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
