Season of Change

by Melinda Curtis

  “I need a shower and a drink.” Christine’s phone buzzed again. “And maybe another drink. Not necessarily in that order.”

  * * *

  “YOU DIDN’T HAVE to pick me up,” Christine said when she opened Slade’s truck door. Something was missing from both his expression and the truck. “Where are the girls?”

  “They’re over at Flynn’s, having a sleepover with Truman. Best-case scenario, the kid won’t wake up tomorrow morning with makeup on and his hair styled.”

  Christine shut the door and spun back toward the house, hurrying despite the heat.

  He turned off the big black beast and ran after her. “Wait.” He caught up to her on the front porch. “We need to talk.”

  “About what? How you’re selling those bottling permits or the bottling permits and the winery? About your firing me?” Anger seeped into her fingers, wanting to grab on to something and shake. She gripped his arm.

  “I told you we weren’t selling.” But unlike earlier in the day, his voice lacked conviction.

  She gripped his arm harder, as if she could squeeze the truth out of him. “Then why have I gotten so many messages from other winemakers and my dad asking about the permits being on the market?” Her conscience fought with her anger. Anger won. She let go of his arm, thrusting it away. “Everyone’s asking me if I need a job.” The only way this could be worse was if her name was linked romantically to Slade’s.

  His expression darkened. “I can explain. It’s not what you think.” But his eyes belied that statement.

  Nana opened the front door. “You should be ashamed, practically leaving my granddaughter at the altar.”

  “Nana, I’m not interested in marrying him. Please close the door,” Christine said.

  “Marriage?” Slade reached for his burgundy tie, but her hand beat his there.

  She stroked down the length, only to fist the ends in her hand and tug gently, not hard enough he’d choke, but hard enough to capture his attention. “We don’t need to go to dinner. Explain why you won’t sell. Now.”

  “Yes, I’d like to hear this, too,” Nana said.

  “This isn’t about marriage. Close the door, Nana.”

  “But—”

  “Close the door!” Granted, Christine was already one wineglass into her two-glass limit, but she’d been bombarded with too many text messages and emails from her Napa network of friends to have it completely together.

  Nana closed the door but immediately went to stand at the window, a stubborn tilt to her delicate chin.

  Christine knew she looked like the jilted lover, standing on the porch in a short denim skirt and fuchsia blouse, holding on to Slade’s tie as if she owned him. But a girl had her limits.

  Slade looked from Christine to Agnes and back. “I think I owe you a dinner.”

  Christine started shaking her head and couldn’t seem to stop. It was the momentum of anger.

  “Yes.” He put an arm over her shoulder and guided her back to the truck. He didn’t make her release her hold on his tie, not until he’d opened the truck door and she was about to step in. He covered her hand with his.

  “Sorry,” she mumbled, releasing his tie and buckling herself in, waiting to continue their conversation until Slade had done the same. His poor tie looked as if it had been stuffed into a gym bag. “Thirty minutes from now the entire town will think you’re trying to dump me.”

  “Why would they think that?” He started the truck and pulled away from the curb.

  “Because my grandmother—” Christine had to ungrit her teeth to continue “—bragged to everyone that I’d landed myself a millionaire.”

  “Ah, I think I know where that rumor started. At Phil’s.”

  Christine narrowed her eyes as they drove past the barbershop. But Phil had gone home.

  Slade cleared his throat. “It was...ah...the girls who planted the seed.”

  “What?” Christine squeaked.

  “You left and they asked about you and said I should... That we should... That I...”

  “You don’t have to finish. I know how a girl’s brain works.” First comes love, then comes marriage...

  Shoot.

  “And then Phil started asking questions.” Slade tried to smile. “He approves, by the way.”

  “I’m not amused.”

  Slade managed to look a tad hurt. How did this man manage to go through life keeping all his wounds hidden from others? She could read him as easily as she could a grapevine.

  “After you came to the barbershop I got a phone call from a party interested in the permit.”

  “You sold out.” The rumors were true. Her stomach roiled. “Stop the truck.” She’d walk home.

  “It’s not like that. The partnership isn’t selling.”

  “How much did they offer?”

  “That’s not relevant.”

  “How much?”

  “I’d rather not say.”

  She reached for his tie, carefully, since he was driving. “How. Much?”

  The figure he quoted had her dropping his tie and slumping against her door. “I am fired.”

  “Don’t say that. The partnership will stick to its agreement.”

  But Christine knew better. She knew about balance sheets and profit and loss. A complete, newly constructed, top-of-the-line winery with this permit would be worth more than Slade and his partners paid for it and what they’d invested so far. Many times more.

  “I want you to know that even though we haven’t accepted any offers, I am going to recommend they sell at some point.” Slade cast a quick glance in her direction, his face pinched as tight as a grape left on the vine too long. “I’m 99 percent sure they won’t sell no matter what I recommend.”

  “I don’t understand. Were you lying to me earlier at Phil’s?”

  “No. But you were right. We got an offer. It wasn’t good enough to accept. But when an offer comes in we can’t refuse and my partners don’t sell, I’ll have them buy me out. I won’t compromise on my beliefs.” His voice was dark and determined, as if he knew he was betraying the town but was convinced he had to do it. “I’ll have made two fortunes in less than twelve months. I’ll be free of Harmony Valley forever.”

  He’s leaving?

  She understood not wanting to compromise your beliefs. She hadn’t realized making money was that important to him. She hadn’t expected him to have values tied to big profits. She suspected his beliefs had to do with the scar around his neck and what happened the day his father died. Betrayal tangled with sympathy. There was no clear winner. Not her, not Slade, and certainly not the town.

  Harmony Valley had seemed so idyllic. Other than Slade’s ties, there was no posturing, no brand-name dropping, no battle to see who could buy the most expensive luxury vehicle.

  If they did accept a buyout, Harmony Valley would change, and not in the way Slade and his partners were trying to change it. If only he knew what kind of people would move in to run the place, he’d see it wasn’t best for his small town. He’d take that into account with his profit-and-loss columns.

  “Take me to Tilda’s,” she said. It was an exclusive seafood restaurant in Healdsburg, the bar to which many influential winemakers flocked for gossip and networking opportunities.

  They parked on the street north of Healdsburg’s plaza. Tilda’s bar was crowded, more so than the main restaurant. Slade and his tie approached the maître d’. Christine marched past, elbowing her way through the crush of regulars.

  “Back on the streets so soon, Christine?” A woman’s voice, familiar, condescending.

  Christine looked up at Cami Ippolito, her former boss and supposed best friend. She almost reached between her shoulder blades to check for the knife that Cami had left in her back. “What are you doing in
Sonoma?”

  “I’m interviewing winemakers.” Cami in turn looked down on Christine’s jean skirt, towering above her in trendy five-inch wedges. “That is, unless you want your job back. There’s still time to reblend.”

  With effort, Christine kept her mouth closed, but her hands fisted. She felt Slade come up behind her, saw the flash of burgundy tie in her peripheral vision, watched as Cami’s eyes connected with Slade’s beautiful untrustworthy green ones.

  “Although I’m beginning to see your job’s appeal. Is this one of your bosses?” Cami’s smile was lipstick smooth, designed to rile women and entice men. She introduced herself to Slade.

  Other winemakers looked with interest and recognition at Christine, making assumptions about who Slade was. Several nudged their buddies and inched closer. The crowd flowed around them as they jockeyed for position.

  She would not feel sorry for Slade and what was about to happen—a winemaker’s version of the Spanish Inquisition. They’d pry and prod and try to judge if Slade was an also-ran, a threat, or someone they should suck up to.

  Let him see what he was bringing to Harmony Valley. Let him see.

  Christine squeezed in at the end of the bar, composing her letter of resignation in her head, leaving Slade to deal with the swarm of sharks circling him.

  Not that he was in any danger. Slade was a shark himself.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “WHAT CREATED YOUR interest in wine?”

  “What style of winemaking do you favor for your reds—the French or the Californian?”

  “How long can you hold out before you accept an offer on those permits or the winery itself?”

  Each question asked with a smile as false as one of Evy’s. Each question backloaded with subtle messages—What, you think wine-making is easy? Yeah, you don’t know a thing. Really, you think you can’t be bought?

  Familiar frustration built as dark as a thundercloud on a stormy night. The winemakers swarming him thought he wasn’t good enough—not to leap into making wine, not without years of experience and a pedigree. Those last few years, his father hadn’t thought he could succeed at anything, either, including life.

  Slade wanted to prove the crowd wrong. He could do this. He could make so much money that these jealous types would cluster around him for an entirely different reason.

  But that would require him to turn down offers for the permits or the winery itself. It would require him to recommend to his partners they stay the course and make wine. It wouldn’t free him from his past. From the house. From his scar.

  Christine sat at the end of the bar, halfway through a glass of white wine. He imagined her slender arm reaching through the crowd, reaching for his tie, leading him away, as if he was hers.

  She remained where she was.

  Cami leaned in close, smelling of alcohol and musky perfume. “She’ll leave you. At the first sign of trouble. It’s what the Alexanders do. She’s probably planning to leave you right now.”

  Something sizzled in his veins, hot and desperate.

  He’d told Christine the partnership wasn’t selling. It was practically a guarantee of employment. She’d be a fool to leave.

  Her chin thrust out resolutely as she drank her wine, as if she was planning when she’d tell him, how she’d tell him.

  He tugged at his collar.

  Their eyes met across the crowded bar. The buzz of conversation dulled, faded, receded, until it was just the two of them acknowledging they had no future.

  She backed down first, her gaze dropping to the bottom of her wineglass.

  Slade pushed through the crowd to reach her. He tossed a fifty on the bar and dragged her out of there and to his truck.

  “Satisfied?” he said as he gripped the wheel, anger coursing through him. He felt ready to snap. “You knew those winemakers would be there. Did my performance disappoint?”

  She didn’t say anything, just plucked at the hem of her skirt as if she was unsure of her position in the truck, at their winery, in his life.

  She was, he realized. For all her bravado and organized lists and invasion of his personal space, she was worried about her future.

  “You risked a lot coming to work for us. Your livelihood. Your reputation.” Maybe even her heart.

  Like that’s possible.

  She was kindhearted. That didn’t mean she could ever love him.

  He started the truck, pulling out into traffic.

  She kept looking out the window.

  There was something else wrong. But what?

  A snatch of conversation with her former employer returned. “What did Cami mean when she mentioned taking you back and reblending?”

  Nothing but road noise answered him.

  He’d had enough silence to last him a lifetime. “It’s crap, isn’t it? Your next release for Cami. Is that what you’re worried about?”

  Slowly, as if she was older than Old Man Takata, she turned to face him. “You saw what they’re like. They enjoy the good life, like it’s owed to them. But underneath there’s a fear, and fear drives them to make bad choices.”

  Slade had a sinking suspicion that he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say.

  “Cami and Ippolito Cellars are a victim of their own success.” She slid out of her shoes and tucked her feet beneath her, angling sideways so her body faced his as he drove. “It happens sometimes. The stars align and a winery achieves unplanned-for success. You can’t keep up with the demand. You sell out, and you wait patiently for the next vintage to mature.”

  “Cami doesn’t strike me as a patient woman.”

  Christine finger combed a lock of blond hair along her neck. “No. She bypassed college to learn about wine making from her grandfather. She’s got too much to prove to her father, not to mention the wine world. That’ll drain your patience pretty quickly.”

  “And so...” He accelerated onto the freeway.

  “And so, she pressured me for a short-term solution and I found one.” Her fingers plucked at the skirt hem again. “Ippolito Cellars had been known for varietals, primarily Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay. But blends are popular and you can make them with excess wine you or someone else has. We decided to make a red-wine blend, since I’d had some success with it at another winery. I blended several samples from bulk wine producers until I hit on a taste I liked. Then I arranged to buy three wine types we needed—Petite Sirah, Carignane, and Zinfandel. To be delivered when each type was properly aged three months later. At that time, they’d send new samples, I’d taste them, hopefully approve, and off we’d go to blending.”

  “Very smart.” So like Christine.

  “In theory. In the interim, I made the mistake of going on vacation with my family.” She sighed, the weary sigh of the defeated. “While I was gone, Cami ordered the wine delivered ten weeks early and started blending it herself. I got back and tasted her blend. It was undrinkable. Instead of mixing small batches, she mixed nearly two hundred thousand gallons of wine. It’s sitting in tanks, ready for some poor soul to try to improve it so she can bottle it.”

  “Can it be fixed? Reblended, I think she said.”

  Christine shook her head. “Making a wine blend is like making spaghetti sauce. Once you have a strong negative note, it’s nearly impossible to blend it out. Cami wasn’t experienced enough to blend test batches in small quantities. She always thought I was too cautious, so she leaped right in.”

  “What a costly mistake.”

  “She’s doing the damage-control dance. She hired someone to design a cute label. She’ll bottle it and ship it out to some discount stores. She’ll be lucky to break even and luckier still if some review sites don’t associate her with the wine.” She clenched her hands in her lap. “Or me.”

  All the arguments they�
�d had about committing to making too much wine before Christine knew and approved of quality suddenly made sense.

  Beside him, Christine gave another heavy sigh.

  Of the two, she was normally the touchy-feely one. He surprised himself by reaching over and putting his hand over hers. “You know what you need?”

  “To move to another country? I hear they’re looking for winemakers in Chile.” She managed a weak smile.

  He shook his head. “French fries.”

  * * *

  “WHY IS MAKING money so important to you?” Christine asked, after she’d demolished her small bag of fries and washed it down with a Diet Coke. “You already have a fat wallet.”

  “I told you that night we went bowling.”

  “I thought we were beyond lies.” She gazed out the window.

  He shouldn’t have been surprised at how well she knew him. He’d already risked her respect by baring his scar. He wasn’t going to tell her the grim details. Besides, she was most likely giving notice in the morning. No matter what he said, she didn’t believe the partnership wouldn’t sell.

  They drove into Harmony Valley in silence.

  Slade stopped on Main Street in front of the old grocery store. “I need to text Flynn in case the girls are too much for him.” Not that the town was large enough that it was an inconvenience to go back and get them, but a left here would put him quickly at Flynn’s.

  Are the girls all right?

  Almost immediately a reply: All 3 fell asleep early watching a movie. No camping tonight.

  Slade put the truck back in gear.

  Straight ahead was the town square. Two turns right and he’d be at Agnes’s house. A right, a left, and a right, and he’d be at the Death and Divorce House.

  He wouldn’t take Christine there. If he did, he’d tell her everything. Then she’d understand why he had to recommend selling. And why he was going to recommend she quit to find another job.

  Life would be so much easier if she quit.

  One less person to let down. He’d already let down too many.

  Right. Left. Right.