Angie looked at her watch and swore at the sound of someone knocking sharply on her front door. Damn, she’d been late going to bed because of the wedding and whoever was out on her front porch had just blown her beauty sleep right out of the water. “Coming,” she called as she grabbed her satin robe off the foot of the bed. “Wade, are you expecting anybody?”
Wade, clad only in his boxers, stumbled out of his bedroom. “What’s all the racket?” he asked, his eyes bleary.
“Damned if I know.” Angie stomped across the floor and threw open the door to find a uniformed Russ Riley waiting on the other side. Angie took one look at Russ’s face and felt herself start to tense. “What’s happened now?”
“Another basket’s been left,” he said without preamble. “Over at Jimmy’s. The house has been trashed and the inside spray painted pink. I need you to take a look at the basket.”
“Damn it. No,” Angie wailed. “She’s my friend and one of my best customers.”
Wade came up behind Angie and peered over the top of her head at Russ. “What’s wrong, Mr., uh, Deputy, uh—”
“Make it Russ.” Russ gestured to a bagged object sitting on the edge of the porch. “I need your mom to look at this. Someone left it in front of Jimmy Adamcik’s vandalized house.”
“They got Mr. Adamcik and Holly this time?” Wade asked as Angie stepped out onto the porch, followed by a curious Emma.
“Got them but good,” Russ said as he reached out and gave Emma an absentminded pat. “The furniture’s pretty much history and the entire interior will have to be redone.”
Angie knelt down by the bag as Russ gently pulled on a pair of gloves and tugged the bag open. “Don’t touch this nasty thing. And you might want to make sure your kitty doesn’t get into it, either.”
Angie handed Emma to Wade. She peered at the basket as Russ moved aside the paint-covered cellophane wrapper. “The basket and products are mine, obviously, but this is not one of my standard baskets,” she said as she studied the contents. “In fact, I didn’t make this one up at all. Someone else put it together.” She pointed to the hand lotion. “This bottle is discontinued. Same for that soap—see the bloom on it? The face lotion is a fairly new product I started selling six months ago, maybe. The scar concealer is an older version and that bath sponge is a cheapie I wouldn’t get caught dead putting in one of my baskets.”
“Holly said the soap and lotion were similar to some she used but not a match.”
“Oh my God, you’re right,” Angie murmured. “I should have thought of that.”
“So what you’re saying is that whoever is doing this knows that Holly likes a certain type of product but not exactly the ones she uses,” Wade murmured.
“Give the Aggie a cigar,” Russ murmured as he looked up at the tall young man. “Like the tat, by the way.”
“What tat?” Angie demanded, whirling around and staring in shock at Wade’s naked torso, which sported a maroon Texas A&M logo over the left side of his chest. “Wade, what have you done to yourself and how many pitchers of beer was it?”
“I’ve paid homage to the best university in the entire world, and three,” Wade said proudly.
She scowled at her wayward, headstrong son.
Russ stood up. “Angie, if your database has the capability, I need you to put together a list of everyone who’s bought this particular face lotion from you in the last several months,” he said. “We’ll have Holly take a look and see which ones might know her but not that well. Because Wade’s right, whoever bought this knows Holly but not particularly intimately.”
“Let me get my clothes on and I’ll meet you down at the shop,” Angie said. She grinned slyly. “By the way, how many pitchers of beer was your tat?”
Wade looked startled. “You’ve seen his tat?”
Russ shrugged. “Everybody on the Point has seen my tat. It was my first free weekend in Seoul and the drinky girl and I killed I don’t know how much of that Korean soju. I’m lucky I don’t have a naked woman on my ass.”
Wade and Angie laughed and Angie fled into the house.
Good grief, Russ had just seen her in her robe. She grabbed up some clothes and ran into her tiny bathroom where she took a quick look in the mirror and groaned out loud. Admittedly the satin was thick enough but it clung lovingly to every curve, and between her messy hair and sleepy eyes she looked like she was up for a toss in the hay. She had again seen that sensual spark light in Russ’s eyes when she stepped out on the porch and knew that he still wanted to make her his lover.
She was so, so very tempted to let Russ have his way.
So she would have to be strong, she thought as she whipped through a shower and dressed in jeans and a pink T-shirt and a pair of sandals with a flower on the top. She glossed her lips and swept her hair up into her signature ponytail and went to the kitchen, where Russ and Wade were sitting at the table with cups of steaming coffee.
Russ had Emma in his lap, not seeming to mind that she was getting cat hair all over his uniform. “Do I have time for a cup?” Angie asked.
“Absolutely,” Russ said as Wade hopped up and poured. “Wade was filling me in on all the things that have changed since I went through A&M.”
Angie slid into a chair and sipped her coffee. “You haven’t been back?”
“I make it to the football games on a regular basis but not much else. I enjoy watching Holly’s other brothers play football.” He grinned across the table at Wade. “Has Emily ever explained Holly’s family bush to you?”
“She’s tried but I still can’t keep them all straight,” Wade admitted. “Especially when she starts throwing in Holly’s steps by Mrs. Hightower’s second and third husbands. It sounds kind of neat, actually, having that many brothers and sisters,” he added a little wistfully.
“It kind of is, except when the parents go toxic,” Russ said.
Wade shrugged. “You don’t need siblings for a parent to go toxic.” He gulped down his coffee and got up from the table.
Russ and Angie looked at one another as Wade disappeared into the bathroom. “I never realized he missed having siblings,” Angie said thoughtfully.
“What about the toxic parent crack?” Russ asked.
“Oh, you better believe I know how he feels about Buck,” Angie said. “He’s refused to see Buck since the day the bastard hurt him so badly. And, God forgive me, I have done very little to change his mind.” Angie finished her coffee. “So let’s go get that list you need.”
Angie followed Russ to the shop and within just a few minutes was handing Russ a list of every customer who had ordered that particular lotion. Russ spent a few minutes looking over the list before shaking his head.
“Nothing in particular pops,” he said. “How about for you?”
Angie looked down at the duplicate list in her hand and shook her head. “I guess the one you ought to show this to is Holly,” she said. “There might be a connection to someone on this list that she knows of but we don’t.”
“And I need to start digging a little deeper,” Russ said. “Whoever is doing this means business, and I don’t think it’s going to stop here. And it may mean questioning some folks who don’t really want to be questioned and poking into some things that folks want left alone.”
Angie shivered. “Do what you need to do.”
Russ nodded. “How about dinner tonight?” he asked a little too casually.
Sorely tempted, Angie bit her lip. “I don’t think so.”
Russ’s eyes danced with amusement as they took in her indecision. “Why not?” he asked softly. “We could go somewhere nice for dinner, and we could go to my place for dessert.”
Angie took a deep breath. “We’ve talked about this before. I like you, Russ, I really do, and I’m attracted to you in a big way. But you’re a playboy. You have more women than Carter’s has liver pills.”
“And this is a problem because?” Russ prompted. “Are you looking for orange blossoms and a ring?”
“No,” Angie said. “Not only no, but hell no.”
“So what would the harm be?” Russ asked persuasively. “You and me and dinner and dessert? You think about it.” Russ leaned down and gave her a warm, sweet kiss on the lips and left before she could say anything more.
Angie stared out the door, her mind racing, as the cruiser pulled out of the parking lot. What kind of answer did she have for a question like that? He was right. She was the last woman in Verde who wanted marriage or permanent ties of any kind and Russ was offering her exactly the kind of no-strings no-commitment relationship she wanted. So why wasn’t she jumping to take Russ up on his dinner and dessert?
Later that week, Angie sat on a stool at the big work table in the middle of her workroom and whipped the lye and olive and coconut oils together with her stick blender, watching the concoction, warm from the reaction between the chemicals, slowly thicken in the large bowl. She continued to beat the mixture until it was just thick enough to start jelling a bit. She stopped the beating motion long enough to add the perfume oils and red oxide dye that would turn this batch of soap into her popular tea-and-sage bars before finishing the mixing process and pouring the finished soap into a shallow square wooden mold where it would dry until she cut it into bars. She slipped the mold into her dryer and then turned to one of last week’s poured soaps waiting to be cut and packaged.
Ahh, I nailed it, she thought as she swiftly cut a bar and sniffed the tantalizing fragrance of crisp autumn wind as it blew through a stand of mountain cedar and dry grass and falling pecans. It was going to be a hit with the locals and Angie could see it selling well on the Internet if she marketed it correctly. Angie finished cutting and trimming the soap and wrapped each bar in a pre-cut waxy wrapper and label. She had spent the better part of the morning mixing soap and needed to spend a few minutes at her desk before the Memorial Day foot traffic hit her door.
But first things first. She put on her electric kettle and measured out a pot’s worth of her favorite tea and while the water heated she did her usual quick perusal of the Wall Street Journal online before getting the San Angelo Tribune and Austin American-Statesman out of their plastic sleeves. The San Angelo headline involved a speech made by Nadine Hightower’s Congressional candidate and after a quick scan of the article Angie was about to move to the Austin paper when a box in the corner caught her eye. “Hill Country Mystery Baskets characterize a streak of vandalism” blazed in the box and a page number was given.
“Damn, damn, damn,” she whispered as she whipped the paper open to the given page number and quickly scanned the brief, factual article and found to her dismay that the San Angelo paper cited the Austin Statesman as their source. Damn, damn, damn again, she thought as she spread the Austin paper out on the desk. There was nothing on the front page but sure enough, right there in the metro section she found the same article word for word.
Angie felt a chill move through her. Now it wasn’t just the locals who knew about the baskets and the vandalism. Her Austin and San Angelo customers would know, and all of them would connect the dots, just as whoever was leaving the baskets and doing the damage intended that they would, and at least some of them would think twice before ordering from her again. What would then happen to the business she had worked so hard to build and that meant so much to her? What would happen to the money she needed to help Wade finish college? What would happen to the little savings account that meant so much to her personal future?
Swearing to herself, she snapped both papers closed and was tackling a stack of supply bills when she heard the door chime tinkle and the sound of voices in the shop.
“Angie, are you open today?” Holly Adamcik’s voice rang out into the quiet.
“Sure am,” Angie said as she put a paperweight on the bills and found Holly and Carrie in the shop area sniffing the soap samples she kept on the counter. Carrie was clinging to Holly’s hand, the little girl’s cheerful smile absent, and Holly too did not seem her usual irrepressible self.
“Holly, I am so sorry for the damage to your place,” Angie began.
Holly held up her hand. “Stop right now. Do not apologize to me for something that is not your fault.” Angie blinked at the crisply given order. “How about we blame the bastard with the spray paint for this?”
“That’s her ‘Captain Riley’ voice,” Carrie said solemnly. “And Daddy says when Holly sounds like that, you better listen.”
Angie grinned and snapped the blushing Holly a salute. “So how’s it going in your place?”
“A little crowded but otherwise all right,” Holly said as she handed one of the soap samples to Carrie. “Besides, we’re leaving next Sunday after Emily’s wedding Saturday for a couple of weeks in Grand Cayman and hopefully a lot will be done by the time we get back. Today Carrie and I are looking for something for Janelle’s birthday.” She leaned down to Carrie. “What do you think of that one, honeybun?” Carrie sniffed it and shrugged.
Carrie sniffed the soaps dutifully. “Whatever you think, Holly. They’re all nice.”
Angie looked down at Carrie and up at Holly. Something was definitely off and it wasn’t the vandalism. She raised her eyebrow and Holly pointed toward the workroom. “Tell you what, Carrie,” Angie said brightly. “Why don’t you hop up here on the stool and smell all the samples while I talk to Holly for a minute. You can choose something really nice for your Grammy Adamcik.”
Carrie got up on the stool while Holly followed Angie into the workroom. Angie found the forgotten kettle of hot water and made the tea while Holly sat down on a work stool and took a deep breath. “If I don’t kill Ida Puckett before the year is out it will be a miracle. Carrie came home from her sleepover at the Pucketts’ place practically in tears.”
Angie’s forehead knitted into a frown. “I know Ida has issues with Jimmy but I can’t see her being unkind to her own granddaughter. What in the world happened to make Carrie unhappy?”
“Carrie wants to call me ‘Mommy’ and Ida made her feel badly about it. Told Carrie I wasn’t really her mother.” Holly’s eyes overflowed with tears that she swiped from her cheeks. “Damn it, Angie, I love that child. I love her just as much as the one I’m carrying and I know she loves me, too, so why shouldn’t she call me Mommy? Why shouldn’t I be her mom?”
Angie handed Holly a Kleenex to wipe her wet cheeks. “I gather you and Carrie haven’t told Jimmy about this yet?”
“Oh, hell no, he’ll just call Ida and they’ll have another of their famous set-tos,” Holly said. “I don’t want to be the cause of any more friction between the two of them. But you have no idea how damn mad her attitude makes me.”
“Wanna bet?” Angie asked dryly. She lifted the infuser from the teapot and poured them each a mug of tea.
“Oh. Damn. I guess you do know how I feel.”
“You better believe I do,” Angie said with feeling. “Just a couple of weeks ago Molly made another of her little digs about Wade’s ‘real family’ and Wade set her straight real quick. Must have pissed Molly off royally because she hasn’t been back to see him since. And the bad thing is, Molly loves Wade as much as Ida loves Carrie, but neither of those old women is broad-minded enough to understand that parenthood doesn’t necessarily require a blood connection. And that is seriously sad.”
“So what did you do?” Holly asked as she sipped the tea. “What do I do?”
“Accept the fact that you’re not going to change Ida. And, if you trust me, I’ll have a talk with Carrie.”
“Sure, I trust you,” Holly said.
“Okay, then.” Angie gathered up a few tiny silk rosebuds and a styling comb and carried them into the shop, where Carrie was still sniffing the soap samples.
“You want some flowers in your hair, Carrie?” The little girl nodded and Angie positioned herself behind her and gently tugged the styling comb through Carrie’s thick dark curls. “Do you know my son Wade?” she asked casually as she parted Carrie’s hair into braiding strands.
“Sure. He’s the one Holly and Miss Caroline said turned into a stud muffin,” Carrie said.
Angie blinked and Holly snickered. “Sorry about that.”
“Just how every mother likes to think about her child,” Angie said dryly. “So you do know he’s my son. But did you know that Wade once had another mother, too?”
Carrie whirled around, pulling her hair out of Angie’s fingers. “He did? He had another mommy?”
“Yes, he did, Carrie,” Angie said gently as she re-parted Carrie’s hair and wove in the first satin rosebud. “When he was a very, very little boy he had another mommy.”
“Like I did,” Carrie said thoughtfully. “Did Wade’s mommy die like mine?”
“No, but she left Wade and never came back.”
Carrie’s forehead creased into a frown. “My mommy can’t come back, either. Daddy said so.”
“Your daddy’s right—she can’t,” Angie said as she deftly wove in another rosebud.
“So then Wade didn’t have a mommy?” Carrie asked.
“No, he didn’t,” Angie said. “Just like you, he didn’t have a mommy. And then his daddy married me and I became his mommy, because I love him and he loves me.”
Carrie thought a minute. “So his other mommy left and you became his mommy.” Her eyes went wide. “So that means Wade had two mommies, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, Wade had two mommies, his first mommy and me. And he calls me ‘Mom,’ Carrie, because that’s what I am to him. Just like what you want Holly to be.”
“What about my mommy who’s in heaven? Can I still love her, too?”
“Oh, heavens yes, Carrie,” Angie assured her.
Carrie looked from Angie to Holly. “So it would be all right for me to call Holly ‘Mommy?’” the child asked hopefully.
Angie looked up and wasn’t surprised to find fresh tears on Holly’s face. “You better believe it’s all right,” she said warmly as she blinked back a few tears of her own. “And tonight when you say your prayers you can say one for both your mommies, okay?”
“I’ll do that.” Carrie said happily. “Holly, Miss Angie said it’s okay if I call you ‘Mommy.’”
Holly nodded. “You better believe it is, honeybun.” She looked over at Angie and whispered. “Thank you. You made a huge difference this afternoon.”
Angie looked down at the smiling child and smiled herself. “Holly, it was my pleasure.”
*****
Angie blotted her lipstick and pulled on a pair of boot socks and a pair of boot-cut jeans that had definitely seen better days. After lunch she was going to San Saba to look at a pretty mare Rory wanted to buy Lisa for her birthday, and somehow Angie didn’t think her usual capris or shorts and sandals would be quite the thing for the pasture of a horse ranch. She found a soft pink sleeveless knit blouse with a low-cut neckline and a straw western hat with a pink hatband. She tugged on her old riding boots and was dusting her face with blush when she heard the impudent toot of Lisa’s car horn. She grabbed her straw bag and quickly locked the front door and hopped in the passenger seat.
“So where’s Rory?” she asked as Lisa backed out of the driveway.
“He’s meeting us at the café,” Lisa said. “He went to town early to catch the junior rodeo league roping practice. His oldest brother’s boy is on the team this year and they’ve roped—sorry for the pun—Tommy Joe Reece into coaching it for them. I swear, on that trained horse of his Tommy can rope as well as he could before he got hurt. Holly and her wounded warriors are so proud of Tommy they can hardly stand it.”
“Everybody in town is proud of Tommy,” Angie said. “To have come back that far from the kind of hit he took in Iraq… Amazing. And I tell you, that was a fun wedding with everybody on horseback.” Angie’s face fell as a thought occurred to her. “God, I hope whoever’s leaving the damn baskets doesn’t realize how much business Christi does with me. She and Tommy Joe are just now getting financially past the damage Chucky did to them.”
“Now Angie, don’t go borrowing trouble,” Lisa cautioned her. “This business with the baskets may have already run its course. Now, how about you stop worrying and just enjoy the afternoon? Gus promised to have a passel of his best chicken fried up for us and then we go look at a horse.”
Angie determinedly pushed aside her own worries and let Lisa entertain her all the way to Verde with juicy tidbits picked up from Lisa’s café patrons the week before. The town square was busy for a weekday, the sidewalks teeming with day-trippers and the shops humming with customers and a line out of the café door.
Lisa and Angie sidled past the waiting diners and Lisa spotted Rory at a back booth sitting with Russ Riley. Angie looked up at Lisa, a little put out. “I didn’t know Russ was going to be here,” she said. “Is he just here for lunch?”
“Nope,” Lisa said, unperturbed by Angie’s reaction to Russ’s presence. “He’s going to San Saba with us. Why? Avoiding our sexilicious neighbor?”
Actually she had been, but damned if she would admit that to Lisa. Angie was still tempted, oh so tempted to take Russ up on his offer for dinner and ‘dessert’ and, except for her own nervous indecision, she had no real answer for why she was so hesitant.
And now she was going to have to spend the afternoon in Russ’s company.
She set her mouth in a determined smile as she followed Lisa across the crowded café and slid in beside Russ at the only space left in the narrow booth.
“Fancy meeting you here,” she said brightly to Russ as their waitress brought iced tea in Mason jars. She looked across at Rory and Lisa, who looked like they were about to laugh out loud. “Have our good buddies and neighbors here succumbed to that famous post-marital urge to play matchmaker?”
“No, I lost a bet on a baseball game and this is my payment,” Rory said dryly. “It was all Russ’s idea, honest.”
“Of course it was Russ’s idea,” Lisa added. “You think I’d risk grass burs in my favorite hand lotion?”
His eyes dancing, Russ held up his hands. “I plead guilty. I’m the conniving schemer. You can put the grass burs in my shaving cream if it will make you feel better.”
“Nah, I’ll just sneak a bar of soap that smells like a dead fish into your next order. Rory’s, too,” Angie laughed, her irritation fading into grudging anticipation of the afternoon ahead. Besides, even if Russ in his faded jeans and tight T-shirt and seriously worn combat boots was more desirable than ever, how much trouble could she get into with Lisa and Rory in tow?
Conversation was light as the four of them devoured an entire basket of Gus’s fried chicken, coleslaw and steaming corn on the cob. Angie was conscious of the warmth of Russ’s body beside her in the narrow booth and the way that his thigh brushed hers as he leaned over to help himself to another piece of chicken, and her mind kept drifting back to his kisses and caresses the night of Holly and Jimmy’s wedding., Again she wondered why she was so determined to deny herself Russ Riley as a lover.
The delicious meal over, Russ and Angie piled into the backseat of Rory’s huge crew cab and they were on their way to Rocking Horse Meadows.
Although she had driven the highway hundreds of times since she and Buck had lived out here, Angie never failed to notice the old mailbox and the turnoff that led to the small ranch house now sitting empty. It always made her sad to see the forlorn-looking little place.
Russ raised an eyebrow at the involuntary sigh that escaped her lips. “Memories?” he asked softly.
Angie nodded. “After all this time it still gets to me a little.” She determinedly dragged her thoughts away from the past and leaned forward. “So Rory, have you seen the mare yet? What does she look like?”
Rory shook his head. “I’ve only seen the picture the owner emailed to my phone,” he said. “It will be interesting to see if she’s as pretty in person.”
She was. The smallish mare, Maizie, was a sweet-natured sorrel quarter horse with a white blaze down her face. Her reddish coat glistened in the bright sunshine and she immediately nosed Lisa, searching for sugar cubes. Lisa pulled out a Ziploc sack and withdrew several. “Here,” she said as she gave them each a cube to hold flat on their palms. “Let’s all get to know her.”
Maizie obligingly went from Lisa to Rory to Angie and then to Russ. Angie giggled a little as the horse’s lips tickled her palm as they gently scooped up the sugar cube.
“No, city boy, hold it flat,” Angie said when Russ tried to hand Maizie the sugar. “This way she can’t nip your fingers.”
Russ fed Maizie the last of Lisa’s sugar, and then the owner of the breeding ranch, Steve Meyers, obligingly saddled Maizie and let Lisa take the pretty horse out for a ride. While Lisa was making the rounds of the big pasture Rory and Meyers hammered out the deal and Rory handed the rancher his credit card. Meyers disappeared into the office in his barn and returned with the credit card slip just as Lisa rode Maizie back to where they were sitting on the pasture fence.
“Oh, Rory, she’s perfect,” Lisa said as she slid down off the horse and planted a long, hot kiss on her husband’s lips. “Thank you so much. You are going to get so lucky tonight!”
Rory turned beet red even as he laughed. “Happy birthday, Lisa.” He signed the credit card slip and handed it back to Meyers. “And while I’m at it, merry Christmas and happy anniversary.”
Russ leaned over to Angie. “Would it work if I gave you a horse?” he asked, his eyes dancing with amusement and that something else Angie was becoming so familiar with.
“No, but a kitten might do the trick,” Angie teased back.
It took a few minutes to hitch a borrowed trailer to Rory’s pickup and load up Maizie. They drove back through Verde and on down the highway past Heaven’s Point and the entrances to the Briscoe ranch and the old Verde Vineyard onto the old Adamcik homestead.
The Adamciks had not ranched the land since Jimmy’s father’s death almost twenty years ago and the pastures had been allowed to return to their natural brushy state. Even from the highway Angie could hear the sound of electric saws and nail guns, and closer to the old ranch house she could see the scattered vehicles of the work crew that was remodeling and adding on to the old farmhouse in order to accommodate more hunters.
Rory drove past the house to a well-maintained barn and small pasture where Jimmy kept his big palomino gelding and the little white mare Carrie had gotten this year for Christmas.
“We worked out a deal with Jimmy,” Lisa volunteered as Rory pulled up in front of the barn. “Rory and I will keep the stalls cleaned out and the horses fed and Maizie can live here free of charge.”
While Rory and Lisa unloaded Maizie, Angie told Russ about her days as a not-very-good barrel racer for her high school rodeo team. They put Maizie in the small pasture with the Adamcik horses and loaded the food troughs with enough hay to feed the animals for a day or two. As they drove back by the house Lisa spotted a shirtless Wade on the roof and gave out a low wolf-whistle.
“Russ, I hate to do this to you but I think you’re going to have to share the Heaven’s Point hunk-of-the-month award with Wade, at least until he goes back to college. Good lord, what happened to your little boy, Angie? And when did he get that gorgeous tattoo?”
Angie stuck her fingers in her ears. “La la la la la, I can’t hear you, Lisa,” she said at the top of her lungs as Rory and Russ roared with laughter. “That’s not my child up there; it’s a pod person or something. My child is still a smelly twelve-year-old and the tattoo is a figment of your imagination.”
They continued in laughing, teasing mode as Rory bounced down the rutted dirt path through the Adamcik front pasture and pulled out onto the highway. As they passed the old Verde Vineyard, even more rundown-looking in daylight, Russ noticed that the padlock appeared to be missing.
“Hey, Rory, are you up to a little investigating?” Russ asked as he pointed to the vineyard gate. “That gate was padlocked the other night and today the lock’s gone.”
“Hmm,” Rory said. “We at least ought to contact the realtor about the missing lock.” He turned into the vineyard entrance and got out his cell phone and punched in the number on the sign. Rory asked about the lock and listened for a few minutes.
“She said she took the lock off a couple of days ago so a couple from Austin could come out and look around the property on their own. She says she’s putting the lock back as soon as the couple gets down here but in the meantime would we like to have a look around?”
“Yes, we would,” Russ said quickly to the surprise of the other three. Lisa unlatched the gate and Rory drove up a rutted tree-lined gravel driveway that ran between rows and rows of overgrown neglected grapevines twining around metal trellises. They drove around the vintner’s residence to a tiny parking lot next to a small attached tasting room.
Across the parking lot was a large gazebo and fully furnished outdoor kitchen, also looking the worse for wear. Behind the house was a series of Quonset hut-styled buildings that Angie guessed housed the equipment and barrels where the wine was made and aged, as well as the huge outdoor barrel where the former owners had invited the public to take off their shoes and crush a few grapes during their annual festival. Exploring a bit further, Angie found the remnants of a swing set and sandbox beside a flagstone patio with a sliding glass door leading into the private residence.
Russ peered into the windows of the small tasting room. “Damn, it’s so dark I can’t see a thing,” he said as he tried one window after another. “I wonder if they left any of the furnishings.”
Lisa shrugged. “Who knows? Angie, can you see anything in the house?”
Angie peered through the sliding glass door into what appeared to be a large family room. “Yes, I can see a big family room with a shag rug that would do Elvis proud and a huge kitchen with harvest gold appliances and speckled counter tops. It’s out of date but has serious potential.”
Russ trotted down the back of the house and peered into the family room. “Looks okay to me.” He laughed when Angie rolled her eyes. “Just kidding. But you’re right. It wouldn’t take much to have it really nice.”
“Shoot, the whole thing’s nice. Can you imagine, owning a business like this?”
Rory and Lisa joined them at the window. “I see what you mean,” Lisa enthused. “This place is wonderful, or would be if you had the money to invest in it.”
*****
Which he might very well have, Russ thought to himself. That would depend on the asking price and the amount it would take to fix the place up.
“It really is a sweetheart of a property; even I can see that and I know zilch about vineyards. I can’t imagine why the owners left and are selling it. Unless they weren’t making any money.”
“Oh, they were making plenty of money,” Lisa said. “But the original owners got too old and sick to run it and the daughter-in-law hated everything about it. Categorically refused to raise her kids out here and told the husband it was either her or the vineyard. He caved and took her back to Dallas and the family put it on the market a couple of years ago.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Angie said. “This place was a jewel of a business, and furthermore it would be a great place to raise a family.”
“You bet it would,” Lisa said. “And I can show you one of the reasons why.”
She took off across the field, the others trailing behind her, the four of them dodging dangling grape vines and weedy groundcover until they reached the upper shore of Lake Templeton, where they found a huge oak tree sheltering a narrow sandy beach and rickety-looking dock jutting out into the water.
“More than once Rory and I have stopped here on our way up the lake and tied our boat to the dock while we ate lunch.”
“Can you imagine what fun a private beach like this would be for a family? I know the Briscoes love being backed up to the lake now that Ryan’s older and can enjoy it,” Angie said.
Russ eyed the little beach and the dock and his eyes glinted appreciatively. “It would also be a hell of a lot of fun for a bachelor vintner. He could give private tastings down here. Very private tastings.”
Angie sniffed. “The place would be wasted on a swinging single. It needs to go to a family.”
Maybe not so much, Russ thought as they made their way back through the field.
Russ tried to imagine himself as the owner and vintner of Verde Vineyard. The place needed work, sure, but the vines looked strong and healthy and from what he could see the buildings were sound and the work needed would be mostly superficial. Admittedly, what he knew about running a vineyard and making wine could fit on the head of a pin with room to spare, but according to his great-great-grandfather’s will, that was what the trust fund was supposed to be about.
His grandmother hadn’t known a thing about running an adoption agency nor had his mother had a clue about establishing a women’s shelter, but they had learned. And his uncle barely knew the difference between a burrito and a flauta before starting one of the most successful Mexican fast-food chains in San Antonio.
If the rest of the Harringtons could start with nothing but a desire and seed money and had done what they accomplished, it would stand to reason that he could, too, if the price for Verde Vineyard was right and Russ was ready to make a lifelong commitment to it.
Because of their stop by the vineyard they were late getting back to Verde.
“Damn, I’m supposed to start my shift in fifteen minutes and Rory’s on duty in a half hour,” Lisa said as she looked at her watch. “Russ, if I said pretty-please and offered you free coffee for a week could you run Angie back out to the Point?”
*****
Damn, Angie thought as the famous sexy grin appeared on Russ’s lips. After an afternoon in his company she could feel her defenses against his charm weakening dangerously.
“Absolutely,” he said, grinning. “It will be my pleasure.”
Angie thanked Lisa for lunch and wished her and Rory a good evening. She followed Russ over to his pickup and soon they were flying down the highway, each mile of silence multiplying the smoldering sexual tension that seemed to erupt every time they were within twenty feet of one another.
“Are your mom and Emily ready for the wedding?” Angie asked in an attempt to defuse the growing emotional maelstrom.
“You mean, is Mom at the screaming-meemies point and Emily melting down every thirty minutes? Does that answer your question?”
Angie laughed out loud. “Maybe Patsy should have hired Holly’s mom to run the thing for her.”
“Oh, please. Mom hired the swankiest wedding planner in San Antonio to put it together. It’s just the principle of the thing, I guess. Are you doing the hair and makeup?”
“Yes, and Patsy was nice enough to invite me to the wedding even though I doubt that’s the practice in San Antonio.”
Russ shrugged. “Maybe the cosmetologist wouldn’t get an invite, but I promise you the mother of the best man certainly would. Look, why don’t we drive down together tomorrow afternoon and you come to the rehearsal dinner as my date?” Angie started to shake her head, and he jumped in quickly. “Now, don’t start with the ‘I don’t think so’ business. You’re going, I’m going, and Mrs. Donahue made a point to tell me to feel free to bring a date to the dinner.
“Besides, if you don’t come with me, Mom or Grandma one will stick me for the weekend with one of their friends’ boring little trust-fund girls and I won’t be able to dance with you at the reception. And you do want to be able to dance with me at the reception, don’t you?”
“You’re not being fair,” Angie grumbled. “Threatening to withhold swing dancing from me if I don’t go with you.”
“Just telling it like it’s going to go down,” Russ said, his dimples winking at her from the sexy smile on his face. “Me with a boring Cotillion girl out tearing up the dance floor and you sitting on the sidelines wanting to tear her face off.”
“Well, all right,” Angie said slowly. “But I’ll go just as your date. Not your lover. The weekend will be completely platonic.”
Russ looked at her tauntingly. “Bet I can change your mind about that.”
Angie sniffed and looked imperiously at him. “Do you really think so?”
Russ grinned as he reached out and took Angie’s hand in his. “Think so? Darlin’, I know so.”