But in Slade’s case, Christine didn’t think it was happy memories that rooted him in Harmony Valley. She’d felt the sadness in his home. Slade was a strong man to live there.
Sometime later, Slade came upstairs as Agnes was finishing tying a bow on the last fancy swag window treatment she’d sewn. As usual, he looked like he’d stepped off the pages of a men’s fashion magazine, instead of out of the afternoon heat. “What’s this? I thought we agreed on plantation shutters up here, the same as downstairs.”
He was lucky the drapes were blue, not pink. “I can’t get the installer to come out and measure again. He said he’s booked up until October. Nana decided to take pity on us.” Christine handed Slade a stack of invoices. “Those need checks written. Where are the girls?”
“Over at Flynn’s.” Slade stared at the invoices and then looked at her. Stared at the invoices again and took a deep breath. “Would you like to have dinner at my house tonight?” He hurried to add, “With the girls and me?”
Nana exchanged glances with Christine. Nana’s look seemed to say, Don’t turn down a millionaire’s offer for dinner.
Christine resisted rolling her eyes. She didn’t believe in polite offers of dinner. Not from her boss. “There’s an agenda behind this invitation, isn’t there? What is it?”
He hesitated too long before answering. “You’ve been busy. I’ve been busy. It’d be nice to get an update.”
Easy-peasy. She had everything organized in her action file.
Except Slade wasn’t looking at her, which implied the possibility of a different agenda. “And...”
He didn’t move, and yet he appeared as if he was squirming in his Italian loafers. “Could you bring...your hair stuff?”
Christine smiled. “Do the twins want me to do their hair again?”
“No. I do.” He smiled sheepishly, his gaze bouncing around the room. “They’re still barely talking to me, and the last time you did their hair, they seemed happier.”
Poor papa bear. Christine sympathized. “Girls can be brutal. I once succeeded in avoiding conversations with my dad for three weeks.”
That caught his interest enough that he met her gaze. “What made you stop?”
“Dad took me with him to the vineyard.”
“I tried that.” He managed a hint of a smile. “They got skunked.”
His wry humor and clear desire to win his girls over made it impossible to refuse. She sighed. “What time?”
Slade had barely left when her grandmother started in. “He’s attractive, wealthy, and good-looking. I won’t lie to you, I’d love to see you finally settle down, but then I realized as he was leaving...he’s also your boss. Things haven’t changed so much since I was young. You can’t date your boss.”
Ryan slumped behind his computer monitor. Hard to do when it was a laptop and you were over six feet tall.
“You’re embarrassing Ryan,” Christine pointed out. “Not to mention me.”
“You young people just don’t get it.” Nana frowned, clearly exasperated with the scene.