Too Close to the Sun (27 page)

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 sauvignon 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.

Yet somewhere in Will's subconscious, a worry
lurked. Gabby.
What is she going to think about this? And what
is Suncrest going to end up looking like?

The promise she'd extracted from him dimmed
the roar of triumph in his head. Yet still Will had to chuckle as
he ambled back to his desk to place the call, deciding to put Max
on speakerphone just to have that much more of a psychological
advantage. He hoisted his legs atop his desk and crossed his hands
in his lap.

The call was answered after the first ring.
"Max Winsted."

"Will Henley."

"Thanks for calling back."

"My pleasure." Will nearly choked on those
syllables. The last time he'd seen the bastard, he was manhandling
Gabby and might have done much worse. Will despised him, but
strategy demanded that he bury his antagonism. At least until the
deal was done.

"There's a business matter I'd like to
discuss with you," Max said.

"Shoot."

Max cleared his throat. "You recall the
discussions you've had with my mother and myself about a possible
acquisition of Suncrest?"

"I do indeed."

"Well, I want to let you know that my mother
and I didn't mean to discourage you with our refusal. We both
assumed that your initial lowball offer was just that. But for the
right price, I can tell you that we would be interested in pursuing
the matter further."

I'll just bet you would
. Though Will
seriously doubted that Ava was on board with Max's plan at the
moment, or even knew about it. The last he'd heard she was playing
movie-star wannabe in Europe.

"I'm pleased to hear it, Max," he said. "I
continue to be interested in acquiring Suncrest. As I've said
before, it's a unique property."

"Should we talk about a more realistic price
than the one you offered before?"

"Now, here's the thing." Will paused to give
Max a chance to worry. "My partners agreed to that offer a few
months back. There've been a variety of negative developments in
the wine industry since then, and at this stage I can't really tell
you what their appetite is for that price point."

Silence. Will smiled. He wanted Max to
believe that if anything, the price of Suncrest was going down over
time, not up. That way Max would be thrilled to nail down a sale at
the original, so-called "lowball" offer.

"Well, perhaps the wine business is having
some troubles," Max declared, "but Suncrest is doing as well as
ever. Even better."

Even better, my ass
. Will bit back the
guffaw that rose in his throat. Apparently Max was arrogant enough
to believe that Will had no idea what was actually going on at the
winery. Even if Max knew Gabby wasn't telling him anything—which
she wasn't—he should gather that Will was sufficiently well
connected to have other sources of information.

"As I say, Max, I'll have to consult with my
partners."

"Tell you what." Will could imagine Max
hunched over the phone, his brain cranking into overdrive to try to
find a way to make the deal work. "My mother and I would sell at
your initial offer if you could do an all-cash transaction."

Will shook his head. This was like taking
candy from a baby. No doubt Max Winsted thought he was being very
clever but he'd just broken the cardinal rule of negotiating. He'd
just told Will exactly what he was willing to do.

I want cash. I want it fast. And I'll give on
price to make that happen.

That was all Will needed to know. And those
parameters suited him just fine. For him, cash was no problem.
Price and speed were his issues.

And Max was truly a fool if he thought he was
pulling a fast one by pushing a deal through quickly, before Will
got wise about Suncrest's growing roster of difficulties. Will
could "discover" all those things he already knew during the
due-diligence process, and reduce his offer price even more
then.

"So, Max," Will said, "let me make sure I've
got this straight. You and your mother would sell Suncrest to GPG
for thirty million dollars if we were able to handle an all-cash
transaction."

"That's right. If you were able to do it in,
say, a month."

Well, that was pretty darn clear. Will
smiled. "Max, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll go back to my
partners and lay all this out. I'm not sure on the price, but
there's a real possibility we can make something work." He could
almost hear Max's sigh of relief. "Then I'll work up a term sheet
for you and your mother to take a look at."

Will would generate that document ASAP,
complete with a no-shop clause to prevent Max from using GPG's
offer to get a better price. Will needed no reminding that he was
not the only player in Napa Valley attempting to make an important
acquisition.

Max bit at the prospect of a term sheet like
a shark chomps on a seal pup. Minutes later Will ended the call,
linked his hands behind his head, and sat at his partner's desk for
some time, watching the world go by through his big paned
windows.

*

Sunday evening found Gabby standing next to
Camella at the kitchen sink of their parents' home. With the
barbecue over and the sun just dipping behind the mountains, Cam
was rinsing dirty dishes and Gabby was loading them into the
dishwasher.

Cam threw back her head and cackled. "I can't
believe you went in Max's face and laid down the law!"

"Shh!" Gabby cocked her chin at the half-open
window above the sink, beyond which was the patio on which Will was
having one last beer with the rest of her family. "Keep it down.
He'll hear you."

"So what if he hears me?" Cam's volume didn't
drop a notch. "Don't you talk about work with him?"

"No, I don't."

"How weird is that?"

"It's not weird. It's"—she struggled for the
right word—"prudent."

Cam scoffed at that notion, though Gabby knew
her sister didn't begin to understand why she insisted on keeping
the details of her work life secret from Will.

Including the latest. As she'd known he
might, Joseph Wagner had called her and asked flat out if Suncrest
had rebottled its sauvignon blanc. And she'd done exactly what
she'd warned Max she would do: she told him the truth. The big
question was whether Wagner believed her explanation. It was very
likely he'd think that Suncrest rebottled because she and her
father had screwed up the wine. She dreaded every upcoming issue of
Wine World
, knowing that the piece Wagner eventually wrote
about Suncrest could wreak havoc on her reputation as a winemaker.
And on her father's.

She sighed and raised her head to eye her
father through the window. In the fading light, he stood next to
Will, the two of them debating the relative merits of charcoal
versus gas grills. Her father was thinner than he had been before
the heart attack, a little grayer, maybe a little more fragile
looking, though she hoped that was only in her imagination.

One thing was undeniably true, though, and it
loosened a bit the perpetual worry knot she had in her stomach
these days. Her father and Will looked sweet together, the older
man and the younger, chatty, comfortable, relaxed. Will was the
first man she'd brought to her family's home since college.
Vittorio, damn him, had never made the trip.

Gabby took a bowl from Cam's hands and found
a place for it on the dishwasher's bottom tray. "Daddy doesn't know
the half of what's been going on at Suncrest," Gabby said, "but I'm
going to have to bring him up to speed."

On some things, not others. Certainly not on
Max's attempted assault or the ongoing question of whether Will
would someday acquire the winery. Gabby had unilaterally
decided—with no help from the cardiologists—that her father's heart
was in no condition to hear either of those news flashes.

No wonder I'm a basket case
. She
straightened to stretch the kinks from her back.
I'm keeping
secrets from everybody.

"Do you think Daddy's ready to go back to
work?" Cam asked.

"The doctors say he is. It's been seven
weeks, and it's only part-time—till harvest anyway." She would keep
an eagle eye on him while he was at Suncrest, that was for sure. If
he so much as looked winded, she'd make him rest. And as a
precaution, she and her mother both had learned CPR, so if
something happened to him at home or at the winery, they'd know how
to help him.

Gabby lowered her voice and edged closer to
her sister. "Now don't you say a thing to Daddy about what Max did
to me."

"I won't."

"I mean it. It'd make him really mad and I'm
not sure he could take it."

"You know"—Cam set her hand on her hip—"have
you wondered whether maybe we should all just quit?"

Gabby was silent. Of course she had, though
even now the idea of Suncrest permanently out of her life was
impossible to fathom. "Well,
you
could if you really wanted.
But you know Daddy won't quit. And I can't, especially not right
before harvest. It'd be too irresponsible. Suncrest could never
bring in another winemaker that fast. Plus I promised Mrs. W. It
wouldn't be fair to her." Gabby sighed. "It's not her fault her
son's such a disaster."

Cam shot out her chin. "It's at least partly
her fault. She raised him, didn't she?"

Gabby looked through the window at her own
mother. She looked happier than she'd been in weeks, what with her
eldest daughter dating someone so eligible and her husband on the
mend.

Sofia DeLuca, dutiful Italian wife that she
was, had nevertheless complained to her daughters that having their
father underfoot was driving her crazy. Taking naps in the middle
of the day and never remaking the bed. Leaving dirty dishes in the
sink. Redoing her vegetable patch for reasons God alone
understood.

Every complaint session ended the same way.
"I love him, he is my husband and the father of my children, every
night I thank God on my knees that he is still here with us." Then
she raised her index finger in the air for the final pronouncement.
"But that doesn't mean I'm not ready for him to get out of the
house and go back to work."

Gabby got the dishwasher going, then turned
toward Cam. "Will Mom kill us if we put candles on Dad's cake?"

Both sisters approached the kitchen table to
peer at the
torta angelica
their mother had baked that
morning. They knew from delicious experience that it was truly
heavenly, a sponge cake soaked with Malvasia dessert wine then
topped with blueberries, blackberries, and chilled
zabaglione
. In deference to their father's new health
concerns, Sofia had agreed to vary the standard barbecue menu by
grilling chicken instead of beef and using light mayonnaise in the
potato salad. But no true DeLuca celebration would ever occur
without some sort of homemade
dolci
to mark the
occasion.