Unless... Unless he’d decided to extricate the partnership from the winery business altogether. He could sell the permit to another winery. He could sell the facility and the permit to another winery. Some big, impersonal winery that wouldn’t appreciate all the love and attention to detail Christine was putting into this one. Her wine. Her reputation.
She whipped out her phone: Where are you?
Slade’s reply: Phil’s barbershop.
Christine sprinted to her car, clutching the permit in her hand. She’d left the keys on the center console. The old car started up with only a few coughs of protest. And then she was driving into town.
She barreled into the barbershop on Main Street a few minutes later, the edges of the permit crumpling in her grip. “We need to talk.”
“Hey, Christine,” the twins greeted her. They sat together in a barber chair, spinning it around. They had on matching white capri pants and filmy orange blouses over tank tops. Orange headbands held their dark hair away from their faces.
“Hullo, Christine.” Phil, the old barber, sat in the other chair reading a newspaper.
She managed a breathy, “Hey.”
Slade wielded a drill, screwing in hinges on a storage cabinet. He hadn’t abandoned the button-down-and-tie look. Today’s tie was a bright red with darker red pinstripes. Snazzy. “Can I help you?”
“What is this?” She came forward, shaking so badly she could hardly walk. “Are you selling?”
“No.” He put another screw on the drill bit and fitted it into a hinge hole. “Why?”
The whine of the drill filled the air, making it impossible to speak without shouting. Since their kiss several days ago, he’d treated her as if the kiss never happened. They had a good working relationship. Or so she’d thought. He’d never said a word about the permit.
When the drill quieted, she struggled to catch her breath. “You submitted an application to bottle eighty thousand cases and you were approved. That’s year-five production, not year one.”
“They approved eighty thousand cases?” Slade sent another screw smoothly into the wood. He still hadn’t looked at her. “I wasn’t expecting that. The government sent someone out to inspect us last month before you started, but it was more about record keeping than capacity. I only put the big number in on the request form on a whim.”
“You aren’t whimsical.” She leaned against the wall. “You can’t just leave capacity like that idle. You either use it or you sell.”
He frowned. “What would we sell?”
“The permits. The permits and the winery. Either. Both.” Her ponytail had fallen over her shoulder. She tossed it back. “I should have seen this coming. We’re not making any wine this year, are we?”
“I’m not sure I see what your problem is.” He stood, maddeningly calm. “I told you. Eighty thousand was an end goal for me. We agreed on your bottling figures for this year.”
“You don’t understand.” Christine stared out the front window at a lonely Main Street. “You don’t know what this permit is worth. I’m going to have to give notice. Reputation is everything in this business. Who knows what the new owners will want to make here.”
Slade put down his drill and took her by the shoulders. “Christine, none of those things are happening.”