He nodded his head as if that explained everything and moved on to uncovering which yoga studio she’d attended in Napa.
She, of course, had belonged to the most exclusive yoga studio in town, which earned her another invitation to do yoga with Larry the next morning at seven.
Call her gullible, but when she thought about the inspections and regulations that faced the winery, how could she refuse? She might need this politician on her side.
“So this is where you’ll sell your wine.” Mayor Larry studied the tasting room with a calculating eye. “Have you thought about offering other local goods? For example, I have my own line of T-shirts. Tie-dyed, like this one.” He tugged a rolled-up T-shirt from a back pocket and shook it out. “I also knit sweaters from hand-woven wool.”
Ah, the purpose of his visit revealed at last.
Tie-wearing Slade wasn’t going to like Mayor Larry’s business proposition.
But compromise-making Christine was going to consider it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SLADE SAT ON an old rattan chair on Flynn’s back porch overlooking the river. Beneath the railing, plump blackberries hung from thick brambles. He was too hot and tired to pick any.
To his left, Faith and Grace ran around the front yard with Truman and Abby. The dog had won Truman’s most-smelly-skunk award, but that didn’t stop the kids from playing with her.
Flynn sat nearby. Nate leaned on the porch railing watching the slow-moving river pass.
“Do your girls have speech impediments?” Flynn asked, more direct in his questioning than Nate had been.
“I don’t think so. Evy hasn’t said anything. They may have been like this for months or just decided to torture me.” And Slade felt tortured. He should know what was going on with his kids. Evy wasn’t answering her phone or email or texting him back. Husband number three must have been too cheap to spring for an international-calling or data plan.
“It’s just a phase.” Flynn’s wife, Becca, came out the back door with cold beer, repeating his ex’s claim. “Kids enjoy testing limits. Kind of like the elderly when their independence is threatened.” She distributed a bottle to each of them. “They play pranks. They hide chocolate and sneak out of the house. You should keep your truck keys safe.”
“How was your day, Becs?” Flynn accepted his beer with a kiss, and a lingering hand on her hip. They’d been married less than a month. The honeymoon was far from over.
“Busy. I picked up two more new clients today. Found a stash of chocolate and a spare set of car keys.” Becca swung her dark braid over her shoulder and sat on Flynn’s lap, making the ancient rattan chair they were in gasp and groan. “One thing about being the only elderly caregiver in a town of elderly people, I don’t lack for clients. I had to run into Cloverdale twice for groceries and prescriptions. When are you going to attract a grocer to town?”
“You work too hard for being the wife of a millionaire,” Nate observed.
Slade plucked at his tie. “If I ever get married again, which I don’t plan on, I wouldn’t want my wife working.”
Becca laughed, sinking against Flynn’s chest so she could look out toward the river. “What would I do with myself if I was home all day? Eat bonbons and clog my arteries?” Becca kissed Flynn’s chin. “Besides, I have bills to pay. House rule number ten—debts acquired prior to marriage are my own.”
“I told you I’d pay Gary off.” Flynn sounded annoyed, as if this was an old argument.
“And I told you—”
“Children, please.” Slade slouched farther into his chair. “I just want to enjoy some peace and quiet.”
“How’s your new winemaker doing?” Becca politely changed the subject. “I haven’t had time to meet her.”
Slade angled his head toward them. “Unlike you, she wants to spend our money.”
Nate looked around the porch, taking in the aged furniture and perhaps reconciling it with them being millionaires, but said nothing.
“This house was my grandfather’s.” Flynn interpreted the sheriff’s wary gaze and explained, “I grew up here, and since Grandpa Ed only recently passed on, I’m not ready to change anything.”
“Because he wouldn’t let you change anything when he was alive.” Becca gave Flynn an affectionate squeeze.
“Getting back to Christine,” Flynn said. “Has she convinced you to build a wine cave? If it creates more job opportunities, I say let’s do it.”
Slade stared toward the river, but all he saw was his father’s suicide note. “At this stage, this investment is capped out.”
Flynn wouldn’t let it go. “We promised the town—”
“And I promised you,” Slade snapped. “I promised if we never sold another app that we’d have money in our old age. I can’t keep my promise if you keep dipping into the coffers. Let me do my job.” He drew a breath, trying to calm down. “We agreed the winery was going to be a tax write-off, at least at first. I don’t expect the winery to make monstrous profits. But I draw the line at subsidizing the town.”
He’d learned a lot in the past few days about running a winery. It made what he thought he knew look like kindergarten material. At the rate Christine wanted to grow the winery, they’d never create enough jobs to save the town. And at the rate Slade had hoped to grow the winery, they risked failure by producing an inferior product, which in turn would decrease the value of their portfolio. The same portfolio they were basing their retirement off of. The last time he’d managed a retirement portfolio, it’d belonged to his dad. He’d bankrupted his old man, who’d hung himself after hearing the news.
Yeah, he was nervous. He didn’t trust himself to predict how people were going to react to monetary loss. Suicide? Divorce? An end to a valued friendship? He didn’t want to find out.
Slade rubbed a hand over his face. Another change of subject was in order. “How’s the progress on the new app?”
“Slow. Hit a snag today when the programming script kept crashing everything.” Flynn’s voice welled with frustration. “I can’t wait for Will to get back from the city.”
“You’ll figure it out, Flynn.” Becca reassured him with both words and a kiss, if Slade’s hearing was correct.
Nate drained his beer and shot the happy couple a significant look that said they didn’t need to be making out in front of guests. “Thanks for the beer. I’m outta here.” He looked at Slade. “You coming?”
“In a minute.” Slade kept his gaze carefully on the river, finishing his beer more slowly. He’d never been jealous of the love his friends had found.
All the same, he felt a twinge of what felt like jealousy for a love like theirs. A love that didn’t count his past against him. It was dangerous thinking. Dangerous because what woman could find it in her heart to love him—scars and all?
* * *
CHRISTINE TRACKED SLADE down at his home after dinner that night. He lived on the north end of the town square just a block and a half away from Nana’s house.
His house was a narrow, white-planked two-story home with a small porch out front and a driveway that led to a small detached garage in back. Although the lights were on, the drapes were shut tight, giving the house a neglected look.
Slade opened the door and frowned at her. “Did we have a meeting?”
“No, but I need one. Can I come in?” She hitched her laptop bag, loaded down with papers, higher on her shoulder. “I have my budget and purchasing proposal. I would have brought them earlier, but the mayor came by, and then the town council, and then...” She noticed he wasn’t speaking. And still had his tie on.
“Oh, shoot. You have company, don’t you?” She backed away from the door. “A date? I’m sorry. I just assumed—”
“There’s no one here but the twins and me. I just don’t...” His voice dropped almost to
a whisper as he smoothed his tie. “I don’t let people inside the house.”
Grace appeared behind him, a small smile on her face. She touched her hair and looked sideways, presumably at her sister, who came to join her.
“Is it haunted?” Christine meant it as a joke, but Slade stiffened.
His eyes glazed with pain. “If you must know—” the confession fell reluctantly from his perfectly chiseled lips “—my parents died here.”
“I’m so sorry,” Christine said, automatically modulating her smile. She had a vague memory of someone telling her that once. “Did they die recently? Like, is it safe to be inside? Is that why you keep people out?” She was only half joking.
“They didn’t die of anything you could catch,” he snapped.
She was learning that his bark was brief and usually territorial. “So it’s okay to come in? You just don’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable?”
The twins drifted away from the foyer.
Sighing, he opened the door wider. “The bridge club calls this the Death and Divorce House. Death being my family’s contribution.”
“Wow. I’ve never lived in a house that has a name.” She said it lightly to prove to him the house didn’t bother her. Then she stepped inside and the claustrophobic atmosphere of the place closed around her as firmly as the door shutting behind her.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Slade grumbled. “I’m used to it and the girls don’t seem to mind.”
“Hi, girls,” Christine called, cheerfully waving a red flag in the house’s face, because, dang, there was a weird sensation skimming up and down the back of her neck.
Or it could have been Slade’s breath. He was right behind her. But that would have been a pleasurable skim.
The house was poorly lit, leaving shadows in the hall and up the stairwell.
The twins stared at her. They sat on the couch sharing an iPad. Dirty dinner dishes staked out space on the cluttered coffee table, surrounded by a line of cups with various levels of different beverages in them, as if the twins had changed their mind several times about what they wanted to drink.
There was a stack of business magazines next to a brown leather wing-backed chair, the kind of chair you saw in pictures of exclusive men’s clubs, places where they smoked cigars and drank bourbon straight. A stuffed lion the size of a Great Dane sat in a corner, the one spot of energy in an otherwise drained room.
Oh, boy. He’d let her inside. She had to follow through. But that didn’t mean she had to give the depressing house power. “Girls, if this house ever seems too creepy, you’ll have to tell your dad. None of that subtle twin speak. I want full-on hand waving, moonlight-madness screaming. Are you on board?”
They nodded their heads solemnly.
“First off, let’s open the windows and get some air in here. It’s cooled off outside and there’s a breeze blowing.” She dumped her bag on an empty corner of the curved-legged, low coffee table and made for the front windows. She had to walk behind the tan velour couch to reach them. Cobwebs brushed over her bare calves. She yanked open the rose-colored drapes, dousing herself in a shower of dust.
“I’m sorry. Do you live here?” Slade. Angry.
Christine chuckled, but she was pretty darn desperate to get some fresh air into the house and not be bitten by a spider. She struggled with the first window. “When was the last time these windows were open?”
“Eight years ago.”
That creeped-out feeling made way for a bit of sadness. What had happened here that Slade knew how long the windows had been shut? “Okay, girls, raise your hands with me. Your dad’s freaking me out. How about you?”
That too-brief stereo sound was definitely a contained couple of giggles.
The twins raised their hands.
Slade came to stand next to her. His hip gently bumping her out of the way so he could open the window.
One window up and the breeze rushed in. It might have been Christine’s imagination, but the house seemed to sigh in relief.
Soon Slade had all four windows in the front room open. A cool breeze was lifting the curtains gently, as if even the wind knew change had to come slowly.
* * *
“WE GOT A LOT done tonight,” Christine said to Slade as he walked her home. “With the cuts we came up with, we can afford to arrange for storage in town. And the way you recalculated those columns in your head got us there that much quicker. Thanks for letting me in.”
Slade made a noncommittal sound. He hated that Christine had been in the house, hated more that she’d opened the windows. That house was his penance. He didn’t want anyone, including Christine and the girls, coming in and making it seem livable.
“It’s kind of odd.” Christine could talk nonstop, and generally did, punctuating her words with smiles and a swing of her hair as she twisted to look at him, “I feel as if I’ve known you forever.”
He resented her thinking she knew him. She didn’t. She didn’t know about the long nights of his youth spent watching his mother, afraid she’d stop breathing before his father came home from the graveyard shift at the grain mill. Afraid she wouldn’t be breathing when Slade returned from school. She didn’t know about the promises he’d made his father when Slade invested the last of his dad’s retirement funds. She didn’t know—
Christine laughed, a sound that crooned about the possibility of smoothing over unknown hurts and old grievances. “I guess sitting in my bedroom discussing what to do with my shoe collection was a good idea after all.”
The morning seemed so long ago.
She’d opened up his windows. He couldn’t wait to get home and shut them.
They rounded the corner to Taylor Street. Two houses down was her grandmother’s place.
Christine had sat in his living room and tried several times to talk him out of what she saw as unnecessary expenses in year one of the business. She’d been convincing, even in the face of him totaling up columns and presenting his arguments. But that wasn’t all she’d talked about.
The things that needed to be done before they got through the next twelve months were mind-boggling. And yet, Christine had distilled it down to a very long list, with approval dates, and action dates, and dates she’d need funding by. She’d gotten what she wanted—a compromise on the budget and wine storage in town.
“I know I can make good wine for you.” She stopped at the end of her grandmother’s driveway at her clunker’s fender.
Even her grandmother’s Buick was newer than Christine’s rust heap.
She was conscious of the money she needed to make good on her promise. He liked that. What he didn’t like was uncertainty about future productivity.
“I can run things by myself until harvest, when I’ll need those two other hires we talked about.” She blinked up at him, as shiny and optimistic as a newly minted dime. “I haven’t found anyone yet who’s willing to work for us, but I will.”
So many obstacles.
The street was blessedly silent. Every street in Harmony Valley was generally quiet after eight o’clock. Most people in town were comfortably ensconced in their recliners, remote in hand, or on their porch or backyard swing escaping the heat. A dove cooed from the eaves of Agnes’s house. A cricket chirped in response.
He wondered what rock-band T-shirt Christine would show up for work in tomorrow. Maybe a throwback, like Darlings Deluxe. Maybe something with attitude, like Mercy Becomes Dust. Although, the all-girl band Cococats seemed like a better bet.
Christine had stopped talking. Her lips, a gentle pink he couldn’t appreciate when they were moving, were still.
“What?”
“I said I was sorry about barging into your house. I can tell it threw you for a loop.” She fiddled with the strap of her laptop bag. “I get really into my work. I ca
n get overly excited. I’ll try to do a better job at respecting your boundaries.”
He doubted that. She was too touchy-feely. Invading someone else’s personal space was as natural to her as smiling, despite her developing the skill to wield the expression as a survival tool.
She smiled at him now, as close to a purely happy expression as he’d seen in a long time. “Thank you for this opportunity. I’m so very grateful.”
Fool that he was, he wasn’t ready to say good-night. “Are you going to work at the winery tomorrow? Or from home?” It wasn’t as if there was a pressing need for her to be on-site yet.
“May do a bit of both.” She turned and crossed the lawn. “I’ve got an early-morning yoga date with Mayor Larry. See you.” She disappeared into the house.
Leaving Slade worried, because he knew Mayor Larry practiced naked yoga.
The question was, did Christine know?
Still wondering, Slade retraced his footsteps. He turned the corner at Harrison and caught sight of his house. Or rather, he heard it.
Laughter.
Drifting out the open windows. Chasing away his efforts to keep the place a somber reminder of his horrendous mistake.
Something in Slade’s chest shifted, tried to lighten. He promptly ignored it.
“Nice to hear some life in there again.” A disembodied voice drifted from the house on the corner and had Slade’s pulse pounding double time until he realized it wasn’t a ghost who spoke. It was Old Man Takata.
He had to add tree trimming to Flynn’s list of improvements needed around town. The too-tall, too-bushy trees blocked streetlights.
Slade moved up the walk to Takata’s front porch. The old man was smoking a cigar. He’d been Slade’s neighbor since forever and the town’s undertaker until recently. Crummy time to retire. People in Harmony Valley were in need of a good undertaker.
Takata puffed on his cigar, the deep scent of peppery wood enveloping Slade. His knobby knees stuck out of his cargo shorts like toothpicks out of a sausage. “Are your girls home to stay?”
Season of Change Page 10