“Not just a pretty face,” I laughed. He turned the key over and we headed back down the hill.
We made much better time coming down than we did going up. I hadn’t realized how many stops we’d made along the way.
It was just after five-thirty when we arrived back at my car. Matthew helped me put all my gear in the backseat. I held onto my camera so I could get a few shots of the interior and grabbed my laptop off the front seat so I could put everything together for Mrs. Deardon.
“Thank you so much for all your help today,” I said to Matthew.
“It was my pleasure, Violet,” he said, touching my shoulder for just a second.
“The pleasure was all mine. I haven’t had that much fun in a long time. And you have no idea how much I needed it.” I waved as he walked back to the Gator. A feeling of ease and calmness washed over me. Despite my reservations toward Matthew after the cellar, I had to admit, he was a nice guy and it was really nice spending the day with him.
I walked inside, set my computer on the bar and pressed the power button. While it booted up I walked around taking pictures of the interior. I made sure to get a few pictures of the beautifully intricate sign hanging above the front desk as well as pictures of the wine bottles, labeled and ready for purchase.
Once I got everything I needed I sat down at the bar and popped the memory card in my computer. I went through the hundreds of pictures, quickly cropping and editing the ones I liked and passing over the ones I didn’t. I paused when I got to the picture of Matthew. Cropping it a little I saved it to my desktop so I could add it to my collection of candid’s later. By the time I finished going through everything and doing my first round of editing, it was just after seven. Satisfied with what I had produced, I grabbed my computer and headed around the front desk to the back office.
“Mrs. Deardon, I have everything for you to take a look at,” I announced as I walked into the back room.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” she said, motioning for me to come in and have a seat.
I stepped into the office, and to my horror found Robert standing toward the back of the room, leaning against a stack of boxes. A jolt of emotions went through me, half furious to see him and the other half, the stupid half, delighted. I chastised myself for being excited; there was no reason for me to be happy to see him. And how did he know I was here anyway?
“You? What are you doing here?” I asked, dropping the professionalism.
“I needed to talk to Meredith about a few things,” Robert said, perfectly innocent. Like him being here was just a coincidence, right.
At the mention of Meredith’s name, I realized she was watching us from her seat behind her desk. I took a deep breath and turned toward her, trying to regain control.
“When you’re done, I have everything ready for you to take a look at.” I turned and started to leave.
“I’ll let you ladies work,” Robert said and stopped me. “I’m going to see if I can find Matty.” He stood and motioned for me to take the floor.
“Matty? You mean, Matthew?” I asked, sitting down.
“The one and only. I haven’t seen him in a while. Thought I’d say hi and catch up while I wait for you.”
“Wait for me?”
Robert cleared his throat. “Yeah, Annabel dropped me off. I figured I would just catch a ride back with you,” he said with a charming smile. He knew I wasn’t going to start a fight and argue with him in front of Meredith.
“Fine. I’ll meet you out front.” I gave him a look that made sure he knew I wasn’t happy about this.
He gave me a charming smile in exchange for my glare and then turned his attention to Mrs. Deardon. “It’s been good talking to you, Meredith. Please give Scott my best.”
“I will. He’ll be thrilled to hear the news,” she said with a nod.
“And I’ll see you in a bit,” Robert said, giving my shoulder a quick squeeze as he walked out the side door.
“Alright,” Meredith said when Robert had left the room, “let’s see what you’ve got.”
I suppressed a huff of distaste and returned to my professional demeanor. I had work to do.
Putting my computer on her desk I turned it so we could both see the screen. We went through all the pictures I’d selected and Mrs. Deardon tagged the ones she wanted prints of. It didn’t take long to go through all the photos and I was proud of the job I had done. Some of the photos I had taken, especially the ones from the top of the hill, were so beautiful I planned on putting them in my portfolio. Meredith had said at the beginning of the day that she wanted the pictures to have a magical, romantic feel to them and it didn’t take much effort on my part for them to portray that perfectly.
“You really have a gift,” Meredith said when we’d finished.
“Thank you, you have a beautiful winery,” I said, shaking off the compliment.
“It's kind of wonderful, isn’t it?” She sighed and a proud smile pulled at the corner of her lips.
I returned her smile and nodded in agreement.
“Well thank you so much for all your hard work.”
“Of course. I’ll set up a dropbox with all the pictures and email you the link in the next couple of days." I extended my hand to shake hers and she gripped my fingers tightly.
The sun hung low over the nearby hills as I walked outside. Robert and Matthew stood by my car chatting away. Neither one of them looked in my direction as I approached.
“Hey, Matty, I thought you’d be gone by now,” I called out, using the nickname Robert had given him.
“Hey, no way are you allowed to call me that,” he said, finally looking in my direction.
“Oh, and he gets to?” I motioned toward Robert and kept a playful smile on my face as I approached them.
Robert eyed me but didn’t say anything. Instead, he leaned against my car and watched the banter between Matthew and me.
“He’s practically family. I barely know you,” Matthew said as he bumped his shoulder against mine.
Practically family? That’s interesting. Maybe he did know something about The Waker.
“And I thought we bonded today,” I said, pretending to pout.
“Don’t even give me that, Miss I’m afraid of being alone with someone I barely know,” Matthew countered.
I saw Robert stiffen ever so slightly out of the corner of my eye.
“That’s different and you know it,” I said, lightly hitting him in the arm.
“Yeah, yeah. You still can’t call me Matty no matter how hard you hit me.”
“We’ll see about that.” I stepped away from the boys and unlocked my car.
Robert walked around to the passenger side and said to Matthew, “We’ll talk more later. Are you going to be around this weekend?”
“I was thinking about it, not sure yet though. We’re pretty busy around here with the opening in a couple weeks,” Matthew explained.
“Alright, I’ll be in contact.” Without another word, Robert opened the passenger side door and climbed in.
“See you later, Matty,” I said, laughing and waving as I got in the car.
He just stood there shaking his head at me as I started the engine.
“You two seem to get along,” Robert finally said as I put the car in gear and backed out.
“Yeah, he’s nice and he was really helpful today.”
Robert didn’t respond so I looked over at him. He stared out the windshield with a thoughtful expression on his face.
“So, how do you know Matthew?” I asked. I couldn’t bring myself to mock him when he wasn’t around to defend himself.
“Old family friend,” Robert answered, though he refused to look at me.