Season of Change

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.