5. Bas
BAS
February was the quietest month of the year, working in the vines. The fruit was long gone, the new wine was in barrels, and the only sound was the snip of shears.
I’d always liked it that way. A man could prune from breakfast to dinner without anybody expecting a word out of him. This year, the silence was uncomfortable. At least once an hour, I pulled my phone out to call Rand, then thought better of it and put it away.
Rand Whelan, who most of our friends called Wolf, had been my best friend since we were nine years old.
Few people in the valley would ignore a call from him.
If it was business related, it meant he had an idea to increase profits that almost always panned out.
If it was a social call, there was nobody more fun than him.
He’d kept our crowd entertained since grade school, and he was so fucking charismatic.
The teachers all laughed instead of telling him to knock it off.
He was what the older women in our circle of vineyard owners called a bon vivant.
Since my dad died, he’d taken it upon himself to “cheer me up.” I could have told him that wasn’t what I needed, but I had no idea what was.
Shortly after noon, Zeke walked down the row.
“Gemma called,” he said. “She needs the key to her cottage.”
“It’s on the board in the barn.”
“She’s moving her things in tomorrow and wanted to know if there was a time of day when she wouldn’t interfere with any of the work taking place.”
“Interfere with what? This is the slowest time of the year.”
Zeke put his hand on my shoulder. “She needs to make more than one trip, Sebastian, and is trying to be considerate. I know you know what that is, because it’s how you operate.”
“Look, tell her it isn’t a big deal. She can come and go as she pleases.”
Whenever he raised his right eyebrow almost to his hairline, I knew I was in for it. When I was a kid, it scared me shitless. Now, it annoyed me.
“What? Out with it.”
“You said it yourself. It’s our slowest time of the year.”
“And you think I should offer to help her?”
He squeezed my shoulder one more time, then dropped his hand. “You know she won’t ask.”
She hadn’t hesitated to demand, more than ask, for my help with her fundraiser, but Zeke was probably right. If it was something for her, she’d do her damnedest to handle it on her own.
“What time is she starting?”
“Eight.” Zeke pulled his gloves from his pocket, put them on, then turned to walk away. He’d gone a few feet when he glanced over his shoulder. “Looks like we’ll need the frost fans again this week.”
“Understood.”
I finished the rest of the row, and when I got to the end, I whistled for the crew.
“I need two men tomorrow morning, seven thirty, full day’s pay for half a day’s labor.”
Every hand went up. Pruning was the only paid work most of them would get before spring. I picked the two nearest.
“Doing what?” one asked.
“Loading a truck.”
“Whose?”
“Mine. Bring gloves.”
The three of us rolled onto Gemma’s street in the flatbed shortly after eight. She’d told me she had furniture she didn’t want in the cottage, so I’d figured on hauling a houseful up to the equipment barn. Her car was in the driveway, with the trunk open, but nothing was in it yet.
She wheeled one box out on a hand truck, but stopped on the top step. Her hair was tied in a ponytail, and there was already dust on the knees of her jeans. She was beautiful. Eight in the morning, dressed to haul boxes, and she was flat-out gorgeous.
I stood in the street, wanting to walk up those steps and kiss her. She hadn’t even said hello yet.
“Bas? What are you doing here?”
“Zeke told me you were moving in today.”
“Okay. Um, thank you.”
She left the hand truck on the steps and met us near where I’d parked.
“Hi, I’m Gemma. Thanks for your help.”
She’d thanked my men and learned their names before she said good morning to me. Most people would’ve looked right through them. Damn if I didn’t like her more than I had ten minutes ago.
I walked up to the porch while my two guys introduced themselves.
“None of the furniture is mine. What belongs to me has been boxed, packed, and labeled.”
Her things were lined along one wall. There was a tote with files inside, a folding table, two suitcases, and a few cartons with client names printed on the sides.
“Turns out most of what I own fits on a hand truck,” she said. “Except my printer. That’s a beast.”
Hearing that she didn’t want furniture moved was one thing. Loading everything she owned in under an hour was another.
The beast, as she’d called it, was on the kitchen table. It was a couple of feet wide and weighed as much as an empty barrel.
“That’s heavy,” she said from the doorway when I lifted it. “Wouldn’t it be better to have one of the guys help you?”
“Sure.” I set it down. I could’ve managed it on my own, but it wasn’t worth how much it would stress her out.
I ended up on one side of it, and the two guys together on the other. We carried it to her car and loaded it into the trunk.
The last thing Gemma brought out was a garment bag that she laid flat. When she straightened, she had a checkbook in her hand.
“Bas, please let me pay for this. The truck, the men, your morning.”
“Put that away.”
“It’s too much. I can’t let you do this.”
“You have no choice. The men are on my payroll, the truck is mine, and this is our slow season.”
“Can I buy lunch for everyone?”
I smiled. “Feed everybody at your housewarming.”
She put the checkbook away, and that was as close to a surrender as I was going to get.
At the cottage, she held the door open and directed traffic. “Kitchen cartons first, please. Suitcases to the bedroom. The printer goes on the office desk, not the floor.”
“You want it hooked up?” I asked.
“Yes, please. The cables are labeled in the order they go in.”
“Of course they are.”
When the truck was empty, she tried to hand my men cash, and neither one would take it.
“It’s covered,” the older one said before they both walked toward the equipment barn.
Gemma turned to me. “I wish you’d let me do something for them and for you. It would’ve taken me all day to do what you did in a couple of hours.”
“Have lunch with me. Or dinner if you’d rather unpack first.”
She put one hand on her hip. “Will you let me buy?”
I laughed out loud, and damn, it felt good. “Not a chance, boss.”
“Boss?”
“You’re running the fundraiser, right? And the events here. Not to mention renting the other cottages. I figure I answer to you now.”
“If you’re paying me, which you are, you are still the boss.”
“So what’s it gonna be, Gemma? Lunch or dinner?”
She looked over her shoulder at the boxes stacked up inside. “Dinner tomorrow maybe?”
“Gotta be tonight.”
Her brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Because we have an event scheduled tomorrow night, and an industry dinner is definitely not what I had in mind.”
I turned around when I heard a car come up the main drive toward the house.
Rand’s 1964 Jaguar XKE convertible was unmistakable, which was only one of the reasons he loved it.
God knows the Wolf couldn’t abide going unnoticed.
He’d painstakingly restored the car in his early twenties.
What had been opalescent dark blue was now British racing green, with a biscuit-tan leather interior.
He’d found a second for sale, a 1967 in candy-apple red, that he’d almost talked me into buying, but in the end, I told him that, one, I had no desire for everyone in the valley to know where I was and when, and two, I much preferred the pickup that had been my dad’s first vehicle and was passed down to me when I turned sixteen.
It had a bench seat, a long bed, a 6.4L V8, and while my father had had it repainted before giving it to me, raven black was its original color.
“Company?” Gemma asked.
“Rand Whelan,” I said.
“Is he the one everyone calls Wolf?”
“The very one. I’ll pick you up at six for dinner.”
“You’ll pick me up. From a hundred yards away.”
“It’s a date, boss.”
She rolled her eyes. “Hey, is he single?”
I was headed in his direction, but froze and turned around. “Why?” I hadn’t specifically said we couldn’t date other people during the time she was committed to attending events with me. However, I thought it was implied.
That wasn’t what had stopped me cold, though, and I knew it.
Instead, it was the picture of her with Rand, him exuding charm, her drinking it all in.
It made me want to put my fist through the door of his precious Jaguar.
She’d been on the property for less than a day. My reaction was going to be a problem.
“I have a bachelor auction to fill, Bas.”
“Right. I can guarantee he’ll be your most enthusiastic participant.”
“Not you?” she pressed.
“I never agreed to be in it and don’t intend to.”
I walked away before she said more.
Rand was leaning against the car when I got up the hill. He pulled his sunglasses down his nose and studied me over the top of them.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Can’t I pay a visit to my closest friend?”
Rand didn’t come out to Whitmore without calling first. Ever. I suppose the ten calls and texts I’d received in the last few days and didn’t respond to might count.
“I heard you had a new tenant in one of the cottages.”
I raised a brow similarly to Zeke’s. “Where did you hear that?”
“You know how things get around in the valley.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“One of your crew mentioned it to one of my guys, and before you ask, I’m not telling you who it was.”
“I’ll fire them all, then,” I muttered.
Rand laughed. “Go ahead. It’ll be more help for Howling Wolf. You do have the best team around.”
He was right, and it was something my father had prided himself on. We also paid higher wages to keep them here.
“So, who’s the beautiful woman who took Isabel Van Orr’s place?”
“None of your business.” I glared at him. “Why are you here, Rand?”
“Dinner. Tonight. On my terrace. The old crowd, and steaks the size of hubcaps. I already told everybody you’re coming.”
“Can’t. I have plans.”
His mouth hung open. “Is there an industry event we’ve all forgotten?”
“No.”
“I see. So it must be with whoever that was on the cottage porch?”
“Go home, Rand.”
“I’m going.” He opened the car door but hesitated before getting in. “You know I’ll eventually find out who she is. It’s my best quality.”
Had he been at the event two nights ago, he would’ve known about Gemma. “It’s your worst.”
“Nah, it’s the reason you know all the happenings too.” He dropped into the seat. “By the way, you look happier than I’ve seen you recently, my friend. Whoever she is, I’m on her side already.”
He turned the car around and headed down the drive.
Saying I looked happy was pushing it. Then again, for the first time since December, I was looking forward to something. Now, to come up with a place that would impress her without going overboard. The idea came to me instantaneously, but it meant we’d need to leave earlier.
I sent Gemma a text. Pickup time changed to 5:30. Dress warm.