And yet.
She was devious. She’d do anything to keep her father’s vineyard going, including poaching his annoying wine master. Evan wouldn’t put anything past her. To a man with a competitive nature, she was catnip, but also dangerous.
He had to stay sharp, he thought, as he shut off the shower and grabbed a towel. He had to keep his wits. He could win, let the dust settle and see where they stood.
Carmen Alvarez was adaptable.
Even if she lost, Evan could tell that she probably wasn’t going anywhere. The woman obviously belonged to this town. If anything, she’d become more beautiful since she’d arrived.
By the time Evan had gotten dressed he’d convinced himself that Carmen Alvarez would be much happier helping her father invest his windfall from the vineyard in a little business in town. Something she could run. Something much easier than running an entire winery with all its complexities, at the mercy of rain, weather and pests.
He would be doing her a favor.
He could wait, he decided, until she’d realized it was for the best.
Evan was a patient man.
And he always got what he wanted.
Carmen watched Evan as he entered the kitchen fresh from the shower, a towel slung around his neck to catch the drips from his hair. An old surf T-shirt clung to his damp torso. His bare feet padded over the worn tiles as he poured wine, chopped fresh mint on a checkerboard block built into the marble countertop and generally showed himself to be at home in the kitchen. Men who cooked always reminded her of how Papi had rebuilt their life meal by meal, making Mami’s recipes, forcing them to gather when they felt like scattering.
Evan dug in his freezer, holding up a pint of Snoqualmie Ice Cream. “They make this Smooooth Bourbon flavor,” he said, pronouncing the extra “O.” “You have to try it. I’m completely addicted.”
“Booze and ice cream. Sure, why not?”
He scooped pale, creamy mounds into white bowls, sprinkling it with mint. “Raspberries?” She nodded. “I’m not too sure about the mint, bourbon and berries combo but it’s already on there. Pick it off if you don’t like it.”
While Evan busied himself with dessert, Carmen perched on a padded barstool, listening to the dryer hum expensively as she wrapped the robe more tightly around herself. She took a sip of the fresh wine, wondering if it was one of Evan’s or part of the cellar he’d purchased with the estate.
She didn’t want to ask. They’d had such a great time after she’d pulled him into the pool. While they splashed there had been, in her mind, a ceasefire. It had felt like high school. Just a guy and a girl yelling, “I can’t believe you just did that!” and, “You totally deserved it!”
Her cheeks hurt from smiling.
She’d forgotten how much fun flirting could be.
Life in Seattle had gotten away from Carmen. She’d been buried in office work, competing in a job that eliminated any romance with the people she saw daily. A few guys at the nearby Starbucks had smiled at her, but she’d always grabbed her coffee and left. She didn’t have time.
Now she’d spent a good chunk of the night outdoors in the sage-scented air, watching the bats swoop low over the pool, flickering around the torches. It was a perfect place for weddings. For anything, really.
Evan had kept the basic lines of the house and patio, not going overboard like many relocating or summering millionaires. Some lakeside homes had terraced patios, tennis courts, parking for fleets of cars, elaborate water features, pools, docks. Evan had chosen his improvements carefully to match the existing house, the Chelan vibe. Although much had changed, Chelan was a town that prided itself on its rural values, its small-town character.
Carmen watched him sprinkle mint and raspberries carefully onto the ice cream. He would be fine, Carmen thought, once he’d settled on something else to pursue besides winemaking. Clearly, he was a man of many interests. Or maybe, Carmen thought guiltily, she was justifying her actions to herself.
Shaking her head to clear any doubts, Carmen offered Evan a bright smile as he handed her the pretty dessert and took her wineglass.
“Let’s eat outside.”
She climbed off the barstool in her bare feet. “Good. I have more ideas about the wedding.”
He turned to face her at the kitchen door. “Still all business?”
The white bowl, bright with berries, was cold on her hands. “Still all business.”
He pushed the door open with his back, letting her squeeze past. “Even after pulling me into the pool?”
“Especially after pulling you into the pool.”
They walked outside into the inky night, carrying their bowls to the table with the best view of the moonlit lake. Another coyote howled on the plateau.
Evan scraped a chair back for Carmen. “That was the first time I swam in the pool.”
Carmen laughed, taking a big bite of her dessert. It was delicious. The mint worked, adding a fresh note to the creamy ice cream and tart berries. “You’re kidding me?”
“Nope.”
Carmen spooned another bite. “Maybe you should slow down and enjoy things more.”
Evan nodded, lifting his glass towards her. “Maybe you should do the same.”
Carmen shook her head. “I’ve got a family business to run.”
Evan seemed to think for a moment. He nodded. “It’s a lot of work.” He sipped from his wineglass, letting his ice cream melt. “Now, please tell me you were joking about the goats.”
A name popped into Carmen’s head: Mrs. Huttinger. Papi’s eccentric friend who raised goats. As kids, they’d called her the goat lady. Did she still have a herd? Carmen took another bite, savoring it with her eyes closed. “This ice cream is delicious.”
Evan was so relaxed. He looked genuinely happy, eager to please. When they weren’t wrapped up in competing, he was interesting, chatting easily about food, wine, his life in Seattle, which he didn’t seem to miss one bit. He confessed that he wasn’t sure, early on, if Hollister Estate was going to make it. He’d given himself three years to turn a profit and was shocked when it did. “My friends thought running a winery meant sitting around and tasting wine all day. I’ve never worked so hard in my life. It was brutal.”
Their hands brushed when she handed him her ice cream bowl and he blushed like a schoolboy. His eyes were bright as he listened to a childhood story about Adella and Carmen getting so annoyed with three-year-old Lola one winter, they’d strung her up on a tree branch by the straps of her snowsuit. Then, when she’d started to cry, they couldn’t get her down. Their solution was to undress her, rushing her home in her long johns. He couldn’t stop laughing. Kept asking her if she wanted more ice cream or tea, as if he didn’t want the evening to end.
Which was strange, Carmen thought. What on earth was Evan Hollister thinking?
Eight
Sisterhood
Paolo walked the rows of vines of Blue Hills Vineyard with his small silver pruning shears, clipping curling pale green shoots from the plants. Evan had repeatedly avoided an introduction, but Carmen had seen her window. She’d spotted Paolo in the Hollister Estate vineyard and coaxed him onto the Blue Hills property with ice water and a smile.
“These and these. You see? They run away from the fruit. They have no leaves. They are not part of the family.” He stopped to sniff. “Alone.” Snip. “Lost.” Snip. Snip.
It was, Carmen thought, more than a little theatrical. “Maybe if the vines went into town and mingled?”
Paolo shot her a dirty look. “The vines need their own kind.”
She returned the look over the top of her sunglasses. “Maybe the vines need to adapt.”
Paolo held himself up to his full height, snipping violently. “Does the sun adapt? Does the moon adapt? Or do they stay true to their nature?”
Carmen rolled her eyes. The man’s ego clearly wasn’t suffering.
It was starting to make sense, Carmen thought. If there was one personality Evan couldn’t t
olerate, it would be the suffering artist. Clearly Paolo thought himself the Picasso of the vineyard, stranded in this provincial backwater. She trailed behind the melodramatic Italian, trying to match his steps on the incline. All this hyperbole would drive Evan nuts. A vine wasn’t a vine to Paolo, it was a child. A leaf was a home.
Carmen stopped to study an errant vine, curling pale green up to the sun. “What you mean is that the vines aren’t feeding the fruit.”
Paolo paused, holding his fingers up in the air. “Exactly, they are selfish. They have to go.”
Carmen dumped the leftover ice from Paolo’s empty glass into the dirt. “So, we clip anything that isn’t supporting the grapes?”
Paolo nodded. “At this time of year, yes. In the fall, it is a different story.”
“What about the fall?”
Paolo wiped his face with a snowy linen handkerchief. “You are exhausting me.”
Carmen crossed her arms. “All I’m doing is asking a few questions.”
Paolo threw his arms up in the air, yelling. “You have lived on a vineyard your entire life! How do you not know this? Were you blindfolded, wrapped in gauze, kept in the stables? The fruit is the thing that we are serving. The fruit is the wine. The soil is the fruit and the land is everything. Have you been kept in a nunnery?”
Carmen frowned. “I went to college.”
“College? What did you study?”
“Hospitality.”
“And is winemaking not part of hospitality?”
Finally, Carmen could show herself to be an intelligent person. “No, it’s more like hotel and restaurant management, travel, that kind of thing.”
Paolo looked up at the sky, muttering darkly in Italian. From the sound of it, much cursing streamed from his mouth.
Carmen, busy trying to make out a single word of Italian, didn’t notice Evan descending the slope of his vineyard, crossing the gravel path between their properties. He moved between the vine rows, startling her with his appearance. It was the first time she’d seen him since their non-date.
He nodded, slightly out of breath from the hike down but not, Carmen noticed, winded. “Is there a problem?”
Paolo stopped ranting long enough to roll his eyes. “In Italy we have people trained to do this their whole lives. That is all they do. They trim the vines. They work all year long keeping the vines in shape and they know exactly what to do and when. This one spends her whole life living on a vineyard and now, only now, does she want to learn.” Paolo accentuated this speech with a tornado of angry gestures.
Evan raised one eyebrow. His shirt was unbuttoned just enough to catch a glimpse of curling hair. “What’s wrong with that?”
Paolo threw up his arms. “Everything! You cannot learn a lifetime of lessons in one day.”
Evan crossed his arms, staring at Carmen as he lifted his sunglasses onto his head. “Sometimes you can.”
Carmen flushed at his intensity, shrugging. “I’m just trying to take care of my dad’s vineyard.”
Paolo waved his arms. “You have to hire a master vintner. You cannot walk up a hill and expect to learn everything. It cannot be done.”
Carmen hated herself for tearing up, gritting her teeth to stop it. She pushed her sunglasses firmly over her eyes as she shook a rock from her sandal. “I don’t have any other choice.”
Paolo threw both arms wide. “Then, you sell.”
Carmen shook her head, furious. “Is that what this is? Are you just a mouthpiece for your boss?”
Evan stepped forward. “Carmen, no.”
She stopped him with a raised hand. “No. I get it. Asking me to dinner. The ‘I’ll help you if you help me.’ It’s very clear to me what you’ve been playing at. I say I want to meet Paolo and the next thing you know, he’s telling me I have to sell the land.”
She turned back to Paolo. “You’re feeling sorry for yourself because you flew here with a job waiting that included a house, a cleaning lady and, oh yeah, a gardener?” She pointed down the hill towards Orchard House. “My dad came here with nothing. Nothing but the clothes on his back. Yeah. He was literally a wetback. He tried to swim across the Rio Grande and almost drowned. He wanted to leave his country and make something of himself so badly that he threw himself into the water without knowing how to swim. He nearly broke his back buying and working this land. Making it into something we could all be proud of. Cry all you want about missing Italy. My father made this place his home. In one generation, we became landowners. College educated. He gave us wings. Do you honestly think I’m going to let him down now just because some big shot moves next door and wants to add winemaker to his resumé?”
“Carmen, please!” Evan said.
Carmen’s eyes flashed. “You made a big mistake, Evan. Huge.” She hurried down the hill alongside the rows of vines, her eyes blurring with tears, stumbling over rocks.
“You idiot!” she heard Evan yelling at Paolo, but she was rushing down the green corridor of grapevines. She’d been so furious, she had little idea of what she’d just said.
She just knew it had been too much.
Evan Hollister had no idea what he’d started.
No idea.
Carmen could hear Evan yelling at her to wait but she didn’t stop. She just wanted to escape into the cool of Orchard House, get a drink of water and rest.
Evan caught up with her at the end of the row, on the short path to his driveway bordering the house. She was poised to continue down the hill to Orchard house. “Carmen.” He held up a finger for her to wait while he caught his breath.
“We have nothing to talk about.”
“But we do. The weddings. I need your help.”
“Nice, Evan. Pretend like you didn’t set me up.”
He held up both hands. “I didn’t. I swear. That was all Paolo. I can’t help it if he’s a raging prima donna. I told you he was crazy.” Evan pointed at the Italian in the nearby driveway, who was climbing into his low-slung sports car, gunning the motor. The sound reverberated across the lake. “Case in point.”
“Please leave.”
“Carmen, listen to me.”
Carmen fumed as Evan crossed his arms. A hawk floated on a vector in the cloudless sky. The lake shone, cut by the wake of a few boats. “This is just one more nail in the Alvarez coffin.”
“No, it’s not.”
She shook her head. “It’s a waiting game for you, isn’t it? Sooner or later the bank is going to tip things in your direction. You’re waiting for me to fold, aren’t you?”
Evan shook his head. She could read his face now. He was annoyed. “No.”
“Sure, you are. This is what you do. It’s part of your whole executive mentality, isn’t it? When negotiations stall, just wait it out. See if the other guy blinks. Guess what, I’m not blinking.” She opened her eyes abnormally wide. “See?”
“You look pretty adorable when you do that.”
“Oh, there you go. Diminishing me by commenting on my looks.”
He crossed his arms. “It was a compliment.”
“I’m talking about losing my home and you’re telling me I’m cute?”
“One,” he held up a finger. “It was never about your home. I have said that from the beginning.” A second finger went up. “Two, it doesn’t detract from anything you’ve said.”
“Spoken like a man.”
“Which makes sense, give that I am, in fact, a man.”
“This is all a big game for you, isn’t it?”
“No. It’s a business.”
“Which is a game. You don’t need the money. Why don’t you find something else to do?”
“Oh hey, yeah. What a crazy idea. I have a bunch of land with grapes. Maybe I should make wine? And no, I don’t need the money, but here’s a wild thought. I find it interesting. Unlike you, I find the chemistry and, yes, the art of winemaking fascinating.”
She hissed. “That is a low blow.”
“And ‘why don’t you retire like a good
boy’ isn’t a low blow? You seem pretty good at telling other people how to live.”
They were eye to eye, so close she could feel the heat coming off his body. She could see the blue flecks circling his iris, the color of the deepest part of the lake. “You seem pretty good at telling other people to throw in the towel.”
Evan threw up his hands. “Why am I the bad guy here? I am offering your father enough money to retire. An inheritance. And somehow you make me out to be this evil money-grubbing loser.”
Her smile took on a devilish glint. “If the shoe fits…”
Evan shook his head. “You think that anyone who wasn’t raised here doesn’t have the right to own property. Look in the mirror. You left. You’re the one who chose to leave.”
Carmen shot him a withering look, pushed past him and marched down the hill, moving so fast she almost fell.
Her first wedding was in four days.
“I hate him! I hate him so much I can’t think of all the ways I hate him.” Carmen said, drinking her wine like it was water.
“Sounds like love to me.”
“You’ve seen too many movies.”
“True. But sometimes life mirrors art.”
“And sometimes a hate story is just a hate story.” Carmen motioned to a passing waiter for more wine. “I can’t believe he set up Paolo.”
“Wine master. What a great job title. Almost as good as ‘your royal highness’ right?”
“Would you listen for one second?” Carmen snapped.
“I am listening. So far, you’ve mentioned a millionaire who wants to give you money and a homesick Italian with a fat paycheck. Both handsome. Both young. Both single. Remind me of the problem.”
“One wants to run my father out of business and the other is a colossal idiot.”
Stella sipped her wine carefully. “Oh. Right. It’s kind of hard to remember what with all the money and swarthiness.”
Summer at Orchard House: An utterly compelling and heart-warming summer romance (Blue Hills Book 1) Page 8
