Dante wiped his face with the back of his wrist and put the last corked bottle in the crate. He’d tried to get his father to change to twist-top lids, but that was something he wouldn’t budge on. So, corking it was.
He’d been at it for the last five hours. Repetitive jobs like this helped to calm him on a normal day. After a night of the best sex he’d never expected to have? It was a godsend.
Monotonous repetition did wonders for zoning out.
He gave the pneumatic corker a pat and stepped back, surveying his handiwork.
Not bad.
Forty crates. Just under five hundred bottles. Now they had to sit for a few days before he could cellar them.
He wiped his hands on a clean rag and left the closed-up shed. He’d head back after a coffee and something to eat.
He stepped into the kitchen of the cellar door café and leaned against the wall.
“Whatcha got for me to eat, Angel?”
Michelangelo Casellati didn’t even look at him. He waved to a prep bench containing just-decorated biscuits.
“Help yourself.”
Dante wandered over and poured himself a coffee from the plunger that looked like it had recently been made.
Yep. Still warm. Good enough.
He stirred a teaspoon of sugar in and sipped while deciding which of Angel’s biscuits he’d pinch.
Leo’s raucous laughter mixed with his sister’s more restrained pitch came through the doorway to the small cellar door café.
He smiled at the sound. One of the perks of being part of a large Italian family—there was always someone making noise, laughing, or goofing around. He still missed his mother and her vivacious laugh every single day, even after ten years of her being gone, but they’d picked up and got on with everything. She’d left a gaping hole, but they’d finally got to a point where they could talk about her freely and have it be with love and laughter, not sorrow.
He swiped a finger through some semi-set icing, testing the flavour.
“You’re going to eat that.”
Dante grinned to himself and swiped a big line down the centre of the large, star-shaped biscuit and pretended to go for a second one.
“Errgh!” A wadded-up tea towel hit him square in the back of the head. He turned, rubbing his head. “What did you do that for?”
Angel glowered at him. “Eat the one you mutilated.”
Dante forced the shit-eating grin that wanted to erupt to stay hidden. He was in too good a mood this morning to be fooled by Angel’s surliness.
“Why Michelangelo, are you worried I’ll mess up your pretty little cookies? Did you make them for your turtle friends?”
Using his full name had the desired effect. Angel hated that name with a passion. He rounded the stainless steel bench and grabbed Dante in a headlock before he could escape, and scruffed his knuckles into the top of Dante’s head.
“Ow! Stop it!”
Dante couldn’t stop laughing. He twisted and pulled but couldn’t get out of his older brother’s grip. Angel had done this to him since he was a tiny kid and with Angel being bigger than him, he could never seem to get away.
He slapped at Angel, which only made him tighten his grip. “Get out of it. Let me go.”
Angel’s laughter matched his own. “Never, Hell Child.”
“At least I’m not a mutant turtle.”
Angel leaned down and planted a massive, noisy kiss on the top of his head and shoved him out of the way.
“Get out of my kitchen. You’re a pain in my ass.”
Dante danced back out of Angel’s reach and rubbed at the top of his head. Ria watched with a huge grin from the doorway. He loved stirring his brothers about their names. Thank heaven his parents hadn’t completed the foursome and called him Donatello.
That would’ve been too painful to bear, particularly as a teen.
His mother had been obsessed with the renaissance masters and named her sons accordingly. She hadn’t known about the Ninja Turtles until much later. It was lucky his brothers were blessed in the looks department; it had kept the teasing to a minimum.
And one of the reasons Angel had insisted they call him Angel early on.
When they were all together, though, with the Crossing having a large Italian population, they all knew and ribbed him about it mercilessly. Valeria had been lucky enough to be named after an actress, preferring Ria to any other iteration, particularly Val.
And him? He’d been named after Dante’s Inferno.
His mother had been on a huge poetry binge when she’d been pregnant with him, and he’d been named after the book she’d been in the middle of.
“Still better than a reptile,” he muttered pointedly.
Leo pushed past Ria into the kitchen, his phone held out. “Dude, where’s your phone? Belle’s been trying to get you.”
Raphael leaned against the doorway behind Ria. “What’s going on?”
Dante almost smiled at the shivers that ran over his skin and pooled as nerves in his gut. He took the phone and shrugged. “Hey, B!”
Leo’s frown hadn’t left his face. “I don’t know, Raph. She sounds really upset.”
The smile drained from Dante’s face at the choked sadness echoing down the line at him. He sent a distraught look at his family.
“Shit. I’m coming.”
He tossed the phone back to Leo and spotted a set of keys on the small rolling bench near the door.
“I’m taking your car, Ria.”
He didn’t have time to go look for his own keys in the shed. All three of his brothers followed, piling into the car with him. He glanced at them as he gunned the engine.
“We’re coming, too,” Angel said. “Whatever it is, we’re here.”
Dante nodded, oddly choked up at his brothers’ unconditional support. They might fight and argue and bicker, but when it came down to it, the Casellati family stuck together.
Always.
And because Belle was his special person, she was family by extension.
Angel’s hand gripped his shoulder. Dante glanced at him in the rear-view mirror as they flew up the driveway.
A large CLOSED sign hung from the fancy side gates leading into Sapphire Sky’s drive.
Dante swore again and hit the steering wheel. They hadn’t closed the winery in more years than he could remember, even during the last long drought.
“Someone messed with Jack’s contest entry vats. They’re ruined. There’s wine everywhere. Belle’s …” He shrugged and shook his head. “She’s really shook up.”
Cussing and headshakes accompanied his short explanation. They all knew how much wine was involved. They all knew it could break them.
Dante swung to a stop in a spray of gravel. They piled out and hurried to the small group of people who’d turned to face them.
Belle’s face crumpled and she rushed the last couple of feet to Dante. He threw his arms around her, knowing that was what she needed most right now.
He stroked her back and laid his cheek to the top of her head. She shook so badly he worried she’d fall apart on him.
He noticed his brothers pointing and talking with Jack, Callum, and Mac, nodding, with grim expressions tightening their faces.
“What do we do now?” Belle whispered.
He hugged her tighter.
“We help, is what we do,” Leo said.
Raph nodded. “I can come help out here with whatever you need each day. I’m not doing much at home right now. I’ve only been back a couple of weeks and Dad hasn’t dumped any particular jobs on me yet.”
Dante frowned. “I—”
Leo looked at him and shook his head. “You’re busy bottling, and with the wine. You’re needed over there. Raph’s right, he’s available.” He looked at Belle’s dad. “I can come help, as well. Whatever you need, we can sort it out.”
Callum bit his lip and looked away from them, but not fast enough that Dante didn’t see the telltale gleam of tears in his eyes. Something Dante had never seen from him before.
A grim Jack just nodded and looked at the concrete floor. “Thanks, guys. That means a lot.”
Belle pushed back and tried to smile. She sighed and stopped trying. “You guys are awesome. Has anyone ever told you that?”
Leo and Raph smiled sadly. Dante chucked her gently under the chin. He looked at her carefully.
No tears. She still looked rattled enough to fall to pieces, but she wasn’t crying.
“Look on the bright side, Belle. You get to spend time with Raph,” Leo said, sending Dante a side look.
Jack coughed a laugh. Belle raised an eyebrow, and Raph looked far too pleased with the idea.
“She’s thrilled, I’m sure,” Dante muttered, anything but thrilled himself. Raph would likely be a right pain in the ass regarding Belle once the stress of the day had eased. Particularly since he himself had to leave in two days to attend a course in Sydney. He wouldn’t be there to tell Raph to back off for five whole days.
Belle’s face creased in what looked like the beginnings of a smile. At the least, she’d lost the frightened waif look that had worried him so much.
“Ecstatic,” she replied, tongue firmly in cheek.
Light chuckles smattered through the small group. He really needed to thank his brothers later; they’d managed to lighten the sombre mood that pervaded the Davises.
That alone was worth everything to him.
Leo clamped his large hand on Callum’s shoulder. “What do you need us to do?”