Sam held up his hand. “Whoa. Back up. Did you say you drove back home with him?”
She bit her lower lip as she had when she’d been caught mischief-making as a little girl. “I did. It was pouring rain, and the train station was a long way away. I didn’t see any harm in it.”
Sam leaned forward and clasped his hands in his lap. He stabbed her with a very serious look. “Actually, that was smart. The best way to infiltrate the enemy is to go undercover. Good job. Did you learn anything significant?”
Liz considered the wisdom of talking to Sam about Gabe’s offer but decided against it. Right now, Sam was feeling guilty and contrite about the loss of the cashier’s check. Maria had told Liz he’d gone through all his dresser drawers and emptied them completely. He’d even cleaned out his closets, which Maria had never known him to have done.
If Sam found out Gabe was interested in buying their land, he might urge her to consider the sale because of the lost check. Liz knew that Sam was content with the vineyard just the way it was and he didn’t feel it was necessary to expand the fields to include Matt’s land—her land. The fallow land was a young person’s dream. So it made sense that the acreage would appeal to someone like Gabe. Gabe had the kind of energy and vision she guessed her father had had all those years ago.
“Liz?” Sam pressed her. “What else did you learn from our enemy?”
Enemy? It sounded vile when Sam said it, but was that the truth? Right now, Liz believed Gabe had wooed her with moonlit dances and an unforgettable kiss in order to convince her to sell her land to him. “Like I said, he talked a lot about his family. For instance, he’s very close with his mother.”
Sam sat back and rubbed his chin. “Since he’s practically running their farm, I would have assumed he and his father were one and the same.”
“Apparently not.” She looked out the window thoughtfully. “I may be stepping out by saying this, but I get the impression Gabe has real issues with his father. He seems to be on edge when his father is around, or even when he comes up in conversation.”
“Hmm. Close with his mother, huh?” Sam’s voice dropped nearly to a whisper. “She doted on him.”
Her grandfather’s eyes had a faraway look as he spoke. How did Sam know Gina doted on Gabe? Liz had barely told him anything about Gabe. For a long moment, Sam appeared to be in another world. Then, quite suddenly, he jerked his gaze back to her.
“What else did he say?”
“That’s what he said,” Liz interjected, not paying attention to the faraway look in Sam’s eyes. “She used to take him and his brothers to Chicago to see the theater and art galleries. The museums. He loved it.”
“So did you, when I took you. Do you remember the aquarium and the planetarium?”
“I do, Grandpa.” She smiled, feeling the last vestiges of her former fears about his memory and mind vanishing. “Those were wonderful times.”
“Yes,” Sam replied. “Wonderful. After Matthew and Kim died, I tried to make life as normal for you as I could.” Sadness marked his tone. His voice caught on the final word.
“Oh, Grandpa!” Liz jumped up from the sofa and hugged him. “You did just that. I was so lucky to have you. I still am. Don’t ever think otherwise. I had all the love and affection any child could ever want from a parent. And you were both mother and father to me. It must have been so hard on you.”
He touched her long hair and smoothed it. “It’s been my pleasure, Elizabeth. Every minute of it.”
Liz looked up into her grandfather’s loving blue eyes and winced at the thought that one day he would be gone. His loving presence would never be replaced by that of another person on earth.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GABE SAT AT the computer in the large walnut-paneled study that led to the back veranda. He was going over a new canning contract. They were about to have a bumper crop of Italian green beans they’d never grown before—what Gabe had thought would be an experimental year was turning out to be a productive one. The weather had been on their side, and because they’d received the right amount of rain on the exact days they’d needed it, his little crop was going to make them an extra ten thousand dollars. It wasn’t much for a farm that pulled in hundreds of thousands of dollars a season, but Gabe believed that each time he could profit from a fallow piece of land, he was ahead of the game.
He pushed back in his chair and gazed out at the pool area, where his mother was spreading a colorful linen cloth on a table. She’d just come back from the hairdresser, who had trimmed her hair neatly to shoulder length and restored her dark brown color. There were times when Gabe looked at his mother and marveled at how little she had aged since he was a child. She had worked just as hard as Gabe’s father all her life, yet she looked twenty years younger than she was. Gabe attributed this to her outlook on life: she believed that no matter what, every moment of every day was precious. She lived in the moment and never took anything or anyone for granted.
For the first time in his life, Gabe felt he’d found that same attitude in another person.
Liz.
Gabe stood, shoved his hands in his pockets and walked away from the window. Then he walked back. He sat down again, his mind filled with visions of Liz. The feel of her lips against his. The icy chill she’d given him when she’d turned down his offer.
He’d made some miscalculations in his life, but that kiss had to go down in his personal history as the worst.
And if that weren’t bad enough, he’d blurted out that he would like to buy her land. He hadn’t known the Crenshaws owned anything more than the fifty or so acres they had planted and worked. Once he’d realized that Liz and he were practically writing the same wine journal, he jumped at the idea of aligning forces.
It seemed natural to him.
But Liz had swung the opposite way and looked at him as if he were a terrorist, not a potential business partner.
He swiped his face with his hand then rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, you’ve gone and done it this time,” he chided himself. “What were you thinking?”
Liz the woman and Liz the business partner were going to be not only frustrating to deal with but impossible to predict. At this point, he wasn’t sure if she’d ever talk to him again, after the glare she’d thrown him when she’d driven away last night.
And despite all his strategizing about how to convince Liz that working together would benefit them both, his thoughts kept going right back to kissing her.
He turned off his computer. Just as well. He couldn’t remember a word of the contract.
He picked up his cell phone, thinking he’d send her a text. And say what? He’d missed his chance to call or check in on her last night. He knew she’d liked it when he’d texted to make sure she’d gotten home safely after the engagement party. He’d had an opportunity to do that again yesterday, and he hadn’t taken it. Not that he expected her to talk to him after what he’d said and done at the cove.
Gabe watched his mother carry a tray of food out to the table she was setting. She tossed a green salad inside a large wooden bowl, and then she began slicing a large loaf of Italian bread. He couldn’t tell from this distance if it was her garlic bread, smothered in butter, minced sautéed garlic, parsley and basil, but he hoped so.
The bright summer sun glinted off the pool, and the sunbeams hit Gabe’s eyes. Again, he immediately thought of sitting on the picnic table at sunset and kissing Liz. How was it possible that a simple kiss had affected him so deeply?
He’d met Liz when he was ten, but he knew from their talks about their pasts and the death of her parents that Liz didn’t remember him from those days.
But he’d never forgotten her.
Gabe had struggled to tell Liz that his mother had taken him and his brothers to her parents’ funeral, but each time he’d thought to broach the subject, he wa
s afraid she would question his motives. Most of the time, Liz seemed to think he was some kind of carrier monkey. And yet, at other times, he would swear that no woman had ever treated him with more genuine concern than Liz did. She was the first person he’d ever met who was truly interested in his dreams of winemaking. Perhaps it was because Liz was the first female vintner he’d known.
Gabe rubbed his chin. Now that he thought about it, that wasn’t entirely true, either. He had met female winemakers and sommeliers in the past. It was Liz’s attentiveness that was different. When she listened to him, she gave him all her concentration. She didn’t blow him off or belittle his ideas.
In many ways she was so much like him.
The biggest difference between them was the fact that she’d grown up under the weight of grief and loss. Gabe couldn’t begin to imagine how difficult that must have been for a little girl.
Gabe distinctly remembered his mother arguing with his father about taking the boys out of school for the funeral. None of his brothers understood why it was so important for them to attend, but they were all so happy to play hooky that they’d gladly gone. That funeral was the first memorial service Gabe had ever been to. Being the eldest, he’d been expected to make Rafe, Mica and Nate behave. But all of the boys had easily fallen into line when they’d sensed how solemn the day was.
What had impressed Gabe the most was his mother’s stoic silence nearly all morning. She’d seemed to be in another world as she’d driven them back to school from the graveyard.
He remembered Gina talking to them about the sorrow of death and the misfortune of little Liz.
All these years, Gabe had kept a picture of Liz in his head, a gangly six-year-old with a river of honey-colored hair flowing past her waist, fanning across her back like illuminated angel’s wings.
She’d held her grandfather’s hand all day, and though the old man had cried openly, Liz had never broken down. Gabe had wondered if she’d been in shock, or if she had been trying to stay strong for her grandfather. Gabe knew that if his mother died, he would never be able to stop his tears.
Being emotional was probably a flaw of Gabe’s, but his mother had told him once that he laughed joyfully, shouted his anger and cried out his sorrow because he cared about life so much.
Over the past seven or eight years, Gabe feared he didn’t care about anything enough. He’d started to feel dead inside. Working on the farm—the business contracts, the ledgers, the marketing plans—just wasn’t exciting or fulfilling. He was following in his father’s well-worn footsteps and the ruts were so deep they were nearly impossible to step above.
Gabe was at a crossroads, and this past year, he’d decided he had to do something about it or he’d wither from the inside out and blow away.
Being the eldest Barzonni, Gabe had precise responsibilities. It was his duty to oversee all that Angelo had built. To carry on the family name and business and to provide for the next generation.
Angelo had roamed the streets of Naples as an orphan, stealing, begging and scraping for every morsel of food, so Gabe supposed becoming a landowner in America, where no one knew him, was his father’s brass ring. Life circumstances had molded Angelo into a survivor—no matter the cost to his family life. Gabe was well aware of the stories about how Angelo had come to own all the farms around his villa. When he was just a boy, Gabe had dismissed them as gossip or sour grapes. Now that he was older, he wasn’t so sure.
Angelo had been blessed by being in the right place at the right time. He’d come to Indiana right when a terrible drought had put most farmers out of business. He’d had money saved from years of working seven days a week at every job he could find.
Once in Indiana, Angelo had bought several farms for back taxes due, which many people saw as stealing the land from his neighbors. Other parcels and farms he negotiated squarely with the owners or their estates and heirs as time passed.
There was not a harder-working man on earth than Angelo Barzonni, and he had taught all of his sons diligence and perseverance. What he didn’t ever acknowledge were the dreams his sons fostered for themselves.
Angelo cared about sustaining his own dream. Oh, he connected with Rafe because of their racing horses, and he and Mica bonded over Mica’s inventive ideas to make the farm run more efficiently. But his father’s inability to nurture his sons’ needs and goals had cut him off from them. Now there was nothing left of their relationships but cordialities—the respect an employee would give an employer.
Gabe had lost sight of his own dreams until he’d had the chance to buy the Mattuchi vineyard. For the past six months as he’d worked with the attorneys and Mario to finalize the deal, his ambitions had come back to him one by one.
In the process of harvesting his passion, Gabe had realized that one day he would be forced to break his father’s heart. He wasn’t sure how many years he could run the farm and see to his vineyard at the same time. He told himself he was young and energetic and could do anything. If his father could build up his land and business to the degree he had, surely Gabe could work two jobs. At this phase, his little vineyard felt like moonlighting anyway.
But later...
Once the wines had been aged, once the vines had doubled and then tripled, he would have to tell his father he was moving on. He would have to quit the farm.
What kind of firestorm would erupt on that day? Would Angelo disown him? And would his mother side with him against his father or would she take Angelo’s side? Would Gabe lose his whole family because he wanted—no, needed—to make a name for himself on his own terms?
Gabe needed to become his own person. When he made decisions, they needed to be his own. They would affect his business and not his father’s farm.
He raked his fingers through his hair and stood stock-still as he thought of his little vineyard next to the Crenshaws’.
Mixed up in the turmoil about his future was Liz. Her image floated across his mind at least a dozen times a day. Okay, three dozen. Gabe didn’t understand. He’d met stunning women before. But he’d only met one Liz Crenshaw.
He should have known better than to have kissed her. What had he been thinking? That he could grab some of that radiance for himself? Some of her courage?
Getting to know and understand Liz had fueled his new desire to be with her. His feelings for her were making him act totally out of character. He was usually secretive, but he’d told her about his childhood and his issues with his father. Gabe had bumbled and stumbled his way into her life, hoping simply to get to know her, and then crazy as it was, he’d continued to stumble right into a romantic trap.
He actually did care whether she got home safely. He did care what opinion she had of him. He wanted her to like him. He wanted her...
Gabe felt as if he’d been stabbed with a pitchfork. Could he be falling in love with Liz?
If he was, that would mean he should not and could not pursue a land deal with her. But now that he’d calculated those precious acres into his own ambitions, letting the idea go was painful.
If he wanted Liz, really wanted her, he would have to give up his dreams—maybe for good.
Sure, he could make some wine on the Mattuchi land, but he’d always known it was just a start.
He could still buy grapes from foreign countries and blend and ferment to varying degrees. His wine would be good. But superlative? Probably not. And that was his goal.
He tried to conjure up the long-held vision of himself holding a bottle of award-winning, in-a-class-by-itself wine, but the image was slowly erased by the compassion for him in Liz’s eyes.
For years, he’d vowed to himself that once he’d ventured onto his own path, nothing was going to stop him. Now he wasn’t so sure.
Suddenly, he had two dreams he knew he couldn’t live without. And the one with Liz in it was gaining ground, fast.
That was a hot button if ever he’d seen one.
But why?
The answer was there somewhere in their conversations. He went over every word they’d said to each other. He could only surmise that her need to fulfill her father’s dream was just as vital as his need to pursue a dream different from his own father’s—to pursue a career as a vintner. If her drive was anywhere near as strong as his, he realized suddenly, Liz could easily be obsessed. And obsession was something Gabe understood in spades.
Gabe had ached to have a life of his own, and yet, he’d always felt he lived on the tenterhooks of his duty to his family and the sense of responsibility he felt toward his mother. He’d obsessed over how he would move out on his own and not break his mother’s heart.
It was ironic, the way fate maneuvered two people together and then pulled them apart by using their own ambitions against them.
He didn’t know if she’d ever want to see him again, but he hoped to heaven she did. If he was going to salvage their friendship, much less move to the next phase of their relationship, he’d better come up with something more than flowers with which to apologize.
He would also have to figure out a way to bring his father around to the idea of him spending time with Liz. And that was bizarre, as well. Both the things Gabe wanted most, Liz and his life as a winemaker, would create another rift in his already shaky relationship with his father. Ever since the night of Nate’s engagement party, Gabe had been careful not to mention Liz or her grandfather around either of his parents, even though his father’s prejudices made no sense to him.
It had been a long time since he’d pushed his opinions on any of the boys. Angelo had simply reverted to old behaviors that night.
A Fine Year for Love (Shores of Indian Lake) Page 13