Season of Change
Season of Change
Melinda Curtis
Harmony Valley may not be so harmonious after all!Christine Alexander needs to prove herself as a top-notch winemaker, and in Harmony Valley she’s got a chance to build something legitimate, with quality.What she doesn’t need is part-owner Slade Jennings poking his nose in her cabernet.Brooding, buttoned-up Slade Jennings won’t be making things easy for his new hire. Someone has to worry about the bottom line. Forced into an uneasy partnership, the pair face two challenges: create a spectacular award-winning vintage within months…and figure out if their tenuous friendship can grow into something deeper and lasting.
Harmony Valley...not so harmonious after all!
Christine Alexander needs to prove herself as a top-notch winemaker, and in Harmony Valley she’s got a chance to build something legitimate, quality and lasting. What she doesn’t need is part-owner Slade Jennings poking his nose in her cabernet.
Brooding, buttoned-up Slade Jennings won’t be making things easy for his new hire. Someone has to worry about the bottom line. Forced into an uneasy partnership, the pair faces two challenges: create a spectacular award-winning vintage within months…and figure out if their tenuous friendship can grow into something deeper and lasting.
It hit her then. Not like a ton of bricks, not a like a slap in the face, not like a cold shower.
This was a soft awareness, like picking up a sleeping kitten and cuddling it close.
He liked her. More than a boss usually liked his employee.
He liked her. Those mixed signals weren’t all just self-preservation.
He liked her. A lot.
The proof was there. But what did it mean?
Nothing, her head said.
Everything, her heart said.
It could be a silly infatuation, created by the time they’d been spending together. Something that would fade.
Or it could be the beginning of a feeling that went down like a rich red wine. Something that expanded and lingered.
One thing she did know—she wanted to find out.
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Harmony Valley!
Things aren’t as harmonious here as they once were. Jobs have dried up and almost everyone under the age of sixty has moved away in the past ten years, leaving the population…well, rather gray-haired and peaceful.
Enter three young men—Slade, Flynn and Will—friends, newly minted millionaires and hometown success stories. Slade Jennings is a former Wall Street whiz who can’t seem to give up his ties, even though he’s living in the wine country. This summer, he’s running winery operations and hosting his twin girls.
Winemaker Christine Alexander is tired of wine with her name on it being changed by meddlesome winery owners. She’s taken the job in Harmony Valley because she was promised autonomy. She hadn’t counted on Slade being a control freak. If she’s not careful, he’s going to expand the winery’s production before the quality is proven in the bottle. If she’s not careful, her curiosity about Slade and his ties are going to change her priorities forever.
I hope you enjoy Slade and Christine’s journey, as well as the other romances in the Harmony Valley series. I love to hear from readers. Check my website to learn more about upcoming books set in Harmony Valley and sign up for email book announcements. Or you can chat with me on Facebook (MelindaCurtisAuthor) or on Twitter (MelCurtisAuthor), and hear about my latest giveaways.
Melinda Curtis
Season of Change
Melinda Curtis
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MELINDA CURTIS
has lived in humid Georgia and crazy-weather Texas. She prefers the possibility of California earthquakes. Her work experience prior to writing this book includes being an inventory-taker, a maid, a baseball announcer, a rodent wrangler, a copy writer, a focus group moderator and a cubicle wage-slave. She’ll take romance writer and bare feet over suits and heels (or rodents) any day.
Melinda currently lives in California’s arid central valley with her husband—her basketball-playing college sweetheart. With three kids, the couple has done the soccer thing, the karate thing, the dance thing, the Little League thing and, of course, the basketball thing. Now they’re enjoying the quiet life of empty nesters before the grandparent thing.
Melinda writes sweet contemporary romances as Melinda Curtis and red-hot reads as Mel Curtis. She loves writing romances about women who don’t realize how strong they are until a hero comes along to show them, while capturing the wry, humorous power struggle of falling in love. Because, really? What woman lets the man have the last word?
Nothing in my life would be possible without the love and support of my immediate family, extended family and close friends. A special thank you to my husband of thirty years for putting up with me and all the voices in my head clambering for a happy ending.
As always, special thanks to A.J. Stewart, Cari Lynn Webb and Anna Adams for their support throughout the writing of this book. Every writer needs a sounding board. You guys rock!
I spent sixteen years working at a winery. In writing the Harmony Valley books, I relied on my memory, as well as questions to friends and family who still work and own wineries. Think of Harmony Valley as you enjoy a glass of wine from The Iron Gate Winery in Cedar City or the Jordon Winery in Healdsburg, but know that all mistakes regarding wineries and winemaking are my own.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE (#u55eacaed-a9a0-5de2-95f8-235999933d6f)
CHAPTER TWO (#uef30d19a-bbeb-5db1-96ac-d8837f1021c9)
CHAPTER THREE (#ud2754884-d67f-5658-8105-7361428e3189)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u473194c5-41fa-5b21-854c-91c86f1a0983)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
LIFE WAS A numbers game.
Count the years, count the money, count the marriages, count the mistakes.
Slade Jennings was thirty-two years old, had millions in the bank, one failed marriage, and one horrendous mistake.
He knew what he looked like walking down the street—success. Wrinkle-free khakis, wrinkle-free button down, Italian designer tie. Rolex. Titanium and onyx pinky ring. Dark-as-midnight hair, expensively cut. Eyes the color of money, always on the lookout for the next deal. Slade had come from humble beginnings and wasn’t going back.
Except, he had. Gone back to his roots, that was, damaged though they may be.
That was what you did for friends who were also your business partners. You went with the flow, even if that meant returning to your hometown, to the house you’d grown up in, to the house where both your parents died, the scene of the horrendous mistake.
Harmony Valley’s bridge club called the house at 1313 Harrison Street the Death and Divorce House. In Slade’s lifetime there hadn’t been any divorces. But there had been plenty of deaths. His mother gave in to melanoma in the master bedroom. His father hung himself six years later in the closet of the same room. It was the culmination of everything that was wrong with Slade’s life—he’d lost his career, his bank account, and then his family. That was eight years ago. The house on Harrison represented failure, which was why it was vital Slade present only success to the world.
While in Harmony Valley, Slade was living in the Death and Divorce House. To stay elsewhere seemed like a betrayal. But stay in the master bedroom? No. He slept in the bedroom of his youth.
He’d returned to town earlier that year with Will Jackson and Flynn Harris, his childhood friends and the two programming geniuses behind a successful farming app. Slade was their sidekick and the partnership’s moneyman, the one who managed the bottom line, watched their backs, and made sure they didn’t get screwed in any negotiations.
So, why weren’t they back in Silicon Valley leveraging their achievement?
Because Will and Flynn burned out designing their first app. They were all local boys, if not best friends when they were growing up, as close as brothers now. When they showed up to decompress after five years of sharing a cramped apartment with the thinnest walls on the planet, they’d been asked by the town council to start a business to help save their hometown.
An explosion fourteen years ago at the grain mill had wiped out Harmony Valley’s main employer. The ripple effect forced those too young to retire to move closer to jobs and all but a handful of businesses to shut down. Located in the northernmost corner of Sonoma County, Harmony Valley was becoming a remote retirement village. The population had dwindled below eighty, with the average age of residents above seventy-five.
Given that Slade preferred Harmony Valley become a ghost town when all the old-timers died, he’d voted against the partnership starting a business here. Then he’d protested their choice of business—a winery. They were three guys who drank beer. What did they know about making wine? Outvoted, he’d still stood by his friends through arguments with blustery octogenarians, a mountain of legal and financial paperwork, and the ups and downs of construction.
Today, the shell of the winery was finally completed. The winemaker they’d hired, Christine Alexander, granddaughter of a town-council member—would the nepotism never end?—was due to start work today and provide Slade with her input on the guts of the winery. Juice presses, tanks, barrels, and whatever else she needed to make great wine. Really great wine people would drop a C-note to drink. Because if they were going to make wine, it’d be the best wine around.
Slade checked his Rolex. Christine was late.
He sat on the porch of the old farmhouse they’d converted into an office and tasting room, and loosened the knot of his tie.
Summer was in full swing. The air was hot and dry. Barely a breeze swayed the palm trees lining the hundred-yard newly graveled drive. The sixty-foot-tall eucalyptus trees that marched along the river were silent, as well. Occasionally, a cricket offered complaint.
Something shook the house, a slight tremor that had Slade leaping up.
Eathquake!
The horse weathervane on top of the main winery building rocked, spun, then quieted. The ground settled and Slade drew a deep breath. As a native Californian, he was used to small, infrequent tremors. That didn’t mean they didn’t send his body humming with adrenaline faster than a shot of espresso.
His phone buzzed, announcing a text message from Flynn: Did you feel that?
His reply: Yes. Winery is fine.
A big black SUV turned into the driveway.
He’d thought Christine owned a small, newer-model Audi. At least, that was what she’d driven up in for her job interview last month. He shifted the tie-knot back into place and walked down the circular drive to meet her.
Only it wasn’t Christine.
It was his ex-wife, Evangeline, a native New Yorker. Two shadows bobbed in the backseat, his twin ten year-old daughters, Faith and Grace. He was simultaneously overjoyed and overwhelmed. No one had told him they were coming. Not that it mattered. He practically flew down the drive to meet them.
Evangeline toggled down the window and gave him a scornful look. He hadn’t seen her since Christmas, but she was as stylish as ever in a bold tiger-print blouse and chunky jewelry. Her black hair was short and blunt cut, framing her strikingly angular face, making her too-white smile seem fanglike. “I thought you’d be at the house. We saw Will in town and he told us you were here.”
Slade was used to burying his emotions behind a facade of savvy sophistication. He hid them now, deep in his chest in a tight, burdensome lump.
Months ago, Evangeline had called and—amid a rant about how she resented the revised visitation agreement—had told him she would abide by it and let the girls stay with him while she and her new husband, provider of the four-carat monstrosity on her slender finger, took a delayed honeymoon to the South of France.
Evangeline didn’t like sharing the girls, which was why when Slade agreed to increase child support, he also brought down the judge’s gavel on enforcing his newly expanded parental rights. Evy was always agreeing to drop them off, but never following through. If she was here, husband number three must be something. And that something was spontaneous, because they weren’t due to visit for another two weeks.
With effort, Slade shifted into “polite conversation” mode. “Did you feel that earthquake just now? It wasn’t very big.” When Evy shook her head, he leaned farther in the window to greet the twins. “Hey, girls. Holy...”
They looked like miniature, identical Gothic vampires. If his mother wasn’t already dead, she’d have risen up and splashed them with holy water.
“Don’t judge,” Evangeline scolded sharply. “It’s a phase. Today Goth. Tomorrow princesses.”
He forced himself to smile. “Took me by surprise is all. Did you leave their things at my place?” The Death and Divorce House was dim and filled with bad memories. He slept there, but only because the past wouldn’t let him bunk anywhere else. If he’d believed Evy would follow through this time and honor his visitation rights, he would have made other arrangements to stay in town or at the nearest hotel, thirty minutes away.
“Slade, we don’t have a key. Not to that house.” Derision dripped from every syllable, bringing back too many memories of the hot-tempered, entitled woman he’d divorced.
Aren’t whirlwind college romances swell?
But her contempt goaded him into a decision he’d most likely regret later—to have the girls stay at the house with him. “We don’t lock the doors here, Evy.”
“You know I don’t like it when you call me that.”
He did. He winked at the girls.
They didn’t smile or laugh or give any indication that they appreciated being included in his inside joke. That was probably his punishment for only seeing them twice a year. When they were older, they’d understand why their mother kept them away and why Slade didn’t press as hard as he should for visitation.
Slade opened the back door so the twins could get out.
Up close, it was even worse. Black lipstick, black eyeliner, black lace blouses over yellow-and-black-plaid capris. He hoped to heaven the short blond hair with thin black streaks were wigs.
Two silent strangers slid out. A far cry from the plump, happy babies he used to rock to sleep. Or the grinning, sturdy two-year olds that he used to push on swings.
Good thing he’d been hanging out with Flynn and his seven-year-old nephew the past month or he wouldn’t have a clue how to deal with them. He tousled Faith’s hair. She was the twin with a dimple that rarely disappeared on her cheek, even when she frowned at him and straightened her wig. Grace came to stand next to her. They stared at him in wordless retribution.
Ten. Crap. He’d thought teenage angst started at thirteen.
“You’ll be all right, won’t you, girls?” Evangeline waited for their nods before she commanded, “Get their things, Slade.”
Her attitude was starting to cinch his collar, but it didn’t make sense to argue.
Their things included four huge suitcases, three Nordstrom shopping bags, two identical backpacks with angry manga characters, and one stuffed lion the size of a large dog.
Slade dutifully loaded it all into the bed of his new black truck, giving himself and the girls a pep talk. “We’re going to have a good time, aren’t we?”
No one answered.
Evangeline reeled each girl in with one hand for fierce hugs. “You be good like I told you and you’ll be safe.” She gave Slade a sharp look that could have cut metal. “I’m trusting you with my babies.” She named the date she wanted them back in New York, as if his daughters were on loan.
Since they’d separated eight years ago, he’d wanted to spend more time with the twins than his twice-a-year visits. The new settlement had given him hope. He’d pictured happy vacations to amusement parks and sunny beaches. He’d imagined laughter and enthusiasm and emotional hugs. He’d dreamed of having them for a day, a weekend, a week.
And here was reality: his girls had misplaced fashion limits, stared at him mutely, and there were nearly thirty days looming ahead like a prison sentence.
* * *
DAY ONE ON the job and Christine Alexander was late.
That didn’t mean she expected to show up for work and see a glamorous-looking woman doing the tiptoe run around a black SUV in skyscraper heels, or a pair of identical little Goth girls. Not this far away from civilization. Not outside an anime film. Not at her place of employment.
Christine had thought she was escaping the high-drama, high-fashion, high-ego circus that was Napa wine making.
The queen bee in high heels gunned the SUV around the circular driveway. A relief.
Although the Goth girls were still a caution.
Christine parked her old bucket with its deceased air conditioner next to the big black truck that remained, turned off the ignition, and received a very brutal, vibrating massage as the engine fought and coughed and hiccuped trying to stay alive. It wasn’t until it wheezed its last breath that Christine risked getting out.
Her boss, Slade, did a double take. The well-worn car. Christine in her red Keds, faded blue jean shorts, and black Useless Snobbery band T-shirt. Never mind that wine making was a hands-on, messy job. Her new boss didn’t seem to understand that.
The little optimistic light inside her that placed such high hopes on this position—for loyalty, for legitimacy, and a nest egg for her future—faded.
She tossed her long blond ponytail over a shoulder, wishing she’d at least taken the time to put it in a French braid. The fancier hairstyle made her look more serious and kept her hair off her neck, which was now hot and sweaty. It had to be ninety-five degrees today, if not pushing one hundred.
“Hey,” she said to the two girls.
They didn’t move or quit staring, which was kind of creepy. Goth mini-mannequins.
“Slade, good to see you again.” Christine closed the distance between them and shook her boss’s hand.
His handshake was perfect—not bone-crushing hard, not limp. Just the right amount of grip and shake. But then again, Slade was perfectly put together. He could have modeled for a living. He was tall and lean, with a hard chin, sculpted cheekbones, and black hair that was always tamed, always controlled. Seriously, the guy was so perfect, he almost didn’t have a personality.
She wouldn’t have fought for this job if she was only working for Slade. He was everything she was leaving behind—name-brand posturing and excess. It had been Flynn, one of Slade’s business partners, who convinced Christine to accept the job. He’d taken one look at her suit and high heels the day of the interview and said, “You look nice, but if we hire you, I don’t ever want to see you in a suit again. We’re beyond casual around here.”
Such was the joy of working for two millionaires who’d made their fortunes in the tech world. Will and Flynn didn’t stand on ceremony like those in the wine industry. They shunned hosting black-tie, sequined events. And then there was her third boss—Slade.
“I’m sorry I didn’t dress for the office.” She gestured in the region of his fabulous tie. “I was trying to move the last of my things to town.”
“That’s all right.” His accepting tone contradicted his disapproving expression. “Did you feel the earthquake a few minutes ago?”
“I’m assuming you’re not talking about my car’s unique way of shutting off.” She gave him her best smile-and-laugh-with-me one-two combo, scoring a point when he smiled back, even though the Goth girls blanked her. “I may have felt something coming down Main. I thought it was bad gas knocking.” Not hardly. She’d thought her old beater would suffice and had given up her lease on the Audi. She was in penny-pinching mode, living here with her grandmother, saving for a down payment on her own vineyard. She wouldn’t have given up the Audi if she’d known her college car was in desperate need of a tune-up or a new engine or a trip to the scrapyard.
“It’s a toss-up whether it was your car or the tremor,” Slade deadpanned. He turned to the girls. “These are my daughters—”
His? Get out of town!
“Grace—” Slade gestured from one girl to the other “—and Faith.”
“So that was your wife leaving?”
“Ex,” he said curtly.
Immediately, Christine wished she could take the question back. Slade probably thought she was digging for information to see if he was single. What she really wanted was reassurance that Slade was more interested in the substance of the wine she made than the image he presented to the outside world. The wine industry attracted almost as many grandstanders as Hollywood. She didn’t care if Slade wore a parka in this heat, as long as their vision for their wine meshed.
Slade smoothed his tangerine-colored paisley tie. “After our tour, we’ll head over to El Rosal for a cool drink. Or some ice cream.” This latter part she assumed was an offer for the twins. Little did Slade know Christine liked ice cream almost as much as she liked wine.
He led them into the tasting room, the girls trailing behind Christine like silent wraiths. How their quirkiness must upset the balance in Slade’s otherwise balanced life.
Everything in the tasting room smelled of new construction, of sawed wood and fresh paint. The otherwise empty room had a large blue marble counter, behind which was a built-in oak buffet. And blessedly, they’d installed air-conditioning.
“Is that original?” Christine ran a hand over the buffet’s polished wood. “It’s beautiful.”
“It is. We were able to save much of the planked flooring, as well. This house was built over one hundred years ago by Jeremiah Henderson. The property remained in Henderson hands until we bought it earlier this year.” He spoke as if he was behind a lectern, coolly enunciating every syllable. No awkward pauses, lisps, or stutters.
The poor man is so personality-free it’s sad.
“It’s been remodeled,” he continued, “and had additions over the years, but this room is the original front parlor.”
It wasn’t every day a man used the word parlor in front of Christine. It drew her gaze to his perfectly formed lips. She licked her own, her gaze falling to his feet.
His loafers weren’t knock-offs. The workmanship and shine practically screamed Italian. “We also have a bathroom and a full kitchen here.” He led her to the rear of the house.
She passed through a doorway, dragged her gaze from the feet she was following, and fell in love. “I want to live here.”
Baby-blue marble countertops, soft white cabinets, and a double-wide porcelain farm sink. They may have built this place out in the boonies, but they’d spared no expense. Christine could hardly wait to start talking about the wine-making equipment they’d be purchasing.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” His smile was unexpectedly humble. She would have bet on chest-thumping pride. “The office space is upstairs.” Slade led her up a narrow staircase. “We couldn’t see a way to widen these without losing valuable space below. The footprint of the house is only one thousand square feet.”
The office was open, empty space with front-facing dormers and soft blue walls. The windows had no coverings, allowing the sun to beat in and suck the life out of the air.
“We didn’t think about desks until after the remodel was almost finished, so we’re having furnishings custom-built. I hope you like them.”
“Whatever you get will be fine.” She’d work on a plywood desk held up by sawhorses in exchange for the power over all wine-making decisions. “What about the—”
Slade put a finger to his lips.
That was when she noticed they were alone.
Soft whispers drifted to them from downstairs.
Slade smiled broadly, like a papa bear finding joy in his cubs.
Whoa. Mr. Perfect loves his Goth girls.
It surprised Christine so much she was sure she reflected his grin right back at him. The humanness—so unexpected—explained why his everyday-guy business partners put up with him.
The whispers stopped.
“You’ll get blinds or something up here, I assume.” Christine quickly filled the void.
“Plantation shutters.” He was still smiling at her, as if they’d shared a private moment and he wasn’t ready to let the feeling go. “Let’s check out the main winery.”
Maybe he wasn’t all staid ego and self-image. Maybe he’d had a business meeting earlier. Maybe he’d had a meeting before every time she’d met him previously. That would explain why she’d never seen him without a tie. But there was something about his rigid posture that negated that hypothesis.
From the farmhouse, they crossed the circular drive toward a barnlike structure on the same property. They’d only just broken ground on it when Christine first interviewed. She hadn’t imagined it would look so welcoming and yet be so huge, nestled amid row after row of grapevines.
Untended, overgrown grapevines.
The road to harvest wouldn’t be easy.
The heat pressed down on her once more, like heavy hands on her shoulders. Christine didn’t know how Slade could stand wearing a tie. The only concession he’d made to the heat was rolling up his shirtsleeves, revealing well-muscled, tan forearms.
Christine stepped through the forty-foot high double doors into the cavernous, blessedly cooler would-be winery. The new-construction smell was less noticeable here with the doors thrown open. It was empty, just metal support beams, concrete, and wood. But to her, it was paradise. She could easily visualize how to fill it with equipment.
“This was the site of the original barn, which we were unable to salvage.” Was that a wistful note in his voice? “We built this to look like the original homestead, but big enough to accommodate processing up to eighty thousand cases of wine.”
Eighty thousand cases?
Each case contained twelve bottles. He was talking close to a million bottles.
Red flag. Serious red flag.
“Slade.” She carefully kept her voice even, her expression polite. “As I understand it, you only own forty acres of vineyard. That’s enough to produce about five thousand cases.” Seventy-five thousand less than his planned capacity.
Christine tried to ignore the alarm buzzing in her head. She’d been hired to produce boutique wine in small quantities, hired to obtain top ratings and reviews, hired to help build Harmony Valley Vineyards into something prestigious and rare. Eighty thousand cases crossed the border from rare territory into the gray zone, flirting with a fall into the quirky, quaffable territory occupied by wine costing less than ten bucks a bottle. Wines with cartoony icons and names like My Boyfriend’s Favorite Red or Bow Tie Bordeaux.
“What’s the use of starting a company if you don’t plan for growth? It’s where we need to be in five years.” He stepped from the light into the shadows, his gaze on her intense. “Does success scare you?”
“No.” Failure did. As her dad so often reminded Christine, her reputation was only as good as her last score in the bible of wine-review magazines. In just a few months, she’d find out in print if she was a scapegoat at Ippolito Cellars or if she’d dodged a bullet by leaving when her wine-making principles were undermined. “Fine wine can’t be rushed.”
Faith and Grace watched their exchange closely, holding hands as if they were in some kind of horror movie, ready to unleash deadly powers if Christine took this argument too far.
Yes, Christine had no social life. Yes, she watched too many scary films. Yes, she might have leaped into this job too quickly, since Slade seemed more interested in volume than quality.
“We should talk.” A classic brush-off line from a boss who’d already made up his mind.
That alarm in her head buzzed louder.
“But let’s get out of the heat before we discuss it further. You remember where El Rosal is? On the town square?” At her nod, he stepped out beneath the blazing sun, which painted silver-blue highlights in his black hair, as if he were a hunky rock star and she was just one of the little people in the audience dancing to the beat of his hypnotic drum.
Wilting in the heat, Christine trailed behind his two Goth girls, reluctantly contemplating her next job search.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN HE’D HIRED Christine, everything about her had looked top-shelf, from her designer shoes to her carefully coiffed blond hair. She’d presented herself as the kind of woman Slade admired—beautiful, confident, someone he could count on, and with a genuineness that Evangeline lacked. He’d voted to hire Christine because she’d represent their winery to the world the way he would—with take-charge, bulletproof class.
Now he’d count her as...he’d count her as...
He wasn’t sure how to classify Christine.
“What part of my five-year plan don’t you like?” Slade waited to broach the subject until they were seated at an inside table at El Rosal and the girls had wordlessly withdrawn to the restroom. “Five thousand year one. Ten year two. Twenty. Forty. Eighty. In five years, we’ll be the biggest employer around. And that’s what this town needs, a big employer.”
Christine’s cheeks were flushed from the heat, making her look like a porcelain doll, one with sapphire-blue eyes and dark blond hair, similar to the dolls he’d given to the twins one Christmas. Sure, her mouth was a little bit too wide, but she had a friendly smile, which he hadn’t seen since he’d talked about how much wine he wanted to make.
“It all looks good on paper.” Christine slowly spun her water glass. “Like the way I thought giving up the lease on my Audi was a good idea, since I can walk to work here. Trust me when I say I miss my Audi.”
Recalling how her current dented ride shook at shutoff, Slade nodded.
“But, Slade, no one’s made high-quality wine with Harmony Valley grapes in decades. From what I gather, the few people who grow grapes here sell them to a bulk wine distributor, who sells them to a jug wine producer.” Her shoulders shook slightly, as if she was containing a shudder.
“It doesn’t mean fine wines can’t be made here.”
“It doesn’t mean it’ll be easy.” The tension at the corners of her mouth hadn’t been there ealier.
“Nothing about this winery has been easy.” An understatement. Approvals, permits, and zoning had taken twice as long as planned. The barn conversion had turned into a demolition and full rebuild. Slade and his partners should have left Harmony Valley months ago. It was time to stop the budget hemorrhage on the winery, close the loop on this project, and get back to what they did best—designing game applications.
“One thing I didn’t see today is your wine cave.”
“Wine cave?” Slade echoed as if he was in a cavern.
“Yeah, the wine cave. Where you store wine.” There was a tentative note in her voice, as if she was starting to doubt her decision to come work for them.
“There aren’t any caves around here.” And as far as Slade knew, it wasn’t a prerequisite to having a winery.
“It doesn’t have to be a cave. For energy efficiency, many wineries build their storage facilities belowground.”
That sounded expensive. Slade’s palms dampened. “Won’t we be storing the wine in the winery?” Granted, he and his partners were beer guys, but they’d hired a consultant—a friend of a friend of Flynn’s who worked for a winery in Monterey—for input on winery requirements.
The twins returned from the bathroom under scrutiny of Harmony Valley residents, who’d probably never seen preteens in wigs and Goth gear when it wasn’t Halloween. Their Gothness stood out amid the myriad of bright primary colors that had been used to paint every chair, table, and wall in the Mexican restaurant.
Slade’s next-door neighbor, who was the town’s retired undertaker and former cemetery owner, sat two tables over. Hiro Takata had a perpetual hunch to his shoulders, a consistently rumpled wardrobe, and the kindly aging face of his Japanese ancestors. He’d been there the day of Slade’s horrendous mistake, although he’d never said anything to anyone, not even Slade. “These your girls?”
“Yes.” Slade hoped his smile said what a proud dad he was. He pictured them in conservative jeans shorts, pink T-shirts, with dark hair and no makeup. His smile came a little easier.
“What are they auditioning for?” Takata hiccup-belched.
Slade held on to his proud-dad-no-matter-what smile. “They’re playing dress up.” He hoped.
“In my day, you dressed up at home or in your backyard.” Takata’s scrutiny focused on Christine. “They look like those women on your T-shirt.”
Christine held out her shirt at the waist, creating a rock-and-roll Useless Snobbery billboard of dark hair and black-on-white face paint. “The classics never go out of style.” She winked at the girls, who didn’t wink back.
The waitress arrived to take their order and Old Man Takata, as he’d been known to the kids of Harmony Valley for twenty-plus years, pushed himself to his feet, wobbled, then shuffled out the door wielding his cane like a third appendage.
The twins ordered ice cream by pointing to it on the menu, and sat without speaking, as if this was the most boring day of their lives but they’d power through it. Slade felt sorry for them, but he had a business to run. Amusement parks and sunny beaches would have to wait. Will had taken point on the permits and approvals. Flynn had taken point on structural construction. Slade was taking point on managing winery operations. Once it was up and running, he’d leave the day-to-day tasks to someone capable who shared his vision. He’d been hoping that person was Christine.
His winemaker scanned the wine on El Rosal’s list, frowned, and ordered ice cream. Slade went for the fully-loaded nachos and a beer—late lunch of champions and comfort food of bad decision-makers. He wasn’t sure where he was netting out today—champion or bad decision-maker. He hoped the jury was still out.
“Back to our storage needs.” Her smile had a strained quality to it. “The winery you built will be used for initial grape crushing and fermentation. For the equipment we need, for the capacity you want long-term, I’ll use up every inch of that place.” She leaned closer and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze just once. “But we’ll also need a wine cave.”
“Why?” Slade closed his eyes and tilted his head to the ceiling, ignoring the fact that people didn’t invade his personal space. Ever. All their plans. All that money. The tension in his chest unraveled into the familiar downward drag of failed expectations. “We paid someone to tell us what equipment we needed to start a winery. We based our budgets and our plans on his advice.”
“A consultant?”
“Not exactly.” Slade wasn’t used to squirming. He knew they should have paid a legitimate consultant and not a friend of a friend of Flynn’s. But at the time, it hadn’t looked as if the winery would be approved by the town council. Failure tugged at him again. He wiped his palms on his slacks.
“Once fermentation is done, we’ll be transferring wine into smaller barrels. That’s where the magic happens. Our Cabernet Sauvignon may age in oak for three years, while the Chardonnay might only be a year.” Her smile was patient when he probably didn’t deserve patience. Overlooking proper storage was a stupid mistake. Slade hadn’t made such a stupid mistake in eight years. “Why don’t you show me your budget?”
He opened his laptop bag, retrieved a printed copy of their equipment-purchasing plan and operating budget, and woodenly handed it over. The twins watched wordlessly, their patience matching his winemaker’s.
Christine spent a good deal of time reviewing it, making notes in the margin, crossing things out and drawing arrows. Finally, she moved his purchase plan and budget into the space between them and leaned close, so close he could smell the vanilla scent of her hair.
He’d admit she was exposing the partnership’s mistakes a little too easily and was wreaking havoc with his confidence. And she hadn’t shown up looking like an A-lister. But Christine was classy. She hadn’t once looked at his daughters and broken into uncontrollable laughter. She smelled nice, and there was a friendly energy to her, a vitality that made him want to grin, as it had upstairs at the winery, when he’d been unable to stop grinning while listening to the twins whispering.
He measured success by the dollar—plus-minus, over-under. This project teetered on the brink of failure. And Slade had vowed never to fail again. Despite Christine’s positives and negatives balancing out, the uneasy feeling of looming disaster spread, pooling in his gut. It wasn’t the least bit reassuring.
“As I see it,” Christine said, head bent over the budget, “you have three options. You can invest more money and build your own storage facility. But it’s unlikely you’d be able to build one in time for our first harvest—you’d need town-council approvals, permits, an environmental study, water-table tests because of your proximity to the river, architectural plans, construction...” She was smiling again. “You get the idea.”
Slade must have turned green at the idea of such a cost overrun, because his daughters’ eyes grew wide. “Cross out option one.” He took a deep drink of water, unable to wash away the partnership’s goal of saving the town, even at such an expense. “But if it was an option...how many employees would you add?”
She traced her finger along a scar in the blue tabletop. “Maybe two at first. With your capacity goals, we might add one or two employees a year after that. A moot point, since you don’t want to build.”
“Option two?” His voice sounded muted and faraway.
“You budgeted for full-scale production. Cut back on equipment purchases and only buy when you’re ready to expand. With those savings, we could convert part of the main winery into a climate-controlled storage area—for, say, five thousand cases?”
“Limiting overall production down the road,” Slade pointed out. “This town needs the jobs ramped-up production will provide.”
“We’ll work through this...somehow.” Christine’s eyes flashed with an emotion he couldn’t read. Disappointment? Determination? Her gaze cut too quickly to the twins, then returned to him, the chipper expression back on her face. “There are plenty of empty buildings on Main Street. You could convert some space there. I bet some of those buildings are historic landmarks and you could apply for a federal grant to pay for all or part of the refurbishment. The partnership could buy a building and lease it to the winery.”
She had a good head for business. Not since he and Evangeline had spent their internships working at a Wall Street investment company had a woman’s situation analysis seemed...well...almost sexy.
And look where that had gotten him. Unplanned pregnancy. Shotgun wedding. Nasty divorce. Nastier custody battle.
Slade’s grip on reality returned. Main Street was almost exclusively owned by Mayor Larry, who’d been the winery’s biggest roadblock. The uneasy feeling in his gut intensified. “What’s our third option?”
Her smile definitely dimmed. “You can purchase all your wine-making equipment to meet your five-year production plan and I’ll make cuts elsewhere to pay for storage-rental fees. This makes the most sense to the bottom line, but I’ll have to drive a minimum of sixty minutes each way to check on our wine. That takes a big chunk out of my workday.”
Slade nodded. “Maybe we could hire a fourth employee.” It was, after all, why they were building the winery. To bring people back to town. And it seemed to have the least impact on his budget.
“This shouldn’t be about employees. It should be about the wine.” A warning of boundaries about to be crossed.
“If you don’t make good wine, I can’t keep people employed.” He settled his elbows on the table, setting boundaries of his own. “What if the opportunity arose tomorrow to make more wine? Would you turn it down?” The town needed her to say no.
“It depends.”
Unacceptable. She had to align with him. “I realize this is an unexpected and challenging situation. I want our wine to be of the highest quality, and at the same time employ as many people as we can. If the opportunity presents itself—”
“I’d have to know the quality of the grapes to assess the financial implications. Are you giving me grapes the quality of a five-dollar bottle of wine? Or fifty? And where would I store it while it ages?” Mexican pop filled the silence while she considered him with swimming-pool-blue eyes. “At this point, I can agree to consider it, but I can’t promise you anything.”
Several promises he’d welcome from her came to mind. None of them related to the business of wine making. Slade drummed his fingers on the table. The attraction to her was unexpected. He forced himself to look at her alternative-rock T-shirt. And then he looked at his daughters. This should be a no-attraction no-brainer. Business was business.
“How firm are you on this budget?” Christine asked.
“Concrete. The winery’s already been a money suck.”
She arched a brow. “Seriously? You didn’t sock some away for a contingency?”
“We spent our contingency.” And then some. A building collapse. Road improvements. Neither of which they’d budgeted for. He winked at the twins, trying to lighten the mood. “It’s kind of like your mom’s shoe budget—there were unexpected must-haves and then the contingency was gone.”
The twins didn’t so much as twitch. Not an eyebrow, not a lip, not a dimple. And Christine stared at him oddly. It wasn’t fair. Slade was funny. In his own way. With his friends. And Flynn’s nephew, Truman. Why was his humor falling flat?
It was of increasing concern that his daughters, who had at least spoken to him civilly at Christmas, weren’t speaking to him at all. At first, he’d thought it was quirky, almost cute. It was starting to grate on his nerves.
Christine smiled slyly at the twins. “We ladies know that there’s always room in the budget for another must-have pair of shoes.” She gave the approaching waitress an encouraging wave. “Oh, good. Food’s here.”
Slade looked down in time to see a plate of nachos land in front of him and Christine’s delicate fingers snatching a chip loaded with meat, cheese, sour cream, and guacamole. He glared at her. He was used to intimidating people with his glare.
Christine laughed, winked at the twins again, and positioned her bowl of ice cream for an assault. “This wine cave...” She filled her spoon with slightly melted ice cream. On its way to her mouth, a drip of vanilla landed on her chin. She swiped it off with her finger and sucked her finger clean.
The world narrowed to her mouth, her lips, the flick of her tongue.
Slade reminded himself he was Christine’s employer, reminded himself she held the future of his investment in her hands, reminded himself that he hadn’t been interested in a woman in a long, long time.
“This wine cave,” she began again, swirling her spoon around the edges of her ice-cream bowl. “It isn’t the only decision you need to face.”
He made himself crunch a big bite of cheesy nachos before answering her. “What’s your point?”
Christine put down her spoon, suddenly serious. “My point is that it might be better to scale back and understand the quality of wine we’re dealing with before you invest more time and money. We can rent climate-controlled storage space with the small lots of wine we’re producing this year if you can’t afford something here in town.” The word afford poked at Slade like someone questioning the legitimacy of his Rolex. “It’s inconvenient, but I’ll deal with it, because you may find after a year that you and your friends don’t want to own a winery.”
“We’re committed to long-term success. I’d think you’d be interested in that, as well.”
“I am.” She patted his hand and then stole another nacho chip. “I signed a contract with you for a year. Where I come from, that’s long-term.”
Right now, a year was looking like a twelve-month tax season, one in which he was being audited.
* * *
“NOW PROBABLY ISN’T the time to mention that there’s some basic vineyard equipment I’ll need, but I’m going to anyway.” Christine pushed her empty bowl of ice cream to the center of the table and started in full-time on Slade’s nachos. He arched a dark eyebrow at her, but she hadn’t eaten anything that morning, since she’d been busy moving the last of her things to her grandmother’s house. Ice cream wasn’t cutting it. The man was a millionaire. He could afford to order another plate of nachos. “For starters, a tractor, a truck scale, a forklift, and harvest lugs.”
Sighing, Slade moved the nachos closer to Christine, abdicating ownership. “We’ll put together some estimates and new projections. You did mention something in your résumé about the ability to balance budgets?”
“I did.” Christine decided she’d pushed the man enough for one day and merely grinned around the last bite of nachos. She wanted to make great wine, not a lot of wine that may or may not be great. And to do that, she needed to continually win the battle over Slade’s well-intentioned but unrealistic production goals and his budget miscalculations.
He tossed cash onto the table. “I should get the twins home.”
She followed him out the door. He sent the twins ahead to the truck.
“We’ll work this out together, keeping in mind what our investment goals are and what goals you can deliver on,” Slade said from between lips that barely smiled. “Can you bring me a revised purchasing plan and budget in two days?”
“Absolutely.” Christine wasn’t sure where she found the audacity to add, “But I’m going to make recommendations based on year-one output for the next few years.”
Those perfect lips of his settled into a thin line.
The sad part was, it didn’t diminish his perfection in any way.
* * *
“WELL? HOW’D IT GO?”
“Dad?” Christine shut her grandmother’s front door behind her, taking a moment to enjoy the cool air, before processing her father was here. Forty-five minutes of back-road driving from his place of employ to Harmony Valley. Midafternoon on a Monday. Uh-oh. “What are you doing here?”
Brad Alexander stood in the living room wearing blue jeans, work boots, and a faded black L.A. Flash T-shirt. He looked at home amid the overstuffed leather furniture and big-screen television. He looked at home despite the white doilies and pink throw pillows Nana had scattered around the room after Grandpa left for the big man cave in the sky.
Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, Nana snapped a pink tea towel in her son-in-law’s direction. “As usual, he’s butting in where—”
“Agnes, I just wanted to see how my little girl did on her first day.” Her father’s smile was infectious, capable of smoothing over many an awkward situation. He closed the distance between them and gave her a hearty hug.
“It’s a great opportunity, Dad. I think I’ll like it here.” If she could get things on track for a manageable launch.
She wasn’t going to tell her dad about Slade’s five-year production plan or their lack of quality wine storage. He’d worry. He’d stress. He’d show up one day ranting about Slade’s plans to compromise the quality of her work or some other unforgivable action and insist it was time she moved on. As a lifelong veteran of the wine industry, her dad was always watching out for Christine’s career and her brother’s. It was what he lived for. It was his passion.
It had come to be her Achilles’ heel.
“Now that you see Christine’s happy, you can drive back to Napa.” Nana tried to herd Brad out, shooing him away with her dish towel. Since Nana was barely five feet and her dad topped six feet, no amount of towel brandishing was going to work.
“We have to visit.” Her dad pulled Christine over to the big leather couch.
Don’t let this be one of those conversations.
“Tell me about the vineyards. I drove by, but you weren’t there. The vines look—”
“Like they need tying off and cutting back. I know, Dad.”
He walked my vineyards?
Her father was one of Northern California’s best vineyard managers. He loved his vines almost as much as he loved his family, as proven by how well he groomed both his vineyards and his children’s careers. Three times Christine had made the leap from one winery to another. Three times it had been because her father proved her wine-making values had been compromised.
There wouldn’t be a fourth.
Too bad she hadn’t told her father that.
No doubt recognizing the warning signs of a long conversation, Nana sank into the massive recliner with an annoyed huff. She was so short and petite, she practically disappeared into the cushions.
There’s still time to cut him off.
Her father only had eyes for Christine. Or rather, Christine’s latest challenge. “You should have some interesting Cab because—”
“The eucalyptus shades the southwestern corner in the afternoon. The grapes from those vines won’t be as tannic.” He stepped on her territory without an invitation. Primal instincts knotted between her shoulder blades, urging her to defend her turf. Instead, Christine patted his sunspotted hand and strove for peace. “That’s perfect for small blocks of wine. I’ve got this, Dad.”
“And I’ve got your back, like always.” He grinned.
With effort, Christine held on to her smile. She had every reason to be happy—overseeing the final phase of a winery construction, producing small lots of high-quality wine. It was every winemaker’s dream. She shoved aside the memory of Slade’s quirking eyebrow. Held back knee-quaking concerns about wine storage. She’d make this place shine. Without her father’s interference.
Nana folded the towel in her lap, patted it, and looked at Christine with raised silver brows.
“It means so much that you came by today,” Christine said at the same time that her dad asked, “What about these bosses of yours? They’re still committed to making the good stuff?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t a lie. Slade wanted to make fine wine. He just wanted to make too much too soon. If they’d spent their contingency budget, they were probably anxious for the winery to turn a profit. She just had to make sure they stayed patient. She had at least a year to convince Slade slow growth was the way to go.
“Because if they’re not,” her father said, “you need to keep your eyes open to other possibilities.”
Christine plucked at the hem of her T-shirt. “Dad, it’s my first day.” And as with other first days—the fourth grade, college, an internship, her first full-time job—her dad was being overprotective.
“These boys are different,” Nana said. “They promised this winery will turn things around here.”
Brad rolled his eyes. “I have more experience with winery owners than you do, Agnes. Owners’ principles are easily bent beneath the weight of budgets. You’d be surprised at how quickly the focus turns to case volume and profit margins.”
Christine hoped this was one time her father was wrong. He respected profit goals, just not at the expense of wine quality. If Brad got wind of what he considered mistreatment of his grapes and vines, he was on to a new property quicker than you could say You did what? A phrase her mother had shrieked too often, followed by days of tears and tension.
Her dad knew when someone was cutting corners or expanding too quickly, unable to uphold the promise of quality wine in the bottle. He knew before anything was confirmed, probably because he’d worked at so many different wineries his connections were tremendous. He was the one who’d told Christine that her boss had gone behind her back and disregarded their blending plan. He was the one who told Christine it was time to draw a line in the sand and leave the position as head winemaker at the prestigious Ippolito Cellars.
I knew I never should have hired an Alexander. Spiteful words from Cami Ippolito when Christine gave notice. Your family isn’t known for its loyalty.
But they were known for their high-quality standards. And Christine did have her dad to thank for that, no matter how extreme he was at times.
Blame in the wine industry was like red wine stains on your clothing—impossible to remove. Christine didn’t want to be the scapegoat for a disappointing wine she hadn’t created or approved, even if it meant leaving the employer she’d thought of as her friend in a bind.
Nana waited until Brad left to ask, “Did you burn a bridge with Cami, dear?”
“I blew up the bridge as efficiently as the one over the River Kwai.” Her grandmother would understand the war-movie reference. There was no going back.
“You don’t have to change a career every time your father says so.” Nana began pulling out chicken and vegetables for dinner, setting ingredients on the kitchen’s pink Formica countertop. The kitchen also boasted a pink tile backsplash and whitewashed cabinets with a tinge of pink. Being in Nana’s kitchen was like being in a young girl’s dream house, polar opposite of the modern, masculine living room her grandfather had loved. “I don’t know how many times your mother and I have told you and your brother, but you don’t seem to want to listen. This is your life, not your father’s.”
“I wouldn’t make a career move just because Dad wants me to.” No, Christine took lots of convincing, collected her facts, and corroborated Dad’s theories. And then she leaped. “His career has been stellar. His reputation for quality unparalleled.” She could only dream of such greatness. She’d chosen to dream big here while saving the majority of her salary so that her next move would be to her own winery.
“Have you ever thought that for all his high-and-mighty principles that just once your father may have done something wrong? Or perhaps he could have stayed and made it right?” Nana pulled a big knife out of a butcher block. “Most people don’t run at the first sign of trouble. There’s your personal honor and then there’s loyalty. Honorable people stand by when things go haywire. Relationships are what make this life worth living, not your reputation.”
“He never ran from Mom.” Christine washed her hands, intending to help make dinner.
Nana shook her head. “Did you ever think that it was your mother who didn’t run?”
Christine had. But she didn’t like to.
Because what was she supposed to think of her dad if she did?
* * *
SLADE LOOKED AT the Death and Divorce House, trying to see it the way his girls did.
White peeling paint. Drapes closed across all the windows except the two upstairs. Lopsided green mailbox hanging by the front door. He watered the lawn, but it wasn’t the green gem of Old Man Takata’s next door.
“It’s not Park Avenue.” Inside or out. He led the girls up the front steps, opened the unlocked door, and turned on the light above the foyer. There was nothing charming about the place. It was hot and shadowy. Tomblike.
In three steps from the front door, you could be on the stairs, be in the hallway leading to the kitchen, or be in the living room, with its tan velour couch, the scarred coffee tables, an old television, and his father’s brown leather wing chair. The best that could be said about the house was that it had dark planked wood floors.
“I’ve kept everything the way it was when your grandfather...left.” Slade flipped on the oscillating fan in the living room and then pointed toward the television. “Don’t count on anything other than basic cable.”
He headed toward the kitchen, hesitating in the narrow doorway when he realized they’d paused at the stairwell. Both girls stared upstairs, trepidation in their gaze. Grace reached for Faith’s hand as if they knew...
Impossible.
“You can eat anything you want in the kitchen. I warn you, I eat healthy.” Not that his body was a temple, but he disliked stripping down to a tank top to work out, so he watched what he ate instead.
His brain registered what it hadn’t wanted to for months—the kitchen was outdated and in need of some serious repair. A drawer had come off its glider. Cabinet hinges were loose, leaving cabinet doors lopsided. And the linoleum... Goldenrod polka dots had been fashionable during the swinging seventies.
Slade turned around. “We’ll need to make a run into Cloverdale for groceries.” He often ate at Flynn’s. He supposed that would have to change while his daughters were here.
His daughters were here.
He’d tried for years to obtain unsupervised visitation. They were here and he was happy, wasn’t he? Or he would’ve been happy if he could’ve arranged for the three of them to stay somewhere else. Somewhere without the memory of death and horrendous mistakes. He could still take them elsewhere.
But then he imagined Evy’s smirk when he told her they hadn’t stayed in the house. Where they slept shouldn’t matter to the girls. They didn’t know the house had a past. Or that he shared in it. Taking them to a hotel would mean Evy won.
Sticking with his decision, he led them upstairs, unable to shut out the memory of the last time the girls had been here when they were two years old. Evy’s screams. The horror on her face. Her accusations that everything was his fault. He wouldn’t make a mistake like that again.
“You’ll be staying in the guest bedroom,” he said. It had two single beds his mother had set up for when her twin sisters visited. He pointed out his room and the bathroom, ignoring the door to the master bedroom completely.
* * *
SILENCE WASN’T GOLDEN.
The girls were mute as he carried their possessions upstairs. The girls sat wordlessly in the truck’s backseat during the thirty-minute drive to and from Cloverdale to shop for groceries and pick up pizza. They played on a tablet after dinner without speaking while he sat in his father’s chair, which always made him feel as if he didn’t belong in the house. The back was too stiff. His legs were too long.
“How was school this year?”
Silence.
“Do you belong to any clubs? Girl Scouts? Sports teams?”
Silence.
“What’s school going to be like next year?”
Silence.
And they moved like ninjas over the normally creaky floorboards.
The house was used to the quiet. Slade was used to the quiet. But he’d expected the girls to be chatty or fidgety or sighing with boredom, breaking the stillness, not adding to the taciturn hush.
He took out the kitchen trash, listening to the sounds of the night—crickets, the rustle of leaves in the poplar in back, a distant bullfrog by the river. Some nights he sat in an old chaise longue in the backyard until the stars faded, preferring to be where there was noise than in a stagnant house full of soured memories. He hoped he wouldn’t add the twins’ visit to his the list of disappointing recollections.
“That you, Jennings?” It was Old Man Takata sitting on his front porch.
There was just enough light from a streetlamp hidden behind a tree across the street to see smoke rising from Takata’s porch. The man loved his cigars.
Slade crossed their parallel driveways, stopping on the edge of Takata’s perfectly bladed weed-free lawn, because no one walked across that golf-course-worthy green without risking a tirade. “Enjoying the cool breeze?”
Takata scoffed and resumed puffing on his cigar.
Slade waited. He knew his neighbor was building up to something. He’d had enough dealings with the former undertaker to know when the old man had something on his mind.
Takata didn’t disappoint. “It’s not so bad out here, is it? Inside it’s always too quiet, like I’m waiting for Nancy to say something...” Nancy being his deceased wife. “Only she never does.”
Air left Slade’s lungs in a rush. The older man nailed it. Slade always felt as if he was listening for his father’s voice, waiting for him to say everything was going to be okay.
Before he could formulate a response, Takata dismissed him. “Best get inside to your girls. Old houses can be intimidating at night.”
Later, as Slade lay in the twin bed of his youth, contemplating the ceiling and listening to his daughters’ unintelligible whispers through the shared bedroom wall, he thought about Takata’s words.
And tried not to listen.
CHAPTER THREE
SLADE MADE BREAKFAST early the next morning. Turkey bacon, scrambled eggs, whole-wheat toast. After breakfast he planned to update Flynn and Will on their need of a wine cave and recommend a course of action. His palms grew sweaty at the thought of admitting they needed more capital or a larger operating budget. The omission didn’t rest completely on his shoulders, but it felt as if it did.
He was piling the eggs into a serving bowl when the back of his neck prickled. A glance over his shoulder revealed it was the girls, standing shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. Evangeline was right. Today the Goth was gone. Matching embroidered turquoise peasant blouses. Matching skinny jeans. Matching black cloth loafers. Their hair fell in single black braids down their backs.
“I can see your pretty eyes.” Yesterday, he’d been happy to note beneath those blond bangs they were still green—no colored contacts. Today, he was relieved their hair was still black. He’d been afraid they’d hid hot-pink hair under their wigs. “You got your eye color from your grandmother Jennings.”
They remained mute.
“What would you like to do after I get a little work done this morning?” He pretended they were as excited to be here as he was to be with them. “Go shopping? See a movie?”
The girls exchanged glances.
He’d read about twin speak, but he’d never seen his girls employ it before this visit.
It was as if Faith blinked and said, Dad’s such a loser.
And Grace twitched her nose and said, Tell me about it.
Slade’s cell phone rang. He answered, putting it on speaker while he ate. “What’s up, Flynn?”
“Our new sheriff rolled into town last night.” Slade could hear the smile in Flynn’s voice. “I guess the mayor handed him the keys to the jail without checking it out first. A pipe must have busted during a winter freeze. The floors are ruined upstairs. The walls and ceiling are ruined downstairs. And the jail-cell bars are rusted.”
“Sounds like the sheriff’s in need of a plumber.” Slade buttered his toast, feeling the stirrings of interest.
A few months back, Flynn had started doing small repairs for some of the elderly town residents. After the requests morphed into a regular weekly to-do list, Flynn had recruited Slade and Will, and sometimes Flynn’s father, who was a skilled construction worker, to help. As much as Slade wanted to leave town, fixing it up made it easier to stay.
“I put a call in, but the walls, floor, and ceiling need to be demolished so the plumber can see the damage.” Flynn paused, then joked, “I’ll lock you in the jail cell if you like, Slade, and we’ll see just how rusted those bars are.”
The twins blinked at Slade’s phone.
“I’d rather lock up the mayor. Isn’t that his building?” It was just like Mayor Larry to pinch pennies and lease the building to the county sheriff’s office without checking its condition. Slade spooned some egg and a slice of bacon onto his toast and folded it over like a sandwich. “Where did our new sheriff sleep?”
“Nate was lucky. He spent the night at Mayor Larry’s.” Flynn’s delivery was pitch-perfect deadpan. “Nate sent out his SOS this morning. If it was just Larry’s building, I wouldn’t jump in to help. I can’t help feeling responsible for Nate. Before my grandfather passed away, he recruited him.”
“Someday Mayor Larry will find out payback is indeed a cruel and itchy fleabag.” Slade chuckled. “What else is on the list today?”
The girls ignored their food and looked at each other, as if to say, There’s more?
In Harmony Valley, there was always more to do. The elderly population couldn’t keep up on the maintenance of their older homes.
“That wind storm last week blew down a section of Sam’s fence in the back. He said something fell into his Koi pond—”
“Sam has a koi pond? Snarky Sam? Sam who owns the pawnshop?” Slade couldn’t believe it.
“It’s an antiques shop, but business has been slow,” Flynn corrected him, reciting what Sam himself had told them several times. “And Geraldine Durand’s Saint Bernard saw a cat in her backyard and barreled through her screen door.”
The girls’ mouths hung open.
“It was one of Felix’s cats, wasn’t it?” Felix was a retired fireman who rescued felines.
“Yep. Those cats don’t always stay where they’re supposed to.” Flynn yawned. “I’ll meet you in jail in fifteen minutes.”
Slade disconnected and tried not to smile at the girls. “If you want to come help me this morning, you’ll need to eat up. There aren’t any fast-food restaurants or convenience stores in town. What you eat needs to last through jail cells, koi ponds, and large-dog damage.”
They exchanged looks. He couldn’t interpret what they meant. He was just happy he’d found something that might break their silence.
Slade finished his breakfast and rinsed out his dishes before they’d even started theirs. Whatever was going on with the girls, it was intimidating as hell. No wonder Evangeline had dumped them on him. He bet husband number three was spooked.
Slade liked to think he was made of sterner stuff.
* * *
“HAVE A GOOD DAY at work.” Christine’s grandmother waved to her from behind the screen door.
“Thanks.” Christine reached the sidewalk in time to see Slade’s truck take the turns in the town square, his daughters in the backseat.
He honked and raised a hand, presumably to Christine, a house away from the corner, but it might have been for the small old man sitting on the bench below the oak tree with a cane. He waved, as well.
“What was that?” Nana asked, still in her violet chenille housecoat.
“Slade. Headed toward the winery.” Drat. With the size of her to-do list and Slade’s objectives, she’d need to stay one step ahead of him. She’d wanted to get to work before he did.
“Down Main?” her grandmother asked.
“Yes.” Christine hefted her laptop bag higher on her shoulder and hurried off.
“He’s going to jail.”
Christine spun around. “What?”
“We have a new sheriff—well, not officially until the population tops eighty—but he arrived last night and found all kinds of water damage in the jail and the apartment above it.”
It was a relief to know her boss wasn’t being arrested or turning himself in for some heinous crime. “What’s he going to do there? And how did you know about it?”
“Slade’s partnership does minor repairs around town. I suppose they’re going to see what they can do.” Nana cinched her housecoat, looking slightly embarrassed. “As for how I heard, Rose called me this morning. Her granddaughter is engaged to Will, you know.”
Oh, Christine knew, all right. It was one of the consistently repeated mantras in her grandmother’s house: Rose’s granddaughter is marrying a millionaire. As if Christine needed to realize a similar catch was at her fingertips.
She waved as she left, determined not to fish in that pond. Someone tall, dark, with the power to sign her paycheck had showed up in an early-morning dream. Sometimes you just had to let the big fish go, especially when you had plans to be a big fish someday.
The jail was on her way to the winery and was housed in a converted store, with the front office visible through a large plate-glass window. Behind the counter in the back of the space was the jail cell. Daylight came through a large hole in the ceiling. Next to it a large water stain bulged the drywall, threatening to burst. The wall near the stairs was in similar disrepair.
Slade’s twins were sitting on a bench in the jail cell, looking SoHo cute and grinning like normal kids, while a smaller boy with ginger hair locked the door and said, “You’re not getting out until you tell me where the bad guys are hiding.”
“Hi.” Christine stepped inside and rested her laptop bag on the floor.
The little boy turned, clutching the key to the door behind his back. “Who’re you?”
She introduced herself, adding that she worked at the winery. “I’m looking for Slade.”
“I’m Truman.” He came forward to shake her hand, his expression suddenly too serious. “Uncle Slade and Uncle Flynn are upstairs with the sheriff. Do you want to be locked up with Grace and Faith and Abby?”
Christine double checked, but only Slade’s daughters were in the jail cell. “Abby?”
“She’s my dog,” the little would-be sheriff said. A small, mostly black Australian shepherd barked from beneath a bench inside the cell.
“I think I’ll pass, Sheriff Truman.” She made her escape before the boy came up with a reason to lock her up, taking the creaky stairs to the second floor.
Upstairs was a studio apartment—kitchen counter, appliances, small bathroom. A small table and chairs rested haphazardly on top of a small bed in one corner.
Flynn knelt in front of the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink, poking his hammer inside as if trying to bust through a wall. A man she didn’t know was next to him, ripping out floorboards with a crowbar. But it was her boss that Christine couldn’t pull her eyes from. A sharply dressed man on his knees, wielding a big tool. Couldn’t fulfill a woman’s fantasies any better unless he brandished a vacuum.
Slade introduced her to Nate, the sheriff-in-waiting. No one spared more than a glance her way.
“Ma’am.” Nate’s nod was executed with military precision that didn’t disturb the flow of his work. He had gentle eyes and a slow smile.
“Don’t get up.” Christine’s gaze slid to the exposed framework beneath the floor. In one spot she could see through to the linoleum on the first floor below. Definitely not safe enough to cross and politely shake the new sheriff’s hand. “I just stopped by to say hello en route to work.”
“Nice shirt.” Slade pried off another board without so much as looking twice at her navy Wilted Red Roses T-shirt.
“Nice tie,” she shot back, smiling to take out the sting, because it was a truly excellent tie—complex geometric patterns amid bold greens with a silky smooth texture she could see from ten feet away. The man wasn’t buying ties at a bargain store. “Just so you know, the T-shirt thing is a family tradition. My father, uncle, brother, and I all work in the wine industry. We get together at the end of harvest and count how many T-shirts we demolished during the year. I’m talking cracked designs, faded fabric, stains, rips, and tears. There’s also a prize for the tackiest collection of T-shirts, although we made a rule a few years ago—T-shirts with nudity or that are politically incorrect don’t count. My uncle favors political T-shirts. My dad and brother are sports fans. I tend to stick to rock bands and cartoon animals.”
There. She’d explained her casual attire. Maybe now she wouldn’t feel so intimidated by his ties. Her confession didn’t get much of a rise from the men. In fact, they were ignoring her the way men did when they wanted to finish up a physically demanding project.
“I’m going to call around to see about hiring my support team.” Since she was doing double duty as a vineyard manager, she’d need help in all aspects of wine growing and wine making.
“I won’t be around the winery today.” Slade wiped his arm across his forehead.
Christine hadn’t known what she’d expected when she stopped by—an offer to chat over coffee, some last-minute instructions before Slade turned her loose in the vineyards and on his budget. What she got was nothing.
It was like being a kid again, when she’d been advanced into the fourth grade and still been ahead of her peers academically. To make friends in spite of her overachieving academic success among her classmates, she’d perfected her smile. A smile no one noticed today. “Well, the vines are calling.”
The men mumbled goodbyes.
Truman was locked in the cell when she descended. The girls stuck their faces through the bars at him, making the little boy giggle. The children barely stopped playing to acknowledge her leaving.
She’d wanted to get away from Napa, someplace where people didn’t schmooze her for favors, someplace where people didn’t judge her by the price of her car. She’d landed someplace where people cared more about the jobs she was going to create than the job she was going to do in the vineyard.
Maybe she’d gone too far.
* * *
“WHERE’S WILL?” SLADE asked sometime after Christine stopped by. He and Flynn were downstairs sitting on the bench in the jail cell. As soon as Will arrived, Slade planned to have a frank discussion about money and the winery.
“You’ll be happy.” Flynn settled his baseball cap more firmly on his head. His grandfather had worn that hat the last week of his life. Flynn treated it as if it was made of solid gold. “Will started programming our new app. He said he’d work on some of the basics this morning and let me have at it this afternoon.”
The perk of interest Slade had felt this morning over their Good Samaritan to-do list was nothing like the burst of excitement he felt at Flynn’s news. “When do you think it’ll be available for launch?”
Flynn gave Slade his best don’t-rush-me look.
Slade held up his hands. “I’m just saying, I can’t do a thing until we create a launch timeline.”
Lately, he’d been worried his partners would never go back to designing. Will had fallen in love with his sister’s best friend, Emma. Flynn had fallen in love and married his grandfather’s caregiver, Becca. They’d made enough money that, if managed well by Slade, they’d never have to work again. Not that they planned to retire. The money gave them freedom. With this new app, they weren’t bothering to ask for venture capital.
Slade flexed his fingers against damp palms. No investors to manage. And the winery situation a continuing drag on their bank accounts. How much longer would Slade be a vital part of the partnership? If he were Flynn and Will, he’d be preparing to give Slade the boot.
“I wanted to wait until the three of us were together to talk about the winery.” Slade fiddled with the cuffs of his shirt. “Unfortunately—”
“There is earthquake damage.” Flynn slapped a palm on his knee. “I knew it. How bad is it?”
“There’s no damage,” Slade said.
Flynn did a double take. “Is Mayor Larry causing more grief?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“We didn’t build a wine cave,” Slade blurted.
“A wine...a wine what?” Flynn stared at Slade as if he’d morphed into a puppy and misunderstood a command.
Slade wiped his damp forehead and proceeded to explain their need for climate-controlled storage and Christine’s options. He ended with an apology.
“You’re sorry?” Flynn resettled the ball cap on his head. “I should be apologizing to you. No one I asked about building ever mentioned a wine what’s-it.”
“Wine cave,” Slade supplied. “Since your friend’s friend works in Monterey, where the temperature never goes above seventy-five, they probably don’t need wine caves.”
“Oh, man. It sucks that we need to spend more money. We should get in touch with an architect right away.”
“No.” That came out more forcefully than Slade planned. “We’re not going to become like those lottery winners who go bankrupt because they give all their money away.” He felt sick just considering it. Flynn had a family to support. Will was just about to get married.
“This isn’t giving it away,” Flynn argued. “This is giving back.”
Slade shook his head. The omission of proper wine storage combined with Christine’s logical arguments about slow growth had shaken his confidence. “What if we f-fail?” The word stuck on his tongue. Financial failure meant emotional upheaval, like that he’d experienced at the Death and Divorce House. “Think of your future. Think of Becca. As your moneyman—”
“You worry too much.” Flynn’s smile didn’t often annoy Slade, but it did now as he slapped Slade on the back. “Build the wine cave. You know it’s the right thing to do. Another building creates more jobs.”
“But—”
“The farmer’s market is open!” Truman ran in from the sidewalk, Abby at his heels. “Come on, everybody!” He spun around and ran away, the little dog still by his side. Truman was staying with Flynn while his mom was in rehab for alcohol addiction. In the past month, the little guy had gone from a shy, quiet boy to a talkaholic. Slade hoped Harmony Valley would have the same effect on his daughters.
The twins, who’d been twirling in office chairs, stood up and looked at Slade.
“Go on,” Slade said. It wasn’t much of a farmer’s market. One vendor came in from Jimtown with baked goods. A few residents sold their extra fruits and vegetables. The tomatoes and corn were usually excellent. “We’ll talk about this with Will later.”
“You worry too much.” Flynn stood.
“And you don’t worry enough.” Slade wasn’t going to throw away a million dollars on the winery without seeing some kind of projection of return. It was irresponsible. He’d get Will on his side, and then the two of them would outvote Flynn.
“Thanks for the help. I think we’re ready for the plumber.” Nate came down the stairs, ending the partnership conversation. He studied the rusted bars. “These just need a good sanding and a coat of paint.”
Nate had accepted the job of sheriff, which could only be funded when Harmony Valley’s population topped eighty residents. They were currently at seventy-eight, not counting Slade. Having been put on paid administrative leave from his last job, where he’d lawfully arrested the mayor’s son with good cause and refused to drop the charges, Nate was happy to prepare for his new position, despite burst pipes
Flynn loaded up his tools. “I say it’s time for some of Olly Bingmire’s ice-cold lemonade. She’ll be out at the market about now.” He carried his toolbox to his truck.
Olivia Bingmire had been making fresh-squeezed lemonade for the farmer’s market for as long as Slade could remember. It wasn’t a cure-all for the blues, but it came close on a hot day. Slade headed toward the door, pausing to look at Nate. “You coming?”
“What about the plumber?”
“He’s got Flynn’s cell-phone number on speed dial.” Slade waited for Nate to join them. “It’s time you started meeting the people you’re going to swear to protect. Besides, we could use your hammer on our next few stops.” They left the jail door open in case the plumber showed up.
“I thought you told Truman he could hammer the nails into Sam’s fence?” Nate looked confused.
“I did.” Slade fought to keep a straight face. “That’s why we’re going to need an extra hammer.”
The three men walked toward the town square, leaving their trucks parked in front of the sheriff’s office.
A slender woman with long dark hair came around the corner of El Rosal, a cloth bag tucked in the crook of her arm.
“Becs!” With a nod to the men, Flynn veered across the street to meet his wife, Becca, who’d wisely brought a cloth bag to make it easier to carry her purchases home.
Truman dragged the twins from table to table, his shrill, happy voice carrying down the street. “Make sure you always, always, always buy the brownies from the Jimtown table early. They go fast.”
“Your daughters aren’t very talkative.” There was a hint of polite inquiry behind Nate’s statement.
“They’re shy.” Slade watched his daughters, hoping it was true.
Nate had a long-legged amble that made him look as if he was walking slowly, when in fact he was covering more ground in fewer steps than Slade, who considered himself tall at six foot. And yet, there was something rigid about Nate’s posture that contradicted his easy stride.
Wanting to change the subject, Slade, who didn’t normally pry, found himself prying. “Did you serve in the military?”
“Two tours in Afghanistan. Army. You?” The sheriff was a man of few words.
Slade shook his head. “Four years at Harvard. Two years on Wall Street.”
They exchanged respectful grins.
Flynn and Becca walked arm in arm in front of them.
For some reason, an image of Slade walking with a certain blonde came to mind. For the right reasons, Slade erased it. “You ever been married, Nate?”
“No...I... No.” His stilted answer was out of character for the normally staid sheriff.
This time Slade chose not to pry.
About thirty residents clustered about the tables, many leaning on canes and walkers. The only residents under the age of sixty were Nate, the partners, Truman, and the twins.
They reached Olly’s table. Slade bought a glass for himself, the sheriff, and the girls, who ran to him obediently when he called.
Nate was quickly snatched up by the locals, who circled him as if he was a celebrity.
Slade stood with the girls, drinking lemonade, wishing one of them would lean against him or hug him like they used to.
Grace looked at Slade’s hand three times before gripping it and tugging him over to the Jimtown table to look at their baked goods. Faith skipped next to them.
Slade could hardly breathe, for fear of making the girls go back to their no-touching, somber silence. Grace pointed at the brownies and then looked up at him with big green eyes and a sweet little pout.
Slade nearly tossed his wallet to her, barely daring to ask, “Only if you say please.”
Grace and Faith exchanged glances. Worry and determination flashed across their faces. Grace waved a hand as if swatting away a bug and faced Slade. “Please.”
One word. Barely a whisper. His heart was lost.
Slade ordered two brownies, feeling like the luckiest man in the world, so lucky that when he saw Old Man Takata sitting alone on the wrought-iron bench beneath the oak tree, he bought the man a glass of lemonade and sat with him.
“Weren’t you sitting here this morning?” Slade asked.
“I was. I like watching the world go by.”
“It’s getting hot outside.” The temperature was quickly climbing to uncomfortable. Slade knew all too well about uncomfortable summer days. He tugged at his tie.
“I have lemonade.” Takata raised his glass.
Mae Gardner, president of the bridge club, flounced over in a flowered dress and brown orthopedic sandals. Her shoulder-length gray frizzy hair curled like a storm cloud about her lined face. “Slade, dear, when are you going to move out of that house?”
Takata, who was normally as slow and deliberate as a turtle on land, snapped to attention. “Ain’t nothing wrong with his home.”
Unwilling to give ground, Mae plopped a fist on her hip. “Why should such a fine young man live there after the shameful thing his father did?”
Shameful. The word spiraled up Slade’s windpipe, closing it off to vital functions, like breathing and calls for help.
“Shameful?” Takata scoffed, sloshing his lemonade cup in Mae’s direction. “You and that bridge club of yours know all about shame, don’t you? Going down to Santa Rosa for those male dance reviews.”
Air returned to Slade’s lungs in a chuckle-suppressed gasp.
Mae’s face turned pinker than the pink sapphires flanking the diamond Will had chosen for Emma’s engagement ring. Mae spun and stomped away.
“Dang town gossips. Think they’re better than everybody. Don’t listen to her. What your father did was sad, not shameful.” Takata drained his lemonade and handed his empty glass to Slade. “I’ve never met your daughters. Last time they were here, they were too young for a proper introduction.”
Not to mention circumstances had Evy whisking their daughters away.
Slade called the girls over and introduced them, knowing Takata wouldn’t be able to tell his identical twins apart as soon as they moved away. Slade handed the girls each a twenty and asked them to buy strawberries, tomatoes, and corn, and then run back to the house to put their purchases in the refrigerator. It was only a block and a half away, a safe errand in a small town.
“You gave them too much money,” Takata complained after they’d skipped off.
“My ex-wife says I don’t give them enough.” It was a pleasure to give them something instead of writing a check to Evy every month.
“Kids who don’t learn to work for things don’t have a good work ethic.” Takata eyed Slade. “Why do you think you’re so successful?”
“Because I worked my butt off instead of living.” From high school to his last job on Wall Street. He’d worked until he’d lost sight of what was important.
The old man scoffed and tilted closer, as if sharing a secret. “You’re not living now.”
Slade couldn’t move more than his lips. “I live.”
“You exist.” Takata sat back, watching Grace stay just close enough to Truman, Becca, and Flynn that she could hear what they were saying, but far enough back that she wasn’t part of their family unit.
Slade struggled to draw in air. He knew how it felt to be on the perimeter of relationships, to feel as if you’d never quite belong. He didn’t expect to recognize the same thing in his daughter.
“Grace is an old soul,” Takata was saying.
Lucky guess.
“And Faith looks before she leaps.” Takata gestured to Faith, who was skipping by the Jimtown table, as if contemplating buying another sweet.
“You don’t know that,” Slade said gruffly.
The Jimtown clerk pointed at a plate of frosted cookies. Faith stopped and nodded enthusiastically, digging in her pocket for money.
Takata hammered his cane into the grass again. “As a funeral-home director and mortician, I’ve looked at a lot of faces and listened to a lot of stories. I think I know what someone’s about when I look at them.” He glared at Slade. “Your soul is wounded and trapped. Looks like it should be set free.”
“Are you telling fortunes now?” Slade stood, tugging at his tie, feeling it tighten like a noose. The last thing he wanted was to rehash the past with the old man.
Takata caught his sleeve above the cuff. “I’m telling truths. You need to forgive, if not your father, then yourself.”
Slade couldn’t move. Not from the sudden unbridling of grief and guilt, or from the spot where his feet seemed to have taken root.
“Now,” Takata stood unsteadily, “I’m ready to go home. If you let me lean on you, it’ll go much quicker.” When Slade didn’t move, he raised his voice. “Are you deaf? Lend me your arm.”
The twins ran by, heading for home with their purchases. He could almost feel the air move as they passed, feel grief and guilt recede. They were his hope.
Slade stepped closer to the old man and held out his arm.
“’Bout time.”
CHAPTER FOUR
CHRISTINE HAD THE vineyards to walk and the morning sun was already hot, the air dry, her T-shirt damp with sweat.
Slade and his partners had bought forty acres, which wasn’t even half a square mile. It was Christine’s job to familiarize herself with the soil, vines, and fruit. The property wasn’t large enough to justify hiring a full-time vineyard manager, full-time cellar manager, or full-time winemaker. She’d have to wear many hats and hire staff who could do the same.
Christine used a notebook and a stubby pencil to record the slope of each row, how it drained toward the river, the angle of the sun and where it was blocked by trees in the early morning or late afternoon. She recorded which blocks and rows of vines were lusher, which seemed almost scrabbling to survive. She sifted dirt through her fingers and checked that the vines had the proper support.
Grape clusters were developing nicely. She tried a bit of each fruit at different places in the vineyard. Most were tannic and promising in their complexity. The arid soil and growing conditions in Harmony Valley were influencing the taste of the grapes and would also influence the taste of the wine. Substance in the glass. Something Christine would be proud of. Something to finally prove without a doubt to her father and the world that she knew what she was doing.
She snapped pictures of a few grape clusters with her cell phone. The grapes on the Cabernet Sauvignon vines were still green, but soon the heat would begin veraison, when the sugars increased during ripening, reducing the acidity in the fruit and turning them a deep purple.
The vines were terribly overgrown. There was too much fruit, which meant as it ripened it wouldn’t be as flavorful. And the fruit was becoming heavy, dragging tendrils down to the ground, which made the grapes available for any passing snail to take a nibble. Tomorrow she’d need to get out here with hand clippers and twist ties and sunscreen. It’d be nice to have helpers. Maybe she could put together a crew like the one she’d seen in the sheriff’s office.
Christine paused, staring out over the vineyard. Why not exactly like the one she’d seen in the sheriff’s office?
She returned to the tasting room, where she’d left her laptop bag.
The partners had installed a communications tower on Parish Hill, a granite-faced mountain to the east. The tower provided Harmony Valley with free Wi-Fi and cell-phone service. Otherwise, they’d be too far out, in too deep a valley to receive any signal.
She called a few friends, putting feelers out for someone with diverse skill sets willing to relocate. She called some equipment suppliers on her cell phone and emailed a few more for bids. Slade had only collected ballpark estimates for equipment. They’d need companies to come out and measure their space, and provide a more detailed and precise bid, as well as timelines for installation. At this point, twelve or fewer weeks until harvest, she’d only approve purchases if they could guarantee delivery and setup.
She also got in touch with someone she knew who built wine caves to ask some initial questions. She was willing to make compromises to find wine-storage solutions locally, but long-term, she wanted a state-of-the-art facility in Harmony Valley.
She texted Slade: Who did you arrange to harvest the grapes?
If this heat wave lasted through July and into August, as it was projected to, they’d need to harvest earlier, rather than later.
His reply: Make arrangements with whoever you want.
“Are you kidding me?” Wineries arranged for harvesters up to a year in advance.
Christine made another round of calls and sent off more emails looking for a company available to harvest in their remote location. Initial response wasn’t good. No one wanted to talk to her after learning where they were based.
For the second time that morning, Christine wondered if she’d strayed too far from traditional wine country.
She texted Slade again: Will need a work crew tomorrow at the vineyard.
His reply was predictably prompt: Hire however many bodies you need.
She laughed the kind of evil laugh that Slade would have known, had he been here, meant trouble for him: I choose you and Flynn and Nate and Grace and Faith and Truman and whoever else you can find. Bring pruning shears, hats, and sunblock. 6 a.m.
He didn’t answer right away. And when he did, it was an anticlimactic Okay.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING Slade and his crew reported for work, as Christine requested.
Slade knew the heat would make him miserable, but he still wore black slacks, a blue long-sleeved shirt, and tie.
Slade sought out his girls. At least the twins were dressed appropriately for the temperature in cutoffs and matching royal-blue tank tops. Each had her hair in a ponytail that swung through the hole in the back of a royal-blue baseball hat.
Christine was prepared for them with thermoses of coffee and hot chocolate, as well as a cooler full of water bottles, and her grandmother’s banana-nut bread. She also had a box of old work gloves and pruning shears. She, too, was dressed for the heat in canvas shorts and a canary-yellow T-shirt featuring another rock band. Her hair was braided tightly so that only pigtails peeked out from either side of her floppy white hat.
Standing next to her, Slade felt more overdressed than he had in years. His tie felt too tight and heavy. Before he’d been able to talk to Will, he and his fiancée, Emma, had left for San Francisco a few days ago for a series of art-gallery openings featuring Emma’s paintings. Slade was starting to think it’d be better to iron out the budget with Christine first. At least then he wouldn’t be talking in generalities. He’d have hard figures to present. Will and Flynn were sentimental about Harmony Valley. They let it cloud their judgment.
“I know I asked you to, but you didn’t have to bring the kids,” Christine said to Slade as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“I don’t expect them to work much.” Slade didn’t expect them to do more than run around and have a good time. “It’d be nice if they felt useful before the real work starts.”
Christine reached over and squeezed his shoulder, as if they were old chums. “That’s so doable.”
“I’m feeling guilty that we did nothing to the vines since we bought them.” Flynn wandered over, tugging on a pair of gloves. “To Christine, it must be like ignoring your children.”
Slade set down his coffee. It was too hot for what already promised to be a hot day. “It’s not like that at all. We bought the property and didn’t get rezoning approval for months. It wasn’t as if we knew we’d be harvesting grapes this year.”
“Are you going to be okay in this heat?” Christine pulled lightly on his sleeve. “Please go home and change.”
“He won’t be caught dead without the tie. I lived with the guy for five years. Trust me,” Flynn said. “It’s a fetish.”
If there was a possibility Slade could ditch the shirt and tie, he would have. Instead, he unwisely took inventory of the rest of the crew. The guys wore shorts and T-shirts. Only Abby and Slade were overdressed. And Abby, being a dog, had no choice but to wear a fur coat. Soon, Slade would be panting just as loudly as she was.
Slade rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Don’t worry about me.”
“We’ve learned not to.” Flynn grinned.
“Let’s start before it gets unbearably hot.” Christine stood next to a row of grapevines and shook a baggy full of what looked like short wires. “We’re going to use twist ties—yes, just like from a loaf of bread. I know, highly technical stuff here. We’ll use twist ties to fasten the load-bearing shoots to one of two support wires on the trellis system.” She showed them how two wires were strung at two different heights from a post at one end of the row to the other end. “Too many clusters on the vine dilutes the flavor of all the grapes, so we’ll want to thin the secondary clusters. That way, the primary clusters will be bursting with flavor.”
Slade bent over for a closer look. There were a lot of clusters on the vine. “By thin you mean...”
“Cut back and toss in the bin.” She gestured to two large containers with wheels. “You’ll also be cutting back the tendrils that you can’t tie, the ones that get in the way of the corridor between rows.” At the group’s blank looks, she added, “Imagine driving between the rows. If anything would brush your car’s fender, cut it back.”
“Shouldn’t we hire experts to do this?” Slade would pay good money to be sitting in front of an air conditioner about now.
“Normally, I’d hire a crew.” Christine gazed out over the vineyards. “But this should have been done months ago and I’m finding that no crews want to come out this far to work. Besides, it’s not rocket science. These are plants. If you make a mistake, they’ll grow back.”
“But what if the cluster I cut off is the best cluster?” Slade’s muscles knotted with stress. Anything he did, he wanted to exceed expectations. “What if we mess this up?”
Christine put a hand on his shoulder and smiled up at him. It was a sparkly smile, one that said, Have no fear. “At this point, there is no best based on taste. The ripening process hasn’t shifted into full swing. We’re doing damage control, which means damage will be done, but more good than harm.” She stepped closer, bringing the coconut smell of sunscreen and the light scent of vanilla. “Just think, this is only five thousand cases worth of grapes. You want to bottle eighty.” And then, grinning, she pushed him forward and they got down to business.
She paired them up—Flynn and Nate, Slade and Christine—and they started down two parallel rows. One person cut. The other person tied off vines. She assigned the children to clean up. Faith and Truman with Flynn. Grace with Slade.
The children pushed the bins, darting in to grab cut vines and grape clusters and shoot them into the bins like writhing basketballs. Abby darted back and forth beneath the trellises to see how everyone was doing.
“Did I fail a test?” Slade grumbled, his shirt clinging to his back, sweat trickling down his spine.
Christine knelt a few feet ahead of him, cutting clusters. She glanced back, her furrowed brow barely visible beneath that floppy hat he was starting to envy.
“I got paired with teacher,” he clarified.
That made her laugh. “You seemed stressed out about the work. I thought you needed reassurance. Go with the flow. Trust in nature.”
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Melinda Curtis
Harmony Valley may not be so harmonious after all!Christine Alexander needs to prove herself as a top-notch winemaker, and in Harmony Valley she’s got a chance to build something legitimate, with quality.What she doesn’t need is part-owner Slade Jennings poking his nose in her cabernet.Brooding, buttoned-up Slade Jennings won’t be making things easy for his new hire. Someone has to worry about the bottom line. Forced into an uneasy partnership, the pair face two challenges: create a spectacular award-winning vintage within months…and figure out if their tenuous friendship can grow into something deeper and lasting.
Harmony Valley...not so harmonious after all!
Christine Alexander needs to prove herself as a top-notch winemaker, and in Harmony Valley she’s got a chance to build something legitimate, quality and lasting. What she doesn’t need is part-owner Slade Jennings poking his nose in her cabernet.
Brooding, buttoned-up Slade Jennings won’t be making things easy for his new hire. Someone has to worry about the bottom line. Forced into an uneasy partnership, the pair faces two challenges: create a spectacular award-winning vintage within months…and figure out if their tenuous friendship can grow into something deeper and lasting.
It hit her then. Not like a ton of bricks, not a like a slap in the face, not like a cold shower.
This was a soft awareness, like picking up a sleeping kitten and cuddling it close.
He liked her. More than a boss usually liked his employee.
He liked her. Those mixed signals weren’t all just self-preservation.
He liked her. A lot.
The proof was there. But what did it mean?
Nothing, her head said.
Everything, her heart said.
It could be a silly infatuation, created by the time they’d been spending together. Something that would fade.
Or it could be the beginning of a feeling that went down like a rich red wine. Something that expanded and lingered.
One thing she did know—she wanted to find out.
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Harmony Valley!
Things aren’t as harmonious here as they once were. Jobs have dried up and almost everyone under the age of sixty has moved away in the past ten years, leaving the population…well, rather gray-haired and peaceful.
Enter three young men—Slade, Flynn and Will—friends, newly minted millionaires and hometown success stories. Slade Jennings is a former Wall Street whiz who can’t seem to give up his ties, even though he’s living in the wine country. This summer, he’s running winery operations and hosting his twin girls.
Winemaker Christine Alexander is tired of wine with her name on it being changed by meddlesome winery owners. She’s taken the job in Harmony Valley because she was promised autonomy. She hadn’t counted on Slade being a control freak. If she’s not careful, he’s going to expand the winery’s production before the quality is proven in the bottle. If she’s not careful, her curiosity about Slade and his ties are going to change her priorities forever.
I hope you enjoy Slade and Christine’s journey, as well as the other romances in the Harmony Valley series. I love to hear from readers. Check my website to learn more about upcoming books set in Harmony Valley and sign up for email book announcements. Or you can chat with me on Facebook (MelindaCurtisAuthor) or on Twitter (MelCurtisAuthor), and hear about my latest giveaways.
Melinda Curtis
Season of Change
Melinda Curtis
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
MELINDA CURTIS
has lived in humid Georgia and crazy-weather Texas. She prefers the possibility of California earthquakes. Her work experience prior to writing this book includes being an inventory-taker, a maid, a baseball announcer, a rodent wrangler, a copy writer, a focus group moderator and a cubicle wage-slave. She’ll take romance writer and bare feet over suits and heels (or rodents) any day.
Melinda currently lives in California’s arid central valley with her husband—her basketball-playing college sweetheart. With three kids, the couple has done the soccer thing, the karate thing, the dance thing, the Little League thing and, of course, the basketball thing. Now they’re enjoying the quiet life of empty nesters before the grandparent thing.
Melinda writes sweet contemporary romances as Melinda Curtis and red-hot reads as Mel Curtis. She loves writing romances about women who don’t realize how strong they are until a hero comes along to show them, while capturing the wry, humorous power struggle of falling in love. Because, really? What woman lets the man have the last word?
Nothing in my life would be possible without the love and support of my immediate family, extended family and close friends. A special thank you to my husband of thirty years for putting up with me and all the voices in my head clambering for a happy ending.
As always, special thanks to A.J. Stewart, Cari Lynn Webb and Anna Adams for their support throughout the writing of this book. Every writer needs a sounding board. You guys rock!
I spent sixteen years working at a winery. In writing the Harmony Valley books, I relied on my memory, as well as questions to friends and family who still work and own wineries. Think of Harmony Valley as you enjoy a glass of wine from The Iron Gate Winery in Cedar City or the Jordon Winery in Healdsburg, but know that all mistakes regarding wineries and winemaking are my own.
Contents
CHAPTER ONE (#u55eacaed-a9a0-5de2-95f8-235999933d6f)
CHAPTER TWO (#uef30d19a-bbeb-5db1-96ac-d8837f1021c9)
CHAPTER THREE (#ud2754884-d67f-5658-8105-7361428e3189)
CHAPTER FOUR (#u473194c5-41fa-5b21-854c-91c86f1a0983)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE
LIFE WAS A numbers game.
Count the years, count the money, count the marriages, count the mistakes.
Slade Jennings was thirty-two years old, had millions in the bank, one failed marriage, and one horrendous mistake.
He knew what he looked like walking down the street—success. Wrinkle-free khakis, wrinkle-free button down, Italian designer tie. Rolex. Titanium and onyx pinky ring. Dark-as-midnight hair, expensively cut. Eyes the color of money, always on the lookout for the next deal. Slade had come from humble beginnings and wasn’t going back.
Except, he had. Gone back to his roots, that was, damaged though they may be.
That was what you did for friends who were also your business partners. You went with the flow, even if that meant returning to your hometown, to the house you’d grown up in, to the house where both your parents died, the scene of the horrendous mistake.
Harmony Valley’s bridge club called the house at 1313 Harrison Street the Death and Divorce House. In Slade’s lifetime there hadn’t been any divorces. But there had been plenty of deaths. His mother gave in to melanoma in the master bedroom. His father hung himself six years later in the closet of the same room. It was the culmination of everything that was wrong with Slade’s life—he’d lost his career, his bank account, and then his family. That was eight years ago. The house on Harrison represented failure, which was why it was vital Slade present only success to the world.
While in Harmony Valley, Slade was living in the Death and Divorce House. To stay elsewhere seemed like a betrayal. But stay in the master bedroom? No. He slept in the bedroom of his youth.
He’d returned to town earlier that year with Will Jackson and Flynn Harris, his childhood friends and the two programming geniuses behind a successful farming app. Slade was their sidekick and the partnership’s moneyman, the one who managed the bottom line, watched their backs, and made sure they didn’t get screwed in any negotiations.
So, why weren’t they back in Silicon Valley leveraging their achievement?
Because Will and Flynn burned out designing their first app. They were all local boys, if not best friends when they were growing up, as close as brothers now. When they showed up to decompress after five years of sharing a cramped apartment with the thinnest walls on the planet, they’d been asked by the town council to start a business to help save their hometown.
An explosion fourteen years ago at the grain mill had wiped out Harmony Valley’s main employer. The ripple effect forced those too young to retire to move closer to jobs and all but a handful of businesses to shut down. Located in the northernmost corner of Sonoma County, Harmony Valley was becoming a remote retirement village. The population had dwindled below eighty, with the average age of residents above seventy-five.
Given that Slade preferred Harmony Valley become a ghost town when all the old-timers died, he’d voted against the partnership starting a business here. Then he’d protested their choice of business—a winery. They were three guys who drank beer. What did they know about making wine? Outvoted, he’d still stood by his friends through arguments with blustery octogenarians, a mountain of legal and financial paperwork, and the ups and downs of construction.
Today, the shell of the winery was finally completed. The winemaker they’d hired, Christine Alexander, granddaughter of a town-council member—would the nepotism never end?—was due to start work today and provide Slade with her input on the guts of the winery. Juice presses, tanks, barrels, and whatever else she needed to make great wine. Really great wine people would drop a C-note to drink. Because if they were going to make wine, it’d be the best wine around.
Slade checked his Rolex. Christine was late.
He sat on the porch of the old farmhouse they’d converted into an office and tasting room, and loosened the knot of his tie.
Summer was in full swing. The air was hot and dry. Barely a breeze swayed the palm trees lining the hundred-yard newly graveled drive. The sixty-foot-tall eucalyptus trees that marched along the river were silent, as well. Occasionally, a cricket offered complaint.
Something shook the house, a slight tremor that had Slade leaping up.
Eathquake!
The horse weathervane on top of the main winery building rocked, spun, then quieted. The ground settled and Slade drew a deep breath. As a native Californian, he was used to small, infrequent tremors. That didn’t mean they didn’t send his body humming with adrenaline faster than a shot of espresso.
His phone buzzed, announcing a text message from Flynn: Did you feel that?
His reply: Yes. Winery is fine.
A big black SUV turned into the driveway.
He’d thought Christine owned a small, newer-model Audi. At least, that was what she’d driven up in for her job interview last month. He shifted the tie-knot back into place and walked down the circular drive to meet her.
Only it wasn’t Christine.
It was his ex-wife, Evangeline, a native New Yorker. Two shadows bobbed in the backseat, his twin ten year-old daughters, Faith and Grace. He was simultaneously overjoyed and overwhelmed. No one had told him they were coming. Not that it mattered. He practically flew down the drive to meet them.
Evangeline toggled down the window and gave him a scornful look. He hadn’t seen her since Christmas, but she was as stylish as ever in a bold tiger-print blouse and chunky jewelry. Her black hair was short and blunt cut, framing her strikingly angular face, making her too-white smile seem fanglike. “I thought you’d be at the house. We saw Will in town and he told us you were here.”
Slade was used to burying his emotions behind a facade of savvy sophistication. He hid them now, deep in his chest in a tight, burdensome lump.
Months ago, Evangeline had called and—amid a rant about how she resented the revised visitation agreement—had told him she would abide by it and let the girls stay with him while she and her new husband, provider of the four-carat monstrosity on her slender finger, took a delayed honeymoon to the South of France.
Evangeline didn’t like sharing the girls, which was why when Slade agreed to increase child support, he also brought down the judge’s gavel on enforcing his newly expanded parental rights. Evy was always agreeing to drop them off, but never following through. If she was here, husband number three must be something. And that something was spontaneous, because they weren’t due to visit for another two weeks.
With effort, Slade shifted into “polite conversation” mode. “Did you feel that earthquake just now? It wasn’t very big.” When Evy shook her head, he leaned farther in the window to greet the twins. “Hey, girls. Holy...”
They looked like miniature, identical Gothic vampires. If his mother wasn’t already dead, she’d have risen up and splashed them with holy water.
“Don’t judge,” Evangeline scolded sharply. “It’s a phase. Today Goth. Tomorrow princesses.”
He forced himself to smile. “Took me by surprise is all. Did you leave their things at my place?” The Death and Divorce House was dim and filled with bad memories. He slept there, but only because the past wouldn’t let him bunk anywhere else. If he’d believed Evy would follow through this time and honor his visitation rights, he would have made other arrangements to stay in town or at the nearest hotel, thirty minutes away.
“Slade, we don’t have a key. Not to that house.” Derision dripped from every syllable, bringing back too many memories of the hot-tempered, entitled woman he’d divorced.
Aren’t whirlwind college romances swell?
But her contempt goaded him into a decision he’d most likely regret later—to have the girls stay at the house with him. “We don’t lock the doors here, Evy.”
“You know I don’t like it when you call me that.”
He did. He winked at the girls.
They didn’t smile or laugh or give any indication that they appreciated being included in his inside joke. That was probably his punishment for only seeing them twice a year. When they were older, they’d understand why their mother kept them away and why Slade didn’t press as hard as he should for visitation.
Slade opened the back door so the twins could get out.
Up close, it was even worse. Black lipstick, black eyeliner, black lace blouses over yellow-and-black-plaid capris. He hoped to heaven the short blond hair with thin black streaks were wigs.
Two silent strangers slid out. A far cry from the plump, happy babies he used to rock to sleep. Or the grinning, sturdy two-year olds that he used to push on swings.
Good thing he’d been hanging out with Flynn and his seven-year-old nephew the past month or he wouldn’t have a clue how to deal with them. He tousled Faith’s hair. She was the twin with a dimple that rarely disappeared on her cheek, even when she frowned at him and straightened her wig. Grace came to stand next to her. They stared at him in wordless retribution.
Ten. Crap. He’d thought teenage angst started at thirteen.
“You’ll be all right, won’t you, girls?” Evangeline waited for their nods before she commanded, “Get their things, Slade.”
Her attitude was starting to cinch his collar, but it didn’t make sense to argue.
Their things included four huge suitcases, three Nordstrom shopping bags, two identical backpacks with angry manga characters, and one stuffed lion the size of a large dog.
Slade dutifully loaded it all into the bed of his new black truck, giving himself and the girls a pep talk. “We’re going to have a good time, aren’t we?”
No one answered.
Evangeline reeled each girl in with one hand for fierce hugs. “You be good like I told you and you’ll be safe.” She gave Slade a sharp look that could have cut metal. “I’m trusting you with my babies.” She named the date she wanted them back in New York, as if his daughters were on loan.
Since they’d separated eight years ago, he’d wanted to spend more time with the twins than his twice-a-year visits. The new settlement had given him hope. He’d pictured happy vacations to amusement parks and sunny beaches. He’d imagined laughter and enthusiasm and emotional hugs. He’d dreamed of having them for a day, a weekend, a week.
And here was reality: his girls had misplaced fashion limits, stared at him mutely, and there were nearly thirty days looming ahead like a prison sentence.
* * *
DAY ONE ON the job and Christine Alexander was late.
That didn’t mean she expected to show up for work and see a glamorous-looking woman doing the tiptoe run around a black SUV in skyscraper heels, or a pair of identical little Goth girls. Not this far away from civilization. Not outside an anime film. Not at her place of employment.
Christine had thought she was escaping the high-drama, high-fashion, high-ego circus that was Napa wine making.
The queen bee in high heels gunned the SUV around the circular driveway. A relief.
Although the Goth girls were still a caution.
Christine parked her old bucket with its deceased air conditioner next to the big black truck that remained, turned off the ignition, and received a very brutal, vibrating massage as the engine fought and coughed and hiccuped trying to stay alive. It wasn’t until it wheezed its last breath that Christine risked getting out.
Her boss, Slade, did a double take. The well-worn car. Christine in her red Keds, faded blue jean shorts, and black Useless Snobbery band T-shirt. Never mind that wine making was a hands-on, messy job. Her new boss didn’t seem to understand that.
The little optimistic light inside her that placed such high hopes on this position—for loyalty, for legitimacy, and a nest egg for her future—faded.
She tossed her long blond ponytail over a shoulder, wishing she’d at least taken the time to put it in a French braid. The fancier hairstyle made her look more serious and kept her hair off her neck, which was now hot and sweaty. It had to be ninety-five degrees today, if not pushing one hundred.
“Hey,” she said to the two girls.
They didn’t move or quit staring, which was kind of creepy. Goth mini-mannequins.
“Slade, good to see you again.” Christine closed the distance between them and shook her boss’s hand.
His handshake was perfect—not bone-crushing hard, not limp. Just the right amount of grip and shake. But then again, Slade was perfectly put together. He could have modeled for a living. He was tall and lean, with a hard chin, sculpted cheekbones, and black hair that was always tamed, always controlled. Seriously, the guy was so perfect, he almost didn’t have a personality.
She wouldn’t have fought for this job if she was only working for Slade. He was everything she was leaving behind—name-brand posturing and excess. It had been Flynn, one of Slade’s business partners, who convinced Christine to accept the job. He’d taken one look at her suit and high heels the day of the interview and said, “You look nice, but if we hire you, I don’t ever want to see you in a suit again. We’re beyond casual around here.”
Such was the joy of working for two millionaires who’d made their fortunes in the tech world. Will and Flynn didn’t stand on ceremony like those in the wine industry. They shunned hosting black-tie, sequined events. And then there was her third boss—Slade.
“I’m sorry I didn’t dress for the office.” She gestured in the region of his fabulous tie. “I was trying to move the last of my things to town.”
“That’s all right.” His accepting tone contradicted his disapproving expression. “Did you feel the earthquake a few minutes ago?”
“I’m assuming you’re not talking about my car’s unique way of shutting off.” She gave him her best smile-and-laugh-with-me one-two combo, scoring a point when he smiled back, even though the Goth girls blanked her. “I may have felt something coming down Main. I thought it was bad gas knocking.” Not hardly. She’d thought her old beater would suffice and had given up her lease on the Audi. She was in penny-pinching mode, living here with her grandmother, saving for a down payment on her own vineyard. She wouldn’t have given up the Audi if she’d known her college car was in desperate need of a tune-up or a new engine or a trip to the scrapyard.
“It’s a toss-up whether it was your car or the tremor,” Slade deadpanned. He turned to the girls. “These are my daughters—”
His? Get out of town!
“Grace—” Slade gestured from one girl to the other “—and Faith.”
“So that was your wife leaving?”
“Ex,” he said curtly.
Immediately, Christine wished she could take the question back. Slade probably thought she was digging for information to see if he was single. What she really wanted was reassurance that Slade was more interested in the substance of the wine she made than the image he presented to the outside world. The wine industry attracted almost as many grandstanders as Hollywood. She didn’t care if Slade wore a parka in this heat, as long as their vision for their wine meshed.
Slade smoothed his tangerine-colored paisley tie. “After our tour, we’ll head over to El Rosal for a cool drink. Or some ice cream.” This latter part she assumed was an offer for the twins. Little did Slade know Christine liked ice cream almost as much as she liked wine.
He led them into the tasting room, the girls trailing behind Christine like silent wraiths. How their quirkiness must upset the balance in Slade’s otherwise balanced life.
Everything in the tasting room smelled of new construction, of sawed wood and fresh paint. The otherwise empty room had a large blue marble counter, behind which was a built-in oak buffet. And blessedly, they’d installed air-conditioning.
“Is that original?” Christine ran a hand over the buffet’s polished wood. “It’s beautiful.”
“It is. We were able to save much of the planked flooring, as well. This house was built over one hundred years ago by Jeremiah Henderson. The property remained in Henderson hands until we bought it earlier this year.” He spoke as if he was behind a lectern, coolly enunciating every syllable. No awkward pauses, lisps, or stutters.
The poor man is so personality-free it’s sad.
“It’s been remodeled,” he continued, “and had additions over the years, but this room is the original front parlor.”
It wasn’t every day a man used the word parlor in front of Christine. It drew her gaze to his perfectly formed lips. She licked her own, her gaze falling to his feet.
His loafers weren’t knock-offs. The workmanship and shine practically screamed Italian. “We also have a bathroom and a full kitchen here.” He led her to the rear of the house.
She passed through a doorway, dragged her gaze from the feet she was following, and fell in love. “I want to live here.”
Baby-blue marble countertops, soft white cabinets, and a double-wide porcelain farm sink. They may have built this place out in the boonies, but they’d spared no expense. Christine could hardly wait to start talking about the wine-making equipment they’d be purchasing.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” His smile was unexpectedly humble. She would have bet on chest-thumping pride. “The office space is upstairs.” Slade led her up a narrow staircase. “We couldn’t see a way to widen these without losing valuable space below. The footprint of the house is only one thousand square feet.”
The office was open, empty space with front-facing dormers and soft blue walls. The windows had no coverings, allowing the sun to beat in and suck the life out of the air.
“We didn’t think about desks until after the remodel was almost finished, so we’re having furnishings custom-built. I hope you like them.”
“Whatever you get will be fine.” She’d work on a plywood desk held up by sawhorses in exchange for the power over all wine-making decisions. “What about the—”
Slade put a finger to his lips.
That was when she noticed they were alone.
Soft whispers drifted to them from downstairs.
Slade smiled broadly, like a papa bear finding joy in his cubs.
Whoa. Mr. Perfect loves his Goth girls.
It surprised Christine so much she was sure she reflected his grin right back at him. The humanness—so unexpected—explained why his everyday-guy business partners put up with him.
The whispers stopped.
“You’ll get blinds or something up here, I assume.” Christine quickly filled the void.
“Plantation shutters.” He was still smiling at her, as if they’d shared a private moment and he wasn’t ready to let the feeling go. “Let’s check out the main winery.”
Maybe he wasn’t all staid ego and self-image. Maybe he’d had a business meeting earlier. Maybe he’d had a meeting before every time she’d met him previously. That would explain why she’d never seen him without a tie. But there was something about his rigid posture that negated that hypothesis.
From the farmhouse, they crossed the circular drive toward a barnlike structure on the same property. They’d only just broken ground on it when Christine first interviewed. She hadn’t imagined it would look so welcoming and yet be so huge, nestled amid row after row of grapevines.
Untended, overgrown grapevines.
The road to harvest wouldn’t be easy.
The heat pressed down on her once more, like heavy hands on her shoulders. Christine didn’t know how Slade could stand wearing a tie. The only concession he’d made to the heat was rolling up his shirtsleeves, revealing well-muscled, tan forearms.
Christine stepped through the forty-foot high double doors into the cavernous, blessedly cooler would-be winery. The new-construction smell was less noticeable here with the doors thrown open. It was empty, just metal support beams, concrete, and wood. But to her, it was paradise. She could easily visualize how to fill it with equipment.
“This was the site of the original barn, which we were unable to salvage.” Was that a wistful note in his voice? “We built this to look like the original homestead, but big enough to accommodate processing up to eighty thousand cases of wine.”
Eighty thousand cases?
Each case contained twelve bottles. He was talking close to a million bottles.
Red flag. Serious red flag.
“Slade.” She carefully kept her voice even, her expression polite. “As I understand it, you only own forty acres of vineyard. That’s enough to produce about five thousand cases.” Seventy-five thousand less than his planned capacity.
Christine tried to ignore the alarm buzzing in her head. She’d been hired to produce boutique wine in small quantities, hired to obtain top ratings and reviews, hired to help build Harmony Valley Vineyards into something prestigious and rare. Eighty thousand cases crossed the border from rare territory into the gray zone, flirting with a fall into the quirky, quaffable territory occupied by wine costing less than ten bucks a bottle. Wines with cartoony icons and names like My Boyfriend’s Favorite Red or Bow Tie Bordeaux.
“What’s the use of starting a company if you don’t plan for growth? It’s where we need to be in five years.” He stepped from the light into the shadows, his gaze on her intense. “Does success scare you?”
“No.” Failure did. As her dad so often reminded Christine, her reputation was only as good as her last score in the bible of wine-review magazines. In just a few months, she’d find out in print if she was a scapegoat at Ippolito Cellars or if she’d dodged a bullet by leaving when her wine-making principles were undermined. “Fine wine can’t be rushed.”
Faith and Grace watched their exchange closely, holding hands as if they were in some kind of horror movie, ready to unleash deadly powers if Christine took this argument too far.
Yes, Christine had no social life. Yes, she watched too many scary films. Yes, she might have leaped into this job too quickly, since Slade seemed more interested in volume than quality.
“We should talk.” A classic brush-off line from a boss who’d already made up his mind.
That alarm in her head buzzed louder.
“But let’s get out of the heat before we discuss it further. You remember where El Rosal is? On the town square?” At her nod, he stepped out beneath the blazing sun, which painted silver-blue highlights in his black hair, as if he were a hunky rock star and she was just one of the little people in the audience dancing to the beat of his hypnotic drum.
Wilting in the heat, Christine trailed behind his two Goth girls, reluctantly contemplating her next job search.
CHAPTER TWO
WHEN HE’D HIRED Christine, everything about her had looked top-shelf, from her designer shoes to her carefully coiffed blond hair. She’d presented herself as the kind of woman Slade admired—beautiful, confident, someone he could count on, and with a genuineness that Evangeline lacked. He’d voted to hire Christine because she’d represent their winery to the world the way he would—with take-charge, bulletproof class.
Now he’d count her as...he’d count her as...
He wasn’t sure how to classify Christine.
“What part of my five-year plan don’t you like?” Slade waited to broach the subject until they were seated at an inside table at El Rosal and the girls had wordlessly withdrawn to the restroom. “Five thousand year one. Ten year two. Twenty. Forty. Eighty. In five years, we’ll be the biggest employer around. And that’s what this town needs, a big employer.”
Christine’s cheeks were flushed from the heat, making her look like a porcelain doll, one with sapphire-blue eyes and dark blond hair, similar to the dolls he’d given to the twins one Christmas. Sure, her mouth was a little bit too wide, but she had a friendly smile, which he hadn’t seen since he’d talked about how much wine he wanted to make.
“It all looks good on paper.” Christine slowly spun her water glass. “Like the way I thought giving up the lease on my Audi was a good idea, since I can walk to work here. Trust me when I say I miss my Audi.”
Recalling how her current dented ride shook at shutoff, Slade nodded.
“But, Slade, no one’s made high-quality wine with Harmony Valley grapes in decades. From what I gather, the few people who grow grapes here sell them to a bulk wine distributor, who sells them to a jug wine producer.” Her shoulders shook slightly, as if she was containing a shudder.
“It doesn’t mean fine wines can’t be made here.”
“It doesn’t mean it’ll be easy.” The tension at the corners of her mouth hadn’t been there ealier.
“Nothing about this winery has been easy.” An understatement. Approvals, permits, and zoning had taken twice as long as planned. The barn conversion had turned into a demolition and full rebuild. Slade and his partners should have left Harmony Valley months ago. It was time to stop the budget hemorrhage on the winery, close the loop on this project, and get back to what they did best—designing game applications.
“One thing I didn’t see today is your wine cave.”
“Wine cave?” Slade echoed as if he was in a cavern.
“Yeah, the wine cave. Where you store wine.” There was a tentative note in her voice, as if she was starting to doubt her decision to come work for them.
“There aren’t any caves around here.” And as far as Slade knew, it wasn’t a prerequisite to having a winery.
“It doesn’t have to be a cave. For energy efficiency, many wineries build their storage facilities belowground.”
That sounded expensive. Slade’s palms dampened. “Won’t we be storing the wine in the winery?” Granted, he and his partners were beer guys, but they’d hired a consultant—a friend of a friend of Flynn’s who worked for a winery in Monterey—for input on winery requirements.
The twins returned from the bathroom under scrutiny of Harmony Valley residents, who’d probably never seen preteens in wigs and Goth gear when it wasn’t Halloween. Their Gothness stood out amid the myriad of bright primary colors that had been used to paint every chair, table, and wall in the Mexican restaurant.
Slade’s next-door neighbor, who was the town’s retired undertaker and former cemetery owner, sat two tables over. Hiro Takata had a perpetual hunch to his shoulders, a consistently rumpled wardrobe, and the kindly aging face of his Japanese ancestors. He’d been there the day of Slade’s horrendous mistake, although he’d never said anything to anyone, not even Slade. “These your girls?”
“Yes.” Slade hoped his smile said what a proud dad he was. He pictured them in conservative jeans shorts, pink T-shirts, with dark hair and no makeup. His smile came a little easier.
“What are they auditioning for?” Takata hiccup-belched.
Slade held on to his proud-dad-no-matter-what smile. “They’re playing dress up.” He hoped.
“In my day, you dressed up at home or in your backyard.” Takata’s scrutiny focused on Christine. “They look like those women on your T-shirt.”
Christine held out her shirt at the waist, creating a rock-and-roll Useless Snobbery billboard of dark hair and black-on-white face paint. “The classics never go out of style.” She winked at the girls, who didn’t wink back.
The waitress arrived to take their order and Old Man Takata, as he’d been known to the kids of Harmony Valley for twenty-plus years, pushed himself to his feet, wobbled, then shuffled out the door wielding his cane like a third appendage.
The twins ordered ice cream by pointing to it on the menu, and sat without speaking, as if this was the most boring day of their lives but they’d power through it. Slade felt sorry for them, but he had a business to run. Amusement parks and sunny beaches would have to wait. Will had taken point on the permits and approvals. Flynn had taken point on structural construction. Slade was taking point on managing winery operations. Once it was up and running, he’d leave the day-to-day tasks to someone capable who shared his vision. He’d been hoping that person was Christine.
His winemaker scanned the wine on El Rosal’s list, frowned, and ordered ice cream. Slade went for the fully-loaded nachos and a beer—late lunch of champions and comfort food of bad decision-makers. He wasn’t sure where he was netting out today—champion or bad decision-maker. He hoped the jury was still out.
“Back to our storage needs.” Her smile had a strained quality to it. “The winery you built will be used for initial grape crushing and fermentation. For the equipment we need, for the capacity you want long-term, I’ll use up every inch of that place.” She leaned closer and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze just once. “But we’ll also need a wine cave.”
“Why?” Slade closed his eyes and tilted his head to the ceiling, ignoring the fact that people didn’t invade his personal space. Ever. All their plans. All that money. The tension in his chest unraveled into the familiar downward drag of failed expectations. “We paid someone to tell us what equipment we needed to start a winery. We based our budgets and our plans on his advice.”
“A consultant?”
“Not exactly.” Slade wasn’t used to squirming. He knew they should have paid a legitimate consultant and not a friend of a friend of Flynn’s. But at the time, it hadn’t looked as if the winery would be approved by the town council. Failure tugged at him again. He wiped his palms on his slacks.
“Once fermentation is done, we’ll be transferring wine into smaller barrels. That’s where the magic happens. Our Cabernet Sauvignon may age in oak for three years, while the Chardonnay might only be a year.” Her smile was patient when he probably didn’t deserve patience. Overlooking proper storage was a stupid mistake. Slade hadn’t made such a stupid mistake in eight years. “Why don’t you show me your budget?”
He opened his laptop bag, retrieved a printed copy of their equipment-purchasing plan and operating budget, and woodenly handed it over. The twins watched wordlessly, their patience matching his winemaker’s.
Christine spent a good deal of time reviewing it, making notes in the margin, crossing things out and drawing arrows. Finally, she moved his purchase plan and budget into the space between them and leaned close, so close he could smell the vanilla scent of her hair.
He’d admit she was exposing the partnership’s mistakes a little too easily and was wreaking havoc with his confidence. And she hadn’t shown up looking like an A-lister. But Christine was classy. She hadn’t once looked at his daughters and broken into uncontrollable laughter. She smelled nice, and there was a friendly energy to her, a vitality that made him want to grin, as it had upstairs at the winery, when he’d been unable to stop grinning while listening to the twins whispering.
He measured success by the dollar—plus-minus, over-under. This project teetered on the brink of failure. And Slade had vowed never to fail again. Despite Christine’s positives and negatives balancing out, the uneasy feeling of looming disaster spread, pooling in his gut. It wasn’t the least bit reassuring.
“As I see it,” Christine said, head bent over the budget, “you have three options. You can invest more money and build your own storage facility. But it’s unlikely you’d be able to build one in time for our first harvest—you’d need town-council approvals, permits, an environmental study, water-table tests because of your proximity to the river, architectural plans, construction...” She was smiling again. “You get the idea.”
Slade must have turned green at the idea of such a cost overrun, because his daughters’ eyes grew wide. “Cross out option one.” He took a deep drink of water, unable to wash away the partnership’s goal of saving the town, even at such an expense. “But if it was an option...how many employees would you add?”
She traced her finger along a scar in the blue tabletop. “Maybe two at first. With your capacity goals, we might add one or two employees a year after that. A moot point, since you don’t want to build.”
“Option two?” His voice sounded muted and faraway.
“You budgeted for full-scale production. Cut back on equipment purchases and only buy when you’re ready to expand. With those savings, we could convert part of the main winery into a climate-controlled storage area—for, say, five thousand cases?”
“Limiting overall production down the road,” Slade pointed out. “This town needs the jobs ramped-up production will provide.”
“We’ll work through this...somehow.” Christine’s eyes flashed with an emotion he couldn’t read. Disappointment? Determination? Her gaze cut too quickly to the twins, then returned to him, the chipper expression back on her face. “There are plenty of empty buildings on Main Street. You could convert some space there. I bet some of those buildings are historic landmarks and you could apply for a federal grant to pay for all or part of the refurbishment. The partnership could buy a building and lease it to the winery.”
She had a good head for business. Not since he and Evangeline had spent their internships working at a Wall Street investment company had a woman’s situation analysis seemed...well...almost sexy.
And look where that had gotten him. Unplanned pregnancy. Shotgun wedding. Nasty divorce. Nastier custody battle.
Slade’s grip on reality returned. Main Street was almost exclusively owned by Mayor Larry, who’d been the winery’s biggest roadblock. The uneasy feeling in his gut intensified. “What’s our third option?”
Her smile definitely dimmed. “You can purchase all your wine-making equipment to meet your five-year production plan and I’ll make cuts elsewhere to pay for storage-rental fees. This makes the most sense to the bottom line, but I’ll have to drive a minimum of sixty minutes each way to check on our wine. That takes a big chunk out of my workday.”
Slade nodded. “Maybe we could hire a fourth employee.” It was, after all, why they were building the winery. To bring people back to town. And it seemed to have the least impact on his budget.
“This shouldn’t be about employees. It should be about the wine.” A warning of boundaries about to be crossed.
“If you don’t make good wine, I can’t keep people employed.” He settled his elbows on the table, setting boundaries of his own. “What if the opportunity arose tomorrow to make more wine? Would you turn it down?” The town needed her to say no.
“It depends.”
Unacceptable. She had to align with him. “I realize this is an unexpected and challenging situation. I want our wine to be of the highest quality, and at the same time employ as many people as we can. If the opportunity presents itself—”
“I’d have to know the quality of the grapes to assess the financial implications. Are you giving me grapes the quality of a five-dollar bottle of wine? Or fifty? And where would I store it while it ages?” Mexican pop filled the silence while she considered him with swimming-pool-blue eyes. “At this point, I can agree to consider it, but I can’t promise you anything.”
Several promises he’d welcome from her came to mind. None of them related to the business of wine making. Slade drummed his fingers on the table. The attraction to her was unexpected. He forced himself to look at her alternative-rock T-shirt. And then he looked at his daughters. This should be a no-attraction no-brainer. Business was business.
“How firm are you on this budget?” Christine asked.
“Concrete. The winery’s already been a money suck.”
She arched a brow. “Seriously? You didn’t sock some away for a contingency?”
“We spent our contingency.” And then some. A building collapse. Road improvements. Neither of which they’d budgeted for. He winked at the twins, trying to lighten the mood. “It’s kind of like your mom’s shoe budget—there were unexpected must-haves and then the contingency was gone.”
The twins didn’t so much as twitch. Not an eyebrow, not a lip, not a dimple. And Christine stared at him oddly. It wasn’t fair. Slade was funny. In his own way. With his friends. And Flynn’s nephew, Truman. Why was his humor falling flat?
It was of increasing concern that his daughters, who had at least spoken to him civilly at Christmas, weren’t speaking to him at all. At first, he’d thought it was quirky, almost cute. It was starting to grate on his nerves.
Christine smiled slyly at the twins. “We ladies know that there’s always room in the budget for another must-have pair of shoes.” She gave the approaching waitress an encouraging wave. “Oh, good. Food’s here.”
Slade looked down in time to see a plate of nachos land in front of him and Christine’s delicate fingers snatching a chip loaded with meat, cheese, sour cream, and guacamole. He glared at her. He was used to intimidating people with his glare.
Christine laughed, winked at the twins again, and positioned her bowl of ice cream for an assault. “This wine cave...” She filled her spoon with slightly melted ice cream. On its way to her mouth, a drip of vanilla landed on her chin. She swiped it off with her finger and sucked her finger clean.
The world narrowed to her mouth, her lips, the flick of her tongue.
Slade reminded himself he was Christine’s employer, reminded himself she held the future of his investment in her hands, reminded himself that he hadn’t been interested in a woman in a long, long time.
“This wine cave,” she began again, swirling her spoon around the edges of her ice-cream bowl. “It isn’t the only decision you need to face.”
He made himself crunch a big bite of cheesy nachos before answering her. “What’s your point?”
Christine put down her spoon, suddenly serious. “My point is that it might be better to scale back and understand the quality of wine we’re dealing with before you invest more time and money. We can rent climate-controlled storage space with the small lots of wine we’re producing this year if you can’t afford something here in town.” The word afford poked at Slade like someone questioning the legitimacy of his Rolex. “It’s inconvenient, but I’ll deal with it, because you may find after a year that you and your friends don’t want to own a winery.”
“We’re committed to long-term success. I’d think you’d be interested in that, as well.”
“I am.” She patted his hand and then stole another nacho chip. “I signed a contract with you for a year. Where I come from, that’s long-term.”
Right now, a year was looking like a twelve-month tax season, one in which he was being audited.
* * *
“NOW PROBABLY ISN’T the time to mention that there’s some basic vineyard equipment I’ll need, but I’m going to anyway.” Christine pushed her empty bowl of ice cream to the center of the table and started in full-time on Slade’s nachos. He arched a dark eyebrow at her, but she hadn’t eaten anything that morning, since she’d been busy moving the last of her things to her grandmother’s house. Ice cream wasn’t cutting it. The man was a millionaire. He could afford to order another plate of nachos. “For starters, a tractor, a truck scale, a forklift, and harvest lugs.”
Sighing, Slade moved the nachos closer to Christine, abdicating ownership. “We’ll put together some estimates and new projections. You did mention something in your résumé about the ability to balance budgets?”
“I did.” Christine decided she’d pushed the man enough for one day and merely grinned around the last bite of nachos. She wanted to make great wine, not a lot of wine that may or may not be great. And to do that, she needed to continually win the battle over Slade’s well-intentioned but unrealistic production goals and his budget miscalculations.
He tossed cash onto the table. “I should get the twins home.”
She followed him out the door. He sent the twins ahead to the truck.
“We’ll work this out together, keeping in mind what our investment goals are and what goals you can deliver on,” Slade said from between lips that barely smiled. “Can you bring me a revised purchasing plan and budget in two days?”
“Absolutely.” Christine wasn’t sure where she found the audacity to add, “But I’m going to make recommendations based on year-one output for the next few years.”
Those perfect lips of his settled into a thin line.
The sad part was, it didn’t diminish his perfection in any way.
* * *
“WELL? HOW’D IT GO?”
“Dad?” Christine shut her grandmother’s front door behind her, taking a moment to enjoy the cool air, before processing her father was here. Forty-five minutes of back-road driving from his place of employ to Harmony Valley. Midafternoon on a Monday. Uh-oh. “What are you doing here?”
Brad Alexander stood in the living room wearing blue jeans, work boots, and a faded black L.A. Flash T-shirt. He looked at home amid the overstuffed leather furniture and big-screen television. He looked at home despite the white doilies and pink throw pillows Nana had scattered around the room after Grandpa left for the big man cave in the sky.
Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, Nana snapped a pink tea towel in her son-in-law’s direction. “As usual, he’s butting in where—”
“Agnes, I just wanted to see how my little girl did on her first day.” Her father’s smile was infectious, capable of smoothing over many an awkward situation. He closed the distance between them and gave her a hearty hug.
“It’s a great opportunity, Dad. I think I’ll like it here.” If she could get things on track for a manageable launch.
She wasn’t going to tell her dad about Slade’s five-year production plan or their lack of quality wine storage. He’d worry. He’d stress. He’d show up one day ranting about Slade’s plans to compromise the quality of her work or some other unforgivable action and insist it was time she moved on. As a lifelong veteran of the wine industry, her dad was always watching out for Christine’s career and her brother’s. It was what he lived for. It was his passion.
It had come to be her Achilles’ heel.
“Now that you see Christine’s happy, you can drive back to Napa.” Nana tried to herd Brad out, shooing him away with her dish towel. Since Nana was barely five feet and her dad topped six feet, no amount of towel brandishing was going to work.
“We have to visit.” Her dad pulled Christine over to the big leather couch.
Don’t let this be one of those conversations.
“Tell me about the vineyards. I drove by, but you weren’t there. The vines look—”
“Like they need tying off and cutting back. I know, Dad.”
He walked my vineyards?
Her father was one of Northern California’s best vineyard managers. He loved his vines almost as much as he loved his family, as proven by how well he groomed both his vineyards and his children’s careers. Three times Christine had made the leap from one winery to another. Three times it had been because her father proved her wine-making values had been compromised.
There wouldn’t be a fourth.
Too bad she hadn’t told her father that.
No doubt recognizing the warning signs of a long conversation, Nana sank into the massive recliner with an annoyed huff. She was so short and petite, she practically disappeared into the cushions.
There’s still time to cut him off.
Her father only had eyes for Christine. Or rather, Christine’s latest challenge. “You should have some interesting Cab because—”
“The eucalyptus shades the southwestern corner in the afternoon. The grapes from those vines won’t be as tannic.” He stepped on her territory without an invitation. Primal instincts knotted between her shoulder blades, urging her to defend her turf. Instead, Christine patted his sunspotted hand and strove for peace. “That’s perfect for small blocks of wine. I’ve got this, Dad.”
“And I’ve got your back, like always.” He grinned.
With effort, Christine held on to her smile. She had every reason to be happy—overseeing the final phase of a winery construction, producing small lots of high-quality wine. It was every winemaker’s dream. She shoved aside the memory of Slade’s quirking eyebrow. Held back knee-quaking concerns about wine storage. She’d make this place shine. Without her father’s interference.
Nana folded the towel in her lap, patted it, and looked at Christine with raised silver brows.
“It means so much that you came by today,” Christine said at the same time that her dad asked, “What about these bosses of yours? They’re still committed to making the good stuff?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t a lie. Slade wanted to make fine wine. He just wanted to make too much too soon. If they’d spent their contingency budget, they were probably anxious for the winery to turn a profit. She just had to make sure they stayed patient. She had at least a year to convince Slade slow growth was the way to go.
“Because if they’re not,” her father said, “you need to keep your eyes open to other possibilities.”
Christine plucked at the hem of her T-shirt. “Dad, it’s my first day.” And as with other first days—the fourth grade, college, an internship, her first full-time job—her dad was being overprotective.
“These boys are different,” Nana said. “They promised this winery will turn things around here.”
Brad rolled his eyes. “I have more experience with winery owners than you do, Agnes. Owners’ principles are easily bent beneath the weight of budgets. You’d be surprised at how quickly the focus turns to case volume and profit margins.”
Christine hoped this was one time her father was wrong. He respected profit goals, just not at the expense of wine quality. If Brad got wind of what he considered mistreatment of his grapes and vines, he was on to a new property quicker than you could say You did what? A phrase her mother had shrieked too often, followed by days of tears and tension.
Her dad knew when someone was cutting corners or expanding too quickly, unable to uphold the promise of quality wine in the bottle. He knew before anything was confirmed, probably because he’d worked at so many different wineries his connections were tremendous. He was the one who’d told Christine that her boss had gone behind her back and disregarded their blending plan. He was the one who told Christine it was time to draw a line in the sand and leave the position as head winemaker at the prestigious Ippolito Cellars.
I knew I never should have hired an Alexander. Spiteful words from Cami Ippolito when Christine gave notice. Your family isn’t known for its loyalty.
But they were known for their high-quality standards. And Christine did have her dad to thank for that, no matter how extreme he was at times.
Blame in the wine industry was like red wine stains on your clothing—impossible to remove. Christine didn’t want to be the scapegoat for a disappointing wine she hadn’t created or approved, even if it meant leaving the employer she’d thought of as her friend in a bind.
Nana waited until Brad left to ask, “Did you burn a bridge with Cami, dear?”
“I blew up the bridge as efficiently as the one over the River Kwai.” Her grandmother would understand the war-movie reference. There was no going back.
“You don’t have to change a career every time your father says so.” Nana began pulling out chicken and vegetables for dinner, setting ingredients on the kitchen’s pink Formica countertop. The kitchen also boasted a pink tile backsplash and whitewashed cabinets with a tinge of pink. Being in Nana’s kitchen was like being in a young girl’s dream house, polar opposite of the modern, masculine living room her grandfather had loved. “I don’t know how many times your mother and I have told you and your brother, but you don’t seem to want to listen. This is your life, not your father’s.”
“I wouldn’t make a career move just because Dad wants me to.” No, Christine took lots of convincing, collected her facts, and corroborated Dad’s theories. And then she leaped. “His career has been stellar. His reputation for quality unparalleled.” She could only dream of such greatness. She’d chosen to dream big here while saving the majority of her salary so that her next move would be to her own winery.
“Have you ever thought that for all his high-and-mighty principles that just once your father may have done something wrong? Or perhaps he could have stayed and made it right?” Nana pulled a big knife out of a butcher block. “Most people don’t run at the first sign of trouble. There’s your personal honor and then there’s loyalty. Honorable people stand by when things go haywire. Relationships are what make this life worth living, not your reputation.”
“He never ran from Mom.” Christine washed her hands, intending to help make dinner.
Nana shook her head. “Did you ever think that it was your mother who didn’t run?”
Christine had. But she didn’t like to.
Because what was she supposed to think of her dad if she did?
* * *
SLADE LOOKED AT the Death and Divorce House, trying to see it the way his girls did.
White peeling paint. Drapes closed across all the windows except the two upstairs. Lopsided green mailbox hanging by the front door. He watered the lawn, but it wasn’t the green gem of Old Man Takata’s next door.
“It’s not Park Avenue.” Inside or out. He led the girls up the front steps, opened the unlocked door, and turned on the light above the foyer. There was nothing charming about the place. It was hot and shadowy. Tomblike.
In three steps from the front door, you could be on the stairs, be in the hallway leading to the kitchen, or be in the living room, with its tan velour couch, the scarred coffee tables, an old television, and his father’s brown leather wing chair. The best that could be said about the house was that it had dark planked wood floors.
“I’ve kept everything the way it was when your grandfather...left.” Slade flipped on the oscillating fan in the living room and then pointed toward the television. “Don’t count on anything other than basic cable.”
He headed toward the kitchen, hesitating in the narrow doorway when he realized they’d paused at the stairwell. Both girls stared upstairs, trepidation in their gaze. Grace reached for Faith’s hand as if they knew...
Impossible.
“You can eat anything you want in the kitchen. I warn you, I eat healthy.” Not that his body was a temple, but he disliked stripping down to a tank top to work out, so he watched what he ate instead.
His brain registered what it hadn’t wanted to for months—the kitchen was outdated and in need of some serious repair. A drawer had come off its glider. Cabinet hinges were loose, leaving cabinet doors lopsided. And the linoleum... Goldenrod polka dots had been fashionable during the swinging seventies.
Slade turned around. “We’ll need to make a run into Cloverdale for groceries.” He often ate at Flynn’s. He supposed that would have to change while his daughters were here.
His daughters were here.
He’d tried for years to obtain unsupervised visitation. They were here and he was happy, wasn’t he? Or he would’ve been happy if he could’ve arranged for the three of them to stay somewhere else. Somewhere without the memory of death and horrendous mistakes. He could still take them elsewhere.
But then he imagined Evy’s smirk when he told her they hadn’t stayed in the house. Where they slept shouldn’t matter to the girls. They didn’t know the house had a past. Or that he shared in it. Taking them to a hotel would mean Evy won.
Sticking with his decision, he led them upstairs, unable to shut out the memory of the last time the girls had been here when they were two years old. Evy’s screams. The horror on her face. Her accusations that everything was his fault. He wouldn’t make a mistake like that again.
“You’ll be staying in the guest bedroom,” he said. It had two single beds his mother had set up for when her twin sisters visited. He pointed out his room and the bathroom, ignoring the door to the master bedroom completely.
* * *
SILENCE WASN’T GOLDEN.
The girls were mute as he carried their possessions upstairs. The girls sat wordlessly in the truck’s backseat during the thirty-minute drive to and from Cloverdale to shop for groceries and pick up pizza. They played on a tablet after dinner without speaking while he sat in his father’s chair, which always made him feel as if he didn’t belong in the house. The back was too stiff. His legs were too long.
“How was school this year?”
Silence.
“Do you belong to any clubs? Girl Scouts? Sports teams?”
Silence.
“What’s school going to be like next year?”
Silence.
And they moved like ninjas over the normally creaky floorboards.
The house was used to the quiet. Slade was used to the quiet. But he’d expected the girls to be chatty or fidgety or sighing with boredom, breaking the stillness, not adding to the taciturn hush.
He took out the kitchen trash, listening to the sounds of the night—crickets, the rustle of leaves in the poplar in back, a distant bullfrog by the river. Some nights he sat in an old chaise longue in the backyard until the stars faded, preferring to be where there was noise than in a stagnant house full of soured memories. He hoped he wouldn’t add the twins’ visit to his the list of disappointing recollections.
“That you, Jennings?” It was Old Man Takata sitting on his front porch.
There was just enough light from a streetlamp hidden behind a tree across the street to see smoke rising from Takata’s porch. The man loved his cigars.
Slade crossed their parallel driveways, stopping on the edge of Takata’s perfectly bladed weed-free lawn, because no one walked across that golf-course-worthy green without risking a tirade. “Enjoying the cool breeze?”
Takata scoffed and resumed puffing on his cigar.
Slade waited. He knew his neighbor was building up to something. He’d had enough dealings with the former undertaker to know when the old man had something on his mind.
Takata didn’t disappoint. “It’s not so bad out here, is it? Inside it’s always too quiet, like I’m waiting for Nancy to say something...” Nancy being his deceased wife. “Only she never does.”
Air left Slade’s lungs in a rush. The older man nailed it. Slade always felt as if he was listening for his father’s voice, waiting for him to say everything was going to be okay.
Before he could formulate a response, Takata dismissed him. “Best get inside to your girls. Old houses can be intimidating at night.”
Later, as Slade lay in the twin bed of his youth, contemplating the ceiling and listening to his daughters’ unintelligible whispers through the shared bedroom wall, he thought about Takata’s words.
And tried not to listen.
CHAPTER THREE
SLADE MADE BREAKFAST early the next morning. Turkey bacon, scrambled eggs, whole-wheat toast. After breakfast he planned to update Flynn and Will on their need of a wine cave and recommend a course of action. His palms grew sweaty at the thought of admitting they needed more capital or a larger operating budget. The omission didn’t rest completely on his shoulders, but it felt as if it did.
He was piling the eggs into a serving bowl when the back of his neck prickled. A glance over his shoulder revealed it was the girls, standing shoulder to shoulder in the doorway. Evangeline was right. Today the Goth was gone. Matching embroidered turquoise peasant blouses. Matching skinny jeans. Matching black cloth loafers. Their hair fell in single black braids down their backs.
“I can see your pretty eyes.” Yesterday, he’d been happy to note beneath those blond bangs they were still green—no colored contacts. Today, he was relieved their hair was still black. He’d been afraid they’d hid hot-pink hair under their wigs. “You got your eye color from your grandmother Jennings.”
They remained mute.
“What would you like to do after I get a little work done this morning?” He pretended they were as excited to be here as he was to be with them. “Go shopping? See a movie?”
The girls exchanged glances.
He’d read about twin speak, but he’d never seen his girls employ it before this visit.
It was as if Faith blinked and said, Dad’s such a loser.
And Grace twitched her nose and said, Tell me about it.
Slade’s cell phone rang. He answered, putting it on speaker while he ate. “What’s up, Flynn?”
“Our new sheriff rolled into town last night.” Slade could hear the smile in Flynn’s voice. “I guess the mayor handed him the keys to the jail without checking it out first. A pipe must have busted during a winter freeze. The floors are ruined upstairs. The walls and ceiling are ruined downstairs. And the jail-cell bars are rusted.”
“Sounds like the sheriff’s in need of a plumber.” Slade buttered his toast, feeling the stirrings of interest.
A few months back, Flynn had started doing small repairs for some of the elderly town residents. After the requests morphed into a regular weekly to-do list, Flynn had recruited Slade and Will, and sometimes Flynn’s father, who was a skilled construction worker, to help. As much as Slade wanted to leave town, fixing it up made it easier to stay.
“I put a call in, but the walls, floor, and ceiling need to be demolished so the plumber can see the damage.” Flynn paused, then joked, “I’ll lock you in the jail cell if you like, Slade, and we’ll see just how rusted those bars are.”
The twins blinked at Slade’s phone.
“I’d rather lock up the mayor. Isn’t that his building?” It was just like Mayor Larry to pinch pennies and lease the building to the county sheriff’s office without checking its condition. Slade spooned some egg and a slice of bacon onto his toast and folded it over like a sandwich. “Where did our new sheriff sleep?”
“Nate was lucky. He spent the night at Mayor Larry’s.” Flynn’s delivery was pitch-perfect deadpan. “Nate sent out his SOS this morning. If it was just Larry’s building, I wouldn’t jump in to help. I can’t help feeling responsible for Nate. Before my grandfather passed away, he recruited him.”
“Someday Mayor Larry will find out payback is indeed a cruel and itchy fleabag.” Slade chuckled. “What else is on the list today?”
The girls ignored their food and looked at each other, as if to say, There’s more?
In Harmony Valley, there was always more to do. The elderly population couldn’t keep up on the maintenance of their older homes.
“That wind storm last week blew down a section of Sam’s fence in the back. He said something fell into his Koi pond—”
“Sam has a koi pond? Snarky Sam? Sam who owns the pawnshop?” Slade couldn’t believe it.
“It’s an antiques shop, but business has been slow,” Flynn corrected him, reciting what Sam himself had told them several times. “And Geraldine Durand’s Saint Bernard saw a cat in her backyard and barreled through her screen door.”
The girls’ mouths hung open.
“It was one of Felix’s cats, wasn’t it?” Felix was a retired fireman who rescued felines.
“Yep. Those cats don’t always stay where they’re supposed to.” Flynn yawned. “I’ll meet you in jail in fifteen minutes.”
Slade disconnected and tried not to smile at the girls. “If you want to come help me this morning, you’ll need to eat up. There aren’t any fast-food restaurants or convenience stores in town. What you eat needs to last through jail cells, koi ponds, and large-dog damage.”
They exchanged looks. He couldn’t interpret what they meant. He was just happy he’d found something that might break their silence.
Slade finished his breakfast and rinsed out his dishes before they’d even started theirs. Whatever was going on with the girls, it was intimidating as hell. No wonder Evangeline had dumped them on him. He bet husband number three was spooked.
Slade liked to think he was made of sterner stuff.
* * *
“HAVE A GOOD DAY at work.” Christine’s grandmother waved to her from behind the screen door.
“Thanks.” Christine reached the sidewalk in time to see Slade’s truck take the turns in the town square, his daughters in the backseat.
He honked and raised a hand, presumably to Christine, a house away from the corner, but it might have been for the small old man sitting on the bench below the oak tree with a cane. He waved, as well.
“What was that?” Nana asked, still in her violet chenille housecoat.
“Slade. Headed toward the winery.” Drat. With the size of her to-do list and Slade’s objectives, she’d need to stay one step ahead of him. She’d wanted to get to work before he did.
“Down Main?” her grandmother asked.
“Yes.” Christine hefted her laptop bag higher on her shoulder and hurried off.
“He’s going to jail.”
Christine spun around. “What?”
“We have a new sheriff—well, not officially until the population tops eighty—but he arrived last night and found all kinds of water damage in the jail and the apartment above it.”
It was a relief to know her boss wasn’t being arrested or turning himself in for some heinous crime. “What’s he going to do there? And how did you know about it?”
“Slade’s partnership does minor repairs around town. I suppose they’re going to see what they can do.” Nana cinched her housecoat, looking slightly embarrassed. “As for how I heard, Rose called me this morning. Her granddaughter is engaged to Will, you know.”
Oh, Christine knew, all right. It was one of the consistently repeated mantras in her grandmother’s house: Rose’s granddaughter is marrying a millionaire. As if Christine needed to realize a similar catch was at her fingertips.
She waved as she left, determined not to fish in that pond. Someone tall, dark, with the power to sign her paycheck had showed up in an early-morning dream. Sometimes you just had to let the big fish go, especially when you had plans to be a big fish someday.
The jail was on her way to the winery and was housed in a converted store, with the front office visible through a large plate-glass window. Behind the counter in the back of the space was the jail cell. Daylight came through a large hole in the ceiling. Next to it a large water stain bulged the drywall, threatening to burst. The wall near the stairs was in similar disrepair.
Slade’s twins were sitting on a bench in the jail cell, looking SoHo cute and grinning like normal kids, while a smaller boy with ginger hair locked the door and said, “You’re not getting out until you tell me where the bad guys are hiding.”
“Hi.” Christine stepped inside and rested her laptop bag on the floor.
The little boy turned, clutching the key to the door behind his back. “Who’re you?”
She introduced herself, adding that she worked at the winery. “I’m looking for Slade.”
“I’m Truman.” He came forward to shake her hand, his expression suddenly too serious. “Uncle Slade and Uncle Flynn are upstairs with the sheriff. Do you want to be locked up with Grace and Faith and Abby?”
Christine double checked, but only Slade’s daughters were in the jail cell. “Abby?”
“She’s my dog,” the little would-be sheriff said. A small, mostly black Australian shepherd barked from beneath a bench inside the cell.
“I think I’ll pass, Sheriff Truman.” She made her escape before the boy came up with a reason to lock her up, taking the creaky stairs to the second floor.
Upstairs was a studio apartment—kitchen counter, appliances, small bathroom. A small table and chairs rested haphazardly on top of a small bed in one corner.
Flynn knelt in front of the cupboard beneath the kitchen sink, poking his hammer inside as if trying to bust through a wall. A man she didn’t know was next to him, ripping out floorboards with a crowbar. But it was her boss that Christine couldn’t pull her eyes from. A sharply dressed man on his knees, wielding a big tool. Couldn’t fulfill a woman’s fantasies any better unless he brandished a vacuum.
Slade introduced her to Nate, the sheriff-in-waiting. No one spared more than a glance her way.
“Ma’am.” Nate’s nod was executed with military precision that didn’t disturb the flow of his work. He had gentle eyes and a slow smile.
“Don’t get up.” Christine’s gaze slid to the exposed framework beneath the floor. In one spot she could see through to the linoleum on the first floor below. Definitely not safe enough to cross and politely shake the new sheriff’s hand. “I just stopped by to say hello en route to work.”
“Nice shirt.” Slade pried off another board without so much as looking twice at her navy Wilted Red Roses T-shirt.
“Nice tie,” she shot back, smiling to take out the sting, because it was a truly excellent tie—complex geometric patterns amid bold greens with a silky smooth texture she could see from ten feet away. The man wasn’t buying ties at a bargain store. “Just so you know, the T-shirt thing is a family tradition. My father, uncle, brother, and I all work in the wine industry. We get together at the end of harvest and count how many T-shirts we demolished during the year. I’m talking cracked designs, faded fabric, stains, rips, and tears. There’s also a prize for the tackiest collection of T-shirts, although we made a rule a few years ago—T-shirts with nudity or that are politically incorrect don’t count. My uncle favors political T-shirts. My dad and brother are sports fans. I tend to stick to rock bands and cartoon animals.”
There. She’d explained her casual attire. Maybe now she wouldn’t feel so intimidated by his ties. Her confession didn’t get much of a rise from the men. In fact, they were ignoring her the way men did when they wanted to finish up a physically demanding project.
“I’m going to call around to see about hiring my support team.” Since she was doing double duty as a vineyard manager, she’d need help in all aspects of wine growing and wine making.
“I won’t be around the winery today.” Slade wiped his arm across his forehead.
Christine hadn’t known what she’d expected when she stopped by—an offer to chat over coffee, some last-minute instructions before Slade turned her loose in the vineyards and on his budget. What she got was nothing.
It was like being a kid again, when she’d been advanced into the fourth grade and still been ahead of her peers academically. To make friends in spite of her overachieving academic success among her classmates, she’d perfected her smile. A smile no one noticed today. “Well, the vines are calling.”
The men mumbled goodbyes.
Truman was locked in the cell when she descended. The girls stuck their faces through the bars at him, making the little boy giggle. The children barely stopped playing to acknowledge her leaving.
She’d wanted to get away from Napa, someplace where people didn’t schmooze her for favors, someplace where people didn’t judge her by the price of her car. She’d landed someplace where people cared more about the jobs she was going to create than the job she was going to do in the vineyard.
Maybe she’d gone too far.
* * *
“WHERE’S WILL?” SLADE asked sometime after Christine stopped by. He and Flynn were downstairs sitting on the bench in the jail cell. As soon as Will arrived, Slade planned to have a frank discussion about money and the winery.
“You’ll be happy.” Flynn settled his baseball cap more firmly on his head. His grandfather had worn that hat the last week of his life. Flynn treated it as if it was made of solid gold. “Will started programming our new app. He said he’d work on some of the basics this morning and let me have at it this afternoon.”
The perk of interest Slade had felt this morning over their Good Samaritan to-do list was nothing like the burst of excitement he felt at Flynn’s news. “When do you think it’ll be available for launch?”
Flynn gave Slade his best don’t-rush-me look.
Slade held up his hands. “I’m just saying, I can’t do a thing until we create a launch timeline.”
Lately, he’d been worried his partners would never go back to designing. Will had fallen in love with his sister’s best friend, Emma. Flynn had fallen in love and married his grandfather’s caregiver, Becca. They’d made enough money that, if managed well by Slade, they’d never have to work again. Not that they planned to retire. The money gave them freedom. With this new app, they weren’t bothering to ask for venture capital.
Slade flexed his fingers against damp palms. No investors to manage. And the winery situation a continuing drag on their bank accounts. How much longer would Slade be a vital part of the partnership? If he were Flynn and Will, he’d be preparing to give Slade the boot.
“I wanted to wait until the three of us were together to talk about the winery.” Slade fiddled with the cuffs of his shirt. “Unfortunately—”
“There is earthquake damage.” Flynn slapped a palm on his knee. “I knew it. How bad is it?”
“There’s no damage,” Slade said.
Flynn did a double take. “Is Mayor Larry causing more grief?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“We didn’t build a wine cave,” Slade blurted.
“A wine...a wine what?” Flynn stared at Slade as if he’d morphed into a puppy and misunderstood a command.
Slade wiped his damp forehead and proceeded to explain their need for climate-controlled storage and Christine’s options. He ended with an apology.
“You’re sorry?” Flynn resettled the ball cap on his head. “I should be apologizing to you. No one I asked about building ever mentioned a wine what’s-it.”
“Wine cave,” Slade supplied. “Since your friend’s friend works in Monterey, where the temperature never goes above seventy-five, they probably don’t need wine caves.”
“Oh, man. It sucks that we need to spend more money. We should get in touch with an architect right away.”
“No.” That came out more forcefully than Slade planned. “We’re not going to become like those lottery winners who go bankrupt because they give all their money away.” He felt sick just considering it. Flynn had a family to support. Will was just about to get married.
“This isn’t giving it away,” Flynn argued. “This is giving back.”
Slade shook his head. The omission of proper wine storage combined with Christine’s logical arguments about slow growth had shaken his confidence. “What if we f-fail?” The word stuck on his tongue. Financial failure meant emotional upheaval, like that he’d experienced at the Death and Divorce House. “Think of your future. Think of Becca. As your moneyman—”
“You worry too much.” Flynn’s smile didn’t often annoy Slade, but it did now as he slapped Slade on the back. “Build the wine cave. You know it’s the right thing to do. Another building creates more jobs.”
“But—”
“The farmer’s market is open!” Truman ran in from the sidewalk, Abby at his heels. “Come on, everybody!” He spun around and ran away, the little dog still by his side. Truman was staying with Flynn while his mom was in rehab for alcohol addiction. In the past month, the little guy had gone from a shy, quiet boy to a talkaholic. Slade hoped Harmony Valley would have the same effect on his daughters.
The twins, who’d been twirling in office chairs, stood up and looked at Slade.
“Go on,” Slade said. It wasn’t much of a farmer’s market. One vendor came in from Jimtown with baked goods. A few residents sold their extra fruits and vegetables. The tomatoes and corn were usually excellent. “We’ll talk about this with Will later.”
“You worry too much.” Flynn stood.
“And you don’t worry enough.” Slade wasn’t going to throw away a million dollars on the winery without seeing some kind of projection of return. It was irresponsible. He’d get Will on his side, and then the two of them would outvote Flynn.
“Thanks for the help. I think we’re ready for the plumber.” Nate came down the stairs, ending the partnership conversation. He studied the rusted bars. “These just need a good sanding and a coat of paint.”
Nate had accepted the job of sheriff, which could only be funded when Harmony Valley’s population topped eighty residents. They were currently at seventy-eight, not counting Slade. Having been put on paid administrative leave from his last job, where he’d lawfully arrested the mayor’s son with good cause and refused to drop the charges, Nate was happy to prepare for his new position, despite burst pipes
Flynn loaded up his tools. “I say it’s time for some of Olly Bingmire’s ice-cold lemonade. She’ll be out at the market about now.” He carried his toolbox to his truck.
Olivia Bingmire had been making fresh-squeezed lemonade for the farmer’s market for as long as Slade could remember. It wasn’t a cure-all for the blues, but it came close on a hot day. Slade headed toward the door, pausing to look at Nate. “You coming?”
“What about the plumber?”
“He’s got Flynn’s cell-phone number on speed dial.” Slade waited for Nate to join them. “It’s time you started meeting the people you’re going to swear to protect. Besides, we could use your hammer on our next few stops.” They left the jail door open in case the plumber showed up.
“I thought you told Truman he could hammer the nails into Sam’s fence?” Nate looked confused.
“I did.” Slade fought to keep a straight face. “That’s why we’re going to need an extra hammer.”
The three men walked toward the town square, leaving their trucks parked in front of the sheriff’s office.
A slender woman with long dark hair came around the corner of El Rosal, a cloth bag tucked in the crook of her arm.
“Becs!” With a nod to the men, Flynn veered across the street to meet his wife, Becca, who’d wisely brought a cloth bag to make it easier to carry her purchases home.
Truman dragged the twins from table to table, his shrill, happy voice carrying down the street. “Make sure you always, always, always buy the brownies from the Jimtown table early. They go fast.”
“Your daughters aren’t very talkative.” There was a hint of polite inquiry behind Nate’s statement.
“They’re shy.” Slade watched his daughters, hoping it was true.
Nate had a long-legged amble that made him look as if he was walking slowly, when in fact he was covering more ground in fewer steps than Slade, who considered himself tall at six foot. And yet, there was something rigid about Nate’s posture that contradicted his easy stride.
Wanting to change the subject, Slade, who didn’t normally pry, found himself prying. “Did you serve in the military?”
“Two tours in Afghanistan. Army. You?” The sheriff was a man of few words.
Slade shook his head. “Four years at Harvard. Two years on Wall Street.”
They exchanged respectful grins.
Flynn and Becca walked arm in arm in front of them.
For some reason, an image of Slade walking with a certain blonde came to mind. For the right reasons, Slade erased it. “You ever been married, Nate?”
“No...I... No.” His stilted answer was out of character for the normally staid sheriff.
This time Slade chose not to pry.
About thirty residents clustered about the tables, many leaning on canes and walkers. The only residents under the age of sixty were Nate, the partners, Truman, and the twins.
They reached Olly’s table. Slade bought a glass for himself, the sheriff, and the girls, who ran to him obediently when he called.
Nate was quickly snatched up by the locals, who circled him as if he was a celebrity.
Slade stood with the girls, drinking lemonade, wishing one of them would lean against him or hug him like they used to.
Grace looked at Slade’s hand three times before gripping it and tugging him over to the Jimtown table to look at their baked goods. Faith skipped next to them.
Slade could hardly breathe, for fear of making the girls go back to their no-touching, somber silence. Grace pointed at the brownies and then looked up at him with big green eyes and a sweet little pout.
Slade nearly tossed his wallet to her, barely daring to ask, “Only if you say please.”
Grace and Faith exchanged glances. Worry and determination flashed across their faces. Grace waved a hand as if swatting away a bug and faced Slade. “Please.”
One word. Barely a whisper. His heart was lost.
Slade ordered two brownies, feeling like the luckiest man in the world, so lucky that when he saw Old Man Takata sitting alone on the wrought-iron bench beneath the oak tree, he bought the man a glass of lemonade and sat with him.
“Weren’t you sitting here this morning?” Slade asked.
“I was. I like watching the world go by.”
“It’s getting hot outside.” The temperature was quickly climbing to uncomfortable. Slade knew all too well about uncomfortable summer days. He tugged at his tie.
“I have lemonade.” Takata raised his glass.
Mae Gardner, president of the bridge club, flounced over in a flowered dress and brown orthopedic sandals. Her shoulder-length gray frizzy hair curled like a storm cloud about her lined face. “Slade, dear, when are you going to move out of that house?”
Takata, who was normally as slow and deliberate as a turtle on land, snapped to attention. “Ain’t nothing wrong with his home.”
Unwilling to give ground, Mae plopped a fist on her hip. “Why should such a fine young man live there after the shameful thing his father did?”
Shameful. The word spiraled up Slade’s windpipe, closing it off to vital functions, like breathing and calls for help.
“Shameful?” Takata scoffed, sloshing his lemonade cup in Mae’s direction. “You and that bridge club of yours know all about shame, don’t you? Going down to Santa Rosa for those male dance reviews.”
Air returned to Slade’s lungs in a chuckle-suppressed gasp.
Mae’s face turned pinker than the pink sapphires flanking the diamond Will had chosen for Emma’s engagement ring. Mae spun and stomped away.
“Dang town gossips. Think they’re better than everybody. Don’t listen to her. What your father did was sad, not shameful.” Takata drained his lemonade and handed his empty glass to Slade. “I’ve never met your daughters. Last time they were here, they were too young for a proper introduction.”
Not to mention circumstances had Evy whisking their daughters away.
Slade called the girls over and introduced them, knowing Takata wouldn’t be able to tell his identical twins apart as soon as they moved away. Slade handed the girls each a twenty and asked them to buy strawberries, tomatoes, and corn, and then run back to the house to put their purchases in the refrigerator. It was only a block and a half away, a safe errand in a small town.
“You gave them too much money,” Takata complained after they’d skipped off.
“My ex-wife says I don’t give them enough.” It was a pleasure to give them something instead of writing a check to Evy every month.
“Kids who don’t learn to work for things don’t have a good work ethic.” Takata eyed Slade. “Why do you think you’re so successful?”
“Because I worked my butt off instead of living.” From high school to his last job on Wall Street. He’d worked until he’d lost sight of what was important.
The old man scoffed and tilted closer, as if sharing a secret. “You’re not living now.”
Slade couldn’t move more than his lips. “I live.”
“You exist.” Takata sat back, watching Grace stay just close enough to Truman, Becca, and Flynn that she could hear what they were saying, but far enough back that she wasn’t part of their family unit.
Slade struggled to draw in air. He knew how it felt to be on the perimeter of relationships, to feel as if you’d never quite belong. He didn’t expect to recognize the same thing in his daughter.
“Grace is an old soul,” Takata was saying.
Lucky guess.
“And Faith looks before she leaps.” Takata gestured to Faith, who was skipping by the Jimtown table, as if contemplating buying another sweet.
“You don’t know that,” Slade said gruffly.
The Jimtown clerk pointed at a plate of frosted cookies. Faith stopped and nodded enthusiastically, digging in her pocket for money.
Takata hammered his cane into the grass again. “As a funeral-home director and mortician, I’ve looked at a lot of faces and listened to a lot of stories. I think I know what someone’s about when I look at them.” He glared at Slade. “Your soul is wounded and trapped. Looks like it should be set free.”
“Are you telling fortunes now?” Slade stood, tugging at his tie, feeling it tighten like a noose. The last thing he wanted was to rehash the past with the old man.
Takata caught his sleeve above the cuff. “I’m telling truths. You need to forgive, if not your father, then yourself.”
Slade couldn’t move. Not from the sudden unbridling of grief and guilt, or from the spot where his feet seemed to have taken root.
“Now,” Takata stood unsteadily, “I’m ready to go home. If you let me lean on you, it’ll go much quicker.” When Slade didn’t move, he raised his voice. “Are you deaf? Lend me your arm.”
The twins ran by, heading for home with their purchases. He could almost feel the air move as they passed, feel grief and guilt recede. They were his hope.
Slade stepped closer to the old man and held out his arm.
“’Bout time.”
CHAPTER FOUR
CHRISTINE HAD THE vineyards to walk and the morning sun was already hot, the air dry, her T-shirt damp with sweat.
Slade and his partners had bought forty acres, which wasn’t even half a square mile. It was Christine’s job to familiarize herself with the soil, vines, and fruit. The property wasn’t large enough to justify hiring a full-time vineyard manager, full-time cellar manager, or full-time winemaker. She’d have to wear many hats and hire staff who could do the same.
Christine used a notebook and a stubby pencil to record the slope of each row, how it drained toward the river, the angle of the sun and where it was blocked by trees in the early morning or late afternoon. She recorded which blocks and rows of vines were lusher, which seemed almost scrabbling to survive. She sifted dirt through her fingers and checked that the vines had the proper support.
Grape clusters were developing nicely. She tried a bit of each fruit at different places in the vineyard. Most were tannic and promising in their complexity. The arid soil and growing conditions in Harmony Valley were influencing the taste of the grapes and would also influence the taste of the wine. Substance in the glass. Something Christine would be proud of. Something to finally prove without a doubt to her father and the world that she knew what she was doing.
She snapped pictures of a few grape clusters with her cell phone. The grapes on the Cabernet Sauvignon vines were still green, but soon the heat would begin veraison, when the sugars increased during ripening, reducing the acidity in the fruit and turning them a deep purple.
The vines were terribly overgrown. There was too much fruit, which meant as it ripened it wouldn’t be as flavorful. And the fruit was becoming heavy, dragging tendrils down to the ground, which made the grapes available for any passing snail to take a nibble. Tomorrow she’d need to get out here with hand clippers and twist ties and sunscreen. It’d be nice to have helpers. Maybe she could put together a crew like the one she’d seen in the sheriff’s office.
Christine paused, staring out over the vineyard. Why not exactly like the one she’d seen in the sheriff’s office?
She returned to the tasting room, where she’d left her laptop bag.
The partners had installed a communications tower on Parish Hill, a granite-faced mountain to the east. The tower provided Harmony Valley with free Wi-Fi and cell-phone service. Otherwise, they’d be too far out, in too deep a valley to receive any signal.
She called a few friends, putting feelers out for someone with diverse skill sets willing to relocate. She called some equipment suppliers on her cell phone and emailed a few more for bids. Slade had only collected ballpark estimates for equipment. They’d need companies to come out and measure their space, and provide a more detailed and precise bid, as well as timelines for installation. At this point, twelve or fewer weeks until harvest, she’d only approve purchases if they could guarantee delivery and setup.
She also got in touch with someone she knew who built wine caves to ask some initial questions. She was willing to make compromises to find wine-storage solutions locally, but long-term, she wanted a state-of-the-art facility in Harmony Valley.
She texted Slade: Who did you arrange to harvest the grapes?
If this heat wave lasted through July and into August, as it was projected to, they’d need to harvest earlier, rather than later.
His reply: Make arrangements with whoever you want.
“Are you kidding me?” Wineries arranged for harvesters up to a year in advance.
Christine made another round of calls and sent off more emails looking for a company available to harvest in their remote location. Initial response wasn’t good. No one wanted to talk to her after learning where they were based.
For the second time that morning, Christine wondered if she’d strayed too far from traditional wine country.
She texted Slade again: Will need a work crew tomorrow at the vineyard.
His reply was predictably prompt: Hire however many bodies you need.
She laughed the kind of evil laugh that Slade would have known, had he been here, meant trouble for him: I choose you and Flynn and Nate and Grace and Faith and Truman and whoever else you can find. Bring pruning shears, hats, and sunblock. 6 a.m.
He didn’t answer right away. And when he did, it was an anticlimactic Okay.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING Slade and his crew reported for work, as Christine requested.
Slade knew the heat would make him miserable, but he still wore black slacks, a blue long-sleeved shirt, and tie.
Slade sought out his girls. At least the twins were dressed appropriately for the temperature in cutoffs and matching royal-blue tank tops. Each had her hair in a ponytail that swung through the hole in the back of a royal-blue baseball hat.
Christine was prepared for them with thermoses of coffee and hot chocolate, as well as a cooler full of water bottles, and her grandmother’s banana-nut bread. She also had a box of old work gloves and pruning shears. She, too, was dressed for the heat in canvas shorts and a canary-yellow T-shirt featuring another rock band. Her hair was braided tightly so that only pigtails peeked out from either side of her floppy white hat.
Standing next to her, Slade felt more overdressed than he had in years. His tie felt too tight and heavy. Before he’d been able to talk to Will, he and his fiancée, Emma, had left for San Francisco a few days ago for a series of art-gallery openings featuring Emma’s paintings. Slade was starting to think it’d be better to iron out the budget with Christine first. At least then he wouldn’t be talking in generalities. He’d have hard figures to present. Will and Flynn were sentimental about Harmony Valley. They let it cloud their judgment.
“I know I asked you to, but you didn’t have to bring the kids,” Christine said to Slade as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“I don’t expect them to work much.” Slade didn’t expect them to do more than run around and have a good time. “It’d be nice if they felt useful before the real work starts.”
Christine reached over and squeezed his shoulder, as if they were old chums. “That’s so doable.”
“I’m feeling guilty that we did nothing to the vines since we bought them.” Flynn wandered over, tugging on a pair of gloves. “To Christine, it must be like ignoring your children.”
Slade set down his coffee. It was too hot for what already promised to be a hot day. “It’s not like that at all. We bought the property and didn’t get rezoning approval for months. It wasn’t as if we knew we’d be harvesting grapes this year.”
“Are you going to be okay in this heat?” Christine pulled lightly on his sleeve. “Please go home and change.”
“He won’t be caught dead without the tie. I lived with the guy for five years. Trust me,” Flynn said. “It’s a fetish.”
If there was a possibility Slade could ditch the shirt and tie, he would have. Instead, he unwisely took inventory of the rest of the crew. The guys wore shorts and T-shirts. Only Abby and Slade were overdressed. And Abby, being a dog, had no choice but to wear a fur coat. Soon, Slade would be panting just as loudly as she was.
Slade rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Don’t worry about me.”
“We’ve learned not to.” Flynn grinned.
“Let’s start before it gets unbearably hot.” Christine stood next to a row of grapevines and shook a baggy full of what looked like short wires. “We’re going to use twist ties—yes, just like from a loaf of bread. I know, highly technical stuff here. We’ll use twist ties to fasten the load-bearing shoots to one of two support wires on the trellis system.” She showed them how two wires were strung at two different heights from a post at one end of the row to the other end. “Too many clusters on the vine dilutes the flavor of all the grapes, so we’ll want to thin the secondary clusters. That way, the primary clusters will be bursting with flavor.”
Slade bent over for a closer look. There were a lot of clusters on the vine. “By thin you mean...”
“Cut back and toss in the bin.” She gestured to two large containers with wheels. “You’ll also be cutting back the tendrils that you can’t tie, the ones that get in the way of the corridor between rows.” At the group’s blank looks, she added, “Imagine driving between the rows. If anything would brush your car’s fender, cut it back.”
“Shouldn’t we hire experts to do this?” Slade would pay good money to be sitting in front of an air conditioner about now.
“Normally, I’d hire a crew.” Christine gazed out over the vineyards. “But this should have been done months ago and I’m finding that no crews want to come out this far to work. Besides, it’s not rocket science. These are plants. If you make a mistake, they’ll grow back.”
“But what if the cluster I cut off is the best cluster?” Slade’s muscles knotted with stress. Anything he did, he wanted to exceed expectations. “What if we mess this up?”
Christine put a hand on his shoulder and smiled up at him. It was a sparkly smile, one that said, Have no fear. “At this point, there is no best based on taste. The ripening process hasn’t shifted into full swing. We’re doing damage control, which means damage will be done, but more good than harm.” She stepped closer, bringing the coconut smell of sunscreen and the light scent of vanilla. “Just think, this is only five thousand cases worth of grapes. You want to bottle eighty.” And then, grinning, she pushed him forward and they got down to business.
She paired them up—Flynn and Nate, Slade and Christine—and they started down two parallel rows. One person cut. The other person tied off vines. She assigned the children to clean up. Faith and Truman with Flynn. Grace with Slade.
The children pushed the bins, darting in to grab cut vines and grape clusters and shoot them into the bins like writhing basketballs. Abby darted back and forth beneath the trellises to see how everyone was doing.
“Did I fail a test?” Slade grumbled, his shirt clinging to his back, sweat trickling down his spine.
Christine knelt a few feet ahead of him, cutting clusters. She glanced back, her furrowed brow barely visible beneath that floppy hat he was starting to envy.
“I got paired with teacher,” he clarified.
That made her laugh. “You seemed stressed out about the work. I thought you needed reassurance. Go with the flow. Trust in nature.”
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Melinda Curtis
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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