She laughed the kind of evil laugh that Slade would have known, had he been here, meant trouble for him: I choose you and Flynn and Nate and Grace and Faith and Truman and whoever else you can find. Bring pruning shears, hats, and sunblock. 6 a.m.
He didn’t answer right away. And when he did, it was an anticlimactic Okay.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING Slade and his crew reported for work, as Christine requested.
Slade knew the heat would make him miserable, but he still wore black slacks, a blue long-sleeved shirt, and tie.
Slade sought out his girls. At least the twins were dressed appropriately for the temperature in cutoffs and matching royal-blue tank tops. Each had her hair in a ponytail that swung through the hole in the back of a royal-blue baseball hat.
Christine was prepared for them with thermoses of coffee and hot chocolate, as well as a cooler full of water bottles, and her grandmother’s banana-nut bread. She also had a box of old work gloves and pruning shears. She, too, was dressed for the heat in canvas shorts and a canary-yellow T-shirt featuring another rock band. Her hair was braided tightly so that only pigtails peeked out from either side of her floppy white hat.
Standing next to her, Slade felt more overdressed than he had in years. His tie felt too tight and heavy. Before he’d been able to talk to Will, he and his fiancée, Emma, had left for San Francisco a few days ago for a series of art-gallery openings featuring Emma’s paintings. Slade was starting to think it’d be better to iron out the budget with Christine first. At least then he wouldn’t be talking in generalities. He’d have hard figures to present. Will and Flynn were sentimental about Harmony Valley. They let it cloud their judgment.
“I know I asked you to, but you didn’t have to bring the kids,” Christine said to Slade as he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“I don’t expect them to work much.” Slade didn’t expect them to do more than run around and have a good time. “It’d be nice if they felt useful before the real work starts.”
Christine reached over and squeezed his shoulder, as if they were old chums. “That’s so doable.”
“I’m feeling guilty that we did nothing to the vines since we bought them.” Flynn wandered over, tugging on a pair of gloves. “To Christine, it must be like ignoring your children.”
Slade set down his coffee. It was too hot for what already promised to be a hot day. “It’s not like that at all. We bought the property and didn’t get rezoning approval for months. It wasn’t as if we knew we’d be harvesting grapes this year.”
“Are you going to be okay in this heat?” Christine pulled lightly on his sleeve. “Please go home and change.”
“He won’t be caught dead without the tie. I lived with the guy for five years. Trust me,” Flynn said. “It’s a fetish.”
If there was a possibility Slade could ditch the shirt and tie, he would have. Instead, he unwisely took inventory of the rest of the crew. The guys wore shorts and T-shirts. Only Abby and Slade were overdressed. And Abby, being a dog, had no choice but to wear a fur coat. Soon, Slade would be panting just as loudly as she was.
Slade rolled up his shirtsleeves. “Don’t worry about me.”
“We’ve learned not to.” Flynn grinned.
“Let’s start before it gets unbearably hot.” Christine stood next to a row of grapevines and shook a baggy full of what looked like short wires. “We’re going to use twist ties—yes, just like from a loaf of bread. I know, highly technical stuff here. We’ll use twist ties to fasten the load-bearing shoots to one of two support wires on the trellis system.” She showed them how two wires were strung at two different heights from a post at one end of the row to the other end. “Too many clusters on the vine dilutes the flavor of all the grapes, so we’ll want to thin the secondary clusters. That way, the primary clusters will be bursting with flavor.”