Tangled Vines (4 page)

Each tick of the clock reverberates through the room, through my skin and bones, settling in my consciousness like the heaviest of blankets on the coldest of winter nights. Knowing I would see Owen today, I opted for something classy and sophisticated. A black tulip skirt skims the top of my knees. The playful, frilly ruffle makes me feel feminine without risking any of my business-like assertiveness. A plunging neckline on the deep merlot-colored top is artfully hidden by the suit jacket securely wrapped around my chest.

He’s supposed to be here at nine. Five minutes. I find myself fidgeting, even though I know I shouldn’t care. There’s something about him that throws me off guard. Maybe it was just the small confines of the room from the other day, but who the hells knows. There was something passionate and searing, hard and angry in his deep blue eyes that burned through me.

Rather than sitting here watching the minutes go by, I busy myself with my email. Same as usual, business meetings and bank statements peppered with a few random condolences for Vincent’s sudden passing. Just at reading his name, my head turns instinctually to the picture of him and me on the day of my college graduation.

“I’m real proud of you, Elle.” His face shone with the brightest of smiles. I’d never been able to understand why he took me under his wing, let me intern with his company, showed me every trick of the trade at the young age of twenty-two, but in that moment, I didn’t care. The words that had so effortlessly fallen from his lips were words of parental praise – not those of a business associate. They were words I had been dying to hear my entire life.

My drunk of a mother snapped pictures from behind a busted-up old camera and I was immediately ashamed of her. I hated that I wanted more than she ever gave me, than she would ever be capable of giving me. So when Vincent had offered me a full-time, walk-on position in operations at his winery, I took it without even thinking about it. Considering Mom’s alcoholic past, maybe I should have given it a touch more consideration, but it was time for me to think about my own future. Her well-being was no longer my concern.

God, that made me a shitty daughter, but isn’t that what I’d been all these years? Anyway. , I was if I believed everything she’d ever told me.

With promises of a brighter tomorrow, and a huge opportunity knocking at my doorstep in the form of a full-time job at Bella Luna’s Winery and Estate, I no longer had to listen to those voices of uncertainty.

“Ms. Blackwell,” Rosie, Vincent’s secretary, who I now assume is mine, announces as she enters the office space I used to share with Vincent. She looks around the space and crosses her arms over her chest. “The room seems bigger, emptier somehow now that he’s gone.” Her voice isn’t much louder than a whisper and I can see the pain of his loss in her eyes. She was his secretary for fifteen years. His death may have hit her the hardest.

“He had a way of making everything feel cozier and warmer. It was that personality of his.” Sitting in the chair next to her, I wrap an arm around her shoulders and we share a quick hug. Though my own parents may have been anything but stellar, Vincent and Rosie were the perfect surrogate parents.

“Do you remember that time at the company picnic?” Rosie’s question is nostalgic and wistful.

My brows crinkle together for a moment as I place the memory. “Oh, my goodness, do you mean the one with the dunk tank?” A soft peal of laughter rolls from my chest. “He must have taken a hit from every kid there that year.”

Rosie’s face lights up thinking about that day. “He had just as much fun as they did. Oh, the older he got, the more he loved children. To be honest, I think he threw that yearly picnic just so he could see everyone’s kids.”

On her last word, a gruff voice calls out, “Hello,” from behind us. It sends tingles down my spine and puts my other sense on high alert. As Owen walks into the room, we stand to greet him. The combination of his soap, clean and crisp, and his cologne, masculine and woodsy, makes me feels as if I’m drunk. So much so that my knees actually wobble a little as I walk toward him.

“Owen, this is Rosie.” She extends her hand and I swear her cheeks turn pink. “Rosie, meet Mr. Carmichael.”

“Good morning,” her voice takes on the quality of some bubbly teenager, which is really unbecoming considering she’s in her early fifties and is probably old enough to be his mom.

Owen’s mouth pulls up at the corners revealing a gorgeously lopsided smile. There isn’t a part of my body that isn’t reacting to the soft, fullness of his lips. I wonder what they would feel like pressed against my own, how they would feel if he….

What the hell is wrong with me?

Chiding my internal musings, I shake my head and straighten my spine. Business. We’re down to business and I can’t be anything but professional if I expect him to take me seriously.

“Can I get you anything?” Rosie asks Owen as she walks toward the door, back out to her desk.

“No, thank you.” She smiles and nods and he returns his attention back to me.

Though the open-mouthed stare with which I’m currently gracing him is all about the beauty of the muscles that ripple and pull under the thin cotton of his T-shirt, he mistakes it for something else entirely.

Shooting me a death-like glare, he pitches his voice low. “See? Even bastard farm boys have manners.” Before I can say anything, he angrily struts over to my desk and starts looking through the files spread across it.

Even though I know I should apologize for what I said a few days ago, his attitude makes me want to do anything but be lenient on him. If anything, it makes me want to make his time here a living hell.

“What are these?” he asks, holding the files for my morning meeting in his hand.

Seething, I walk behind my desk and collect all my files, including the ones in his hand. Probably gave him a few paper cuts, too. “Those are nothing
you
need to worry about. They’re for an important meeting
I
have later on.” Purposefully, I avoid telling him the actual time.

“Don’t you think as half-owner of this place,” his eyes scan the room angrily, “I have a right to be there for these
important
meetings?” The jerk actually air-quotes the word important almost as if he’s spitting in my face.

With a loud
thwap,
I smack him on his broad and beautiful chest with the files. “You’re right.” A shocked look furrows his brows as he stares down at me. It takes every ounce of effort not to lick my lips as I steal a quick glance at him. Recovering with what I hope is some quickness, I continue, “You
are
half-owner. That half.” Pointing behind him, out the large windows of the office, I indicate the vineyards and field.

He laughs, a humorless and sarcastic sound of disbelief. “That’s right. I’m just the clueless farmer.” As he walks past me, his shoulder grazes mine and a bolt of heat shoots down my arm, making my fingertips quiver with the need to touch that rough stubble on his hard jawline.

Gathering my wits, I stalk up beside him. Grabbing his arm, I turn him back to me. “You need to learn how things get done out there,” I point back to the window again, “Before you can learn how they get done in here. We may be half-owners in this, but I’ve been here far longer than you. So, you prove yourself as more than a meager farmer and we’ll see how much sense you can make of the numbers,” tilting my head to the side, I add a sarcastic, “okay?” to the end of my little tirade.

He tips an invisible hat at me, mocking me and my holier-than-thou speech. “Yes, ma’am.” His voice is laced with venom as he walks out of the office and out to the field where Peter, our head of agriculture is waiting for him.

It takes me a full ten minutes to recover from our exchange, but I need to be at the top of my game for my meeting. It’s not every day you make a pitch to your largest investor, proposing a multi-year plan to build a bed and breakfast slash wedding venue on the estate, especially when your new partner has no clue about it.

“Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Robertson. I hope you and your partners will take some time to consider my proposal.” Nodding at each of the three additional board members he brought with him, I smile brightly at Mr. Ethan Robertson, and send up a silent prayer that he’ll be interested enough in my plan to at least consider moving forward.

“We’ll be in touch, Ms. Blackwell.” He stands and shakes my hand before ushering the rest of his team out of the office. My heart thuds wildly in my chest just thinking about the possibilities this plan could bring to the vineyard.

Vincent had always dreamed of turning that small cottage on the estate into a place where couples could stay for the weekend. Over the years, and in his head, the cottage expanded to a full-on bed and breakfast with vineyard tours, wine tastings, and possibly even wedding receptions. Based on my early calculations, it would only take us approximately three summers, fully booked summers of course, to break even.

As I stand in the doorway of my office, I’m struck dumb by the sight of a hot and sweaty Owen chugging down a glass of ice-cold water. When he swipes his forearm across his mouth to wipe away a few stray drops on his chin, I actually lose the ability to say anything intelligible.

He catches me staring and a glint of something passes in his eyes. “How’d the meeting go?” he asks as he flops back into my chair, propping his dirt-covered work boots up on the desk.

Involuntarily, I sigh at his obviously childish behavior. Refusing to let him get the best of me, I simply walk over to the chair on the opposite side and sit there. “It went well. Perfectly, actually.” After crossing my legs, I lean back in my chair and eye him up and down. He’s covered in a thin sheen of sweat mingled with dust. “How’d it go out there?” Angling my head at the window, I indicate the vineyard in which he spent most of the day.

“Can’t complain,” he mutters, though I think complaining is exactly what he wants to do. His eyes fall to the picture of me and Vincent on my desk and a sad look passes across Owen’s rugged face. His knuckles go white with tension as he lifts the frame.

“He was a good man,” I say softly, feeling like it’s necessary to defend who he was.

Owen scoffs. “I’m sure he was. To you that is.” With no gentleness whatsoever, he drops the framed picture back into its spot and walks back over to the window. I’d love to know what’s going through his head, but when he turns on his heels and shoots me a look that says, “this topic isn’t open for discussion,” I shut my mouth.

It’s been a week since I nearly snapped the picture of Elle and my father in half. Dealing with my anger over this whole screwed up situation hasn’t been easy, but luckily, I’ve kept myself busy working in the vineyards. Hard manual labor has always been my preferred method of letting off steam. I mean there’s always sex, but between taking care of Mom and then dealing with this, it’s been far too long.

After a long afternoon of working in the fields with Peter and his crew, my muscles ache and I’m covered in a filthy mixture of dirt and sweat. Standing next to the garden hose, I pull my thin T-shirt over my head and toss it on the short fence next to me. With a quick twist of the faucet, the water begins flowing. Scrubbing my hands together under the spray, I wash away the dirt before cupping them together to splash the water on my face. There’s a small pail at my feet that I half fill. As I tip the pail back, I let the water flow through my hair and down my back. Feeling instantly cooler, I shake the excess water from my too-long hair. Getting a haircut every other week, like I did when I was at my desk job, flew right out the window once I moved home. Forgoing the neat and clean-cut look for an almost-never-clean-shaven face and hair that’s long enough to tuck behind my ears has actually been kind of liberating.