Fielder's Choice, Page 2

  Chapter 1

  How could an innocuous windmill, just a couple of slats reaching into the sky, create such an awful mess?

  Of course, the major problem was that the freakin’ windmill was hers. That meant that all the headaches that came with it were hers too.

  Alana kicked at the base of the windmill and looked out over the acres of rolling hills and the sun-washed buildings of the Tavonesi Olive Ranch. Had she really only been back in the States for three weeks? It felt like ages since she’d left Paris. Since she’d left her new life behind and been yanked back to California.

  She sighed and looked around. Even from a distance she could see men pruning in the orchard just beyond the old barn. She hugged her arms across her chest and stared at them as they worked. Their movements were confident, practiced—the actions of people who knew what they were doing and why.

  The attorney hadn’t told her that when she’d signed the papers deeding the ranch over to her, she’d also inherited the people. The ranch supported more than thirty families year-round and a small army of seasonal workers, men and women whose lives had centered on the ranch for the past two decades.

  Nothing could have 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 arms reaching 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. Either way, they wanted it gone.

  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, its 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 jostling 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 and watch the olives travel up the conveyor and drop into the grinder where they were crushed into an aromatic paste before the oil was pressed out. There is no scent quite like that of freshly pressed olives. People use words like grassy or peppery to describe it, but those words only point to the rich, alluring fragrance. To Alana, 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 stretches. 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 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 the joy of the place, not the everyday tasks that made that joy possible.

  When she was young, 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. She could've hired someone to do the job, but Nana was an independent, creative spirit. She knew her mind, knew her dream and couldn't bring herself to put the guidance of it into someone else's hands. That she'd handed Alana such a precious responsibility made no sense.

  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 expansive 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 have been 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. 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 she thought her title was general manager—Peg had filled in with wherever help was needed. Today, Peg’s tense voice didn’t match her pasted-on smile.

  “Is something wrong?” Alana asked.

  She figured that the staff wanted operations at the ranch to run smoothly, as if there was a fear that any glitch or problem might sway Alana’s decisions about what to do with the place. The tension she picked up on was like a cord tightening around her 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, 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 blend 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 gave 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-cheekboned 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 simply 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 address 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 once. And for such a muscled, tall man, he moved with an unexpectedly sleek, almost feral, grace. She could only imagine what pleasures his big, powerful hands might deliver.

  She pulled 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 transpired 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 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.

  “Just one example of the great excitement of life on the ranch,” Alana said with a forced laugh. She brushed her hands off on her shirt, leaving artsy ombré handprints along each side. “I’d say it’s time for the gift shop. No dangers in there.”

  She turned to Matt.

  “Thank you for that, by the way.”

  He stood and she met his gaze. Definitely twilight. Now that she was at eye level, his eyes definitely reminded her of twilight. The sort of blue into which she’d mix just the slightest wash of deep-gray pigment and a dash of cobalt if she wanted to paint such eyes onto a canvas.

&nbs
p; “No problem.” His eyes flashed. If a gaze could indicate interest and wariness all at the same time, his did. And then the light in his eyes shifted and she was left wondering if she’d imagined the flicker of emotion she’d seen. It was the oddest sensation.

  “I’ve never seen anyone move like that,” she said, not wanting to break the connection.

  “Glad I could help,” he said, shrugging and stuffing his hands in his pockets as if dashing under ladders and catching women midair was something he did every day.

  But as he turned and gazed out over the hills of the ranch, she found herself wondering what he did do every day. And before she could stop them, her thoughts wandered from his days to his nights. What he did at night could be far more enticing...

  One of the women cleared her throat, and she shook off the images. But the sizzle from his hands on her body and the desire his touch had triggered weren’t so easily dismissed.