Season of Change Read online

  Harmony Valley...not so harmonious after all!

  Christine Alexander needs to prove herself as a top-notch winemaker, and in Harmony Valley she’s got a chance to build something legitimate, quality and lasting. What she doesn’t need is part-owner Slade Jennings poking his nose in her cabernet.

  Brooding, buttoned-up Slade Jennings won’t be making things easy for his new hire. Someone has to worry about the bottom line. Forced into an uneasy partnership, the pair faces two challenges: create a spectacular award-winning vintage within months…and figure out if their tenuous friendship can grow into something deeper and lasting.

  It hit her then. Not like a ton of bricks, not a like a slap in the face, not like a cold shower.

  This was a soft awareness, like picking up a sleeping kitten and cuddling it close.

  He liked her. More than a boss usually liked his employee.

  He liked her. Those mixed signals weren’t all just self-preservation.

  He liked her. A lot.

  The proof was there. But what did it mean?

  Nothing, her head said.

  Everything, her heart said.

  It could be a silly infatuation, created by the time they’d been spending together. Something that would fade.

  Or it could be the beginning of a feeling that went down like a rich red wine. Something that expanded and lingered.

  One thing she did know—she wanted to find out.

  Dear Reader,

  Welcome to Harmony Valley!

  Things aren’t as harmonious here as they once were. Jobs have dried up and almost everyone under the age of sixty has moved away in the past ten years, leaving the population…well, rather gray-haired and peaceful.

  Enter three young men—Slade, Flynn and Will—friends, newly minted millionaires and hometown success stories. Slade Jennings is a former Wall Street whiz who can’t seem to give up his ties, even though he’s living in the wine country. This summer, he’s running winery operations and hosting his twin girls.

  Winemaker Christine Alexander is tired of wine with her name on it being changed by meddlesome winery owners. She’s taken the job in Harmony Valley because she was promised autonomy. She hadn’t counted on Slade being a control freak. If she’s not careful, he’s going to expand the winery’s production before the quality is proven in the bottle. If she’s not careful, her curiosity about Slade and his ties are going to change her priorities forever.

  I hope you enjoy Slade and Christine’s journey, as well as the other romances in the Harmony Valley series. I love to hear from readers. Check my website to learn more about upcoming books set in Harmony Valley and sign up for email book announcements. Or you can chat with me on Facebook (MelindaCurtisAuthor) or on Twitter (MelCurtisAuthor), and hear about my latest giveaways.

  Melinda Curtis

  Season of Change

  Melinda Curtis

  MELINDA CURTIS

  has lived in humid Georgia and crazy-weather Texas. She prefers the possibility of California earthquakes. Her work experience prior to writing this book includes being an inventory-taker, a maid, a baseball announcer, a rodent wrangler, a copy writer, a focus group moderator and a cubicle wage-slave. She’ll take romance writer and bare feet over suits and heels (or rodents) any day.

  Melinda currently lives in California’s arid central valley with her husband—her basketball-playing college sweetheart. With three kids, the couple has done the soccer thing, the karate thing, the dance thing, the Little League thing and, of course, the basketball thing. Now they’re enjoying the quiet life of empty nesters before the grandparent thing.

  Melinda writes sweet contemporary romances as Melinda Curtis and red-hot reads as Mel Curtis. She loves writing romances about women who don’t realize how strong they are until a hero comes along to show them, while capturing the wry, humorous power struggle of falling in love. Because, really? What woman lets the man have the last word?

  Nothing in my life would be possible without the love and support of my immediate family, extended family and close friends. A special thank you to my husband of thirty years for putting up with me and all the voices in my head clambering for a happy ending.

  As always, special thanks to A.J. Stewart, Cari Lynn Webb and Anna Adams for their support throughout the writing of this book. Every writer needs a sounding board. You guys rock!

  I spent sixteen years working at a winery. In writing the Harmony Valley books, I relied on my memory, as well as questions to friends and family who still work and own wineries. Think of Harmony Valley as you enjoy a glass of wine from The Iron Gate Winery in Cedar City or the Jordon Winery in Healdsburg, but know that all mistakes regarding wineries and winemaking are my own.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER ONE

  LIFE WAS A numbers game.

  Count the years, count the money, count the marriages, count the mistakes.

  Slade Jennings was thirty-two years old, had millions in the bank, one failed marriage, and one horrendous mistake.

  He knew what he looked like walking down the street—success. Wrinkle-free khakis, wrinkle-free button down, Italian designer tie. Rolex. Titanium and onyx pinky ring. Dark-as-midnight hair, expensively cut. Eyes the color of money, always on the lookout for the next deal. Slade had come from humble beginnings and wasn’t going back.

  Except, he had. Gone back to his roots, that was, damaged though they may be.

  That was what you did for friends who were also your business partners. You went with the flow, even if that meant returning to your hometown, to the house you’d grown up in, to the house where both your parents died, the scene of the horrendous mistake.

  Harmony Valley’s bridge club called the house at 1313 Harrison Street the Death and Divorce House. In Slade’s lifetime there hadn’t been any divorces. But there had been plenty of deaths. His mother gave in to melanoma in the master bedroom. His father hung himself six years later in the closet of the same room. It was the culmination of everything that was wrong with Slade’s life—he’d lost his career, his bank account, and then his family. That was eight years ago. The house on Harrison represented failure, which was why it was vital Slade present only success to the world.

  While in Harmony Valley, Slade was living in the Death and Divorce House. To stay elsewhere seemed like a betrayal. But stay in the master bedroom? No. He slept in the bedroom of his youth.

  He’d returned to town earlier that year with Will Jackson and Flynn Harris, his childhood friends and the two programming geniuses behind a successful farming app. Slade was their sidekick and the partnership’s moneyman, the one who managed the bottom line, watched their backs, and made sure they didn’t get screwed in any negotiations.

  So, why weren’t they back in Silicon Valley leveraging their achievement?

  Because Will and Flynn burned out designing their first app. They were all local boys, i
f not best friends when they were growing up, as close as brothers now. When they showed up to decompress after five years of sharing a cramped apartment with the thinnest walls on the planet, they’d been asked by the town council to start a business to help save their hometown.

  An explosion fourteen years ago at the grain mill had wiped out Harmony Valley’s main employer. The ripple effect forced those too young to retire to move closer to jobs and all but a handful of businesses to shut down. Located in the northernmost corner of Sonoma County, Harmony Valley was becoming a remote retirement village. The population had dwindled below eighty, with the average age of residents above seventy-five.

  Given that Slade preferred Harmony Valley become a ghost town when all the old-timers died, he’d voted against the partnership starting a business here. Then he’d protested their choice of business—a winery. They were three guys who drank beer. What did they know about making wine? Outvoted, he’d still stood by his friends through arguments with blustery octogenarians, a mountain of legal and financial paperwork, and the ups and downs of construction.

  Today, the shell of the winery was finally completed. The winemaker they’d hired, Christine Alexander, granddaughter of a town-council member—would the nepotism never end?—was due to start work today and provide Slade with her input on the guts of the winery. Juice presses, tanks, barrels, and whatever else she needed to make great wine. Really great wine people would drop a C-note to drink. Because if they were going to make wine, it’d be the best wine around.

  Slade checked his Rolex. Christine was late.

  He sat on the porch of the old farmhouse they’d converted into an office and tasting room, and loosened the knot of his tie.

  Summer was in full swing. The air was hot and dry. Barely a breeze swayed the palm trees lining the hundred-yard newly graveled drive. The sixty-foot-tall eucalyptus trees that marched along the river were silent, as well. Occasionally, a cricket offered complaint.

  Something shook the house, a slight tremor that had Slade leaping up.

  Eathquake!

  The horse weathervane on top of the main winery building rocked, spun, then quieted. The ground settled and Slade drew a deep breath. As a native Californian, he was used to small, infrequent tremors. That didn’t mean they didn’t send his body humming with adrenaline faster than a shot of espresso.

  His phone buzzed, announcing a text message from Flynn: Did you feel that?

  His reply: Yes. Winery is fine.

  A big black SUV turned into the driveway.

  He’d thought Christine owned a small, newer-model Audi. At least, that was what she’d driven up in for her job interview last month. He shifted the tie-knot back into place and walked down the circular drive to meet her.

  Only it wasn’t Christine.

  It was his ex-wife, Evangeline, a native New Yorker. Two shadows bobbed in the backseat, his twin ten year-old daughters, Faith and Grace. He was simultaneously overjoyed and overwhelmed. No one had told him they were coming. Not that it mattered. He practically flew down the drive to meet them.

  Evangeline toggled down the window and gave him a scornful look. He hadn’t seen her since Christmas, but she was as stylish as ever in a bold tiger-print blouse and chunky jewelry. Her black hair was short and blunt cut, framing her strikingly angular face, making her too-white smile seem fanglike. “I thought you’d be at the house. We saw Will in town and he told us you were here.”

  Slade was used to burying his emotions behind a facade of savvy sophistication. He hid them now, deep in his chest in a tight, burdensome lump.

  Months ago, Evangeline had called and—amid a rant about how she resented the revised visitation agreement—had told him she would abide by it and let the girls stay with him while she and her new husband, provider of the four-carat monstrosity on her slender finger, took a delayed honeymoon to the South of France.

  Evangeline didn’t like sharing the girls, which was why when Slade agreed to increase child support, he also brought down the judge’s gavel on enforcing his newly expanded parental rights. Evy was always agreeing to drop them off, but never following through. If she was here, husband number three must be something. And that something was spontaneous, because they weren’t due to visit for another two weeks.

  With effort, Slade shifted into “polite conversation” mode. “Did you feel that earthquake just now? It wasn’t very big.” When Evy shook her head, he leaned farther in the window to greet the twins. “Hey, girls. Holy...”

  They looked like miniature, identical Gothic vampires. If his mother wasn’t already dead, she’d have risen up and splashed them with holy water.

  “Don’t judge,” Evangeline scolded sharply. “It’s a phase. Today Goth. Tomorrow princesses.”

  He forced himself to smile. “Took me by surprise is all. Did you leave their things at my place?” The Death and Divorce House was dim and filled with bad memories. He slept there, but only because the past wouldn’t let him bunk anywhere else. If he’d believed Evy would follow through this time and honor his visitation rights, he would have made other arrangements to stay in town or at the nearest hotel, thirty minutes away.

  “Slade, we don’t have a key. Not to that house.” Derision dripped from every syllable, bringing back too many memories of the hot-tempered, entitled woman he’d divorced.

  Aren’t whirlwind college romances swell?

  But her contempt goaded him into a decision he’d most likely regret later—to have the girls stay at the house with him. “We don’t lock the doors here, Evy.”

  “You know I don’t like it when you call me that.”

  He did. He winked at the girls.

  They didn’t smile or laugh or give any indication that they appreciated being included in his inside joke. That was probably his punishment for only seeing them twice a year. When they were older, they’d understand why their mother kept them away and why Slade didn’t press as hard as he should for visitation.

  Slade opened the back door so the twins could get out.

  Up close, it was even worse. Black lipstick, black eyeliner, black lace blouses over yellow-and-black-plaid capris. He hoped to heaven the short blond hair with thin black streaks were wigs.

  Two silent strangers slid out. A far cry from the plump, happy babies he used to rock to sleep. Or the grinning, sturdy two-year olds that he used to push on swings.

  Good thing he’d been hanging out with Flynn and his seven-year-old nephew the past month or he wouldn’t have a clue how to deal with them. He tousled Faith’s hair. She was the twin with a dimple that rarely disappeared on her cheek, even when she frowned at him and straightened her wig. Grace came to stand next to her. They stared at him in wordless retribution.

  Ten. Crap. He’d thought teenage angst started at thirteen.

  “You’ll be all right, won’t you, girls?” Evangeline waited for their nods before she commanded, “Get their things, Slade.”

  Her attitude was starting to cinch his collar, but it didn’t make sense to argue.

  Their things included four huge suitcases, three Nordstrom shopping bags, two identical backpacks with angry manga characters, and one stuffed lion the size of a large dog.

  Slade dutifully loaded it all into the bed of his new black truck, giving himself and the girls a pep talk. “We’re going to have a good time, aren’t we?”

  No one answered.

  Evangeline reeled each girl in with one hand for fierce hugs. “You be good like I told you and you’ll be safe.” She gave Slade a sharp look that could have cut metal. “I’m trusting you with my babies.” She named the date she wanted them back in New York, as if his daughters were on loan.

  Since they’d separated eight years ago, he’d wanted to spend more time with the twins than his twice-a-year visits. The new settlement had given him hope. He’d pictured happy va
cations to amusement parks and sunny beaches. He’d imagined laughter and enthusiasm and emotional hugs. He’d dreamed of having them for a day, a weekend, a week.

  And here was reality: his girls had misplaced fashion limits, stared at him mutely, and there were nearly thirty days looming ahead like a prison sentence.

  * * *

  DAY ONE ON the job and Christine Alexander was late.

  That didn’t mean she expected to show up for work and see a glamorous-looking woman doing the tiptoe run around a black SUV in skyscraper heels, or a pair of identical little Goth girls. Not this far away from civilization. Not outside an anime film. Not at her place of employment.

  Christine had thought she was escaping the high-drama, high-fashion, high-ego circus that was Napa wine making.

  The queen bee in high heels gunned the SUV around the circular driveway. A relief.

  Although the Goth girls were still a caution.

  Christine parked her old bucket with its deceased air conditioner next to the big black truck that remained, turned off the ignition, and received a very brutal, vibrating massage as the engine fought and coughed and hiccuped trying to stay alive. It wasn’t until it wheezed its last breath that Christine risked getting out.

  Her boss, Slade, did a double take. The well-worn car. Christine in her red Keds, faded blue jean shorts, and black Useless Snobbery band T-shirt. Never mind that wine making was a hands-on, messy job. Her new boss didn’t seem to understand that.

  The little optimistic light inside her that placed such high hopes on this position—for loyalty, for legitimacy, and a nest egg for her future—faded.

  She tossed her long blond ponytail over a shoulder, wishing she’d at least taken the time to put it in a French braid. The fancier hairstyle made her look more serious and kept her hair off her neck, which was now hot and sweaty. It had to be ninety-five degrees today, if not pushing one hundred.

  “Hey,” she said to the two girls.