I'll Be Yours for Christmas (2 page)

Even in the economic hard times, people still got married, and these days many of them decided to do so locally to save money. Her wedding bookings were up considerably, and that helped when wine sales were down. In fact, she was preparing for a wedding reception that was scheduled for two days before Christmas. Weddings and other special events had become a big part of her bottom line.

Harvey Winston, Reece's father, hadn't been an
organic farmer, not strictly, but he used the least harmful methods available and made sure to observe a buffer between her grapes and his. And all of the vineyards worked to maintain the beauty of the landscape, as it was to their collective advantage.

No way would Keller Corp. care. In fact, if they drove her out, they would buy up her family business, as well.

“He can't do it, Hannah.”

“Well, he can, sadly. And probably will if he wants to sell fast and for a good price,” Hannah said flatly, making Abby sit back in her chair, utterly losing her appetite altogether.

“There has to be some other way. I should talk to him, maybe we can work something out.”

“I'm sorry, hon, but I do your accounting, and there is no way you can afford to buy him out. Speaking as your friend, without Sarah, you already have more than you can manage alone. Maybe if you hire someone…” Hannah said sympathetically.

“I planned to, in the summer. I don't have time for interviews now. But if he sells, none of it will matter.”

Sarah had been her manager and her second-in-command. She'd known the winery and their vineyards inside out, had been with them since her parents ran the place, but finally had also decided to retire a few months before. It had been tough finding a suitable replacement. Abby had been running in circles handling everything.

“What are you thinking?” she asked Hannah, who had that look that told Abby her friend was clearly cooking up something as she smiled mysteriously.

“Well, he was awfully eager to get his hands on you—no way were you choking badly enough for him to jump in and Heimlich you.”

“What are you saying?”

“I'm saying you two always had some chemistry, always had a little push and pull between you. Maybe that's something you could use to your advantage.”

“You're deluded.”

“You know it's true. You said yourself that he was a great kisser and you wish that snafu behind the hedgerow had gone further. So…”

“No fair. I said that when I was really drunk.”

“And we know alcohol is like truth serum for you. But why not give it a try?”

“Are you seriously suggesting I sleep with Reece in order to get him to change his mind about selling?”

“I wouldn't put it that way. Just…strike up your old friendship, flirt a little, see if you can make him more sympathetic to your cause. Or at the very least, keep your enemies closer so you know what's going on. He seemed interested in meeting up for a drink, and well, it can't hurt, right?”

Abby narrowed her eyes. “I don't believe I've seen this side of your personality. Very
Desperate Housewives.
But it's not for me. Besides, that incident behind the bushes was a mistake. Before that, the only chemistry we had was him tormenting me since second grade.”

“Boys always punch girls in the arm when they like them.”

“You've been watching
Brady Bunch
repeats again, haven't you?” Abby accused, and both of them collapsed
in laughter for a moment, before Abby sighed, sobering again.

“I'm afraid we'll have to come up with some other plan.”

“Maybe it's for the best,” Hannah suggested. “I know the developments suck, but you haven't had a vacation in almost two years, and have you even been out on a date in that time?”

“One,” Abby challenged.

Though that hadn't been so much of a date as a disaster.

“All you do is work. Your parents never meant for you to have no life when they turned the place over. Maybe if you sold it, you could—”

Abby looked at her in horror. “How can you even say that? My parents risked everything, worked their entire lives to make this business a success, and at a time when organic farming had hardly been heard of, let alone been popular. How can I just sell out on them?”

Hannah shrugged. “It's worth thinking about, from a practical perspective, hon. Things change. Sometimes you have to change with them.”

Abby knew she had been working too hard, almost constantly since Sarah retired, and Hannah was right on one score—as her parents' only child, they were delighted to give her the business, but they were also huge believers in balance. They would be the first ones to tell her to ease up—yet they would also never sell to somebody like Keller, Abby knew that in her heart of hearts.

There had to be some way she could talk to Reece, find an alternative or get him to change his mind. Short
of sleeping with him, not that the idea didn't have some appeal. He was gorgeous, undeniably.

“I guess I could at least talk to him,” she said lamely, watching Reece deep in conversation with his business associate over big sandwiches. Thinking about those strong hands on her rib cage and the hot kisses they had shared, she wondered if Hannah wasn't on to something.

Maybe her friend was right. Why not? They were old friends—sort of—but they were both grown up now. She hadn't had so much as a kiss good-night in months. She knew for a fact that kissing Reece wouldn't be any sacrifice at all, and if it would get him to listen to her…

All of her appetites kicked back in, and with a dash of hope she dug back into her salad.

Hannah's lips twitched and she had a self-satisfied look. “You're thinking about it, aren't you?”

Abby couldn't resist a smile. “Hey, you're the one who wants me to go out on a date. Besides, it's not like I would let it go too far,” she said, echoing Reece's words from so long ago. “I wouldn't trade sex for him selling the place to me or anything tawdry like that, but as you said, maybe just some flirting, spending time together, might help him see my side of things a little better.”

“Exactly. Just be careful. Remember from eleventh-grade chemistry what happens when you put two volatile substances together,” Hannah warned, but her eyes were twinkling with mischief.

“Maybe,” Abby said, but her mind was racing ahead, intrigued by the idea of flirting with Reece. “But what a way to go.”

 

R
EECE WAS HAVING
a hard time focusing, and it had nothing to do with the injuries he'd sustained nine months before and everything to do with the unbelievably sexy woman sitting across the room. He could hardly believe that was Abby Harper.

Seeing her had been the first pleasant surprise he'd had since coming back to help with his family's affairs. Life had been one long string of disasters for the past year. First, two members of his racing team had to be replaced at the start of the season, after which they'd lost a major sponsor, and then he'd had his accident at the end of March, right when he'd been about to turn a major corner in his career.

Everyone told him he was lucky to be alive and in one piece, walking and talking again, and he supposed that was true. He'd been in a coma for three days, followed by six months of language and physical therapy after he had emerged from the coma, his head injury leaving him with a broken memory and speech problems. He'd overcome it all. Mostly.

Some of the guys he'd known hadn't made it through crashes that left them with lesser injuries, but there were a lot of days when Reece didn't feel all that lucky, especially since they told him there would be no more racing, not until a neurologist cleared him. Then his dad had a major heart attack. It had been one thing after another, and Reece found his time split between his recovery and wanting to get back to racing and having to help out his family. They'd been there for him, and there was no way he'd leave them in the lurch now, but it sure didn't make things easier. His life was an ocean away.

For months his mom and dad had been traveling back
and forth to Europe, where Reece lived just outside of Paris. It was too much strain for them to try to run the winery and travel so often, and his father's illness was proof of that. He felt responsible, and although they'd bent over backward to tell him it wasn't his fault, guilt demanded he stay here and help in any way he could.

He'd been here, in central New York State, for a few weeks, though he had spent most of the time at the hospital, in hotels and then getting his parents to his brother's home down South. He couldn't help the feeling that his real life was passing him by. He could only be absent from racing for so long. There were always new guys coming up, ready to take his place, and sponsors had short memories. Few drivers came back after a crash like his; hell, few survived.

But Reece wasn't ready to retire yet. He just had to sell the winery, to do the best he could by his parents and get back to France ASAP. At thirty-one, he didn't have too many years left to get back into the game.

Though some guys raced into their forties, it was getting to be less and less the case, so he needed to still show he could do the job. The doctors were apprehensive, but he planned to prove them wrong. He'd come this far, he was going the rest of the way.

He thought again of Abby's shocked face when he'd said he was going to sell the winery. His parents weren't thrilled, either, but they'd long ago accepted that both of their boys had other lives now. Still, Reece was bothered by the clear disapproval in Abby's gorgeous brown eyes when he'd made the announcement.

“So, I can bring the Keller representative by tomorrow, if you like,” Charles said.

Charles Tyler was one of the premiere real estate agents in the area, and he was also a shark—if anyone could sell the place for the best price, it would be him.

“They'd be a last resort. I thought I made that clear.”

Charles sighed, smiling slightly at the pretty server who delivered their lunch. “Well, if you want it sold for the asking price and fast, they are the best bet. They'll jump at a property as large as yours.”

Reece frowned. They'd also tear down the renovated farmhouse he grew up in, and they'd flatten the vineyards, rows of Riesling, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grapes, paving them over with cul-de-sacs and driveways. He'd been away, but he kept in touch, and he'd seen the changes along the lake since he'd come back, few of them good.

“Some of those vines have been around longer than my parents have been alive, planted by my grandfather,” Reece murmured, not realizing he'd said it out loud.

“Well, you might be able to sell to another winery, but it won't go for nearly as much, not in this economic climate,” Charles said with a sigh, no doubt disappointed that sentimentality could get in the way of a larger commission for him. “And it could take quite a bit longer.”

Reece nodded, thinking. “Keep Keller on the line, but let's not move too fast. If they want it now, they'll want it a month from now, but let's see what comes up in the meanwhile,” he said, his eyes drifting back to Abby.

“Who's the girl?” Charles asked, following Reece's gaze.

“Abby Harper. An old friend, her family owns the winery next to ours, Maple Hills.”

“More than a friend?” Charles asked.

“No. Just a girl I knew in high school,” Reece said.

“Any chance she might be interested in selling, as well? I could get you a sweet deal if you two went in on a sale together—that could significantly up the price Keller would offer.”

“I doubt she would ever sell, and definitely not to Keller,” Reece said.

“They're not the devil,” Charles said dryly. “They just build developments, nice ones, which tend to fill up very quickly.”

“I know what they do,” Reece said absently, his attention still on Abby.

Charles picked up the check and changed the subject, droning on about local real estate markets or some other big sale he had just completed, all of which Reece tuned out.

Abby was in close conversation with her friend, whom he only vaguely remembered from school. He and Abby hadn't really belonged to the same crowd, even though they grew up next door to each other and shared a common interest between their families.

Her folks were always a little different than everyone else on the lake—more iconoclastic, with their organic methods and sustainable farming beliefs, the petting zoo and homespun lifestyle. Those things were all the rage now, of course. Maple Hills could ask twice for a bottle of wine what other noncertified organic vineyards could.

While they were still primarily a small family business, Maple Hills had broadened its distribution and marketing quite successfully in recent years, so his father
said. Probably Abby's doing. She had a good head for business and was growing it well.

She'd taken a lot of ribbing in school—she and her parents being called hippies and so forth—and quite a bit of that had been from him. He hadn't meant any of it, not in a mean-spirited way, but even then, Abby had been fun to tease. He could never resist.

Her cheeks turned pink if he even looked at her, and he's always thought it was cute. He'd never suspected she would be as hot and as daring as he had discovered that night at the lake party.

It was the last time he'd seen her until now. Though he'd kissed plenty of women in between—including a few A-list celebrities—the memory of Abby Harper pressed up against him and kissing him for all she was worth, her hands everywhere, was as clear to him as if it had happened five minutes ago.

He'd wanted to drag her back behind the hedge that night, and he'd regretted making light of it afterward. She'd bolted before he could ask her out. On a date. So they could do it right.

He wanted to make up for what he'd been too much of an immature idiot to do in high school. He'd always liked her, but when he was young, he was too worried about what his friends would think. Typical teenage boy stuff.