Page 23 of A Baby for the Texas Cowboy (The Texas Wolf Brothers #3)
“W ell, what are your thoughts on the Fury Creek flight?” Tinsley asked Last Stand’s town matriarch, Minna Herdmann, and six of her friends ranging in age from mid-fifties to eighty. According to Minna, she topped them all at one hundred and two.
“Are you only pouring tastes from one flight?” Minna asked archly.
“I might be persuaded to let you try the Elizabeta flight, which has wines pressed whole cluster, but my goal is to tease you so that you come back in.”
Tinsley smiled enigmatically. It was Thursday, and she was trying to ignore the fact that Anders hadn’t returned from Montana before heading to one of his last few competitions of the season in New Mexico.
She shouldn’t care.
Instead she kept looking out the large window, expecting to see him swinging his body out of his truck and striding toward her. She had to get over that wish.
“At my age, I may not get a second chance,” Minna said drily. “August donated several cases of wine to my birthday last April, but that bus came barreling across the road and smashed his tasting room to dust, a tragedy of so many people being injured and two deaths.”
Tinsley had not even been in town a week, but many people who’d knocked on the windows of the tasting room in order to introduce themselves and proceed to interview her often referenced the accident.
“The tragedy would have been greater, but dear Asa saved the day again.”
“What?” Tinsley nearly jumped out of her skin. Minna had seemed so with it, but now she was referring to a dead man as saving the day.
“The statue, dear. I still have all my marbles. The truck that collided with the bus spun out of control and would have hit the library, but the statue stopped the truck.”
“A toast to Asa.” One of Minna’s friends picked up one of her taste glasses and held it high. “And yes, Minna, you will have another birthday celebration. It’s tradition.”
Tinsley smiled, charmed by the group and pleased that she’d opened the tasting room a few days early. This soft opening allowed her to practice for the tastings and engender some community goodwill. Offering a free tasting for Minna Herdmann and her guests seemed like a brilliant marketing idea.
August had shuddered and refused to come because she’d probably “box my ears.”
“Your funeral,” Axel had said.
Catalina claimed she had too much work training the cellar crew but left Tinsley with advice: “Keep your mouth shut or she’ll have you and Anders married by some archaic decree before the state was a state, and Anders won’t even have to be present.
She knows everyone, and she knows what buttons to press. But she’s really funny.”
“Why would we come back in if we don’t know what we’re going to get, young lady?”
“Because you thrive on surprises.” Tinsley arched a brow. Then she smiled. “But since you are my first group and I am honing my pouring and tasting skills, I will pour y’all a surprise that is not on the tasting menu.”
“What is it?” one of Minna’s friends asked.
“That’s not how a surprise works.” Tinsley shook her finger slowly at them, her expression mock serious.
“I like her,” another friend said and looked pointedly at Tinsley’s left hand as she held the bottle of Pinot Noir Catalina had made when she worked in Oregon.
It was her own label—Orphan Cowgirl Vines.
August had rented a refrigerated truck and had hired a driver to bring all of Catalina’s stored wine to Texas so they could pour it and offer it at the tasting room.
The wine had arrived last night, and Tinsley had unloaded it with Cruz, who wasn’t working today.
Cruz had also helped her reconfigure the tasting room for a more relaxed vibe.
The scattered couches had been organized in small and larger seating arrangements to allow for a more casual but intimate and comfortable tasting experience for couples and groups of friends.
Now she wanted to get some local art in here.
Or large pictures from the vineyard and winery on canvases.
She made a note on her phone to hire a local photographer.
There also were tables for more formal group experiences, which is what Minna had chosen for her group to the surprise of no one.
“What do you think, Minna? What about Marcus for Tinsley?”
“Or my grandson Jacob who just finished law school and joined a firm in Austin,” another woman spoke up, and by the nods and noises of approval, Tinsley could tell Jacob was considered a catch.
“But he still plans to spend weekends on the ranch. He loves the land. He specializes in water rights, along with many other areas of law.”
Oh Lord. One cowboy is more than plenty .
“What do you think, Minna?” More than one woman turned toward the matriarch as if Minna were Last Stand’s matchmaking expert for new women in town.
“Ladies, judging by the way Anders Wolf just parked illegally and jaywalked in front of Shane Highwater with a flash of that famous dimpled smile and straight white teeth Axel’s rodeo earnings no doubt paid for, Tinsley Underhill is already spoken for.”
“He does look so handsome,” one lady commented. “Just like his daddy before…well,” she sniffed and coughed and looked away. “Before.”
“Oh look, Anders is practically running,” another woman commented. “And nearly dented the bumper of Gage Granger’s jeep trying to beat it across the street.”
“We have a crosswalk,” another woman sniffed.
“He’s carrying flowers—lilacs and white hydrangeas. Interesting choice.” Minna looked at Tinsley, as if she were responsible for the flower selection, and she felt that assessment down to her boots.
Flowers? Anders had brought her flowers after disappearing for a day and a half and giving her the space she’d wanted and then, ridiculously, had chafed about.
She should be the one apologizing and bearing gifts. And she had to convince him not to quit riding. Although part of her wanted him to. She’d gotten a thrill watching him on the back of a bull before, but now that he was hers, she felt a little sick thinking about what could go wrong.
He is not yours.
Sheesh. She was being brainwashed by Catalina and Cruz.
And why did the type of flowers matter?
“It’s probably what the florist had available,” Tinsley said, determined to not get caught up in Minna and her posse’s speculation.
The noise Minna made was as impressive as it was dismissive.
“Are you going to pour this mystery wine or just clutch it?” Minna asked.
“No need to feign disinterest in Anders. You could do a lot worse. Hard workers. All of them. Intense too. Never saw a man more in love with his wife than their daddy with Elizabeta. She fell apart when they lost their little boy, and he never recovered from losing her a few months later. That’s a Wolf trait.
Those men fall in love once, and it’s to their bones. Romantic, but not practical.”
Minna held out her glass and looked pointedly at the wine and then at Tinsley. “So my question to you, miss, is what do you intend to do about it?”
“I…ahhh…ummmm…”
What could she say? He didn’t love her. He only wanted to marry her because of the baby. But she could hardly claim that they weren’t…yuck, she hated using the word involved . It sounded like a business deal.
Tinsley chewed on her lower lip.
She couldn’t keep the baby a secret forever. She just hadn’t really counted on such an avid audience.
“You might want to close your mouth, dear,” Minna advised just as Anders opened the door back with a little too much force.
“Hey, Tinz.” He stopped, his eyes rounded and his mouth formed an O in comic dismay. “I thought you were opening this weekend.”
“I scheduled a special tasting for Minna and her friends.”
“Ma’am.” Anders swept his hat from his head and all but bowed. Tinsley was charmed, and she had to dig deep to keep anything from showing on her face. He’d taken off without saying goodbye, she reminded herself.
Get used to that.
He was going to end up hating her.
Anders greeted each woman by name and said something personal or asked about a family member. It was clear they were thrilled to see him. They all knew about his career and how well he was doing.
Tinsley poured Catalina’s Oregon Pinot Noir.
“Cup the bowl of the glass with your hands to give it a hint of warmth,” she advised. “And then you want to swirl the wine in your glass to bathe it in oxygen.”
She could feel Anders staring at her, and she tried—really tried—to ignore him, but she could have more easily ignored a square of rich, dark chocolate oozing with warmed caramel with a dash of Himalayan sea salt on tip waved under her nose.
“Now inhale. On the nose, you catch a hint of strawberry and fresh red cherries,” Tinsley said softly.
Catalina had run her through tasting the wines several times, even teaching her how to subtly spit so that she could taste what was going on with the wine without drinking, and Tinsley had memorized the tasting notes and the virtues of each of the wines Verflucht offered.
She’d made a notebook with information so that she could train the two or three tasting room staff employees she hoped to hire within the next couple of weeks.
“Now take a small sip and swish it around your mouth,” Tinsley said.
She knew not to ask them what they tasted.
“Wine” had been the answer before, but the way most of the women were staring at her and Anders, who’d positioned himself opposite from her across the round table, she was afraid they were more focused on the possibility of a romance than the wine.
Anders held the flowers like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to arrive in a room full of octogenarians and beyond with a massive bouquet. Did anything throw him off his game?
Well her baby announcement had, and instead of feeling angry and humiliated about the memory, she had to stifle the urge to laugh. Too bad no one had caught her dumping whiskey on his head with their cell phone. August could hang side-by-side pictures in his whiskey bar.