his easygoing attitude—that was, until his new wife announced that they were expecting. Regan, outside of a few bizarre cravings, had had an easy pregnancy so far. Gabe, on the other hand, was a complete mess.
“Regan’s not nagging,” Gabe defended.
“Says the man who has a flat of Rocky Road ice cream stashed in his truck,” Nate said, waving the bartender over.
“Which is melting.” Gabe looked down longingly at the beer before slowly sliding it back toward Marc with a mumbled curse.
Marc took one look at the constipated expression on Gabe’s face, noticed the three gray hairs that had sprouted overnight, and slid the beer back. “You go ahead. You need it more than I do.”
Gabe held out a weary hand, waving off the beer. “Can’t” was all he said.
“Since Regan was totally alone through her first pregnancy with Holly, Gabe said he wanted to be a part of every step of this one.” Nate managed to hide his smirk but not the tone in his voice that said dumb-ass. “If Regan is awake, so is Gabe. If she wants ice cream, it’s what’s for dinner.”
“If she can’t drink alcohol, neither can he?” Marc added, seeing where this was going. Dumb-ass didn’t even begin to describe what Gabe was if he willingly agreed to that setup.
Gabe rested his elbows on the table and dropped his face into his hands. “I haven’t slept in three weeks, my pants are tight, and I swear, if I have to eat one more pickled-beet salad, I think I’m going to puke.”
But he’d man up and do it. Gabe had already proven that he would do anything if it meant making Regan happy.
“So can you explain to me what kind of idiot agreed to this so I can go home, snuggle with my wife, and eat a bowl of Rocky Road while watching another Nicholas Sparks movie?”
“There he goes, being all hormonal,” Marc joked.
“You think he’s bad, wait until Frankie gets a hold of this. She’s going to castrate you. Slowly,” Nate said.
Marc picked up the paper and studied it, at a total loss for why his two brothers were looking at him like he was in deep shit. Sure, he’d approved the article, even had Regan look it over to make sure it would pop. Nothing.
Gabe opened the paper and once again rested his head in his hands. “Fourth column, down at the bottom. Third name under the Tasting Tribunal.”
Marc scanned the article, found the list of judges for the blind wine tasting, and drew a blank. “Simon Baudouin, so what?”
“So what?” Gabe snapped, looking up and pinning Marc with a glare. “You want to tell me how the hell that happened?”
Marc couldn’t understand what had his brothers so pissed. A hundred years ago the DeLuca and Baudouin families held the first annual St. Helena Summer Wine Showdown in the dining room of the Napa Grand as a way to settle a friendly dispute over whose wine was superior. Over the years the tasting grew to include the entire valley, and it eventually became a platform for winemakers and enthusiasts from around the globe to compete and show off their new wines. It was also where his grandparents met and fell in love, and even where his parents had their wedding.
And had the Napa Grand not closed its doors twenty years ago, this year would have marked the hotel’s centennial year of hosting the event as well as his parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary. Which was why Marc had agreed that, even though his hotel wasn’t quite ready for an event of this caliber, the Showdown needed to be brought home—back to the Napa Grand. It had long outgrown the opera house two towns over in old town Napa, where it had been held the past twenty years.
“There’s always been one DeLuca and one Baudouin on the tribunal,” Marc defended. “It’s written in the bylaws. So if Frankie’s bitching because they only get one spot, tell her to suck it up.”
“Frankie doesn’t bitch.” An extremely loud and extremely ticked-off voice echoed throughout the bar. “Frankie delivers a donkey kick to the nuts.”
All three brothers turned toward the entrance, took one look, and instinctively dropped their hands to cover their goods because there—dressed in a shirt that read Bite Me, shredded jeans, and a pair of steel-toed boots—stood Francesca Baudouin.
“Ah shit,” Nate whispered.
Frankie was tall, curvy, supposedly tattooed, and hot in that I-can-maim-you-with-my-bare-hands kind of way. She was also considered one of the most promising up-and-coming vintners