Too Close to the Sun (44 page)

Will tried to think how often he saw his
father. Twice a year? On visits that ended too fast and were too
falsely separated from "real" life. Will couldn't fault his
brother-in-law Bob, not really, for wanting to be near his family
in Philly again after so many years of living half a continent
away. His parents were getting older, and he was worried there
wasn't that much time left. There was a lot of sense to what Bob
was doing. There was a lot of sense to what Beth was doing, too.
Which was more than Will could always say about his own life.

His sister came into the kitchen just as the
coffee finished coming down. "Did you sleep okay?" he asked
her.

She rolled her eyes, accepted a mug.

"I slept all right. How about you?"

"I spent a lot of time staring at the
ceiling."

She shook her head. "I'm sorry about all
this."

"No." He touched her arm. "You have nothing
to be sorry for. I understand what you're doing, and it's the right
thing," he added, giving himself a few points for being—even
briefly and belatedly—magnanimous. "And besides, you've been
running Henley S and G for years now. I don't know why this is so
hard for me. It really shouldn't be."

"Well." She moved to sit on one of the two
bar stools at the end of the center island. As Will went to join
her, he noticed that the father next door swung into his kitchen,
dressed and combed, to grab his car keys and switch off the lights.
"It's your whole life, Will. It's leaving your job
and
San
Francisco."

And Gabby, too. Beth didn't even know that
part.

"It's also running Henley S and G," she went
on, "which you've never wanted to do."

"It's not that I never wanted to," he said,
then stopped.

But knowing him too well, his sister chuckled
and picked up where he'd left off. "Okay, you didn't want to once
you realized how humdrum it is."

He drank from his mug, set it down. "I had an
idea last night."

"What's that?"

"There may be a way to use GPG to make Henley
S and G a bigger enterprise. I could imagine them making an
investment, ramping the company up, giving it a bigger platform.
Expanding beyond the mountain states, taking on some of the larger
players that the company's never really challenged before."

Will saw Beth's face light up. He was
reminded, once again, how relieved Beth would be if he took over.
She could feel confident that she was leaving the family company in
good hands, and could move with a clear conscience to
Philadelphia.

"You love this stuff, don't you?" she asked
him. "Taking businesses and growing them. You actually like it a
lot more than I do."

"A lot I do like. A lot I don't. The
politics. The dog eat dog."

"There must be a lot of that at GPG."

"You don't know the half of it." Ironically,
this would be a good time for Will to quit. He'd leave on a high,
after having just scored a deal that everyone judged a big winner.
Who knew when that would happen next, if ever? "Funny enough, I've
been thinking lately about running my own show. I did a deal in the
wine country, bought a family business, and learned a lot about the
man who founded it. I don't know." He shook his head. "It gave me
something to think about."

They were silent for a time. Shapes began to
emerge from the shadows outside the windows. Will heard the stray
birdcall. Slowly, gently, the day was dawning.

Beth spoke. "Wasn't there a woman in the wine
country?"

Will shut his eyes.
Yes, there was a
woman
. He hadn't known her long, not really, but she loomed
large in every part of his life, his past, his present, his
future.

"Are you serious about her?" Beth asked.

It took him a while to answer. "Very serious.
But I couldn't ask her to leave Napa Valley."

"Why not?"

"Well, she's a winemaker for one thing.
There's no winemaking in Denver."

"She could come up with something else to do.
I'll have to."

He shook his head. "You can't begin to
understand how much she loves it there, Beth. She's lived there all
her life. Her family's there."

"So what? I've lived in Denver my whole life
and my family's there and now I'm moving to Philadelphia."

It wasn't as simple as that. Now Gabby's
father had serious heart problems. She wouldn't leave him. And Napa
dirt flowed in her veins. If ever there was a woman tied to a
place, it was Gabby to Napa Valley. It was Tara to her, Eden, the
soil of her birth and the dust of her death. There was no taking
Gabby out of Napa. Will understood that, even if his sister
didn't.

Briefly, he shut his eyes. It was Gabby who
had taught him about loyalty to family, Gabby who showed him how
high the cost of that loyalty might be. If it weren't for her, he
wouldn't have learned his lesson nearly so well.

Beth sighed. "I know I said it before, but
I'm really sorry I'm putting you in this position, Will. I just
wish there were an easy way out."

That brought a wry smile to Will's face.
If only
.

*

A job, a job, a job. Max exited the salon
where he'd just had a massage and paused on the sun-baked sidewalk
to put on his shades. Muscles relaxed, pleasantly drowsy, he raked
a hand through his hair, damp after his shower, then meandered
north in the direction of the restaurant where he was meeting
Claudia Landower for lunch.

A job, a job, a job. Problem One was that he
didn't know what he wanted to do. Problem Two was that he didn't
really want to do anything. It had occurred to him that maybe, when
he'd been running Suncrest, he hadn't fully appreciated the
benefits of being his own boss. Not having anyone to report to, not
having to show up or leave at an appointed hour, not having to keep
somebody else happy to retain his employment. All of those struck
him as fairly major pains in the ass. And they would all become
regular irritants unless he came up with an inventive way to make
money on his own.

That is, if he really had to. On some level,
he still wasn't convinced he did. He had to think there was a good
chance that his mother would cave, throw another five mil at him.
He just could not believe that when it came right down to it, she'd
out-and-out screw him. So, to the end of winning her over, he'd
reinstated his charming-as-can-be strategy. It'd worked before.

Max ambled on, glancing at an oil landscape
in the window of an art gallery, one of the many that could be
found even here in the northernmost reaches of Napa Valley.
Calistoga was a lot less chichi than St. Helena—it had more the
look of a Western frontier town—but still it had its share of
upscale establishments selling art, clothes, jewelry, and food. It
had a few good restaurants, too, and the Wappo Grill, where he was
meeting Claudia Landower, was one of them.

His mother was making him do this lunch,
though he was already bored to tears and it hadn't even started
yet. It had come about because of his forced donation to a
nature-conservancy group. Apparently the one his mom had picked was
a favorite of the Landower Foundation, and it was just his luck
that a family member involved in the charity stuff happened to be
in Northern California and wanted to thank him personally.

Great
. He could just picture Claudia
Landower—some blue-hair who'd be as entertaining as fruitcake. The
Landowers were as rich as the Rockefellers, but that didn't mean
they were interesting. So he'd opted for lunch over dinner,
figuring it was less likely to drag out. And there was no way he
was picking up the bill.

Man
. He hated having to think about
money, but now it was on his mind constantly. He'd started paying
rent for a bungalow in St. Helena, since in two days he had to
vacate the house. The bungalow was nice and all, but it didn't have
a pool or a Mrs. Finchley. For sure he'd have to hire someone. He
certainly wasn't going to clean, or do laundry, or cook, or shlep
around his dry cleaning.

The Wappo Grill was housed in a bungalow,
too, of the yellow clapboard type. On a day like this, people were
eating in the redbrick courtyard, sitting around the fountain at
little tables draped with blue-and-white gingham tablecloths. A
trellis shaded the whole area so the diners wouldn't pass out from
heat stroke.

"Your guest is already here," the waitress
informed Max, and led him to a table occupied by a woman about a
third of the age he'd been expecting.

She didn't stand, but her scrubbed, preppy
face lit up as she held out her hand. "Max, I'm so delighted to
meet you!"

Max shook her hand. "Hello, Claudia. The
pleasure is mine." Then he sat down, trying to remember why he'd
been so sure that Claudia Landower would be a geriatric patient. No
good reason, he realized, just an assumption that the younger
members of the family wouldn't bother themselves with the
foundation.

"It's
such
good luck that I happened
to be in San Francisco when I heard about your donation." This was
one cheerful woman. She didn't stop smiling. She was wearing khakis
and a pink polo shirt and had a ribbon tying back her long blond
hair. She seemed no-nonsense and outdoorsy. "It's so generous of
you, and quite sensitive," she added, "after the fire at your own
vineyards."

"Oh. Well." Max tried to look modest, never
his strong suit. Funny, wasn't that exactly what his mother had
predicted people would say? He remembered something else she'd told
him:
You don't care nearly enough how people think of you
.
Well, maybe he'd take a page from his mother's book and try to give
Claudia here a positive impression of him.

He set his elbows on the gingham and leaned
closer to her. "My family has always been deeply interested in
conservation. In fact, had we not sold Suncrest, I was considering
a move toward organic farming in our vineyards."

"Were you
really
? I am
such
a
believer in organic agriculture." She leaned closer, too. "Any
chance you're into animal husbandry, too?"

Animal husbandry. He had no idea even what
that was. "Yes," he heard himself say, "I love animals. The bigger,
the better."

"I love animals, too. Horses and dogs and
sheep and goats and . . . Do you ride?"

"Yes," he declared, "yes, I do. Love to
ride."

"What other sports do you like?"

He tried to think what would be the right
sports to like. "Golf," he managed, "sailing, lacrosse"—which he'd
toyed with in college, without much success—"and tennis, of
course."

"Skiing?" she demanded. "Downhill or
cross-country?"

"Both?" he wondered aloud.

She smiled. Apparently he'd passed muster.
"Shall we order?"

Obediently he picked up his menu. Claudia was
clearly a take-charge kind of gal. One other thing was for sure:
she didn't just believe in sports and organic agriculture, she
believed in food. He didn't know how long he'd kept her waiting,
but she'd put an impressive dent in the bread basket and sucked
down all of a large iced tea. Then she confirmed his opinion of a
healthy appetite by ordering a steak sandwich.

Over the meal, he asked a million and one
questions about the foundation, what she did there, what she liked
and didn't, blah blah blah. She was a bit of a Plain Jane, but she
was easy to talk to.

"So, Max." She swiped her last french fry
through the puddle of ketchup on her plate. "Now that your family
has sold its winery, have you decided what you're going to do
next?"

He hadn't the foggiest idea but guessed his
companion would disapprove of a lack of direction in life. "Well,
I'm considering a number of options." He assumed a solemn
expression. "I do know that I'd like to give something back. I've
been so blessed, and surely there is nothing as rewarding as what
you're doing, Claudia. Helping others less fortunate than
yourself."

"That is so, so true." She fell back in her
chair and stared at him. Then, "You know, Max, it just so happens
that we're looking to expand the leadership team at the Landower
Foundation. Have you ever considered a career in philanthropy?"

It was safe to say he had not. Max set down
his fork, as if a matter of such gravitas could not be discussed
while eating. He had to think philanthropy was one of the most
boring occupations out there. But then again, compared with other
jobs, it might not be half bad. He couldn't imagine it would be too
strenuous to hand out money, and it probably would involve lots of
being wined and dined by all the people who wanted a handout. And
he'd be a personage of some importance, because anybody who had
millions of dollars to give away automatically was.

"It's a fascinating idea," he told
Claudia.

Her face lit up. "Next time you're in
Chicago, you'll have to come riding with me at our family farm on
the North Shore."

A farm on the North Shore. Max knew there
were some serious mansions there, but he'd never heard of a farm.
"I'd love to," he told her, knowing he'd have to take lessons first
so he wouldn't fall off the damn horse.

"We have stables there, and I've been riding
since I was three. I go every weekend I can get away. I love my
apartment in the city . . . Did I tell you I have a penthouse on
Lake Shore Drive, near the foundation offices? But I still like to
get out to the country as often as possible."

Max nodded encouragingly, beginning to take a
new interest in Claudia's chatter.

"It's got just wonderful views, the
penthouse, I mean," she went on. "And of course I always ride
whenever I can get down to the ranch in Kentucky. We breed
thoroughbreds there, you know."

No, Max hadn't known. But now he was glad he
did. He was getting quite a picture of Claudia Landower, with her
stables and her farm and her penthouse and her ranch. He did a
quick assessment of her face and figure and judged her to be in her
early thirties. And still with no ornamentation on that
all-important left-hand ring finger.