“You can’t do everything on your own.” Nate walked past, carrying everything into the barn. Soon the sounds of spray drifted out.
“Now, that man’s a keeper,” Nana said, holding the door for her. “Honestly, Christine. You’re thirty,” Nana said, as if Christine needed reminding. “Pretty soon you’ll be forty and I still won’t have any great-grandkids.”
“Not interested.” And she wasn’t. Nate was good-looking and had his quiet charm. But the only man she’d met in Harmony Valley who turned her crank was Slade. And perfectly handsome millionaires who signed her paycheck and never removed their tie were off-limits.
CHAPTER FIVE
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, Slade showed up at the vineyard wearing black work pants, a tan work shirt buttoned to the neck, spanking-new black work boots, and a plain black baseball cap. He would have looked perfect, like a millionaire vineyard owner who knew how to work the vineyards, if the temperature had been below seventy.
It was odd how a few days ago she’d been convinced Slade had no personality. Now she couldn’t stop wondering what he was hiding behind all those buttons. An embarrassing tattoo? Burns?
“I owe you twenty bucks,” he said. “Didn’t protect the tie from eau de skunk when I gathered up the girls’ clothes.”
“When you get skunked, all bets are off.” The heat was at its peak, somewhere in the mid-nineties, beating down on her shoulders. The back of her T-shirt was drenched with sweat. She’d been applying sunscreen religiously and was almost out.
Slade reached for the pruning shears, which she gladly handed over. “Flynn said he’d be back after dinner. He had to make a special trip to the vet for something stronger than a home remedy.”
“That dog will smell like skunk for weeks.” She started tying vines. “Did you buy yourself a new tie in town?”
“Nope. Those I custom order from Italy. I bought the girls a couple new outfits, though.” He began clipping at a faster pace than he had in the morning.
“Are they that traumatized?” She hoped she managed to keep the sarcasm from her voice.
“I think it was more embarrassing than scary, although the more I think about skunks and rabies, the more scared I get.”
Christine reassured Slade a pest-control service was coming. “So, were the twins laughing about it? Retelling their version? How big did the skunk finally get?”
He sighed. “They don’t talk. Much. At least not to me.”
“Do you visit them a lot in New York?”
“No.” The word was as final as a door slam.
Christine took the hint and went about her work. Slade’s pace slowed. She bent to work on tying a vine at his knee, brushing her shoulder against him with a muttered apology. The accidental touch created a flush of awareness she didn’t need. How could that be? She’d touched his hand, his arm, his shoulder, and hadn’t felt the rush of attraction before.
“Since we divorced, Evy allowed me to visit, but the girls weren’t allowed to come here.” He sounded weary and in need of a nonjudgmental ear. “We divorced when they were two. And now I feel like a stranger to them.”