Chapter 4 Grace Newman

That Bottle of Malbec

Three and a Half Months Before the Wedding

I'm walking out of my office when the office door next to me opens, and Spencer very nearly mows me down.

"Sorry," he says to my oof sound as he walks right by me…just like he always does.

Just like he did the night he met my sister when it was supposed to be me.

Drew's cousin, Blake, is on the offensive line for the same team Spencer plays for, and he was having a party the night we were introduced to Spencer. Blake told him he had a friend he wanted Spencer to meet, and it was me.

But Spencer saw Amelia first.

Everyone always sees Amelia first.

We're opposites in almost every way. She's fun and wild and spontaneous. She has platinum blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She wears a lot of makeup and acts with her heart. Her catchphrase is apologize later .

As for me? I'm not wild or spontaneous. I'm serious, and I'm a hard worker. I have dark hair and dark eyes, and I don't stand out in a crowd the way she does, and if I had a catchphrase, it would likely be take responsibility .

Of course he saw her first.

But he was supposed to see me.

As soon as his eyes landed on her, they never left. And now they're engaged.

Or…they were. Maybe they aren't anymore. There was definitely some arguing, and the walls here aren't that thick. I heard him yelling about how she manipulated him.

I've kept my mouth shut, but the truth is that I've been pushing away my feelings for him since the night he asked Amelia out. We've never dated the same guy. We go for completely different types.

She loves him for his connections, money, and social status.

But he's become my friend over the last year and a half, and I've learned what a truly great guy he is. I've seen the way he gives back to the community. He spent his entire offseason here at my family's winery last summer, and now that another season is coming to a close, I've been looking forward to seeing him here more often than just Mondays and Tuesdays.

Only…I'm not sure if he will be. Not if he and Amelia are done.

I think about following him outside, but I stay put. He seemed like he could use some alone time after their fight.

I know the truth about my sister, but most people are too blinded by her beauty to see it. They chalk up her poor decision-making skills as impulsiveness. They say her wild streak is endearing.

I'm all for spontaneity. A spur-of-the-moment picnic under the stars? That sounds lovely and sweet.

But being reckless and wild isn't always endearing—like the time she found a random group of strangers at the gas station and decided to take a road trip with them, or the time she quit her stable job as a fourth-grade teacher midyear so she could take over the marketing department at our family's winery when she has exactly zero marketing experience but claims she's an expert in graphic design.

We don't get along. We never have. When she was seven, along came a little surprise named Gracie to ruin her whole life .

And if you think that's a joke…it's not. It's a direct quote from seven-year-old Amelia caught on video for posterity.

She hated me from the moment I was born because I took some of the attention from her. She worked hard to get the focus back on her any way she could, negative or not, and that has carried into adulthood. For my part, I try to ignore her. I try to take the high road. Sometimes that's hard.

Our family is close—so close that my dad's best friend is his brother. They both live at the same estate here at the vineyard with my grandmother. Both men are in their sixties as they work together to run this place. All the pieces are in place for Amelia and me to be close like that.

But we're not.

I mostly stay away from her. Or I did, anyway, when she decided she didn't want to work at the family winery. It was perfect when I only had to see her once a week on Sunday evenings for our weekly family dinner.

The winery is a business that has been in the Newman family for three generations. My great-grandfather bought the farm as a wedding gift for my great-grandmother, and since they were just married combined with the fact that their last name is Newman, they named it Newlywed Vineyard and Winery.

My great-grandmother willed it to my grandmother, and she's willing it to either my father or my uncle, though with the name Newlywed , I'm not entirely sure.

Neither man has been a newlywed for a long time. Uncle Jimmy never got married. My parents have been divorced since I was ten. My mom and dad are still on good terms, but she's remarried. She comes around on weekends to help out since she fell in love with the winery when they were married.

Dad is quiet and reserved, and he has put his all into the winery. But he's not getting any younger, and I'm not sure how much longer he wants to run this place.

Enter Gracie.

I have the know-how and the drive to take over Newlywed Vineyard and Winery, and it has been my lifelong dream to run this place. I think back my childhood, of hours sitting in the tire swing out behind the original estate dreaming of anything I could dare to dream about, and that's when it started. I'd watch Nana sit on the back porch overlooking the fields after a long day, and I'd see Pop Pop press a glass of wine into her palm.

I couldn't help but think that was what I wanted out of life, too. To relax on the back porch overlooking our family vineyard with pride as the man who loves me more than anything in the world brings me a glass of wine after a long day.

But my current prospects are sort of limited to the people who work here at the vineyard. I'm the hospitality manager of Newlywed Vineyard, which means my job includes tasting room and venue operations. It keeps me busy, and I'm nothing if not dedicated. When it's a family business and you literally live on the land, it sort of becomes a lifestyle, and maybe one of my family members is hurting right now and could use a sympathetic ear.

That thought is what pushes my feet into motion. I knock on the door to Amelia's office.

"You okay?" I ask quietly when I see her pacing in front of the door.

"Get out!" she yells at me, and she slams the door in my face.

Apparently, she's not okay. I'm not sure why I bother.

I head down the stairs, through the tasting room, and out the front door, and I spot Spencer as he rounds the estate toward the backyard. The firepits aren't going yet, but they'll be on once it gets dark. People will stand around in the freezing cold with glasses of wine by the fire. It's romantic even if it's cold, and then they'll warm up at the restaurant and maybe at whatever hotel they go to afterward.

I swing by the tasting room to grab a bottle of malbec along with two glasses. I pop the cork and head out back, and right now, it's deserted. I set my supplies on the table beside me and rub my hands together as I wish I would've grabbed my coat.

"You okay?" I ask.

He glances up at the sound of my voice, and when his blue eyes meet my brown ones, suddenly I don't feel the cold any longer.

Even though he looks angry and upset, and even though his eyes are stormy, I still see a warmth in the way he looks at me. It's comforting. It's kind. It's nothing my sister is, and for the millionth time, I wonder why the hell he's with her.

"What are you doing out here?" he asks. His voice is sullen.

"Checking on you," I admit. "I tried Amelia first, but she yelled at me and slammed the door in my face."

He exhales sharply as he drops into one of the Adirondack chairs by the firepit. "Yeah. We're kind of…fighting."

"Is it okay to admit the walls are thin and I overheard everything?" I ask, clicking a button so the fire roars to life and sliding into the chair beside him.

"Yeah," he mutters.

I hold my hands up toward the fire to grab some heat, and I shiver.

He's not wearing a coat, either, but he's the kind of guy who would offer it if he were. And just as I have the thought, he says, "Do you want my sweater?"

I can't help a small chuckle. "No. I'm okay." I clear my throat. "I'm sorry she did what she did." I pour us each a glass and hand one to him.

He offers a tight smile without looking at me as he accepts the glass. "Thanks."

"Would you like to be alone?"

He lifts a shoulder. "It's nice having you out here." He clinks his glass to mine, and we each take a sip.

Why are you with her?

I want to ask him, but I can't make myself form the words. Maybe I'm afraid of the answer.

He stares at the flames as they crackle and snap in the pit. "She's just…stubborn and persistent, and I thought we sort of balanced each other out. I thought some of my own traits of responsibility and accountability were starting to rub off on her. I guess I was wrong."

I get the sense for the first time that maybe he's with her to give her that balance. He seems like he's the kind of guy who takes care of those around him, who takes on projects to help others. Maybe he's got that white knight syndrome where he thinks he can save her from herself. But what he doesn't realize is he's sacrificing his own emotional well-being by trying to fix hers.

"She's thirty-one now, Spence. You can't teach an old dog new tricks." I push as much sympathy as I can as I deliver those words, but I'm not sure they soften the blow.

"Yeah," he murmurs.

"Do you want to marry her?" I finally ask. I keep my eyes on the fire.

He's quiet a few beats, and I feel him glance at my profile. "I'm not sure."

I exhale the breath I was holding.

He sucks in a breath and changes the subject. "What's new around here?"

I fill him in on the latest news. We finish our first glass, and I pour another while we chat about everything except Amelia.

I've just split what's left in the bottle between our glasses when I say, "Talk to me, Spence. How are you really doing?"

He sighs as he takes a sip of his wine. "I'm hanging in there." His eyes are focused on the fire as he takes a beat to think about something, and then he says, "When we lost, I sat down on the bench and looked around the stadium, and I got the strangest feeling like it was going to be the last time I did that."

My brows dip at his admission. "Are you leaving?"

He shakes his head. "I'm not planning to. But the offseason, especially the first two months, is always a wild time where anything can happen. We fell short this year, so Coach is surely going to be mixing things up to try something new next year."

"And you think that falls on you?"

He shakes his head. "Not at all. I've always been of the mindset that players aren't really people in the game. They're commodities. I know my worth, and I know what my team could get for me. I wouldn't be surprised if the front office decided to use that to their advantage, especially since we ended up with a decent draft position."

"And you have no say in that?" I ask.

He takes another sip of wine. "No. I didn't work a no-trade clause into my contract, so they're free to move me how they see fit. I know I'm the highest paid wide receiver on the Vikings. I know we're receiver heavy, and I know that our offense is turning more to the running game than the passing game. It makes some of us superfluous, and the team is going to want my high salary back in their salary cap."

Fear flitters through me. "You might…you might not play for Minnesota anymore?"

He lifts a shoulder. "I might not play for anybody anymore. I doubt that would happen, but every moment I step out onto that field, I realize there is not a single guarantee that I'll get to do it again."

"But…but…I can't cheer for another team. I just can't do it."

He chuckles. "And you shouldn't. You were raised bleeding purple, and for now, I'm not going anywhere."

"Good," I murmur. I chug a little of my wine as I realize how heavy things just got between us.

"I should go," he says quietly, and he lifts to a stand. "Have a good night."

He heads for my sister's bungalow, and I keep my eyes on the fire as I try to categorize my feelings. I'd only be sad if he left because he's my friend. My hot friend, yes, but still just a friend.

He can't be anything more than that.