“We’re not selling.” Slade leaned on the back of the barber chair the twins occupied. “Thank you for telling me you like Christine.”
“Are you going to marry her?” Grace unwound the orange headband she was wearing and wrapped it triple around Faith’s wrist. She angled her back toward Faith. “French braid, please.”
“We approve.” Faith started finger combing Grace’s hair.
Grace put her small palms on either side of Slade’s cheeks. “You need someone nice.”
“To make you smile.” Faith didn’t take her eyes off her work.
Grace wobbled his head ever so gently. “Because you don’t smile enough.”
“And we should know. Our newest step-dad...” Faith stopped braiding to look at him. She rolled her eyes. “He says we don’t smile enough.”
“And Mom always says we got your smile.” Grace removed her hands from his face and folded them in her lap. “And that our smile is pretty.”
It was the longest conversation they’d had to date. Slade imagined his grin stretched from ear to ear.
“Well?” Grace said, staring pointedly at him.
“Well, what?” Slade was confused.
“Are you going to marry Christine?” Faith repeated her sister’s question.
Phil angled forward, aiming his good ear in Slade’s direction.
That was all Slade needed—for the local rumor mill to go off half-cocked about him and Christine. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t interested in her, but that was nowhere close to marriage. For anyone to be in a relationship with him long-term, they had to trust he could hold it together. That was a whole lotta trust to ask of someone, even if Slade was convinced suicide wasn’t the answer to overwhelming problems.
“Dad,” Grace whispered.
“We’ll see,” Slade said quickly, because he feared the whispers would deteriorate to twin speak once more.
“That means no.” Faith shrugged when he looked at her. “That’s what it means when Mom says it.”
“Those girls are smart.” Phil raised his paper in front of his face.
Slade’s cell phone rang. It was a number he didn’t recognize.
“Mr. Jennings, I’m Tom Bartlett.” The man’s tone was so perfectly pitched, Slade could see him sitting at a large mahogany desk in a heavily carpeted room. “I represent several firms that are interested in bottling permits in Sonoma County.”
The hair on the back of Slade’s neck went up, exactly how it did when he noticed a big opportunity to make money.
“We hear that you’ve just received a moderate bottling permit, but that you haven’t completed your winery yet. In fact—” papers shuffled in the background “—you have yet to install a bottling line.”
“How do you know that?” Now the hair on the back of Slade’s neck rose for an entirely different reason.
“I’m prepared to offer your company a substantial sum of money for that bottling permit to be transferred to us. In return, we’re prepared to offer—” He named an obscene sum. “And we’ll bottle your small lots of wine every harvest for the next five years. No charge.”