Twice in a Blue Moon (25 page)

A half hour, a broken nail and a skinned knuckle later, the crusher chugged along, spilling pulp and juice into the fermenting tank.

“Indigo, pizza's here!” Becky yelled from the doorway of the barrel room.

“Grab Sean. I've got to get cleaned up.” She had one more reason for giving Becky the task of retrieving the warehouse rat. From the looks she'd seen between the two of them, there was a romance budding there.

She wiped her grease-and-grape-stained hands on her jeans. She'd just wash her hands now and jump in the shower in Dan—the manager's quarters later. Vern had a fragile wife at home, so he hadn't been using the apartment.

Thank God for her regular employees. They'd really stepped up over the past month. Indigo had instituted a weekly team meeting on Fridays over lunch. If she didn't know the answer to a problem, they worked out the solution together. Even Sondra had been helping, staying in touch with their commercial customers while Indigo was tied up with the harvest.

She headed to the warehouse restroom and washed up for lunch.

By the time she made it to her office it was draped in pizza and employees.

Becky plopped a piece of “the whole Yukon” on a plate and handed it to Indigo when she'd dropped into her chair. “Yukon says they're giving us the ten-percent frequent customer discount from now on.”

“Great. The way Sean eats, there won't be any profits left otherwise.” She took a bite of heaven.

“Hey, I'm not eating more than my share. That's Sondra.”

Sondra cut her pizza with a knife and fork. “I hardly think anyone's going to believe the word of a warehouse rodent.”

Even Vern laughed.

Indigo put the slice down and wiped her hands on a napkin. “Okay, guys, let's come to order here. I have a promo idea, but I need your opinions.”

“What's up?” Natalie asked.

“Well, I'd like to do something fun to celebrate the crush and thank everyone who's supported us this year. I'm thinking about a grape stomping.”

Sean shoveled another piece out of the box. “Is that sanitary?”

“Since when are you concerned with sanitary?” Sondra squinted down her nose at him. “It's old-school. That's how wine was made before all these machines.”

“That's how we did it when I started out,” Vern said.

“I think it's a clever idea,” Becky said.

“Great! But we don't have much time. I'm thinking if we use the last grapes picked, we could do it in two weeks.” Indigo glanced at her calendar. “But it'll be smaller than our last party. I don't want to invite the entire town. Just our best customers and a few friends.”

Sondra put her plate aside and dusted her hands. “You can't plan it. You have too much to handle with the crush.” She glanced at Natalie and Becky. “We could handle it, though.”

“Would you?”

The serving-room staff lit up, and everyone started talking at once.

Indigo kept most of her smile inside, proud of the team she'd lucked into. The team they'd become.

Yeah, but you're missing the most important one.

I have what I have,
she answered herself.
Stop peeing on my parade.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

T
HE
SLOPING
DRIVE
of The Tippling Widow was lined with cars all the way to the road.

This was a bad idea.

Danovan drove slowly, scanning the sides of the road for a parking space. If there wasn't one within a reasonable distance, he'd take it as a sign and keep going. Forget Sondra's invitation. He'd only agreed to come after she'd questioned his courage. And his intellect.

But he really did want to see for himself that Indigo was doing well. Maybe then he could stamp “done” on the Central Valley and head to Napa.

Oh, bullshit. You can con other people, DiCarlo, but it's pretty pathetic when you try to con yourself.
This was simple selfishness. He just had to see her. He was starved for those sad eyes, that wide mouth, that odd mix of tough and vulnerable that had drawn him in from the start.

“Oh, screw it. I'm out of here. She doesn't need me messing up her life again.”

A sedan-sized slot appeared on his right. He'd checked the rearview mirror, braked and cranked the wheel before his brain had time to veto. He barely managed the squeeze without bumper-kissing, shut down the engine and pulled the key. Then sat, listening to the tick of the cooling engine and the
hurry, hurry
tugging at his guts. He'd stay lost in the crowd. She'd never know he was there.

He got out, locked the car door, and hiked.

“Sweet Home Alabama” blared from the hill, getting louder as he got closer. He needn't have worried about staying lost; there must have been about a hundred people filling the parking lot, the porch and the lawn.

He slammed to a halt.

But Indigo was easy to spot. She was the one standing in a wooden tub, up to her slim calves in grapes, dancing.

She wore cutoff-way-short jeans and a hunter-green T-shirt with the winery logo in gold emblazoned across the chest. Arms over her head, she snapped her fingers. Her hips gyrated. Her breasts swayed. But it was the look on her face that made his chest seize midbreath.

She danced, eyes closed, her head thrown back like a sun-worshipping goddess. Her mouth curled in a smile of pleasure so strong that it mainlined into his blood. He'd seen her in exquisite joy like that before. In bed. Over him. Under him. He used the back of his hand to wipe dampness from his upper lip.

This was one big mistake, dude.

Seeing her like this threw the desolation of time stretching behind him into sharp contrast. And worse, the time stretching before him. He was a drunk who'd been sober for two months and one day. Now he'd not only fallen off the wagon—it had rolled over him.

When the song ended, everyone applauded. Indigo opened her eyes and scanned the crowd. When her gaze met his, it stopped. The light, sexy smile that had once been meant only for him lit her face then fell off, as if for a moment, she too had forgotten the past two months and a day.

Sobered, she took Natalie's offered hand, acknowledged the applause with a curtsy, then strode to the foot-washing station set up a few steps from the tub.

Now Sean, dressed in the same uniform but with much longer cutoffs, stepped into the tub, and the speakers blared the brass riff opening of “Dancing in the Street.”

Danovan was so damned proud of her. Emotions warred in him: pain, regret and sadness. But mostly pride. She looked fit and healthy. She'd been knocked down by a sucker punch, and yet she picked herself up and went on.

A hand landed on his shoulder. He jumped.

“Well, what are you doing about this problem you have, Danovan?” Jesse wasn't smiling.

“I'm leaving, that's what. I should never have come.” He stepped out from under her hand.

“She's a robot since you left, you know. Efficient, sure, but there's nothing behind the eyes.”

“Well, she needs to be a robot right now. Better if she could be two of them, with a bumper season like this.”

Jesse sighed. “That's not what I meant, and you know it.”

He wasn't staying for another lecture. “I'd only make it harder, Jess, and that's the last thing I'd want.” He turned and walked away.

“For her? Or for you?”

Both.
Head down to avoid questions from well-meaning people, he kept walking across the crowded parking lot and down the drive.

“Danovan! Wait up!” Indigo ran across the grass barefoot, hair streaming behind her. She stopped a few steps from him, breathing harder than she should have been from a twenty-yard sprint.

“Indigo.” Even knowing he shouldn't stare, he drank her in; no telling how far to the next oasis in the vast desert of a future without her.

She watched him, too, but her eyes were wary. She tucked her thumbs in the belt loops of her shorts. “I just wanted to say thank you.”

He snorted. “For what?”

“For everything. For teaching me. For caring.” She tipped her head. “How did you know I'd figure it out, about Winters?”

“Because you're smart. I haven't been right about much the past year. But
that
I was sure of.” He took her in, memorizing everything about this moment. “I was an idiot a lot of the time. I don't have all the answers. And you never needed saving, anyway.” He closed his eyes to break his stare and made himself turn. “I've gotta go.”

He walked to the bottom of the drive.

“Hey, DiCarlo!”

He looked back. She stood, one hand on her hip, the sun picking up highlights of blond in her glossy, dark hair. “Yeah?”

“I have some contract work that requires a master vintner. You want it?”

The thought of being around her again, hearing her laugh, seeing her come around a corner toward him... He knew he should say no. But then, he'd proved long ago that he wasn't a strong man. “Call me. We'll talk.”

* * *

“J
UST
MAKE
THE
call already.” Jesse had stayed after yoga class to drive her point home with a railroad spike and a sledgehammer.

“I'm going to.” Indigo hit the pause button on her iPod and Enya was cut off midtrill.

“I don't see a phone in your hand.” Jesse slung her yoga bag over her shoulder.

“Look, seeing Danovan yesterday mixed up stuff in my head, and I've got to sort it all out.”

Jesse's eyes did a slow roll. “Oh, please. What is there to sort out? You miss him. You need him—”

“No. That's the point. I do
not
need him.” She straightened the stack of massage flyers on the desk.

“Oh, really?”

“The crush is almost over. Now we've just got to—”

“Oh. Honey.” It was never a good sign when Jesse crossed her arms. “You didn't tell me you were taking a vacation to
denial
. I'd have taken you shopping for a new swimsuit.”

“I'm not. I don't need him. Not in business—not in my personal life.” She shifted the flyers to the other side of the table. It was true. She was proud of her team, and in spite of the zillion small catastrophes, they'd done it—the grapes were in. Standing on her own was freeing. Exciting. Rewarding.

Hollow.

She dropped the flyers. “But I
want
him.” The little girl voice came from the empty place inside her.

“Well, hot damn. I was beginning to think there was no hope for you.”

“Do not mock me, Jess. This isn't easy.”

“Oh, hon, I know it isn't.” Jesse patted her arm. “You just trust that woman's intuition of yours. It'll never steer you wrong.”

Oh, yeah. I'm so good at that.

“Well, give me a hug. I've got to get back to feed the tourists.”

Indigo was enveloped in a perfumed hug. “Thanks, Jess, for caring.”

Jesse backed up and pointed a carmine talon in Indigo's face.

She held up her hands. “I know. I'll call. I promise. Soon.”

When Jesse left, Indigo grabbed her gym bag and stepped across the hall to the manager's quarters. She needed a shower but didn't want to take the time to jog up the hill. She unlocked the door. Besides, it was time she started...

His smell smacked her in the face. His belongings were gone, but he lingered—in his scent, his to-do list thumbtacked to the wall by the dining table, the chemistry book he'd loaned her that sat on the bedside table.

Just standing in his space made her ache.

“No wasted motion, Blue. And
this
is wasted motion.” She made herself stop stroking the book and lay it back on the table. “And wasted emotion.”

But the shower was worse. She imagined the last time he'd been here. Pictured his tawny skin, water sluicing the soap away, exposing long, lean muscle...

Her nails bit into her scalp. She lightened up on the scrubbing. They'd never made love in this shower. Now she wished they had.

“No, no you don't. Quit messing around, Blue. You've got a zillion things to do today.”

Including making that phone call. After all, if she were secure in her independence, this call would be easy. She ducked her head under the spray. Danovan DiCarlo was the best man for the job. End of story.

“This is a business decision. Nothing more.” She was too busy perusing trade journals these days to read fairy tales.

An hour later, she made herself stop staring out the window and pick up the phone. It was clear that if she didn't get this out of the way, she'd get no work done today.

Professional. You're going to keep this professional.

“DiCarlo.”

“Hello. This is Indigo Blue.”

His warm chuckle made her face heat. “I think we're a bit past formal names, Indigo.”

“Um. Yes. Well. I've called to offer you some consulting work. I'm looking for—”

“How are you? You looked happy yesterday. Are you?”

His soft tone frayed her determination. “The harvest has gone well. I'm very satisfied...” She gave in to the tug in her chest. “I'm fine. And you?”

“I'm good, actually. Turns out, you and I are going to be neighbors. Unbeknownst to me, my family bought this winery. I've decided to stay and run it.”

Her spirits fell. And rose. Her shoulders simply slumped. “Oh. Then you'll be too busy for contract work.”

“Actually, since the crop was sold before I took over, I do have time. But I don't think it's a good idea.”

Her spirits were on a wild mouse ride. They plummeted. “This could benefit us both, Danovan. Will you at least listen to my proposal?”

He hesitated so long that she checked her phone screen to be sure they were still connected.

“I guess it won't hurt to hear it.”

“Thank you. I hired a good manager, but tweaking wine isn't his forte. I thought about calling Cal Poly, but this is too important to trust to someone I don't know. I'd like to contract with you at an hourly rate to come on site and fine-tune our products.”

“I don't know. That would be...difficult for me.”

You're not the only one.
“It would be strictly business.”

“Yeah. That's the difficult part.”

She had expected he'd turn her down, so she'd come up with a sales proposal. “Oh, come on. Do you really think you can go a whole year without playing in the lab? Without digging into pH levels, volatiles and sequestrants? Danovan DiCarlo, not touching a spectrophotometer for a year? Impossible.”

“I always did love your spectrophotometer.”

Hope pulled her forward in her chair. “You should. You bought it. Cost the moon, too.”

“Indigo, I want to. But I can't. You know why.”

She did. Habits were hard to make, and once made, hard to break. Especially him. But the wine needed tweaking, and he was the best man for it. That trumped her petty personal worries. Time for the big guns. “What if I offer you carte blanche to create your own signature wine?”

“What?” The tone in that one word told her that their spirits were in the same car on that wild mouse.

She knew she could count on his ambition. “You can use some of the grapes we bought from Winters. You'll be free to experiment, create and name the wine anything you'd like. It would still be a product of The Tippling Widow, but I'll split profits on its sale with you. Fifty-fifty.”

“I can do anything? No oversight? No pressure?”

“Yes.” She knew she had him. Her professional tone belied her fist pump.

He chuckled. “You're evil. You knew I couldn't turn that down.”

“I'm just a good businesswoman.”

“I've been telling you that from the beginning. I'll be out on Wednesday.”

She hung up, her stomach weightless from the drop. “Now all you have to do is stay professional.”

Oh, yeah, you can do that.
She hadn't known the evil part of her brain could chuckle.

* * *

S
IX
WEEKS
LATER
, Indigo locked up after Sondra and went in search of Barney. Well, that was her excuse, anyway. She knew very well where he was. Every Wednesday when Danovan was in the lab, Barney could be found there, camped out in the corner. At first she'd tried to keep him out, but when Danovan said he appreciated the company, she'd laid a blanket down for the little traitor to sleep on. He'd always liked men best.

Turned out they had that in common.

There was some kind of selective amnesia going on in her brain, brought on, she was sure, by the evil part. With every week that went by, it got harder to recall why they had broken up.

Oh, yeah, that's right. Danovan DiCarlo can't be trusted.

She flipped off the lights and walked through the barrel room to the warehouse. It wasn't just that he'd lied to get the manager job. It wasn't only his lie by omission about the Boldens. Or the debacle with Reece Winters. But
all
of those were symptoms of the same illness—a Superman complex.