“Of course we do. Hello, Brock.”
Esther’s fiancé, Brock, stepped up next to her. “Honor. Hey, Brenna.”
Brenna hugged Brock. “It’s so good to see you. How are the nerves?”
“Like steel.”
Everyone else followed them up to the barn and Brenna did her best to ignore Mitchell and Allison. Not that Allison would allow that.
“How very country and quaint,” Allison said as she lifted her nose and sniffed as if all of this were beneath her. “Hello, Brenna.”
“Allison.”
Allison was dressed in a chic flowery maxi dress, her straight blond hair flowing behind her in the slight breeze. She always looked like she could grace the cover of a magazine. Then again, she was a social media influencer, so she had all the right clothes, the latest makeup, the best purses, and she knew she looked damn good. Plus she was photogenic as hell, which was incredibly annoying.
Not that Brenna followed all of Allison’s social media under an anonymous account or anything.
“I’ll bet this brings back some memories, doesn’t it, Mitchell?” Allison asked.
“Yeah.”
Mitchell looked the same. They ran into each other periodically at social events, so it wasn’t like Brenna hadn’t seen him since her divorce. It was just that seeing him here on her family property, knowing that she was going to have to spend four days with him and with Allison so closely tied to her made her . . .
She didn’t know how it made her feel.
Annoyed? Itchy? Pissed off? Angry? Frustrated?
All of those things, probably. She decided she needed the upper hand.
“Mitchell, you know Finn, of course,” Brenna said.
“Yeah.” Mitchell leaned over and shook Finn’s hand. “How’s it going?”
“Great, thanks. You?”
“Couldn’t be better.”
“Finn and I are engaged.”
Way to just throw it out there, Brenna. She mentally kicked herself.
Mitchell just stared.
“You’re engaged,” Allison said.
“Yes, we are.”
Allison gave Finn the once-over, and Brenna knew she wouldn’t find Finn lacking. Not with his good looks, that flowing thick hair, those enigmatic steely eyes that spoke to a woman without ever saying a word. And then his body—well, a woman would have to be dead not to notice all that lean muscle, and Allison was anything but dead. Brenna just stood there and smirked.
“You’re engaged to him,” Allison said.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know that.”
Brenna shrugged. “No reason you would know, since we’re not friends.”
“Wait.” Esther leaned in. “You’re engaged? Since when? How did I not know this?”
Brenna smiled. “You’ve had a lot on your plate.”
“Still, why didn’t you text me or call me or, oh my God, we should have gone out to celebrate. When did this happen?”
Crap. She hadn’t thought this through all the way. She should have sat down with her sisters and made a more thorough list of what-ifs and timelines and scenarios.
“It wasn’t all that long ago,” Finn said, taking Brenna’s hand and giving her the kind of warm look that Brenna could have sworn was genuine. “Brenna and I kept it to ourselves for a while, and then we told the family and started making wedding plans. I think she’s been keeping the news under wraps.”
“You’re not pregnant, are you?”
“Allison, really,” Esther said, wrinkling her nose.
Allison shrugged. “Someone had to ask.”
“No, not pregnant. Just in love.” She tilted her head back to look at Finn, who gave her a heated grin.
“Oh my gosh, Brenna. Congratulations.” Esther beamed a smile. “Looks like we have a lot to celebrate tonight.”
Brenna grinned. “It’s a good thing we have plenty of wine, then.”
“Should we get started?” Erin asked. “Welcome to the Red Moss Vineyards.”
Esther and Brock’s family and friends gathered in the barn. Brenna started them out with an introduction to Red Moss and how the family got started in the winemaking business, then took them on a tour. First they toured the vineyards and Brenna told them how they chose which grapes to grow every season depending on estimates of weather and yield. The vineyard tour also contained the arbor where Esther and Brock would get married on Saturday. Honor interjected wedding ceremony details along the way to give everyone a bit of flavor for how things would happen, and as they walked Erin made sure the crowd stayed together and reiterated what Honor was saying for those in the back of the group.
It was all working out perfectly. Except for Mitchell and Allison being there, but that couldn’t be helped. What was nice was Finn staying right by her side, being oh so solicitous with her, holding her hand when she wasn’t gesturing about grapes or fermentation or bottling, then standing back when she gave her spiel about this year’s yield and explaining the harvest that was coming up.
For a fake fiancé, he was doing a bang-up job.
After the tour they headed back to the barn where the caterers had set up the appetizers and the wine tasting could begin. Brenna had hired four staff to pour wine for the tasting tonight.
They had four different wines on hand for the group to taste—a chardonnay, a zinfandel, a rosé and a sauvignon blanc. Of course she loved all the Red Moss Vineyard wines, had a hand in creating all of them. She desperately hoped the group liked them, too.
She stood back and let the staff pour and waited, expectantly, while people tried the wines.
She wasn’t pregnant, had no desire to be a mother anytime soon, but every time someone tasted their wines, it was like having one of her babies judged.
“This rosé is so smooth,” Esther said, going in for another sip and leaning into Brock. “We’re going to have to take some bottles home with us.”
“I like the zinfandel, too.” Brock clinked glasses with her. “We’ll make a note to buy some of that as well.”
“Good call, babe.”
Outwardly, Brenna remained calm, but inside she was squealing with delight.
“I find the rosé to be a bit too cloyingly sweet,” Allison said, examining her glass closely as if it held poison. “Also, the zinfandel was desert dry, the chardonnay had too much oak and the sauvignon was just . . . okay, I guess.”