“I made it,” I told him. “I thought this was a business meeting.”

  Julian looked down at his own fitted khakis, teal polo, and sharp dove-gray jacket. I was pure business, but Julian had style. And he prided himself on it.

  “This is business attire for me.”

  Hollin just laughed and stuck his hand out. “I don’t want to even know what you think about what I’m wearing.”

  I just shook my head.

  Hollin Abbey had been born and bred a Lubbock cowboy, complete with boots and belt buckle. I’d bet real money on his hat being in his truck. He wore Wranglers, a plaid button-up, and a jean jacket layered under a leather jacket. Cowboy who rode Harleys on the weekends. A conundrum of clichés. I’d thought that the first time my mother introduced us to her brother Greg and our three cousins: Hollin, Campbell, and Nora.

  It was still strange to have all this family around now. For so long, it had just been me and Julian against the world. Now we had three cousins on our mom’s side and five Wright cousins on our dad’s side. I worked with Jensen, Austin, and Morgan through Wright Construction and Jensen Wright Architecture. Landon was my neighbor when he was in town and not out, golfing professionally. Sutton was the youngest and Annie’s best friend. So I didn’t see much of her…more of her husband, David, the CFO of Wright Construction. Either way, it was a lot of family, and I was still getting used to it.

  “Have you heard from the agent?” I asked them.

  Hollin nodded. “Yeah, Larissa should be here in five. She got caught with her five kids after her husband’s meeting ran over.”

  “Perfect.”

  “How’d it go with Sophia?” Julian asked.

  “Well,” I said with a pause. It wasn’t like I could tell them about Annie. Not after she’d disappeared this morning. “It didn’t really happen.”

  “What? You’ve been trying to get this meeting for weeks,” Julian said. “How can one woman give you this much runaround?”

  “Yeah. Aren’t you some heartthrob?” Hollin joked.

  “That’s Julian.”

  Julian rolled his eyes. “Not anymore. Ashleigh and I have been together for almost two years.” He gestured back to me. “It’d be you if you didn’t fuck up all your relationships.”

  “Solid point,” I said with a shrug. “Anyway, I saw her, and she gave me a case of wine to try before our next meeting. I know in one of our messages, she had a sommelier recommendation who lives in Houston but studied in France. So, we have options for hiring if we go through with this.”

  “Oh, wine to try,” Hollin said eagerly. “We’ll all have to taste-test what she sent over.”

  I frowned. “I might have already tasted all the red bottles.”

  “Alone?” Julian asked in confusion. “You never drink alone.”

  He was right. I avoided that habit after seeing how it had turned my father into more of a monster than he already was. Apparently, alcoholism ran thick like a river through our family.

  “No, I wasn’t alone,” I said, turning back to stare up at the barn.

  I didn’t miss the look that passed between Julian and Hollin. They’d gotten close over the last three years. They played on the same rec soccer team, and their friendship had only strengthened.

  “Was it that blonde?” Julian asked with a cringe. “What was her name?”

  “Leslie?” Hollin offered.

  “No. It doesn’t matter who it was.”

  “Why doesn’t it matter?”

  “Because it doesn’t matter,” I insisted, wanting to be done with this conversation. “Anyway, she’d kill me if I told you.”

  “So, we know her then?” Hollin asked.

  I frowned. Well, shit.

  “Forget I said anything.”

  Julian laughed. “No chance in hell.” He glanced at Hollin. “Who do we know who would hate him for telling us?”

  Then at the same time, they said, “Annie.”

  I closed my eyes in resignation. Jesus Christ, was I that transparent?

  “Fine. Yes, it was Annie. Just don’t tell her I told you.”

  “How did that even happen?” Hollin asked. He tilted his head and ran a hand through his blond beard, his light-blue eyes revealing his shock. “I thought she, like…hated you?”

  “She doesn’t hate me.”

  “Well, obviously not anymore,” Julian said with another barely concealed laughter. His dark eyes, the mirror of mine, were full of mirth. “But you brought Missy to Jensen’s wedding. No one was oblivious to the argument that ensued.”

  I cringed. “Yeah, that was a mistake.”

  “Oh, Jordan Wright makes mistakes?” Hollin said with a laugh.

  Julian grinned. “Only in relationships.”

  “I didn’t mean for all of that to happen. It was a misunderstanding.”

  “Meaning…you weren’t really as broken up as you thought you were.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I told you that space didn’t mean a break up.”

  I shrugged. “It felt concrete to me. So when I came back to Vancouver, Missy thought we were still together. I didn’t know how to back out of bringing her to the wedding.”

  “Hi, I fucked someone else in Lubbock, it’s over?” Hollin suggested with a laugh.

  “Well, when she found out about Annie at the wedding, that solidified the break up,” Julian said.

  It sure did. And ruined any chance I had with Annie too.

  “I was an idiot, all right?” I ran a hand back through my hair. “It was complicated with Missy. She was there for me when we got Mom’s cancer diagnosis. It felt like the right thing at the time.”

  Julian nodded absentmindedly, as if he understood. Things had been different when we found out that Mom had breast cancer for a third time. Everything screeched to a halt. We’d moved here to be with her during her treatment, afraid that this was going to be the time where cancer took her from us. Everything after the diagnosis was still a bit of a blur, and I felt like maybe we should both be given a little slack for anything that happened. Not that Missy or Annie appreciated how stupid I’d been then.

  Luckily, Mom was in remission and happier than ever, being back in her hometown with her siblings. She spent every weekend with her siblings, Greg and Lori, and Lori’s wife, Vail.

  “Yeah, but I’m still shocked Annie would talked to you. How did that happen?” Julian pushed. “She’s in med school. Every time she comes for a Tacos game, she seems half-frazzled and part-manic. She constantly says she doesn’t have time for anything but this one game a week.”

  I shrugged and was saved from answering by Larissa showing up for our meeting.

  “Sorry! Sorry! I’m here,” she said, brushing her dark blonde hair out of her face and striding over to meet us. “I always swear I’m going to be on time, and then five kids.” She shrugged helplessly. “Happens.”

  “It’s not a problem,” I insisted and shook her hand.

  “So good to see you all again. Where would you like to begin? The barn, cellars, vineyard?”

  “Let’s start with the barn,” Hollin said cheerily.

  Hollin had worked at the now-defunct West Texas Winery for years before it finally collapsed due to a loss of capital. The wine itself was delicious. I still couldn’t figure out where their money problems had originated. It was a problem I’d wanted to solve before agreeing to this endeavor. Though having Hollin on board, who knew every inch of the process of the winery, made me feel a lot better.

  “Barn it is!” Larissa said, taking a fortifying sip of her coffee.

  I braced myself and followed them inside. I hadn’t been here in three long years. Even when Julian and Hollin tried to drag me in for weekend drinks. I’d spent one night here with Annie, and the memory lingered strong enough that I didn’t particularly want a repeat. Country music, line dancing, dirt floor, and cheap booze would never be my scene again.

  But as soon as I stepped inside, the potential for what this place could be swept over me. It had character. I could almost see all the possibilities that Julian and Hollin had been trying to bang into my head since the get-go. Saw the truth in this dusty, old barn—the Wright Vineyard.

  9

  Annie

  “I think this is the last bag,” I said, hauling the trash bag full of stuff out of my bedroom and dumping it into the mostly intact living room.

  Jennifer looked on with a frown. “I cannot believe this happened. I was only gone for a couple days!”

  “It wouldn’t have stopped the flood if you’d been here.”

  “No, but I might have been home and caught it sooner. Before it decimated your room.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. “That would have been nice, except that it wasn’t flooding when I went to sleep and something clearly burst in the middle of the night.”

  “But I would have woken up before you,” Jennifer offered.

  Which was true. I was as much a vampire as I could manage, and Jennifer believed that the early bird caught the worm. She probably would have noticed the flood at, like, five a.m. instead of almost noon. By that time, there had pretty much been nothing I could do, except panic. Which I’d done perfectly.

  “What did the landlord say?” Jennifer asked. She stood from her seat on the undamaged living room chair and chewed on her nails. A bad habit she’d never been able to give up.

  I rolled my eyes dramatically. “Bastard called me at the ass crack of dawn to come over and inspect the damage. He made some notes and then left. Said he’d be in contact.”

  I’d had to get over here so early that I had to ditch Jordan’s place. He looked so peaceful that I didn’t dare wake him. I’d left a note on his fridge, but I hadn’t heard from him since. Guess that was that.

  Probably for the better anyway. I had no time for…whatever that had been. The sex had been great, but if he wanted something more than sex, well, that wasn’t happening. I’d have to chalk it up to a drunken mistake.

  “Well, the wedding was at least good, wasn’t it?”

  Jennifer had just wandered into the kitchen and reappeared with a dreamy look in her eye and a bag of cat food. “Oh! It was amazing,” she said. “Come with me to feed Avocado and Bacon and then I can show you the pics on my camera.”

  I couldn’t keep from laughing. “You know if you name the stray cats then they become your cats, Jen.”

  She wrinkled her nose at me. “I don’t like cats.”

  “You literally have cat food in your hand.”

  “Well, I’m not going to let them starve,” she said as if that made sense.

  We wandered outside and she filled two small bowls at the front of the house. I thought it was ridiculous that she was feeding two cats that didn’t even belong to her. But despite her insistence that she didn’t like cats, she clearly loved these cats. She’d named them, for God’s sake.

  “Cado! Bakey!” she called.

  And out of the bushes came a black cat, Bacon, and an orange and white cat, Avocado.

  “Here you go, guys,” Jennifer said. The cats avoided her and went straight for the food. She stood as if all of this was totally normal. “Okay, my camera?”

  I shook my head and followed her back inside. She disappeared into her room as I observed the wreckage with a sigh. I was going to need to go shopping or else I’d start and end my last semester of medical school with what I had in my room right this minute. Because there would be no time to go otherwise.

  Jennifer reappeared with her fancy Canon Rebel and scrolled through the hundreds of images she’d taken at the wedding in Sedona this weekend. Over the last three years, she’d really embraced her photography. And as I’d always known she would be, she was now a coveted travel photographer. During the busy season, we never saw each other. Passing like boats in the breeze as I lived at the medical school all week and she darted off to unknown destinations every weekend. I’d be jealous of how much she traveled if I wasn’t so damn proud of her.

  A knock on the door pulled us away from the pictures, and before I could even jump up, the handle twisted, and my best friend, Sutton Wright, entered. We’d known each other since we were babies and grown up together from diapers to cheerleading uniforms to Texas Tech to now with her walking into my house without an invitation.

  “Hey, girlie,” Sutton said.

  Her smile was bright, and her hair was a lighter blonde than it had been in a decade. All the Wrights had dark hair and eyes. It was almost jarring to see her blonde, but she loved it.

  “Sut!” I said with a smile. “Did you come over to take me shopping?”

  Sutton laughed and shook her head. “Soccer game, remember?”

  I groaned. “Right. I almost forgot. Where are Madison and Jason?”

  Sutton had a five-year-old, Jason, with her first husband, Maverick. He’d passed away four years ago now. I’d been there when it happened. It was half of the reason that I was in medical school. I’d sworn that I’d never stand by and not be able to do anything ever again.

  Sut had remarried last year, and within nine months, she’d had her second baby, Madison. She was the most gorgeous kid I’d ever seen. She could be one of those baby models. I was the godmother and always itched to hold the little ball of sunshine.

  “They’re with David.” She put her hands to her chest. “I had to pump all afternoon to make sure we had milk. I didn’t have enough stocked up. Ugh! My boobs!”

  Jennifer and I laughed.

  “Your boobs look amazing,” I told her.

  “They do, don’t they?” Sutton said, sticking her chest out. “I’ve always had such tiny boobs. I’ll be sad when these go away.”

  Jennifer shook her head. “You could get a boob job.”

  Sutton pointed at her. “Good idea.”

  “Let me see if my soccer bag made it through the flood,” I told them and then headed back to my room.

  I checked my phone along the way to see if Jordan had texted. But of course, he hadn’t. I didn’t even know why I cared. It had been one night. Just like last time. I’d been stupid to expect something then, and I wasn’t going to be that stupid again.

  My bag wasn’t in my room, which was a relief, but that meant I didn’t know where it was. I stepped into the garage, popped open the trunk of my car, and dug around until I found the bag. When I opened it, the smell from my last game a month ago wafted up to me. I cringed away.

  “Shit,” I muttered.

  Good news: it hadn’t been ruined by the flood.

  Bad news: I’d been so worried about finals last semester that laundry slipped my mind.

  I trudged back inside and threw my uniform and socks into the dryer with a wet washcloth and dryer sheet. It wasn’t a perfect solution. It only took a few minutes, and I promised the uniform I’d take care of it after the game. Then I changed into the outfit—red shorts and jersey with the number six on it and our team name, The Tacos.

  “Ready to go,” I said to my friends as I stepped back into the living room. “Let me see if Isaac needs a ride.”

  “Is he back from New York?” Sutton asked.

  She put her hands under her chin and looked at me dreamily. Jennifer mirrored her look.

  I bit my lip and nodded. “I still can’t believe it all happened!”

  My brother, Isaac, had dated Peyton Medina all through high school, but she’d left to go to the New York City Ballet. They’d reconnected while she was in town for The Nutcracker. We were all still unbelievably happy for them. Almost seemed too good to be true. But after his first wife, Abby, had died in childbirth, I’d say that my brother deserved all the happiness in the world.

  Bro, you want a ride to the Tacos match?

  A second later, my phone dinged.

  Appreciate it. Mom is coming over in twenty to watch Aly.

  I’ll come inside to kiss my favorite niece.

  She’s your only niece.

  All the more reason.

  “He’s in,” I told them.

  “Sweet. Now that he’s off the market, maybe Jennifer can stop making goo-goo eyes at him,” Sutton said as we headed for her upgraded Audi SUV.

  “I do not make goo-goo eyes at him!” Jennifer protested, slinking to the backseat.

  “You kind of do,” Sutton teased.

  “Ew,” I muttered.

  “He just really knows how to play soccer. That’s all I’m saying,” Jennifer said. “He and Julian and Blaire really bring the team together.”

  Though my brother had been recruited to a Division I school and Julian had played in college, Blaire was the star of the Tacos. She was a power forward and goals from girls counted double in this league. She was the reason we’d killed it last season. Plus, she was just a really fun down to earth girl.

  I couldn’t resist ribbing Jennifer though. “Hey! I’m on the team, too.”

  Jennifer’s cheeks heated. “That’s not what I meant!”

  “No, you meant that Isaac knows how to dribble, but Julian—”

  “Stop!” Jennifer said.

  Sutton laughed. “Don’t pick on her.”

  “I just wish that it had worked out with you and Julian,” I admitted. “No one wants to deal with Ashleigh Sinclair.”

  “It was one date,” Jennifer said, looking down at the camera still strung around her neck.

  “And the wedding!” Sutton said.

  “Fine. One perfect kiss with Julian Wright.” She shrugged. “And then he found someone more in his league.” She didn’t even sound upset about it. Just thought it was how things were. Sure didn’t stop her from watching him and wishing. I knew that even if she wouldn’t admit it.