Season of Change. Melinda Curtis

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ