10. Bas
BAS
In what I considered miraculous time and Gemma thought took longer than she’d hoped, three hours later, all but two file drawers were empty.
She’d somehow managed to determine what could be stored and what I’d need easy access to.
Everything in the latter category was scanned, which I happily took charge of.
To her credit, she didn’t tease me once about it, even after I marveled more than once at how I could feed a stack of documents in at a time. They’d be spit out in under a minute, and all I had to do was hit the save button.
“It isn’t a who. It’s an idea Izzy, Kick, and I came up with. Actually, they came up with it, and I agreed to participate.”
“So what is it?”
“A wine club but with a different spin. Instead of the standard new and cellar releases pretty much anyone can buy, this would be more exclusive. And it wouldn’t be from only one winery.”
“But the wineries that did participate would have to have been in business since 1934.”
She was so fucking smart. It blew my mind.
The woman sold my wine better than I did.
Organizing events was her trade, but she could do the same with a filing cabinet, a calendar, and a crew.
I could tell her something once, and she could repeat it verbatim hours or days later.
She was a damn good cook, even if all I’d tasted were her mother’s recipes.
And when she got bad news, she didn’t flinch.
She made a decision about what to do and was determined to handle whatever it was herself.
I couldn’t say her reluctance to ask for help was a good thing, but it was part of who she was in the same way her figuring out what the name meant when others would’ve required an explanation.
“Or before Prohibition started. In Whitmore’s case and Miremont’s, we were in the business years prior and have kept it going years after.”
“So how does it work?”
“Like I said, it would be a wine club that they’d pay for once a year.
In exchange, members would get first call on the wines we only make a few barrels of, the ones that are extremely hard to get.
They’d be able to purchase cellar collection exclusives and have a private tasting room at the places that have the space.
Cellar tours, barrel tastings, member-only wine dinners, even excursions were add-ons we’ve talked about. ”
“What would the cost be?”
“We haven’t figured that part out yet. We got hung up on whether there would be one price or tiers.”
“It’s brilliant. When could it launch?”
I could see her processing everything I’d told her. “When would you want it to, Gem?”
“The night of the Wicked Winemakers’ Ball, obviously. Unless you needed to get it off the ground sooner.”
“Let me guess; you also want to pitch participation at your First Pour event.”
Her eyes met mine. “Our First Pour event.”
“We should schedule a meeting with Izzy and Kick to see what they think.”
“Do you want to handle that, or should I?”
I offered since I didn’t see how in the hell the woman could add one more thing to her to-do list.
“Who’s Merritt?” she asked, opening the bottom drawer of the last cabinet.
“He did business with my dad for as long as I can remember. I haven’t talked to him since the funeral, but that isn’t unusual.”
“What kind of business?”
“Some years, we grow more grapes than we make wine from, and the extra gets sold to other wineries. Merritt finds the buyers and sets the price.”
She smoothed her hair with one hand and covered a yawn with the other. A few minutes later, her stomach growled loudly enough that I heard it from across the room. She put a hand over it and laughed.
“I owe you dinner,” I said, going to pull her up from where she sat on the floor, near Merritt’s files. “What sounds good?”
She yawned again. “God, I can’t even think. Surprise me?”
I put a pot on to boil and got the pancetta and the eggs out of the refrigerator. She sat on a stool at the counter, with her chin in her hand, and watched every move I made. The more she yawned, the more I worried she wouldn’t be able to stay awake long enough to eat.
“Coffee or wine?”
“Why hasn’t anyone come up with a caffeinated wine?” she asked. “You’d sell millions.”
“Would we?” I said, cringing.
“Yeah, it sounds pretty gross. I mean, coffee-flavored wine does. Couldn’t you inject a bunch of tasteless legal stimulants into it and call it done?”
“I’m not going to justify that question with a response.”
“That’s right. I read somewhere that you’re a purist.”
“Purist, huh? I guess you could say that. I want to make the cleanest, simplest, best wine I can. No gimmicks, no playing around with stainless over barrels if the varietal clearly calls for one over the other. Not to mention, wine laws dictate exactly how much of something other than grape juice we can add and still be legal.”
I left out the part about the two barrels in the corner of my own cellar that broke every rule I’d recited. Not the legal ones. Mine.
She looked at me, though it seemed more like she was looking through me.
“Chardonnay okay?” she asked, pulling a bottle out of the fridge.
“It’s perfect.” I stirred the sauce and put the pasta in boiling water. “We should make a pact.”
She uncorked the wine but didn’t pour. “No more kissing?”
It took me a minute to figure out if she was joking. “Uh, that wasn’t at all what I was going to say.”
“We probably should, though.”
I turned the fire off under our food, took the wine bottle from her hands, and set it on the counter. Then I pushed her up against the fridge like I had in the office.
“No,” I said, gripping her throat. “We’re not making any more pacts like that.” I angled my head and was about to brush her lips with mine.
“What, then?”
“Gemma—”
“Now, I’m curious about what you were going to say.”
“I was going to say that I won’t talk about winemaking if you don’t talk about the merits of an orderly filing system.”
“Oh. Right. Good thinking.”
I leaned in again. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
When my cell rang, I knew exactly who it was and ignored it.
“Should you get that?” Gemma asked when I leaned in to feast on her sexy-as-fuck mouth.
“Definitely not.” I put my arm around her waist and brought our bodies flush.
“What if it’s important?”
“It isn’t. My brother Everest calls every night at this time to make sure I’m sleeping and eating.”
“Are you?”
“Not presently, and to be honest, I have no interest in either. I also have no interest in talking.”
“Bas?”
“Yeah, Gem?”
“I am interested in eating.”
“Gotcha,” I said, accepting that the moment was ruined.
She poured the wine and took the glasses into the dining room, and I brought the carbonara to the table.
We were close to finished with our dinner when she pointed her fork at me. “Why didn’t you tell me how good of a cook you are?”
“You never asked.” I leaned forward and used my thumb to wipe away a spot of sauce on her lower lip.
She darted her tongue out at the same time, and damn if I didn’t want to pull her out of her chair onto my lap.
Better yet, get her to her cottage and into her bed, where I’d fuck her seven ways to Sunday.
“Come on. I’ll walk you home.”
“What about cleaning up?” she asked.
“I’ll do it when I get back. If I let you, you’d probably fall asleep right here in this chair.”
She yawned again, and I pulled her to her feet, helped with her jacket, and walked her to the cottage.
Neither one of us said much, and neither one of us walked fast.
At the bottom of her steps, she turned to face me. “Good night, Bas. Thank you for dinner.”
“Thanks for organizing my life.”
“My pleasure, and I mean that sincerely.”
I laughed and tweaked her nose. “I know you do. I’m never letting you see my dresser drawers. Or my closet, for that matter.” I kissed her forehead and pointed to her door. “Go inside now, so we can both get some sleep.”
Once she had, I turned to leave. I made it a few steps before she called my name.
“For the record.” She stood in the doorway with the porch light behind her and one hand still on the knob. “I’m not opposed to good-night kisses.”
“No?” I was already halfway to her.
She didn’t move. “No.”
“If I come inside, I won’t want to leave, Gemma.”
“I won’t want you to.”
If I so much as gave her another peck on the cheek, I’d carry her into her bedroom, and neither of us would get any sleep tonight. I turned and left and, this time, didn’t look back, even after I got to the main house.
Zeke was at the equipment barn before the rest of the crew showed, like he always was.
“Morning,” I said.
“Mornin’.”
I stood in the doorway for a minute.
“You need something?” he asked without turning around.
“We’re naming the event center for my father.”
He set down the snips in his hand and faced me.
“It was Gemma’s idea. We’re going to announce it at that thing in March.” I put my hands in my pockets. “It needs a sign.”
“Got any ideas?” Zeke asked.
“I don’t want anything cut in stone. And I don’t want brass letters bolted on the front like a bank.”
He leaned against the workbench. “You remember the big valley oak that came down in the wind a couple of years ago?”
“The one by the lower gate?”
“That’s the one. Your dad had it milled.” He tipped his head toward the rear of the barn. “It’s been stacked there since.”
“Show it to me.”
Zeke pulled the tarp off the pile. There were slabs of it, gray with dust on the outside and nothing wrong with a single piece. He got a rag and wiped down the end of one. “Grain’s perfect.”
“It is,” I said, running my hand over it.
“He’d have hated a fuss,” Zeke said. “Plaque, ribbon, speeches. All that.”
“I know.”
“He wouldn’t have hated this.” He put his hand flat on the wood. “This, he’d have liked.”
When we went inside, Zeke grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper. He sketched my dad’s name out and nothing else. No dates. No line about beloved anything.
“The letters should be routed and left dark instead of painted,” he said.
“Agreed.” Paint would chip and fade. A routed letter would still be legible long after everybody who put it up was gone.
“Who’s making it?” he asked.
“We are.”
He raised an eyebrow, then came over and squeezed my shoulder. “We better get started.”