The Secret (Butler Ranch Book 3)

by Heather Slade

  Bradley walked away, back to checking vines. Naughton would’ve followed her, but first he needed to quell his desire to pummel her boyfriend into the ground.

  “What the hell?” he asked Brodie, who motioned for Naughton to follow.

  “He swept in here an hour ago and took over. Bradley had everything organized and running smoothly until he decided she didn’t know what she was doing.”

  When Naughton saw the boyfriend approaching out of the corner of his eye, he raised his hand. “I need a minute with my brother, and then I’ll get to you,” Naughton barked right back at him.

  He and Brodie walked farther away. “What else?”

  “Bradley was sending out crews as soon as they arrived. I think even you’d be impressed with how organized she was.”

  “I’m impressed by everything she does,” Naughton murmured. “What about him?”

  “From what I can tell, she and most everyone else ignores him. She pulls her cell out every few minutes to either answer a call or send a text.”

  “Where are we?”

  “Ask her,” Brodie motioned toward Bradley. “And get her to take a break. She hasn’t left the dirt since three this morning.”

  Still ignoring the boyfriend, Naughton approached her. “How’s it going?” he asked.

  Bradley looked over at Trey.

  “I asked you, not him.”

  She pulled folded papers out of her back pocket. “Here’s where we are.”

  Bradley explained that Hawks had gone out with fire command to identify which vineyards they’d have access to and when. Then she’d put them in order by varietal. The Sauvignon Blanc needed to be picked first, followed by Chardonnay, and so on.

  She pointed to one of the crumpled pages. Through the smudges of soot, Naughton saw each vineyard was labeled with a crew lead and their cell number.

  “Good work.”

  “I thought so, but Trey…well, the two of you should decide what to do next.”

  “It isn’t his decision.”

  “I know, but—”

  Bradley’s phone buzzed and she took it out of her pocket. “Yeah?” she answered, her voice heavy with fatigue.

  “Vineyard seventeen,” she said to Naughton. He sifted through the papers again, found it, and handed it to her. She held the phone between her shoulder and her ear, and leaned over to make a note on the paper, using her knee as a writing surface.

  “Head over to eighteen next. Thank you so much.”

  She disconnected the call, wrote something else on the paper, and handed it to him. She smiled through her tears. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m so emotional.”

  “It’s called exhaustion.” Brodie rubbed her shoulder.

  Naughton read what she’d written and smiled too. One hundred percent ALIVE. Ninety percent picked.

  “I’m having my crew bring down a crush pad. It should be here in an hour.”

  Naughton hadn’t seen Trey approach. “Why?”

  “Flash boil. It’s—”

  “I know what flash boil is, and it’s too early to even consider it. Turn your crew back.”

  “If I were you, I’d take the help that’s offered and say thank you,” he snarled.

  Naughton shook his head, reigning in the rage that continued building. “Appreciate the help. However, now that Maddox and I are back, you can hand over the radio and head out.”

  Trey more thrust the radio at him than handed it over. “Are you serious?”

  Naughton turned toward Bradley, not answering.

  “You unappreciative bastard.”

  Naughton spun back around. “As I said, I appreciate your help.”

  “You’re too stubborn to take help from people who can afford to bring in the kind of machinery you’d never be able to? Suit yourself—”

  Naughton clenched his fists, so close to leveling the asshole, and gritted his teeth. “Like I said, you can leave.”

  “Brad,” the boyfriend called out. “Let’s go.”

  She raised her head and looked back and forth between the two men, as though she was waiting for Naughton to tell her what to do. He wouldn’t though. This was her decision.

  He figured she made it when she turned away and went back to work.

  Bradley was too tired to care about the fight brewing between Trey and Naughton. She had a job to do, and she intended to keep doing it until she couldn’t stand any longer, and then she’d take a break.

  She’d been hired as an assistant winery manager, but in times like these, everyone was expected to be in the vineyards, doing everything they could to salvage the harvest.

  The pissing match between Trey and Naughton was eating up time they couldn’t afford to waste. It disgusted her when she looked out at the people who had been here with her for seven hours straight, and probably hadn’t slept any more than she had before that.

  Watching Naughton block Trey’s path when he attempted to walk over to her was the last straw.

  “Stop it, both of you, and either get to work or get the hell out of the vineyard,” she spat.

  Alex was clapping as she walked over. “Well said, but instead of them, I’m getting you out. Time for a break, Bradley.”

  “I can’t,” she wiped at the sweat dripping from her forehead into her eyes.

  “You have to. If you don’t, you’re going to pass out from heat exhaustion.”

  Bradley looked at Naughton. “You have a decision to make about whether to keep picking.”

  He nodded.

  “When you make up your mind, tell them.” Bradley waved her arms toward the vineyard and tossed her phone at Alex.

  “What’s your password?”

  “I disabled it.”

  She pulled the papers out of her back pocket, thrust them at Naughton, and stomped out of the vineyard.

  He caught up to her when she got to the main drive.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “I’ll drive you over there.”

  “No thanks.” She kept walking, hoping Naughton would let her be.

  Alex was right, if she hadn’t gotten out of the scorching heat of the vineyard, she would’ve passed out. Only the shade of the big oak trees kept her from doing so now. As soon as she got back to her aunt and uncle’s, she’d take a shower and get some rest.

  Naughton and Maddox were back and could make their own decisions about their own damn vineyards.

  Naughton grabbed her arm. “Quit being so stubborn and come back to the cottage with me.”

  Bradley spun around and wrenched away from him.

  “Me? You’re calling me stubborn?”

  “Damn straight.”

  “Trey tried to help you, but you refused to even listen to him.”

  “We don’t need his help.”

  “Of course you don’t.”

  “You and everyone out in the vineyards were ignoring him. The workers looked to you for guidance, not him.”

  She kept walking but spun around when she heard his footfalls getting closer. “Quit following me.”

  “No.”

  She shook her head and kept walking.

  “Do you agree about the flash boil?”

  She wasn’t sure. The process was extreme. Flash boiling the skins and juice, at temperatures up to two hundred degrees, followed by putting them through a vacuum chamber to extract the volatile compounds that contributed to smoke taint, hadn’t been proven. In fact, it could do more harm than good to fruit that was already compromised. Had it been her decision, she would wait until fermentation, and test the juice.

  She doubted Trey was suggesting an immediate crush though, not that Naughton had given him a chance to say what he was thinking.

  “We have our own crush pad, Bradley.”

  “Instead of telling him that, you tell him to turn his crew around. You wanted to pick a fight with him when you should’ve been thanking him.”

  “You’re defending him after he ran roughshod over you?”


  “He has more experience than I do—”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I don’t care what you think, Naughton.”

  “Yes, you do. You wouldn’t have kissed me back if you didn’t care.”

  “How dare you?” she said through tears she didn’t think her body had enough hydration to produce.

  He grabbed her again, and this time, she didn’t have the strength to pull away from him.

  “Let her go.” Neither had seen Trey’s red Spider pull up, or him get out of it. “Let’s go, Bradley.” When Trey took her other arm, Naughton dropped his hold on her.

  “Don’t leave,” she heard him say, but she had to.

  “Where is she?” Alex asked when Naughton walked back into the vineyard.

  “Gone.”

  “With him?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re such an asshole.”

  “Not now, Alex.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if she quit.”

  Naughton walked away.

  “Go get some sleep,” he heard her say as he left the vineyard.

  “What’s goin’ on?” Maddox asked when Naughton walked past his brother’s cottage on his way to his own.

  “Gettin’ some rest. Isn’t that what you’re supposed to be doing?”

  “Can’t sleep.”

  Naughton understood. His body needed rest, but he was past the point where he could force it. “Bradley left.”

  “Good. She needed a break.”

  “Maybe for good.”

  Maddox shook his head and went back inside.

  Naughton followed. “Don’t you want to know why?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I know she’ll be back.”

  “She left with him.”

  “Yeah? Why wouldn’t she?”

  “Because he’s an asshole who treats her like shit.”

  Maddox put his hand on Naughton’s shoulder. “Go sleep. Take something if you have to.”

  “I can’t. I have to talk to her—”

  “I’m gonna stop you right there. The only thing you have to do is leave Bradley Saint John the hell alone before your words become a self-fulfilling prophecy and she never comes back. I need her at the winery, now more than ever. If you do anything to jeopardize that…”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not going to do a fucking thing, Naughton. But I’m asking you, as your brother, to just do this one thing for me. Leave Bradley alone. Walk away. Do what you know is the right thing.”

  “I can’t,” he said, but Maddox didn’t hear him. He was out of his brother’s cottage and in his own before he admitted the truth. He couldn’t leave her alone, and what’s more, he knew she didn’t want him to.

  7

  When Trey drove out of Butler Ranch, he didn’t take Bradley home. Instead, he took her to Adelaida Inn, where he always stayed when he came to visit.

  “We need to talk,” he began.

  “Before you say anything more, I need a break, Trey. It’s trite, I know, but it isn’t you, it’s me. I appreciate you trying to help—”

  “Are you sleeping with him?”

  “What? How could you ask me that?” she gasped.

  “Settle down. Either way, there are things I need you to do.”

  Bradley’s exhaustion was at a level where she thought maybe she wasn’t hearing him right. “What things?”

  “I want to know exactly how much of Butler Ranch’s juice is tainted. And since you’re in so thick with Alex Avila, I want to know what other wineries in the area are having issues with their production levels. If you hear of anyone whose production is compromised, I want to be the first to know.”

  “You’re asking me to spy on them?”

  “Don’t be melodramatic. I’m asking you to pass on information.”

  Bradley had always hated his condescending tone, but mixed with lack of sleep and debilitating fatigue, she was beginning to hate him as much as the way he talked to her.

  “No.”

  “Do you understand what’s at risk, Bradley?”

  “I guess I don’t, and honestly, I don’t care.”

  “Twenty-six billion dollars a year is at stake, and I can tell you, the wine conglomerates will stop at nothing to get what they want.”

  “I don’t understand—”

  “It’s called climate change, Brad, and it threatens everyone in our industry.”

  “I’m leaving.” Before she could walk out the door, Trey grabbed her arm.

  “Davis, Fresno, hell—even your precious Cornell have been courting Naughton Butler.”

  She jerked her arm away from him. “For what?”

  “To head up their climate change research departments.”

  “Why him?”

  “Because he’s the goddamn vine whisperer. Drought, pest infestation—he’s the master. What he’s done here in Paso Robles is groundbreaking.” Trey scrubbed his face with his hand. “You know viticulture, you’ve got a damn degree in it. What comes with temperatures that average five, even ten degrees above what we previously considered normal?”

  Bradley stood with her arms folded, but nodded. Trey’s question was rhetorical.

  “That’s what we’ve experienced over the last ten-year period. No one paid much attention at first. Just thought it was warmer than average, but when, summer after summer, the warming trends continued, the winery owners started paying attention. If these trends continue to affect the valley’s winter climate, grapevine moths, mildews, even red blotch virus, thrive. Without temperatures cool enough at night to kill them off, they spread, year after year, and there’s no end in sight.”

  “You came here to convince Naughton to come work for you.”

  “Mainly.”

  She laughed, and not because she thought it was funny. “He won’t help you, Trey.”

  “Maybe not, but he’ll do whatever you ask.”

  “I have no influence over Naughton Butler.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “He wants to fuck you.”

  She slapped Trey’s face with every ounce of strength she could muster.

  He brought his palm to his cheek. “You don’t think I saw that display in the vineyard when he got back? You owe me.”

  “I owe you? For what?”

  “You’re someone in this industry because of me, otherwise you’d be just another marginally pretty girl, who thinks she knows how to make wine.”

  Bradley’s head was reeling. She was someone because of him? What exactly did Trey believe he’d done for her? She opened the door and was on her way out when Trey’s next words made her stop.

  “Don’t say you weren’t warned.”

  She spun around. “About what?”

  “What will happen if your lover doesn’t play nice.”

  “He’s not my—”

  “The economic impact of this region is less than ten percent of what we do up north. Without us, their wine production doesn’t mean jack shit. They need us to survive, and the sooner they figure that out, the better it will be for all of us.”

  “I can’t help you.”

  “You’d better. Even I won’t be able to step in and save Jenson if you refuse to do what I asked.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “Accidents happen, don’t they?”

  Bradley slammed the door behind her, letting Trey’s words sink in. Had her exhaustion made her delirious? Had she heard him right? Was he threatening her family’s winery?

  When she rounded the corner of the building, she almost ran into Jim, whose family had owned the inn for over fifty years.

  “Whoa, slow down there, Bradley—”

  Jim’s words cut short when he saw she was crying. “What’s wrong?”

  “I left my phone…”

  “Tell me what you need, sweetheart.”

  “A ride home.”

  �
�Come with me.”

  Jim dropped her off, but neither her aunt nor her uncle was home. They were probably still at Butler Ranch, helping in the vineyards. She should’ve asked Jim to drop her off there instead of here. Her reflection, when she walked past the downstairs bathroom mirror, made her gasp. Black soot, streaked from her tears, covered her face, even her hair was matted in it. She had to shower and put on fresh clothes, but then she’d go back to Butler and tell Naughton and Maddox everything Trey had said.

  After her shower, she put on a robe and sat on her bed, intending to rest for just a minute but, instead, slept through to the next morning.

  Naughton heard Bradley was back this morning, but so far he hadn’t seen her. They needed to talk, and soon, to finish the conversation they’d started before she left last night.

  Did she really believe he was in the wrong? The boyfriend had been showing off, flexing his muscle where it wasn’t needed. He was a pompous ass who didn’t deserve Bradley’s defense.

  It was only Maddox’s plea that kept him from seeking her out as soon as he heard she was back. His brother had asked him to leave her alone, and he knew Maddox was right to ask. This thing between them burned as hot as the vineyard fire had.

  She felt it too; he knew she did when she kissed him back. He’d never forget the way her body melted against his or the way her breath quickened when she opened her mouth to his.

  It had been their first kiss—he remembered thinking that when it happened—but it sure as hell wouldn’t be their last.

  When Bradley got back to the ranch, she went in search of Maddox, who asked her to come into the winery so he could fill her in on what they’d done since she left.

  “It wasn’t as bad as we thought it might be,” he told her. “Your work yesterday saved us, Bradley. I don’t know how we can ever repay you.”

  “It’s my job,” she murmured, hating that Trey’s words echoed in her head.

  “I’d say you went far beyond the job.”

  She hated to ask, but she had to. “Do you know how the fire started?”

  “My guess is heat lightening, although it’s too early for anyone to know for certain.”

  Maybe Trey was the one who was being melodramatic yesterday, but after her unintentional several hours’ sleep, questions about what he’d meant and where he’d been were spinning in her head.