Sighing, Slade moved the nachos closer to Christine, abdicating ownership. “We’ll put together some estimates and new projections. You did mention something in your résumé about the ability to balance budgets?”
“I did.” Christine decided she’d pushed the man enough for one day and merely grinned around the last bite of nachos. She wanted to make great wine, not a lot of wine that may or may not be great. And to do that, she needed to continually win the battle over Slade’s well-intentioned but unrealistic production goals and his budget miscalculations.
He tossed cash onto the table. “I should get the twins home.”
She followed him out the door. He sent the twins ahead to the truck.
“We’ll work this out together, keeping in mind what our investment goals are and what goals you can deliver on,” Slade said from between lips that barely smiled. “Can you bring me a revised purchasing plan and budget in two days?”
“Absolutely.” Christine wasn’t sure where she found the audacity to add, “But I’m going to make recommendations based on year-one output for the next few years.”
Those perfect lips of his settled into a thin line.
The sad part was, it didn’t diminish his perfection in any way.
* * *
“WELL? HOW’D IT GO?”
“Dad?” Christine shut her grandmother’s front door behind her, taking a moment to enjoy the cool air, before processing her father was here. Forty-five minutes of back-road driving from his place of employ to Harmony Valley. Midafternoon on a Monday. Uh-oh. “What are you doing here?”
Brad Alexander stood in the living room wearing blue jeans, work boots, and a faded black L.A. Flash T-shirt. He looked at home amid the overstuffed leather furniture and big-screen television. He looked at home despite the white doilies and pink throw pillows Nana had scattered around the room after Grandpa left for the big man cave in the sky.
Standing in the doorway to the kitchen, Nana snapped a pink tea towel in her son-in-law’s direction. “As usual, he’s butting in where—”
“Agnes, I just wanted to see how my little girl did on her first day.” Her father’s smile was infectious, capable of smoothing over many an awkward situation. He closed the distance between them and gave her a hearty hug.
“It’s a great opportunity, Dad. I think I’ll like it here.” If she could get things on track for a manageable launch.
She wasn’t going to tell her dad about Slade’s five-year production plan or their lack of quality wine storage. He’d worry. He’d stress. He’d show up one day ranting about Slade’s plans to compromise the quality of her work or some other unforgivable action and insist it was time she moved on. As a lifelong veteran of the wine industry, her dad was always watching out for Christine’s career and her brother’s. It was what he lived for. It was his passion.
It had come to be her Achilles’ heel.
“Now that you see Christine’s happy, you can drive back to Napa.” Nana tried to herd Brad out, shooing him away with her dish towel. Since Nana was barely five feet and her dad topped six feet, no amount of towel brandishing was going to work.
“We have to visit.” Her dad pulled Christine over to the big leather couch.