He’d stopped by Falls Legend Winery yesterday and had a chat with Luke. They’d had their tough years as brothers, but now that Luke was married and a father, and Zayne was building a business and life of his own, they’d started rebuilding their brotherly bonds.

“It’s a very big deal,” Andrea answered. “The Blessing of the Grapes is one of the biggest festivals in town, and probably the most important because of the work the foundation does.”

Luke had told him about that, too. The festival hosted a prestigious wine competition, plus the fun stuff—at least, fun for people who liked that sort of thing—like parades, vendor booths and the corn maze. The profits went into a foundation that offered grants to winemakers who might be struggling.

Luke had pointed to the rows of grapevines marching up the hill at Falls Legend. “We’re successful enough these days to be able to survive a tough weather year, but some of the smaller places are barely hanging on. A storm like we had back in June could wipe them out. The foundation is there for them.”

Andrea’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Haven’t you ever been to the festival? To any festival?”

“Not my thing.” Zayne didn’t like crowds. He didn’t like being jostled around. It made him tense, and tension made him do dumb things like...drink. Or take a swing at someone. Or both. So when he’d sobered up eight years ago, he’d learned to avoid trigger situations like noisy festivals.

“So is this corn maze thing really that important?” To him, it made more sense to keep the activities in town, like all the other festivals did.

Andrea came over to the saw table where he stood. “The mazes have turned into artwork over the years. It usually gets us featured in the news in Rochester or Syracuse, which brings in more people. We rent school buses to shuttle people, and the bus ride up the hill is half the fun—they have sing-alongs and play games. It’s pandemonium...” Her face twisted. “And that is totally not a selling point for you, is it?”

Luke had said something similar. He’d also pushed Zayne not to give Andrea false hope. “If you’re not going to do this thing, you should tell Andrea now instead of leading her on for ten days. I talked to Whitney, who heard from her aunt Helen, who heard from Iris Taggart, who knows everything...” Zayne had rolled his eyes at that. This freakin’ town. “And the scuttlebutt is that Andrea really needs this festival to be a winner.”

Zayne had asked why, and Luke just shrugged. “All Whitney knows is that it has something to do with Andrea trying to get a new job, and also something about her mother. She told Zoey Hartford that—” he made air quotes with his fingers “—‘failure is not an option.’”