Summer Kisses

by Melinda Curtis

  “Abandoned her kid?” Webber scanned the folded sheet of paper. “Smart girl, leaving him with a millionaire.”

  “This was a mistake.” Flynn reached for his things.

  “Do you want her found or not?” Webber swept them out of reach, smiling like they were having a schoolyard argument involving the word Mine!

  “I’m worried about her,” Flynn ground out.

  Webber took out what looked to be a contract. He filled out the client information for Flynn, including his name, address and cell phone number. Annoying, that he apparently knew it by heart. He filled in a daily rate and flipped the contract around for Flynn to sign.

  “You’re overcharging me.” Flynn didn’t know how he knew, he just knew. He could hear Becca in his head, telling him he was a sucker for always overpaying. He wanted his sister found, but if this guy was the one to find her, he wouldn’t get a penny more than he earned.

  Webber smiled, but it was the kind of smile you bestowed on backstabbing officemates. “That’s the millionaire rate.”

  Flynn pushed the contract back to Webber’s side of the desk. “Funny thing you probably didn’t realize about me. I’m a programmer. I could hack you in less than five minutes. Another five and I’d have your website and IP address registered as a spammer’s in all fifty states. Set aside the fact that email as a form of communication for your business would be shut down or that I could point your web address to online videos of toddlers shoving food up their noses.” Now Flynn was just being kind. “Imagine what I could do with an hour.”

  Webber took a moment to chew on that before crossing out the exorbitant hourly rate and writing something much, much lower. He slid the contract across the desk.

  Flynn initialed the changed rate and signed on the dotted line. “You can call my cell now. We’ve got service in Harmony Valley.”

  “Yeah, I know. I’ll update you in a few days.”

  Flynn turned to go.

  “Mr. Harris?”

  Flynn turned back around.

  “Since you’re a client now, when I find out what Ms. MacKenzie stole from Harold Epstein, I’ll let you know before I send the cops out to arrest her. What you do with that information is up to you.”

  Flynn didn’t waste energy arguing over Becca’s innocence. She was guilty of something. But a thief? Flynn found that hard to believe.

  He didn’t say much to his friends as they drove back to Harmony Valley. He was too busy formulating ways to ask Becca what was going on.

  And contingency plans to protect her.

  * * *

  WHEN AGNES ARRIVED at Edwin’s for the wine tasting, she not only brought Mildred, but four bottles of wine. Her hands trembled a bit as she carried them in. From nerves, not old age. It took chutzpah to bring her granddaughter’s wine to a wine tasting where the outcome would decide which winemakers Flynn and his friends would interview.

  She was walking more than one tightrope this evening—Agnes had been unable to convince Christine to apply for the job. Her granddaughter had every excuse in the book. She was too stressed to apply for a new job. She didn’t want to go from one high end, high maintenance employer to another. Her dad wanted her to take a job at a different winery.

  Kids nowadays. She included her son-in-law, Christine’s father, in that statement. The vineyards manager was always jumping ship from one job to the next. She hated that he was trying to impart his ways on Christine.

  Christine was unhappy. She hadn’t grown up in Harmony Valley. She had no idea how much this place needed someone like her. Or how much Agnes needed someone like her. When Becca moved on to her next client, as she kept insisting she’d do, Agnes was going to be alone once more. And no ring, no peach tree, no cherished memory would fill her dinner table the way Becca had.

  She expected Edwin knew something about loneliness.

  Since Irma died, Edwin’s house had been a somber, masculine place, even when Flynn and Kathy lived there as children. Tonight, she could see purple and pink hydrangea bouquets through the rarely opened windows—one on a coffee table and the other on the kitchen table. The welcome mat had been hosed off, so you could actually read the word Welcome.

  Abby greeted Agnes and Mildred at the door. She sniffed Mildred’s walker before prancing on her hind legs for Agnes.

  “I didn’t bring you any treats,” Agnes whispered. Becca didn’t know she sneaked the little dog snacks when Becca wasn’t looking. It was a pleasure to have people and dogs around the house again.

  Mildred wheeled over to sit on the couch across from Edwin.

  Pale skin, haggard eyes. Edwin looked like he was ready to hail a cab to heaven.

  Agnes paused in the foyer. He didn’t look like a man on the road to recovery. “Edwin, you look tired. Should we do this another day?” As soon as the words left her lips, Agnes regretted them.

  “I’ve been tired since I turned sixty,” Edwin snapped, defending his masculine ego. Agnes should have known better. “I’ve got the best seat in the house for this function. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Were we supposed to bring wine?” Rose peered around her granddaughter, Emma, who was arranging cheese and crackers on a serving tray. “I thought the men were bringing it.”

  “My granddaughter, Christine, made these.” Agnes set the clanking cloth bag with the wine on the counter. She twisted the ruby ring.

  Emma’s gaze was drawn to her fingers. “That’s a pretty ring. Is it new?”

  “No.” Agnes put her hand behind her back.

  “She won’t tell us where she got it,” Rose grumbled, smoothing her black pencil skirt over her nonexistent curves. At eighty, Rose still had the body of a ballerina. “I figure it’s from an ex-lover.”

  “Rose,” Agnes scolded, exchanging a look with Becca, who was at the sink drying wineglasses.

  “See what I mean?” Rose grumbled. “Won’t say a word.”

  Agnes spun the ring until the ruby lay in her palm. She clenched her fingers and put her hand over her heart.

  Truman sat on the far side of Edwin’s recliner near the wall. He peeked out at the newcomers and then went back to playing with his action figures.

  “Hello, Truman.” Agnes drifted closer. “Whose house did you work on today?”

  “We took a vacation day today.” His smile was almost woeful.

  “I hear Mae Gardner’s fence needs fixing,” Agnes said.

  Truman perked up. “That’s awesome. I get to hammer on fences.”

  “Agnes.” Mildred pushed her walker to one side of the couch and produced a stack of paper from her voluminous purse. “I printed out the rating sheets from garden club’s last wine tasting fundraiser.” She looked abashed. “At least I hope that’s what I printed out.” Hard to tell when she had trouble seeing.

  Agnes scanned them, confirming they were, indeed, what they needed.

  “Pens and pencils are on the counter in the kitchen.” Edwin waved a hand at Becca, who promptly took Mildred’s rating sheets from Agnes and went to get the writing utensils.

  A black truck pulled up and the men piled out.

  Becca stopped counting pens and pencils to watch Flynn get out of the truck. She kept watching as they unloaded box after box of wine from the back.

  Agnes had seen the way Flynn looked at Becca. Why the girl didn’t snatch that catch up was beyond her. He was a gem who was shining brighter since he’d cut that mop of red hair.

  A more immediate concern was Christine’s wine. Would they agree to include it in the tasting?

  Rose pressed her nose to the front window like a kid on a mission to spot the Easter Bunny. “That’s a lot of wine. We’re going to need spit cups.”

  Truman slipped next to Rose, quiet as a church mouse. After a moment, he pressed his face against the glass, too.
r />   Without taking her nose off the glass, Rose gave Truman a thumbs-up and received a grin in return. “Edwin, do you have any plastic cups? Your young men probably have had a party or two where they needed them.”

  “Those red ones you throw away? No. But Flynn has a collection of plastic cups from a fast food restaurant. They have superheroes on them.”

  Agnes could barely hear the men outside over the pounding of her heart. Did she have the nerve to go through with this?

  Rose patted Truman on the head and headed for the kitchen, where she hunted around in the cupboards until she found cups. “These’ll do. Superheroes in capes and tights. We’re going old school, aren’t we, Agnes? Nothing mechanical or robotic.”

  Agnes paced the archway separating the kitchen from the living room. “Save that last one for me. There’s nothing sexier than a man in green tights.”

  Flynn came in with the first case of wine, followed by Slade, and Will, who stopped to give his fiancé, Emma, a quick kiss over the top of his box.

  This was it. Agnes backed into the corner of the kitchen. Butterflies dive bombed her stomach. She’d never gambled in a casino, never played the lottery. Manny used to say she lacked the nerve.

  “This wine wasn’t on our list.” Flynn picked up a bottle of chardonnay Agnes had brought, then a cabernet.

  Agnes’s mouth was almost too dry to form words. “My granddaughter made those wines. She’s a winemaker in Napa.”

  “Do we have her résumé?” Flynn asked, while Will craned his neck to look at the label over Flynn’s shoulder.

  “No. She missed the submission deadline,” Agnes fibbed, sending a few more butterflies on a kamikaze mission. “I thought her wines could be her résumé.”

  Slade relieved Flynn of the bottle of cabernet, frowning. Of the three men, he was always the most severe, the most intimidating.

  “I vote we try Christine’s wine,” Edwin said. The house was small enough that all conversations could be heard. “Although she never lived here, her mother did. She’s a perfect candidate for relocation.”

  “She could live with me.” Agnes gripped the counter, unable to believe they were going to taste the wine.

  Rose rubbed Agnes’s back. “It’s nice having someone else in the house. Isn’t it Emma?”

  “Yes, it is,” Emma shared a secret smile with Will.

  The warmth of their young love washed over Agnes. She brushed her thumb over the ruby cradled in her palm.

  Flynn whispered something to Becca, but she shook her head. He frowned.

  “So.” Will rubbed his hands together. “Who’s running this show?”

  Agnes stepped forward. “I’ll assign codes for each wine, put the codes on the score sheets and brown bag everything, so no one knows which wine is which.”

  “I’d like a bit more impartiality.” Slade crossed his arms over his chest. “No offense, Agnes.”

  “None taken.” But really, there was. She wiped her sweaty palms on the back of her denim capris. She had to make sure Christine’s wine won. Her wine was good, but there were some high-end winemakers in the mix.

  “Becca will do the honors. She told me earlier she wasn’t going to taste.” Slade guided Becca to the cluster of wine bottles on the counter. “Everyone who isn’t opening wine bottles out of the kitchen.”

  “I’ll help.” Flynn hovered closely behind Becca. “I need to discuss something with her anyway. We can talk and prepare wine at the same time.”

  Becca carefully didn’t look his way.

  “No,” Slade shut down the would-be Romeo. “You can make those tight circles later.”

  Agnes grinned. “Becca, you’ll want to strip off the neck wraps before you brown bag them. Oh, and write the codes on a master list before you bag the wine.”

  “Thank you for the advice.” Slade swept one arm toward the living room, dismissing Agnes, who exchanged one last, pleading glance with Becca.

  Not that she was asking her to cheat.

  * * *

  THERE WAS NO mistaking the look on Agnes’s face.

  She was asking Becca to cheat.

  Agnes was after the wrong person, since Becca had never been to a blind wine tasting before, much less an organized one. She wouldn’t know how to fix the results.

  But still, what was up with that?

  And then there was Flynn, who said he needed to talk with her alone. Agnes kept making those I-know-what-you-did-on-the-bridge looks at Becca every time Flynn was around, every time his name was mentioned. Why weren’t people understanding the concept of keeping Becca’s nose clean? It’s an employer-employee relationship, people.

  Becca sealed the top of each paper bag around the lip of the wine bottle with blue masking tape, then used a thin permanent marker to code the bag. There were nearly forty bottles of wine, two of each winery’s type. While she wrestled with bags and tape, the conversations in the living room filled her with a surprising sense of longing.

  “When’s the wedding?” Agnes asked. Becca imagined her keeping the ruby ring carefully concealed in her palm, perhaps over her heart. She’d worn the ring every day since they’d argued about it and found that penny near Agnes’s trunk.

  “We’re getting married next spring. After the winery is open.” Becca imagined Emma lit up the room with her red batik print skirt and her happily-ever-after smile.

  “I’ve always thought these walkers should come with a cup holder and a sound system.” Mildred had been a race car driver and still loved her automotive accessories.

  “Walkers aren’t cars,” Edwin rumbled, but his voice seemed weak and muted. He gave a little wheezy cough. “They’re like adult strollers.”

  “After we decide on a winemaker, we’ll need to begin staffing the other positions.” Will spoke in a deep, I-never-panic tone.

  “The winemaker will want some say in who else we hire.” She could just picture Slade smoothing his ever-present tie.

  Becca smiled. This was what family was like, extended or otherwise. This was what was permanently missing in her own life. Not that she’d ever belong in the living room. As a caregiver, she’d always be an outsider at gatherings like this. She’d been fine with that for years. She planned to be fine with that forever.

  “Becca’s done a wonderful job with the house,” Flynn was saying. “We bachelors aren’t very good at cooking or cleaning or stocking up on toilet paper.”

  Hearing Flynn’s voice, Becca’s longing to belong increased. He was the carrot she happily, and sometimes unwittingly, plodded toward. But even if they explored their feelings for each other after her lawsuit was dismissed—crossing fingers, knocking on wood—it might not amount to anything.

  Truman peeked around the corner. “Can I help?”

  Becca didn’t want Truman handling the wine. “You can pass out the rating sheets and pens. Give each person a magazine to use as a clipboard.”

  Truman scampered off.

  She set up the wines all around the U-shaped kitchen counter and tucked the key to the codes in her back pocket.

  Soon the tasting was in full swing. Only Edwin, Becca and, of course, Truman abstained.

  Becca made sure people had water. She made sure people had spit cups. She made sure to stay away from Flynn.

  As the tasting went on, the testers’ voices increased in volume, as if the more wine they drank, the louder they had to speak. The more they laughed and smiled, the more left out Becca felt, no matter how much she told herself she didn’t belong. She had to consider herself a servant, a member of the staff. But she couldn’t. She wanted to belong too badly.

  She slipped out the kitchen door and followed the porch around to the rear of the house where it overlooked the Harmony River. The lights from the house barely illuminated the blackberry bushes below the railing. The m
urmur of laughter and warm voices drowned out the gurgle of the river and the deep bass of the frogs.

  On nights like this she missed having someone. Mom. Gram. Terry.

  Her evenings with Agnes were precious, as Agnes treated Becca like a granddaughter. But it was all short term. Agnes. Flynn. Harmony Valley.

  The front door opened. Footsteps rounded the porch.

  She knew who it was before he appeared.

  Flynn. A glass of wine in his hand.

  She drank him in, the short hair that made him look so handsome, his wiry frame, blue jeans and a rumpled T-shirt with red wine stains on the front. She fought a grin. Flynn wasn’t Slade and didn’t care much about appearances. He cared about people. About his friends. About his grandfather and his nephew.

  And her. He cared about her.

  Becca hadn’t thought about his feelings before. He was like Abby, rushing around, tending his flock. She was one of many he watched out for.

  If Becca told herself she was one of many, she might not dream about him tonight. If she told herself she was content living alone, she might not feel a stab of longing when their eyes met. If she told herself he’d kissed her because she was the only available woman under the age of sixty-five in town, she might not relive the urgent press of his lips on hers.

  She told herself none of those things.

  They stood looking at each other long enough to pick out china patterns and silver sets.

  Becca wet her lips and dragged her gaze away from his. She should return to the kitchen, pick up empty bottles, check on Edwin.

  Not one tootsie in her tennis shoes budged.

  “I saw that private detective today.” Flynn walked to the center of the porch and rested his forearms on the railing next to her. “He said there’s a family, the family of whoever you worked for last, that’s taking inventory of his valuables.”

  Becca reached out to steady herself on a porch post. That ring. She never should have taken it. It was less than two weeks until her hearing. Two weeks! Would Harold’s daughter, Diane, discover the ring missing by then? Could she take the chance?

  Flynn sipped his wine casually, as if he wasn’t studying her out of the corner of his eye. “I asked you about taking money. I didn’t ask you about taking other things.”