Too Close to the Sun (33 page)

The last time he'd seen her had been nearly a
week before. They hadn't fought exactly, but she'd walked away from
him in tears, then just disappeared. She'd sent an oddly short and
impersonal e-mail telling him she was going away for a few days.
Just like that. Nothing since.

Will stared after Felix's disappearing
tractor, and despite the heat already beginning to rise from the
asphalt parking lot, felt a cold shiver along his spine.
Gabby's
got to be around here somewhere
, he told himself.
She
wouldn't have quit
. No matter how angry she was with him, how
much she feared the changes at Suncrest, the last thing she would
do was abandon the winery. Certainly not during crush, which to a
winemaker was the busiest, most critical time of the year.

He let himself into the main winery
building—empty because everyone was in the vineyards—and sprinted
upstairs to Porter Winsted's old office, thinking maybe she'd left
a note for him there before she went out into the vineyards. He
opened the door, to which no note was taped, then strode inside to
inspect the mahogany surface of the desk. Nothing there either. He
looked around. Nothing anywhere.

Damn
. He let his briefcase drop onto
the Oriental carpet. A fresh new week had started—more to the
point, harvest had started—and still she was radio silent. There
was no question that the acquisition was coming between them,
exactly as he had feared it might. Of course she thought he was
betraying her, breaking his promise. Sometimes when he pondered
where Suncrest might be headed, he feared she was right.

Just to be sure she hadn't decided to cut her
losses, he opened the drawer where the employee files were kept,
pulled out DELUCA, GABRIELLA, and flipped it open. No resignation
letter lay inside. Mildly reassured, he returned the file to its
place, knocked the drawer shut with his knee. What now?

Go find her, you idiot. You won't be able
to get a lick of work done till you see her anyway
.

That was so true. Even if the news was bad,
even if she wanted no part of him anymore, he had to hear it. He
had to get out of this limbo where he didn't know if the woman he
loved was throwing him over. Ironically, because she didn't trust
him to do right by her. Will Henley—Boy Scout, doer of good
deeds—was suspected of being a lout. That was a lifetime first.

So was the niggling worry that the accusation
carried a kernel of truth.

He hitched a ride back to the Rosemede
vineyard on a tractor driven by a Spanish-speaking field worker he
didn't know, who'd come back to the winery to offload bins of
grapes for the mechanized destemmer. Once at the vineyard, Will
leaped off the tractor and walked up to the first picker he saw.
"Is Gabby here? Do you know where she is?"

The man nodded, sweat running down his lined
face, and pointed north up a row of vines. Will thanked him and
headed in that direction, the sun already intense enough at 8:30 in
the morning to bake the nape of his neck.

Never had he felt so like a fish out of
water. While all the pickers wore jeans and T-shirts, he was in a
dress shirt and tie, gabardine trousers and leather shoes, which
were literally biting the dust at the moment and would figuratively
do so at the end of the day. The difference in garb made him feel
like the bourgeois capitalist boss come to check up on the
proletarian workers. It was also hot as hell and he would have much
preferred to be wearing less clothing. But when all was said and
done it was worth it, because after a few minutes of plodding
through the dirt, he spied Gabby ahead of him, in profile, hand on
her hip, speaking into her walkie-talkie.

His heart slid a little in his chest, out of
both relief and worry. He stopped to catch his breath and watch
her. She wore khaki shorts with a tiny enough inseam to spark his
imagination, a short-sleeved bright orange tee shirt, little white
tennis socks, and running shoes. She looked adorable—fit and tanned
and healthy and outdoorsy.

It couldn't be his imagination, what he felt
for this woman. There was some kind of primal pull that wrenched at
his soul every time he was with her. He just wanted to be near,
wanted to be close, wanted to be connected.

Seeing her in the flesh, he decided he would
act as if everything were normal, as if she hadn't gone AWOL for a
week, as if he didn't fear she was going to dump him right then and
there, like a cluster of grapes not quite up to snuff. After a
quick glance around to make sure no one was looking, he grabbed her
from behind and nuzzled her neck, his nostrils filling with the
summer-happy scent of Coppertone. "Morning."

She spun around. Behind the light-purple
lenses of her sunglasses, her eyes widened and—he was thrilled to
see—her mouth instantly broke into a smile. "Will!"

"You look glad to see me."

"I am!"

"I was a little worried."

The smile faded a bit. "I know." She paused,
then, "I'm sorry."

Was that guilt he saw in her eyes? Or his
imagination, because of the guilt he was feeling himself? Then
Felix's voice blared over her walkie-talkie. "Row sixteen or
seventeen next?"

She put her walkie-talkie to her mouth.
"Seventeen, Felix. I'll be there soon. Over."

"So you're pretty busy," he said. But seeing
her smile, knowing he couldn't possibly be misreading the delight
on her face, filled him with enormous relief. "How's it going?"

"So far so good, but I don't like this heat
spike." She shoved the walkie-talkie into the waistband of her
shorts. "I'm worried the grapes are going to shut down."

"Shut down?"

"Stop ripening. And for sure the cab needs
more hang time." She set both hands on her hips. A light sheen of
sweat glistened on the curve of her chest revealed by the U-neck of
her tee shirt. "I wish we'd get some fog."

"We haven't had any in a week. It's been
sweltering."

She looked away and said nothing, leading him
to believe she had no idea what the local weather had been like.
Curiosity urged him on.

"So . . . you were out of town?"

She nodded, still looking away.

"Where'd you go?"

She returned her eyes to his and wrinkled her
nose. "Would you mind if we didn't talk about it?"

"Well, it's just kind of mysterious." He
stopped, waited. She said nothing, so he continued. "I mean, did
you have some kind of surgery you don't want to tell me about?" In
her absence, wild scenarios had spun in his mind. One was that she
was suffering from some nameless female ailment she'd been too
embarrassed to tell him about. "Or do you have some other boyfriend
somewhere you went to go see?"

Her eyes flew open in what seemed genuine
astonishment. "Why would you ask that?"

"I don't know. You go AWOL suddenly, right
before harvest—it doesn't seem like you. It doesn't make sense. It
makes me wonder." That sounded a little hostile. He tried again. "I
missed you."

Their gazes locked. A picker moved past,
thankfully deciding not to work in that particular area right at
that moment. Then, "I missed you, too," she said. She edged closer,
reached up to smooth the collar of his dress shirt, then left her
hand on his shoulder. She kept her voice low. "I didn't have
surgery. And I certainly don't have some other boyfriend. Though I
have to say I like the idea that you'd be jealous."

"I'd be insanely jealous." He'd been jealous
thinking about Vittorio, who'd been history before Will had even
appeared on the scene. "So you're not furious with me about
Suncrest?"

She shrugged. "I guess I realized that we're
going to have to agree to disagree about Suncrest. I know you're
just doing what you have to do. Maybe now I understand that." She
paused, then, "You'd feel the same if the situation were reversed,
right?"

He was so taken aback by how calm she was on
the topic that he responded instantly. "Of course." He regarded
her. Maybe the week away had been a good thing after all, given her
new perspective. Maybe Suncrest wouldn't end up being such a huge
problem between them.

He felt a weight lift from his chest, as if
he'd been holding his breath underwater and now was free to grab
great gulps of sweet, saving air. He glanced around, saw no one
looking in their direction. He put his hands on her hips, pulled
her even closer, and smothered her lips in a kiss.

She tasted sweet, started a low burning in
his groin. "So . . . just how busy are you, Ms. DeLuca?"

She laughed softly. "Very busy, Mr.
Henley."

"Because I'm experiencing a bit of a heat
spike myself."

"I can tell. But we can't exactly do anything
about it right here."

"Vineyards have worked nicely for us in the
past."

"
Private
vineyards."

"Hm. Good point." He clutched her hand,
pulled her after him. "But I can think of someplace else
private."

"Will . . ." But she didn't really resist,
which only heightened his ardor. By the time they'd hitched another
tractor back to the winery, he was a man very much on a mission.
Her eyes flew open when they got upstairs and he slammed the door
on Porter Winsted's office, turned the lock, and spun toward her,
whipping off her baseball cap and pulling her tee shirt up over her
head in two swift surprising motions. Her bra flew in an arc that
landed next to the tartan sofa. His mouth was on her breasts in
seconds.

"Oh, my God . . ." she breathed, her hands
clutching his head.

He was possessed. His own clothes came off in
a rush, his desire to be inside her rampant. Off came her shorts,
or at least mostly off, because he had no time to fuss with little
white socks and running shoes.

On the Oriental carpet with the woman of his
dreams beneath him, his mouth leaving wet trails on her sweat-salty
skin. She tasted like Coppertone and the cutest girl in the senior
class and the best of summer's hot stolen moments. He cut off her
moans with his mouth—"Shhh, someone could hear us . . ."— bringing
her to climax with a sticky finger that he then sucked on with his
own mouth.

He had never felt harder, more potent, more
in need. It wasn't a sweet lingering love they shared that morning,
but it rocked him to the bottom of his soul. Afterwards they clung
together, a tangled mass of damp limbs, breathing fast, listening
to Felix's voice outside the office windows as a tractor came and
went. Silence again descended.

She giggled and nipped at his ear. "And I
thought you were such a straitlaced businessman."

"Just goes to show how wrong a person can
be."

"I guess." Her head fell back on the carpet,
her honey-gold hair a tangle on the weave of crimson and blue. He
watched her look at him and something in her face changed, in a way
he couldn't quite put a name to. "But I don't really think I'm
wrong about you," she said.

He was almost afraid to ask. "No?"

She was silent for some time. Then those
lovely hazel eyes of hers filled with tears, which surprised him.
"Don't cry, sweetie." He wiped one errant tear with his finger,
kissed another away, "Why are you crying?"

She looked away. "Sometimes I cry when I'm
happy."

"Is that why you're crying now?"

She said nothing. Another tear slipped from
her eye, cascaded down her cheek. Then, "I guess I'm crying because
underneath that capitalist pig exterior, you're a wonderful man,
Will Henley."

He chuckled then waited, sensing there was
more to come. Knowing what he wanted it to be. He got what he
wanted.

"I love you," she said.

His hand was very tender as it smoothed the
hair back from her face, from which her tears were running like
soft rain. He stared into the eyes he'd been looking for all of his
life. "I love you, too, Gabby."

*

On a late August Tuesday afternoon, a week
after Suncrest winemakers had begun their harvest, Max sat on the
shaded terrace of Napa Valley's Meadowood Resort, anxiously
awaiting his lunch guest. At long last he spied the tall,
dark-haired stranger who'd crossed a continent and an ocean to meet
him. After yet another quick glance around the terrace restaurant
to make sure no one who knew him was present, Max half rose from
his chair, reached out his hand, and plastered a smile on his face.
"So we meet at last, Vittorio. It's a pleasure."

Mantucci smiled, shook Max's hand, then sat.
"The pleasure's mine. After all those phone conversations, it's
wonderful to put a face to a name."

Max resumed his seat, more pleased with life
than he'd been in some time.

Mantucci had thrown his hat in the ring at
just the right moment. If another week had passed, it might have
been too late. By then Max and his mother might have signed the
final documents selling Suncrest to GPG. But now—hey! As far as Max
was concerned, the window of opportunity for a better deal was
still wide open.

And to hell with the so-called "no-shop
clause." If Henley had really expected him not to consider other
offers, he shouldn't have knocked down the purchase price by 10
percent. So fair was fair.

Though Max sure hoped he could conclude this
transaction on the QT. That's why he couldn't risk having Mantucci
come to Suncrest. For if Henley did get wind that Max was talking
to another potential buyer, the deal with GPG could vaporize. Then
Max would have to make it work with the Italian stallion—who hadn't
actually made a formal offer yet—or run the damn winery
himself.

The waiter who'd led Mantucci to Max's table
cleared his throat. "We have a bottle of this gentleman's sauvignon
blanc chilling in the back," he told Mantucci. "Before you order
lunch, shall I bring it out for you?"

"Vittorio? Would that suit you?" Max
proffered a warm smile, waved a gracious hand.
What would you
like, my new friend? Anything, anything at all!