He couldn’t count on two hands, let alone one, the number of times his father and he had been pulled into the vineyards for a sudden and early harvest. Though it had never caught his father by surprise. No. Because he’d known the grapes. He’d be out there daily, walking amongst the vines and keeping an eye on them. But Henry himself now? No. He’d not been paying attention. Because he’d been far too focused on a woman he shouldn’t want and couldn’t have.

Hearing the car door slam in the distance prompted him to act. He stalked through the estate towards the kitchen at the back and went to open the fire exit door to find Lily standing with several reusable wooden boxes of food piled in her arms.

‘What is all this?’

‘Brunch and dinner.’

‘Lily,’ he growled, his hold on the situation losing its grip.

‘Henry Hawkesbury. Don’t panic. I told you to trust me, so do it.’

She didn’t have to remind him that she had trusted him. The unspoken words hung in the air between them.

‘Fine,’ he said, throwing up his hands in the air and leaving words like coffee and infuriating in his wake.

He turned on the coffee machine and tried to control his breathing as it warmed up, but the three minutes it took to produce the first two cups of rich, dark, aromatic liquid were just about enough time for him to surrender the fight.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was letting his father down. He might be selling the damn place, but it didn’t mean that he intended it to go to rack and ruin in the short time he had left. If this was to be the last harvest … He shook his head. Why did that thought raise so much ache in his heart? Surely he shouldn’t care. Surely he should have been able to walk away, clear-minded and happy-hearted?

He came back into the kitchen to see Lily embracing a tall, thin, shockingly thick-white-haired man he recognized from his youth.

‘John,’ he nodded, biting back the childish fear of painful disapproval.

‘Henry,’ John nodded, giving Lily one last squeeze before extricating himself from the embrace and holding out his hand for Henry to shake. Which he took. Thankfully.

‘I can’t thank you enough. I’m sorry it’s such short notice.’

‘Grapes is grapes,’ John replied and a shiver of a memory from the past of his father saying exactly the same thing the morning of a harvest crashed over him.

‘Grapes is grapes,’ both Henry and Lily replied at the same time, her eyes wide at the sound of their voices merging.

‘I guess I’m lucky that you were back in town. I hope your family is well?’