A Fine Year for Love (Shores of Indian Lake) Read online

  Liz felt her breath catch in her lungs. She leaned over the arm of her chair and peered more closely at the wallet.

  “Nothing,” Sam announced.

  Liz fell back in her chair and stared up at the porch roof. “It was my last hope.”

  “I can’t believe I didn’t pay it,” he said guiltily.

  Over the past year, Sam had been forgetting things a little more than usual. He needed afternoon naps nearly every day. He told her he was slowing down, and she had assumed that was all it was. He was fully engaged in his life and in their business, so she hadn’t considered there might be anything seriously wrong. Still...

  “What did you do that day that would have caused you to forget?”

  Sam was quiet for a long moment. “I was at the grocery store when Maria called me. She said the power had been cut—workers on the highway or some such. Our generator wasn’t functioning, either, which seemed impossible. I drove straight home and met Aurelio. We called Burt Thompson, who came out and showed us the breaker had gone bad. Then that horrible storm came in. Nearly a tornado. We spent the rest of the week cleaning up downed trees and inspecting the vines. It was a week I’ll never forget. Everything went wrong.”

  “I remember you telling me about it,” she said. No wonder he’d forgotten to pay the taxes. He was trying to save the vineyard. And yet...a year later, they were facing a worse storm than a tornado.

  “I’m sorry, Lizzie. Did you look in the safe?”

  “Yes,” she replied glumly. “I even went through the hanging files in the desk drawers. The problem is that there’s no way to know if someone else cashed it.”

  “I’m so sorry. This is all my fault,” Sam apologized. “I have to believe we’ll find the check.”

  “I hope we do!” Liz replied. “In the meantime, I have to call the treasurer’s office and see what I can work out. The problem is the taxes for this year are due at the same time. We don’t have that kind of money in our savings.”

  Sam looked down at his prized wine. “I’m glad I sold that case of my cabernet today.”

  “That will help,” Liz said, patting his arm affectionately. “There’s something else I need to talk to you about.”

  His left eyebrow ratcheted up. “Losing twenty grand isn’t enough?”

  Liz felt her heart flip. She hated seeing even the first smidge of consternation in his eyes. This man had meant the world to her almost her whole life. All she wanted was for him to be happy, and in the span of one conversation, she had hit him with two pieces of devastating news.

  She knew Sam didn’t have the enthusiasm or the energy for the kind of expansion Liz envisioned for the vineyard. Sam had worked hard on the land all his life, but her gambles on Louisa, the chardonnay grapes, the riddling and fermenting rooms—even the tasting room and the plan to make champagne—were all a crapshoot. A big roll of the dice. Sam had gone along with her not because he thought it was good business, but because he loved her.

  Liz had to wonder what kind of twisted and sick blunder of fate would allow these catastrophes to befall them. Sam had walked the conservative route his entire life. He’d maintained the vineyard and ridden the roller coaster of drought and flood, and he hadn’t lost the land. He didn’t believe in banks, borrowing money or building for the future. He believed in holding on, but that was all.

  Sam had often told her she would inherit everything when he died. His greatest fear had always been leaving her with a great pile of debt. But with Gabe Barzonni in the equation now, all bets were off. Liz’s decisions alone could bring down Crenshaw Vineyards. With Gabe Barzonni as competition, they were about to enter the fight of their lives.

  Liz crossed her arms over her chest as if she were afraid she’d be shot through the heart. Losing her vineyard, even a portion of it, would break her heart. She exhaled.

  “Tell me what else is going on,” Sam urged her. “Because it sounds to me like this one is worse than losing the tax money.”

  “I’m afraid it is. Or could be. I just learned from Maddie that the Mattuchis sold their vineyard to Gabe Barzonni.”

  “Barzonni?” Sam repeated in disbelief. “What would Angelo Barzonni want with that cruddy little chunk of land half a universe away from his tomato farm south of town?”

  Liz shook her head. “Not Angelo, Grandpa. Gabriel, his eldest son, bought it.”

  “Same darned thing. Trust me, the old man put him up to it!” Sam slammed his balled fist on the arm of his chair.

  “That makes no sense. Besides, it was Gabe who was out here trying to take our soil. Now I know why he was here.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s so obvious. Our land has the same soil as Mario Mattuchi’s. He grows Nebbiolo grapes, which are fine in Italy, but the climate here is all wrong for them. They have to ripen so late, even after our cabernet sauvignons have ripened. But he would never give them up.”

  “Mario is from the old country. He likes what he likes. Some years he did okay. But he never really sold his wine, anyway. I just don’t understand why he would sell out to Angelo. Mario always told me he didn’t like Angelo.”

  “He told you that?” Liz asked.

  “He did. Many times, back when Matthew was alive and he and your mom...” Sam trailed off, clearly noticing Liz’s pained expression. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring all that up.”

  “It’s okay, Grandpa. If we can’t talk about Mom and Dad, who can? Especially now, when we’re facing all this.”

  “Facing? What are we facing?”

  “Gabe!” Liz answered much too quickly and with far too much emotion. Her voice rang with anger, fear and...excitement? Was that it? Liz hardly knew what was going on inside of her. How could she decipher the unfamiliar pangs and yearnings when she didn’t even know Gabe’s motivations for buying the Mattuchi land?

  Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Did you really have him in your gun’s sight?”

  “For a moment, before I recognized him.”

  “Well,” Sam said thoughtfully. “Maybe he’ll remember that and move cautiously around you in the future.”

  “Unfortunately, Grandpa, that future is this Saturday night.”

  “What’s on Saturday?”

  “Maddie and Nate’s engagement party. It’s going to be held at the Barzonni villa. Gina is putting on a big party for them.”

  Sam was silent for a long moment. “Gina, huh? At the villa?”

  “Yes. I can’t get out of it. I’m one of the bridesmaids.”

  Sam peered at her. “Who said anything about squirreling your way out of a command performance? Look, I have no idea what those Barzonnis are after, but this is the perfect opportunity for you to find out. I suggest you load both barrels and go in with guns blazing. No one’s going to take us down without a fight.”

  “Sounds good to me, Grandpa. Just how do you suggest I do that?”

  Sam picked up his glass, smirked and took a mouthful of the precious wine. “What you always used to do when presented with a dilemma. Go up to the catwalk.”

  Liz returned his smile, feeling the first inkling of peace descend upon her. “Of course. The catwalk.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  THE “CATWALK” WAS the Crenshaws’ name for the attic of the farmhouse. When Liz’s parents, Matthew and Kim, had been alive, they had renovated the expansive area into a loft apartment with a walled-off bedroom complete with closets, built-in dressers and a master bath. A second bedroom across the landing at the top of the stairs had been Liz’s room until her parents’ deaths. After their accident, she’d moved into the guest room downstairs to be closer to her grandfather.

  Along the entire north wall, Matt had installed three sets of eight-foot-high windows that, on a clear day, offered a view of Lake Michigan in the very far distance.

  This was where her
parents had made plans to expand her grandfather’s vineyard. Through Matt’s efforts, they had bought over a hundred acres of land to the north of the existing vineyard, which lay fallow to this day. It was Liz’s most heartfelt dream to carry out her father’s long-held goal and plant it all. Matt had wanted to prove that because of its geographic anomaly, his Midwest land was capable of producing wines as unique as anything California could offer.

  Liz’s passion to fulfill her father’s dream had driven her for years. She’d been preparing the soil with her compost and had planted a parcel of peach trees to the northeast, which always turned a good crop. Liz believed that in the future, the fallow land would be perfect for their chardonnay grapes. Perhaps for some Limbergers, too. They were hardy and produced a high-quality wine.

  All two hundred and fifty acres of her land, fully planted and abundant, was the only picture she would allow her imagination to paint. It was the same landscape her father had conjured in his mind over twenty years before. She would be the conduit from heaven to earth through which he’d make his mark on the world.

  Liz could still remember standing at this window with him when she was only five years old, as he held her in his arms and pointed to the lake. “See that, Lizzie?” he’d said. “That gives life to our vines. That lake makes our land nearly like Sonoma, and the great vineyards on the west coast. There’s nothing they do that we can’t do. That lake isn’t a lake, Lizzie. It’s an inland sea. Let’s call it the Michigan Sea.”

  “Yes, Daddy,” she’d said, kissing his cheek, which had always been red from the sun. She’d ruffled his thick, honey-colored hair, the same hair she had. She remembered the smell of him, sun and wind and earth from working in the fields. And there was the smell of nature, she thought now, the scent of something ungraspable...like the memory she had of him. Real, still guiding her.

  On either side of the windows were two huge desks, where her parents had worked. Her mother had handled the accounting and bill-paying, much as Liz did now, and she had also planned their trips to Chicago for lectures and visits to the food and wine conventions in New York and Aspen. Liz remembered her mother combing magazines for inspiration for the vineyard she and Matt dared to nurture in the middle of America rather than on the west coast, like all the other vintners in the nineties.

  Liz watched the last of the setting sun.

  Some people believed going to a cemetery would bring them closer to their loved ones, but not Liz. She knew the spirits of her parents were here in this room if they were in the house at all. Most of the time, she felt them when she walked among the vines and sang the same lullabies to the grapes her mother had sung to her.

  Her parents had died in a car accident when she was only six. They had been in Sonoma, gathering vines, ideas and information to bring back to their piece of paradise. Despite the tragedy, Liz had never idealized them. They were her parents. Not saints. Not perfect. But they had taught her one thing.

  To believe in her dreams.

  That’s what they had done.

  Even though those dreams had killed them.

  Tears nearly blinded Liz as she dropped her head and sat down in her father’s desk chair. She and her grandfather hadn’t touched the room since her parents died. Liz had come up to the catwalk all through her life to think, pray and dream. It was here she’d contemplated her trip to France and her decision to build the tasting room.

  Liz had spent her early life in this loft. She’d learned to read while sitting on these rag rugs with her mother and she’d put puzzles together with her father. It had always been her haven.

  How disappointed they would both have been if they knew what was happening to her now. Losing the tax money. Giving in to her fear of competition that hadn’t even materialized yet. Scrubbing her tears away, she remembered her grandfather’s words earlier that evening.

  What was she doing? Giving up? “I can’t give up, can I, Daddy?” she asked the silver-framed photograph of her father on his desk. He was standing by a vine, holding a cluster of prized pinot noir grapes, the first to be planted on their land. Matt’s intention had been to plant the entire northwest slope of the property with these grapes. It had taken twenty years, but Liz had carried out his wish. She’d done it. She’d fulfilled his dream.

  And now this...this varmint...

  Just thinking about Gabe riled her up. She shot to her feet and slammed her fist on the desk. “I won’t give up, Dad. Mom. I promise.”

  Liz started to walk away from the desk, but as she did her bare thigh caught on a protruding drawer. She sat back down and inspected her leg—a piece of metal had cut the skin. She was bleeding. What in the world?

  She grabbed the drawer and yanked it. She was certain she’d gone through the papers in it at some point, but this time, she noticed a metal separator had popped out, most likely when she’d pounded the desk with her fist. Behind the separator were several journals.

  With trembling, uncertain fingers, Liz opened the cover of the first notebook. “For Elizabeth—my Lizzie—from her parents on her first birthday.”

  Despite the tears welling up in her eyes, she turned the first page.

  “You are the bubbles in our champagne, darling. We could not love you more.”

  The entries went on to describe her first words and steps, what foods she ate and at what ages. Liz assumed most young mothers wrote about these milestones in baby books. What was different was her mother had jotted down every single dish on the menu for each holiday dinner, and her father had chosen the white, red and dessert wines, along with the sherries and cognacs.

  There were photographs of her grandfather holding her next to an enormous Christmas tree, and even a shopping mall photo of her with the Easter Bunny.

  There were six journals in all, one for each year of Liz’s life until their deaths. The journals were filled with photographs, tickets to vintage seminars and food fairs, plane tickets to Sonoma and more menus and wine lists.

  But in the later journals, her father had begun what appeared to be stream-of-consciousness entries about his dreams and plans. He used the journals to put down thoughts he must have intended for her to see one day.

  In the fourth notebook, her father went into great detail describing how he’d met Kim at a party at UC Davis. Kim had been a California surfer girl, blonde and tan and in love with beaches. Her wealthy parents had wanted her to become a lawyer. Kim wanted to live in France and be a vintner. She broke from her parents and worked her way through college, where she met Matt and fell in love. From that first party, they were inseparable. Her father had been blind to any other woman on campus.

  Liz couldn’t remember hearing her father expound upon his love for her mother, though he was always openly affectionate, and reading these tender and private words filled her with a longing to talk to him again. He was more than effusive with his praise for Kim and her accomplishments.

  Most of all, Liz’s mother had filled Matt’s heart and soul with life.

  Kim is like the air to me. I never knew I could be so happy just watching another person smile. Her laughter is loud and instantaneous, and though some people would be put off by it, it lights the day for me. She’s the one person I know who has learned to live in the present. She lives for the moment. She never wonders if she should hold me or kiss me—she just does it. She must tell me she loves me a dozen times a day. I’ve always lived for the future. I’m better about that now, but when I was younger, I was always thinking “...after I graduate high school.” Or “after college, I’ll expand the vineyard. I’ll make my dad smile tomorrow.” My dad lives in the past, when my mother was alive. Kim has been good for him, too.

  Matt’s writings about her mother opened a door buried deep inside Liz. For the first time, she realized her life was lacking. She’d never felt love or longing for anyone in a romantic sense. She missed her parents and loved he
r grandfather very much. When her parents left on that last trip to Sonoma, her father had picked her up, looked into her eyes and said, “You take care of your grandfather, Lizzie. He’s your responsibility while we’re gone.”

  “I will, Daddy,” she’d replied. “I promise.”

  Liz felt as if those words had been burned into her psyche for eternity. Take care of your grandfather. She’d been doing that for over twenty years. He was all she had.

  She was all he had.

  This whole time, Liz had accepted that her life was just as it should be.

  But now, she felt an emptiness she hadn’t known was there.

  Was she missing something important? Lots of people were single. And didn’t more than half of all marriages end in divorce? So what was the point?

  Her parents had true love and purpose. Was that why the universe had taken them so young? Had they experienced it all, leaving no more lessons to learn?

  Like a thunderbolt hitting her, Liz realized she was terrified that if she let love into her life, death would soon follow. If she opened her heart completely, she would be devastated. Just as she’d been devastated as a child. She’d lost her world back then. And no matter what consequences one faced in life, death was irreversible.

  Liz felt a throbbing from her heart deep into her soul. For so long, she’d covered up that aching, yawning hole with the love she’d given her grandfather and the love she’d received from him.

  But the rhythm her parents had shared, as if they were two artists painting the same landscape, seemed impossible to Liz. If she hadn’t read her father’s words, she wouldn’t have believed in that kind of love at all.

  She wondered if Sam knew about these journals.

  Just then, she heard the dinner bell Maria rang to call them all in from the barns and fields. Liz picked up the stack of notebooks so she could continue reading them later in her bedroom, and a single snapshot fell out.