Just a Stranger by Michelle Donn

Author:Michelle Donn [Donn, Michelle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MichelleDonn.com
Published: 2024-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Atley

I stood in the middle of what had been a perfectly good hay field. The rumble of heavy equipment filled the midday air. Harley and Annabelle’s crew had started early this morning, transforming the grass pasture into a parking lot. A massive bulldozer rumbled past me, scraping away Bermuda grass that could have fed our cattle. When they were done, the field would be a well-lit and leveled gravel parking area big enough to accommodate greyhound-type buses. Rae had been adamant about the size so she could attract the biggest wine tour buses and weddings to the venue.

I hated the word venue. It made me think of Disney World or Las Vegas.

Then again, there were a lot of things I was uncomfortable with in my world lately. The biggest was sleeping with Rae but never sleeping with Rae. Leaving her after making her scream my name over and over had frayed my resolve to not overthink it. Our non-relationship continued to be a minefield I navigated with care.

The “soft open” scheduled for two weeks from now was another thing I wasn’t a fan of. Soft open—what the fuck? Something was open or it wasn’t. Apparently, in the world of PR, there were degrees of openness. And in two weeks, Blue Star’s tasting room had to be ready enough to invite the whole town for a special “soft open.”

The crack of a tree splintering under the bulldozer made me wince and woke Major up from his nap under my truck. There was a song about paving paradise to make way for a parking lot. It was fucking depressing to witness. I should have grabbed extra Advil before I left my place at the ass crack of dawn this morning to feed the horses. This was going to be a long day.

Arms crossed over my chest, I watched the bulldozer make another pass. Forget Advil, I needed a morphine drip to endure this. I was about to leave and find something, anything, else to do when I noticed Wilson’s new truck racing up the ranch road in this direction, a plume of dust behind it. He and Cami only got back from their extended California vacation a few days ago.

The truck barreled past the mounds of gravel waiting to be spread and careened to a stop in front of me.

Aw, shit. I braced for the incoming crisis.

“I fucked up and need your help.” Wilson scrambled out of the truck after fighting to escape his seat belt.

Disasters were my forte.

“What’s going on?”

He looked back at the truck a few times and opened and closed his mouth like he couldn’t decide what to do versus what to say. A knot of apprehension took up residence in my gut by the third repetition. I wanted to shake him and force an action. Indecision in a crisis wasn’t helpful.

I cleared my throat and raised my eyebrows, trying to spur him to decide.

With a muffled curse, he jerked open the back door of the pickup and took something out.

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