“Ah,” Margot said. She turned toward him, and he could tell she wanted to ask him another question.
But instead, she paused for a second.
“Well, thanks for sending him our way. I have a good feeling about Pete.” She stopped and looked around. “There’s so much I want to do here. Let’s cross our fingers that we can get it done.”
Luke started to respond, but Elliot called Margot, and she hurried over to him and Pete. Luke watched her go, but she didn’t look back.
Nine
THE FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY MORNING, Margot walked into the winery early and smiled as she turned the lights on in her office. It had been a good week so far. A long one, but a good one. Lots of appointments at the tasting room, lots of calls, lots of plans for the party, for the future. If she could pull all of it off.
Pete had said he could start on the landscaping work the following week; he thought her ideas to get ready for the party would take only a few weeks and said they could talk about some of the other stuff she wanted to do afterward. He’d quoted her slightly above the budget she’d allocated for the landscaping, but had told her it would be cheaper if she eliminated the planter boxes that she’d wanted to have around the path, and she reluctantly agreed to that. They could make do with old wine barrels full of plants and herbs at the entrance to the barn and get planter boxes another time.
She and Elliot had made a tentative peace about the landscaping, though she was still on edge about how much he would push back about the work being done, the people in his way, and most of all, about her ideas to change the look of the property, the land that was theirs, but that she knew he thought of as his. Finding the old plans had helped with that, but only somewhat.
She looked over the appointments for the day. One appointment had canceled, so they had only five— Did that really justify having both Taylor and Luke on the clock today? Hopefully people would buy a lot of wine and make her feel better about investing in the new hires.
She still felt guilty when she thought about Luke. Mostly because every time she thought about him, or looked at him, or talked to him, she was more and more intrigued by him. Attracted to him, yes, obviously; she’d hoped that would go away with more contact with him, but it had just gotten stronger. But that’s not what felt so dangerous to her—it was how much she wanted to know more about him, how much she wanted to tell him more about her, the way he listened when she talked, the way she always knew he was smiling at the same things that made her smile. When they’d talked last week while Pete was at the winery, he’d known she wasn’t telling him everything that was stressing her out, and she could tell he’d wanted to ask her more about it. She had wanted to spill her guts to him, tell him about her worries about her place at Noble, her fear that she’d mess this whole thing up, that she wouldn’t be able to pull it all together in two months. She’d had the wild impulse, in that brief moment as they’d walked together back toward the tasting room, to talk to him like she didn’t talk to anyone around here other than Sydney.
She desperately needed to get out there, that’s what she needed. Sydney was right. A night of good sex with a guy who seemed like a good listener was apparently all it took for her to get all swoony and want to bare her soul?
She shook her head at herself. Focus, Margot.
Just as she turned to her to-do list, her phone buzzed. Taylor. Was she running late?
“Hey, Taylor, what’s up?”
“Hi, boss.” Margot groaned internally as soon as she heard Taylor’s voice, because she could immediately tell what she was about to say. “I’m sick. I can’t come in today. I’m so sorry.”
Margot pulled up the calendar.
“Don’t be sorry—you’re sick, it’s not your fault. Take care of yourself and let me know how you’re feeling, okay? We can handle it here.”
Well, at least she could congratulate herself for hiring more staff. Because a month ago, if Taylor had called in sick, she would have had to cover the tasting room alone all day. Now Luke could cover it. And he’d had weeks of training, so hopefully he could cover it without too much intervention from her.
She walked into the tasting room to unlock the door for Luke, just as he walked up the front steps.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning,” she said. “Taylor is sick today—do you think you’re ready to handle the tasting room on your own?”
He looked startled, but recovered.
“I . . . Sure, okay.” He glanced over at the bar. “Let me print out some menus and unload the dishwasher.”