Thrown By Love (37 page)

Nothing could’ve prepared her for that responsibility. Or for the sidelong, troubled looks the workers had given her since the day she’d arrived at the ranch.

She didn’t want to be responsible for them.

That meant their futures, their dreams, were dependent on her.

She wasn’t good at seeing to her own dreams—it was unthinkable that she’d be responsible for the dreams of others.

She shaded her eyes from the bright sun and peered up at the windmill.

Its graceful blades stretched unmoving above her, white curves arcing like a fine sculpture against the brilliant blue sky.

To her eye, it was beautiful. Yet evidently the locals and the Sonoma County planning commission didn’t agree. Or maybe they just didn’t care. They wanted it down.

Nana might’ve been a rancher, but she’d had a fine eye for beauty. From the windmill site on the hill, Alana could see the sculpted bronze lizard hugging the roof of the octagonal ballroom her grandmother had built next to the ranch house, his fierce eyes guarding the rooftop and gazing out over the expanse of olive trees that stretched to the horizon.
A ballroom
. Only her eccentric grandmother would build a ballroom on a ranch.
And
commission a thirty-foot lizard to top the pagoda-style roof.

And spend a quarter-million dollars to erect a windmill
before
the permit for the damn thing had gone through.

Just another thing for Alana to deal with. She sighed and picked her way down the hill, the buzz of activity increasing with every step. The workers clustered around a knot of trucks parked in front of the building that housed the frantoio and the gift shop. They looked like bees waiting to get into their hive.

The frantoio was her grandmother’s most-prized creation. It served not only the ranch but also the community, processing olives from other farms during the harvest. The exquisite granite millstones at its heart each weighed nearly two tons, and Nana had sourced them from Italy herself.

As a little girl, Alana would sit for hours and watch the olives travel up the conveyor and drop into the grinder where they were ground into an aromatic paste before the oil was pressed out. Nothing beat the scent of freshly pressed olives. People used words like
grassy
or
peppery
to describe the smell, but those words only pointed to the rich, alluring fragrance. To Alana, the milled olives smelled like a near-magical life force. And with one taste of the swirling oil, the memories of harvests of years past would come rushing back to her.

Those had been good times, days when her parents would drop her off for a few weeks while they headed off on one of their exotic vacations. She’d always thought she got the best part of the deal. She’d been tutored in the mornings and then had spent languid afternoons trailing her grandmother as she oversaw the harvest. But as a teenager, Alana had stopped visiting for such long periods. Although she’d still loved spending time with Nana, boys and parties had lured her away.

She looked closer at the trucks in the drive.
Peterson and Sons Irrigation
was stenciled on the side of two of them. That meant either there was another problem or scheduled maintenance was being done. That part of ranch life she didn’t remember. And why should she? Nana had shared her joy of the place, not the everyday tasks that made that joy possible.

When Nana had been alive, visiting had been like entering her grandmother’s dream. Only now did she realize how much work Nana had done.

She took a deep breath and picked up her pace. The other vehicles in the drive belonged to the ranch. Though she’d read and reread the file of notes Nana had left her, getting a handle on the day-to-day details of running the ranch was overwhelming. There were five different managers on the team that Nana had headed herself, one for each of the ranch divisions.

The retail and gift store Alana had a sense of, and she even knew a bit about the marketing for the body-care line—years of retail therapy had taught her a lot about how products were bought and sold. But the actual farming aspects of the ranch, the growing of the olives, the massive drip irrigation system, the on-site composting—not to mention the new grape-growing and winemaking initiatives—were way over her head.

As she neared the frantoio, several more cars she hadn’t noticed—and didn’t recognize—were parked at the far end of the building. The gift shop was open only during harvest season and for special tours so a tour must be scheduled for today.

She should’ve checked the calendar, had planned to, but her brother had called and distracted her. Nana had always told her that the ability to manage distractions was a key tool for success, yet it wasn’t a tool Alana had ever needed to wield, nor one she’d wanted to master. Distractions had always been part of the fun in her life.

A white tent stood at the end of the parking lot. It hadn’t been there yesterday. Really, what was going on? A group of staffers stopped their conversations as she approached.

“Good afternoon, Miss Tavonesi.”

Alana didn’t need to read the name tag to recognize Peg Martin. Peg had escorted her on her first day at the ranch and though her title was general manager, she filled in wherever help was needed. Today, Peg’s tense voice didn’t match her pasted-on smile.

“Is something wrong? Alana asked.

She knew the staff wanted life at the ranch to run smoothly, as if they were afraid that any glitch or major problem might sway Alana’s decisions about what to do with the place. The tension running through them was like a cord tightening around Alana’s chest.

“Oh, no, we have it handled. No problem,” Peg said in a flat tone that told Alana that whatever
it
was, it wasn’t handled.

“Maybe I can help.”

Peg shook her head. “Really, we’ve got it covered. No worries.”

“I’d
like
to help,” Alana said in the firmest gentle tone she could muster. “What’s up?”

Peg scanned Alana’s face and appeared to be taking her measure. Then she waved her hand toward the frantoio.

“We gave Betta the week off to attend her sister’s wedding back east. She usually does the family tours. But her fill-in is sick, and we’re short one person. But it’s okay; we can just group the kids’ tour with the adults. That’ll work.”

“I’ll take the adults,” Alana said. “No need to crimp their fun.”

“The tour includes the orchard and frantoio,” Peg said, eyeing Alana uncertainly.

“I do know a thing or two about the frantoio, Peg. I grew up with it.”

Peg gave a nervous smile and looked at the other staffers. They, in turn, looked at their feet.

“It starts in five minutes.” Peg sounded uneasy. “In the north orchard.”

“I’m on it,” Alana said and started to walk away. Then she stopped. “Um . . . which one is the north orchard?”

“Behind the frantoio,” Peg said. “You’ll see them. Five adults. Can’t miss ’em.”

As she steamed toward the frantoio, Alana was glad she wore flats and her most basic white cotton shirt and jeans. She considered dashing into the gift shop and grabbing a sun hat from the retail rack, but there really wasn’t time. She’d just have to make do.

Three women and two men stood talking at the rear steps of the frantoio building. The women were dressed in chic designer jeans and sleek summer tops. Two of them wore heeled sandals. They eyed Alana as she approached.

“Here to join the tour?” one of the women asked.

“Here to give the tour,” Alana said, smiling inwardly. The idea of passing as a ranch hand gave her an inner thrill, what she imagined a spy might feel when trying to fit in undercover.

She assessed the group. The man on the woman’s right only came to Alana’s shoulders. At five foot ten she’d been pegged for a fashion model more than once. It was a family trait that put some men off, especially short, beta-male types. She hoped he wasn’t one of them or the next hour would be torture.

The other man stood behind the group, his back to her as he watched the irrigation crew fitting a pipe to the rear of the building.

Alana’s breath caught as he turned around.

The guy was crushingly handsome. There was no other way to describe him. The jut of his jaw and the angular planes of his face gave him a rough charm, but it was his steely, blue-gray eyes slicing a glance at her that provided the edgy appeal. He moved as if coming to attention, and the ripple of muscle under the perfectly faded blue T-shirt he wore nailed her. A flame fired in her belly, and she moaned under her breath.

Not now, Alana. You’re about to lead a tour.

She wasn’t going to screw up by being distracted by the sexiest specimen of male perfection she’d ever laid eyes on. But the three women clearly hadn’t missed the once-over he’d given her. They pulled themselves up several inches taller, and the woman who’d spoken earlier flipped her hair over her shoulder and jutted out her hip. Alana smiled. She could take those three, no question, if she wanted a fling with Mr. Fabulous Eye Candy—that is, if he was in flingable mode.

She dragged her gaze away and rubbed her palms together.

“Let’s get started, shall we?”

The women didn’t quite grumble, but Alana could tell they’d have preferred a bespectacled librarian type to her long-limbed, high-cheek-boned self.

She focused on the task at hand. She’d never led a tour in her life, but one usually started such things with names, right?

“I’m Alana,” she said in her brightest B-movie tour-guide tone.

The women introduced themselves, as did the men, but the only name that stuck in her head was Mr. Fabulous’s.
Matt Darrington
. But other than giving his name, Matt didn’t really act like he was part of the group. And if he noticed the appreciative, come-hither gazes of the women, he didn’t show it. He was interested in the details of the ranch, though. And Alana took advantage. To the dismay of the women, Alana made sure to bend over frequently when demonstrating or describing the equipment in the frantoio, giving him a good look at her backside. It was definitely one of her assets.

To her surprise, she easily answered most of their questions. She hadn’t realized how much she actually knew about the ranch. Matt said little when she took them through the ballroom pavilion, but once they were back outside and in the orchard, he lit up.

“What soil acidity do olives require?” He knelt down and fingered the dirt beneath one of the older trees, balancing perfectly in a semi-crouch that would’ve had her thighs burning in thirty seconds.

She snapped her attention back to his question. “I don’t know,” she said, wishing she did. “But I’d be happy to introduce you to the olive maestro when we return to the frantoio.”

He rose and leaned a hand against the tree. The sunlight played on his face, lighting his eyes. She shook off the delicious feeling that just looking at him stirred.

“We do have a full-cycle organic operation,” she continued, enjoying his focused attention. “After the pressing in the fall we use the olive pits and the remaining mash to enrich the soil and use slow-drip irrigation to conserve water.”

The Beta guy took furious notes, but Matt just crossed his arms and listened. She had to drag her attention from Matt and spread her comments to the rest of the group.

“We use sheep in the winter to keep the grasses and weeds down, ” she added. “And we put the sheep manure to work to further enrich the soil.”

“Like solar-powered lawn mowers,” the Beta-guy chuckled, pleased with his observation.

“Everything about life is solar powered in one way or another,” Matt said, nailing her with a penetrating gaze.

“Yes . . . well . . .” His comment made her think, but his gaze held her suspended like a honeybee caught in amber. It was as if he saw through her. Unnerving and exciting all at the same time. And for such a muscled, tall man, he moved with an unexpected sleek, almost feral, grace. She could only imagine what pleasures his big, powerful hands might deliver.

She dragged her gaze from his and motioned toward a path to their right. “I thought you might like to see the original trees, the first planted.” Though she was making up the tour as they went along, Matt’s presence was making it harder for her to concentrate.

Toward the end of the orchard tour, she spied a ladder up against one of the older, taller trees. The tree had firm, small fruit near the top.

“Some of these older trees bear the best fruit,” Alana said as she climbed up to snag a handful. As she started down, the ladder tilted, and her foot caught in a rung.

She’d heard that when true danger struck, events passed in slow motion, but she’d never believed it. Yet, now the ground rose slowly toward her face, and she heard herself screaming. But before she knew it, Matt had darted under her, pulled her free from the ladder, and was catching her in his arms.

She looked up at him. The flicker of alarm in his eyes told her she’d just had a close call. And the sensation of his strong arms holding her against his chest revved the adrenaline spiking in her body. For a long moment, neither of them moved and no one in the group spoke. Alana wasn’t even sure she was breathing.

“Hope this place has workers’ comp,” he said as he lowered her gently to the ground. The other four crowded around, and he backed them off with his muscled forearm. “Give her some space.”

The worry remained as he narrowed his eyes and surveyed her face. His eyes were the color of a mountain lake just before twilight.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said, ignoring the jitters in her belly.
Or maybe dawn
, was all she could think. Maybe his eyes were the color of a mountain lake at the instant just before dawn, when the emerging sunlight blinked out the stars one by one and the day seeped into the sky.

A whoosh of disappointment flooded her as he slid his arms away and knelt back into a crouch. The man had arms like she’d only dreamed of—strong, enveloping . . .

“You sure you’re okay?”

The sincerity in his tone pulled her back from the trance his eyes and arms had inspired.

She wasn’t about to sit there like a stunned fool. Finding her footing, she stood.