The Divorce He Asked For, The Empire I Took Away novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Across the Road

Liesl asks the rude winemaker across the road for tank space, and he names her wine blind, but Dex has just booked every picking crew in the county.

On Saturday morning I crossed Dry Creek Road with a half bottle of wine in a canvas bag.

Dahl Family Cellars sat in a dip across from my mailbox.

A tin-roofed barn, a crush pad patched with three colors of concrete, and a hand-lettered sign: TASTING BY APPOINTMENT. NO APPOINTMENTS.

The Dahls had been making wine there since before Dex was born.

Augie Dahl was on top of a tank with a hose, in a gray henley soaked to the elbows.

He was big enough that the ladder looked borrowed.

"Morning," I said.

He looked down at me.

"You're the post."

"I'm Liesl. I live across the road."

"I know where you live. You're also the post." He turned the hose off. "My daughter read it out loud to me at breakfast. She's nine. She asked what 'sold as is' means."

"What did you tell her?"

"That it means no refunds." He climbed down. "What do you want, Mrs. Arnott?"

"Kessel."

"What?"

"Not Arnott. Kessel. And I want tank space."

He wiped his hands on his jeans and looked at me for a long time.

"No."

"You haven't heard the offer."

"Don't need to. Arnott's assistant winemaker shows up the day after she torches her marriage, wants my tanks." He shrugged. "That's a lawsuit with a bow on it."

"I'll pay."

"With what?"

"Grapes. Twelve acres of the Old Block."

That stopped him for a moment.

Then he laughed, short and not nice.

"Lady, I've read the 1904 tech sheet. Winemaker, Dex Arnott. You wash the hoses."

"You write that newsletter."

"I do."

"You called his rosé 'a scented candle that gave up.'"

"It is a scented candle that gave up."

"You called his chardonnay 'a lawyer's idea of butter.'"

The corner of his beard moved.

"Also true."

"And the 1904 you called 'the only honest bottle on that hill.'"

He didn't answer that.

I took the bottle out of my bag.

No label, just a cork pushed back in and LK in grease pencil on the glass.

"Every year I make one barrel in my garage," I said. "From the last two rows. Nobody drinks it but me and Winona."

"And now you want me to."

"Blind. You tell me what it is."

He looked at the bottle.

Then he went into the barn and came back with two glasses that didn't match.

He poured himself an inch.

He swirled it and stuck his whole nose in it.

He tasted.

He held it in his mouth, chewed it, and spat into the drain without looking.

Then he tasted again.

"Zinfandel," he said. "Obviously."

"Obviously."

"Old vines. Head-trained, dry-farmed, nobody watering them." He frowned into the glass. "Dried cherry. Black pepper. That rusty thing in the finish, like an old nail in the rain."

"Where?"

"West side of this road. Gravel, not clay." He looked across the road over my shoulder, at the black crooked rows past my fence. "That's the Old Block. Kessel fruit. Nobody else has that nail."

"What year?"

"Last year. 2025." He set the glass down very carefully. "It's better than the 2025 1904 that Dex is pouring from barrel at the club dinners."

"It's the same blend."

"It's not. It tastes like somebody cared."

Something under my ribs went tight and hot.

Nobody had said anything about my wine in seven years.

Not one word that wasn't Dex's name.

Augie picked up the bottle and read the grease pencil.

"LK."

"Liesl Kessel."

He was quiet a while.

A truck went past on the road and blew its horn at the stacked Arnott bins by my gate.

"So who made the 1904?" he said finally.

"I did. Every year. Every barrel."

"Dex."

"Dex poured it at dinners."

He looked at me.

Then he put two fingers in his mouth and whistled at the barn.

"Tanks four and five," he said. "Open-top, fifteen tons each. They're clean. You can have them through pressing."

"What do you want for them?"

"Two barrels of whatever you make." He pointed the glass at me. "And you never tell anybody I was nice to you."

"You weren't nice to me."

"Good. Keep it that way."

The barn door banged open.

A little girl came flying across the crush pad in pink rain boots, two blonde pigtails going in different directions.

She had a cordless office phone in one hand.

She was missing a front tooth.

"Dad! Dad, the crew man called. The one with the mustache."

"Goldie, what did I say about the phone?"

"Answer it nice. I did." She turned and stared up at me. "You're the post lady."

"Hi, Goldie."

"You're tall." She turned back to her father, breathing hard. "He says he can't send the extra pickers. He says nobody can. Mr. Arnott called every crew boss in the county last night and booked them all."

Augie stopped smiling.

"All of them?"

"Every single crew. Through October." She held up the phone like evidence. "He paid them to sit at home."

← Chapter 2 · All chapters · Chapter 4 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend