Heaven looked suspiciously like a cheese shop, but surely her personal cloud was around here somewhere. Could she book an angel-guided tour, perhaps?
“She stole our flyers out of shop windows and . . . yeah, I think she might have broken our disco ball?” Uh-oh. Hallie’s stupor popped like a bubble, and she peeked around Julian in time to see the manager throw up his hands. “She’s a menace!”
Hallie gasped.
“You’re probably right,” Julian drawled.
She gasped a second time.
“But if you say another word about her, I’ll break a lot more than your disco ball.”
Tweed Twit blew a raspberry in his outrage. “I can’t believe this—” He stopped cold and squinted up at Julian. “Wait a minute, you look familiar.”
Julian sighed, transferring the paper bag to his other arm. “Yes.” He kept his voice low. “You must be familiar with Vos Vineyard.”
“Vos Vineyard? Not really. We don’t stock anything from those dusty-ass has-beens.”
Hallie almost threw the block of Parmesan at the store manager—and it was definitely a big enough chunk to deliver a concussion. Did he really just say that out loud to Julian? The secondhand embarrassment she’d experienced for Lorna roared back now in his honor, flushing her skin and making her wish she’d stayed in bed this morning, like a good little hungover soldier. For Julian’s part, his reaction was not what she might have expected. Instead of getting angry over the insult to his family business, he merely looked . . . perplexed. Curious.
“Dusty-ass has-beens?” he repeated, brow furrowing. “Why would you call—”
The manager cut him off with a finger snap. “No, wait. I know why you’re familiar. You were in that alien documentary! What was it called . . .”
Julian was already turning on a heel, ushering Hallie out of the store with his free hand. “And that’s our cue.”
“Wait!” called the overdressed twentysomething. “Can we take a selfie?”
“No,” Julian said flatly.
“What alien documentary is he talking about?” Hallie whispered up at Julian’s set chin.
“Quiet, cheese thief.”
“That’s fair,” she muttered, plucking the Parmesan out of her apron and taking a bite.
As soon as they were outside the shop and moving at a brisk pace down the sidewalk, Julian asked a question Hallie really didn’t want to field. “Why did he speak that way about the vineyard? Was it an unpopular opinion or the consensus?”
Hallie gulped. “If I answer, will you explain the alien documentary?”
His sigh could have withered an oak tree. “Deal.”
Chapter Six
They were the adult version of Hansel and Gretel. Except, instead of bread crumbs, they were leaving crumbles of Manchego in their wake. Somehow Julian wasn’t surprised by this turn of events. Of course he’d stumbled upon this captivating, lunatic woman who inspired him to make prank calls stealing cheese from a local establishment. What else would she be doing?
He couldn’t quite locate the wherewithal to be exasperated with her, however. Who could be upset over anything when she was smiling? Not him. Especially when two very prominent emotions were crowding everything else out.
Number one? He was pissed the hell off. Wanted to go back into UNCORKED and knock some teeth out of the manager’s head, which was unlike him in every way. He wasn’t a violent man. He’d been in a few scrapes as a teenager, but he’d never experienced that hot surge from his belly to his throat before, like he’d felt when he’d seen Hallie being yelled at through the window. Who could shout at this . . . human sunflower? None of my business, his head tried to tell him. But his gut compelled him to storm inside and stand between her and any sort of negativity. Not on my watch.
Number two? An encroaching sense of dread tightened his arm around the sack of groceries. Dusty-ass has-beens. Those words cycled from one corner of his brain to the other, back and forth, so unlike the phrasing he was used to hearing describe Vos Vineyard.
Institution. Legendary. A cornerstone of the industry.
They stopped at a trash can, where Hallie rid herself of countless cheese samples, though she stubbornly held on to the Parmesan. “Before I tell you anything,” she started, squaring her shoulders and taking a deep breath that did nothing to settle his nerves. “I want you to know that I, personally, do not share any negative opinions about your family’s vineyard. Case in point, I just knocked over that cringey wine nightclub because it’s stepping on the toes of my beloved old stomping grounds. I value tradition and history—those are both words I would use to describe Vos. It’s part of St. Helena. But it, um . . . well, in recent years, some might say . . .”
The dread deepened. “Don’t soften the blow, Hallie. Let’s have it.”
She nodded once. “The fire was a setback to a lot of established wineries. They tried to recover, but the pandemic came along and knocked them out. Now there is a flood of competition from the buyers of those turnkey wineries. They’ve come along and modernized their operations, found new ways to lure in the crowds. And Vos . . .” She wet her lips. “According to what I’ve heard, it’s still in recovery mode, while all the new kids are expanding, bringing in celebrity spokesmen, and conquering social media.”