Chapter 13 – Conner

I almost made it out of there with most of my pride intact. Selena had the strange ability to make me feel small, even though I was a giant in this town. Even though I would head back to my thriving vineyard while she rode that piece of junk out to a bunch of trees that seemed surprised they were still bearing fruit. 

I started the engine, but before I could sneak away, dust kicked up on the winding drive, signaling an oncoming car. I hoped it wasn’t her brother, or worse, her father. 

Lena might be stubborn in refusing to take my money, but for the first time, it hadn’t felt like she despised my very presence. The rest of her family probably wouldn’t be as kind. 

As the dust settled, I caught sight of a familiar Ferrari as it wound around the barn to park behind it in a spot shielded from the house. Glancing toward the back door, I realized Mrs. Contreras had gone inside, and Carter was hiding his car from her. 

Leaving Duke in the car, I stepped out to meet my brother. He gave me a skeptical look when he climbed out. His curls looked more unruly than normal. Sometimes, I wondered if he reveled in his messy look. I used the think he just didn’t care, but maybe it was his way to fight against our more put-together family. 

“What are you doing here?” He slid his sunglasses into his hair. 

“I could ask you the same thing.” I crossed my arms. “Aren’t you supposed to only meet Lena in secret spots you think none of us know about?” My father was going to force Carter into a corner executive office one of these days, and he wouldn’t be able to spend all his afternoons hanging out in a decrepit orchard. 

A smile tilted his lips. “Just here to see my girl. Don’t worry, I’m used to evading her family. Once she sees I’m here, she’ll sneak away.” 

His girl. Selena. I stared at him, trying to figure him out, and then he laughed. 

“Relax, bro.” He clapped me on the shoulder as he walked by. “I very much doubt I’m here for the same reason as you.”

Something in his laughter told me he didn’t mean the check that now burned a hole in my pocket, but he was already walking toward the dirt lane through the trees Lena had disappeared down. 

I slid into the car, and Duke stuck his head between the two front seats, nudging my shoulder. I rubbed his nose absently as I realized what an idiot I was. I’d come here to pay Lena for being kind. She and Carter would probably have a good laugh about it. 

But unlike my brother, money was the only way I knew how to do things. 

And money didn’t win with people like Selena Contreras. I’d tried doing a nice thing, tried mending some of the rift. She and Enzo didn’t have to help us, their rivals, the people actively trying to hold them back. 

And yet, they had. 

So, why couldn’t I do the same? Why couldn’t I help her secure the land? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to, but I had so little control. I’d never really noticed how much of the business truly wasn’t under my power until now. It would be many years before it was. 

And until then, there was nothing I could do to change my father. 

That sudden thought sent a wave of anger ripping through me. My hands clenched around the steering wheel as I pulled away from the property. There was only one place where I had any control. 

Parking at the Ashford property, I let Duke out and slammed the door. “Go run, buddy.” He wouldn’t leave the expansive grounds, and I wasn’t in the mood for company. Not even his. 

Duke loped off down the grassy hill, and I marched toward the barn that had become my sanctuary. I wasn’t capable of many things, something I’d learned recently, and I had little power, but inside these walls, I was king. 

I didn’t let anyone else work with me in here, even cleaning the equipment myself. Carter once joked it was the only time I ever cleaned anything with my own two hands. He was one to talk. 

I ran my fingers over one of the stainless steel wine tanks I used for the aging process. Some wines also aged in oak barrels, both American oak and French oak. Each added a different flavor profile. The oak barrels could never be fully cleaned of previous wines, and had a shorter shelf life, but they transferred their own unique flavor into the wine. 

I didn’t have to replace the stainless steel tanks nearly as often, and they let me have more control over how much air reached the wine. 

Right now in each of the tanks, I had a batch I’d pressed from hybrid grapes I found on a recent trip to Milan. The fermentation was nearly complete, and once it sat a bit longer, I would start adding external flavors. 

I stepped up to the cluttered desk at the back of the room and flipped the page on the notebook that served as my wine bible. My collection of notebooks held the data on every experiment I’d ever conducted. Every batch of wine I made went into this book. A few of them were added into the Ashford exports, others sold in small, exclusive batches. 

But there were many more that would never again see the light of day. 

Here, in this room, no one saw my failures except me. They didn’t know I made many more undrinkable wines than any worthy of consumption. Or that I was okay with that. It was the purpose of trying new things. 

My anger toward the rest of my life didn’t make it past the door with me. There was no room for it in here. I scanned my latest notes, getting excited it was about time to test different flavors with the batch sitting behind me in the tanks. The wine inside was about six months old at this point. 

I reached onto a shelf to pull down an acid test kit and a jar of honey so I could increase the alcohol content of one of the tanks, a practice prohibited in much of the commercial winemaking world, unless I was running a winery in France. 

Lucky for me, I planned to hold one of these tanks back for mostly personal use and gifts rather than selling it. 

I was about to open one of the oak barrels when I heard a car door slam outside. 

“Hello?” a voice called. 

My father wasn’t in residence today, having gone on a short trip to visit with a few clients in upstate New York. He’d return tomorrow. But the house was fully staffed. 

“Anyone here?” 

I sighed, recognizing the voice. Setting my supplies down on the desk, I wiped my hands and walked from the barn to find Conrad on his knees with Duke practically mauling him. 

But I knew my brother loved it. 

He hadn’t come alone. Red hung back, watching Duke suspiciously, his ears tilted forward. I always found it a bit off-putting that my older brother had a fox as a pet, but he had the temperament of a cat, and Conrad was odder than most. 

“Look who came off their island to see his family.” I smiled as I walked toward him. I’d seen Conrad a few days ago on the boat, but before then, sightings were pretty rare, especially at our family home. 

Conrad straightened and tapped his leg. Red stepped forward and leaned against it, his tail flicking and his eyes never leaving Duke. 

“Jasper called.” It was then I noticed Conrad hiked a bag up on his shoulder. 

Jasper was in charge of the estate’s stables. “Something wrong with one of the horses?” 

Conrad gave me a strange look. “You live here, shouldn’t you know?”

I shrugged. Horses weren’t really my thing. Not anymore. When I was younger, I rode every day the weather allowed, but that passion was lost among the business of the vineyards and the winery. 

Conrad rolled his eyes. “Dad’s not here, is he?” 

“No, he’s out of town.”

“Small mercies.” Ever since Conrad stepped away from the family, forsaking his role within the Ashford empire to live at the Corolla Sanctuary, surrounded only by wild horses and his pet fox, our father refused to talk to him. 

I hadn’t ever told Conrad this, but I envied him in a way. He’d found his life’s purpose—protecting and caring for animals—and here I was, working for the family business. 

“Jasper should be in the main stables.” I walked with Conrad up the pathway to the state-of-the-art stables where we housed well-bred horses that were more of an investment than anything else. Conrad didn’t need me to go with him, he knew the way, but I kept walking. 

We hadn’t been close since we were kids. There was always something different about the second Ashford brother. He and our sister, now a college student, had bonded over things like bucking the family and their shared love of the horses while Carter and I had a different sort of understanding. 

Conrad didn’t have a vet practice in town, yet he was still the man we called, the one our stable hands trusted when something went wrong. 

We’d almost reached the stable when Conrad cleared his throat. “So, that was some day out on the yacht.” 

I couldn’t help laughing at the way he said it, like he still couldn’t believe it had happened. “Yeah, who’d have thought four Ashford boys could be so useless? I just wish we hadn’t had to rely on Lena and Enzo for help.” 

Conrad grunted. “That again?”

“What?”

He shook his head. “Careful, brother, your father is showing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

He opened the stable door, and the smell of hay hit us in full force. “Just … don’t be him. Don’t carry this stupid feud on into another generation.”

I didn’t get a chance to respond as Jasper walked toward us. “It’s Belle. I think she has colic.” 

I wasn’t sure which horse was Belle, but Conrad didn’t seem to have that issue, leaving me with Red as he led Jasper past a dozen full stalls to get to one on the end. 

Red looked up at me, his eyes boring into mine, and I got the feeling the fox saw way too much. I turned and walked out of the barn, wondering where Duke had gone off to. He hadn’t followed us to the stables, but he’d probably found a good place to sleep—away from Red. 

Being around the fox made him as uneasy as it made me. 

I groaned when Red followed on my heels. “Go back to Conrad.”

He didn’t listen, trailing me to the wooden fence I leaned against to wait for Conrad. The hot sun beat down on me, and I wiped sweat from my forehead. 

Still, the fox stared. 

“No wonder Duke doesn’t like you.” I glared at him. “Stop looking at me.”

He inched closer. 

“I can feel your gaze, Red.” Wow, I really had lost my mind. Standing in the paddock talking to a fox. I rubbed my brow. “Your eyes are creepy.” 

I tried my best to ignore him as I waited. Conrad came out a little while later, and Red hadn’t moved. 

My brother, the traitor, laughed. “He likes to freak people out with the staring.”

“I can see that.” 

Conrad walked past me. I stepped up beside him and kept pace. “Was it colic?” I didn’t know exactly what colic was.

Conrad shook his head. “An infection. I gave Jasper a formula he’ll need to pick up from the compounder, but Belle will be fine.”

“That’s good.”

“I have a few minutes before I need to leave to catch the ferry back to Corolla. Want me to give Duke a checkup while I’m here?”

“Might as well. It’s been a while since he’s been in to the vet.” 

We rounded the barn that held my lab—for want of a better name—and I scanned the lawns for Duke. He was nowhere to be found. 

“Duke!” I called. 

“Where would he have gone?” Conrad asked. 

“There are a few places he hides so I won’t bother him when he sleeps.” 

Conrad laughed. “Smart dog.”

“Too smart.” 

We searched everywhere I could think of around the property. Duke only went into the vineyards with me, and I wasn’t sure where else he could be. 

I tried calling for him one final time, but he didn’t come loping around the corner like I expected. 

Conrad left for the ferry with Red, but I didn’t stop looking. I couldn’t. 

Because I refused to believe Duke was gone.