Season of Change

by Melinda Curtis

  “Do you want the layman’s terms or the wine-snob terms?”

  “Both?”

  She took a sip and closed her eyes. “If I was writing a wine review or back label copy, I’d say that it opens with aromas of bright raspberry, followed by the taste of dried berries and plums, with a hint of pepper in the finish.”

  “And if you were just someone drinking the wine with dinner?”

  “I’d say it tastes good.” She grinned.

  It wasn’t beer, but it wasn’t bad, either. He took another sip, then started carving meat, while the girls set the table.

  “Grace. Faith.” Christine crossed her arms as she regarded them. “I haven’t seen you for days. You’re my pulse on fashion. What did you wear the past few days? Goth girls again? Punk rockers?”

  They giggled again. The sound filled Slade’s heart until he thought it might burst.

  “And I want a fashion show, complete with an announcer. If you don’t talk, I may fall asleep.” Christine gave Faith’s hair a gentle tug. “Seriously, after dinner, I want to see what you’ve been wearing and not as a unit. We’ll cover more ground if you each wear something different. If I get my fashion show and if your dad takes his tie off, I’ll show you how to French braid hair. Deal?”

  Slade held himself very still. Christine didn’t know what she was asking.

  The twins exchanged glances, and then Grace looked at Christine and said, “Deal.”

  Slade didn’t dare look at Christine or either of the twins.

  Maybe he was pitiful as a dad, maybe he was spoiling them, but there was a chance that he could improve. In order to do so, he’d have to bare his soul to Christine.

  And, if they were observant, his girls.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “WHY AM I taking my tie off?” It was after dinner. Slade’s hands were shaking. He didn’t want to take his tie off. He was her boss. He shouldn’t have to take his tie off.

  Christine sat next to him on the small couch. She slowly wound a strand of hair between her fingers. “It’s after 7:00 p.m. You’re at home. This shouldn’t be a big deal. You still had your tie on the other night when I came by. Don’t you ever let your hair down?” She tilted her head and glanced at his crown. “Besides, you can show the girls they can break out of their mold by example. What’s wrong? Take the tie off. It’s not like I’ve never seen a man without a tie on before. I’m not going to stuff dollar bills down your collar.”

  The twins were upstairs changing. It was just the two of them in the somber living room. A breeze ruffled the curtains. He should tell Christine no. He should tell her she’d overstepped the bounds of the employer-employee relationship, that it wasn’t appropriate to undress him.

  Slade swallowed. “Uh...”

  “It’s not that hard.” Christine, who knew nothing of personal, or apparently professional, boundaries, reached over and loosened his tie.

  Slade couldn’t breathe, couldn’t stop looking at her, noting the slight flush to her cheeks. He couldn’t help himself from feeling the warmth of her hands so near his secret. So near the reason Evangeline had given the court as to why their marriage wasn’t salvageable.

  Christine glanced up at him, a hint of a smile on her face, probably about to give him grief about something else. The horror he was feeling must have been mirrored in his expression, because she froze. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be touching you like this.”

  He captured her hands. “It’s not you.” Three rasped words. He was as hoarse as if he’d been shouting for days.

  The twins bounded down the stairs.

  Slade dropped her hands. Christine continued to stare at him. When Faith said, “Ahem,” she snapped out of it, taking in the girls’ latest outfits with an avalanche of appreciation. “Awesome, unique, fabulous, wonderful, sweet-sweet-sweet.”

  “I like this one,” Faith said when Christine stopped babbling. She wore a black ballerina tutu over a red-and-black striped body suit. Her black biker boots clunked across the floor. Sunday’s outfit.

  “And I like this better,” Grace said. She wore a pretty pink sundress with white sandals. Saturday’s outfit.

  They spoke!

  Christine continued to muster a smile and general enthusiasm for their ensembles. “I like it when you wear different things. I can see your two personalities.”

  “Grace is the girlier of the two. Faith likes to make a bold statement,” Slade said, marveling at the change in his daughters when Christine was around.

  The twins stared at him as if he was a lion escaped from the zoo. Then they blinked and ran back upstairs. Their voices drifted down, excited but unintelligible.

  Slade slumped against the sofa. “Please don’t push them.” Or me, he wanted to add, but he couldn’t. He liked it when he and Christine joked back and forth. But the tie...the tie was off-limits.

  Except he wanted her to touch him. He wanted to know if he was salvageable, like the loaf of burned garlic bread.

  Stupid. So very stupid. He knew the answer to that question.

  “You could make it easy on me and ask them if they feel like they have to dress alike all the time. Then we could forget the tie.”

  “They wouldn’t answer.” Slade focused on a crack in the ceiling, wishing, wanting, knowing nothing he wanted or wished for was going to come true. She’d see. And she’d leave, just like Evy.

  “How do you know if you don’t try?” Stubborn. She was so stubborn. “What are you afraid of?”

  “Nothing.” Everything. He was afraid she’d remove his tie and his arms would close around her, drawing her to him, close enough to kiss. “What are we doing here?” Slade’s gaze snared hers.

  She looked like a rabbit caught in a trap, one who was only now realizing that the carrot she was pursuing wasn’t the carrot she’d originally been drawn to.

  “Christine—”

  “You take things too seriously. The tie, the shoes, the ring.” She pointed at the titanium ring on his finger. “Why can’t you just be yourself? Get out from behind this facade you work so hard at perpetuating.”

  “Because I don’t think people would like what they see.” Understatement of the millennium. Underneath it all, he was a disappointment.

  “You’ve got your guinea pig right here.” She was close enough that he could see her out of the corner of his eye. “What are you hiding under your collar? Tattoos? Burns? A third nipple?”

  “You don’t want to know.” His was a relationship-killing secret. Not that they were in a relationship. But he needed her. He needed her to run the winery and to make fine wine. Anything else—he swallowed—anything else was off-limits.

  But he didn’t move to stop her.

  Christine’s hands were at his neck again. Gentle. Skilled. She did more than loosen the knot this time. She slid the black silk free of his collar.

  “Italian. Why did it have to be Italian?” There was a hint of soft, inviting humor in her voice. She ran her hands slowly over the silk. “Now I know why you’re always smoothing your ties. They’re so soft.”

  He knew she wouldn’t leave him alone, not until she’d seen. She was curious and she had guts. Her playing with his tie was only a reprieve. She was like a horse whisperer, soothing with words, before moving in to uncover the real damage.

  “How about unbuttoning a button?” That smile. That sparkle. Ten days ago he’d known neither. “Just one. You look uncomfortable.”

  Uncomfortable? He was dying. He wanted her to touch him. Badly. And yet, the last woman to see his neck had left him. Slade swallowed and shook his head. Or he tried to. In reality, his head barely moved.

  Her hands reached for him once more.

  Slade didn’t think he could hold still, remain sitting, let this woman see. His breath came in labored chunks now. The
breeze coming through the window behind him sent goose bumps down his spine.

  He imagined in one quick burst what the next few seconds would be like. She’d free the top button of his shirt, maybe two. She’d see. She’d recognize. And she’d recoil. Because she’d realize he wasn’t as put together and in control as he appeared. She’d see his cool exterior of success was a lie.

  He couldn’t produce enough saliva to swallow this time.

  Her fingers worked at the first button. Worked at the second. Worked at the third.

  She was killing him.

  Only after the third button was free did she spread the Egyptian cotton apart. Only then did she gasp and draw away.

  But not for long. “Oh, Slade.” She leaned in closer, using her finger to trace the tight scar that wound halfway around his neck.

  * * *

  CHRISTINE KNEW SLADE’S mother had died at home of cancer. She knew his father had hung himself. No one said anything about Slade’s scar.

  Was it from an attempted murder by his father? A mugging from when he lived in New York? Or had Slade attempted suicide?

  Little footsteps hammered down the stairs, almost as loud as the hammering in her heart.

  Slade’s green eyes revealed remorse, regret, guilt.

  Someone cleared their throat.

  Christine assembled a disjointed smile and focused on the twins.

  Grace in a floor-length blue flowered dress. “I like flowers.”

  Faith in jeans and a black tank top, leather cuffs on her wrists. “I don’t.”

  Christine needed to say something to Faith, to Grace, to Slade. She needed to be light and supportive and charming. But it was Slade who needed her most. She wanted to draw him close and hug him, hug him tight. So tight that he’d realize it was okay. Whatever had happened. Because clearly, by the anguish in those eyes, he thought she’d run away in disgust.

  And her not saying anything was stretching the awkward chord near snapping.

  “These looks are...expected.” Christine put a hand on top of Slade’s.

  He nearly jerked off the couch.

  She squeezed his hand reassuringly. “I’m not saying they’re bad looks, but tame by what I’ve come to expect from you two. What else have you got? Can you shock me?” She tried smiling again. It was no easier this time.

  What was Slade thinking? Did he realize she was talking to him as well as to the girls?

  The shadows around his eyes said, I’m sorry. It’s true. I tried to commit suicide.

  Christine’s arms tingled with shock. Something in Slade’s life had been so bad he’d tried to kill himself. He kept it hidden. And yet he’d let her unbutton those buttons.

  Why?

  The girls ran enthusiastically up the stairs with their assignment.

  Slade loosened Christine’s fingers, which had been digging into his knuckles. “You can go now.”

  “Is that what she did?” Somehow, Christine knew his ex-wife had left him because of this. “Your wife left you because she couldn’t trust you to...you know...not try again.”

  Instead of releasing her, his hand closed around hers. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.” Christine turned to him in wonder. “You haven’t told anyone. At least not anyone here in town. No one over the age of sixty in this place can keep a secret.” With her free hand, Christine reached for the collar of his shirt to get another look. “No. She left you.”

  Slade pulled away.

  “But you showed me.”

  He released her hand and rebuttoned his shirt.

  Her mind raced, that scientific mind that had made her an outcast when she was little, because she understood too much, leaped ahead of conversations in class. “You want me to leave,” she stated matter-of-factly. “You think this will disgust me. You must...”

  It hit her then. Not like a ton of bricks, or a slap in the face, or a cold shower. This was a gradual awareness of something truly special. Once-in-a-lifetime special. He was...he was great. She liked him. A lot.

  And he liked her. More than a boss should like his employee.

  He liked her. Those mixed signals weren’t all just self-preservation on his part.

  He liked her. A lot.

  The proof was there. But what did it mean?

  Nothing, her head said.

  Everything, her heart said.

  It could be a silly infatuation, spawned by all the time they’d been spending together. Something that would fade. Or it could be the beginning of feelings that went down like a rich red wine. Something that expanded and lingered. That filled up the empty places.

  But which was it? Science required she test out her theories.

  “I need to kiss you,” she said, surprising both of them.

  He stared at her. Shocked.

  Somewhere above them a floorboard creaked and a girl giggled. Outside, a dog barked in the distance. Then everything fell silent.

  “It’s not like that.” Christine wasn’t even sure what that was. “There’s this...whatever it is between us. And I need to conduct an experiment.” To determine if he was worth risking her dreams for.

  No man was worth compromising her dreams for.

  Except...maybe...this one.

  She wasn’t going to get caught up in any silly fling, not when everyone in this small town would take note. Not when everyone she knew in the wine industry would talk and speculate.

  “I’m not a lab specimen.” He crossed his arms over his chest, clearly ruffled.

  “No. You’re a man. A very attractive man. With a dark past.” She grinned at him. “Don’t tell me you were brave enough to show me your scar and you’re too chicken to kiss me.”

  “Why?” he rasped, still bound up tight behind those crossed arms.

  “Because I don’t care about the scar. But I care about why you showed me. What if you showed me for nothing? What if we kiss and there are no sparks? You know how it is. Sometimes you see someone or you talk to them for a few minutes and you wonder, Are they for me?” She risked a hand on his forearm. He tensed, but didn’t jerk away. “If we kiss and it falls flat, there’s no harm. This tension between us will settle into something...different.”

  They could finally be more comfortable at work. She wouldn’t dream about him at night or admire his physique as he walked away. She’d laugh at the idea of them as a couple. She’d prod him to stop wearing those beautiful ties. At least not every day.

  He was looking at her as if she’d just landed on Mars and asked him to return with her to Venus.

  She moved her hand to his knee. “You’re afraid.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking.” His voice lacked his usual self-confidence. “It freaked Evy out. She couldn’t take not knowing if I’d crack again and hurt myself. Or hurt Faith and Grace.”

  “You won’t try it again.” She knew that with a certainty. He kept talking about the future—for the winery, for his budget, for the town, and the girls, and a dozen other things she couldn’t remember right now. Because she was looking into those green eyes in wonder. “You’d never hurt the twins. I don’t know what she was thinking or why you believed her.”

  He may not have believed he’d try again or hurt the girls, but he put a lot of stock in the lack of trust a woman was willing to give him. He couldn’t take being rejected again, that much was clear in his rigid spine and folded arms.

  The girls pounded back down the stairs.

  “You’re not off the hook,” Christine whispered to him, telling herself this was just a test, telling herself it was the fastest way to clear the air.

  She could prove she was good friend material and a great employee with a simple kiss that fizzled.

  She just had to make sure it fizzled.

&n
bsp; * * *

  DRESS-UP TIME was over.

  While Slade cleaned up the kitchen, Christine showed the girls different hairstyles they could try. Although their conversation wasn’t racing, they’d progressed beyond one-or two-word sentences. Slade’s ability to speak seemed to have regressed. His racing mind seemed to have put his speech function on mute.

  What had he been thinking?

  He’d shown Christine his scar. She was nosier than any Harmony Valley resident he’d encountered so far and she could easily weasel the truth out of him. Given time. And her easy smile.

  He’d opened up his house to her. The house that was his penance and his refuge. An error in judgment.

  He hadn’t told her a kiss was a monumentally stupid idea. Because...because...

  He wanted that kiss. How he wanted that kiss.

  It had snuck up on him, this wanting. As if he’d held himself back from everyone, even his closest friends, for too long. As if he’d ignored emotion until it rebelled and had to find a target.

  And Christine was the one unlucky enough to cross his path. He wanted to hold her and stroke that golden hair, as if stroking it would give him some of her optimistic, sunny attitude. He wanted to learn the feel of her lips on his, experience the gentle caress of her breath against his skin.

  He finished doing the dishes and went down the hall to the living room, leaning against the doorframe to watch the girls with Christine and try to find perspective.

  His daughters had changed into their pajamas and were sitting patiently as Christine played hairdresser. Even their pajamas matched—pink bunnies with sunglasses on lime-green cotton. Was Evy suppressing their individuality? The wrongness of it was a sour taste in his mouth.

  Christine was braiding Grace’s hair and entwining it with his black tie. She looked up and met his gaze with an accepting smile. She seemed so certain there would be no passion in their shared kiss.

  Slade was equally certain there would be more passion than he could handle.

  “Girls, time for bed. Thank Christine for doing your hair.” Thank Christine for not running screaming out into the night when Daddy showed her his Frankenstein-like scar.