Chapter 5: Lena

“The Ashfords think they own this town.” I slumped into a booth at the Rusty Spoon, my brother sliding in across from me. 

Enzo picked up a menu. “They kind of do.” 

“That’s beside the point.” I didn’t care if they owned most of the commercial property in town. It didn’t mean they owned us. Sure, their winery thrived while our orchard barely got by, but that was going to change. 

I was going to change it. 

“Why are we meeting with Eli anyway? You never answered me about that.” 

I snatched the menu from him. “We aren’t meeting with him. I am.”

“And you’re not going to tell me why?”

“I thought you had errands to run.” 

He leaned back. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

I’d tried bringing up business proposals with my parents, and it never ended well. They were stuck in the past, thinking the orchard would keep us going as it always had. 

It wouldn’t. Not without significant changes.

And Enzo was more like them than Grams and me. I think that was why Grandpa left me his shares and not Enzo. He knew I’d do more with them than wait around for the harvest each year. 

And I planned to. 

The bell chimed as Eli walked in, his gaze finding us immediately. He was the only man I knew who wore a suit, even as spring prepared for summer. Superiore Bay was a laid back town that never cared much about appearances. Well, clothes anyway. The Weekly Wine sure cared how people appeared, how they acted. 

“Hey, man.” Enzo stood and did a weird back-slapping thing with Eli. 

“Didn’t know you’d be here, Enzo.” They both sat. 

Enzo shrugged. “Can’t let big sis have all the fun.”

Eli’s smile faded. “Well, I’m not sure this meeting is going to be much fun.”

“Uh oh.” I groaned. “That doesn’t sound good.” But I knew what he was going to tell me. Conner had already done the deed. 

“I’m sorry, Lena. I wish I had better news. The Ashfords have turned down your offer.” 

“Turned down what?” Enzo asked. 

Eli ignored him. “You made them a legitimate offer, but I get the feeling this isn’t about money. They don’t want your family owning any of their land.” 

Kate Simpson, a middle-aged woman who was never far from her job at the diner, walked up. “Can I get you folks anything?” 

Yeah, a way to ruin the Ashfords, to make them feel as low as they tried to push us. But, obviously, that wasn’t something Kate could get me. “A piece of cherry pie please.”

She gave me a strange look. “It’s not lunch yet …”

“Please.”

“Okay, dear.”

Enzo ordered coffee, but Eli didn’t want anything. So much for me buying him breakfast.

When Kate was gone, I looked back at Eli. “What are my options?”

He drummed his fingers on the table and looked at me in that annoying un-Ashford caring way he had. “You could make another offer anonymously.”

My brow furrowed. “How exactly?”

“We could set up a shell corporation for your business enterprises. That way, we wouldn’t have to list you as an owner.” He leaned in. “This is how a lot of businesses and foreign governments—and ours—funnel money to places they don’t want people knowing about.”

Something about that didn’t sit right with me. I knew it was perfectly legal, but here in Superiore Bay, I didn’t want to hide what I was doing. 

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” 

Enzo’s eyes bounced from Eli to me. “I’m still missing something.” 

Eli scooted out of the booth. “I know we talked about breakfast, but something tells me it’s more important for you two to chat. Do you want me to try upping the bid and seeing if, by some miracle, that works?”

“Yeah, let’s do that.” Not that I could afford any more than my initial offer.

“Raincheck on breakfast?”

“Any time.” 

He clapped Enzo on the shoulder and sauntered out the way he’d come. There’d been a time I’d crushed hard on Eli, the smooth-talker turned lawyer. 

And Enzo knew it. 

He narrowed his eyes. “No breakfast dates with my friends.”

I sighed, not in the mood for his overprotectiveness, especially when I knew how unfair it was he could be friends with Eli Ashford, but I had to hide my friendship with Carter. The difference between them was, though their fathers were brothers, they had very different views on this town and on us. 

Luckily, Kate returned with my pie, and the moment I took a bite, everything looked a little less dreary. 

Enzo watched me patiently, waiting for me to explain any of what had just happened. There was no getting out of it. 

I swallowed a bite and took a sip of water. “Okay, so, sibling secret?” It was what we said when we didn’t want Mom or Dad to know something. Even now, when we were both adults, we kept certain things between us. 

“Go on.” He nodded with his serene expression, looking much older than the one year my junior he really was. 

“So …” I fiddled with a napkin. “You know the business idea I brought to Dad last year, the one Gramps and I came up with?”

He nodded again. 

“I’ve sort of expanded it.” I paused for a reaction, but he was waiting for more. Pulling out my phone, I brought up the pictures I’d taken of my drawings and set the phone on the table. 

He picked it up, his eyes squinting as he zoomed in. Minutes ticked by. Hours, days it felt like before he finally looked at me again. “Lena, this is …” I waited for him to tell me it was too ambitious, that I could never accomplish such an outlandish dream. 

But he didn’t. Instead, a slow smile spread across his face. “Did you really think the Ashfords would sell to you so you could do this?”

A relieved laugh bubbled out of me. “No. Yes. I was hoping they wouldn’t ask Eli who the buyer was.”

“Lena, they’re businesspeople. They aren’t going to sell land like that without vetting everything.” He handed me back my phone. “So, we just need to find a different land parcel they don’t own.” 

I shook my head. “It has to be that one.”

“Then, we’ll make them sell to you. One way or another.” The glee in Enzo’s eyes should have scared me, but I was just glad he was on my side.

“You don’t think I’m nuts, taking on this kind of risk? I could lose my share of the orchard, and that would drive the entire thing under.” 

“Sis, if we don’t do something big, I’m afraid we’re going to lose it one day anyway.” He stood. “Come on.”

My fork was halfway to my mouth. “What? I’m not done with my pie.”

“And I promise not to tell Grams you had scones and pie for breakfast if you come now.”

I groaned and threw some money on the table before following him out. 

We’d driven the family pickup to town with its peeling red paint, oversized truck bed, and broken air conditioning. By the time we made it to the dirt roads leading toward home, my hair was in knots from having the windows open. 

Mom and Dad weren’t at the main house, but we found Grams in the kitchen making lunch. She smiled when she saw us. “My favorite kiddos.” I didn’t remind her we weren’t kids anymore. “How was your morning in town?” 

Enzo stole a piece of cucumber she’d been slicing and popped it into his mouth. “Lena punched Conner Ashford.” 

“Enzo!” I protested. 

“Fine, she almost did. I could tell she wanted to. That guy is a piece of work.”

Grams gave me a soft smile. “You okay, mija?” 

“Fine.” It wasn’t the fight with Conner that had bothered me. Okay, it sort of was. I knew our families were rivals, but I didn’t understand why the guy hated me so much. Sure, I was more likely to be seen in overalls and work boots than the designer clothes he wore, but that didn’t put me beneath him. 

It certainly shouldn’t warrant his anger. “What did we ever do to them, Grams?” 

“That’s a loaded question.” Grams carried a plate of chopped veggies and cheese to the table. 

“But it’s one no one ever gives us an answer to. I know no one wants me to be friends with Carter, but I don’t know why. I face Conner’s scorn, and there doesn’t seem to be an actual reason for it.”

Enzo turned in his chair. “If we’re ever going to beat them, we need to know what we’re actually fighting.”

Grams lowered herself into a wooden chair at the table and regarded us. “There is no beating the Ashfords.” She sighed. “I should know. I’ve tried.”

I slid into a chair across from her. “You went up against them?”

“It was a long time ago.” She suddenly looked very tired. 

“Please tell us.” 

She rubbed a hand across her eyes and chewed on a piece of celery before speaking. “My grandfather, your two times great-grandfather, and his counterpart in the Ashford family were as close as brothers.” That was news to me. “It was in a time of much more racism, yet we’d already been in this country for two generations and just tried to blend in.”

They still tried to blend in, speaking very little Spanish and observing few cultural experiences. It was kind of sad, if anyone asked me. “You mean an Ashford and a Contreras were allowed to be friends?” 

“It was different back then. Our two businesses worked in tandem together. We opened a wine and cider tasting room. It was an odd mingling, but it worked. Those two men built this town into what it is, investing heavily and becoming sort of like the town founders.” 

Enzo joined us at the table, just as enthralled in our family history as me. “So, what happened?”

Grams looked at each of us in turn. “There was a business deal to bring the two corporations under the same umbrella and grow them from there. The Ashfords had an ample amount of fertile land for us to expand on. It was a business owner’s dream the way they worked so well together.” 

“And?” I leaned in. “Did one of them back out? Swindle the other out of money? Why do we all hate each other now?” 

She shook her head. “It was much simpler than that. My uncle Matias, my father’s brother, fell in love with an Ashford daughter, Audrey. It was supposed to bring the families closer.”

“But it didn’t?”

Grams smiled sadly. “No, honey. Matters of the heart are complicated. On the eve of their wedding, Matias took off. He went out west to join the gold rush. I wasn’t even born yet when all of this happened, but my father never quite forgave his brother. The Ashfords broke off all business dealings with our family and went out of their way to thwart us for many years.”

“They still do,” I muttered. How could a love story from so long ago still be haunting the families now? “They’re never going to sell to me.” 

Grams didn’t ask what I meant, but I had a feeling she knew everything I was trying to do. 

“Whoa.” Enzo looked as stunned as I felt. “That’s some real book-worthy stuff right there. The dueling families of Superiore Bay.” 

“It’s stupid is what it is.” I stood, a sudden and irrational anger burning through me. “No one alive even remembers all of that happening, and yet, here we are still living in the mess they caused. Well, you know what … I don’t care. I don’t care who our supposed enemies are. I don’t care about some tragic love story with people I didn’t even know. This feud is ruining everything. And it’s time it stopped.” 

I walked out of the kitchen through the swinging screen door, not stopping until I crossed the yard to the bunkhouse I shared with Enzo. The door slammed shut behind me as my mind worked through every possible solution. 

Enzo thought we could find a way to force them into selling to us, but I didn’t want that. 

I pulled my phone out and stared down at it, knowing I really only had one option. Carter and I once promised not to let our families get between us, that we’d never put each other in a bad position. 

But he was my only hope now. 

So, I sent him a text. 

Lena: Meet me at our spot. 

He’d come. He always did. Just like when he needed me, I was there. No matter what our last names were, we had each other’s backs.