Fifty-seven

Leah converted the estate’s unused stables into a makeshift office—a sort of war room for outreach and planning for the Harvest Circle. It was the one space that was large enough for the assembled team to get some work done while being out of the way enough that Leonard wasn’t likely to intrude.

Steven helped her move a large folding table and chairs from the barn and bought portable chargers for their phones and laptops. She ordered a whiteboard, put it on a stand, and moved a bunch of fans from the house. At noon, heat was battling the whirring standing fans and winning.

The invite list was close to one hundred women, and Leah considered that number just the beginning. The more people who attended the event, the greater their chance of presales.

It was a lot to mobilize in a short amount of time. Still, calling Sadie to come help had been impulsive. Realistically, they could manage without her. Leah had just wanted her there for emotional reasons, but that wasn’t a good enough reason to pull her away from school.

“I’m sorry—you really don’t have to come,” she’d said in another phone call, this one directly after the dinner when her father okayed the plan. But it was too late: Sadie was all in.

Now she was busy helping Steven sort out the Hollander Estates mailing list and the reservation log from the past few months.

“Any luck with that book club from Virginia?”

“I left a voicemail,” Sadie said.

“So we have our book groups here.” Leah made a circle on the whiteboard. “Our cheese class list, our email list from the guestbook they keep in the tasting room, and the emails from the newsletter list. When is the e-vite going to be ready to go out?”

“I’m almost finished with it,” Bridget said from her corner. She was hunched over a laptop working in a graphic design application.

Leah still didn’t have the full story of the reconciliation between her brother and Bridget, but she could see that Asher finally believed what Bridget had told Leah the day she was crying in the oak room: She didn’t care about Asher’s money. She didn’t care about leaving the winery. She only cared about him.

“We’re still missing a bunch of emails,” Sadie said. “I’m working on the customers that only gave us phone numbers.”

Hollander’s weakness in maintaining a reliable mailing list was showing. Leah needed to act quickly; with just a few weeks to go before harvest, they had to give people enough time to plan if they wanted to attend the event. She and Steven had talked about how it was all very much a numbers game: realistically, only a fraction of the women they invited would actually show up, and only a fraction of them would preorder the rosé. So the more they started out with, the greater the odds of that final fraction generating enough sales to make an impact.

A flash of green entered Leah’s field of vision.

“What’s going on here?” Vivian strode into the stable, dressed in head-to-toe emerald: green blouse, green skirt, and a green straw hat.

“Gran, what’s going on with you?” Sadie said. “That’s a serious monochrome color commitment.”

“This is camouflage,” Vivian said. “I had to follow Steven here, slinking around the grounds like a criminal on my own property, since I’ve been excluded from . . . well, from whatever this is.”

Leah sighed. “Mom, I was going to loop you in. But we wanted to get things started.”

“Get what started?” She lifted her sunglasses and squinted at the whiteboard.

“We’re getting our invitation list together for the Harvest Circle.”

“I thought you were just inviting a few friends.”

“It’s a little . . . broader than that.”

“What do you mean?” Vivian said.

Leah and Steven exchanged a look. “Do you really want to know? Because when Dad gave me a hard time over dinner the other night, you backed him up.”

“I didn’t back him up, Leah. I’m just trying to keep the peace. We’ve all been through enough.”

Leah nodded. “Fair enough. But I don’t want him involved. So if you feel caught in the middle you should probably leave.”

“Well, I certainly can’t leave now. Not without knowing what you’re up to.”

“Fine,” Leah said. “If you really want to know, we’re holding a ‘preferred customer’ Harvest Circle. Anyone who comes will get an exclusive chance to preorder our first vintage of Hollander rosé.”

“How can they buy wine we don’t have?”

“That’s why I said preorder.”

“Why would they do that?” Vivian crossed her arms.

“That’s the second part of the idea: we’re telling everyone to bring something from their home garden or other place that’s meaningful to them. And we’re going to hold a giant Harvest Circle, and everyone will get to contribute to our starter yeast. I’m hoping they’ll find this unique and inspiring, and that they all want to make sure they get a bottle when it’s available.”

“Leah! It’s a good thing your father hasn’t caught wind of this. What happens when we aren’t able to make the rosé that these customers paid for?”

“We can always refund money. But if we don’t at least try something different, we’ll definitely never get to next spring. This at least gives us a fighting chance.”

Vivian turned to Steven. “And you support this idea?”

“I do,” he said.

“I do, too,” Bridget said from the corner.

Vivian removed her hat and began fanning herself. “Everyone’s lost their senses.”

Steven shook his head—her mother, dramatic as always.

“Mom, we need to reach out to as many women who’ve visited this place as possible—even ones who haven’t. I’ll show you our list, and you let me know if I’ve forgotten anyone.”

Sadie looked up from her laptop. “I can think of one person we should invite. Not because she’ll buy the wine but because she should be here.”

“Who?” Leah said.

“Mateo’s mother. This ceremony was her idea in the first place.”

“Maria Eugenia? Oh, she left for Guatemala a long time ago,” Vivian said. “She didn’t like it here.”

“She didn’t like it here because there was no place for her. Just like there wasn’t a place for my mother,” Sadie said. “I think we should invite her and offer to fly her in for it. To thank her. If we’re really truly looking to make female contribution a thing around here.”

Leah knew Sadie was right. And from the look on Vivian’s face, she did, too. For too long, they’d all been second-class citizens, going back to the day when Leonard fired their one female employee: Delphine. What had been her great sin? Hooking up with a wine buyer or two from their restaurant accounts? Her father never would have fired a man for that—at least, not back in the eighties. It had been the usual, old-fashioned double standard.

She didn’t share this thought with the group. This invitation was one she would pursue privately; the connection to the baron would freak out Vivian, and understandably so. But the truth was, Delphine had also been a victim of Henri de Villard. He’d cast her out of her home just as Leonard had cast her out of Hollander Estates. All that was missing was the scarlet letter.

Sadie was right: if they were going to create a new era at Hollander Estates, it was time to correct the mistakes of the past.

---

The library was at its most majestic at night. When sun-filled, the room had a charm, an allure that suggested hours of reading curled up in a chair. But at night, the space beckoned discovery. It promised there was magic to be found among the stacks.

And there had been; Sadie’s inspiration for her thesis had been discovered there. She tapped her pen on the table, looking up at the winding narrow stairs that led to the second-level shelves.

The room was also one of the few places at the vineyard that didn’t remind her, with every rustling tree and warm breeze and sunset, of Mateo. It took all of her willpower and self-respect not to seek him out. She’d caught a few glimpses of him from afar, and every time she was useless for a solid few hours afterward.

She flipped through her dog-eared, Post-it-noted copy of Scruples, trailing her finger along the highlighted passages she was using as support text in her paper. She skimmed over a section she wasn’t using but one that jumped off the page given her current state of mind: She was no Emma Bovary, no Anna Karenina, no Camille—no spineless, adoring, passive creature who would let a man take away her reason for living by taking away his love.

Damn right, Sadie thought. Still, the sooner she got back to campus, the better. Why torture herself? She gave her mother some help, now it was time to go. The thing was, she felt oddly torn between the two places. Before now, missing classes for any reason was unthinkable. But the vineyard felt more real and urgent than her life at school. She wanted to be a writer, and to be a writer she had to experience things. The creative juice she needed would not be found in the pages of a book—at least, not all of it.

“Sadie.”

She jumped at the voice behind her. Mateo’s voice. Incredulous, she turned around. He stood in the doorway, dressed in his usual jeans and a T-shirt, tan and achingly beautiful.

He walked toward her, and it seemed to happen in slow motion.

She stood up. “What are you doing here?”

“Your mother told me this was where I might find you.”

Sadie processed this: He’d asked her mother about her? Did he specifically track Leah down, or did they just happen to run into each other? It didn’t matter. Either way, she and Mateo were talking for the first time since the night she’d stood in the pouring rain, only to have him blame her for her grandfather’s mistakes. And yes, she had made a slightly obnoxious comment about being published in The New Yorker. Clearly not the finest moment for either one of them.

“You spoke to my mother?” she said.

“I did. And your mother just spoke to my mother.”

That didn’t compute for a moment, but then she realized her mother had taken her suggestion to invite Maria Eugenia to the Harvest Circle. Mateo confirmed this. “And Leah offered to fly her in. She said it was all your idea.”

Sadie nodded.

“What made you do that?” he said.

“I kept thinking about the photo in your office,” Sadie said. “The one she took of the flowers in the wine. Also, what you said the day you told me about her.”

“What did I say?”

“That she has a feminist heart.” If there was one thing Sadie had learned that summer, it was that feminism took all different forms.

He smiled. “Well, I wanted to thank you. It was a really thoughtful gesture.”

“I’ve missed you,” she blurted out.

“Sadie . . .”

“I know, I know—my grandfather, your father, the sale of the winery. I’m just saying . . .” She crossed her arms, trying to stay measured even as her emotions bubbled up to the surface. Feelings she’d been trying to bury in schoolwork. In reading. In a campus book club that didn’t get off the ground. “I thought being back at school would help me forget about you. But it hasn’t. And what I said about The New Yorker? Writing isn’t as important as what you’re doing here. I create stories, but you create life.”

He looked down at the ground, taking a long pause before responding. When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet. “For the record, I wasn’t blaming you for what’s happened with the winery. I was, in a clumsy way, trying to explain that it’s complicated. Too complicated—especially since we have totally different lives.”

She swallowed hard.

“I mean, our lives aren’t that different. I’m here now, trying to help my mother save this place. And if things work out, I’ll be back more often. I want to be here. Not just because it’s where my family lives. Great writers are a part of something larger than themselves. That photo in your office of the man writing in chalk on the building to represent the lost of Guatemala—his art means something. It’s not just academic or intellectual. I want my life and my work to mean something, too. So if we can keep this place in the family, I want to come back as much as possible. And even if that doesn’t happen, well, I still want to open up my life more. And maybe, I don’t know, you and I can hang out. I want to try. Don’t you?”

It was hard to lay her feelings so bare in front of him, but it would be even harder to keep them unspoken and always wonder, what if? If he didn’t feel the same way, at least she knew she had done all she could. She would know the ending would not be her fault.

He moved closer, touching a lock of her hair, his eyes searching her face. She held his gaze until he finally leaned forward to kiss her gently on the lips. She threw her arms around him, pulling him against her. Their kiss deepened. This was it, Sadie thought. This was love. This was her man. The rest of her life would have to fit around this.

“I guess I should have known I wasn’t coming here just to thank you,” he murmured. “I missed you, too. And yes, I want to spend more time together. We’ll figure it out.”

“No time like the present,” she said.

“Oh, yeah?”

“I’ve always wanted to have sex in a library.” And by “always,” she meant suddenly—right in that moment.

“Very funny,” he said.

“I’m serious.”

“Someone could walk in,” Mateo said.

“They won’t,” Sadie said. But just to be safe, she grabbed his hand and led him up the narrow winding stairs to the second level. Sadie’s eyes immediately went to the shelf where she’d found the books, all now returned to their spots: Lace. Scruples. Chances. If she hadn’t read those novels, would she be standing there with Mateo? Would she have figured out a thesis? She didn’t know. But she suspected her life would look very different without the words written by those bold women so long ago.

“Here?” he said, looking at the floor space between the banister and the bookshelves.

“Yeah,” she said.

“I’ve got a lot to learn about you, Sadie Bailey. I’ve never seen this side before.” He started kissing her again. “But I like it.”

They fell to the ground, and she laughed, feeling a thrill as if on the dip of a roller coaster. Mateo slipped his hand under her T-shirt, and her heart beat wildly.

Mateo kissed her neck, sighing with pleasure, pulled her T-shirt over her head. Sadie marveled at the curve of his jaw, his long dark lashes on his cheeks, the lock of hair falling across his forehead. As his hand moved between her thighs, she luxuriated in their surroundings, wondering if there had ever been a better use of a library. It was hot. It was forbidden.

It was just like something out of a trashy novel.