“Okay, Pete—why don’t I show you my vision, and you can let me know what you think? But also, I’m eager to hear your thoughts on what’s worked and what hasn’t for other wineries, since I know you’re experienced at this.”
Margot walked with Pete around the lawn between the winery building and the barn, and Luke and Elliot followed at a slight distance. Her voice was animated as she described how she wanted the path to look, where she wanted greenery, and how she wanted to improve and add to the makeshift outdoor seating area.
“But mostly,” she said as they stopped on the other side of the lawn and looked back over to the winery building, “I want it to feel warm, comfortable, like the kind of place you could relax and drink wine forever. But also like a home. Not like one of those corporate big wineries, everything all pristine and matching, but like you’re in a friend’s large, relaxing, lovely garden, drinking excellent wine. Do you know what I mean?”
Luke did know what she meant. He smiled at the picture she’d created for all of them, at how animated she got, how passionate she was about this idea, how happy the thought of it clearly made her.
“That sounds like an excellent plan, Ms. Noble,” Pete said.
“Margot, please,” she said.
“Margot, then. And one that I think we can accomplish. The timing might be an issue, but I think we might be able to manage it—or, at least enough of it before your event to make it feel good, and we can finish up afterward if there are other pieces of your vision missing.” Pete didn’t even sound like he was kidding when he talked about Margot’s ideas, but then this was his job. Luke was sure he talked about people’s visions all the time. “I have to check in with my team and get back to you. Let me take some pictures and give you a call tomorrow, if that works?”
Margot beamed at Pete. Luke couldn’t take his eyes off her. Why was she smiling at Pete like that? He wanted her to smile at him like that.
“Thanks so much, Pete. Take all the pictures you need.”
On the way back to the winery building, Elliot walked with Pete, and Margot and Luke walked behind them.
“You seemed stressed when we came out here, is everything okay?” Luke asked her. He immediately shook his head. He hadn’t meant to do that. “Never mind, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
Margot looked at him, a soft smile on her lips.
“Was it that obvious?” She sighed. “It was just that I sort of bullied my brother into this party in the first place, and I started having second thoughts. Not about what I want the winery to look like and why, but just about—” She stopped herself and shook her head. “Anyway, we’ll see if we can get it all done on time.”
He wondered what she’d been about to say, but he knew he couldn’t ask.
“Well, you can trust Pete to be honest with you,” he said. “That plan he had to get back to you by tomorrow was wildly optimistic, just FYI—but he does good work and is reliable.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that,” she said. “And yeah, I was already thinking it would be more like this weekend when I heard back from him, but I hoped that if he said tomorrow, it really would happen this weekend.” It had better be by this weekend—if not, Luke would have to call Pete again to check in on this, and he didn’t want to have to call this favor in twice. Especially since he didn’t want Pete—or his mom—to wonder why getting back to Margot was so important to him.
Why was it so important to him?
She just seemed . . . worried about this party, and everything around it. If he could make this part of it easier for her, then he wanted to.
“So, Pete’s your mom’s partner,” Margot said. “Is that why you used to work for him? In the family business for the summer?”
Luke shook his head.
“No, it’s sort of the other way around,” he said. “I worked for him one summer in high school, and that’s how he met my mom.”
“Ah,” Margot said. She turned toward him, and he could tell she wanted to ask him another question.
But instead, she paused for a second.
“Well, thanks for sending him our way. I have a good feeling about Pete.” She stopped and looked around. “There’s so much I want to do here. Let’s cross our fingers that we can get it done.”
Luke started to respond, but Elliot called Margot, and she hurried over to him and Pete. Luke watched her go, but she didn’t look back.
Nine
THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY MORNING, Margot walked into the winery early and smiled as she turned the lights on in her office. It had been a good week so far. A long one, but a good one. Lots of appointments at the tasting room, lots of calls, lots of plans for the party, for the future. If she could pull all of it off.
Pete had said he could start on the landscaping work the following week; he thought her ideas to get ready for the party would take only a few weeks and said they could talk about some of the other stuff she wanted to do afterward. He’d quoted her slightly above the budget she’d allocated for the landscaping, but had told her it would be cheaper if she eliminated the planter boxes that she’d wanted to have around the path, and she reluctantly agreed to that. They could make do with old wine barrels full of plants and herbs at the entrance to the barn and get planter boxes another time.
She and Elliot had made a tentative peace about the landscaping, though she was still on edge about how much he would push back about the work being done, the people in his way, and most of all, about her ideas to change the look of the property, the land that was theirs, but that she knew he thought of as his. Finding the old plans had helped with that, but only somewhat.
She looked over the appointments for the day. One appointment had canceled, so they had only five— Did that really justify having both Taylor and Luke on the clock today? Hopefully people would buy a lot of wine and make her feel better about investing in the new hires.
She still felt guilty when she thought about Luke. Mostly because every time she thought about him, or looked at him, or talked to him, she was more and more intrigued by him. Attracted to him, yes, obviously; she’d hoped that would go away with more contact with him, but it had just gotten stronger. But that’s not what felt so dangerous to her—it was how much she wanted to know more about him, how much she wanted to tell him more about her, the way he listened when she talked, the way she always knew he was smiling at the same things that made her smile. When they’d talked last week while Pete was at the winery, he’d known she wasn’t telling him everything that was stressing her out, and she could tell he’d wanted to ask her more about it. She had wanted to spill her guts to him, tell him about her worries about her place at Noble, her fear that she’d mess this whole thing up, that she wouldn’t be able to pull it all together in two months. She’d had the wild impulse, in that brief moment as they’d walked together back toward the tasting room, to talk to him like she didn’t talk to anyone around here other than Sydney.
She desperately needed to get out there, that’s what she needed. Sydney was right. A night of good sex with a guy who seemed like a good listener was apparently all it took for her to get all swoony and want to bare her soul?
She shook her head at herself. Focus, Margot.
Just as she turned to her to-do list, her phone buzzed. Taylor. Was she running late?
“Hey, Taylor, what’s up?”
“Hi, boss.” Margot groaned internally as soon as she heard Taylor’s voice, because she could immediately tell what she was about to say. “I’m sick. I can’t come in today. I’m so sorry.”
Margot pulled up the calendar.
“Don’t be sorry—you’re sick, it’s not your fault. Take care of yourself and let me know how you’re feeling, okay? We can handle it here.”
Well, at least she could congratulate herself for hiring more staff. Because a month ago, if Taylor had called in sick, she would have had to cover the tasting room alone all day. Now Luke could cover it. And he’d had weeks of training, so hopefully he could cover it without too much intervention from her.
She walked into the tasting room to unlock the door for Luke, just as he walked up the front steps.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning,” she said. “Taylor is sick today—do you think you’re ready to handle the tasting room on your own?”
He looked startled, but recovered.
“I . . . Sure, okay.” He glanced over at the bar. “Let me print out some menus and unload the dishwasher.”
As much as she hated to admit it, Elliot had been right to hire Luke. Other than that whole sleeping-with-him thing, he’d been great since he started, with nothing to complain about, and this was another example of it. No panic, and he already knew what needed to be done to get ready for the day.
“I’ll print out the menus if you get the dishwasher,” she said. “I’ll be around all day, so I can help out. I have a few calls later so you might be the only one in here on and off. But obviously, if anything comes up, just buzz me or come find me.”
He nodded, a worried look coming over his face.