His winemaker scanned the wine on El Rosal’s list, frowned, and ordered ice cream. Slade went for the fully-loaded nachos and a beer—late lunch of champions and comfort food of bad decision-makers. He wasn’t sure where he was netting out today—champion or bad decision-maker. He hoped the jury was still out.
“Back to our storage needs.” Her smile had a strained quality to it. “The winery you built will be used for initial grape crushing and fermentation. For the equipment we need, for the capacity you want long-term, I’ll use up every inch of that place.” She leaned closer and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze just once. “But we’ll also need a wine cave.”
“Why?” Slade closed his eyes and tilted his head to the ceiling, ignoring the fact that people didn’t invade his personal space. Ever. All their plans. All that money. The tension in his chest unraveled into the familiar downward drag of failed expectations. “We paid someone to tell us what equipment we needed to start a winery. We based our budgets and our plans on his advice.”
“A consultant?”
“Not exactly.” Slade wasn’t used to squirming. He knew they should have paid a legitimate consultant and not a friend of a friend of Flynn’s. But at the time, it hadn’t looked as if the winery would be approved by the town council. Failure tugged at him again. He wiped his palms on his slacks.
“Once fermentation is done, we’ll be transferring wine into smaller barrels. That’s where the magic happens. Our Cabernet Sauvignon may age in oak for three years, while the Chardonnay might only be a year.” Her smile was patient when he probably didn’t deserve patience. Overlooking proper storage was a stupid mistake. Slade hadn’t made such a stupid mistake in eight years. “Why don’t you show me your budget?”
He opened his laptop bag, retrieved a printed copy of their equipment-purchasing plan and operating budget, and woodenly handed it over. The twins watched wordlessly, their patience matching his winemaker’s.
Christine spent a good deal of time reviewing it, making notes in the margin, crossing things out and drawing arrows. Finally, she moved his purchase plan and budget into the space between them and leaned close, so close he could smell the vanilla scent of her hair.
He’d admit she was exposing the partnership’s mistakes a little too easily and was wreaking havoc with his confidence. And she hadn’t shown up looking like an A-lister. But Christine was classy. She hadn’t once looked at his daughters and broken into uncontrollable laughter. She smelled nice, and there was a friendly energy to her, a vitality that made him want to grin, as it had upstairs at the winery, when he’d been unable to stop grinning while listening to the twins whispering.
He measured success by the dollar—plus-minus, over-under. This project teetered on the brink of failure. And Slade had vowed never to fail again. Despite Christine’s positives and negatives balancing out, the uneasy feeling of looming disaster spread, pooling in his gut. It wasn’t the least bit reassuring.
“As I see it,” Christine said, head bent over the budget, “you have three options. You can invest more money and build your own storage facility. But it’s unlikely you’d be able to build one in time for our first harvest—you’d need town-council approvals, permits, an environmental study, water-table tests because of your proximity to the river, architectural plans, construction...” She was smiling again. “You get the idea.”
Slade must have turned green at the idea of such a cost overrun, because his daughters’ eyes grew wide. “Cross out option one.” He took a deep drink of water, unable to wash away the partnership’s goal of saving the town, even at such an expense. “But if it was an option...how many employees would you add?”