The Day I Divorced Him, I Became His Landlord novel · Chapter 19 of 24
Chapter 19: Nothing Owed
Wyatt's POV
A dozen workers stood in the old block at noon with their gloves in their back pockets and the last Cabernet still hanging on the vines.
The crew boss was a woman in her fifties who had run the picking for ten harvests.
She planted her feet in the dirt row and looked me in the eye.
"The check bounced," she said. "My people have kids. Who pays us?"
"I don't know yet."
"Then what are you doing out here?"
"Waiting," I said. "She's coming up the hill."
Marisol came down the row in jeans and rubber boots, with Joaquin's red jersey under her coat and her hair in a plain braid.
She stopped in front of the crew boss and held out her hand.
"I own the land. I'll sign for the wages, starting today, from the rent account, at the same rate as last week. The Cabernet comes off by Tuesday, or the rain takes it."
The woman looked at her palm, and then at the scar across it.
She shook.
"Tuesday," the crew boss said. "Boys, gloves."
Eleven pairs of hands went back on.
I stood there with my own hands empty, and something in my chest I had kept shut for twelve years came open.
They picked until the light went.
I walked the rows with a lug on my hip and tasted every tenth cluster, and I worked the way I had when I was twenty-three, without thinking.
When the last bin was loaded, Marisol was standing by the cellar door with her arms crossed.
"Walk with me."
We went up the hill together, past the manor, which was dark except for one lit window.
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