by K. A. Linde
“Get it together, Abbey,” I grumbled under my breath.
After another moment, I rolled my shoulders back and strode toward my winery. My winery. Sometimes, it was too much to consider.
I’d worked at West Texas Winery all through college and after graduation. It was a dump that just happened to have good wine. No one cared about it, and the owners chased the college crowd to cover their debts. When it went under, I swore that I’d get it back up and running again. I loved it too much to let go.
Somehow, I’d convinced my cousins, Jordan and Julian, to drop the money on renovating it. I ran day-to-day operations and had all the experience while they had the business acumen and finances to get it off the ground. Now, we were a year out from the first day we’d opened, and it had never been better.
I strode inside and was immediately greeted.
“Aye, Abbey,” the burly, tatted man at the entrance said.
“Good to see you, man,” I said, clapping hands with my buddy Zach, who sometimes worked security for the vineyard.
He nodded at me, and I continued through the barn, shaking hands and offering hellos to everyone. The Wrights might have their name on the place, but I was the heart of the operation.
Lubbock, Texas was a dusty, windy small town, five hours away from the rest of civilization, but it was home. I’d grown up here with my two siblings, Campbell and Nora. I’d gone to college at Texas Tech. I’d stuck around when most of my friends had ditched, including my brother.
Finally, I shoved through the last of the crowd to where my cousins were seated. Piper glanced up at me and then hastily away, returning her attention to her boyfriend. An irritated scowl crossed her face. I barely suppressed laughing at it.
“You made it!” Julian said. He hopped out of his seat. We slapped hands, and then he pulled me into a hug. “How’d it go?”
Jordan held his hand out, and we shook. “Give him some room, Julian.”
Julian laughed. “Just excited.”
I liked that about my cousin. Julian was enthusiastic. Jordan wasn’t quite solemn, but he was serious. He’d had to grow up fast to protect Julian from their father. That was a sentiment that I understood. Even if I hadn’t gone down the same route. I always found it hard to subdue my larger-than-life personality. When my cousins had first moved to Lubbock about five years ago, I’d thought that it would put them off, but they hadn’t missed a beat. It was as if they had always been in my life. I couldn’t imagine Lubbock without them now.
I sank into a spare seat next to Blaire.
“Hey, Hollin.”
I nodded my head at her.
She looked good tonight. Normally, she hid behind baseball caps and oversize T-shirts, but now, she was in some tight dress. She was some high-profile influencer on social media, but I so rarely saw her like this that I sometimes forgot. She was just Blaire, the striker on our soccer team, the girl who ate more pizza than me and who could drink more beer than should have been humanly possible for someone her size. She was practically one of the guys.
“Piper was just saying you were nice enough to let her borrow your shirt,” Blaire said with mirth on her lips.
My eyes flicked to Piper’s. “Is that what she said?”
“No,” Piper said flatly.
Blaire arched an eyebrow. “She might not have said it that way.”
“What can I say?” I said with a shit-eating grin. “I’m a giver.”
Blaire practically choked on her drink. Piper bristled but said nothing. Bradley, the poor guy, looked flummoxed. His gaze shifted between us, as if he were trying to decipher the meaning of life.
“So,” Julian prompted, “how’d it go in Austin?”
Piper was still looking at me. She thought I’d gone to Austin for a date. Julian had told her that. It was our cover story, of sorts. We didn’t need one, but we weren’t sure that our plan would work. We didn’t want to tell anyone other than Jordan before we were ready. And they’d both agreed not to tell their girlfriends, which was the biggest bet that it would get out. But Piper had sounded jealous at the prospect of me going out of town for a date. I should disabuse her of the notion, but what fun would that be?
My grin doubled in size. “It went excellent. I’m definitely in.”
“Yeah?” Julian asked. “No complications?”
“None at all. It was even easier than I’d thought it would be.”
Piper rolled her eyes but said nothing. That wouldn’t do. I wanted a reaction from her.
“That’s good,” Jordan said. “You were worried for nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say I was worried. I always get what I want.”
Piper snorted this time. “Classy.”
Blaire scrunched up her face. Jennifer looked to Annie, and Annie shrugged. Well, at least the guys had held up to their word.
“You got something to say, Medina?” I asked with an arched eyebrow.
“No,” she said.
Jordan picked up on what was happening first. He shot me a look. “We should tell them.”
“Ah, Jor, let me have my fun,” I said with a laugh.
Julian glanced around and then made a comical O with his lips. “Ohhh.” He cleared his throat. “I guess I should do the honors.”
All the girls looked even more confused. I winked at Piper, and she glared back at me. She could look at me that way all she wanted. But I remembered the one second when her guard had come down and she gazed under those thick lashes without any bullshit between us.
“I’ll do it,” I said, coming to my feet.
“No one cares about your date, Hollin,” Piper said. “Keep it in your pants.”
Blaire muffled a laugh. “She’s not wrong.”
“I’ll have you all know that I didn’t go to Austin to get some ass.”
Jennifer choked. “Good for you?”
Annie cackled and nudged her friend. “I love you.”
Jennifer reddened. Julian was wearing off on the shy girl. Julian drew her in closer and pressed a kiss to her temple.
“I can get ass just fine here,” I told them.
Jordan groaned. “Get on with it, Hollin.”
“Right,” I said, tipping my head at him. “I entered Wright Vineyard into the IWAA Texas Wine Award Competition in Austin.”
“What?” Annie gasped. She swatted at Jordan. “You didn’t tell me.”
Jennifer’s eyes lit up. “That’s amazing.”
Blaire pulled me into a hug. “Really? That’s incredible!”
But Piper…Piper did nothing. Bradley was up, shaking hands with Jordan and Julian. Piper remained seated in my fucking shirt, looking hot as fucking hell. I had no idea what was running through her head. Was she processing that I hadn’t been talking about a date at all? Was she mad about the competition? Why was she blank-faced?
“Hey,” I said, drawing her eyes up to me. “This means I wasn’t on a date.”
She scowled. “Like I give a fuck.”
“What’s with the face? Can’t even be happy for us?”
The others had grown quiet at my words. No one else had realized that Piper wasn’t jumping up and down with excitement. There was no guarantee that we’d win this award. It was a huge competition. But it was a possibility. The wine I’d entered was our newest vintage, and it was above and beyond what West Texas Winery had ever made. Everything had come together in the last year. The grapes had yielded better than any before that. It was as if we’d sacrificed the old winery to some ancient deity and Wright Vineyard had been reincarnated out of the ashes. Blessed in some way.
But that didn’t explain Piper’s reaction. Yeah, she managed a separate winery, but we were a small enough operation not to dip into Sinclair Cellars’ profits or anything. They’d been around for decades. They were a huge operation. A national name. It didn’t change the rivalry. How could it when we were both so antagonistic?
“I’m happy for you,” she said without a hint of emotion.
“What
is it?” I asked, taking a step toward her. “Say what’s on your mind.”
She met my step by coming to her feet and lifting her chin. A slow smile curled on her lips. There she was. There was the fire heart.
“It’s nice that you entered, but you’ve no chance of winning.”
My eyebrows shot up at her gall. The rest of the room disappeared as I got into it with her. I didn’t know what the others were doing or saying. When we got like this, tunnel vision narrowed in, and I forgot everything but the fight.
“And why is that?”
“Because I entered last week.”
3
Piper
Hollin’s stupid smirk dropped for an entire second as my words registered. His brows furrowed, and he tilted his head slightly, the soft strands of his blond hair falling across his forehead before he pushed it out of the way. It was like a victory. Until it disappeared and he smiled again, bigger and brighter than before.
“We’re competitors, Medina.”
“I guess we are.”
“I’ll be your Wright rival,” he crooned.
He held his hand out. I warily looked at it before putting mine in his. I stared him down. Heat bloomed between us. Something potent and commanding. A binding spell cast over this handshake. Magic of old sealing our words.
The contact made my hand tingle. As if magic had really been flung over us. Ribbon tied around our wrists to connect us. And I didn’t know how I felt about that. How I felt about having any connection to Hollin Abbey.
I jerked my hand back first. “I’m going to win.”
“We’ll see,” he said with a smirk.
Julian clapped a hand on Hollin’s back, and everything crashed down all at once. As if a bubble had been burst and the last stray traces of glitter fluttered to the ground, forgotten. Noise returned to our reality. Our friends huddled around us to congratulate us both for even entering. And somehow, I was still trapped in that in-between place. Not quite ready to give up whatever had come over us.
I made the mistake of looking up into his endless blue eyes. He was still Hollin, of course. Still a hundred and ten percent arrogance, wrapped up in a towering, tatted bow. But for a second, I thought he felt it, too. That nowhere in which nothing else existed but our rivalry.
He raised one eyebrow. A question and an invitation. Not that I could ever answer that particular question or RSVP to whatever he was inviting me to. Not with Hollin. Not ever. I knew what he did to girls who showed an ounce of interest. Just one ounce. I wouldn’t be one of those girls. No matter what had happened between us.
“Good luck,” I said without a touch of goodwill in my voice.
He laughed. The sunshine to my grumpy brooding. “I don’t need it. But you might.”
Then, Julian and Jordan pulled him away to get champagne for a toast. My friends bombarded me a second later. Thankfully, Bradley was shoved out of the way as the girls each drew me into an excited hug.
“When did you decide to do this?” Annie asked. “And why weren’t we informed?”
Annie was the bossiest one of the bunch. She was in residency as an ER doctor and radiated confident energy. She somehow exuded enough of that for all the rest of us.
“Yeah,” Blaire said. “I’m your bestie.”
I shrugged. “We enter competitions every year. Usually smaller regional competitions. Our wines do all right, but I wanted to go bigger this year.”
Jennifer tucked a strand of her light-brown hair behind her hair and smiled. “We want to celebrate every achievement. You know that.”
I should have known that. But sometimes, I didn’t think that applied to me. Jennifer was a wedding photographer for Wright Vineyard, but she had also recently started working with Hollin’s rockstar brother, Campbell. After her photo of him had gone viral last year, their record label had hired her to do the photography for the cover of their latest album. They were now on an international tour for said album, and her photography was everywhere.
That felt like something to celebrate. Entering an award competition felt like nothing.
“A toast,” Jordan interrupted the conversation.
The guys passed out champagne, and we all held our glasses aloft. Bradley returned to my side, sliding a hand across my hips. I was self-conscious about it, knowing what I now knew awaited me in his gym bag. He wasn’t happy about me wearing Hollin’s shirt after I came back—what guy would?—but he’d shrugged it off quickly. As if me wearing another guy’s shirt didn’t even matter. Was he that secure in us?
“To one year at Wright Vineyard,” Jordan said.
“One phenomenal year,” Julian added.
“And friendly competition to follow,” Hollin said.
He tipped his head at me, and I just stared back blankly. What part of this made him think it would be friendly?
Still, I held my glass aloft and clinked it with my friends’ glasses. I took a sip of my champagne. The Wrights had splurged on a vintage Veuve Clicquot, and I could appreciate every single delicious note of the champagne. Wright Vineyard didn’t make a sparkling yet, but few could compare to the historical French wineries anyway.
We settled back into our seats. Bradley scooted his chair even closer to mine, draping his arm across the back of it. I was ready to leave. I needed to get this over with. But Jordan was still standing and speaking, and I should focus. I couldn’t leave yet. Even if I wanted to.
“While I have your attention,” Jordan said with a wide grin, “I’d thank everyone for joining us on this adventure. It’s had its highs and lows. I never believed I’d move out of Vancouver, but now, I’m here, and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.”
A few, “Hear, hear!” were chorused as others listened in on his speech.
Other Wrights were in attendance. Jordan and Julian’s cousins—Jensen, Austin, Landon, Morgan, and Sutton Wright—ran Wright Construction in town and were the reason that the Wright name was associated with Texas royalty. Jensen’s wife, Emery, was hugely pregnant while their one-year-old tottered around their feet. Landon had his three-year-old, Holden, with him, who was happily playing with Sutton’s seven-year-old, Jason, and two-year-old, Madison. Landon’s wife, Heidi, wasn’t in attendance since she had recently had twin boys—Hudson and Harrison. The number of Wrights in this town was growing exponentially.
Morgan and Patrick had set a date for their wedding for this fall. Everyone kept looking to Austin and Julia, wondering when they were going to tie the knot. But they had always done their own thing, and I appreciated that.
My twin brother, Peter, was in attendance with his boyfriend, Chester. He looked up, as if sensing my eyes on him across the room. Twin thing. He flipped me off, and my hardened veneer dropped. I laughed and covered it by taking another sip of my wine. Bradley glanced at me in confusion.
Jordan had been talking all this time. Giving the fancy Wright speech the family was known for. It was a good one. I was sure it was. I hadn’t been paying attention, but still…
The crowd gasped all at once.
My eyes snapped back to Jordan Wright, who had gotten down onto one knee. My jaw dropped as he removed a red ring box from his pocket.
Time slowed as he faced Annie Donoghue with a stunning Cartier ring. Her hands flew to her mouth. Tears came to her eyes. Shock rippled through the crowd. They’d only been together for a year. But when you knew, you knew.
Didn’t you?
Bradley’s eyes were on me. I looked over at him, and he was giving me giant puppy-dog eyes. Ones full of hope and awe. As if he saw us in what was happening right now.
My eyes didn’t mirror his. I felt…horror. Riotous, dawning, gaping horror in the pit of my stomach. This couldn’t be happening. Bradley couldn’t propose to me. I imagined myself in Annie’s shoes for a minute and thought I might be physically ill. I’d say no.
No.
It was so final. The end of everything we had. And yet I knew it without a shadow of a doubt.
I’d tou
ched that ring box in his gym bag and tossed it aside like it didn’t matter. But now, it was an immediate visceral reaction. I had to do something about this. I couldn’t sit here and pretend things were okay.
“Yes!” Annie cried.
Everyone was up and applauding as Jordan slid the diamond onto her finger. They embraced as if this were the best day of their entire lives. A year ago, everything had started in this very room for them. It was magical.
If only there wasn’t a distress signal in my head. A loud beeping, telling me to escape.
I stepped out of Bradley’s arm when I got to my feet, and as I stumbled forward to congratulate Annie, my foot caught on something imaginary. I tripped, barely catching myself before face-planting on the hardwood floor of the recently renovated barn.
Then, there was a strong pair of arms on my hips, steadying me. I was hardly the clumsy damsel in distress.
So, my first instinct was to push the person away. “I’m fine.”
I looked up to find Hollin arching a pointed eyebrow at me. “Medina,” he said, rolling my surname across his tongue.
“Don’t touch me,” I said.
Every inch he touched was on fire.
“You’re welcome,” he said cheekily. “You almost fell on your face.”
“I had it.”
He finally released me. “Seem flustered.”
“Hollin,” I growled. “Shut your face.”
“Just saying,” he purred under his breath. “You went into straight panic mode at the sight of that ring.”
Had it been that obvious? “I did not.”
“Okay, fine. Only I saw it.”
“You can’t read me that well.”
“You almost fell on your face,” he repeated.
“I’m happy for Jordan and Annie.”
“Of course. How could you not be? They were made for each other.”
“Exactly.”
“Are you agreeing with me?”
“No,” I said automatically.
He chuckled. His hand slid to the sleeve of my shirt. I looked up at him as he fixed where the sleeve had come undone.
“Abbey,” Bradley said, suddenly appearing at my side.
