Jonas looked up as Travis entered the room. "Travis."
Travis nodded. "Father."
The man most likely to be the next president of the United States waved his glass.
"Anyway, as I was saying..."
"Say it later," Jonas said.
There was a silence. Then the man who would be president cleared his throat. "You know," he said briskly, "I've been dying to taste some of that Texas barbecue."
The room emptied. Jonas walked slowly across the handwoven Navajo rug and closed the door.
"I take it you haven't come to tell me again that your childhood was an all-fired disaster," he said.
"I never did tell you. What would have been the point?" Travis walked to the mahogany sideboard that dominated one wall, opened a bottle of mineral water and poured it, over ice, into a crystal tumbler. "What's this job you have for me?"
Jonas smiled. "Thought you wasn't interested."
"I might not be." Travis drank some of the water, put down the glass and folded his arms. "But you said it would rake me out of L.A. for a while and I'm in the mood for a change of scene. I figured I'd at least listen to the details."
Jonas folded his arms, too, and leaned back against the wall. Amazing, Travis thought. The old man was eighty-five, but he still looked as hard and wiry as ever.
"Never mind all that politeness crap you gave Marta," Jonas said. "You're not havin' much fun tonight, are you?"
"No," Travis said bluntly, "I'm not." A tight smile flickered across his mouth. "But you can't take any credit for it."
His father laughed. "Woman trouble."
"What makes you think so?"
Jonas strolled to the sideboard and poured two fingers of bourbon into his glass.
"Saw you outside with that brunette a while ago. The senator's girl." The old man tossed back half the bourbon. "Looked like she was tryin' to swallow your tongue. Am I right?"
Travis couldn't help laughing. "I'm sure there's a more romantic way to put it, Father, but yes, that's pretty accurate."
"And you was about as interested as a stallion would be in a cow."
"Father, your perceptions of my love life are all very interesting, but-"
"Sex life, Boy. Don't you make none of those stupid mistakes about love. What a man feels for a woman comes straight from his crotch. Mess it up with love, that's where the problems start."
Travis looked at the bottle of bourbon, sighed, drank down his water and poured some into his glass.
"I'm sure Marta would be delighted to hear that," he said.
"I'm not saying I don't care for Marta. I do. But a man who lets himself think he's in love is a man in trouble."
Travis looked at his father. The old man was staring into the distance. His voice had lost its lazy Texas drawl, and gone flat.
"You sound as if you're speaking from experience," Travis said softly.
Jonas went on staring for another couple of seconds. Then he took a deep breath, rolled his shoulders and laughed.
"Man gets to be my age, he's seen enough to know you don't have to be a jackass to recognize one."
Travis sipped at his bourbon. "You going to get around to telling me what this job is you'd like me to handle for you?"
His father eased into his favorite leather armchair. His motions were fluid but slower than they'd once been. He really was 'getting old, Travis thought suddenly. To his surprise, he felt an unexpected twinge of compassion.
"Here's the situation." Jonas sat back and crossed his feet at the ankles. "I got me a deal in the works. A company I want to buy, in your neck of the woods. Well, your neck of the woods, figuratively speakin'. It's up in the Napa Valley."
"That's wine country, Father."
Jonas chuckled. "And a good thing it is, considerin' that the company I'm lookin' at makes wine."
"You? Buying a vineyard?"
"Baron money is invested in lots of things, Travis. If you paid more attention, you'd know that."
Travis sat down opposite Jonas and told himself not to respond to the taunt.
"If you just want some contracts checked out, I know a couple of guys in Northern California I can recommend."
"You're supposed to know somethin' about wine, isn't that right, boy?"
"I know enough about it to know what I like to drink and don't like, but if you're thinking I know anything about vineyards-"
"I got me a bunch of business managers but not a one of 'em I'd trust to tell a Zinfandel from a Beaujolais." Jonas smiled. "What's wrong, son? You look as if you jes' stepped on a fire ant."
"Nothing," Travis said evenly, "except that I'm amazed to hear those two words rolling off your tongue."
Jonas rose from his chair, went to the sideboard and poured another inch of bourbon into his glass.
"I'd need you to go up there for a day. Two, at the most."
"And do what? Knowing a Zin from a Beaujolais comes in handy when you're reading a wine list, but it doesn't have a damned thing to do with checking out a contract."
"It is, if you take along my peoples' financial reports. and if you put to use some of that stuff you know about oak barrel curing, viniculture..." Jonas chuckled. "There's that look on your face again, boy."
Travis laughed. He didn't mean to but hell, he couldn't help it.
"You're still a surprise to me, Father," he said.
"Life's full of surprises, boy. Well? Will you do it, or won't you?"
Travis thought about it. A couple of days up north, five hundred miles away from Malibu, and Los Angeles. It sounded pretty good. He liked the Napa Valley; he'd spent some weekends there. And, yeah, he did know a lot about viniculture. There was a time he'd considered sinking some money into a winery.
And then there was Alexandra Thorpe, and getting her out of his head.
"Yes," he said, before he could think about it too long and change his mind. He put down his glass and held out his hand. "I'll be glad to do it, Father. Just get together all those reports you mentioned and have them sent to me."
Jonas's hand closed on Travis's. "Already did," he said. and grinned. "Figured you wouldn't be able to pass up a chance like this, seein' as how you fancy yourself a hotshot lawyer and an expert on wine."
"Seein' as how you figure yourself an expert on how I'd react to your offer, you mean," Travis said, with a lazy smile.
"Somethin' like that." The old man drank the last of his bourbon, put down his glass and dug his hands into the pockets of his tux. "Anythin' else you need, you jes let me know."
Travis nodded and started from the room. At the last second, he swung toward Jonas.
"The vineyard."
"What about it?"
"Maybe I'm already familiar with it, Father. What's its name?"
Jonas frowned. "Hawk's Nest. Eagle's Nest. Somethin' like that." He strode to his desk, opened a drawer and rifled through some papers. "Here it is. Peregrine Vineyards. Used to be run by somebody didn't know a thing about wine, guy name of, lemme see here... Stuart. Carl Stuart."
Travis shrugged. "Never heard of him."
"Place actually belonged to his wife. Still does, now that she's divorced. She's gone back to usin' her maiden name. Got it right here, someplace."
"It doesn't matter," Travis said, his hand on the doorknob. "I don't know the name of the vineyard, so I doubt if I'd know the name of-"
"Here it is." Jonas looked up. "Lady's name is Thorpe. Alexandra Thorpe."
Travis felt the floor tilt under his feet. "Alexandra Thorpe?" he said hoarsely.
"Uh-huh." His father gave him a slow smile. "Is that a problem, boy?"
Their eyes met. Travis thought about asking what the old man knew, about how he could possibly know it...
And then he thought of the woman who'd haunted him ever since he'd walked out of Thorpe House two weeks ago, and about putting an end to this nonsense, once and for all.
"No," he said calmly, "it isn't a problem. Not in the slightest."
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALEX had known people would whisper about the auction.
She also knew that no one would dare say anything to her face. What was said behind her back didn't matter. Let the gossips speculate to their souls' damnation. She would pay no attention.
No, she thought, as she walked along a row of grapes at Peregrine Vineyards, the whispers about that night didn't bother her.
But the dreams did.
She dreamed about Travis Baron. Erotic dreams, the kind that left the sheets twisted between her thighs. Sometimes she awakened flushed with heat, the all-too-real feel of Travis's kisses on her mouth. Even thinking about it now made her bones feel as soft as the pulp of the grapes in the fermenting vats.