Crap on a cracker. Please tell me this wasn’t happening.Inside I was cackling like Mom, complete with a coughing fit and some chest thumps to keep the ol’ ticker going, absolutely hysterical with the ironic turn of events. Outwardly, I was dying a slow death, frozen on the spot while all the realizations came tumbling through my brain to slap me in the face. Boston, my soon to be ex-boss, was the son of my new boss. And I’d told my new boss straight to her face that her son was an ass. I’d be fired before I even got the first day of training under my belt. And I couldn’t go back to West Wines once Pam told Boston why I’d been fired. Why couldn’t my life ever be smooth and graceful?My eyeballs dared to move, eyeing the black polo shirt Pam had in her hands that was to have been mine. I saw the cute pig logo, the one I would have proudly worn as I poured wines and schmoozed my way to higher and higher commissions. The Cunning Ham. Boston Cunningham. It was all coming together now. Wha

Despite having lost a favorite shirt over the course of the evening, I went to bed feeling oddly happy. It had been a rollercoaster of a day. I’d resigned myself to saying goodbye to El—not that she would actually want me (or allow me) to actually say goodbye to her when she left West Wines. But in my mind, I’d begun to try to get used to the idea of not having her around.It was strange. Up until the wine festival, I’d seen her at work now and then. I’d always thought she was attractive. But it was the texting, I decided, that had pushed that moderate attraction over the edge into something new, something different. The texts she sent me—well, okay, the texts she sent Chad—were honest and open, and I felt like I got an insight into the real El. The Isabel Watson she kept hidden most of the time, or covered up with too many words and a moderate amount of flailing around. They let me see the real her, and even though she didn’t know it was me, the ones I sent back allowed me the freedo

“She said she’s on the corner of Sutter and Vine.”This day just kept getting weirder and weirder. Boston—which was how I now referred to him in my head, not Mr. Cunningham—was currently driving me to meet my mom where she had a flat tire. A week ago I would have said something like this would happen over my dead body, but based on the way my heartbeat wildly fluttered in my neck, I was very much alive. It was seeing him without a shirt yesterday. That was it. The sheer number of muscles had confused my brain into thinking Boston was some kind of available specimen for obsessing over.“There she is!” I pointed to my beat-up blue Camry on the side of the road. Mom was currently rolling the spare tire toward the front of the car where the tire was indeed flat, making a grab for it with her splinted wrists when it looked like it would roll straight down the sloping road.Boston made an illegal U-turn and parked behind my car with his flashers going. We both hopped out and went to rescue

“I’ve been telling you that for years.” An amused male voice floated through what I’d thought was the empty tasting room. I looked up to find my brother Lincoln grinning at me. “What the heck, bro?”For a moment, I considered telling him my actual problem. But I wasn’t really close with my brothers that way. I handled things. Just like Dad had. I didn’t bother them with the details.“Everything is fine,” I said, tidying the counter and preparing to leave.“Looks like it,” he said, shaking his head. It occurred to me then that Lincoln, at twenty-six, probably knew as well as I did the roles we’d each taken on since Dad died. I carried the burdens of the business, he checked in on Mom. The streams didn’t often cross. “Well, I just came to say hi to Mom, brought her some dinner. I didn’t know you’d be here.”“I’m on my way out,” I told him.“See you later,” he called, pushing through the door to the back rooms, carrying takeout bags.***El texted me as I was sliding into bed that night.

I climbed out and smoothed my polo shirt, smiling back. Pam had given me a new one in a size up. No customers would be in danger of a button attack today. Goodness, the man smelled good. The woodsy fragrance he always had on made my legs feel like butter. “Morning. I’m so excited!”Boston shut my car door and walked me in, his hand coming out to touch my elbow and then reversing course. He jammed his hands in his pants pockets, then withdrew them again to open the back door for me. He was acting weird. And that was saying something coming from me, the queen of acting weird.“Mom’s talking to the caterer right now.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the tiny office tucked in the back corner of the winery. “How about I get the new napkins that just arrived this morning and we can make sure the bar is stocked?”“Sounds good. I just have to send a quick text and then I’ll be good to go.” I pushed through the saloon doors to put my purse behind the bar. I peeked over