Page 25 of Bend Toward the Sun
Harrison watched their banter with a subtle scowl on his face. “Her aim is garbage, though,” he said.
Rowan flushed, thinking about their encounter during that silly game. How the curve of her ass had socketed so neatly into the bend of Harrison’s waist in those few moments he’d arched his body over hers. The sweet heat of his cinnamon-scented breath in her hair. She swallowed.
Missing the subtext, Duncan clapped his big hands together in a single, resonant crack. “Are you this rude to all your future employers?”
She looked away from Harrison. “Future employer? I never said I’d take the job.”
“‘Never’ is for cowards.” Duncan let out a robust sigh. To Harrison, he said, “I could do this all day. I like her. She gets my vote.”
Harrison’s smile was a slight curve at the corners of his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes. The pensive crease between his brows deepened.
“I’m still thinking about it,” Rowan said. “You know it wasn’t me who sent the résumé, right?”
Duncan’s jovial mood frosted a bit. He looked at her with narrowed eyes and evaded the question. “I need to get up to the equipment garage. Don’t think too long.” He started back down the row of vines. “We want you to sign a contract before Harry scares you off with one of his shitty moods.”
“I don’t scare easily.”
Duncan laughed over his shoulder. “Give it time.”
SHE WAS ALONEwith Harrison.
Rowan twisted the tip of a grapevine in her fingers. “Some of these plants are probably older than we are.” Her voice sounded breathy to her own ears, and it pissed her off. She cleared her throat and let the woody coil spring free. “All of them are going to need to be pruned hard, possibly to the ground.”
Harrison squinted against the sun. “That a professional opinion?”
“Not really. It doesn’t take a botanist to see what a mess you have out here. I’m not sure what your family’s goals are, anyway.”
Rowan turned her back to him and walked briskly down the row.
He followed. “Grow grapes, make wine.”
“Well. When you put it that way…,” she said, smiling over her shoulder.
“My mom’s family has a multigenerational winery in Spain, so she imagines it’s in her DNA. It’s been a dream of hers since she and Dad got married and came to the States.”
“It’s going to be years before these plants are producing wine-quality grapes again.” Wayward vines hooked her shirt and hair as she moved through them, like they were pleading with her to linger.
“How many?”
“I don’t know. Three? Maybe five?”
Harrison put a little jog into his step to catch up. He fell in beside her, close enough that their upper arms skimmed together. “Are we on the clock, here? I’m wondering if this is a billable consultation.”
Rowan matched his pace, allowing her arm to graze his. It was entirely unnecessary for them to walk so close, and indulging in the incidental touching felt heady and forbidden. Her pulse skipped into high gear. “I think this is going to be way toomuch for me to handle with all the work I need to do on my manuscript.” She reluctantly let space drift open between them.
Like he hadn’t heard her, he gestured eastward in the direction of the big stone barn tucked into the hillside. Another structure that felt like it could be straight from Tolkien, it had been impossible to miss when she drove in. “I think Ma wants to extend the vineyard that way, too.”
“You should get the existing vineyard blocks into shape before you try adding anything,” she said. “There’s a lot growing here that’s not grapevine.”
Harrison scratched his jaw. “Yeah. Lots of weeds.”
Rowan stopped abruptly, and he skidded to a stop a step ahead. “Ralph Waldo Emerson said a weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered. A lot of what’s growing here, youdowant. It’s healthier and more sustainable to use native plants as cover crops.”
“That’s what your research was about.”
She blinked in surprise. “You were listening.”
“Always.” He smiled and pushed hands into pockets. “Got any recommendations?”