Too Close to the Sun (30 page)

"You know," he said eventually, "maybe we
should tell that young lady that a lot of the vines that Porter and
I planted twenty-five years ago are still producing grapes. Just a
few years ago they were in their prime, but they're getting past it
now." He met his daughter's eyes. "Dagney may want to pull them.
Their yield's already way down."

Something about the way he spoke frightened
her. "Daddy, we have to give these people some time to get their
bearings. Will has our interests at heart, I honestly believe that.
He understands how we feel about Suncrest and he'll try to take
care of it. He won't let his people do anything to hurt it."

A little voice chirped in her ear.
Not
deliberately. But how much control does he really have? And anyway,
maybe his idea of what will hurt it is different from yours
…

Her father patted her knee. "I agree your
Will's a good man, honey. It's just"—he shook his head—"all this.
It's not what I pictured when I imagined coming back to work. I
pictured it the way it used to be, without all these strangers in
business suits. Just you and me doing another harvest together. I
really looked forward to that." He smiled. "Our second harvest
together."

"We'll still do that, Daddy," she said, but
she could hear the wistfulness, and the hint of desperation, in her
own voice. "We still will," she repeated, but it sounded no more
convincing the second time around.

Dagney walked past with her male associate,
the two in such deep conversation they didn't seem to notice the
father and daughter to their left hunkered down on crates. Gabby's
father met her eyes. Again he gave her a smile, though it was no
more vibrant than his earlier attempt. "I think I'll go in the
break room and lie down for a few minutes," he said, then slowly
levered himself to his feet and lumbered away.

Gabby watched him go, her heart thudding.
Activity buzzed on all around her: people holding meetings, having
conversations, taking notes, making phone calls. Normally she was
right in the thick of things. Not that day.

She catapulted off the crate and strode
toward the stairs to the second floor.

*

Will sat on one of the tartan sofas in Porter
Winsted's office, half his mind following the chatter of his two
young associates and half on Porter Winsted. He still thought of
the office as Porter's—not as Ava's and not Max's—though he'd had
to shove a few of Max's personal possessions aside. That hadn't
been hard, especially since Max was still in France and would be
gone for a week at least. Will had simply called for a box, made a
swiping motion of his right arm across the flat plane of the
mahogany desk, and then set the box on the floor outside the
door.

Next!

He took much more care with what had belonged
to Porter. His respect for the man who had founded Suncrest
Vineyards was growing exponentially. He had long admired Porter's
keen developer's eye, which early on had recognized the unique
value of this particular swath of Napa Valley. But more and more he
came to understand how steadily and responsibly Porter had built
this business. Will spent fascinating hours poring over the winery
files, which went back twenty-five years and described in
painstaking detail how Suncrest had matured. This many grapes were
harvested, this many bottles produced the first vintage, so many
more the next, on and on till an abrupt halt two years before.
Someone—no doubt Porter himself—had pasted the bottle labels from
every vintage into a scrapbook. Even decades-old correspondence had
been kept, along with reviews, print ads, the first check cut to
the fledgling winery.

It was like a father's mementos of a beloved
child. Will knew this was akin to what his grandfather had felt
building Henley Sand and Gravel. He'd spent his entire high-powered
career entertaining a mild disdain for family businesses, yet felt
a surge of envy that surprised him.

He turned his attention to Dagney, who was
sitting beside the other associate, Jacob, her equal in youth and
workaholism. The latter was a disease that all qualified GPG
employees suffered.

"It seems to me," she was saying, "that we
could triple production without a significant decrease in
quality."

Jacob looked at Will. "It would take three to
five years if we wanted all the grapes to come from Suncrest
vineyards. But as I was telling Dagney, we could do it right away
if we import grapes from the Central Valley."

Will nodded. "As a matter of fact, Max
Winsted just signed a purchase agreement for chardonnay grapes from
there. The problem is he signed a five-year deal at way too high a
price."

Dagney's brows flew up. "Five years? Can we
get out of it?"

"That's one of the things we have to find
out." Will had known going into this that Max had made a fine hash
of things. He hadn't realized how fine.

The good news, which would make Will even
more of a hero at GPG, was that the due diligence had uncovered
enough problems to justify lowering the purchase price. It was like
buying a house. If during escrow, the buyer found problems, the
seller either had to fix them or cut the price in order for the
sale to go through.

And Max would cut the price, Will knew. He
wanted the cash out of the winery, and fast. He'd put up a fight,
but he'd cave. Max excelled at caving.

Dagney giggled. "I just had a funny
conversation with the winemakers. The DeLucas?"

"What do you mean funny?" Will kept his tone
casual. None of his colleagues knew of his relationship with Gabby.
He still considered this a sensitive time and that a sensitive
issue.

"Oh"—she shook her head—"they're very sweet.
But they were talking about
painting
with some of the
grapes. You know, using different varieties to make the cabernet
more complex?"

Jacob laughed. "They'll find out soon enough
they're going to be painting by number from now on!"

"I don't think they get that," Dagney
said.

All three turned their heads at the light rap
on the half-open door. "Excuse me," Gabby said. "May I have a few
minutes, Will?"

"Sure." He leaped to his feet.
Did she
hear any of that? What exactly did Dagney and Jacob say?
Then
he berated himself. None of them had said or done anything to be
ashamed of. Especially not in discussing how Suncrest could be
salvaged from the ruins into which Max Winsted had plunged it.

Once Dagney and Jacob were gone, he shut the
door and took Gabby in his arms. Where, he noted, she remained
stiff. He dreaded the answer but had to ask the question. "How are
you?"

"I'm okay." She pulled away and went to stand
at the window, bending slightly to look beneath the half-closed
Roman shade which attempted to beat back the midday sun. Then she
turned her eyes to his. "Actually, I take that back. I'm trying
hard not to get upset."

"Okay."
Here we go. I've been on site
barely two days and already we've got problems.
He didn't let
himself retreat to Porter's desk chair, though part of him wanted
to put some distance between them. "What's upsetting you?"

She took a deep breath. "I'm getting a little
concerned about what I'm hearing from Dagney and that other young
guy. They keep talking as if there's going to be some huge
expansion. And they don't seem to understand the kind of wine we
make. What they're talking about is a lot lower quality than what
we do."

"Jacob. The other guy's name is Jacob." Will
perched on the corner of Porter's desk, thinking fast. "First of
all, Gabby, you need to understand that we're going to be talking
about a lot of things in the next few weeks that are never going to
happen. We just need to explore every possible avenue before we set
a course of action. So I recommend you not take anything too
seriously at the moment."

She stared at him. "I'm trying not to. But
it's hard."

"I understand that."

"And my father's upset, too. So much so that
he had to lie down for a while. I just don't know if he can stand
the pressure of all this."

Great
. Will rubbed his forehead. What
if Cosimo DeLuca had another heart attack? On premises again?
Should Will insist he go back on medical leave? Then a more
terrifying thought struck him. If Gabby's father did suffer another
cardiac arrest, would Will get the blame?

As if he'd spoken the fear aloud, Gabby came
close to him and rested her hands on his shoulders. "I don't mean
to pester you and I know you're under a lot of pressure. But I'm
worried about my dad." She paused, then, "I'm worried about all of
us."

He raised his head. God, he was tired. And
this was only the beginning. "Gabby, I don't know what to tell you.
This is going to be stressful, whichever way you cut it. It's a big
transition."

Apparently that wasn't what she wanted to
hear. She turned away, went back to the window. Will watched her,
and listened to the loud male voices of the field workers outside.
He knew they were bringing the packing bins out of storage for the
upcoming harvest. All day long he'd heard them hammering together
the wooden pallets on which the bins would be stacked. He could
imagine Porter Winsted in this office listening to those sounds
every August for twenty-five years.

Again Gabby turned her face toward his. "So I
shouldn't worry about Suncrest expanding in a big way?"

He wanted to throw up his hands. "Gabby, I
can't make any promises."
I'm not going to make that mistake
again
. "The winery may well have to expand. I'm not sure it can
survive if it produces only very expensive wines."

"But it has for twenty-five years."

"But it doesn't make any money. It's
breakeven, at best."

She frowned, hesitated. "Is that true?"

"Yes, it is." He watched her take that in.
Should he have told her? Probably not. But he wanted her to
understand where he was coming from. Because he didn't think she
got it.

Not for the first time, he found himself a
little resentful of Gabby's fantasy Napa Valley, where family-owned
wineries made scads of money producing high-end bottles bought by
high-end consumers, both sides applauding themselves for their
artistry and highly evolved taste. But all the while, he had to
live in the real world, where real people bought Two Buck Chuck and
were perfectly happy. And dealing with that reality was a lot less
pretty.

She stepped closer. "Why were you so intent
on buying Suncrest if it's not profitable?"

He was trying to decide how to answer that
question without upsetting her further when she asked a follow-up
he didn't much care for either.

"Because you knew you could
make
it
profitable? Let's say, by using the brand name to expand
downmarket?"

It startled him how perfectly she'd phrased
that, as if she'd graduated right alongside him from Harvard
Business School. And yes, that pretty much had been his strategy. A
damn good one it was, too. But at the moment he doubted Gabby would
appreciate its wisdom.

A knock sounded on the door. Before Will
responded, it opened and Jacob walked in. "Excuse me," he said to
Gabby, then approached Will and handed him a file. "I forgot to
give you this before. It's a list of Central Valley grape growers,
with their varieties and prices. You'll see they're a lot cheaper.
And I think they're plenty good enough," he added before he turned
and walked out again.

Shit
. Will tossed the file on the
desk. He didn't look at Gabby but felt her eyes scorch his
face.

She came up close to him, cocked her chin at
the file Jacob had just brought in. "What about that promise you
made to me, Will?"

"Gabby." He stood up, in a little
psychological gamesmanship that forced her to raise her head to
meet his eyes. "Yes, I did tell you that I would try to keep
Suncrest the same. And I will to the extent that I can." By now he
was starting to feel that responsibility not just to Gabby, but to
Porter Winsted, too. "But it has to change to some degree, because
otherwise it can't survive."

Silence. A silence that deafened him with its
intensity. Then, "You've known this all along?"

Why did that question make him feel as if his
entire relationship with this woman hinged on the answer? He looked
into her beautiful, intelligent, demanding hazel eyes and knew what
he had known for some time. He loved this woman and would not lie
to her. But he wouldn't coddle her, either.

"What I know," he said, "is that one person
and one person only moved this winery downmarket. And that is Max
Winsted. He did it when he forced you to rebottle the sauvignon
blanc. He did it when he got drunk at Cassis. He did it when he
lied to Joseph Wagner. Suncrest does not have the reputation it
used to, Gabby, and that's a fact. It's not my fault and it's not
yours, either. But I'm not going to apologize for trying to salvage
what can be salvaged. And," he added, "for trying to keep everybody
who has jobs here employed for the long term."

"While making tons of money doing it."

He regarded her steadily. "We should be so
lucky."

She turned away. When again she spoke, her
voice was so quiet he almost couldn't hear it above the field
workers' hammering outside. "It always comes down to the same
thing, doesn't it?"

She was right. It did. "But it doesn't have
to, Gabby. I am not your enemy." That was the one thing she never
seemed to understand. He grabbed her arm, forced her to face him.
"This is business. This is not personal. This is not about you and
me."

"Is there a you and me?"

"Of course there is. I love you, Gabby. I
said it and I meant it." And there he was saying it again, even
though she'd never responded in kind. He knew she was holding
herself back for some reason, and it frustrated him. "I promise you
that I am doing my damnedest to save this winery. I am trying to
save your job, and your father's, and Cam's. But don't you see? It
can't be the way it always was. Things are different now."