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Mario didn’t hesitate. He stood immediately and thrust out his hand. “Yes, we do, Gabriel. I’m very pleased you are going to make my little vineyard into a modern operation.”
As they shook hands, Gabe smiled so widely his cheeks hurt. This was more than a very exciting day in his life. And it felt very, very fine.
Gabe signed the papers, then handed them to Mario. “Congratulations to us.”
While Mario countersigned them, Gabe took out the cashier’s check and handed it to Bianca.
She smiled gratefully at him. “Thank you.”
As soon as the paperwork was done, Gabe would own roughly twelve acres of vineyard, most of which contained the same soil that was on Liz Crenshaw’s land.
This tiny parcel wasn’t even a speck of lint on the hundreds of acres, both planted and fallow, that Liz and Sam Crenshaw owned, but it was a start.
Since his freshman year at UC Davis, when he’d taken his first classes in viticulture and enology, he’d known that the tomatoes, soybeans and corn his family grew would never hold the allure for him that grape-growing and winemaking would. He had not only excelled in his classes, but also seemed to know as much or more than his professors. He remembered everything he read about wine as if the information had been burned into his brain. He was obsessed with California—the weather, the soil, the rock, the grapes, the other fruit and the estates. Gabe was drunk on the knowledge that flowed into him. Like the casks of wine he someday intended to make, Gabe knew he had to bide his time. His dream had to be held in reserve. Aged and not rushed. He’d returned to Indian Lake that summer, forever changed.
Still, Gabe had always felt the strong sense of duty to his parents that often befalls firstborn children. When Nate ran off to join the navy after high school, not telling any of his family where he’d gone, Angelo had exploded with rage. Gabe had assuaged his father’s anger by promising to be his right-hand man on the farm after he graduated from Purdue. Gabe had been putting his dreams and passions on hold for nearly a decade now. This opportunity to buy this small patch of land from the Mattuchi family had been the key to unlocking his hidden desires.
Once the papers were signed, his life was never going to be the same. It was time for him to break free from his father’s grasp, and this purchase was his first step.
He needed to learn as much as he could as fast as he could, because all his moves would be swift from this point forward. He intended never to look back.
Gabe’s ultimate dream was that one day his vineyard’s name, Château Gabriel, would grace a wine so rare and unique that it would be sold, revered, saved and even auctioned off around the world. He would be recognized among the world’s great sommeliers and collectors. He would have left his mark.
When the time was right and his plans called for it, he intended to travel to Argentina, South Africa and France to buy exceptional varieties of grapes with which to create masterpieces.
“Thank you, my friend,” Mario said as he handed the papers back to Gabe. He kept a copy for himself. “This makes me very happy.”
“I’m glad I could help. And thank you, Sophie, for suggesting I buy your father’s land.”
Bianca and Mario led Gabe to the door.
Sophie squeezed between them. “I’ll walk you to your car, Gabe,” she said sweetly.
Too sweetly, he thought. “Thanks.” He turned to Bella. “Good day to you, Mrs. Mattuchi,” he said with a polite nod.
Bella only grunted at him, then folded her arms over her chest and stared at the wall.
“Don’t mind her,” Sophie whispered. “It’s past her nap time.”
Gabe nodded. “I’ll be seeing you, Mario. I’ll give you a call on Monday before Mica and I come out to get started on the construction. He wants to look the place over.”
“Certainly,” Mario replied with a wide grin. He put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and pulled her close. “This is a wonderful day for us.”
“I’m glad,” Gabe said and ambled down the flower-bordered front walk toward his car.
Shielding his eyes, Gabe glanced over at Bella’s sunflower acre. “That’s really spectacular,” he said.
“Grandma sells to three florists in town, and a wholesaler from Chicago drives in every other day during her harvest.”
Gabe’s jaw dropped. “My kind of entrepreneur.”
“She can be a lot of fun,” Sophie assured him with a dazzling smile. “We can all be fun,” she said, leaning closer.
Gabe unlocked the car. “I’ll remember that,” he said.
She put her hands on the top of his door as he slid into the seat. “I’ll be seeing a lot of you this summer and fall, I guess.”
Gabe caught Sophie’s flirtatious undertone. Romance was the last thing on his mind. “Sophie, we should have an understanding. I’m looking forward to seeing you more this summer, but I’m doing a business deal with your father. We should keep things professional.”
The seductive smile slid off her face. She gave him a sharp nod. “Got it. Can’t blame a girl for trying. I’ll see you around.”
“See you around,” he replied.
Gabe drove down the gravel drive to the country road that would lead to the highway. As he passed the Crenshaws’ fenced-in vineyard, he began to slow down.
It wasn’t possible, he supposed—not according to any meteorologist or climatologist he’d heard, anyway—but Gabe could swear the sun shone more brightly on the Crenshaws’ grapes than it did on the Mattuchis’.
Just looking at the land brought back the vision of Liz standing tall and tan and beautiful, the summer wind blowing her long, honey curls around her shoulders as she pointed a shotgun at him.
Staring over at Liz’s thriving vines, he realized she truly was a child of the earth. And she seemed to want nothing more than to wipe him off that particular planet. Now they were going to be neighbors. He wondered if she would ever come around to being neighborly toward him. And if she did...
Would she be willing to sell her fallow land to me?
Gabe rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. The Mattuchi acreage was no more than a starter garden in the grand scheme Gabe had painted for himself. He needed something exceptional, and Liz Crenshaw had just that. She was experimenting with several different wines, including an ice wine. But how far did her imagination and drive take her?
If he could combine Liz’s harvest with imported Argentinian grapes, he would be able to create perfection.
This had been Gabe’s plan all along. But until his recent exploration to the Crenshaw tasting room and onto the land itself, he’d had no idea how valuable the Crenshaw plot truly was.
Sitting on a protected pocket of land where the earth, sun, wind and humidity combined to create a vintner’s paradise, Liz Crenshaw reigned over one of the most priceless slices of winegrowing land in the United States, outside of California.
Gabe nearly squirmed in his seat thinking about it.
He could just come right out and ask Liz if she would be willing to sell, but after their initial encounter, his best guess was she’d kick him off the land, shoot him, or both. No, he had to be careful with Liz. He had to take his time. He had to use some charm and plenty of wit. She was perceptive, bright and suspicious. A bad combination, if he was trying to swing a land deal.
He needed to win her trust first. He would make her a very fair offer—even more than fair. Both of them would come out on top.
If he were dealing with any other businessperson, the way he did at the farm and the corporate canneries, Gabe would have felt his usual confidence. But oddly, the thought of negotiating with Liz filled his gut with butterflies.
It was going to take a lot of convincing to win her over.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_29e23db2-5b3d-5249-adc4-4c04b23d33be)
LIZ LAY IN BED staring at Gabe’s bouquet. She’d put them in her mother’s favorite crystal vase. They would find their way to the compost heap soon enough, so she might as well enjoy them first. It wasn’t the flowers’ fault they were from Gabe.
She stared at the single salmon-pink rose in the middle of the arrangement. It might have been her first time receiving flowers from a man, but it was undoubtedly Gabe’s hundredth time giving them to a woman. He must have been pretty sure of himself to come back to her vineyard so quickly, which meant he hadn’t had to think very long to devise a plan to placate her. Showing up with a bouquet and an apology had obviously worked for him in the past.
Liz prided herself on not making snap judgments, on allowing people to prove themselves to her. She’d done it since high school with her employees. She had one of the best working crews around Lake Michigan, and she’d won their loyalty by dealing with them fairly.
With Gabe, she didn’t have much to go on. Of course, she’d heard about him nearly all her life. But that was either gossip or hearsay. What people said about Gabe was that he’d had dozens of girlfriends, though no one was ever mentioned by name. He was dating the “new blonde,” the “new redhead” or a woman vaguely identified by her profession.
Gabe’s supposed popularity with women didn’t surprise Liz. Most of her girlfriends thought he was the best-looking guy in Indian Lake, though none of them had ever dated him. None had even gone to a movie with him. Gabe had graduated from high school before any of her crowd had had a chance with him.
Gabe was nearly an icon by the time Liz had become a freshman. He had been Mr. Everything in high school. He was All-State quarterback and went to regionals for the five-hundred-yard dash. He was on the debate team and acted in several school plays. Some said he was better on stage than he was on the gridiron. She was sure Gabe had made it nearly impossible for his three younger brothers to keep up. Gabe had achieved every goal he set. He’d always won.
Back then, even her grandfather had said Gabe was a “golden boy.”
It stood to reason a person who had always been a winner would expect that kind of life to continue. Such an outlook would tend to make a person arrogant and bigheaded.
Pigheaded was more like it.
The more Liz thought about Gabriel Barzonni, the more intense the fire within her became. Apparently, his charms had always worked on women. Apparently, he’d lumped her into that group of easy-to-manipulate females, and apparently, he hadn’t tried to get to know her in the least. He didn’t have the slightest idea what it would take to impress her, and he obviously wasn’t interested in finding out. To a man like Gabe, she was just an object, a problem to be either solved or forgotten.
“Well!” she exclaimed aloud. “We’ll just see about that!”
She bounded out of her bed, tossing her grandmother’s counterpane quilt aside, and walked barefoot across the honey-colored hardwood floor to the window.
It wasn’t dawn yet.
Liz hadn’t slept, which made her angrier with herself. It wasn’t like her to dwell on inconsequential matters.
She combed her long hair with her fingers and then massaged her scalp. Something wasn’t right. In fact, it was all wrong. There was no good reason for Gabe to be on her land. And he hadn’t come clean about his real reason for trespassing. Then he’d sent her the flowers. But why?
She was beginning to hate that word.
There was only one smart thing for Liz to do.
I have to pretend he doesn’t exist. I never saw him on my land. He never brought me flowers.
* * *
LIZ WORE A fire-engine red bathing suit with white spaghetti straps and white river shoes as she helped her friends carry their sculling boat from the boathouse at Captain Redbeard’s Marina out onto Indian Lake.
The early dawn rays slid across the glass-like surface of the water, making it look like silver mercury. The sky was dotted with only a few clouds, now tinged in pink and lavender, a spectacle Liz knew would only last moments.
Placing the boat in the water, Liz went back for the oars and distributed them to Sarah, Maddie and Isabelle, and kept one for herself.
“Before we start,” Maddie said with an impish smile, “I have something to ask Liz and Isabelle.”
“Sure,” Liz said, pulling on a pair of rowing gloves she’d bought at the marina’s new gift shop. Sarah thought wearing gloves was cheating, but Liz didn’t care. Her hands were a wreck from thinning the grape vines the past week. She needed to give them a chance to heal, not torture them further.
“Would you both be my bridesmaids?”
“Are you kidding?” Isabelle whooped and nearly knocked Maddie down with a hug. “I’d love to!”
Liz beamed from ear to ear. “I’m honored, Maddie. Wow.” Then she looked at Sarah, who was smiling at them all. “What about Sarah? She’s not going to be a bridesmaid?”
Maddie playfully shoved Liz’s shoulder. “You goofball. She’s my matron of honor.”
Liz shook her head. “Of course! What was I thinking?”
“I’ve asked Olivia to be a bridesmaid, as well,” Maddie said.
“So,” Liz said, “you’ve set a date?”
Maddie waved her hands in the air. “Oh my gosh! I didn’t tell you, did I? It’s December twenty-eighth. It has to be after Christmas because I’ll be catering for weeks and I won’t get a wink of sleep. And Nate says the end of the year is booked solid with surgeries for him. It’ll be an evening wedding. I thought that would be pretty. All the snow and Christmas lights. The reception will be at the Lodge. Then Nate and I will fly to Paris to spend New Year’s Eve under the Eiffel Tower.”
Liz nearly melted at the idea of New Year’s Eve in Paris. “Perfect, Maddie. Just perfect. You’ll love Paris.”
“I can’t wait. Then we’ll fly to southern Italy and spend two weeks there. It’s like a dream,” Maddie said.
“You deserve it,” Liz said. “You’ve worked so hard for so many years. You deserve a great guy and a wonderful trip...”
“Oh, yeah? You’ve worked just as hard as Maddie,” Sarah quipped.
“Yes,” Liz replied. “But I’ve already been to France.”
“That’s right!” Maddie said. “She’s been to France, so she’s a step ahead of all of us. Right, Liz?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say that, but I would say going there with someone special should be wonderful.”
They eased the boat off the shore, then climbed in and took their seats. Oars in place, in minutes they were synchronized and sluicing through the reflective water.
Sarah called out the strokes, as she always did. Liz concentrated on her muscles, the fit of the oar in her hands and the feel of the wind on her face.
Back straining, thighs tight in order to stay properly seated, the four friends worked as a team and became one.
As they rounded the north end of the lake, Maddie pointed to a heavily treed space. “See that, guys?”
“That’s the old Hanson lot, isn’t it?” Liz said, shielding her eyes. “I heard Mr. Hanson died back in May or June, wasn’t it?”
“Right,” Maddie said. “Nate and I bought the lot. We’re going to start building next month.”
Liz grabbed Maddie by the shoulders and shook her slightly. “You’re really doing this. Jumping in with both feet. First, all the wedding plans. Then a trip to Europe for a honeymoon and now building a house together.”
Isabelle laughed heartily. “They should be divorced by Valentine’s Day.”
“What?” Maddie screeched. “Don’t say that!”
“Oh, don’t listen to Isabelle,” Sarah said. “I say go for it. Charmaine and I can work out some blueprints for the interior.”
Maddie smiled wistfully. “I want it to look like a summer cottage—dark wood floors, rag rugs and lots of French doors overlooking the lake.”
“Sounds perfect,” Liz said as they rowed back toward the marina.
“So, do I get any vote on who will be my groomsman?” Isabelle asked from the back of the boat.
“You’ll be with Mica. Scott Abbot will escort Olivia.”
