Summer at Orchard House: An utterly compelling and heart-warming summer romance (Blue Hills Book 1)

by Ellyn Oaksmith

  “Carmen, what if he taught me?”

  “Taught you what?”

  “What if I asked him what you need to know about the wine business, and I shared it with you?”

  “Like a spy?”

  “Oh yeah. Now I’m loving this idea. I’ll ask him your questions and share them with you. No harm, no foul.”

  The idea was enormously appealing, but this was Stella. She’d met someone out of the miniscule Chelan dating pool and was smitten. “Do you really think this is a good way to start off a relationship? Spying?”

  “You’re my best friend in the entire world. I’m closer to your family than I am my own. I’d do anything to help. I’m not going to hurt Paolo. Let me do this. Start a list of questions and email them to me. This can work.”

  Carmen was quiet for a moment. “Okay.”

  “Yay!”

  Carmen’s entire body crumpled with relief. She was in so far above her head. Anything she could glean from Paolo would be a much-needed gift. “Oh, Stell. I love you.”

  “I have an ulterior motive, you know.”

  “What?”

  Stella’s laugh sounded like sunshine. “If you don’t make some fabulous wine and keep Blue Hills open, you won’t stay in town. I’m actually being completely selfish.”

  Stella was just making her feel better. “Thanks, Stell.”

  “Adiós, mi amiga. I’m off to get my nails done and my legs waxed. Then I’m going home to clean and realize I hate all my clothing.”

  Carmen forced herself to stop worrying about the potential fallout and enjoy her friend’s happiness. “Have a wonderful time, Stella.”

  Carmen hung up the phone and looked at Lola, who was tallying up what it was going to cost to house and feed their guest harvesters. Carmen was driving to Wenatchee first thing to apply for food permits.

  “We can’t afford the tents and sleeping bags. We’re going to have to put the guests in Orchard House.”

  “Aye. What can we tell Papi?”

  Lola shook her head. “La verdad. The truth is we can’t find any pickers, so we had to call it summer camp for grown-ups.”

  Carmen shook her head. “He’s not going to believe it.”

  “Just tell him it will get the grapes in on time.”

  That was an old family joke that had suddenly become reality. You could break your leg or faint in the fields, but getting the grapes in on time was the priority.

  Papi used to make them cancel dates and work if they were short of pickers. He always told them that to live on a winery was to help with the harvest. The girls would watch their friends water skiing on the lake and feel sorry for themselves. Complain that he wouldn’t notice if they dropped dead from heatstroke. Now Carmen felt pride that she’d been there to help. Now she understood.

  As long as the grapes get in on time.

  Papi’s life had become hers.

  “Are you waiting for someone else?” asked Mandy, Evan’s PR consultant, who also worked in branding.

  They were having lunch in town. Evan realized he’d chosen the location because he’d seen Carmen here. Every dark-haired woman who walked in made him look up from his salad, which he’d barely touched.

  He shook his head. “No, I thought I saw someone I know.”

  Evan wondered if Mandy had heard rumors. Chelan was a small town. A breeding ground for rumors. He hadn’t helped matters by spending their first meeting complaining about Carmen. How frustrating it was having a neighbor who saw him as the competition. He’d told her that he wanted the Blue Hills vines.

  “But isn’t that how they make their living?” Mandy had asked.

  “I’m offering them a lot of money,” he’d replied.

  “But sometimes people need more than money,” Mandy had explained patiently.

  Evan hadn’t really listened. He’d wanted to vent. Mandy had bluntly stated that he was conflicted. He’d looked her in the eye and said that if he had to put the Alvarez family out of business, he would.

  “Nikki at the Chamber of Commerce said their booth for First Crush is a giant barrel that people get into and crush the grapes,” she said now.

  Evan dropped his fork with distaste. “With their feet? Isn’t that kind of gross?”

  “Not really. They wash their feet first.” She took a bite of her burger. “I guess people really like it. It’s tactile.”

  Evan sighed. He didn’t understand anything. Least of all Carmen. “What can we do?”

  She finished another bite, glancing at Evan’s salad. He’d hardly touched it.

  “Technically we’re only supposed to have a booth, but there’s a workaround if you make a donation to the high school.”

  “Sounds slippery.”

  “Let me worry about it.” She shoved a french fry in her mouth, offering him one. “I was thinking a county fair vibe. What you want is people with little kids being dragged to your booth. I’m thinking a petting zoo, a ring toss with your wines, and a dunking tank.”

  “That sounds like a lot of stuff.”

  “It is. And it won’t be cheap. But people go all out on this thing. It’s our biggest event for fall and people love it. I want your brand to be front and center. Go big or go home.”

  Evan turned his head towards the door. “Yeah. Maybe not the petting zoo. I haven’t had great luck with farm animals.”

  “These will be baby farm animals with lots of people looking after them. I’m telling you, it’s a great pull. Of course, we’ll have a tasting table all set up and lots of swag. Your name will be on the best stuff.” She passed him a catalog of branding items, patting it. “Pick out three to five items and I’ll order them.”

  He left the catalog untouched. “Okay.”

  She ate a few more fries in the silence that followed. “I need your order by the end of the week.”

  Evan nodded. “Fine.”

  Mandy got up from the table, asking Evan if he had any more questions.

  He didn’t. He was too distracted. Mandy lingered for a moment as if she had something else to say. “Okay, don’t forget about the order.”

  “Got it,” Evan said with a brisk nod.

  He was paying the check when he realized that he hadn’t asked Mandy about social media branding. He should have. Why didn’t she bring it up? He scrawled his signature, wishing he hadn’t been so checked out. In a fog. He needed to focus.

  But Evan had other things on his mind.

  “Why do the pickers have to stay here? Can’t they sleep in the cabins in the orchard?” Juan seemed perplexed. Carmen had done her best to explain that the people coming to help with the harvest weren’t exactly pickers. They were harvesters and also guests. Juan couldn’t understand why people would want to pick fruit for free. It was backbreaking work that people like him undertook as a foothold to a better life. They didn’t leave their better life to pick grapes. That was backwards.

  Lola had collected the last boxes of her belongings from her Seattle apartment, said goodbye to her roommate and moved back home. The sisters had been working as a team, getting closer than they’d ever been. When she was focused and motivated, Lola shed her flaky side. Carmen suspected that she adopted her little sister persona as a role because it was expected. When challenged, she blossomed.

  The sisters had planned tonight’s dinner hoping to explain the changes around Orchard House to their father. Cots had been ordered from Amazon. Food from Costco had arrived. The fridge contained so many eggs, they’d had to borrow space from the neighbors down the street. Not Evan’s, although his kitchen was much closer. Carmen had thought about him when she’d picked up the phone. How easy it would be to use the storage issue to call him up, arrive with her hands full and needing help. No. No. No. Even with her days filled to the minute, overflowing with tasks, the one thing she couldn’t do was kick Evan Hollister out of her head.

  “Pero mi corazón, it makes no sense,” Juan Alvarez said. Carmen sighed. It was so hard to make Papi understand. He’d seen a lot
of change in the valley in the past decade. Rich men who’d never walked in dirt drove fancy trucks. People took photographs of their tiny little glasses of wine, called them flights, artfully arranged them on rustic wooden platters. Restaurants grew a few rows of vines, called themselves wineries and bought wine, slapped on their own label and fooled everyone. The price of a pizza was what used to be a day’s pay.

  When Juan had started in the fields, the wine growers had dirt under their nails. They pitched in during the harvest. They put out planks on sawhorses to feed the pickers before they slept in the little cabins at the edge of the orchard. Some people didn’t feed their pickers, but the Alvarez family always had.

  But allowing the pickers into his home? Carmen knew Juan thought this was too much.

  “What’s wrong with the cabins?” Papi asked.

  Did he remember how old and broken down the tiny shacks had become? They’d gone up like tinder two years ago during the wildfire. “They’re gone. But Papi, even if they were there, we can’t put these people in tiny little unheated cabins.”

  “Si. Mami was always the one to remind me not to get conceited. ‘Tú es principalmente mexicano,’ she’d say, when I tried to play the big shot.”

  “Papi, these people who want to see what it’s like to live on a vineyard and work in the field. We’ll rotate them in and out of Orchard House. They’ll get their meals, but we won’t pay them.” Lola looked at her sister for help.

  “Mija, who would want to do that? Don’t people go to Disneyland anymore?”

  “Sí Papi, they go to Disneyland. These are people without kids. People who want to learn about wine. They work in offices all day and want to know what it’s like to be a winemaker. We’ll have winemaking classes and yoga. Mrs. Huttinger is bringing her goat cheese and teaching people how to make it.”

  “If they work in offices, why do they want to make wine?”

  Carmen looked up from her lists, putting her hand on her father’s. “They don’t want to make wine. They want to learn more about it. For fun.”

  Lola gave her sister a look. “Papi, would you be part of the lecture? Tell people your story. How you came here and got your first job. How you worked your way up. How you became a winemaker.”

  Juan looked pleased. “You think people want to hear all that?”

  Carmen could see they’d gotten to him. “Papi, this is exactly what people want. They want to know where all this”—she swept her arms around the land, green and bursting with life—“came from. They want the story behind what they are drinking. And you are the story. You are Blue Hills Vineyard.”

  Her father studied the hill behind them, fragrant with ripening fruit that hung deep purple on the emerald vines. The garden burst with hot pink and white impatiens, marigolds, coral roses and lavender, intercut by lacy maidenhair. It hadn’t looked so good since before Mami died. The remains of Papi’s favorite meal, carne asada, was on the table.

  One of the few sit-down dinners they’d enjoyed in the last few weeks of hard, seemingly endless toil. Carmen had sensed they needed to spend more time with their father, explain more of their plans.

  Juan lifted his wine to the sun, swirling it. “See how the color is slow to return to the bottom? That’s a good sign. If the side of the glass was instantly clean, we’d be drinking a light red wine, which is fine for a Pinot Noir, but this isn’t a noir. It’s a Cab Sauvignon.”

  “I have so much to learn,” Carmen said, fortifying herself with a deep breath. The air smelled of roses, fresh soil and an undercurrent of smoke.

  “We have time,” said her father, patting her hand.

  They raised their glasses together, clinking.

  “To the harvest,” said Lola.

  “To getting the gringos to work for free,” said Juan.

  Her father was a quick study.

  Thirteen

  Celia

  Carmen’s arms were full of food from Bear Foods Natural Market. Turned out, feeding foodies wasn’t cheap. They could get pickers for less than feeding and housing the tourists, but then again, where to find them? With the grapes within picking range, Carmen didn’t have any choice. She and Adella were maxing out their credit cards, hoping this would be the bumper crop it appeared to be. Lola, already in debt, wasn’t allowed to help. If they could only get the fruit in the winery.

  This was the third provisioning trip Carmen had made into town in the last two days. The first crew of harvesters was due on Saturday morning. She’d hired some high schoolers as cooks, convinced a friend to teach a yoga class and found guitar players for a concert in the orchard. Her press release had promised all this and more.

  She just needed to find the more.

  Leaving the store, Carmen noticed two things: Stella waving at her, and Evan sitting at small table on a café patio across from a pretty dark-haired woman. Her throat clenched, heart pounding. Reminding herself that he was an entitled jerk, she clutched her groceries tighter, squeezing the packages until they fell from her arms, scattering on the sidewalk. A cloud of gluten-free pancake mix puffed up in the dry air, covering her black T-shirt and shorts. Bear Foods didn’t offer bags.

  Now this.

  Stella came rushing out of the restaurant. Before she arrived, Carmen heard a familiar voice. “Hey, need some help, neighbor?”

  Carmen looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun. Fatigue filed down her anger, leaving her vulnerable. Evan was heartbreakingly handsome in a denim shirt and white shorts, sunglasses pushed up on his head, pulling back his short curls. He’d gotten a haircut. It suited him. Everything suited him. In another life, she would have thrown herself at him. Hard. She bit her lip to stop from crying. She was so tired. “Oh, hi.”

  He gathered packages of organic baking mixes. “Having some hippies over?”

  She smiled halfheartedly. “Something like that.”

  His sleeves were sprinkled with flour from the leaking packages. “Where’s your car?”

  She pointed down the street. “Shouldn’t you be getting to your date?”

  He bit his lip. “Yeah, I guess. I told her I had to help my neighbor.”

  The woman at the table was Celia Diaz. She moved fast, Carmen thought, wishing she didn’t care. “Right.”

  “Oh hey, hi, Evan. It’s Evan, right?”

  They both turned to Stella, who was appraising Evan. He offered a hand then retracted it. “Sorry my hand is covered with…” He read the label. “Organic spelt flour. Mmmm. Delicious.”

  Stella gathered the remaining groceries off the ground. “I know your wine master. Paolo.”

  Evan nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! Okay, you’re the reason he’s no longer walking around like his dog just died. He’s actually okay to be around. So, thank you.”

  Stella beamed. “I’m showing him more of the valley.”

  They walked to Carmen’s car, where she loaded the groceries. Evan peered in her car, which was loaded with supplies from a Costco run to Wenatchee. “Wow, you’re expecting a crowd.”

  “She’s—” Stella started to talk, then snapped her mouth shut when Carmen gave her a look.

  “I’m stocking up. You know. That time of year. I’m a squirrel. Burying nuts.” Carmen couldn’t stop. “Winter.” She faked burying things in the ground with her hands. “That’s me. Ready Eddie. Winter is coming.”

  Stella grabbed her friend’s hands. “He’s got it, Car.”

  Carmen flushed brilliant red, wondering why Evan always brought out her inner middle schooler, ready to humiliate herself rather than expose her true feelings. Of which, she immediately reminded herself, there were none. Zero. “Okay, I’ll get back to my winter supplies and you get back to your date.”

  Stella forced a fake grin on her face. “Yes, the date. Evan, you are on a date.” She took Carmen’s arm, dragging her away. “I’m sure Celia has gotten over that little kleptomaniac issue. Have fun!”

  Evan stood rooted to the pavement with a puzzled look on his face.

 
; Carmen let herself be pulled down the sidewalk. “He’s dating Celia Diaz?”

  Stella rolled her eyes. “Oh please. The man’s trying to make you jealous.”

  Blue Hills was under siege. Everywhere you looked, someone was cleaning, fluffing, unloading, polishing, shoveling or sorting in anticipation of twenty to thirty guests. Carmen had drilled it into her family’s head that they had to live up to the vine-to-table experience she’d sold. In exchange for their labor, these people expected to be well-fed and given unique experiences tailored to their interests. These were fastidious millennials, who craved authenticity above all else. They wanted to meet the wine master, walk the fields and know the origin of their food and wine.

  “We’re selling them the story of Blue Hills wine,” Carmen had said last night. Before everyone had collapsed into bed, Carmen had held a meeting with the staff, her sisters and Juan, explaining next week’s schedule.

  “Blood, sweat and Pinot Grigio,” her father had said, amused at the entire endeavor.

  Carmen had pointed at her father. “Exactly, Papi!”

  “Carmencita, bonita. These gringos aren’t used to picking. What happens when they start cayendo como moscas?” Papi said. “Those gringos aren’t used to working in the hot sun.”

  Lola put her arm around him. “Papi, let us worry about that. You just be your charming self. ¿Bueno?”

  Juan had settled back into his chair, seemingly satisfied. Carmen could tell that he loved having all these people around. He must have been lonely, rattling around Orchard House, worrying that the place was getting rundown but unable to do anything about it.

  Now, three teenage cooks were in the kitchen, possibly googling “how to feed a crowd” while surveying their supplies and hopefully, Carmen thought, making a list of anything else they’d need. It wasn’t very reassuring when from upstairs, she could hear one of them ask, “What’s this?” and heard another reply, “Eggplant.” A shiver ran down her spine when she thought of them cooking vegetarian and gluten-free meals, but she had to let it go. You got what you paid for. Carmen had promised them credit for volunteering, which they needed for graduation. She made a note to call the high school principal to make sure the work credits would count on their transcripts.