LITMIR.BIZ

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rel="nofollow" href="#ulink_9e0bded9-c957-5509-a267-cd831f97363b">CHAPTER FIVE

      FOR THE NEXT several days, Liz was busy with a hundred tasks. Because she was the general manager, the winemaker, the sales manager and the office manager all rolled into one, her list of duties was like a black hole. She never got it all done. On summer days, she worked dawn to dusk at the vineyard, and though she relished every moment of the work, it was still exhausting.

      On Thursday morning, a series of semitrucks barreled up the country road that ran between the western edge of her property and the Mattuchi farm. Semis weren’t unusual on that road, which led to the highway, but a constant stream of eighteen-wheelers was out of the ordinary. Trucks carrying large loads of lumber, pipes and building materials could only mean one thing. Someone up the country road was building a new house or barn.

      Liz didn’t have time to be curious or to gossip with neighbors. She had her eyes on the clouds gathering over Lake Michigan. She took out her cell phone and opened her weather radar app. Unfortunately, radar or not, the fickle westerly winds had a mind of their own once they reached the lake. The rain could easily pass her over and fall just north of her vineyard, showering her northern competition and jilting her vines. Again.

      They were in desperate need of a good soaking. It had been nearly three weeks without rain, and this kind of summer heat would only do one thing—produce inferior grapes.

      Liz lifted a cluster of Seyval blanc grapes she’d personally cluster-thinned three and a half weeks after fruit set. Though this grape produced the fresh and dry white wine they sold midseason in the tasting room, Louisa had suggested they experiment with it to produce a sparkling wine cuvée. Liz loved the idea—making something new out of a longtime standard grape in the vineyard.

      As Liz slung her long leg over the seat of her ATV, she heard yet another truck downshift as it began its trek up the country road hill.

      Natural curiosity urged Liz to ride over to the edge of her property to inspect the scene.

      The semi was hauling a long flatbed trailer that held what looked like a mountain of lumber and three pallets of cement bags. She noticed there were piles of steel framing and insulated metal sheeting.

      “Not a house,” she said to herself. The materials on this truck were used for warehouse and commercial buildings. Because their area was primarily farmland, she assumed one of her neighbors up the road was upgrading his or her silos. She’d heard from her grandfather last summer that Gerald Finstermaker, who owned a large apple orchard, had opened up a fifty-acre area, though no one knew exactly what he intended to plant there. The joke in town was that Gerald, paranoid and intensely secretive, was the only person who could keep his crop a secret until after the harvest. Five years ago, Gerald had experimented with roses and raised them under enormous grow tents, not so much to increase the productivity and excellence of the roses as to keep prying eyes out. After that fiasco, few in Indian Lake paid much attention to what Gerald Finstermaker did or didn’t do on his farm.

      Liz was turning away from the fence to head back to the tasting room when she saw a second truck, also hauling a long trailer stacked with building materials. She laughed to herself and wished Gerald all the luck in the world with his new venture, whatever it was. She tossed the driver a friendly wave and then froze.

      Following the last truck up the country road was a very familiar black Porsche. The top was down, and she could clearly see Gabe inside. He did not seem happy.

      No doubt he was angry because the trucks were moving slowly up the grade and she’d already learned that Gabe liked to drive a bit on the fast side. But Gabe didn’t honk or try to pass them. He must not be in a hurry after all, she thought.

      As Liz drove her ATV back down the slope, the first drops of rain stung her bare arms. Then the dark storm clouds moved over her property and opened up with a vengeance... The next second, the drops were huge, pelting her with enough force she found it difficult to see.

      She bumped her way across the vineyard and smiled to herself. If she was caught in the rain, so was Gabe. And that meant both he and the interior of his expensive car had been deluged. She couldn’t help laughing a little. Served him right. Even if she hadn’t had a chance to pay him back for trespassing and stealing from her, Mother Nature had taken restitution into her own hands.

      By the time she got to the utility barn, Liz was completely soaked. Her white shirt looked like a second skin and her shoes squished as she walked across the gravel to the tasting room, where she always kept a fresh shirt and a long black apron to wear when serving the tourists.

      Liz noticed with satisfaction the parking lot was full of cars. The tourists would be trapped inside to avoid the downpour. That could only mean one thing. Increased sales.

      Opening the door, Liz found the place packed. Sam was engrossed in one of his sales pitches with a man dressed in a golf shirt and khakis. Louisa was at the bar, pouring a flight of white wines for a strikingly beautiful, auburn-haired woman who wore a business suit and designer shoes.

      The woman was not a local, but she was buying a lot of wine, if the smile on Louisa’s face and twinkle in her eye were any indication.

      “I’ll be right there,” Liz told her chef de cave. Louisa nodded and continued talking to the customer.

      Liz rushed into her office, shut the door and pulled out a clean white blouse from the closet. She towel-dried her hair and rolled it into a twist. She didn’t have a smidge of makeup left after the rain pelting, but she didn’t care. As she tied her apron on, she noticed the morning’s mail. As usual, Louisa had left it on the old leather desk blotter.

      Sitting on top of the stack was the familiar green paper envelope from the County Treasurer’s office containing the yearly property tax bill. Always diligent about the vineyard’s accounting, Liz reached for the envelope and opened it.

      What met her eyes was a shock.

      “Twenty-three thousand four hundred dollars...past due?” Liz read the numbers again. Twice.

      This was impossible! They were not a year in arrears.

      “I paid this bill,” she groaned, sinking into the desk chair. She could remember purchasing the cashier’s check from the bank to pay the taxes. “There has to be some mistake.”

      Liz called the Indian Lake County treasurer’s office and spoke to one of the clerks. The woman assured Liz that although the Crenshaw taxes had always been paid promptly each year, there had been no payment in the past twelve months. Liz thanked the woman and hung up.

      She dropped her face to her hands, feeling as if the world had just crashed down upon her. There was no mistake. Liz now owed not only her taxes, but a penalty, as well. According to the bill, she had ninety days to pay in full.

      How could I have forgotten to pay this? Liz berated herself. I’m always so careful...

      She drew in a quick breath and clamped her hand over her mouth. “Sam.”

      Last year, the taxes had been due when Liz was in France. She had left the cashier’s check with Sam for him to take to the treasurer’s office. Amid the flurry of her decisions about Louisa, the champagne vines and the newly built tasting room, she hadn’t given the taxes a second thought. And because she’d always paid the taxes with a cashier’s check, she had no record of the check being cashed.

      This was about the same time she’d begun to notice the first signs of Sam’s forgetfulness, she realized with a lurch in her stomach. His slips were always minor, and she’d thought they were more of a nuisance than a real danger. But this...

      Losing over twenty thousand dollars could ruin them.

      Liz had already taken out two new mortgages to pay for the tasting room and all the improvements to the fermenting barn and the cellars. She doubted any bank in town would advance her any more money on her harvest. Liz had yet to prove herself and her wines’ abilities to bring in big sales. Though they were doing well—even better than she’d hoped with the tourist trade—she still hadn’t

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