Summer at Orchard House

Book 1: Blue Hills

by Ellyn Oaksmith

Genres: General Fiction; Cultural Heritage; Family Life; Hispanic & Latino; Small Town & Rural; Women's Fiction; Contemporary Romance; Holiday Romance; Multicultural & Interracial Romance; Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

A heart-warming romance about embracing the unexpected, Summer at Orchard House will make you laugh, make you cry, and remind you that it’s never too late to start again. For fans of Robyn Carr, Carolyn Brown and Debbie Macomber.

Carmen Alvarez is the reliable one. When her vulnerable father’s livelihood is threatened, she’s the person her sisters call. Abandoning her job in Seattle, Carmen races home to the family vineyard her dad built up from nothing to set things straight. But soon she’s fallen back in love with the dusty sage hills, the turquoise blue lake, the fragrant June orchards… Maybe she’s not just home for the summer?

Standing in the way of Carmen’s happiness is one very attractive obstacle: new neighbor Evan Hollister, who’s after her dad’s land. He’s arrogant, entitled and spoiled—everything Carmen hates—and she is all set to have a bit of fun driving him out of town so things can get back to normal. She isn’t ready for their relationship to get complicated…

But Evan is the least of Carmen’s worries. The business is falling apart and it starts to look like Carmen might lose much more than just her pride: employees have quit, the bank keeps calling and everything her father worked so hard for is slipping away. As she is pushed to breaking point, Carmen will learn that her true family are the people who will see her through the worst of times, and that love can be found in the most unlikely of places.

 

Release date: July 13, 2020

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 303

Sample

The phone rang at the worst possible moment in the history of bad moments. Hall of Fame bad moments. Carmen’s presentation was the culmination of a bone-crushing year’s work. Life at her firm was lived in dog years. Humiliation was routine. Families, lauded for their support at Christmas parties, studied photos on the fridge to remember what their loved ones looked like. She’d forgone a social life, regular meals and going to the gym (her version was getting coffee in her workout clothes) for her job. Her thirtieth had been spent eating ramen in front of her computer. Carmen, who couldn’t commit to a houseplant, let alone a relationship, would let only one thing interfere with her chance at a promotion to marketing director: family.

Her father had taught them. Family comes first. Always.

The caller ID was a picture taken at the winery when they were all kids, laughing in the sunshine. That meant one thing.

One of her two sisters.

The Alvarez sisters didn’t talk every week, but when they did, they dove in. There was no small talk, just life. A daytime call meant something was urgent. She had to take the call. It was painfully awkward staring at her ringing phone.

Carmen glanced at her Tyrannosaurus Rex of a boss. Felicity ate interns for breakfast. When she came out of her office, people scrambled to be otherwise occupied. Her unorthodox methods and borderline (or dead on) bullying were studiously ignored by those in charge for one reason. The usual one. She got results.

Right now, Felicity drummed her glossy nails on the gleaming conference table, her eyes narrowed at the interruption. A ringing phone was heresy. Answering a call wasn’t a thing. It just wasn’t. “Carmen, are we interrupting your social life?”

Carmen’s colleagues nervously tittered, except Deena, the only person in the room who wouldn’t push her off a ledge for this promotion. They’d sworn to watch each other’s backs, as if they worked for the mafia. The comparison held.

Carmen swallowed. “It’s my sister.” I should have lied, Carmen thought, wishing she were the kind of person who lied without thinking. Who could stab a colleague in the back without a second thought. Maybe that was what was holding her back. Last month, Felicity had proudly pointed out that she never sent a Mother’s Day card because then her mother would expect one every year.

Families were messy.

Felicity didn’t do messy.

The ringing stopped.

Felicity rolled her eyes, waving a hand. “Your sister? Well, golly. By all means, stop the meeting.”

Carmen’s heart pounded in her throat. Felicity was not unlike a charging rhino. Impossible to stop or distract. You’d end up trampled. The words that came out of her mouth surprised everyone, even Carmen. Carmen normally toed the line. Felicity terrified her. That was the point. But still. The words came out. And they’d change everything. “Actually, I have to return the call.”

Felicity stared with thinly veiled contempt while everyone in the room held their breath, thanking their lucky stars that they weren’t in Carmen Alvarez’s kitten heels right now. Why didn’t Felicity say something? The tension was unbearable. Finally: “Of course. Because you have a contractual obligation to your family between the hours of nine to five, right?”

The rest of the room glanced nervously at each other, reassured that Felicity was on point. Rules needed to be obeyed. Felicity’s nastiness was a given.

Deena shook her head ever so slightly, eyes widening with a don’t do it warning. Carmen tried to thank her with a look, then faced down the rhino.

Carmen pushed back her chair. “Sorry, I’ll be right back.”

Felicity looked at her watch. “Sure, why not? It’s only your career.” She swept her hand towards the door. “But you go. Swap recipes. Book manicures. Go be you. We’ll be here. Waiting while you live your best life.”

“This will take one second. I have to…” Carmen pushed open the door, pressing one of the favorites on her phone.

The door closed with an airless whoosh.

Carmen kept a worried eye on the conference room where the slightly stunned employees resumed their meeting. She whispered into her phone, stressed on multiple levels. “Adella, what do you want? I was in a meeting.”

Her sister, a full-time stay-at-home mom with three children under the age of five, including twins, lived on the end of a rope. “Connor, that is the dog’s food. Put it back. Angel, the cat is going to scratch you!”

“Adella?” A conversation with Adella always took ten times longer than necessary. Her children saw their mother with a phone and immediately unleashed havoc, like Pavlov’s dogs. “Adella, I can’t talk. Estoy en el trabajo.”

“I know you’re at work. Do you think I don’t know how to read a clock?”

Adella had a chip on her shoulder about being a stay-at-home mother. No matter how many times her sisters reinforced her choice, Adella felt judged.

“Can I call you back?”

“No. Listen, I went home yesterday to check on Papi and Mr. Wilfrey from the bank was there. It’s a total mess, Car. He’s headed for foreclosure. Orchard House, the winery; everything.”

“What?” Carmen must have shrieked because dozens of heads popped up from their cubicles, like prairie dogs. Carmen glanced furtively into the conference room. Felicity tapped on her watch, shooting daggers. Carmen hid behind a leafy ficus, crouching on the ground. As if a tree could shield her from Felicity’s wrath.

“Papi hasn’t been paying his taxes.”

“I thought you were looking after that.”

“Lola took it over for me.”

“Lola?” Lola, a recent art school dropout, was allergic to responsibility. Adulting was for people other than Lola. As a kid, she began getting dressed in the morning when the bus driver started honking. “You let Lola take over?” Carmen heard the mixture of hysteria and anger in her own voice, trying unsuccessfully to calm down.

Lola had the attention span of a fruit fly. She was easily distracted and perpetually late. Nobody asked Lola to bring an appetizer, always dessert.

There was a crash in the background. Adella scolded her kids before returning to the phone. “I was going to check on her, but things just got away from me. Anyway, they put a lien on the property. If we don’t come up with forty-six thousand dollars, it’s going into foreclosure.”

Carmen staggered out from behind the ficus into the hallway. “Forty-six thousand dollars? Where are we going to come up with forty-six thousand dollars?” She looked around. Every single person in the office was staring at her. She mouthed apologies before crouching down again.

“I don’t know, but it gets worse.”

Carmen gave up crouching, sat down on the ground. “How could it get worse? Is Papi lost? Abducted by aliens?”

“Don’t be a drama queen.”

“You can’t call someone a drama queen for reacting to bad news.”

“You know that chico who moved in next door? The Microsoft guy with that stupid yellow Lamborghini?”

You couldn’t throw a stick in Chelan without hitting some Microsoftie with cash to burn, looking for a second act as a hotelier, restaurateur or vintner. They ran around town talking to anyone who’d slow down long enough to listen to plans for their hotel with cats, tasting menu built around the seasons or organic winery that was truly revolutionary. All of it would change the known world. The roads were clogged with European sports cars. The lake teemed with Cobalt boats. Pilates-toned women opened boutiques selling three-hundred dollar bikinis. Chelan natives found it highly annoying that it wasn’t enough for these people to make one fortune; they had to keep going and rub it in your face.

Whatever happened to the good old days when people made their pile and retired to do good deeds? These people had to reinvent the wheel. And talk about it.

All.

The.

Damn.

Time.

Carmen remembered seeing the new owner walking the property line a few years ago. Hollister Estate and Blue Hills vineyard were on adjacent slices of land sloping down to the lake where they each had orchards. Blue Hills curved around the hillside, placing it at a lower elevation. The only exception was their winery, which stood on a small parcel carved from Hollister land by ancient water treaty. Carmen had been on the winery patio, working on her computer. She’d glanced up, vaguely noticed the new owner in his vineyard, looking down at her. He was young and tall, wearing sunglasses. He didn’t wave or say hello. Just stood there, hands on hips, surveying his fields like the lord of the manor. Completely annoying and entitled. They all missed the family who’d sold the vineyard next door and moved to Florida, of all places. Alligators, bugs and hurricanes.

“What about him?” she asked.

“He wants to buy Papi’s vines. All of them. When I went over, he was in Orchard House with the banker. They were ganging up on Papi, trying to convince him that selling was the right thing to do. That he couldn’t possibly come up with this year’s vintage on his own. You remember Robert, Papi’s winemaker?”

“Of course I remember Robert. He gave us that kitten.”

“Well, he left because Papi couldn’t afford to pay him.”

Carmen felt like she was in a maze and running into one dead end after another. “Wow, I can’t believe he left. He was there a long time. Like, since we were in high school.”

“Es malo, Carmencita. You have to do something.”

There it was. The big ask. She knew it was coming, but still. Carmen’s voice was tight and high. “I’m going to have to do something? Hang on, Adella, last time I checked there were tres hermanas Alvarez.”

“You’re the only one who can do it. If you don’t do something, this guy is going to work a deal with the bank.”

“No, no, no, no, no, no.” Carmen was sitting on the carpet, oblivious to the small crowd of staff at the end of the hallway staring at her. People didn’t sit on the floor and hide behind trees in this office.

“Carmen. Think about it. Papi has Alzheimer’s. That guy can swoop in and write a check for the whole thing before we even know what’s happening. Papi doesn’t know what he’s signing. He needs someone there. Orchard House is in bad shape. It needs painting and cleaning. We need the next crop to make wine. Good wine. I have three kids. Lola is Lola. I mean, Papi is in no shape to run it on his own, but what do you think will happen if he sells? It’s his life. His history. Everything.” Adella paused to stop a fight between the twins, promising extra TV time. “I don’t trust this Microsoft guy as far as we can throw him. He could be over there right now, promising Papi he’s going to plant something on his hill, so the spring rains don’t flood our driveway. They could be signing the papers and all Papi’s hard work will be gone. It’s our heritage. We can’t just let it go. Please, Car.”

“I can’t come up with that kind of money.”

“If we can get wine from this year bottled and sold, we can give the bank enough to back off.”

Carmen’s head was spinning. She’d seen Papi and the wine master in the shed tasting from the barrel, testing the brix level, ensuring that the mix of grapes brought out the quality they were looking for in each wine. She’d seen the bottling machine filling each bottle. Seen labels pasted on with the distinctive Blue Hills label, with the sketch of the dusky blue hills that surrounded their property. But she’d never done any of it herself. “I don’t know anything about wine.” Kind of a pathetic statement from someone raised on a winery.

“None of us do, but if we want to save the vineyard, we’ve got to learn.”

“And by we, you mean me?”

Adella sighed. “Car, believe me, I’d love to check my kids into school and pick them up next month. Saving a winery would be a vacation for me pero no puedo.”

“Okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

After promising her sister she’d call with a plan, Carmen hung up the phone, looking up at the people at the end of the hallway. “Thank you, I’m fine.” Because people that were fine sat on the ground. She got up, dusted herself off and tried not to panic.

This was bad. How could they have let this happen? Why did it have to fall on her? First Papi’s Alzheimer’s and now some predatory millionaire with his eyes on the family vines. Some dilettante who had no idea that Juan Alvarez had worked his way up from a picker who got by on one meal a day to save money. Who’d worn a rope to keep up his pants rather than spring for a belt. (The first gift from his young fiancée? A belt.)

The vineyard wasn’t just land, it was his American dream.

What on earth was she going to do? Forty-six thousand dollars! The number loomed in her head in flashing neon.

Without realizing it, Carmen had strayed back towards the glass wall and the conference room. Felicity was staring at her with her arms crossed.

Great. Carmen felt like she’d been hit by a truck.

A rising panic clutched at her throat.

Blue Hills Vineyard wasn’t just where she’d been raised. It was eighty-seven acres of prime Lake Chelan realty that her father had spent his entire life acquiring, painstakingly planting it with vines until they took root in the soil, like his family in the United States. Blue Hills was situated on a sloping hill leading to the lake. Situated in a gap between two foothills of the Cascade mountain range, yearly erosion resulted in grapes that were unlike any other. They made prizewinning wine. The land, and its mineral rich soil, was literally priceless.

Carmen’s father had come from Mexico as a penniless teenager, staggering across the border so badly dehydrated he had been hallucinating. He’d made his way to the Pacific Northwest by train, working in the vineyards in Eastern Washington until a vineyard owner had recognized the young man’s potential and offered him an apprentice position in Chelan. Carmen’s father had immediately fallen in love with the lake, the small town and Mercedes, the woman who was to become his wife, a checker at the local Safeway. They’d sacrificed everything to buy their first plot of land and plant their first grapes.

Losing Blue Hills wouldn’t be losing a piece of land, it would be losing their father’s dream. Their part of America.

Without his vineyard, Carmen’s father would wither like a raisin. Carmen wouldn’t let that happen. Adella was right. It was up to her.

The only thing in her way was a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

It was nearly lunch and Carmen hadn’t yet come up with a solution. She gnawed on her fingernails, weighing her options. She could call Adella back and beg her to talk to the banker. She knew how that conversation would go. She’d hear how the price of daycare for three kids was like buying a new car every year. Nobody understood how grueling it was to chase three niños locos, let alone find a babysitter. How going to the bathroom with the door shut was me-time. How teaching thirty-one fourth grade kids was a vacation compared to her current life.

Carmen smiled, thinking of how she and Lola imitated their older sister. If they went to get a manicure, they’d say, “Why bother, it will just get ruined changing diapers and washing sippy cups. A glass of wine afterwards? ¿Estás loca? A babysitter for three children is twenty-five dollars an hour!” Adella was an easy target. She saw herself as the only responsible person on the planet.

Carmen kept an eye on Felicity in her glass-walled office, waiting until she was on a phone call and safely plugged into her headset with her Prada-clad feet on the desk. Always a sign that she would be a while.

Carmen called her best friend, Stella, a hairdresser in Chelan on Main Street. Stella was naturally nosy, sociable and had the perfect job for keeping her finger on the pulse of all things Chelan. If you wanted to keep a secret in Chelan, you didn’t go to Stella’s salon.

Stella answered on the first ring. “Hey, I’m with a client. Can I call you back?”

“Adella called me. Papi’s in trouble.”

Stella didn’t miss a beat. “Of course she called you. Why doesn’t she go check on your dad?”

“She’s busy with the kids.”

“Last I heard, kids were portable. Why can’t she throw them in the car and go see your dad? Why do you always have to be the one she asks, just because you don’t have kids?”

“I’m thinking about asking the Dragon Lady for a week off.”

Carmen could hear Stella suck in her breath. She wondered what color her friend’s hair was this week. Stella, like most hairdressers, like to mix it up. A lot. “Ohhhh. It’s been nice knowing you. Can I have your Levis?”

Carmen peered over her cubicle. Deena looked up from her computer, smiling kindly. “This isn’t making me feel any better, Stella.”

“Sorry. But everything you’ve told me about her makes her sound like Cruella de Vil. But listen, it’s your Papi. Go in there and explain things. Maybe she’ll grow a heart.”

Carmen thought of when Ben, their administrative assistant, had wanted time off to go to his grandmother’s funeral in Alaska. Felicity had said Ben couldn’t possibly have known the old lady very well if she lived way out in the sticks.

“You’re right. She has the mindset of a hungry crocodile, but what choice do you have? I mean, I can go check in on him if that’ll help.”

Papi loved Stella, but that wouldn’t help. Only family could dig into finances. “He’s thinking of selling the vineyard.”

Carmen heard the clattering of Stella dropping her phone. She could hear her friend yelling and a client asking what was wrong. A moment later Stella came back on. “You scared me. For a second I thought you said that your dad was thinking of selling the vineyard.”

“That’s what I said.”

“It’s like the end of the world.”

“Exaggerate much?”

“No, I’m totally serious. Your dad is like one of those old-world guys who’s completely connected to his vines. He’s like some walking, breathing advertisement for the American dream. Why would he sell?”

Hearing Stella say what was on Carmen’s own mind made her realize the severity of the whole thing. “The millionaire next door is trying to talk him into it.”

“The guy with the mid-life crisis yellow Lamborghini?”

“Yep.”

“That’s a shame. I don’t want to hate that guy because he’s seriously hot. And seriously rich.”

“And seriously trying to take advantage of Papi.”

“He just got fifty percent less hot, but he’s still rich.”

“Stella, I’m stressed out here. Could you not?”

“Okay, and I seriously have to get back to my client before she starts throwing brushes at me. Listen, this is what you’re going to do. You’re going to march into Dragon Lady’s office and explain to her that your dad just had a heart attack and you need to go home for at least a week.”

“But that’s lying.”

“Minor detail. Alzheimer’s and the hot guy next door trying to buy the vineyard is too much detail. Keep it simple.”

“On what planet is lying simple?”

“I’ve got to go. As soon as you know when you’ll be here, text me. This is going to take some Chardonnay and beach time.”

“Wait, I have one more question.”

“Go.”

“Even if I stop the guy and keep the winery, it’s obvious that Papi can’t do this on his own anymore. Who’s going to run the winery?” Carmen and her sisters, despite their father’s many attempts to interest them in viticulture, had wandered into other careers and motherhood. Except Lola, who had just wandered.

“You can.”

“Be serious. I don’t know anything about running a winery.”

“You think I knew anything about cutting hair before I opened a salon?” Carmen heard Stella talking to her client. “Of course, I went to cosmetology school.”

She hadn’t.

That was Stella. She threw herself into things and figured them out later. That was not Carmen. She was a deliberate, steady list-maker. Her lists of pros and cons were famous in her circle of friends.

“I can’t run a winery.”

“One thing at a time, Car. Go see Dragon Lady. Call me when you’re done. Also, what kind of flowers do you want at your funeral?”

Evan Hollister sipped the 2016 First Crush blend with his eyes closed. It’s not that he believed closing his eyes made a difference to his taste buds, it just made him look like he knew what he was doing. Evan’s wine master, Paolo Gentillo, was a fourth-generation wine master from the Piedmont region in Italy. With his tousled curls and Roman nose, Paolo had been born to sip Barolo in a town square whose buildings were older than America. Evan, however, had lured him to his winery in Chelan with a challenge: make a prizewinning Chelan wine to rival those of the big California vineyards. The First Crush blend was their third attempt. A challenge, and a big fat salary that grew the longer Paolo stayed.

It took a lot of money to keep one homesick Italian. Seattleites might flock to Chelan and pay big bucks to rent homes along its shores, but the Italian vintner might as well have been working on an oil rig. He hated it that much.

The men looked plucked from stereotypes of their respective countries. Paolo was wiry, dressed in a perfectly wrinkled linen shirt and thin cotton pants. His dark brown eyes looked sad beneath lush lashes. Evan looked like the high school quarterback, sharp-eyed, slim, broad-shouldered, his thick hair cut neatly. A polo shirt and aviator glasses completed the look.

Evan and Paolo were in the winery, the large warehouse-style barn that Evan had built of salvaged wood to house dozens of oak and steel casks, a tasting room and crushing vats for harvest time. It was up a winding dirt road from the vineyard estate where Evan lived—and increasingly, hosted weddings as a surprisingly necessary component to his winemaking business. Wedding guests drank the vineyard’s wine, returning home to spread the word. It was, according to Evan’s PR consultant Mandy, a necessary evil.

Weddings, Evan thought as the last sip of wine slid down his throat, were a tough business. Coming to this five years ago, Evan had thought that winemaking would be the challenge: keeping the vines healthy, the winery clean, the chemistry stable and timely. Getting the science right.

Hosting weddings seemed far more daunting. From what he’d seen at his friends’ weddings, they were a circus of moving parts, freighted with so much emotion. Overwhelmed, nervous brides, bossy mothers, fed up fathers and unruly children. When he’d first completed the remodel of his house, he’d agreed to host a college friend’s engagement party at Hollister Estate.

It was an unmitigated disaster. Someone broke a wineglass that his dog stepped on, necessitating a visit to the vet and a carpet cleaning. A couple brought their little child, who locked himself in the bathroom. Barry, Evan’s leggy, excitable rescue mutt, ate all the appetizers fifteen minutes before the guests arrived and then . . .