Season of Change

“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.

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