Page 8 of Hot for the Hockey Player (The Single Moms of San Camanez: The Vino Vixens #2)

Gabrielle

Then we all had breakfast together, and either one or several of my cousins and I walked the kids to the bus stop at the end of the road.

Damon didn’t like that we walked them, but I didn’t give a shit.

I let his teenage moodiness and embarrassment to have a parent that loved him dictate a lot in this house, but not me seeing my children off to school.

These days were fleeting, so I was going to soak up every second of them.

After that, I was all business.

In the offseason for the winery, I took on more legal work, working remotely for my old firm in Spokane. I was very selective with which clients I chose and had my paralegal and legal assistant in Spokane do a lot of the legwork that I couldn’t.

But there was always some winery stuff to do too.

We divided and conquered, the four of us.

I was in charge of the business side of things, the hiring and managing of staff, and scheduling, Danica was the bookkeeper and number cruncher, Naomi was in front of house and managed all the ins and outs of the tasting room, and when big tour groups would come in.

She also handled the storefront. And Raina was in charge of everything online.

She was our webmaster, our social media guru, and our subscription box coordinator.

While we all could fill in for the other—besides Danica’s job—we each played to our strengths.

I was like a Border Collie the way I successfully herded people and kept them on task, while Naomi could sell bibles to a priest, and Raina was very tech savvy.

However, when it came time to harvest, press, stir the mash, rack, and bottle the wine, it was all hands on deck. We even brought the kids in to help if needed.

Nearly a year ago, one of the Island Elders, Bonn Remmen, passed away.

It was a sad time for the entire community, as Bonn was very active on the island, one of the original residents, and well-liked by all.

He left his land in a trust to the rest of the Island Elders Council, and they were tasked with deciding who was worthy of the land.

It was not for sale, but would rather be given as a gift, to those who submitted the more favorable proposal with details on how they planned to use the land.

Of course we wanted it.

It was south-west facing, with a natural slope and trees protecting the property from too much wind.

It was ideal for growing grapes, as well as expanding our business ventures into more events, and possible lodging.

We wanted to build a pavilion to host weddings, and cottages to offer tourists.

While our vineyard and tasting room did well, as well as our commercial wine sales, everything in this world was getting more expensive.

Especially labor. We paid our seasonal workers fairly, but as Danica—our CFO—liked to remind us, you can’t get blood from a stone.

We needed to increase our profit margin if we wanted to continue to stay in the black.

One bad crop year and we’d be up shit creek.

However, we weren’t the only ones who wanted the land.

The council narrowed the proposals down to five interested parties.

Us, the McEvoys—who owned the brewery beside Bonn Remmen’s land, the women who owned the cidery and orchard, the men who owned the distillery, and one secret party that nobody knew the identity of.

Over the past year, we had a bit of a cold war going on with the McEvoys over the land. While we remained friendly with them, they were still our competition.

Until the Capulets and Montagues formed an alliance by way of our youngest members falling in love. Once sworn enemies, Raina and Jagger put aside their differences and were now blending our two powerhouse families.

We also decided to merge our proposals, since our plans for the land were rather similar.

They wanted to build an event pavilion and cabins, as well as plant hops and herbs for their kitchen.

So, Bennett—their business manager—and I scrapped our original proposals and have now been coming up with one together.

I sent him my latest revision last week, and now he sent me his.

It all looked great. The man was definitely very business savvy, paid meticulous attention to detail, and to be honest, I preferred working with him than I did my cousins, since they had more fanciful ideas than practical ones.

Danica, the ever financially conservative one of the group, would just get hives when I brought up the idea of taking out a loan to build things.

While Naomi and Raina were like, “Let’s take out six loans and build Disneyland. ”

We were supposed to present our in-person proposal with a to-scale diorama of our plans to the council in December, but that got postponed until March after the snowbird council members returned from wintering in the Baja.

This delay put a bit of a wrinkle into our hiring plans though.

We always hired seasonal staff. Some returned every year, while others were in the states on a temporary work visa and looking for four months of steady employment before moving on to something else.

But we never hired more than we needed. We paid very well and very fairly.

We even paid into unemployment insurance, benefits, and pension.

And that number went up with each extra body on our payroll, as Danica informed me every year.

And even though planting grapes on Bonn Remmen’s land this spring wouldn’t yield a crop or wine this year, we would still need to prep the land, and hopefully build the pavilion. Which required hiring laborers.

And construction crews booked up fast for the summer.

I was busy in my home office now, with the countdown to the kids arriving home bearing down on me like a stubborn elephant, when there was a knock at my front door.

My cousins never knocked. My nephews and nieces never knocked.

I saved what I was working on—going over some paperwork my paralegal sent me—and got up from my desk.

We lived on the top floor of the house. It had four bedrooms, one of which was my office.

Raina and Marco lived in the basement suite downstairs, Danica lived in the carriage house over my garage with her daughter Sam, and Naomi and her two kids lived in a little cottage just a thirty-second walk from the main house.

I opened the door and came face-to-face with Maverick.

Crap.

He shyly shoved his hands in his pockets and offered me one of those sexy, bashful smiles where his chin dipped toward his chest and his eyes tipped up to mine. “Hey,” he said.

“The kids aren’t home yet.”

“I know.” He shrugged. “Wanted to come over and see how you’re doing.”

Before I could stop myself, I stepped aside and welcomed him into the house. He ditched his shoes, because we were a no-shoe house, and hung up his coat.

“Damon texted me on his lunch break and asked if I could come over after school. He knows he has homework, but hoped that maybe you’d let him hang out with me first .”

I narrowed my brows and stared at the ground just ahead of me for a moment, sucking in a deep breath through my nose.

Kids tested boundaries, that was part of them growing up.

But Damon knew my hard and fast rule about homework before screen time and he was trying to manipulate the situation—and me—with Maverick to get his way.

“Tea?” I finally asked with a big sigh, making my way back into the kitchen and filling up the kettle. I needed to keep my hands busy.

“Sure. Thank you.”

“Damon knows the rules. I’m surprised he asked you to come over before he finished his homework. He’s pushing his limits here. He’s letting his fanboying—is that a thing?”

He shrugged. “Sure?”

I shook my head. “Anyway, he’s letting his fanboying cloud his judgment. And while I understand kids push boundaries and test limits, this is a very firm rule I’ve had with the kids since they came home with their first homework assignment.”

“Soooo … you want me to leave?”

I exhaled in frustration. No, I didn’t want him to leave. But, yes, I wanted him to leave. He was very nice to look at. Gave me tingles in all the tingly places, and he brought Damon out of his room and got my kid talking.

But his presence also had my kid pushing our well-established boundaries, and made me get unwelcomed and very inconvenient tingles in all my tingly places.

Maverick Roy grew up in my house. I did his laundry—sometimes. I fed him. I housed him. I watched him arrive as a pimple-faced teenager, and leave as this taller, deep-voiced man, destined for greatness.

And yet, I didn’t see him as that pimple-faced teenager anymore. And I certainly never had tingly thoughts about him when he lived under my roof. Not once. Never.

“I met Logan and Renée last night at the pub. They seem cool.” He leaned against the counter and crossed one ankle over the other. Why did I find that sexy?

“Yeah?”

“They said there’s not much to do on the island during the winter months. Is that true?”

“I’m afraid so. Everyone just kind of hibernates until the spring, then we all thaw out and emerge from the muddy winter like daffodils.”

He snorted and smiled. “So what do you do then?”

“Me?” My brows lifted. “Work.”

“Not all day, every day. What do you do for fun?”

Fun? What was this thing he called fun ?

As if reading my mind, his smile grew wily. “You know … F-U-N. Fun. It means to find enjoyment; light-hearted pleasure. Merrymaking, if you will.”

“Not much time to make merry, I’m afraid. There are bills to pay, mouths to feed …”

“Ain’t nothing in this world for free,” he sung.

I gave him a confused look.

“Oh, I thought we were singing a Cage the Elephant song.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Come on … you’ve got to do something for fun. Logan told me about a book club and a sewing circle. Neither of those appeal to me, but …” He lifted one shoulder. “If you went to something, maybe we could go together?”