скачать книгу бесплатно
Zack didn’t say anything, although for a moment she thought she saw something contradictory flicker in his expression. Then it was gone.
“Well, that’s not all it is to me.” She glanced back out the window. Her voice was low, her tone reverent when she added, “My dad and I built Medallion from nothing. It’s…it’s my life.”
CHAPTER TWO
ZACK spent the following week getting acquainted with the winery’s day-to-day operations and the people who performed them. As he’d told Jaye on the first day, other than the manager and the vintner, he didn’t have any immediate plans to let people go, change their duties or make new hires, but neither did he intend to maintain the status quo. He saw potential at Medallion for greater profit, just as he saw potential for a superior product. He planned to achieve both.
Zack had something to prove.
He was sitting at his desk late Friday going through invoices when the telephone rang. It was his mother.
“I thought I’d call since you haven’t.” Judith Holland’s tone held teasing censure as well as a little hurt. He regretted that. It wasn’t his intention to wound her.
“Sorry. It’s been a busy couple weeks. The harvest is beginning,” he said.
“Here, too.” It was her subtle way of saying she didn’t buy his excuse.
“How is it looking?” he couldn’t help asking. Hearing her voice had made him a little homesick for California and the vineyard he’d left behind. Winemaking was in his blood. It had been in the Holland blood for three generations.
“Good,” she said. “Ross says it will be a better yield than last year, especially for the Sangioveses.”
“That must please Dad.” The Italian varietal was one of his father’s personal favorites.
“It does. Phillip thinks we should expand that section of the vineyard and increase our production, given the rise in popularity of the wine.”
“Of course he does.” Zack’s mood soured. He’d suggested the very same thing to his father two years ago without success, but only because Phillip had been against it at the time.
Phillip was Zack’s cousin but the two men were more like brothers. They had been raised together after a car accident had left a four-year-old Phillip orphaned. Zack had been two at the time. Over the years the pair had butted heads often, enjoying what his mother termed sibling rivalry. It had run deeper than that. Now as adults, Holland Farms and their opposing visions for it posed the biggest source of friction.
No matter what innovations or changes Zack proposed, to make the staid winery stand out in a changing and ever more competitive marketplace, his cousin effectively vetoed them. It wasn’t that Phillip had any more say or power than Zack did. No, what he had was more damning. He had Zack’s father’s ear. He’d always had his father’s ear.
“How is old Phil these days?” Zack drawled. “Still sitting to the right hand of the father?”
“Zackary.” Judith’s tone sounded more weary than scolding.
“Sorry.” And he was. He hadn’t meant to put his mother in the middle.
She seemed satisfied with the apology. “Your cousin is well.”
“And Mira?”
“She’s well, too.” The words came out slowly.
“They’re still together then?” he asked.
Zack’s fiancée’s affections had soured quickly when he began talking about selling off his share of Holland Farms and shopping for his own vineyard. Soon after ending things with Zack, she’d turned up on Phillip’s arm at his family’s annual charity ball. It had been a hell of blow to his ego to learn that she’d considered the vineyard to be Zack’s most appealing attribute.
“Yes.” Judith cleared her throat before continuing. “In fact, she and Phillip recently became engaged.”
It wasn’t heartache he felt. He’d moved beyond that. What was left was bitterness. “Proof that one Holland is as good as the next as long as he comes with a stake in the land,” he sneered.
“Zackary, please. It’s been nearly a year. Don’t be like that.”
“Like what, Mother? Honest?” He snorted. “Apparently I’m the only one so afflicted in our family. Everyone else just tiptoes around the fact that my cousin has always taken what belongs to me.”
She didn’t dispute that. Instead, she said, “They love one another.”
“They love Holland and the lifestyle it affords them,” Zack countered.
“You used to love Holland, too.”
“Yes. I loved it enough to want to see it evolve.” He let out a sigh. “It’s not worth getting into again. Not over the phone and not with you, Mom.” She’d always been in his corner. “I know you supported my ideas.”
“I did and I still do. I know you’ll do well.” There was a hitch in her voice when she said, “I just wish Michigan weren’t so far away.”
“It’s just a plane ride,” he said lightly.
“Yes, just a plane ride,” she repeated. Then, “Are you upset about Mira?”
“Not the way you think.”
“Good. Mira is a nice young woman, but she wasn’t right for you, Zack. You never would have been happy married to her,” Judith said.
“That much we can agree on. So, when are they planning to make it official?”
“In the spring.” She hesitated a moment before asking, “You’ll come home for the wedding, won’t you?”
“What and ruin my black sheep image?” His laughter held no humor. “Sorry, Mom. I think I’ll send my regrets.”
“There will always be a place for you here.” Judith’s voice was low, broken.
“I know that’s how you feel, Mom, and I appreciate it. Really, I do.” Left unsaid was that his father and cousin had long made him feel like an outsider. Mira’s defection had been the final straw. There would be no going back, at least not until he’d achieved some of the ambitious goals he’d set for himself.
“Are you happy?” his mother asked quietly.
“I’m getting there.” The reply wasn’t only for her benefit. Zack meant it.
“That’s good. I want you to be happy even more than I want you here. I love you.”
“I love you, too, Mom.”
After hanging up, he decided to call it a day. The sun had set already, and he was tired and not likely to get much more done—especially now. He felt too unsettled, too restless to sit behind his desk and sift through papers. His stomach rumbled noisily and he realized he was also hungry.
When he stepped out of his office, he noticed that Jaye was still in hers. Through the open door, he could see her hunched at her desk, reading a report. Her hair was in its usual utilitarian braid and she wore a flannel shirt that looked to be at least a couple of sizes too large. A bottle of spring water sat open next to her elbow, and she was munching on a granola bar.
He stopped at her door. “Please tell me that’s not your dinner,” he said.
Jaye glanced up at the sound of his voice and blinked as if trying to focus. In the past week Zack had learned one thing about her: she was no slacker. The woman put in long hours and gave everything she worked on her undivided attention.
“Sorry? What did you say?” she asked.
He motioned toward the bar of rolled oats and raisins she held in one hand. “I was just wondering if that was your dinner.”
“Oh?” She shook her head. “A late lunch, actually.”
“It’s going on seven.”
She glanced in the direction of the window, as if just realizing it was dark outside. “A really late lunch, then,” she said.
He leaned against the doorjamb. “I can see how you manage to stay so slim. Got something against real food?”
“This is real food, but to answer your question, no. I just didn’t have time to stop for a meal today.”
He nodded and straightened, intending to be on his way. But he found himself saying, “I was thinking about grabbing a bite to eat before I head back to my hotel. Would you like to join me?”
Jaye eyed him the way a scientist might study an acutely contagious test subject and said nothing.
“You know, you’re hell on a man’s ego,” Zack drawled, snorting out a laugh afterward.
“Sorry. I just…I just don’t think that we should—”
“What?” He cocked one eyebrow in challenge. “Be friendly? I’m not asking you out, Jaye.” Thinking of Mira and all of the pain and disillusionment she’d caused, he added with great feeling, “Believe me, I’m not interested.”
“And you have the nerve to say I’m hell on the ego,” she replied dryly.
He closed his eyes, rubbed them and sighed. “Sorry. That came out wrong.”
“Bad day?”
Zack shook his head. “Just a long one. A long week, for that matter.” Now the weekend yawned before him. More than likely he would spend it in his office. Better there than alone in a hotel room with nothing to do. “Well, I’ll leave you to your late lunch. See you Monday.”
He was turning to go when Jaye said, “Friday is pizza night.”
He angled back. “Pardon?”
“It’s Geneva’s night off. She’s my housekeeper. She plays bridge with her friends on Fridays, so I make pizza.”
“From scratch?” He was having a hard time picturing Jaye puttering around in a kitchen. She didn’t appear to be the domestic sort, given her affinity for men’s shirts and steel-toed work boots.
She shrugged. “It’s not like it’s rocket science. Besides, I buy the dough already made from a pizzeria in Sutton’s Bay. Saves me time.”
“I see.” He motioned with one hand. “So, are you extending an invitation to me or are you just sharing information?”
His ego took another beating when she took her time answering. “I’m extending an invitation, one coworker to another.”
He decided not to point out that technically he was her boss. “Gee, glad we have that straight.”
Jaye tossed the uneaten portion of her granola bar into the trash. “Give me five minutes to finish up here.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Jaye didn’t know what had possessed her to invite Zack to dinner, and at her house no less. She didn’t want him in her home, invading more of her space. But there was no use wasting time regretting it now. The deed was done, and unless she planned to uninvite him, which she didn’t, she was going to be spending the next couple of hours in his company.
The idea wasn’t completely without appeal. She told herself that was because they had winemaking in common, which meant at the very least the conversation would be easy and interesting. Besides, what was that saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Zack wasn’t her enemy exactly, but under the circumstances, neither was he her friend.
Downstairs, the tasting room had closed a couple of hours earlier and all of the employees had long since gone home. Stemmed glasses had been washed and put up, the hardwood surface of the large circular bar had been wiped down, and any opened bottles of wine properly stored. The security lights glowed softly, giving the large space with its vaulted ceiling and exposed oak beams a more intimate feel.
“Zack?” she called out.
“Over here.” He stepped from behind a display of bottles that had been stacked on their sides to keep the corks moist.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“My mom told me never to show up at someone’s home empty-handed, so I’m looking for a little something to go with our dinner.” He flashed an engaging grin that, along with the reference to his mother, made him appear far younger than the midthirties she knew him to be.
Jaye pointed to the next shelf over. “How about the house red?”
“It’s good.” He scratched his chin. “But I was thinking of something a little more…elegant.”
“To go with pizza?”
Zack shrugged. “Is there a rule against that?”
“I guess not.”
“Good. Besides, I feel like celebrating.”
“Let me guess. Ownership of the vineyard?” Her tone was tight.
To her surprise he shook his head. “I was thinking more along the lines of freedom.”
His lips twisted on the last word, as if it had left a foul taste in his mouth. Jaye didn’t press him, even though the cryptic answer certainly made her curious. Freedom from what? Or the more intriguing question: Freedom from whom?
It was none of her business, though. So she asked instead, “If it’s a celebration you have in mind, then how about our 2004 pinot noir?”
“Ah. Now you’re talking.”
He grinned again. This time there was nothing remotely boyish about the way he looked. He was all man, fully grown and way too easy on the eyes. Jaye swallowed. Friend? Enemy? For a moment her traitorous libido seemed interested in drafting an entirely different classification. She chalked it up to long work days and a virtually nonexistent social life, especially when it came to members of the opposite sex.
“I’ll wait for you outside,” she told him, and hastily retreated, happy to stand alone in the frigid moonlight while her pulse returned to normal.
Jaye was leaning against his car when Zack finished locking up the building’s main doors. Unless she had appointments that took her away from the vineyard during the day, he’d noted that she walked the short distance from the house to work.
“Car’s unlocked,” he called. “I should have thought to give you the keys so you could start it up and get the heater going.”
The air held an extra bite tonight, but she didn’t look cold. In fact, her jacket remained unzipped.
“That’s okay. I was just enjoying the peace.”
