Tyler
I FOUND BEING in Wilhelmina’s company less distasteful than I had before.
It could have been the vantage point from higher up or that I was realizing just how fucking hard it was to run this place.
Then again it could have been because I had Paris to occupy my mind and there wasn’t a lot of room for the resentment I carried around with my head so full of her.
Paris.
The girl who worked in the vineyards like it was the most natural thing in the world yesterday.
Paris.
The sun shining on her like an angel.
Paris.
The wind blowing all that red hair and it swishing around her like a violent storm.
Fuck, this girl had me fucking tripping over my own boots. Did she even know she could bring me to my knees with just one of those smiles? The real one. The one that didn’t come often.
I wanted to change that.
I wanted that a lot.
“Tyler?” Wilhelmina waved her hand in front of my face. “Tyler?”
I looked across the desk. “Yes?”
“Are you okay?”
I nodded.
“Okay, just checking. I thought you called me in here to discuss something, but if you’d prefer to continue daydreaming, I can leave?”
Normally, this bickering banter we did fed my bad attitude, but today I didn’t feel like trading insults with this woman.
Odd. That bad attitude wasn’t even hungry.
I handed her the document I’d found in Malcolm’s shit.
She lowered her reading glasses and gave it a glance. “Okay, so you found a survey from over fifty years ago. What exactly do you want me to do with it?”
Patience was something I normally had little of, but today I took my time explaining to her what I’d discovered.
In the middle of my discussion, my phone finally went off with a text from Paris. She’d gone to lunch with Tabitha hours ago and had yet to return. Not that I cared. I wanted her to make friends. But she had been gone a long time.
I flipped my computer around so Wilhelmina could compare the surveys and gave my phone a quick glance.
Her: I’m home. [smiley face emoji]
Me: Home? Decided not to bother to come to work today?
Her: I will be working from home. It’s not my fault I’m banned from my office. [face with stuck-out tongue and winking emoji]
Me: You have disciplinary issues that need to be addressed. I told you to have Tabitha drop you off at California Jane.
Her: Feel free to spank me.
Me: Watch it, Love. I’ll be home soon and you’ll be paying the price.
Her: Can’t wait. And P.S. Bring dinner. The oven is broken. [bowl of pasta emoji]
Can’t wait?
Spank her?
Was she serious?
Minutes later, another text came through.
Her: I had a mini makeover today. What do you think?
A picture came through of her smiling and she looked like a complete fucking bombshell.
Me: You look beautiful.
She always looked beautiful to me.
My day had been far less exciting without her around and then she sends me this?
I wanted to send her a pic of what she’d done to me. Did she have any idea what kind of trouble she had just invited? It was as she was just begging for me to fuck her the minute I walked through the door.
Christ, I had a hard-on just thinking about it, and I was sitting in front of my grandmother. Awkward didn’t even begin to cover it. I just hoped like hell she didn’t notice.
“Tyler.” Wilhelmina demanded my attention.
I flipped my phone over and glared up.
“This could change everything,” she said, her eyes darting from my phone to my face and back with mild interest.
I sat forward trying to arrange my dick without her noticing. “Yes, it could, but any chance you know if grandpa might have had the originals?”
She shook her head. “There’s no way your grandfather knew anything about this. I can promise you that. He’d never have sat back and allowed Vince Gable easy access to the highway if he’d known.”
Albert Dane had said the exact same thing and they were both right. Still, I had to be certain. Albert wanted the original survey to present to a judge since the one in old man Malcolm’s stuff was a copy. “Any idea if he kept any of the documentation from around the time he and old man Malcolm started the process of pursuing the purchase of the land?”
She tilted her head. “Why don’t you go to the Recorder’s office and pick it up?”
“I tried. It must not have been archived properly and it hasn’t been electronically documented yet, either. I’m hoping Grandpa had a copy.”
“The only place I can think of is possibly down in the wine cellar at home.”
“Where in the cellar?” I asked, knowing I’d been down there a million times and never seen any place where documents might be stored.
She glanced at her diamond watch. “There’s an old storage room behind the wine racks. Everything had to be reorganized when he installed the climate control system down there and he needed that space. If he kept anything from way back then that hasn’t been destroyed, that would be the only place it could be.”
“Great. I’ll check it out this weekend.”
She glanced at her watch again and that’s when I noticed she was wearing jeans. My grandmother never fucking wore jeans.
Was she retiring or something?
And if she did, when was she going to tell me? It wasn’t even five yet, so what the fuck was the rush. “Got somewhere to be?” I drawled.
The old lady’s cheeks flushed and it wasn’t because of the blush I was used to seeing her wear. “Actually, I do. Buck offered to take me over to Highway 128 to oversee the removal of the barrels from the cave.”
Both of my brows popped. “Yeah, the tanks took longer than we thought to relocate this morning and the crew is working until sunset to get whatever else they can over here.”
“Yes, I know that, and I’d like to see the condition of the barrels before they’re all moved, so unless there’s anything else of pressing importance, Buck is waiting for me out front.”
Buck?
Buck Wallaby and Wilhelmina.
Wow, I never saw that one coming.
I gave her a wry smile. “No, by all means, go on. Let me know what you think of the condition of the barrels.”
I purposely dragged out the word condition.
She was flustered again. “I will, and Tyler,” she said getting to her feet.
I covered the smirk I was wearing by pretending to scratch my jaw. “You should go home, too. Paris is having a good effect on you, and I’d like to see you not screw it up.”
The words sat on my tongue hot and hungry.
Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.
And yet somehow I kept my temper at bay and said, “I think I’ll do just that.”
She didn’t need to know about the text.