Chapter 7
Rosa
I ’m sitting in the office—again, still, always—when the front door opens. I’m still not used to someone else waltzing into Nonna’s house like that. Even when Damien the Surfer Dude was working here, he rang the doorbell or knocked.
Not Jake. He just comes right in like he owns the place.
Or like he lives here, which he does, so I need to get over myself and accept that fact that there’s no reason for him to knock like he’s a visitor. It’s not like he owns the place.
My face heats up as I remember my lack of freak-out when we ran into each other in the bathroom last night. Talk about owning the place—he filled the bathroom doorway with those broad shoulders and bare chest and low-slung pajama pants I suspect he only wore because I’m in the house.
I was startled to see him there, like I’d conjured him straight out of the super-sexy dream that had woken me moments before, but I wasn’t bothered.
No, scratch that. I was bothered— hot and bothered, to be accurate.
I should have gone straight back to my room. Instead I stood there, drinking in the whole grown-up gorgeousness of the boy I let get away. The man I no longer know but who’s sleeping under my roof anyway.
And I’m pretty sure he wasn’t unaffected, either, if the heated look in his eyes was any indication. It was like his gaze stroked me from head to toe, a physical touch whispering over my skin. Which both thrills and terrifies me.
I shake my head and banish my inappropriate thoughts to the far reaches of my brain, even though I know they’ll come out to torment me as soon as I let down my guard. Right now, I have to focus on the winery and our vanishingly small chances of making this whole operation work.
“How’d it go?” I call out before I can talk myself out of it.
Part of me hopes he ran into the same roadblocks I did, just so I know it’s not all about me.
The practical part of me hopes he managed to hire a team. At least a couple of people. Maybe even one, if they’re good enough.
Because I really want this harvest to be a success. I want this winery to be a success. And I can’t do it all on my own.
His footsteps are slow as he approaches the office, and my heart sinks.
He comes in and throws himself into the chair across from my desk. “Hey.”
That doesn’t sound good.
“No luck?”
He sits there for a minute, his gaze somewhere far away. I wait.He’ll tell me when he’s ready.
Jake has always been like this—a combination of extroverted and pensive. His outgoing, friendly, over-the-top personality masks someone who likes to think things through. He’s not the sort to blindly rush in without working out all the angles in advance.
Except when we got married, that is. That was the ultimate impulsive move—for both of us.
He clears his throat, and I realize that I’m woolgathering now, too. I glance at him and tilt my head, ready for his response.
“No. No luck.”
I should feel some vindication, but I don’t. Just frustration and a growing fear that we won’t be able to keep the vineyard and winery afloat long enough to make a go of it.
I’ll be squandering Nonna’s birthright—the biggest, scariest gift I’ve ever received.
“You weren’t able to hire anyone? At all? Not even one dude?”
He shakes his head, one corner of his mouth ticking up in a humorless smile. “Nope. Not even one dude.”
Some of my panic must be showing on my face because he rushes to add, “I’m not giving up. We just need to—pivot.”
Panic turns to humor as I masterfully hold back a snort of laughter while a scene from an old sitcom flashes through my mind.
Not so masterful, I realize, glimpsing the smirk on Jake’s face.
Bastard.
“Okay, so we’re—pivoting. That’s good. What, uh, what exactly does that mean?”
He slaps his hands on his thighs and stands. My core clenches.
Oh, this does not bode well.
“I’m going to check with a friend tomorrow, see if I can call in some favors. We’ll have a team by the end of the week.”
I nod slowly, wondering just what kind of favors he’s going to call in. How tangled is this partnership going to be?
But I don’t have any choice if I want to avoid slinking back to Uncle Geno, my tail between my legs.
“In the meantime, I’ll start trimming out the insect damage.”
“By yourself?”
I don’t mean to sound like I doubt his skills, but it’s a lot for one person to handle.
“Of course.”
“I can pitch in.”
He shakes his head. “I’ve got it.”
“I don’t mind.”
“It’ll take me longer to teach you what to do than it would take me to go ahead and do it.” He smiles and turns to go.
I take a deep breath. “Jake.”
He stops and looks back at me.
“If I’m going to run this operation eventually, I need to know these things.”
He pauses, head tilted as he looks at me. I force myself not to shift nervously under his gaze. It’s like he can see inside me, see all the parts I never show anyone, except maybe Sasha. Not even my sisters.
I’m afraid he sees the part of me that thinks I’m not only not good enough but might never become good enough. It’s not like I’ve ever achieved anything the way Bianca has. I’ve never put myself out there like Allegra. All I’ve done so far with my life is…nothing.
God, I hope he can’t see that.
Finally, he nods once. “You’re right. But not today. This one really is a one-person job, Rosa. But yes, I’ll get you out in the field and show you what you need to know.”
“Thank you.”
Partly for taking my request seriously, and partly for not teasing me about that exhale that sounded excessive even to my own ears.
The glint in his eye tells me it’s a big sacrifice.
“I’m gonna hold you to it,” I tell him. “And if the job today ends up being bigger than you thought, come get me.”
“I’ll be fine,” he says with a wink. “Don’t worry about me.”
But I do. I worry about him…and the vineyard and the winery and my sisters and…
I’m a worrier, all right? It’s what I do.
And by the grin on his face, I know he’s remembering that about me, too.
“Shut up,” I grumble, and he barks out a laugh.
“It’s fine,” he says, tapping the door frame as he exits the room. “I’ve got everything under control.”
Then he’s gone, taking his energy and confidence and all-too-masculine presence with him, leaving me a little breathless and a whole lot keyed up.
I also may have just a teeny bit of a competence kink, and he’s pushing all my buttons.
* * *
The sun is starting to go down when I shut off the computer for the night. I’ve spent most of the day working on my budget, and now that I don’t have to pay Surfer Dude (and Jake is taking just room and board), I’ll probably have enough to pay a couple of field-workers through the end of the season. But after that—after the grapes are harvested and pressed and set aside for maturing—I still have to figure out how to survive until they can be sold.
This is so fucking complicated.
I could sell the Cabernet grapes to Uncle Geno, let him keep producing Carleo for another year. But I just…don’t want to.
I don’t want to postpone this for another year or another two or probably a decade. Once he has the Cabernet grapes back, he’d never let them go.
And besides, he doesn’t want to buy them. He wants me to give them to him free of charge. Because family.
Ugh. Enough mental strain for the day. I slap the laptop closed and stand, stretching all the muscles that cramped up while I sat at the desk for way too long. My stomach growls, and I check my watch.
Food. I need food, and now.
I wander down the hall to the kitchen, which has a light on. My first instinct is to worry about the power bill, if I’m leaving lights on all over the place and forgetting about them, but then I turn the corner and see Jake, bent over at the waist, head in the fridge.
God, his ass is a thing of beauty.
I take my time admiring it.
Hey, a girl can look, right?
And it’s not like he didn’t take advantage of the situation last night at the bathroom door. Turnabout is fair play, and all that.
I hear him clear his throat and realize he’s looking at me , looking at his butt.
Busted.
“You want something?” He’s got this way-too-attractive smirk on his face. He knows damn well what I was doing.
And he probably has a pretty good idea of what I want.
But I can’t have it, not with all this history between us, so I gesture at the fridge. “Getting a little hungry.”
His gaze sweeps me from head to toe. “Same.”
No fair.
I shove my hands into my pockets and step closer to the fridge. “Anything look good?” I hold up a hand, cutting off a—no doubt—sexually charged double entendre. “Food, Jake. I’m talking about food.”
He steps back, hands up in an I surrender gesture. “I was thinking about throwing together a salad with some grilled chicken. Join me?”
I nod and grab some stuff out of the crisper. “You grill the chicken; I’ll make the salad.”
“Deal.”
* * *
A bottle of wine, a loaf of crusty bread from the farmers market, and two massive salads tossed with homemade strawberry vinaigrette later, I push my plate away and prop my elbows on the picnic table. “So, how did the insect damage work out?”
“Got almost all of it.” Jake mimics my elbows-on-the-table move and leans forward. “It’s looking really good out there, if I do say so myself.”
“Please.” I wave a hand grandly at him. “Give yourself all the credit you deserve. God knows I wouldn’t know what to congratulate you for if it was up to me.”
“Hey.” He tilts his head and looks at me again in that way that makes me squirm inside. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
“Come on, Jake. I don’t know the first thing about keeping a vineyard alive. I didn’t even know the irrigation system had been turned off.”
“You’ve got good instincts, Rosa. You always have. Maybe you didn’t know what was going on with the irrigation system, but you knew something was wrong. You were out there checking the soil because you tracked that the vines weren’t in good shape.”
I duck my head, feeling heat crawl up my neck.
“And you’re doing a crap ton of research on that laptop of yours.”
“How do you—” I snap my mouth shut as his smile grows.
“Lucky guess. But I was right, wasn’t I?”
I take a long swallow of wine so I don’t have to respond.
“I haven’t forgotten your obsession with learning everything down to the last detail. Why write a two-page essay when seven pages of meticulously researched information is ready to go?”
“I hate you,” I mumble, knowing it’s a lie.
He throws his head back and laughs, which shows me he knows it’s a lie, too.
“Anyway.” Jake finishes his wine and sits back. “You know more than you think you do. But you also want to know more and do more, which is really on-brand for you, and I’m sorry I didn’t recognize that earlier.”
“I don’t expect you to be a mind reader,” I protest, but he’s already shaking his head.
“Not a mind reader,” he says quietly. “I just know you.”
I clear my throat and look away. He hasn’t known me since we were both barely adults.
And yet.
He’s not wrong.
I need a change of subject before this gets too personal, so I lean back and look up at the darkening sky. “Nice night.”
Jake hums an affirmative, letting the conversation turn without protest. “Nothing beats a summer night in Napa.”
“Oh, come on.” I stand and start gathering up the dishes. “You’ve been all over the world. You can’t tell me this is better than—than Canada or Italy.”
“Keeping tabs on me?” He slants me another one of his patented smirks.
“No.” I snatch his plate off the table and add it to my stack of dishes with a clank. “Oak Creek Canyon’s just a small town in a lot of ways. People talk. And your parents were always super proud of you.”
His teasing smile fades away at that. “Yeah. I know.”
Somehow I’ve killed the mood completely, and I don’t even know how. “It’s a good thing, you know.” At his puzzled look, I add, “Having parents who are proud of you.”
I don’t think my mom has ever bothered to wonder what the three of us have been up to since she left with her new husband. Hard to be proud of people you don’t even think of from time to time.
“There’s a lot of pressure,” he says quietly. “All that pride.”
I just stand there, because what the hell do I do with that?
After a long moment, he sighs and changes the subject yet again. “Did you get a chance to talk to Bianca?”
I nod. “She’s totally down for going organic. Actually, I think her exact words were Oh my God, I was afraid if I told you I wanted to do that you’d have a coronary. Apparently she’s been learning a ton about different organic processes down in Argentina but thought it would be one more thing for me to stress about.”
“One more thing? What is she talking about? You are a paragon of calm and collected .”
I wrinkle my nose and throw a napkin at him.
He catches it in one hand and drops it onto the little tower of dishes I’ve stacked on the table. “I’m glad to hear Bianca and I are on the same page. I can start implementing some changes now, so she can continue it after…”
His voice trails off. Picking up the empty bottle and wineglasses, he heads toward the back door. “Anyway. I’ll get the foundation set for her. And you can join me in the vineyard tomorrow, if you want.”
“Perfect,” I murmur, following him inside.
The kitchen is warm as we clean up, suds drifting from the sink. I wash, he dries.
It’s cozy. It’s domestic. It’s terrifying how right it feels.
Is this what I gave up?
I shove the traitorous thought away and wipe my hands on a dish towel. “Well, I should hit the sack.”
It’s barely eight thirty, but I don’t dare spend more time with Jake tonight. I’m too weak, too tempted.
He raises one eyebrow but thankfully doesn’t say anything. Even though he could totally call me on it. “I hope you sleep well.”
I nod and hurry out of the kitchen and up the stairs. I really wish one of my sisters was here to run interference.
Not between me and Jake. Between me and my stupid, romantic self.