The Sweet Spot

by Heather Heyford

  “I have a client who has a proposition I think you’ll want to hear. Your land is exactly what he is looking for. It has the elevation, the gentle slope protected from the weather by the mountain, and the southeast aspect. Everything you could ask for in a vineyard.”

  “That was you.”

  Stew drew a blank.

  “Last Tuesday night in June. Dusk. The black Escalade.”

  Stew frowned. “I didn’t see you there.”

  “No. You talked to my grandmother. I was pulling in as you were leaving. I had to swerve into the ditch to avoid getting sideswiped.”

  “The Subaru.”

  Stew apparently failed to register that an apology was in order.

  Hank took a long swallow from his glass. He and Ellie routinely watched the small planes flying above their southeast-facing slopes, which maximized the afternoon sun needed to grow and ripen grapes. An hour later a Realtor would come driving up, wanting to talk about selling. You could set your watch by it.

  “I take it you didn’t get very far into your spiel before she told you to take a hike.”

  Stew swirled his wine while he measured his next words. “Your grandma Eleanor’s a pistol.”

  “Ellie doesn’t pull any punches.” Hank visualized her cutting Stew off at the knees and smiled to himself.

  “I was counting on you to be more . . . how should I say it? Open-minded.”

  “That land has been in the family for a century and a half.”

  “There’s a bunch of new investors out there,” said Stew, mopping up the pool of A.1. Sauce on his plate with half of a dinner roll, working it sideways into his mouth. “It’s a rising tide.”

  “The Willamette Valley is more than a brand,” said Hank. “It’s my home. We have a vibrant culture. Ever wash down coho salmon fresh from the Clackamas River with a 2009 almost-dry Riesling, the kind that’s only made in small batches?”

  “I understand your sentimental attachment. But outside investment’s not a bad thing. It’s beneficial for the entire industry. We get your passion. We do. We’re in it for the long haul, too, just like you.”

  Hank fingered the base of his wineglass. “We small guys can’t compete with giants like your client.”

  “This interest by out-of-state investors is only going to grow,” said Stew as he sawed at his steak.

  “It’s not if you’ll sell. It’s when, and to whom.”

  Hank spread his arms. “As Ellie told you, we have no interest in selling.”

  Stew sized up Hank with beady eyes, a shiny film of grease clinging to his fleshy lips as he chewed.

  “Have you thought about what this means, Hank?” Delilah interjected, her eyes round. “You wouldn’t be tied down anymore. You could take up your flying lessons again.”

  “I get it,” said Stew. “Change makes people nervous.”

  For some strange reason, the glow in Jamie Martel’s eyes at her first sight of his property came back to Hank.

  “You’re sitting on a gold mine,” Stew pressed. “Aren’t you interested in hearing the details of the offer?”

  Delilah’s eyes glittered. “Why not hear him out? What do you have to lose?”

  Whose side are you on? Hank wondered.

  Stew scribbled something on the back of his card and slid it across the table to Hank. “This is our price per acre for all two hundred fifty.”

  Despite lots of fishing expeditions and drive-by Realtor inquiries, never had a conversation about selling gone this far. Hank wondered how Stew had inveigled Delilah into getting him an audience.

  Delilah leaned over to read the number, then eyed Hank with a catlike grin.

  Hank’s pulse began to race in spite of himself. It wasn’t the money. Money had never been in short supply, thanks to the hard work of his parents and grandparents. Consequently, it didn’t hold any special magic. And he didn’t care about fast cars or the latest toys.

  Freedom was what excited him.

  Rather than spending his summers babying grapes, he could go skiing in Argentina. Instead of having his autumns tied up with the crush, he could fly his own plane over the fall foliage. Hunt and fish in Alaska. Revisit all the places he’d gone to with his family, back before he had so many responsibilities.

  He took a gulp of wine.

  “Fewer than two hundred fifty, the price starts dropping in direct relationship,” said Stew. “You don’t have to answer now. Think it over. You’ve got forty-eight hours.”

  “That’s not much time.”

  “That’s the way it works.”

  It only took Hank a second to grasp the reasoning behind what at first seemed to be an unreasonable request. “You don’t want to give me time to go look for a buyer willing to pay more, and then pit the two of you against each other.”

  Stew’s grin couldn’t disguise his admiration for Hank’s powers of deduction. “Right on one count. We want to avoid a bidding war. But we have another property on our radar, too. If you’re not willing, we want to offer immediately on that one before it’s gone.”

  The server brought their check, and Stew handed her his credit card between two fingers.

  “I’ll need to hear from you early next week,” he said in parting.

  Back in wine country

  Jamie was laying down fresh straw bedding in Dancer’s stall.

  “What are you doing mucking out?” asked Bill from where he worked across the aisle. “I can handle this.”

  “I like mucking out. It reminds me of when I was growing up.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  For a minute they worked to the soft music coming from the ancient barn radio.

  “Lewis’s got some beef brisket in the oven over at his place. Puts beer in it. There’s plenty if you want to join us.”

  She rested her hands on her pitchfork. She had never been around Bill and Bryce and Lewis outside of the Sweet Spot.

  “I don’t know . . .”

  “Can’t have a fire tonight, thanks to this rain. What else are you going to do all night? Sit inside by your lonesome? It’s not far. I’ll bring you back after a while.”

  * * *

  Lewis’s kitchen was small, but it was dry and toasty warm from the oven having been on all day, and the men were in good spirits.

  “I’ll say grace.” Bill folded his sun-speckled hands atop the table.

  Jamie sneaked a peek at the tops of the heads bowed around the table: Lewis’s tangled blond dreads. Bryce’s buzz cut. And Bill’s surprisingly naked pate, usually disguised beneath his ever-present felt hat.

  “Lord, bless these gifts we are about to receive,” said Bill in his bass voice.

  The men’s big, work-hardened hands made the cutlery seem like children’s toys as they ate.

  After dinner, while Lewis was preparing a pot of coffee, Bill pulled out a deck of cards and began shuffling.

  “Five-card stud. You in?” he asked Jamie with a twinkle in his eye.

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t,” she said, shaking her head.

  “What’s the matter? You never played poker before? Come on, we’ll show you how.”

  She glanced at the dark, rain-streaked window and shivered.

  Lewis set a steaming cup of coffee down in front of her.

  A couple of hours later, Jamie laughed as she scooped up her winnings, heedless to Lewis’s loud accusations that she was a ringer, and Bryce’s usual grousing.

  And when it was time for Bill to take her home, the same men who’d just given her a rough time jockeyed for position in the narrow doorway, fairly tripping over each other to bid her a good night.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “That was fun,” said Delilah in her car on their way back to the convention center. “The steak was delicious. I won’t have to eat for a week.”

  Hank grunted a response, looking straight ahead from his seat on the passenger side as he jammed the male part of his seat belt into its female receptor.

  “Tell me how you met Stew, again
?”

  “Same place I meet most of my clients, on a flight a year or so ago. Stew likes nice things. Fine wine. Upscale accommodations. Since I started my company, he’s stayed at two or three of my resorts. A while back I was having dinner with another flight attendant at the Springs, and Stew was at the bar talking about Oregon. He asked us to join him for an after-dinner drink. I happened to mention the Sweet Spot, and that I had gone to school with the owner.

  “Did you know before tonight at dinner that Stew wanted to talk to me about selling my vineyards?”

  “He said he had a business proposition for you,” she said, pulling her car away from the curb. “He made it sound like something you could benefit from. I thought I was doing you a favor. You’ve seen how Stew is. A little overbearing, though he means well. I guess I got a little caught up in it. Honestly, Hank, was it that bad?”

  Hank raised a brow.

  “I’ve been to the Sweet Spot,” said Delilah. “I’ve seen what it takes to keep a place like that going. You’re on your feet from sunup to sundown. And that’s just the lodging aspect of the place. Everyone knows how dangerous farming can be. Climbing around on that tractor, cutting vines with those big old shears, or whatever they’re called. What if something happened to you?”

  Hank frowned at the column of cars sitting in front of them. “Is traffic always this bad here this time of night?”

  “I thought you and Stew had something in common.”

  “It sounds like you’re encouraging me to sell.”

  “I’m not encouraging you to do anything. But you have to admit, selling would make your life a whole lot easier.”

  “I’m not the type to live my life putzing around without a purpose.”

  “Without the vineyards to tie you down, you could get your pilot’s license.”

  “I told you before. That was a pipe dream.” He turned away from her and gazed out the opposite window. “The Sweet Spot has been in my family for generations. It’s always been understood that I’d keep it in the family. Can you imagine what losing the only home she’s ever had would do to Ellie? The woman is seventy-one years old. The Sweet Spot is sacred ground to her. Without it, what would she do? Where would she go?”

  “She’s getting up in years, Hank. She can’t expect to keep going like she has been, forever.”

  “Try telling her that.”

  “Give it some thought. How can that hurt? Maybe you can come up with a good alternative for your grandmother. A nice house, all on one level, in a gated community. Someplace warm, like Palm Springs. Who wouldn’t love that?”

  “You don’t know my grandmother.”

  * * *

  Twelve hours after Stew had laid out his offer, Hank watched the lights of Denver recede as his plane ascended.

  Despite what he’d said, he couldn’t help but think about it. What if Delilah had a point? Running the business was a relentless job. Not long ago he’d attended the funeral of a hard-driving vintner friend of his father’s who’d been found in his vineyard with his sprayer still strapped to his back.

  Selling would free him to do anything he pleased. Take those flying lessons, even buy his own plane, just like Dad. He cherished his dad’s old aeronautical charts that noted the locations of key waypoints, as well as the routes connecting them. Nowadays airliners were equipped with autopilot. You could get up from your seat in the cockpit of a 737 to use the head and stop to flirt with the pretty crew chief on your way back, while the plane virtually flew itself.

  But small craft were still hand-flown. Only then did it occur to Hank that just maybe, the old way suited him better.

  He peered down at the Rocky Mountains. Just a few weeks ago Jamie had seen a similar view on her cross-country flight. He imagined how her face must have lit up at the majestic view of white-capped peaks and deep blue ravines. She was drawn to natural beauty, difficult kids, and good music. He bet she didn’t give a fig about black tie affairs or cultivating friends in high places.

  After he landed he took a van to the long-term parking lot where he’d left his truck and drove the hour and a half to the inn, still thinking about all the possibilities open to him.

  It was nearing midnight when he climbed the stairs to the floor where Ellie, and now Jamie, slept.

  In the quiet hallway outside his and Jamie’s rooms, he paused.

  Bags still filling his hands, his gaze fell to Jamie’s door. Behind it was the bed his parents had shared. Memories of joyous mornings crawling in between them, getting his hair roughed up and being tickled breathless, went through his head. For a short, sweet time, that bed was the center of his universe. A place where he belonged, where nothing bad could ever happen.

  Now that bed had a new occupant.

  Hank set down his bags in the hallway and slowly turned to gaze at the knob of the door leading to the Sunflower Suite. None of those old, upstairs doors had locks on them. In one step he was standing in front of it. The glass knob felt cool in his hot palm, the oval shape a perfect fit.

  His heart pounded in his throat.

  And then what? What would he say when Jamie woke up and saw him standing over her like some crazed psychopath?

  Before he ended up sending his newest employee tearing off for the airport at first morning light, he let go of the knob, carried his bags inside his own room, and barricaded himself behind his door.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The canes, so green and springy in May and June, were growing firm and brown, right on schedule.

  Hank pulled his July vineyard journal from the row of identically bound books above his desk, each representing a year in the vineyard. Starting with volume one, created that spring when his grandfather grafted vines from Burgundy onto American rootstock to increase their vigor and resist disease, every handwritten, wine-stained volume was a practical resource for comparing annual weather patterns, the best days to perform seasonal chores, from planting to picking, and how different grape varieties performed in Ribbon Ridge’s marine sediment soil.

  In July of volume five, Grandpa’s big, loopy lettering ended without explanation on the day he died, continuing without a break the very next day in Hank’s dad’s tighter, more precise script.

  Hank wondered if his grandfather and father could ever have imagined getting a multimillion-dollar offer on their ground. If only they were here now. He could use their advice.

  The past three annual journals were written in Hank’s similarly careful hand.

  Thin crop. Monitor gophers. Let flock loose in Block Three for weed control, Hank scribbled.

  The inn was booked solid in anticipation of the annual campout. Thank God for Jamie. The only people who’d replied to his help-wanted ad were ones no one else would hire. If it weren’t for her, he didn’t know how he would get through this summer.

  His phone rang. Barry, one of the workers, came up on the screen.

  “Hank? The Newberry All-Stars made it to the World Series. You know what that means.”

  “Something tells me it means I’m going to be shorthanded for the campout.”

  “Sorry to leave you high and dry, but looks like I’ll be headed to Portland that day.”

  “You go and support Maddie.”

  “She’s fourteen. This is her last year of eligibility. Next thing you know she’ll be wantin’ to go riding in cars with boys.”

  “No, you can’t miss the championship. Tell Maddie I said good luck.”

  Hank tapped his pen against his teeth and thought. Lewis and Drew could probably handle the campout. Lewis knew these hills like the back of his hand. But Drew was young and Hank didn’t know him that well. And he outright refused to send Jamie out alone with that womanizer Lewis, or with Bill. Jamie didn’t know the procedures or the territory, and if something happened to Bill, she would be hard-pressed to take care of both him and the guests. But if Hank and Jamie went out, Bill could cover the tasting room.

  He scratched his chin and thought. He didn’t like it. Anything cou
ld happen on an overnight trip.

  He’d been giving Jamie mixed signals. She had to be confused. Maybe even annoyed. Even worse, hurt. And no wonder. What with him growing more attached to Jamie than an employer ought to be, this mysterious new urgency Ellie had about teaching him the ropes, and now the offer on the land, his head was spinning.

  But he liked the alternatives even less.

  The next morning before breakfast, he called the affected staff members into the tasting room before it opened.

  When they were all there, lounging around at tables and talking, Hank cleared his throat.

  “As you probably heard, Maddie got into the softball finals, so Barry’ll be in Portland during the campout. Means I had to do a little shuffling. Bill, can you cover the tasting room?”

  Chewing on his toothpick, Bill nodded. “Bryce, you stay here and cover the campfire for the folks who aren’t going on the campout.”

  Hank paused to look at his notes. As if it were an afterthought, he added, “Jamie, you and I will do the campout.”

  Heads whipped toward her.

  “That’s it.” Hank rose from his perch at the bar. Everyone but Jamie headed off to his respective job.

  “Are you good with that?”

  “Anything I can do to help out. Just consider me one of the boys.” Smiling saucily, she tossed her jeans jacket over one shoulder and went out to tack up for the trail ride.

  “Temptress.” Did I just say that out loud?

  Jamie whirled back around. “What did you say?” Her eyes danced. She swatted at him with her jacket.

  He arched his spine, missing getting swatted by a hair.

  She took off after him then, swinging as he swerved and ducked.

  Laughing, they circled the room, once and then twice, weaving in and out of high-top tables and chairs. But Hank knew where all the nooks and crannies were. He ducked behind a door, then popped out behind her and pinned her arms to her sides.