Page 34 of The Vines Between Us

Chapter Twenty-Four

HUGO

I woke before dawn, the weight of harvest preparations already pressing on my chest. Three weeks until we'd start picking, and every day brought a new crisis.

The Alliance had shrunk from seven vineyards to five after last week's meeting, when the Perrins had quietly accepted VitaVine's offer.

Their defection hurt, but I understood—their daughter's expensive overseas university tuition had come due, and Rousseau had strategically doubled his offer the day before payment was required.

Alexandre still slept beside me, his face peaceful in a way it rarely was during waking hours.

I slipped out of bed without waking him and headed to the kitchen to start coffee.

Through the window, I could see the first hint of light touching our vines.

Our vines. The thought still caught me by surprise sometimes—how quickly we'd fallen back into each other's lives, as if those fourteen years apart were just a brief interruption.

The phone rang, shattering the morning quiet. Who would call at 5:30 AM?

"All??" I kept my voice low .

"Hugo, it's Marcel." His voice sounded rough, panicked. "There's a fire at the storage building. The one with the Alliance equipment."

My blood went cold. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

I scribbled a note for Alexandre and ran for my truck. The sky was lightening as I drove, but a different glow lit the horizon—angry orange flames consuming the building where we'd stored our shared harvesting equipment.

By the time I arrived, Marcel, Madame Fontaine, and Jean-Marc were already there. The fire brigade had contained the blaze, but the damage was catastrophic. Our grape press, two tractors, and most of the smaller equipment were charred ruins.

"It wasn't an accident," Marcel said grimly, pointing to where the fire chief was examining a melted plastic container. "They found accelerant."

"Rousseau," I spat.

"We can't prove it," Jean-Marc said, his face haggard. "But who else would benefit?"

Henri’s Citroen 2CV pulled up, and Alexandre rushed toward us, his hair uncombed, wearing yesterday's clothes. "How bad is it?"

"Total loss," I replied. "Insurance will cover some, but not nearly enough to replace everything before harvest."

"And we can't delay," Madame Fontaine added. "The Merlot will be ready in exactly twenty days if this weather holds."

Alexandre surveyed the smoking ruins, his jaw tight. "We'll rent equipment."

"With what money?" Jean-Marc asked. "The emergency fund is virtually depleted after the irrigation repairs."

"We'll figure something out," I said, trying to sound more confident than I felt. "We always do."

The bad news continued later that morning when Alexandre returned from a meeting with Bertrand Dupuis, the notary. I was working in the Moreau cellar, preparing tanks for the upcoming harvest, when he stormed in, his face white with fury.

"The bank is calling in our loans immediately," he announced, slapping a letter onto the workbench. "Both of them—yours and mine. They want full payment in five days."

I stared at him. "That's impossible. My loan isn't due for another month and a half."

"Apparently there's a clause allowing them to accelerate and demand immediate payment if they have 'reasonable concerns about the viability of the business.'" His voice was bitter. "Rousseau got to them somehow."

I picked up the letter, scanning the cold, formal language. "This is illegal. They can't just—"

"They can," Alexandre interrupted. "Bertrand checked. The clause exists in both our contracts."

I leaned against the workbench, my mind racing through calculations. Between us, we owed nearly €1,200,000. Even if we liquidated everything, we wouldn't come close.

"What about your savings from Paris?" I asked, hating myself for asking.

Alexandre shook his head. "I've already put everything into the operating costs and the Alliance fund. There's nothing left."

I closed my eyes, feeling the walls closing in. "So this is it. VitaVine wins."

"No." The determination in his voice made me look up. "We're not giving up. Not yet."

But I could see the fear behind his eyes—the same fear I'd seen fourteen years ago when he'd chosen to run rather than stay and fight.

By afternoon, more devastating news arrived. Jean-Marc appeared at the boundary stone where our properties met, his expression telling me everything before he spoke.

"I've accepted VitaVine's offer," he said, unable to meet my eyes. "They're paying off my daughter's nursing bills and guaranteeing her ongoing care for life."

I couldn't even be angry. "I understand."

"And the Cloutiers have signed as well," he added. "That just leaves you, Alexandre, Marcel, and Madame Fontaine."

Our Alliance was crumbling. Four vineyards couldn't sustain the cooperative structure we'd planned. Without shared equipment, without collective bargaining power, without enough volume to interest distributors—we were finished.

"Rousseau says his offer to you and Alexandre stands," Jean-Marc continued awkwardly. "Triple value, all debts cleared."

"Thank you for telling me personally," I said, extending my hand. We shook, and I watched him walk away, shoulders slumped with a mixture of relief and shame.

When I returned to the house, I found Alexandre sitting at Claude's old desk, staring at a blank wall. The familiar panic was creeping back into his posture—the tightness in his shoulders, the way his fingers tapped rapidly against the wooden surface.

"Jean-Marc and the Cloutiers have accepted VitaVine's offer," I said.

He nodded, unsurprised. "I heard."

"The bank called again. They won't budge on the payment deadline."

Alexandre stood abruptly, pacing the room. "Maybe we should consider—"

"Don't say it," I cut him off. "Don't even think it."

"Be realistic, Hugo!" His voice cracked. "We've lost the equipment, we've lost half the Alliance, we've lost the bank's support. What do we have left?"

"Each other," I said firmly. " And the vines."

He laughed bitterly. "Sentiment won't pay €1,200,000 in five days."

I watched him pace, recognizing the old pattern emerging—the fear taking over, the walls going up. I'd lost him once to this spiral; I wouldn't lose him again.

I crossed the room and caught his hands, forcing him to stop. "Come with me."

"Hugo, I can't—"

"Just come."

I led him out of the house, through the evening-cooled vineyard rows, to the old stone wall where our properties met. The same wall where, as teenagers, we'd sit for hours talking about our dreams. The same wall where, weeks ago, we'd reconnected after his father's death.

"Look at them," I said, gesturing to the vines stretching out before us. "Your grandfather's Merlot. My grandfather's Cabernet Franc. They've survived frost and drought and hail. They've survived neglect and disease."

The setting sun cast long shadows across the rows, highlighting the healthy green leaves and the clusters of grapes swelling toward ripeness.

"Our grandfathers faced worse than this," I continued. "Think about what they endured—hiding their love for nearly fifty years, fighting to keep these vineyards alive through impossible circumstances."

I pulled Henri's journal from my pocket—I'd taken to carrying it with me—and opened to an entry from 1992, the year of the great drought.

"'Everything is lost,'" I read aloud. "'The vines are withering, the bank threatens foreclosure, and still Claude refuses to give up. His faith shames me. Perhaps he is right—perhaps faith itself is the miracle.'"

I turned to the next page. "'October 12, 1992. A miracle indeed. The late rains saved just enough of the crop, and Claude's experimental pruning method preserved the critical fruit. We will survive another year. Together, always together, we find a way.'"

Alexandre's breathing had slowed, his eyes fixed on the journal.

"They never gave up," I said. "Not on the vines, not on each other."

"But they had time," he whispered. "We have five days."

I took his face in my hands. "Then we'll make our own miracle."

Something shifted in his eyes—the panic receding, replaced by a flicker of determination.

"What do you propose?" he asked.

"We go all-in on the harvest," I said. "We pick early—not the whole crop, just the ripest sections. We press immediately, start fermentation, and use the first run as proof of concept."

"For what?"

"A futures offering," I explained. "We pre-sell the entire vintage at a discount to select buyers. With our combined history, the Moreau-Tremblay name, and samples of the first pressing, we might raise enough to satisfy the bank until full harvest."

"That's incredibly risky," Alexandre said. "If the weather turns, if the quality isn't there—"

"It's our only chance," I interrupted. "We risk everything on this harvest, or we lose everything to VitaVine."

The last light of day caught in Alexandre's eyes as he looked from me to the vineyards. I could see him weighing options, calculating odds—the businessman he'd become wrestling with the vineyard boy he'd been.

Finally, he nodded. "All-in, then."

I pulled him close, relief flooding through me. "Together," I whispered against his ear. "Like our grandfathers."

"Together," he echoed, his arms tightening around me.

As darkness fell over the vines, I felt something I hadn't experienced in months—hope. Not certainty, not even confidence, but hope. It would have to be enough.

We stayed by the wall until the stars emerged, planning our desperate gamble. We'd need to contact every connection we had—Alexandre's former business associates, my agricultural school classmates now working at prestigious chateaux, even Henri and Claude's old friends in the industry.

"We should check the secret room again," Alexandre suggested. "There might be more of their correspondence with buyers, connections we could leverage."

I nodded. "And we'll need to talk to Marcel and Madame Fontaine first thing tomorrow. If they're still with us, we'll need their earliest ripening grapes too."

"They'll stay," Alexandre said with surprising conviction. "Madame Fontaine is too stubborn to give in, and Marcel has hated VitaVine since they forced his brother out of business in Burgundy."

We walked back to the house hand in hand, our shadows merging into one long silhouette against the moonlit gravel. The challenges ahead were immense, perhaps insurmountable, but we'd face them together.

Inside, Alexandre pulled out maps of both vineyards and began marking sections where the grapes might be ready for early picking. I made calls to equipment rental companies, searching for a press and tanks we could afford.

"What if we fail?" Alexandre asked suddenly, looking up from his maps.

I met his gaze steadily. "Then we fail together. And we start again somewhere else."

He seemed to absorb this, testing the idea against his deepest fears. Then he smiled—a real smile, without reservation.

"I never thought I'd say this," he admitted, "but that doesn't sound so terrible."

I leaned across the table and kissed him, tasting the promise in his words. Whatever happened with the vineyards, he wouldn't run this time. We'd found something our grandfathers had sought for fifty years—the courage to face the future together, come what may.

"Now," I said, pulling back to the urgent present, "let's figure out how to save these vineyards."

We worked through the night, planning our desperate harvest gamble. The odds were against us, the timeline impossible, the financial gap enormous. But as dawn broke over our vines once more, even as I lay down to get what little rest I could, I found myself believing in miracles.