“I want to buy land.”
They blinked up at me, and Evan tilted his head. “You want to be a rancher? Or just buy land with a lot of oaks?”
I snorted, thinking of the land for sale around us. The market was hot and many people moving out here wanted the land for privacy, not necessarily for what it had been used for in the past. “The place I’m looking at has a few oaks, but not a ranch. No, I want to buy land that is far more expensive than what I can afford alone.”
They all looked at me then, while Elijah leaned forward. His normal smile tilted down, and he frowned. “You mean the inheritance? From our uncles?”
Our mother’s brothers had both passed within the last year, and we were the only family that they had. When they died, their winery had been sold, as required by the will, but the proceeds from it, as well as whatever holdings they had, went tous. Meaning we had a decent nest egg on its way, and none of us had been expecting it or planning on it. So I had plans of my own. I just had to hope that they agreed.
“There’s a piece of land that I want to buy. And I want to make it a retreat. Or, rather, continue the property as a retreat with our own touches.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Evan snarled.
“Yeah, you want to spend money that we don’t have yet? I mean, I know it was out of the blue, but what the fuck?” East put in.
I held up my hand. “We all need something to do. Right now, we’re working in dead-end jobs to give us an income and to pay our bills, but none of us were expecting to get out when we did.” I looked at all of them, and they swallowed hard, nodding.
“It’s hard to find a new career when you thought you already had one,” Elijah whispered. Elijah had been a meteorologist for the Air Force, but the degree he had finally been able to get wasn’t in meteorology. It was hard to find a job in the field that he was trained in when he didn’t have the right degree for a civilian. But he was brilliant in more than that, and I hoped he realized that.
“Just let me finish,” I began. “I want to open up a retreat. A Wilder Retreat. And the land that I’m looking at, the land I’ve already spoken to the owners about, is a place where we can make it an inn. Host weddings, and there’s even a winery attached. The owners are fine with wanting to change the name of the company, too. I wouldn’t have done it if they’d had a strong connection to it. We can make Wilder fucking Wines.” They all looked at me like I was insane, and maybe I was. But I had plans. “Before you think I’ve lost my mind, I’ve been talking to Roy.”
“Roy, wait, didn’t he open up a place like it outside of Austin?” Everett asked, frowning.
“He did. That’s where I got the idea. We all need something to do, and we’ve all been living on our own and away from each other for long enough that it feels like we’re not even the same brothers anymore.” They were all silent so I kept going. “I want us to work together. I want us to start a business.”
“The Wilder Retreat,” Evan growled. “What’s our tagline? Let loose and get wild?”
I ran my hand through my hair, knowing our dinner was getting cold, but I had started about this the wrong way. “Fuck I don’t know. But we plan things. We can do this.”
Everett moved forward. “We’re military. We trained in explosives and planes. We don’t do wineries or fucking weddings or winery tours.”
They were all saying things I had gone over in my head countless times, but the thing was, we were more than our past, and I had to hope to hell we figured that out. “I know that. But we can learn. The place that I’m looking at, the owner is an older man who wants to sell, and there’s already staff in place that know what they’re doing. We can fit in, find our way. We are more than just the jobs that we were given and trained for all our lives. We can do this. And we need a normal.”
“And this would be a normal?” Elliot asked, but I saw the interest in his eyes.
“What do you want us to do for the rest of our lives? Work a desk job? Work for someone else? We’ve been working for someone else our entire lives. Let’s work for ourselves. Let’s make it our business.”
“What would we do?” Evan asked, his voice low.
“We’ll split the business. Each of us would have our own concept of what we’re doing. We’ve all been in charge of organizing and setting up plans and strategizing. Our jobs as teens were like this, even if it’s been a few years for some of us. Now, instead of the way that we operated in the military, we’ll put it to use for running an inn and a winery.”
“I like the taste of wine. I don’t actually know how to make wine,” Evan whispered.
I shook my head. “Of all of us, you know the most about wine. You worked with the uncles over our summers as a teen and even again every time you visited on whatever vacations you could take over the years.”
Evan scowled. “Yeah, so I know a little bit, but I don’t know enough to begin a new wine. I only know about the grapes from their place, not these.”
“We are near Fredericksburg. They make great wines,” Everett said, his eyes narrowing. Everett was brilliant. If he hadn’t gone into the service, I knew he would have been an accountant or his own CEO or CFO. I knew he’d be the one to make sure that we didn’t go bankrupt. He just didn’t know it.
“Evan, they have a vintner, a winemaker. But they need someone to help as the Director. What Uncle Leo used to do and what you trained for before you joined up.” Evan scowled at me, but it didn’t look as menacing at least.
“So, what, we each get our own position and we figure out how to work together?” East asked, growling. “I’m good with my hands. I can build things. I don’t want to work in hospitality or with fucking grapes.”
I nodded tightly. “I know that East. So that could be your job. Things break down, and we need to build things. I have all this written out, and I was going to talk it over with you. But first, I want to make sure that’s something that’s feasible. On top of that, Roy invited us to a wedding.”
“We’re not fucking wedding planners,” Evan growled.
I held up my hand. “That’s why we would hire a wedding planner for that part. As for an event planner? I think we all know who among us could be that person. We could be the people that show off our area. To plan tours for the winery, or even downtown San Antonio, or anything for when somebody wants to relax. We have spent our whole lives working for the government, risking our lives. Now, let’s enjoy it. Enjoy a home that we can build. And help others relax, too. I know it’s insane. But I didn’t want us to work together in a bar or build a company from the ground up. This place is already settled, and it has potential. We can hire someone for the wedding part, someone good. But we can do the rest.”