How to explain? Gabby's mind raced as Max's moans filled the silent house. Will stared at him for a moment longer, then again turned toward Gabby. "Are you okay?" he repeated.
This time she found her voice. "I'm fine." She said it, maybe she even meant it. She looked down at herself, saw welts rising on her arms, the ugly bruises Max's hands had made. Then, only then, she started to tremble.
"Oh, baby." Will came toward her, gathered her gently, so gently, into his arms. "I didn't know what in hell I was hearing through that door." She felt his breath in her hair, the rapid hammer of his heart against her chest. "Dammit, I'm so glad I came back." He pulled back a bit, held her at arm's length.
For a moment he said nothing, just looked at her with those sky-blue eyes of his, but she swore she could hear words spill from his mouth into the chilly air. I love you.
Then his lips moved, and she heard actual words spoken. "I came back to apologize. I was such a jerk. I can't believe the things I said to you. I am really sorry, Gabby. Can you forgive me?"
"Oh, Will." Forgive him? Who was kidding who? "I said such terrible things, too. I am so sorry." She collapsed against him, crying, choking, telling him she'd been so unfair, knowing in her soul that it was oh, so right to trust him. And hoping she'd never forget that again.
Chapter 12
First thing Monday morning, well before eight o'clock, Gabby did something highly irregular. When she arrived at work, she bypassed the winery and instead went straight to the Winsted residence. Mrs. Finchley greeted her at the front door, as neat and starched as a naval officer in her housekeeper's uniform.
"Sorry to stop by so early," Gabby said, "but I'd like to speak with Max if he's available, please."
The older woman's brows arched. "Is there a problem?"
No, except for the fact that your boss assaulted me Friday night. Gabby made a dismissive wave of the hand. "Oh, it's just something I'd like to fill Max in on before he gets busy at the winery."
"He may not be available just at the moment," Mrs. Finchley said, which Gabby knew was a diplomatic way of saying He's not up yet.
She smiled, confident the housekeeper would promptly march upstairs and rouse him. "I'll wait."
Mrs. Finchley set Gabby up in the living room with a mug of coffee and a warm apricot scone, then sailed off. Gabby settled in a cozy upholstered chair beside the white brick fireplace and tried not to drop crumbs on the pristine hardwood floor.
It was a lovely sunlit room, elegant but not fussy, with art books and photographs on the few tables and cheerful blue-and-yellow chairs and sofa. The only decoration was a painting over the fireplace of a winter stream, but Gabby supposed that the view through the French doors of garden, pool, pergola, and vineyards provided plenty enough to look at.
She finished her scone, emptied her mug, crossed her legs, and twitched her foot rhythmically in the air. She knew exactly what she was going to say to Max and wanted to get it over with, already. He'd surprised her Friday night. Well, now it was Monday morning and time for her to surprise him.
When he finally appeared, he looked surprised, all right. And wary.
You should be, you jackass, she thought as she rose to her feet.
He stepped a little farther into the room, moving so tentatively she thought he might turn tail at any moment. She could tell from his damp hair and soapy scent that he was freshly showered. Fortunately he didn't reek of cigarettes and alcohol like the last time she'd seen him.
"Good morning," he said.
She skipped the pleasantries, kept her voice low, and edged closer. "I'll make this fast, Max. There are three things you need to know. One, you don't have a single thing to say about how my father and I handle harvest or any aspect of the winemaking. You got that? Nothing." Out shot another finger. "Number two. You tell Felix to rehire every single field worker you made him fire. Today. And three, from now on our official story is the truth. Yes, Suncrest did rebottle the sauvignon blanc, because you decided to switch the bottles. Anyone who calls me and asks, that's what I'm going to tell them. I suggest you do the same."
Max stood planted on the floor, mouth agape.
It was precisely the reaction she wanted.
She was nearly out of the room before she spun on her heels and fired her last salvo. "And if ever again you so much as stand too close to either me or my sister, I will personally see to it that your life becomes a living hell. Have a nice day."
Her heart was pounding when she got outside. It was nerves, partly, but also exultation. She could have gone to the police, she knew, but didn't imagine she'd get much satisfaction. All too easily she could imagine what they'd say, see the dubiousness in their expressions, hear the incredulity in their voices. So you had a fight with your boyfriend? You were drinking wine and wearing your negligee? And at ten o'clock on a Friday night, you don't expect the guy to try something?
Gabby half jogged down the pebbled path that sloped from the residence to the winery. She might go to the police someday. But just at the moment she was much more in the mood for private justice.
*
Three days later, Max's life hadn't improved.
You know what? he mumbled to himself, lumbering downstairs from his father's office. This isn't much fun anymore.
It was eleven o'clock on Thursday morning, and the top item on his agenda was an appointment with Leo Gordon, the manufacturer's rep for the company that made Suncrest's automated bottling line. Max had spent the last two hours bent over mind-numbing paperwork, and now all he had to look forward to was schmoozing with a balding, middle-aged salesman.
And this counted as a good day. Nothing catastrophic had happened yet. For example, none of the female hired help had bitched at him about what he must and must not do.
He hit the bottom of the stairs and loped past the stainless-steel fermentation tanks, with their spouts and knobs and temperature gauges, then pushed open the heavy oak winery door and emerged into the late July sunshine. The air hit him like a furnace blast. He blinked rapidly as his pupils adjusted to the blinding white light. Out from his rear trouser pocket came his cigarettes. He tamped one against the packet then lit it, tossing the match onto the pebbled path.
He squinted west toward the Silverado Trail, waiting for Gordon's truck to drive through Suncrest's bronze entry gates. Vineyards rolled away from him in fruit-heavy majesty. They were getting close to the big season now—Harvest with a capital H. The white grapes would be brought in in a month, then the reds. Everybody around him was getting excited, like crush was the Second Coming.
Could this possibly be all there was for him? Max wondered. Would he be standing here in twenty, thirty, forty years waiting for Leo Gordon's kid to show up? With some woman employee analyzing his every move? The thought felt like a noose around his neck. He could be dragging around this cursed winery until he was dead.
His eye caught the motion of Gordon's truck as it pulled off the Trail and barreled up the drive. It was a massive black flatbed with monstrous wheels, the sort of vehicle that gave Max the willies every time he drove past one in his red Mercedes two-seater. Usually the driver was some heavily sideburned he-man who oozed attitude and testosterone. It was safe to say that Leo Gordon broke the mold.
Gordon careened to a stop, dust billowing behind him, then leaped from the cab and scurried toward Max, right hand outstretched, thick-framed nerd glasses perched on his nose, mouth pulled tight in his salesman's grin. "Max, good to see you, good to see you." He pumped Max's hand vigorously.
Max concluded that Gordon must have a severe perspiration problem, judging from the slickness of his palms and the impressive stains in the armpits of his short-sleeved dress shirt. Max slid his hand from Gordon's grasp and tried to be nonchalant as he wiped it on his trouser leg. "Thanks for coming by."
"My pleasure, my pleasure. So you thinking about putting in a second line?"
"Thinking about it. Haven't made any decisions yet."
"Expansion's always good
, always good."
Max tossed his cigarette butt and led Gordon inside the winery to the warehouselike space at the rear where the bottling line was located. Gordon pranced around it at high speed, examining, nodding, then finally halting in front of Max as if ready to make a pronouncement.
"You got yourself a good line here. Standard forty-eight feet. Solid, reliable equipment." He raised his right arm and waved expansively, providing a wide and clear view of his stained armpit. "Plenty of room to put in a second line. Always a good idea."
"How much would that run me?"
"We could do it for half a million."
"What?" Max nearly choked. "I thought it'd be a lot less than that."
Gordon slapped his back and laughed uproariously. "It's a capital investment, my friend! You have to spend money to make money."
Yeah, yeah, Max knew all about that. Problem was he'd been doing lots of the spending lately but the making wasn't happening nearly so fast. "I don't know," he told Gordon. His enthusiasm for doing much of anything these days was pretty shot. "I'm going to have to think about it."
Gordon went on as if he hadn't heard. "Young man like you probably wants the newest thing. Is that right? Have I got that right?"
"I'd say you do."
Gordon lay a hand on Max's shoulder. "Screw cap, my friend."
"What?"
"Screw cap! Real cork is getting harder to find, plus screw cap keeps the wine fresher. It's the new style! And you"—he jabbed a finger into Max's chest—"you can be on the cutting edge."
Max shrugged, unmoved. "It's an idea."
"It's a fantastic idea!" Gordon looked astounded that Max wasn't convinced. He pushed his nerd glasses higher on his nose and peered at Max as if at a specimen on a slide. Then he shrugged. "You think about it. Let it stew. Young man like you, you'll see the wisdom. After all these years in the business, I know that much. No need to give you the hard sell." He slapped Max on the back and started to walk away. "By the way, sorry I didn't have that corker jaw you people needed July Fourth weekend."
Max stilled. "Refresh my memory?"
"The corker jaw?" Gordon halted and looked back at him. "Your guy told me it slowed you down by a few hours. See?" He pointed at Max with an I told you so expression. "You put in a screw-cap line, you won't have that problem. Anyway, sorry I couldn't help. Can't get a corker jaw on a holiday." He waved again then scuttled off.
Max remained standing next to the sleeping bottling line, adding two and two together. His mind ground to one inescapable conclusion: the rebottled sauvignon blanc had gone bad because Gabby DeLuca let it sit for hours while she tried to find some damn part. No wonder it got too much oxygen and went "past its peak," as Joseph Wagner put it. If she hadn't screwed up, he told himself, the rebottling would've worked.
Man. Max shook his head, filled with disgust. He couldn't be held responsible for that but yet he was, because the buck stopped with him. The rebottling fails? His fault. The field workers spray the wrong shit? His fault. Some restaurateur's wife won't admit she got hot for a younger guy? His fault again!
Thinking of Barbie McDougall made Max think of Gabby DeLuca. He headed for the stairs, his lips curling in a sneer. Self-satisfied slut! Acts all saintly with him but clearly is putting out for Will Henley. What killed was that he had to be supernice to her now, despite how bossy and arrogant she was. That tirade she went off on? Man!
Deep in the recesses of his mind, Max knew that others might perceive a nasty pattern in his behavior: the girl from two years ago whose father made those gnarly accusations, then Barbie McDougall, then Gabby DeLuca ...
But the only pattern Max saw was women who did one thing and said another and never once took responsibility for their own actions. He was sick of it. Actually, he was sick of a lot of things.
He opened the door to his father's office, sat down at the big mahogany desk. He looked around him, at this office he'd known all his life, had played in as a kid, with its tartan sofas and cherrywood paneling and sports trophies from the '40s and '50s. It hadn't changed one iota in the two years since his dad had died.
It's still my father's office. The revelation hit Max as clearly as if the sky had opened and God Spoke From Above.
This is my father's life. It's not mine.
The more he thought about it, the more obvious it became. This life had been foisted on him. By his father and by his mother. With its meaningless decisions about what grape varieties to plant and how many worker bees to hire and fire and whether to stop up the bottles with corks or screw caps. And now, thanks to Gabby DeLuca, he was hamstrung in every way. He could barely take a leak without consulting her first.
He sat at his father's desk and pondered. What he needed was something new, something that would allow him to pursue his own ideas. Suncrest sure didn't fit that definition. It was a drag, and it would stay a drag for the rest of his life. If he let it.
I need a way out. But I can't just quit. That would be too embarrassing.
Max's mind clanked and groaned and eventually came around to the conversation he'd had with Will Henley and his mother when he'd just gotten home from France. We could take Suncrest entirely off your hands, Henley had said. Free you up. Provide to you, in cash, the substantial value of your holdings. Thirty million dollars.
Thirty million dollars. That was a nice chunk of change. Max would need cash to launch his next venture, whatever it might be. Thirty million would be enough to do something cutting edge, as that bozo Gordon put it.
Maybe, just maybe, he should call Henley and feel him out. Sure, it'd be weird. The last he'd seen him, Henley had been spitting fire, all riled up because of Max's little touchy-feely with his girlfriend. Max wasn't too keen on the guy, that was for sure. He was a full-of-himself city slicker who had a big job and thought he was smarter than God. But how smart could he be if he wanted to buy Suncrest? The thing was cursed.
Yet Henley was so gung-ho, he already had an offer on the table. He was hungry for the deal. Max bet he still would be regardless of the to-do with his girlfriend.
Max chuckled. What a beautiful turnaround to unload Suncrest on Henley. Max would be free, with money in his pocket to do whatever he pleased, and Henley would be stuck holding the bag.
Now that would be sweet.
Max decided he didn't have time to preview all this with his mother. If it got serious, he'd just have to bring her on board. Because he had to move fast. There was some nasty shit floating around about Suncrest and he didn't want Will Henley to hear any of it. At this very moment Gabby DeLuca could be poisoning Henley's mind against him. Who knew what she was telling him, what spin she would put on events?
Max reached for the phone.
*
Will sat at his GPG partner's desk with telephone calls lined up like aircraft at San Francisco International. On the active runway was Napa insider Jonathan Crosby. And on deck? Will smiled as he glanced at the pink telephone-message slip currently on top of the pile: Max Winsted, his assistant Janine had printed in her careful hand. Please call back ASAP.
Will would return the call, though his notion of ASAP might differ from Max Winsted's. ASAP would occur once Will had plied his sources for last-minute tidbits of information, any one of which might prove useful in the ensuing conversation.
For he could guess why Max Winsted was calling. The ASAP had given it away.
Will returned his attention to Jonathan Crosby on speakerphone. "How widespread is the rumor at this point?" he asked.
"That Suncrest rebottled? Oh, it's done the circuit." Jonathan laughed. He owned an outfit that not only made its own wine but also provided fermentation, barreling, and bottling facilities for other small to medium-size producers. Which made him highly plugged in to everything that happened in Napa Valley. "More to the point, lots of people believe it. Especially given everything else that's been going on at Suncrest. I hear the distributor's starting to have trouble moving the bottles."
So Suncrest's new sauvign
on blanc wasn't selling well. It was exactly what Gabby had feared. Will felt another surge of disgust toward Max. What a pathetic excuse for a human being. He was a loser on every dimension but still held Gabby's future—and that of every other Suncrest employee—in his feckless hands. It was more than time to get rid of him.
"I suppose everybody will blame the winemaker for the poor quality of the sauvignon blanc?" he asked Jonathan.
"Most will. Anybody who doesn't see it up close, doesn't know the DeLucas . . ." Jonathan's voice trailed off. Then, "You know, they're an old-time family around here. People have a lot of respect for them."
"The Winsteds have been around awhile, too."
"Yeah, well, that's different." Jonathan paused. "At least since Porter died."
What Jonathan was too politic to enunciate blared from the speakerphone. I knew Porter Winsted. Porter Winsted was a friend of mine. And let me tell you, Max is no Porter Winsted. . . .
Will finished the call a short time later, satisfied that he'd squeezed Jonathan Crosby for every useful scrap of information he could provide. Certain that Max was sitting in his father's old office panting for his call, Will rose from his desk and strolled toward his floor-to-nearly-ceiling paned windows to scan the view. The Embarcadero's lunchtime foot traffic was out in force—businesspeople, joggers, knots of tourists. All looked busy, purposeful. Even the tourists, with their maps and their guidebooks.
A smile of profound satisfaction broke wide on Will's face. I called it. Max is caving, just like I knew he would. He's ready to sell.
It hadn't taken long, but Will thanked his lucky stars it hadn't taken longer. Now everybody at GPG would have to admit that his strategy, risky though it might have been, had been dead on. In a heartbeat, he'd go from pariah to hero—provided he could do the deal fast and not go above the original offer. Hell, at this point he might even be able to negotiate Max lower, if Max was desperate enough. The ASAP sure sounded desperate.
Too Close to the Sun Page 19