He put his hand on her shoulder.
“I’m not going to stop you from double-checking. But I was there last night, too, remember. You consulted that list like a drill sergeant as we got all of the wine in the right locations, and I absolutely heard you tell Taylor you’d upped the amount of rosé to put in the fridges. I’ll come with you to check, but have a muffin first? You’ve probably had a lot of coffee already; you need something else in your system.”
He took a muffin out of the shoebox he was carrying and handed it to her.
“It’s still warm,” she said. “Where did you get these?”
She took a bite, and sighed.
“Oh, this is so good. So many blueberries. And is that a little lemon? Just like—”
He smiled.
“Yeah, just like those old muffins of Mom’s. I got her to dig up the recipe. I made them this morning.”
Margot almost dropped the muffin.
“You made these? Since when do you bake?”
He laughed.
“Since this morning, that’s when.” He shrugged. “Or, okay, since a few days ago—I had to make a test batch just so I didn’t ruin these, which was a good idea, since I did indeed mess up the first batch. These are pretty good, I think. You like them?”
Margot reached into the box and took another.
“Like them? I might eat all of them.”
Elliot looked both pleased and embarrassed.
“You can have as many as you want, though I’m warning you, Finn may fight you for them.”
They went into the barn, double-checked all of the wine—which was all exactly as it should be—and then Margot looked around. At the barn, the winemaking equipment on the far side, the barrels in the back, and then, outside, the beautifully landscaped grounds, thanks to Pete. They didn’t look manicured— that’s not what anyone had wanted—but they were full of greenery, shrubs, flowers, and other pollinators. And the raised beds that Elliot had built on the path from the winery building to the lawn looked perfect, all full of fragrant herbs.
She smiled as she looked at everything. It looked like a small, flourishing, beautiful winery. It looked just how she’d imagined. Better than she’d imagined.
“It looks good today,” Elliot said.
“Yeah,” she said. “It does.”
She pulled out her phone and snapped a picture of the winery, in the gorgeous morning light. She wished she’d been able to hire a photographer for today, to get good pictures for brochures and social media, but she’d pushed up against her budget as it was. She should have prioritized that, though. Oh well.
“There you both are,” Taylor said, walking from the winery to them. “Are we ready to start setting up?”
“We are,” Margot said. “Thanks for getting here so early, Taylor. Elliot made muffins.”
Taylor looked from her to Elliot.
“Elliot made muffins?”
He held out the shoebox.
“What a banner day.” Taylor grabbed a muffin. She turned to Margot. “What’s the first thing on that list of yours, boss? Tables or signs?”
Margot took the last sip of her coffee.
“Tables. Let’s do those first, then signs. Then . . . everything else.”
The next few hours flew by, with setup and extra staff arriving and the food vendors making last-minute calls to her with questions and more RSVPs coming in every time she looked at her phone.
Margot looked around the lawn. The pizza guy was here and setting up, Sydney and Charlie were at the table for the Barrel, and the taco women were at their station. But where was the guy with the tiny cheeseburgers?
She pulled her phone out of her pocket. Missed call, from an unfamiliar number. She checked her voice mail. And then she took a long, deep breath.
She went to find Taylor.
“Hey—the burger guy isn’t coming. His power went out last night, all of the meat spoiled. Let’s take down his table and put some seating for guests over there, before anyone gets here.”
“Okay,” Taylor said. “Want me to fix the menus and print new ones out?”
This was why she adored Taylor—she never panicked about anything.
“Thank you, that would be fantastic.”
When Taylor came back, Margot took the stack of menus from her and set them in the barn.
“Hey. Can you hold down the fort for like”—she looked at her watch—“ten minutes? I have to change and put some makeup on.”
Taylor waved her away.
“Make it fifteen. I’ve got this.”