Old Man Takata used his grip to reel himself to her side. He grunted as he strained to straighten hunched shoulders and lift the kindly aging face of his Japanese ancestors to her. “Where’s your grandfather? Did War skip out on the excitement?” Cigar smoke laced his words.
“He’s at home, hip deep in research.” Shelby couldn’t get Grandpa to promise to stay out of his stacks while she was gone.
The older man smiled. “Are you by any chance a bowler?”
Slade, one of the winery owners, appeared before them. He was knock-your-socks-off handsome, a former Wall Street whiz, and Christine’s fiancé. “She won’t be bowling for your team, Hiro. If she bowls for anyone, it’s the winery.” Slade gave Shelby a brief once-over, like a coach checking out a new recruit. “The winery bowls in a league in Cloverdale. Do you bowl, Shelby?”
Bowling? Athletics? Disaster. “Does pumpkin bowling for the Harvest Queen crown one year count?”
The older man laughed. “It’s coming back to me. A wonky release that nearly took out the spectators.”
“Only Gage,” Shelby muttered.
“Slade, you may have her. Now, find me a seat under one of those heaters.” Old Man Takata released her. “Oh, and, Shelby.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Let me know if you need company visiting Nick’s grave.”
Her breath caught. How had he known she hadn’t been able to go alone?
Needing a moment, Shelby faded away from the crowd, retreating to the banks of the Harmony Valley River on the edge of the vineyard.
She drew her green army jacket around herself as the water drifted past with slow swirls that caught the last rays of sunset. Had coming here been a mistake?
The first time Shelby’d moved to Harmony Valley was more than eight years ago. She’d learned quickly she could rely on two things—the steady flow of the river, and Gage Jamero. He had the smile of a heartbreaker and the smarts of a Rhodes Scholar. But most endearingly, he was kind and tongue-tied.
He’d introduced her to his best friend, Nick Hawkley. Nick was handsome and had a way of putting people at ease. She’d felt as if she’d known him forever. Nick had asked her out and that was that. She’d gained a love and a best friend in less than a week. It only took one day to lose both.
She hadn’t visited this part of the river since she’d been in high school. Memories came rushing back. The emotion from events she hadn’t thought of in years welled inside her.
The trouble with being a relatively new widow were all the “firsts.” The first night she’d slept in their bed after Nick died. The first time she’d passed by the church where they’d been married. The first holidays without him at her side.
Firsts were gut-clenching, cold moments. They clogged her throat, flooded her eyes and cut off her breath. It took time to process them. To acknowledge the innocence, to accept things would never be the same again, and to release the melancholy.
Yeah...the melancholy.
She’d once floated around this picturesque river bend on a raft with Nick and Gage. They’d been talking about college options—although they all knew they’d end up at the same university. They were that close. Then Gage had announced he wasn’t coming back to Harmony Valley after graduation.
Because of the scars of her parents’ nomadic, career-driven lifestyle, Shelby had been doggedly against Gage moving elsewhere. She’d lived in six cities by the time she was sixteen while her parents climbed corporate ladders in the advertising world. Always the new girl, always on the outside.
“You have no idea what it’s like to be someplace else. Nobody knows you like they do here. Harmony Valley cares about their neighbors.” She’d pounded the raft’s sides. “We’re all coming back here. Nick’s going to be mayor. I’m going to teach science. And you, Gage?” She’d shot him her most imperial look. “You’ll take over Grandpa’s practice.”
“Come on, Shelby. At eighteen nobody knows what they really want to do or where they’ll end up,” Gage had scoffed. “You think you love...some...something, but it’s just a phase. I loved chicken nuggets when I was four. Now I love sushi. I don’t know what I’m going to love ten years from now, but I do know I’m not coming back here. I want to go someplace where people don’t know my life’s history, including all the stuff I want to forget.”
Nick had been unusually silent.
She hadn’t understood Gage’s sentiment when they were kids. But after Nick’s death, Shelby knew exactly how Gage had felt. She hadn’t wanted to return, either, not because she didn’t love Harmony Valley, but because she couldn’t handle the town’s grief for Nick along with her own.
So instead, she’d taken a job at a winery at the foot of the Sierras, where no one knew her. She worked hard and kept to herself. Ice cream was her best friend. Nick’s pillow her midnight confidante. She was lonely, but loneliness was a guarantee that her heart would never be torn apart again.
Then a few months ago, her car had broken down on a stretch of less-traveled highway north of Sacramento. It was dark and deserted. She’d had no one to call for help. Her parents were working at an ad agency overseas. She hadn’t talked to them in several weeks. In a blink, she’d realized her life was an empty shell. Those things she’d craved growing up? Close friends, being part of a community, the feeling of permanence? She had none.
The next day, she’d heard about the Harmony Valley Vineyards job posting from her grandfather. She’d decided a compromise needed to be made.
A barking black dog ran by her, drawing her attention back to the present. Behind the dog was a panting, ginger-headed young boy.
“Hi, Shelby! I get to stay up late tonight picking grapes.” Truman, a nephew of Flynn, one of the winery’s owners, high-fived her before he disappeared into a row of grapevines behind her.
A few seconds later, Slade’s daughters, dark haired, identical twins, burst out of another row.
“Did you see Truman?” one asked as she gasped for breath and fanned her face.
Her twin, similarly red-cheeked and breathless, scanned the area.
“You can’t catch me,” Truman taunted from deep within a row. His laughter danced over rustling grape leaves.
Giggling, the girls raced after him, leaving Shelby with a lightened heart. It was good to see children back in town, good to see the kind of friendships she’d had the year she’d lived here.
In the distance, cars rumbled over the winery’s gravel driveway. Her Harmony Valley past was returning. Without Nick’s optimism and humor. Without Gage’s wit and blinding smile.
“Shelby, they’re here,” Christine called from the farmhouse porch several hundred feet away.
Shelby walked through rows of bushy grapevines dotted with the occasional browning leaf. The white two-story farmhouse had been renovated into an elegant tasting room on the first floor with open office space above. To the right, the winery’s main building had been constructed over the original barn’s footprint, and housed wine processing equipment along with some expensive wine barrels. It was a very small operation set in the middle of a beautiful vineyard. If done right, the wine would be exquisite. After Christine worked her winemaking magic, it was Shelby’s job to make sure the wine aged to perfection.
The sky softened to twilight gray as cars shut off and headlights dimmed. The nip of evening breathed over the vineyard. Soon the temperature would drop and the only light would come from portable metal booms as they harvested the Chardonnay grapes that would make up the first vintage of Harmony Valley Vineyards wine.
Christine gestured for Shelby to join her on the porch, next to Ryan, and Slade, who