Margot looked up from her notebook.
“This has all been invaluable, thanks so much. Thank goodness for the great community here—between this info from you, the Barrel jumping in already to be one of the food stations, and then hopefully finding a landscaper through someone on my team at the tasting room, I’m starting to feel like we might be able to pull this off.”
Avery grinned.
“Oh, did Luke hook you up with Pete?”
Shit. She shouldn’t have made a reference to anything having to do with Luke. In her defense, this last hour had been so all about business that she’d almost forgotten about Luke and Avery.
Also, apparently he and Avery had been dating long enough that she was on a first-name basis with his mom’s boyfriend. Great.
“Pete Smythe? Yeah, he’s coming by the winery later today,” Margot said. Time to move the conversation away from Luke. “The party is a good excuse to do this landscaping, I just hope we have time.”
Avery took a sip of her coffee.
“I’m sure Pete will be able to get it done for you. He’s great—I’ve known him forever. Luke and I went to high school together, you know.”
No, of course she didn’t know.
“Oh wow, really? What a small world this place is,” Margot said. What else could she say?
“Isn’t it?” Avery took another sip of her coffee. Wasn’t it cold by now? Didn’t she need to be somewhere? But no, she looked perfectly comfortable, like she was settling in for a nice chat. “Luke’s great. He’s been one of my best friends since we were teenagers. He’s like a brother to me.” She laughed. “We dated very briefly when we were fourteen, but quickly realized we were much better as friends.”
Wait. Did that mean that Monday night hadn’t been a date?
“I bet you’re glad to have him back up here,” Margot said.
Avery nodded.
“Yeah. I had kind of a bad breakup recently, and he helped me move to my new place.”
Oh.
It hadn’t been a date, then. Margot forced her expression not to change.
“I’m sorry to hear about your breakup,” Margot said.
Avery looked sad for a moment.
“Thanks.” She sat up straight and smiled. “I’m glad I have Luke. He’s a good friend.”
Margot took a sip of her own now-cold coffee. Did Avery know about what happened between her and Luke? It didn’t seem like it. She hadn’t given her that smile last night that said she knew, and there was no knowing glance today. But maybe she just didn’t want to make it awkward?
“He’s been a great addition to the tasting room staff,” Margot said as casually as she knew how. “Even Elliot thinks he’s worthy of discussing his wines, and you know how winemakers can be.”
They both laughed, and Margot reached for the bag of pastries on the table and dropped it into her tote bag.
“Speaking of Elliot, I should get to the winery.”
Avery stood up.
“Yeah, I should get going, too. But seriously, Margot—let me know if you have any other questions. Just text or call.”
Margot nodded.
“I will almost certainly take you up on that. And let me know if I can ever return the favor.”
They hugged goodbye at the door of the bakery, and then Margot walked to her car. It wasn’t until she was a mile into the drive to the winery that she allowed a huge smile to break out over her face.
“I don’t know what you’re smiling like that for,” she said to herself. “It’s not like this means anything. It doesn’t matter that he wasn’t on a date with Avery—he’s still your employee, remember? You still can’t do one single thing with that man.”
But the smile stayed on her face for the whole drive.
* * *
LUKE GLANCED DOWN AT his phone when he got in the car to drive to the winery on Thursday morning.
AVERY
Mission accomplished
That was all Avery was going to tell him? Of course it was. He wanted to ask for details, but he couldn’t give her the satisfaction.
He couldn’t believe that he’d let Avery “make it clear” to Margot they weren’t dating. Wasn’t he supposed to be pretending that he and Avery were dating, in order to get his mom off his back? What had he been thinking?
He’d been thinking that he wanted Margot to know he wasn’t dating anyone, no matter how pointless it was.
Luke pulled into the parking lot at the winery and saw Pete’s truck there. Right. Today was the day that Pete was coming by to meet with Margot and Elliot.
Pete got out of the truck just as Luke walked by.
“Morning, Luke.” He handed him a paper bag. “Your mom gave me this to give to you if I saw you here, and by that she meant I’d better find a way to see you here and give you that, so I’m glad you made it easy.”
Luke laughed at that. He peeked into the bag to see two sticky buns, and his smile got wider.
“Thank her for me, please,” he said. “If I had known that moving back to Napa meant getting surprise pastry deliveries, I might have moved back years ago.” He and Pete walked toward the front door of the winery. “And thanks for making the time to come by here.”
Pete shrugged.
“It’s no problem. Glad to be able to give you some brownie points, not that you need them, I’m sure.” That was debatable.
Luke opened the door for both of them. Taylor was already inside the tasting room.
“Hey,” he said to her. “This is Pete Smythe—he has an appointment with Margot and Elliot this morning.”
“I’ll buzz Margot,” Taylor said, but before she could pick up the phone, Margot and Elliot both walked into the tasting room through the front door, laughing about something. Margot had on jeans, boots, and a big sweater, and Luke smiled at the sight of her. She was usually more dressed up than this. He liked those dresses she always wore, but he liked casual Margot, too. But then he’d really liked her in nothing at all.
Fuck. He had to stop thinking about that.
“Hi, Margot and Elliot—this is Pete Smythe, the landscaper I was telling you guys about. I used to work for him, a long time ago, but don’t hold that against him.”
Margot and Elliot—and Pete—all laughed, and there was a whole round of handshakes.
“Thanks for coming by, Pete,” Elliot said. “Why don’t we walk you around the property, and you can let us know if you’ll be able to execute my sister’s vision.”
Margot glanced quickly at her brother. She looked irritated, for just a second, before she turned to smile at Pete again.
“Elliot, if you’re busy, I can handle this,” she said.
Elliot shook his head.
“Oh no, wouldn’t miss it.”
There was weird tension there. Luke took a step away, but Elliot stopped him.
“Luke, care to join us? That is, if you can spare him in the tasting room, Margot and Taylor? It could be useful to have him as a translator here, since he’s done this kind of work before.”
Luke looked at Margot. She opened her mouth, he was sure to object, to tell him to stay back in the tasting room with Taylor, but then Taylor piped up behind him.
“It’s no problem—I don’t need him for the next thirty minutes or so.”
Margot smiled at Taylor, and then at him.
“Then let’s all go,” she said.
No matter what Avery had said to Margot this morning, Avery was definitely wrong about how Margot felt about him. She didn’t seem to care one way or another if he was around.
Margot led the way with Pete, while Luke walked along next to Elliot.
“So, you used to work for Pete?” Elliot asked. “You’ve stayed in touch?”
Luke laughed.
“I worked for him in high school, yeah. But also, right when I graduated from high school, he started dating my mom, and they’ve been together ever since.” He glanced over at Elliot. “So yeah, you could say we’ve stayed in touch.”
Elliot let out a short bark of a laugh.
“That’s definitely one reason for staying in touch. And that explains how you were able to get him to return a phone call so quickly.”
“Well, also because he likes you guys,” Luke said. “He told me you treat your workers well. He wouldn’t have come today if he didn’t know that about you, no matter how long he’d been with my mom.”
Elliot looked embarrassed.
“Well. We don’t do anything out of the ordinary. At least, anything that should be out of the ordinary. But I appreciate you saying that.” He cleared his throat. “And I hope everything for you so far at Noble has been good?”
Other than how he couldn’t keep his eyes off the Noble co-owner, just a few feet up ahead of them, looking really good in those jeans and clearly charming the hell out of Pete?
Though . . . she seemed tense. Was it because he was there? Or was there another reason?
“Everything’s been great,” he said. “Still settling in some, and figuring out the wines, but those are good lessons to have to learn.”
Elliot perked up.
“You know, if you ever want to come by the barn and—”
Margot stopped and beckoned both of them forward.