"But Will . . ." Gabby's voice faltered. "You don't really want to bottle. It's assembly-line work, it's tedious, you're all dressed up, and besides, you couldn't help anyway because of insurance problems. You're not a Suncrest employee."
"Hire me as a consultant. Just for tonight." He was Mr. Problem Solver now, a guise as comfortable for him as old jeans.
She shook her head, disbelief still evident in her voice. "But aren't you hungry? Don't you want to go out to dinner?"
"Gabby." He took her hands. Small, cool to the touch, wonderfully delicate. "We could go out to dinner or not. It doesn't really matter." He stopped himself from voicing the next unrehearsed line that sprang to his lips. I just want to be with you. It's kind of all the same to me what we do.
But he might as well have said it for the smile that came to her lips. Something passed between them then, something more than a look and less than an electric charge, though Will could swear he felt the air around them still, enveloping them in a bubble of their own creation. He had the same sensation he'd had at the hospital: I can't believe I just met this woman. I feel like I've known her all my life.
She cocked her head, teasingly. "I bet there's some pizza left."
And there was. They ate their impromptu dinner sitting on crates, knees almost touching, occasionally leaning their heads in close to talk, because once the assembly line got moving again, the noise was deafening. Between bites of black olive and pepperoni, Gabby explained how bottling worked—the orbiter that jetted air into the bottles to rid them of debris, the filler function, the corker. Soda cans in hand, they strolled to the capsuler, where the metal casing was put on the bottles, followed by the spinner, which tightened the casing. Labels went on last.
They halted at packing, where two people worked at a breakneck pace to put twelve bottles into each case. "You might be able to handle this," she told him, her breath a tingling kiss on his ear. "But I'm not sure you're up to it." He pulled away to see her eyes sparkle with a mischievous light.
"Or maybe you could do this." She stopped at flap-gluing and box-flipping. A woman slapped preprinted labels on each case, detailing the winery name and wine type, plus the date and time of bottling and UPC code.
"What's your job?" he asked her.
She tossed her soda can into the trash with apparent nonchalance. "I'm the boss."
He smiled. He'd figured.
Gabby ended up assigning him a brute force task—stacking the labeled cases. After that they were shrink-wrapped and carted away by the forklift. Will rolled up his sleeves and was about to get started when she reappeared at his side, by now out of her little black dress and into jeans and a hot pink tee shirt. She looked pretty darn good that way, too.
"There's something I didn't tell you," she said, and handed him ear plugs and plastic safety glasses.
"What's that?"
She winked. "Your shift won't be over till after ten," she said, then sashayed away, distracting him for some time from his carrying and stacking duties. But once those got under way in earnest, he had a lot less leisure than he would have liked for eyeballing the boss. The cases came fast and got heavier and heavier, though he felt compelled to keep moving them along just as fast. Muscles he rarely gave much thought to began to ache in earnest.
He noted that Gabby herself was in constant motion, pitching in at various stops around the line, relieving people when they slowed or needed a break. Every once in a while she halted near him and caught his eye through her safety glasses and his. A smile—an Are you okay?—and she moved on. Once she relieved him briefly, and he was mightily impressed by her hauling and stacking abilities.
It was strenuous. It was dusty. His hands blackened with dirt; his muscles rebelled. This was so far from how he'd imagined this Saturday night when he'd sent Gabby the capitalist pig. Yet music blared. People laughed. Dancing broke out, usually by Gabby's sister Cam and the label-slapping woman he learned was named Zenobia. Once Cam and Gabby danced together, and once he and Zenobia did. There wasn't a Winsted in sight, and not once did he miss them.
When ten minutes past ten rolled around and the line clanged to a halt, he was almost disappointed. Until people started washing their hands and stamping their time cards and filtering out into the night, when it occurred to him that he might finally get Gabby alone.
She tore her safety glasses off her head and approached him. Her hair was matted, most of her makeup was sweated off, and her tee shirt sported a lightning streak of grime down the front. But she lit up that warehouse like a klieg light.
"Good job!" She high-fived him. "Thanks to you, we met our goal of four thousand cases for the day. We might use you again if you can keep up that pace."
He wouldn't tell her he'd be sore for days. Instead he said, "You hungry?"
"I'm starving."
"Any place still open at this hour?"
"Little place called DeLuca's."
It took him a second to comprehend. When he did, his smile widened. "What's their specialty?"
Gabby grinned back. "PB and J. Served alongside a nice chardonnay."
There was that electric charge again. It pulsed through Napa's night air—blessedly cool now—all the while Gabby closed down the winery for the night. And all the while his Z8 trailed her Jeep along the narrow moonlit roads that led to her home.
Chapter 8
In Gabby's estimation, Crystal Mountain Road lived up to the latter half of its name. Narrow, twisted, and steep, it snaked uphill from Highway 29 through a forest of oak and eucalyptus—the sort of road where one vehicle had to pull over to the dirt-packed shoulder to let oncoming traffic pass. During daylight hours, the higher elevations revealed stunning mountain and meadow and vineyard panoramas. At night, with no streetlights for miles and a leafy canopy obscuring the moonlight, all Gabby could make out was the strip of asphalt illuminated by her high beams, and occasionally the yellow-eyed stare of a startled feral cat whose nocturnal wanderings she'd interrupted.
Behind her she could hear the guttural growl of Will's automobile. She smiled. So much for its city-clean chassis. It would get baptized by Napa dust tonight.
She flipped on her left directional to alert Will, then made a sharp turn onto the even narrower dirt drive that climbed farther uphill to her house. Her Jeep rocked on the rutted surface, while branches reached out from the surrounding woods to slap the vehicle's sides. She halted on the small pebbled clearing in front of the house, and Will parked behind her. Engine sounds died away, replaced by the wind's whisper through the treetops. On this fogless night, so rare in the valley's summer, stars winked against their black velvet backdrop, peering down with curiosity on the man and woman who stood in awkward poses on the earth below.
Gabby was nervous suddenly. Was it a huge mistake to bring Will here? What would they talk about? What did she want?
For the night to go on. Not to have to say good-bye too soon. Another chance to get back into that bubble with him, that bubble where the rest of the world falls away.
He came to stand beside her. "This could safely be described as remote."
She laughed, though she was embarrassed by the observation. "I guess I have a little hermit in me."
"Does your family live nearby?"
She heard the puzzlement in his voice, the words he didn't say. What are you doing living up here on this mountain all alone? But she didn't want to answer that question. Not yet anyway.
She made her voice light. "No, they live down in Napa," and began walking toward the house. "Come on, I'll show you around."
She fumbled with the house key, her fingers clumsy and uncooperative, her every sense vibrating with the awareness of Will hovering behind her. She wished she'd disposed of the recycling piled by the stoop, hosed down the canvas barbecue cover, visibly grimy even in the dark. Finally she pushed open the door and hurried inside to turn on a few lights.
Her house showed best at night, she knew, when soft lamplight smoothed its rough edges. Worn turned int
o cozy, frayed into charming. Her furnishings were a hodgepodge of heirlooms, hand-me-downs, and flea-market finds. Grandma Laura's sideboard, shipped a decade before from Milan. Her mother's cedar hope chest, draped with the white runner the young Sofia had handstitched in high school. The rustic pine dining-room set Gabby's father had restored. The iron fireplace pokers Gabby had picked up in Castelnuovo, now ensconced beside the stone fireplace.
That night, a ceramic pitcher of yellow and orange zinnias graced the low pine coffee table and filmy white curtains at the paned windows danced in the night breeze. Gabby thought the effect was delightful; but that was no surprise. This was her oasis, her refuge, the place where she both escaped the world and readied herself for it. But she knew how shoddy and unsophisticated it might appear to Will. She didn't know much about him but could guess that country casual wasn't his style.
He stood in the doorway as imposing as a Viking, tall and broad shouldered, sleeves rolled up to reveal well-muscled forearms covered with light blond hair. Gabby realized with a start that he was the first male who wasn't a relative who'd ever visited her home.
He stepped farther inside. "This is great! When was it built? Was it a house originally or something else?"
Either that's real enthusiasm in his voice or he's a fabulous actor. "It was a barn first, built in the late 1800s. I know it went through several renovations. These fir floors were put in fifty or sixty years ago. And I'd bet the skylights are a seventies addition."
He grinned. "That sounds about right," and shook his head. "So this was built before Napa was real wine country."
"Not true! There were tons of wineries here in the late nineteenth century. But then came Prohibition."
He stood across her living room. Watching her. Smiling. All of a sudden, she didn't know what to do with her hands. Her mouth kept moving as if it had a will of its own.
"It got really crazy during Prohibition. There's a story that the Foppiano family was forced to dump ninety thousand gallons of red wine into the Russian River."
He moved a step closer. "What a waste."
"Not really. Lots of folks came out to the riverbank to drink."
He laughed, then stepped even closer until he was breathtakingly near. She was forced to tilt her head back to look into his eyes. His voice softened as his blue gaze held her hazel one captive. "So, Gabby DeLuca, you're a local historian as well as a winemaker."
She found herself unable to break his stare. "I'd better be, given that I'm an investment-guy tour guide."
"Ah, that's right!" A light twinkled in his eyes, a faraway star. "How's the tour business?"
"Improving."
"When does your first client get his first outing?"
"I'd say he's getting it tonight." They gazed at each other for a moment longer, then she backed away from him, undone. His nearness, his maleness, the unmistakable undercurrent of attraction that pulsed between them roiled her senses and tipped the safe world she'd created into something she'd long ago forgotten. She'd felt nothing like this since Vittorio, and even with him she'd settled fast into a comfortable domesticity. What she felt now—this hyperawareness, this ubersensitivity—was strange to her, and not entirely welcome.
She headed for the kitchen, eager for escape. "I'll open some wine," she called over her shoulder, and unearthed a Sonoma Valley chardonnay. But seconds later he was beside her again, appropriating the bottle, pulling out the cork, telling her a funny story about his Aunt Mina, who insisted on serving Mateus Rose—over crushed ice—on every major holiday.
Gabby was laughing and, she realized, comfortable again. They touched their wineglasses together.
"To your bottling effort," he said. "May it get done on time."
Amen. She sipped, squashing a compulsion to confess what they'd really been up to that night. She might be trusting Will more—a lot more—but as far as she knew, that old adage about loose lips remained as true as ever. "So," she heard herself say instead, "are you still interested in the house specialty?"
His brows arched. "You mean the PB and J?"
"Yup."
"I'm game," he said, which set off a flurry of searching for bread and jars and spreading knives. Will held up the peanut butter and peered at the label. "Well, I'd say this product confirms the conclusions I've drawn so far about you, Gabby."
"Have you been holding me under a microscope?"
"Metaphorically, of course. Though I wouldn't object to a real-life close-up inspection."
He paused. She felt his eyes on her profile and busied herself with scraping the last bits of raspberry jam from the jar, which all at once seemed of paramount importance.
He went on. "For example, I deduce not only from this all-natural peanut butter but from the rest of your home that you're a believer in simple, high-quality materials. You choose honest, true things and let them speak for themselves. You're straightforward, not fussy. You're substance over style."
Her hands stilled, her knife poking uselessly into the empty jam jar. She felt herself being lulled into a delicious torpor hearing him speak of her like this. It was as sweet as a caress, and somehow just as intimate.
"I see it, too, in how you dress." His voice was low, soothing. "I see it in how little makeup you wear, how you leave your hair free." She heard him set the peanut-butter jar down on the tiled countertop. Then he was right beside her, leaning against the counter. She stared unseeing at the white tile backsplash, keenly aware that his gaze was riveted on her face. "You're a woman who's so comfortable in your own skin that you don't need any pretense."
Silence. He's going to kiss me again. If I let him. Her heartbeat got away from her and her memory flew back to that hospital stairwell. How he'd felt. How she'd felt. Oh, God. And he hasn't even touched me yet.
But then her hands took over, smashing the two slices of wheat bread together in a haphazard sandwich that she held out in his direction. "Eat," she said, sounding like her mother, cursing her nervousness, wondering how on earth she could be so attracted to a man yet so fearful of his touch.
You're afraid what it could lead to.
And what heartache could follow.
He cooperated. He laughed and let the moment slip, and allowed the two of them to down their midnight snack while chatting about nothing in particular. Then he roamed, wineglass in hand, examining the family photos plastered on the fridge with kitschy little magnets, the black and red rooster tiles that showed up intermittently among their all-white brethren, the Tuscan plates arranged on stands on the countertops. When he fingered the kitchen curtain aside, his voice grew curious. "Is that a hot tub I see out there?"
"Sure is. It was probably put in when the skylights were."
"Care for a dip, Ms. DeLuca? Given how much abuse our muscles took tonight?"
That was an idea. She'd used it the night before and it'd been heaven. She cocked her head, some of her girlhood flirting ability bubbling to the surface. "You trying to get me in my bikini, Mr. Henley?" Actually, she realized, she wouldn't mind seeing him in a more dressed-down state.
"I was thinking we might skinny-dip." He winked. "After all, I hardly came equipped with trunks tonight."
"Ah, but unfortunately for you I can solve that problem." She set down her sandwich. "Back in a sec."
She returned bearing a pair of grotesquely garish red-and-yellow plaid trunks. "Now before you say anything, you should know these belonged to my father. He should've thrown them out twenty years ago, but I finally got him to donate them to my going-to-Goodwill stash. I just haven't made it there yet."
"Lucky for me." His tone was wry. He accepted the trunks with about as much enthusiasm as if she'd handed him a soiled diaper.
Gabby abandoned him to get into her favorite bikini—hot pink and push-up. She grabbed towels, wrapped one around herself, and hightailed it out the kitchen door to find Will already in the tub, both wineglasses beside him on the warped redwood deck, broad shoulders glistening from the water, hair wet and slicked back.
>
His eyes never left her. She didn't think she imagined the gleam in their blue depths as he watched her shed the towel and slide into the water. She threw her head back to wet her hair then settled across from him, bobbing slightly as a strong jet of water massaged her back. She tried not to be too obvious as she assessed the hunk of near-naked maleness a few feet away from her, looking impossibly strong and handsome.
Around them, the valley slept. A crescent moon hung high, a lone cloud scudding across its silver surface. Far away a coyote howled, a plaintive and lonely sound that on other, solitary nights had echoed in her own soul.
Gabby felt herself being lulled into somnolence by the water's warmth and rhythmic churning. She sipped the last of her wine and watched the tub's steam writhe into the night sky, feeling no need to say a word. How wonderful that was. How rare.
It was Will who broke their silence. "I can see why you like it here. It makes the real world feel very far away."
"I feel that way sometimes. But then I remember this world is real, too."
"You grew up in Napa?"
"And then went to college in Davis. About an hour away."
"What did you study?"
"Enology. With a double minor in viticulture and chemistry."
"Tell me about the time you lived in Italy."
The question startled her. She would have preferred to delve into safer topics, like his schooling. What can I tell him about Castelnuovo? I fell in love and it was magic. Then I lost my love and it became a nightmare.
She thought for a moment. "I worked in a winery in Tuscany and it was a lot like working in Napa and yet different in interesting ways. People were very friendly"—except for Vittorio's parents—"and I learned a lot about my own heritage." She paused, then, "It was a very special time."
"How long ago was this?"
"I got back a year ago."
"How long were you there?"
"About three years."
She noticed he was eyeing her in that way he had, that way that analyzed and penetrated, with an intense concentration that made her feel he missed nothing and grasped far more than she actually said. Then he simply looked away and nodded, as if he were filing information away for future study.
Too Close to the Sun Page 12
