What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(88)

Rae lingered until her father gestured. Then she crawled out muttering, “Just when it’s getting good.”

Max knelt down, one knee on the grass, and looked at Kellen. “You look hot.”

“I am.”

“I know where we can be alone.”

She smiled with a come-hither look. “I don’t think going there is going to make me less hot.”

He wiggled his finger in rebuke. “We’re going to the blending shed.”

She knew what the blending shed was—that place filled with different grape varietals in various stages of fermentation where the vintner mixed the flavors to create a wine that indulged the palate. But she’d never been there, and she didn’t know if she wanted to go. “Why there?”

“I’m creating another wine.”

She squinted at him.

“All right, so it probably will be lousy. But it’s quiet and cool in there, and we can talk.”

She crawled out. She slapped the leaves and bark off the front of her shirt and shorts.

He lovingly dusted the bark mulch off her bottom, taking care that not a speck remained.

“Are you done yet?”

“Almost.” He ran his hands down her legs, then straightened and grinned.

“You’re nothing but a great big boy.”

“I know.” He slid his arm around her waist. “I can’t wait to show you how big.”

She sighed as if he was a trial and smiled because she enjoyed him so much, and he cherished her so dearly. Maybe tomorrow she would die from the bullet in her brain or a new bullet from an assassin, but today, she was with Max.

He led her toward the far buildings that marked the boundary between the rows and rows of vines, heavy with grapes, and the expanse of lawn, house, tasting room and bed-and-breakfast. “Here and now, do you sense a threat? Anyone at the winery who seems...out of place? Someone we employ?”

She understood him perfectly. “You’re talking about Arthur Waldberg and his cohorts.”

“Yes.” Max seemed relieved that they agreed on this. “Their credentials were impeccable, but they were all so desperately eager to please, so oddly obsequious.”

“They really want these jobs. And why? They’re fabulous at what they do. They could work anywhere. Anywhere in the world.”

Isolated by their distance from the bustle and the clamor, only the barn, one hundred years old and painted a traditional red, and the blending shed, a metal-sided cellar dug into the ground then built up over two stories to accommodate great tall casks, remained apart from the wedding bustle. “Arthur keeps calling them young,” Max said. “Young? The youngest is, I’d say, in his late thirties.”

“When you’re Arthur’s age, people in their thirties are young.” But she knew Max had a point.

Max used his key to open the door and ushered her down the steps and inside.

Kellen took a deep breath. The scent of fermenting wine, heady, musky, now familiar, perfumed the cool air.

Huge barrels lined either side of the tall space. A wooden sign hung on each metal spigot stating the grape varietal within. Two long narrow tables were placed end to end down the center of the space, and clean glasses rested upside down on a crowded plastic drying rack. Plastic buckets, blue, orange and white, sat beneath each spigot to catch any overflow.

The lights were off.

Max left them off, and his voice grew hushed. “Did Arthur ever answer my question about where these people were from?”

“No. Yes. Sort of. I think what you wanted to know was where he knew them from, because they all seem similar. They’re from different countries, different backgrounds, yet they seem as if they’ve lived in the same place for a long time.”

The blending shed was tranquil: no relatives, no winery guests, no staff, no children. No voices. Kellen could feel herself taking shape again, becoming comfortable in her own skin, content with the day and the company.

“They’re so bright-eyed, as if they’re seeing the world for the first time, and nervous, which isn’t terribly unusual. When I meet new employees, they frequently need to be put at ease. They don’t know what I’m like, whether they need to be worried for their livelihoods or if I’m one of those guys with wandering hands.” He viewed her, his brown eyes serious and stern. “Just for the record, the only place my hands will wander is all over you.”

“That works for me.” She had never had a doubt. She had met enough of the sleazy guys in the military to recognize that Max was not one of them.

“Arthur’s people feel more...desperate, I guess is the word. I couldn’t figure them out.” For all that Max didn’t have her gift for analysis, he still worked to understand people. “In light of what happened to you up in those mountains, I find everything about them slightly disturbing.”

“Then we’re agreed. They feel off, out of place, as if they’re hiding secrets we can’t afford to ignore. It can’t be Arthur himself. He wasn’t in the woods with us. He couldn’t have been and accomplished what he’s accomplished here.” She ran through the Rolodex of characters in her mind. “His people don’t seem ruthless—maybe Mateo Courtemanche—but I think every one of them is willing to do anything that Arthur asks, no matter how heinous. If, in a few short weeks, Arthur can reorganize this entire winery and plan a wedding, he’s capable of plotting an assassination.”