Let It Breathe

by Tawna Fenske

  “Yes,” Reese said, moving to one side as Clay stepped to the other and held the door open for the women to pass. A second woman wore designer boots and clutched a dog-eared copy of Wine Trails of Oregon. The third woman toted a handbag Reese knew cost more than her car. All three were flushed with wine and the exertion of climbing up the walkway. Reese was glad the new tasting room would be on lower ground with a parking lot and a picnic area and—

  “Aren’t you a gentleman, holding the door for us?” giggled one of the women as she beamed up at Clay. “Very sweet.”

  “Ma’am,” Clay said, and pulled the door closed behind them.

  “Welcome to Sunridge Vineyards, ladies,” Reese said as she moved toward the wine bar. “Are you here to do some tasting?”

  “We are,” agreed Pink Cashmere. “The guy in the tasting room at Larchwood Vineyards said you weren’t open, but I knew you would be.”

  Reese gritted her teeth, silently cursing the neighboring vineyard owner. “He does that sometimes, but I can assure you, we’re open. Seven days a week, eleven to six. Will you pardon me for just a moment?”

  She scrambled into her office and tucked the baby opossum into a small pouch she’d placed on a heat pad in the cage. Latching the cage door, she turned to scrub her hands at the sink before hustling back to the tasting area. Clay was standing at one end of the bar smiling his old familiar smile at the customers, and Reese felt her heart twist.

  “So were you ladies hoping to do our full tasting menu, or just some select wines?” she called.

  “The full thing,” piped the woman toting the wine book. “We hear your Pinot Blanc is just to die for.”

  “It hasn’t killed anyone yet, but the day is still early,” Reese said with deliberate cheer.

  She reached up and grabbed three wineglasses from the overhead rack, tugging the hem of her shirt as it rode up. She glanced at Clay, wondering whether he’d stick around or wait outside.

  He was watching her with an expression that gave Reese the peculiar sense he could see right through her clothes. She ordered herself not to think too much about it as the women sidled up to the bar. It wasn’t really a bar so much as a large piece of plywood over two retired wine barrels. The linen cloth Reese had covered it with added a small touch of class, but still.

  “So what’s your name, dear?” asked one of the women as she rested her hip on the makeshift bar. “Are you with the family that owns the place?”

  Reese smiled and placed the glasses down in front of them. “I’m Reese Clark. My grandparents started the vineyard in 1974 growing grapes for other wineries. It wasn’t until 1992 that my parents opened the winery, and then I stepped in after college as vineyard manager and viticulturist.”

  “Viti-what?” asked the second woman as she plunked her massive handbag on the bar and leaned against one of the barrels.

  Reese winced as the wood wobbled, but everything seemed to be holding. She gave it a wary glance as she began uncorking a bottle of Pinot Gris. From the corner of her eye, she saw Clay move to the opposite end of the bar.

  “Viticulture is the science of grape production,” Reese explained. “We look out for pests and diseases in the vineyards, deal with things like fertilization and irrigation, tend to fruit management and pruning and harvest and—”

  “Oh, my, that sounds interesting,” said the third woman with a tone that suggested she found it as interesting as pocket lint. She placed her palms down on the bar and leaned forward to peer at the bottles lined up on the shelf behind Reese.

  The plywood gave a faint creak, and Reese sucked in a breath, the chilled bottle poised above the glasses as she waited for the whole bar to come crashing down.

  She glanced at Clay. He was gripping the edges of the plywood with both hands, trying to look casual, but Reese could see what he was doing. He was holding up her bar.

  Ironic, considering how many bars had propped him up over the years.

  Ignoring the way his biceps flexed under the thin T-shirt, Reese turned back to her guests. They were all staring at Clay.

  “Pardon my reach, ladies,” Clay said.

  All three fluttered their lashes at him. The woman with her palms on the bar turned toward him, leaning down in a blatant effort to give Clay a glimpse down the front of her shirt. Clay looked at Reese and gave an almost imperceptible shrug.

  The woman in the pink cashmere licked her lips. “Are you a viticulturist, too?” she asked, shooting a pointed look at Clay.

  Clay didn’t loosen his grip on the bar. “No, ma’am, just a carpenter.”

  “Oh, join us for a drink, then!” piped the woman with the expensive handbag. “We could use a little male companionship.”

  “Please?” pleaded Pink Cashmere, leaning sideways on the bar and causing it to sway as she patted the empty stool beside her. “Just one drink. It’s a girls’ getaway, but we’ll make an exception for you.”

  Clay smiled, his expression nearly as tight as his grip on the bar. “Thanks, but I’m doing great right here. You ladies enjoy.”

  Reese waited for one of them to wrestle him to the floor and pour wine down his throat, but they backed off and turned their attention back to her.

  “This is our 2014 Reserve Pinot Gris,” Reese announced as she tipped it into the stemware. “As you can see from the tasting notes in front of you, it was a gold-medal winner at the Northwest Food and Wine Festival last year. We age this in steel for six months before we filter and bottle it right here on site.”

  “Only six months?”

  “That’s common for a lot of white wines like Pinot Gris,” Reese explained. “Others—like our Chardonnay, which we’ll be tasting next—are aged in oak, so they take a little longer. And many of our red wines spend years in the barrel.”

  There was much chatting and sipping, with the women commenting on notes of pear and apple. Reese shot a glance at Clay, who was still holding the end of the plywood steady. He smiled and Reese gave a small nod of thanks before reaching for the Chardonnay.

  She cycled through the white wines and moved on to reds, pointing out a bronze-medal Pinot Noir and explaining that most of their wines were estate grown.

  “What does that mean?” one of the women asked. “Estate grown?”

  “It means we grow all the grapes right here in our vineyards. Except for the dessert wine we’re sampling at the end—that’s a blend of some grapes from Southern Oregon.”

  She bent to retrieve a small brass bucket from under the wine rack, conscious of Clay’s eyes on her as she plunked it down on the bar.

  “This is a rather long tasting list, so it’s perfectly okay to expel the wine. I’m sure you ladies know, but it’s not mandatory that you swallow wine to taste it. Go ahead and spit if you like.”

  She shot a quick look at Clay, though if he’d seen the opening for a dirty joke about swallowing versus spitting, he hadn’t taken it. The old Clay would have at least smirked, but this one just stood there stone-faced, hands gripping the edge of the bar. Reese uncorked a Maréchal Foch and started pouring, wondering what the hell was taking Larissa so long.

  The ladies chattered among themselves, one of them taking only a small sip of each wine before passing it off to the woman in the pink cashmere, who obligingly polished it off.

  Reese continued to move through the list, her lips forming the words while her mind was a thousand miles away—well, more like three feet away at the other end of the bar. She kept stealing glances at his shoulders, those beautiful, chiseled arms, the way his narrow waist tapered into worn jeans that fit snugly over his—

  “That’s it for the tasting list,” Reese said as they sipped the last drops of specialty Vin Glacé dessert wine. “Did you have any questions or want to sample anything not on the list?”

  “I’d like to buy a case of this one,” announced the woman with the expensive handbag, ja
bbing a finger at the Reserve Pinot Noir. She fished for a wallet with her free hand and peeled out a credit card.

  “Excellent choice,” Reese said, accepting the card as the woman leaned across the bar, making it sway again. “Let me just run this, and then I’ll help you carry it out to your car.”

  “I can get it,” Clay said. Every female eye shifted toward him. “Which box is it?”

  “Oh,” Reese said. “It’s right over there in that stack against the wall, but you don’t have to—”

  “I insist,” he said, waiting until the women pried themselves away from the bar before loosening his grip on it. Reese watched as he ambled over to the cases and hoisted one like it was filled with cotton balls.

  “Ladies,” he said. “Would you mind pointing the way to the car?”

  “Oh, it’s the gray Lexus right out here,” chirped the woman as Reese handed her credit card back. “Let me get the door for you.”

  Clay smiled and followed after them. “If you’re not okay to drive, I’d be happy to give you a lift wherever you’re headed.”

  “Aren’t you the sweetest,” one of them twittered. “Don’t worry, though, I only took tiny sips of everything since we all agreed ahead of time that—”

  The door closed behind them before Reese got to hear the end of the sentence. Was that really Clay Henderson giving a lecture on sober driving?

  “Was that really Clay Henderson giving a lecture on sober driving?” called Larissa, bursting into the winery wearing a V-neck sweater that—thankfully—only showed the top quarter inch of her bra.

  Startled, Reese began gathering up the glasses as Larissa tucked the white wines back in the chiller. “Yes, it was.”

  “God, he’s still hot. Hotter than he was five years ago, and he was damn hot then. What’s he doing here?”

  “Working, believe it or not.” Reese moved toward the kitchenette with Larissa on her heels, eager for details.

  “No joke? He’s working here? Better lock up the good stuff.”

  “He’s not working in the winery, he’s building the tasting room. And he’s not drinking, either. He went to rehab.”

  Larissa blinked. “Wow, that’s hard to believe. He used to be wild. I remember one time—”

  “Larissa, could you hold down the fort in the tasting room for the rest of the afternoon?” Reese interrupted. “I told Clay I’d show him around, give him the lay of the land.”

  Her cousin gave a wicked grin. “Considering the way those women were sizing him up, you won’t be the only one offering him a lay.”

  “God, that’s just what he needs. Sexual harassment from our customers while he tries to get his life back on track.”

  “Clay’s a big boy. I’m sure he can handle it.”

  Reese nodded, annoyed with herself for feeling irritated at the thought of Clay handling anyone. “So you’ve got the tasting room covered?”

  “No problem.”

  “Oh, and FYI—Dick Smart at Larchwood is back to telling people our tasting room is never open. We need to have another talk with him.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I’ll pay him a visit. He likes staring at my legs. Maybe if I distract him, he won’t notice when I hit him over the head with a bottle of Chardonnay.”

  “Thank you.” Reese paused, her hands frozen in the soapy water clutching a wineglass. “Hey, Larissa?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you think I’m miserable?”

  Larissa looked surprised, then studied Reese long enough to assure her the answer wasn’t a simple no.

  “Miserable how? I mean, you could add some highlights so your hair isn’t so brown and blah, and you’ve got those great boobs no one ever sees since you’re always wearing those baggy shirts—”

  “I don’t think he meant miserable looking, but thank you for that.”

  “He who?”

  “He Eric,” Reese said as she toweled off the glasses and avoided her cousin’s eyes. “He said I work too much and my life has stagnated and I need to find passion and excitement and start dating again so I can be ridiculously happy like he and Sheila are.”

  “He got the ridiculous part right.” Larissa paused. “I thought you never wanted to get married again.”

  “I don’t.”

  Much, Reese amended silently, thinking about the scene she’d witnessed behind the barn after breakfast. Her mother had been teaching her father to play smashball with the wooden paddles they’d bought for family events at the vineyard. Her dad had said something that made her mom throw her head back and laugh before Jed grabbed her around the waist, swooping her in circles until they both toppled laughing into the grass.

  I’d only get married again if I could do it like that.

  “Can’t say I blame you,” Larissa mused, still tracking with the original conversation. “Tying and untying the knot within a twelve-month span before you hit twenty-five would make anyone swear off marriage.”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time.” Reese set down a wineglass, not sure if she meant the marriage or the divorce.

  “Did it? Getting married, I mean. I’ll never understand why you did it. You and Eric had zero chemistry.”

  “You might have pointed that out before we walked down the aisle.”

  Larissa shrugged and began to wipe down the counter with a rag. “I figured you knew. If you wanted to pledge eternal devotion to a guy who seemed more like your brother than your lover, who was I to tell you not to go through with it?”

  Reese toweled off another glass and wondered for the millionth time why she had gone through with it.

  Because you thought marriage was the ticket to happily ever after.

  Because your parents made it look easy.

  Because you needed to forget about him.

  “Anyway, why do you care what your stupid ex says?” Larissa asked, jolting her back to the present.

  “I don’t, I guess. I just thought if I was giving off a miserable vibe, I’d want to know.”

  “I wouldn’t say miserable,” Larissa said, setting aside her rag to reach for the dried glasses. “But you haven’t changed much in the last decade. You should probably get laid more.”

  Just then, Clay pushed through the door. He nodded at them. “Ladies.”

  “Hey, Clay,” Larissa said, shooting Reese a knowing look before turning to walk the glasses back to the bar. “You’re looking good.”

  “Thanks, Larissa—you, too. Reese, did you want to go over to the building site now?”

  Reese nodded as she dried her hands and folded the towel over the edge of the counter. “Sure thing. Let me just—”

  The door burst open again, cutting off the rest of her sentence. Her mother stood there with flushed cheeks and a wild look in her eyes.

  “Reese—come quickly! It’s your grandfather.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  At the panicked sound in June’s voice, Clay yanked his cell phone from his back pocket. “Should I call 911?”

  “No!” shouted the three women.

  Clay froze, phone in hand, wondering if they’d all lost their minds.

  June took a step forward, shaking her head. “No police. Please don’t make this worse than it is.”

  “But if Albert—um, Axl—needs help—”

  “No one’s hurt,” June said. “Not yet anyway. Reese, come on, hurry.”

  Reese moved to follow her mother out the door, and Larissa scurried after them, clearly not wanting to miss anything. Clay hesitated. No one seemed distressed in the way he might have expected if Axl were having a heart attack. Still, maybe they’d need help lifting him or something.

  The whole family helped you out when you were at your worst. The least you can do is lend a hand now.

  He fell into step behin
d them, though it was obvious they’d forgotten he was there.

  They trudged up a grassy slope past several rows of spindly vines just beginning to sprout for the season. At the end of the rows was a thick forest buzzing with insects. Clay remembered Eric telling him Reese nurtured certain bugs to keep the less desirable ones off the vines, and he wondered if that’s what he was hearing.

  Between the forest and the vines stood Axl, with a shovel in one hand and a tape measure in the other.

  “Gramp—dammit, Axl!” Reese yelled. “Stop right now. What are you doing?”

  The old man whirled around and frowned. “What does it look like I’m doing? Planting. Been doing it on this land since before you were born, and I can still—”

  “What are you doing to the goddamn vines?”

  The heat in Reese’s words was enough to halt even Axl in his tracks.

  “Figuring out where to put my plants, that’s what,” he huffed.

  “What plants?”

  June touched her daughter’s elbow, looking grim. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. Your grandfather wants to grow marijuana next to the Muscat vines.”

  “Not all of them,” Axl protested, looking like a defiant teenager. “Just this section right here. It’s an experiment.”

  “An experiment,” Reese repeated, looking incredulous.

  “An experiment,” Larissa said, looking eager.

  “Hell, yes,” the old man said. “Don’t you remember back when June planted lavender beside the Riesling vines, and for a few years after that, all the wine reviewers went on and on about the ‘delectable hints of lavender in the bouquet’?”

  Reese stared at her grandfather. Even from three feet away, Clay could see the muscles in her jaw clenching and unclenching.

  “Okay, Axl, not to split hairs or anything,” Reese said slowly, “but last time I checked, it was legal to grow lavender.”

  “It’s legal to grow weed, too!” Axl insisted. “This is Oregon, remember?”

  “I’m aware of that, but I also know you need special permits to grow large amounts. It’s regulated by the government, and there are all kinds of rules for growing it. You can’t just start a pot plantation in your backyard.”