looking low-key disgusted with us both. But once again, how is this not my business? Because if Bianca is hooking up with the owner of the winery next door—a winery that Jake already has emotional ties to—wouldn’t the next logical step be for the four of them to form a partnership and run the two wineries together?

After all, it’s what Papa did with Belmonte and Capparelli—what Geno still wants to do. But it would leave little old lone wolf me very much on the outside.

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