Second To None

She pushed against his shoulders suddenly, her cheeks pink, her brown eyes wide and horrified. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

Then she scrambled to her feet and proffered her hand to help him up.

Ignoring it, he stood, feeling as though he’d crossed into another dimension. He was in the right house—but where had this woman come from?

“Hi,” she said. Her voice was breathy. “I’m... Are you Tate?”

“I’m Mike,” he replied, suspicions beginning to surface. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

“Colette invited me,” she replied. “You’re Tate’s brother, aren’t you?”

He resisted the distraction of her easy smile. She was an intruder.

“She invited you to an empty house?” he asked doubtfully.

“We were going to have tea.” She pointed over his shoulder toward the kitchen. “In there somewhere. She told me...to go straight through.”

“Really? Then why were you upstairs?”

She closed her eyes a moment—to strengthen her resolve, he supposed. He noticed that her lashes were thick and dark. “I know I shouldn’t have done that,” she admitted, opening her eyes again and giving him a guilty look. “I wanted to see the view.”

“You get a clearer view from outside.”

Her eyes narrowed as if she finally understood the reasons behind his questions. “You think I’m a thief?” She spread her arms to indicate the empty room. “There’s nothing here to steal.”

He studied her levelly, trying to determine her sincerity. He used to be good at it in his old life.

“You didn’t necessarily know that when you came in. How did you get in, anyway?”

“Colette left the back door open,” she replied mildly, then added, “Are you this suspicious of everyone?”

“I don’t believe Colette would leave the back door open. And why would she invite you for tea at 7:00 a.m.?”

Veronica felt flustered and naive, hardly the image she’d intended to present the owners of the Delancey Vineyard, her potential landlords.

She cleared her throat. “I’m here to talk business,” she said with a dignity she knew was laughable under the circumstances.

“And you usually prepare for business discussions by sliding down a banister?” he asked.

She had to admit she had that coming. She smiled ruefully. “It was something I always wanted to do. And when I was given the opportunity, I couldn’t resist. Hasn’t that ever happened to you?” She looked into his chocolate-brown eyes, trying to assess his thoughts, but she couldn’t see beyond the cool suspicion. So she answered her own question. “No, I guess not. And that makes it hard to explain—”

“Explain what?” Colette walked into the house, a small, lidless box balanced on the flat of her hand. She looked from one to the other with a smile. “All right. I’m glad you’ve met. What’s hard to explain?”

A pleat formed on Mike’s forehead. He glanced at Veronica. “What she was doing sliding down the banister in a locked house on private property at 7:00 a.m.”

Colette hesitated a moment, raised an eyebrow at Veronica, then laughed lightly. “I don’t know the reason for the banister, but I can tell you I invited Vee here for a meeting. I have a full day that’s starting early, and she’s used to being up with the birds.” She glanced from one to the other again. “Did you mistake her for an intruder?”

He seemed to have come to the conclusion that he wasn’t going to escape. this situation without embarrassment, and apparently decided not to try. He looked wryly into Veronica’s eyes, then turned his attention to Colette. “In the future, you might let me know what you’re up to.” He drew in a deep breath and turned back to Veronica. “I apologize, Miss...?”

“Callahan,” she said, offering her hand again, and resisting the impulse to appear righteously indignant. “Veronica. I’m sorry, too. I should not have been upstairs.” She cast Colette an apologetic glance. “I was admiring the view.”

“That’s all right,” Colette assured her quickly. “Vee, this is Mike Delancey, Tate’s brother. He used to be a cop.” She grinned and added facetiously, “And you have such a suspicious face.”

Mike acknowledged the jab with a self-deprecating nod. In actuality, Veronica Callahan had a very open and innocent face—wide—eyed, pink-lipped and apple-cheeked. But he’d once arrested a woman who’d looked that innocent after having shot her boyfriend and their landlady’s daughter because they’d spoken to each other on the apartment stairs.

“I apologized,” he reminded Colette.

She laughed and gave his arm a squeeze. “So you did.” She angled her head toward the kitchen. “Want to join us? We’re going to talk about setting up her day care center in the barn. This was the best place to meet, since the house and the winery are both so busy. I unlocked the back door for her when I went to pick up the pastries.” She smiled coaxingly. “You can share my coffee.”

He shook his head. The day care center. He’d hoped Tate and Shea would change their minds about that. “No, thanks. I’ve got lots to do.”

“Oh, come on,” Colette wheedled. “If you listen to Veronica’s plans, it might put some of your fears to rest.”

“Fears?” Veronica asked. She took a step toward Mike as he started to leave. “About what?”

He really didn’t want to go through this again. He’d argued with his brothers until he was hoarse about the incompatibility of a day care center with a winery. But they didn’t see the problem, and he’d finally given up in exasperation.

“This is a winery,” he said simply. “How smart is it to have children here?”

“You mean legally? I checked. As long as we don’t give the children wine, we’re all right. And, of course, I don’t intend to do that. Apart from that, I think children would love this setting. It’s so beautiful—”

“We’re several miles out of town. Who’s going to bring their children here?”

“All the people,” she replied, “on their way to work in Portland.” She pointed in the direction of the road at the bottom of the hill. “It’s a perfect location. Lots of outdoor space, and Rachel’s animals.” When he expressed surprise that she knew about Aunt Rachel’s menagerie, she added a little defensively, “Colette and I have met in Portland a couple of times. She’s been telling me all about the compound.”

Mike knew it was futile to argue with two women allied in a common cause. He smiled politely at Veronica Callahan, then at Colette, and excused himself.

He walked to the winery at the opposite end of the compound. On the first level, Armand Beaucharnp, Colette’s father, was seated at an old desk near the door. He looked up from a supplies catalog to wave at Mike.

“Good morning, Armand,” Mike called as he ran up the stairs.

Two-thirds of the winery’s second level was a storage area that would one day be used for bottles and labels, but which now stood empty. The other third was an office with movable partitions that allowed space for individual or group projects.

Tate sat at a desk in the corner, the wall beside him decorated with framed photographs his teenage daughters had sent from Paris. Interspersed were photos of Colette and her little girls.

Mike grabbed the back of his own chair and pulled it over beside Tate’s. He sat down and began without preamble. “You still think a day care in the barn is a good idea?”

Tate concentrated one extra moment on the letter he was reading, then focused on Mike, an eyebrow raised. “Yeah. You said you were okay with it.”

“No.” He was surprised Tate had distilled his protest down to that. “You just wouldn’t see it my way, so I told you to do whatever you wanted. But this is a winery, Tate. We make booze, for God’s sake. Who’s going to bring their children to a day care where they make booze?”

Tate gazed at Mike in silence, then shook his head. “You know, for the person in charge of public relations, you have a scary concept of what we do here. We don’t make ‘booze,’ we make fine table wine—or we will, as soon as we get a harvest—and this is a beautiful place to which tourists bring their children every afternoon to walk the grounds and pet Rachel’s animals. Why wouldn’t other children be safe and happy here?”

“Those kids are visiting. When this Callahan woman brings kids here, they’ll be around all day, every day. It just seems like an awkward blend of enterprises to me.”

Tate leaned back in his chair as though something had just become obvious to him. “She’ll be responsible for the children. You don’t have to be concerned with them. She has credentials as long as your arm.”

Mike frowned at him. “Come on, Tate. When kids are underfoot, every adult in the vicinity is concerned with them. And in a couple of weeks you and Colette and the girls are leaving for your honeymoon, so who’s going to be responsible for what happens around here? I am.”