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“O’ coorse nae.” His mother stood. “We’ll talk after dinner, Brodie.”
Before he could follow her inside, his father motioned for him to have a seat. Brodie sat across from him at the outdoor table where his mother and father often shared their afternoon tea.
“Tell me what this is about, Brodie.”
“Ma asked me to deliver some things to Peyton Wolf that belonged to her, and some other stuff from Kade.”
“Ah. You were unsuccessful, then.” His da pulled a tobacco pouch from his pocket and filled his pipe.
“How’d you know?”
Rather than answer, his father lit the pipe.
“She wouldn’t take it.”
“I see.”
“I don’t want to tell Ma.”
“Excuse yourself near the end of dinner. She won’t bring it up in front of me.”
“Thanks, Da.” Brodie got a chill and shivered.
“Your ma made shepherd’s pie. It’ll warm ya.” His father set his pipe on the porch rail and motioned for Brodie to follow him inside.
“I saw Peyton Wolf today,” Brodie told Naughton later, when they were on their way to the cottages.
Naughton appeared to have heard him but didn’t respond.
“She misses him.”
“We all do, Brodie.”
“How serious do you think she and Kade were?”
“No idea.”
It wasn’t unlike Naughton to be reticent. He always said he liked working in the vineyards because he preferred the solitude.
“Didn’t you know her first husband?”
“Yeah, Cal Poly grad.” Naughton shook his head. “Cheated on her before and during their marriage.”
“That’s right. She went to Cal Poly, too.”
Naughton had graduated from the university in San Luis Obispo with a degree in viticulture, the science of grape growing. Brodie had followed their older brother Maddox to UC Davis, where they’d both majored in enology, the science of wine-making. He went on to get a Wine Executive master’s, which combined enology and viticulture with business management.
“She was an ag-biz major though, more like what you do. Lang was a vit major, but he never took it seriously. Not even sure how the guy graduated.”
He thought he heard Naughton say something under his breath, but didn’t catch it. It sounded like his brother called Lang a dick.
“He and Kade got into it pretty bad one night.”
That surprised him. Kade had been a big guy with a nasty scar that ran across his left cheek. It made him look like a bad mother. Because of his appearance, Kade hated going out to bars since, inevitably, some drunk asshole would pick a fight. Lang sounded like the kind of douche who would’ve been in his face.
“Older brother avoided the physical stuff, but he didn’t hesitate to let Lang know exactly what he thought of him.”
“What happened?” Brodie asked.
