LITMIR.BIZ

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needed to find it. If she’d only known Jack would carry such a grudge…

      It wasn’t all her fault, she thought as she carried the full bucket of grapes to the bin at the end of the row and emptied it. He was just as much to blame for their disastrous relationship and the fallout as she was. The early days had been fantastic—the type of thing romance novels were written about. The boss’s handsome son, descending from the city to sweep the winemaker’s daughter off her feet. Picnics in the vineyard; stolen kisses behind the barrels of Merlot. Making love under a canopy of Cabernet vines, then feeding the ripe grapes to each other in the afterglow.

      It had been everything she’d ever dreamed of. Romantic and passionate and all-encompassing. Jack had made her feel like the center of his universe—beautiful and sexy and interesting. It had been too easy to fall in love.

      But, while opposites attracting worked great in movies, the reality hadn’t been dreamy at all.

      While it had all gone to hell later, she did have fond memories of being eighteen and head-over-heels in love. Jack had been different then, too: more carefree, with a smile that melted her knees even in memory.

      The old Jack would be more reasonable and much easier for her to deal with. The old Jack wouldn’t want to sell her winery out from under her, or ruin everything she’d worked for simply out of spite. He’d changed so much in the last ten years. He’d become more reserved, harder and colder. Sometimes she wondered if he was really the same man.

      She missed the old Jack. The one she fell in love with. The Jack who didn’t hate her.

      She shook off the reverie and the sinking feeling. She had to deal with this Jack. And quickly—for the good of Amante Verano and her own mental health.

      “Daydreaming on the job, boss?” Ted grinned at her as he upended his overflowing bucket into the bin. “You seem pretty far away.”

      “Trust me, I’m here. Just sending up quick prayers that the pump doesn’t die again.”

      “After the way you cursed at it yesterday? It wouldn’t dare.”

      She laughed. “It deserved it. Cantankerous thing.” Much like someone else she knew. She pulled off her gloves. “Unless you need me here for some reason, I’m going to head back to the winery. Lots of grapes to process, and…”

      “You have a cantankerous pump to deal with,” he finished for her.

      That explanation would do. “Exactly.”

      But the pump seemed to be working fine. At least that part of her life was moving along on plan. Although it freed her mind to stew over other issues for the next six hours, she didn’t discover any new solutions to her problems.

      She took her time hosing out the crusher for the last time, then puttered around the lab, stalling for time. Calling it a day would put her back in the house with Jack. For such a big house, it felt very small with Jack in it, and, since she was still having trouble controlling her hormones while he was around, putting herself in close proximity to him didn’t sound like a great idea. Plus, there was no way to avoid more discussion of the future of the vineyard, and without any bright new ideas she wasn’t in any hurry for another round with Jack over that.

      But she couldn’t hide in her lab forever, and as the sun went down her irritation grew—both with herself and Jack. She was avoiding her home, for goodness’s sake. Just because of him.

      That irritation fueled her up the hill to the house, and as she toed off her boots in the mudroom she felt ready for a fight and actually hoped Jack was nearby.

      Then she heard Dianne’s voice in her head: “Don’t antagonize him.” That deflated her indignant bubble a bit. She’d be nice if it killed her.

      But Jack wasn’t around. The kitchen was empty, the sale paperwork still sitting on the counter. The living room was just as empty. She glanced down the hallway, but no light or noise came out of the office either.

      Jack’s car sat in the driveway, so he hadn’t gone far. Of course his room and the gym were on the far side of the house, but she didn’t have a good excuse to go wandering down that hallway to see where he was. Plus, she didn’t want to take the chance of running into him while he was hot and sweaty and half dressed again. Last night had been bad enough.

      For the time being she was alone, and for the first time in a long time she didn’t mind the quiet. With her stomach still tied in a knot, eating was out of the question, but a glass of wine sounded like a great plan.

      She grabbed a glass and a bottle of last year’s Chardonnay and retreated behind her bedroom door.

      She still had a lot of thinking to do.

      The sun was completely behind the hills and he still hadn’t heard Brenna come in. She’d been gone early, too, probably around dawn, because the coffee she’d left in the pot had tasted old when he’d made his way into the kitchen this morning.

      The early morning was to be expected; he remembered all too well the rush to get the grapes in before it got too hot—for the grapes, not the people. But sunup to sunset? That meant something had gone wrong at the winery with the crush, and Brenna would be in a bad mood when she finally did make it back to the house.

      He wasn’t going to concern himself with her mood—beyond the fact it would make any conversation even more difficult than last night’s had been. The papers were still on the counter, unsigned, but in a different place than he’d left them, telling him she’d at least looked through them at some point.

      He’d spent the day in Max’s office, alternating between talking to his secretary and going through the winery’s books. He didn’t want to leave until he had this settled with Brenna, because he fully intended to never darken the doorway again once he left this time, but he couldn’t be away from the city indefinitely. At some point he did need to finish the preparations for his meeting in New York next week. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to come up with many ideas that would both placate Brenna and sever his ties with this place at the same time.

      Dianne Hart, whom he only vaguely remembered as one of Brenna’s friends from high school, had brought two plates of dinner to the house late in the afternoon, explaining as she did so that she normally fed Brenna during harvest time, and bashfully explained she’d figured he’d need dinner, too.

      She’d chatted to him as she moved easily through the kitchen, balancing a wide-eyed baby on one hip, explaining how she’d moved to Amante Verano five years ago, shortly after Brenna’s mother died. When Brenna took her mother’s place as vintner, she’d hired Dianne’s then newlywed husband Ted as viticulturist. Dianne seemed loyal to Brenna to the core, and had only glowing things to say about her, yet she didn’t seem to share Brenna’s animosity toward him.

      Or if she did, she did a better job of hiding it than Bren. He hadn’t missed the way her eyes had strayed to the papers on the counter, though. No doubt Dianne was fully up-to-date on the situation, and he vaguely wondered if Brenna had sent Dianne with instructions to help smooth the path.

      But before he could question her, to uncover any underlying motives, she’d been gone. Dianne was Brenna’s polar opposite in both looks and temperament, but she had that same earth mother wholesomeness. Years ago that had been part of Brenna’s allure—so different from the women he’d grown used to at home. He’d learned his lesson well, though. He’d take Gucci over granola any day.

      Boredom and an empty house drove him outside to the pool, where he pulled up short. He’d forgotten how Max had recreated his rooftop retreat at Garrett Tower here—only on a larger scale. White flagstones, warm under his feet, formed the pool deck, while large pots of hibiscus, hellebores and yarrow divided the space, providing secluded seating areas and privacy for the hot tub. Eerie. Almost like being at home.

      He swam several laps, then hooked his arms over the edge and listened to the quiet sounds of the evening. Even with the sun down the night was still warm—no need to heat the pool here in the summertime.

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