Summer Kisses

* * *

“YOU SHOULD HIRE HER.”

Flynn stared at Slade as if his friend had just suggested he wear high heels and a thong to the construction site. “Hello? She was waiting for us on our doorstep yesterday. I can think of a dozen slasher movies that started that way. How can I trust her with my grandfather?”

Slade cocked an eyebrow. “You just did.”

“I hate it when you’re right.” Flynn hated that Becca was right, too.

She’d moved with swift, purposeful strides over to the Caddy. All’s well, said the sway of her hips. Mission accomplished, said the swing of her long, black braid. All woman, said the curves covered in black and pink spandex.

The wind picked up, rustling the silver-green eucalyptus leaves on the sixty-foot tall trees separating the river from the vineyards.

A wiry construction worker with a gray goatee and ponytail glanced Flynn’s way, triggering the elusive feeling of familiarity.

Slade shifted, blocking Flynn’s view and disrupting the path to recognition. “Hire Becca. She clearly has Edwin’s best interest at heart. And if she moves here she brings skills to the town we don’t have now. We promised to increase the population and the tax base.”

The population in Harmony Valley was a whopping seventy-seven. All but two of those residents—their business partner, Will, and his fiancé, Emma—were over the age of sixty-five. The construction crews commuted from other, larger towns, the nearest being thirty to forty minutes away. Flynn and Slade were temporary residents, staying only long enough to fulfill their promise to the town council—to create at least one business to revitalize their hometown.

What fools they’d been to think it would be easy.

They’d experienced a series of false starts, but now, construction on the winery was finally moving forward. Also in the works was a communications tower to bring internet and cell phone service to the remote valley. Today was the first big day of work—demo of unusable parts of the barn, utility work needed to upgrade water, sewer and electricity.

Grandpa Ed waved as Becca drove the Caddy slowly around the drive.

Flynn returned the gesture halfheartedly. “I brought him here because I didn’t want to leave him alone.”

There had been indignation in Becca’s dark gaze today, with none of the subtle emotion he had yet to name layered in her eyes. Regardless, Becca was right. Flynn shouldn’t have dragged his grandfather out here, much less left him sitting. As if he needed more guilt.

Guilt greeted Flynn when he awoke every morning, sat on his chest all day and wove through his dreams at night. Guilt that he wasn’t doing enough, guilt that he wasn’t home enough, guilt that he’d put off doing things with his grandfather until it was too late. If he could just speed up construction on the winery, he’d take his grandfather on the trip of his life. The doctors said Edwin needed a few weeks to regain his balance and what little strength he had left before attempting anything so taxing.

After the Caddy disappeared, a faded green Buick appeared between the palms, carrying three occupants—all councilwomen. They might just as well have been doctors, coming to chart his progress and, if required, give him a dose of medicine.

He walked across the driveway to meet them, determined to avoid their daily meds.

When the car stopped, he leaned down next to the open passenger-side window. With a nod to each woman, “Agnes. Rose. Mildred.” Flynn reached for his easiest smile. “Ladies, we’re no longer open to visitors. This is a construction zone now.”

“We won’t be in the way parked here.” Agnes, a gray-haired pixie who also served as the aging group’s ringleader, turned off the ignition.

“We’re old.” From the passenger seat, Mildred squinted at him through lenses as thick as a hard drive. “We won’t get out. You can tell us what’s going on from here.”

“Actually, I came to see the workers with their shirts off,” Rose piped up from the backseat, her snowy ballerina bun windblown. “For efficiency’s sake, you can call them out while you give us a construction update and then we’ll be gone.”

“Rose,” Agnes scolded, her papery thin cheeks pinkening. “We are not here to ogle men.”

Flynn’s jaw ticked, tugging one end of his smile down. “Ladies, I have nothing new to report since yesterday. You’ll need to move along. We’re expecting delivery of a Dumpster.” And they were parked right in its path.

“Young man, our town has a lot riding on this venture.” Rose drew herself up regally, as if she’d already forgotten her shirtless desires. “As councilwomen, we need to be kept abreast of the activities here.”

“I assure you—” as he and his partners had been for months “—that we have kept you up-to-date. But not only is it not safe here, my contractor won’t allow nonessential personnel on-site.”

The three elderly ladies looked crestfallen.

Flynn bent, just a little. “You can park out on Jefferson Street.”

“I can’t see anything that far away,” Rose grumbled.

“We can go home and get our binoculars,” Agnes suggested.

“Brilliant.” Mildred patted his hand. “We’ll talk later.”

That’s what he was afraid of.

Agnes reached for the key in the ignition, but didn’t start the car. “Flynn, before we go, I’d like to put a vote of confidence forward about Becca MacKenzie. She’s a wonderful woman.”

“She knows all the songs from Guys and Dolls. And she can shake her bootie,” Rose, the Broadway musical enthusiast, added.

“Any girl who can drive stick shift is okay in my book.” Mildred patted his hand again. “You won’t make a mistake by hiring her.”

Flynn doubted that. Becca had her secrets and worse: he liked her looks, her smile, her chutzpah. “How long have you known her?”

Agnes’s smile stiffened. Rebooted. “I only met her Friday, but she stayed with me all weekend.”

Flynn mentally chastised himself. The town council loved Becca. And she’d only been in town a couple of days? “Ladies, can you say con artist?”

Their laughter prickled and annoyed and reassured. If they were laughing, chances were his grandfather was in good hands. Flynn had known these ladies most of his life. They were a handful, but they didn’t misplace their trust. There was just that one look of Becca’s to interpret before Flynn felt comfortable.

After they left, Slade walked over, chuckling. “Don’t tell me you thought they’d stop coming once construction started.”

“I had hoped,” Flynn said.

Dane Utley, the project’s general contractor, called them over to the blueprints he had spread out over the hood of his silver-gray truck. “I know we want to fast-track this project, but I’m warning you, old construction has a mind of its own.” Broad shouldered, big-boned, Dane looked like a professional linebacker, but talked with the polish betraying his Ivy League education. “I don’t know how that building has stayed up so long. The beams we examined this morning were either rotted away or split. We’ll shore up everything before we do anything else, starting with the low beams on the north wall.”

“We promised the Preservation Society this would be a restoration,” Flynn said. “If we can’t use the guts of the barn we may lose community support.” And time. Every day they saved meant he had a better chance of fulfilling his promise to Grandpa Ed to take him on that trip.

“She’s a beautiful piece of history and we’ll save what we can,” Dane reassured Flynn. “I stopped by the county office this morning and they were still missing a couple of key permits and agreements. We can demo today, but the lack of a public improvement agreement is going to stop us by next week.”

“Will’s working on it,” Slade said. “He’s in Santa Rosa this morning with our legal team.”

They needed to widen a portion of Main Street and do earthquake retrofits on the Harmony River bridge. Both projects impacted Mayor Larry Finkelstein’s property. His lawyers, their lawyers and Will were handling the negotiations. Flynn was managing the building contractors and the councilwomen’s daily updates. Slade dealt with finances. If they could obtain these last few permits, maybe things would finally run smoothly.

“We could use some good luck to get things back on track.” Flynn voiced the understatement of the year.

Slade nodded.

A white car pulled onto the gravel driveway.

“It’s one of the county building inspectors.” Dane leaned around Flynn and shouted, “County!”